The Indian Ring

by Don Bendell

  Strongheart walked straight up to the uncle and said, “And you must be Dave.”

  The man started to say something, but his words were shut off when Joshua suddenly reached out and grabbed him, spinning him around. He then grabbed the back of the man’s unkempt hair, then grabbed the waistline of his homespun trousers in his other hand, jerked up, and gave it a twist. Now holding Dave up on his tiptoes, he started marching him toward the river in a rapid manner. Reaching the river’s edge, Strongheart pitched the drunk into the cold glacial-fed water. The man went under and came up ten yards downstream gasping and flailing at the water, while his family watched from the house in horror. Strongheart jogged along the river’s edge and waded into the water at a shallower spot.

  He grabbed the drunken uncle and pulled him to the water’s edge, dragging him up on the bank. The man lay there gasping and sputtering.

  He finally sat up and said, “What d’ja do that fer?”

  As the man flinched, Joshua reached down, grabbed him by the collar and dragged him, screaming, back into the water. He held him by the lapels and shoved his head under the fast-flowing current and held it there. After several more times, Strongheart pulled him out of the water and once again up onto the bank, where the man moaned and groaned and sputtered for several minutes.

  “I did all that,” Strongheart said, “just to make sure I had your full attention. Are you paying very close attention?”

  “Yes, sir!” the uncle said with great enthusiasm.

  Strongheart said, “Good. That is a fine young man, and he recently lost his ma and pa. He needs a strong man in his life to teach him how to grow into a man. Just like me, mister, you cannot hold your liquor. Therefore, just like me, you are making an iron-clad decision today, right now, to stop drinking. If you don’t, every time I am in town and find out you drank, you will go back into the river but a little longer each time. Do we understand each other?”

  Now the uncle’s masculinity had been challenged, so he flexed his whiskey muscles and straightened his back a little, hand hovering near his pistol, saying, “Yeah, wal, what if ya was to try to throw me in the river, and I yanked my hogleg and put some holes in ya first?”

  Joshua stepped forward, his own hand near his gun, saying angrily, “Go ahead, grab that smoke pole, and start the dance! Please do. Skin it! Draw down on me, and see if I don’t punch your dance ticket for you!”

  Joshua moved in as the man’s eyes opened as wide as a canyon, and he obviously was in a panic, looking for a place to hide. Strongheart’s hand shot out, grabbed the uncle, by the lapels, and by pulling and taking two steps backward, he flung the uncle through the air one-handed. The man hit the river once more with a splash and came up sputtering and coughing again.

  Strongheart walked back up to the front of the house and took the reins from a broadly grinning Scottie and mounted up. He doffed his hat to Scottie’s aunt and got a slight self-satisfied smirk and almost hidden grin and nod of gratitude from her. He galloped away from the house, and rode toward the depot. He would telegraph Lucky, his boss in Chicago, to keep him apprised of what he was doing, then book a train to Pueblo and from there north to Denver.

  A few reports stated that a gang had been in Denver and had moved into the mountains northwest of there. He suspected it was the gang responsible for killing Scottie’s pa. The pony, Johnny Boy, which was not albino but pure white, had been used as a pack animal. He got a train fairly quickly to Pueblo but had a two-hour wait there before he could load Eagle on a car and get a seat himself.

  It was nighttime before Joshua had gotten Eagle fed, bedded down in a livery stable, got dinner, and a hotel room. He was going to be busy the next day, he knew.

  The next day at daybreak, Strongheart went to the Pinkerton Agency office in Denver and started researching all the reports he could find about the gang. He found two of the alerts indicated the gang had been in a place in Denver called the Cowboy Saloon and were nothing but trouble. He would start there.

  He rode toward downtown crossing a bridge over Cherry Creek and pulled up in front of the Cowboy Saloon, which was in a two-story redbrick building with rooms above it. He tied Eagle to a hitching rack and went inside. He was almost knocked over by painted ladies, and there was a man with gartered sleeves in the corner playing tunes on a piano. It was raucous, and he saw a number of drinkers giving him dirty looks, probably simply because he was an outsider.

