The Rider of Phantom Canyon

by Don Bendell

  Three Against One . . .

  Joshua Strongheart said, “Listen, I am a Pinkerton agent and can show you all my badge and credentials.”

  Luke Blackwell, whose family owned a plantation along the Peedee in the Sandhills of North Carolina, said, “I don’t care what lie you wanna yarn. We found yer moccasin tracks outside our mine last night, an dey was leadin’ away our horses. Dane, git a rope.”

  The one to Blackwell’s right started to take a step, and that was exactly what Joshua needed. The half-breed’s hand whipped down to his Colt .45 Peacemaker, brought it out cocked, and fired. Flame stabbed from the barrel, and a big red spot on Dane’s rib cage appeared as he folded like a suitcase. Strongheart’s left hand fanned the hammer, and flame stabbed out again, and a bright red spot appeared in the middle of Luke’s nose and the back of his head literally exploded. Strongheart’s left hand fanned the hammer again, and that shot hit the left one, Foster, in the stomach a split second after he fired the bullet kicking up dirt between Strongheart’s legs. The three bullets had been fired in less than a second, but the third did not hit the man squarely in the stomach, and Joshua fanned the hammer again and shot Foster again, dead center in the chest. He swayed and fell forward on his face, very dead.

  Titles by Don Bendell

  The Strongheart Westerns

  THE RIDER OF PHANTOM CANYON

  THE INDIAN RING

  BLOOD FEATHER

  STRONGHEART

  The Criminal Investigation Detachment Series

  BAMBOO