  Six cowpunchers confronted him: Two were white, two were black, one was Jicarilla Apache, and one was Mexican. They came up around him at the bar giving him the evil eye.

  The bartender said, “What do you want?”

  Joshua said, “I need some information about a gang that was in here causing trouble.”

  The bartender grinned, saying, “Mister, information does not go across this bar if money is not being spent.”

  Strongheart smiled. “Fair enough. There is a new drink just been around a few years I have taken a liking to. It is called iced tea. You serve that?”

  The bartender pulled a jug of sun tea from behind the counter and chipped some ice off a block, filling a mug with tea.

  He handed it to Joshua saying, “I have taken a hankering to it myself.”

  Joshua said, “Then let me buy you a glass, too. Here, this should take care of both of us.”

  He tossed ten bucks on the bar. The bartender made himself a glass of iced tea, too, and they touched glasses in salute.

  The bartender said, “The gang is called the Teamsters, ’cause every dang one a them drove a freight wagon in this area. We got over a hundred people moving into Denver every single day, and these boys found out instead of earning honest keep it was a lot easier to steal possessions from innocent families. Their leader is a big man, even bigger than you. His name is Crabs Hamrick. Red hair and big, big frame. He grabs ahold a something, it moves.”

  Strongheart said, “That sounds like them. Do they have a white pony they are using as a pack animal?”

  The bartender said, “That’s them all right. Suspected in two killings of new settlers lately. They busted this place up and beat up one of our girls upstairs one night just out of meanness. I heard they have a hideout on the Cache La Poudre up beyond Fort Collins maybe ten, twenty miles. You know where I’m talking about?”

  Strongheart said, “I have heard from others about it. Have not been up that river myself.”

  The bartender looked at the six men who were closing in a lot on Strongheart, obviously trying to make him feel uncomfortable.

  He gave Joshua a questioning look and Joshua quietly said, “That back door, what is behind it?”

  “Just empty fields, then trees along Cherry Creek, why?”

  Strongheart said, “If I want to get those bad boys, first I will need to take care of these.”

  He turned around and faced the six cowhands, who had clearly been doing some drinking. They each braced themselves for trouble and two let their hands hover near their six-guns.

  Joshua said, “Boys, you seem very friendly, so let me buy each of you a glass of iced tea. It tastes great on a hot day, especially if you add sugar.”

  One of the white punchers seemed to be the leader, and they were all young.

  He said, “We don’t need your stupid dandy-boy drink, mister.”

  He started to say more, but Strongheart’s upraised hand stopped him. “Wait, gentlemen.” He took a long swallow of iced tea and said, “Hate to see you pass this up. As soon as I walked in I saw what was going to happen. You don’t know me, so you guys want to come up and sniff around, pee on trees, and growl a little, and see if I act like a coyote or a rabbit. Come with me, please.”

  Curious, but still trying to look tough, they followed him to the back door. He opened it and faced the doorway.

  Strongheart said, “Just watch.”

  He set the glass with just the little bit
remaining of his iced tea on the back of his hand palm down. He balanced it there, and several other patrons gathered around, curious. It was a blur when his hand whipped down and suddenly his Colt Peacemaker exploded and pieces of glass, ice, and tea flew everywhere in the back. He had drawn his pistol that fast, cocked it, and fired, shattering the glass before it had even dropped five inches. Joshua then smiled, spun the Colt backward into the holster.

  The leader said, “Wow! I have never seen shooting like that anywhere! Sorry to bother ya, mister. We was just going to fun ya a little.”

  Strongheart said, “I was just leaving anyway.”

  He stopped by the bartender and asked what the glass cost.

  The bartender said, “You’re Strongheart, ain’t you?”

  Joshua said, “Afraid so. How much for the glass?”

  The man said, “No worry on the glass. When you walked in here I figgered you was Strongheart from all I have heard. I am pleased to meet you, sir. Ed LeDoux.”

  He stuck out his hand. They shook and Joshua tipped his hat.

  “Thanks, Ed. Guess I better get to Fort Collins.”

  He went out the door and the six cowpunchers walked to the door and windows and watched him ride away.

  The bartender called them over and said, “You owl hoots better start watching who you try to tangle with. That was the Pinkerton agent Joshua Strongheart.”

  The tallest cowboy, who was black and had a thick Southern accent, said, “Y’all hear that? Ah tole y’all he looked like trouble when he come in. I tole ya not to bother him. Y’all coulda got me kilt dead. Gimme a whiskey, Ed.”

  Strongheart had to take another train north where he could unload at Fort Collins, which was about sixty miles north of Denver.

  Scottie’s uncle moped around the house for the next day, and several times he started to head to his favorite saloon on the corner of Fourth Street and Main Street. Each time, he thought about his dunking and the look on Strongheart’s face when he braced him and that stopped him. He remembered most being flung through the air, one-handed, as though he were a rag doll.

  The second day, he got up shortly after daybreak and his wife noticed he was shaky.

  He smiled for the first time in years and said, “I’m going into town and see if I can get a job at the territorial prison or driving a stagecoach.”

  She had not been so excited and happy in years and made him a heaping breakfast.

  Scottie took all this in and thought about what a hero Joshua Strongheart was and vowed he would grow up to be just like him. In fact, Scottie at first decided he would become a Pinkerton agent someday, but then decided he would be a town marshal or a county sheriff.

  Two days later, Joshua was riding in the Cache La Poudre river canyon along the river trail. The mountains on both sides were heavily wooded with tall timber and were on very steep, very high ridges. High up in several places he saw little white spots moving in the alpine areas and knew these were Rocky Mountain goats. Twice, he passed bighorn sheep herds watering at the river, and he came upon a pack of wolves feeding on a cow moose carcass near the river. In fact, moose tracks were what made him turn left and head southwest away from the river along a raging whitewater creek with many large boulders and waterfalls in it. Strongheart knew it had to lead to some flat areas, maybe a lake, because that is what moose like. It had to have good moose habitat, or they would not have turned up this offshoot canyon. He figured that would also provide good opportunities for a hideout for a gang for extended periods, plenty of good graze for horses, water, firewood, and plenty of hiding places both rocky and wooded. He knew what his friend Chris Colt already knew: Common sense was the most important aspect of tracking anybody or any animal.

  Eagle’s ears were where most of Strongheart’s focus remained. They were like radar beacons. If there was a sound off to the side, the ears twisted toward it, if someone approached from behind, they turned backward. If the big pinto scented someone to the front, his ears would go forward, listening for any perceptible sound.

  Joshua’s eyes swept the ground in front of him in wide arcs back and forth going out twenty yards ahead, then thirty, and forty. He was riding the stream trail on a hill that ran above the whitewater creek with straight drops down of about fifty feet. Joshua noticed the leaves on the trees were being blown from the left to the right and the longer weeds were bending to the right. At the same time he spotted what he had been looking for, a sloping down to the stream with a well-worn trail going to and from. This is where somebody had been getting water as well as watering horses.

  At the same time, Eagle turned his head to the left and his eyes looked up the steep vegetation-covered ridge, his ears directed that way, and Joshua saw his nostrils were flaring in and out. He whinnied and far up the ridge an answering whinny came back.

  Strongheart patted his neck saying, “Good boy, Eagle. Now we have to keep going because they will watch us to make sure we are not a threat. They heard their horse a lot easier than we did.”

  He kept riding up the trail acting like a hunter or trapper and not like he was looking for signs of the gang. Up on the ridge, one of the Teamsters watched through his binoculars and saw the man far below nonchalantly riding down the trail. He kept watching until Strongheart was out of sight and rejoined his friends at their game of poker.

  Joshua waited until he could no longer be seen, then turned left and started going up the slope, going back and forth in a switchback. He climbed Eagle up about two thousand feet, estimating the outlaws were maybe a thousand feet higher than the trail he had been on. Strongheart dismounted and let Eagle get rested up after the climb. Directly above him there were cliffs and down below he saw a kind of a broken terrace in the landscape. Apparently, the gang was camped on one of the terraces, which were each covered with lush green grass. Unlike the area around Cañon City where he lived, which was semi-arid, this was northern Colorado territory. There was much more rain and snow in this area, and consequently a lot more green vegetation. Right around Cañon City there was much vegetation, because the area near the mighty Arkansas River was very lush and green, with many apple orchards and grape crops. In fact, years later it would come out that Cañon City had a wider variety of types of trees than any city in the entire country. Joshua knew these outlaws could stay up there out of sight for months, like a cat hiding from the dog on top of the china hutch.

  Strongheart knew he was up against big numbers and a couple years earlier, he took on a gang of wannabe gunslingers in a shootout in Florence, Colorado. He got them all but was shot to doll rags himself, and it had taken months to recover. He decided back then while he was healing, he would never just wade in like that again, but think things through better first.

  He would first ride along the base of the cliffs and work his way around the many giant rock slides with horse-sized and even house-sized boulders in several places. Then, he would get himself into a position above them and make a strategic plan to take on all these men. He could go and fetch a posse, but that would take days not hours, and they might well be gone then. He had given his word to Scottie and shaken hands on it. To Joshua Strongheart, that was like engraving it in stone.

  He rode along slowly, carefully for an hour and found a shadowed place among a large jumble of boulders that formed almost a cave with no roof. He let Eagle rest here and nibble on the grasses in the hideout, while he went out and looked down at the outlaw camp. He remained there watching until dusk, and saw they started preparing their cooking fire.

  Strongheart retreated into the rocks himself, gathered some firewood, and made a smokeless fire. He made the fire and checked to make sure it would not reflect off the rocks where the men to his northeast and far below could see it or any smoke coming out of his rock formation. A plan was forming in his mind.

  He gave Eagle a bait of oats from an oilskin bag in his saddlebags, then started his own dinner. He ate and be
dded down early, not drinking any coffee, so he could go to sleep.

  Strongheart awakened after midnight and went to his lookout spot in the rocks, glassing with his binoculars. As he figured, they were all sleeping in a circle around their campfire. There was one guard in front of the fire on a log drinking coffee.

  Joshua went to his saddlebags and took out four leather horse boots. He slipped these over Eagle’s hooves and tied them in place with the leather thongs laced through the tops of each. He saddled up without saddlebags. Eagle stood in anticipation of going on another great adventure with his master. He could not actually think that way, but he sensed something exciting was up.

  Strongheart took off his boots and spurs and replaced them with his soft-soled porcupine-quilled Lakota moccasins. Mounting up, he rode slowly, quietly down the mountainside, noting that the guard was already dozing off by the fire and getting himself into a more comfortable position. Joshua left Eagle under some tall trees one hundred feet above the camp and started moving down on foot through the shadows. He spotted little Johnny Boy grazing with the remuda. He made his way as only a Lakota warrior could do, silently, to the horses. He tied a war bridle on Johnny Boy and led him away from the remuda and up to Eagle. The two sniffed each other, touching noses, and seemed to understand they had to be quiet and ignore normal herd seniority blustering like horses usually do. He let each eat a carrot-flavored horse biscuit he pulled from his pocket.

  The Pinkerton agent then worked his way back to the camp and crawled on his belly from man to man with many snores piercing the silence of the forest night. It took an hour for Strongheart to accomplish his task and sneak away. So far, his plan was working. Not wanting to risk knocking a rock loose, he led both horses up the mountain and returned to his campsite. He did not want to risk sleeping too long, so he poured himself a cup of coffee while he put his boots and spurs back on. He checked his pistol and then retrieved his belly gun from his saddlebag. He made sure it was clean and loaded. He replaced his bedroll and saddlebags behind the seat on his roughout saddle, then sat and waited while he enjoyed more coffee and a few corn dodgers.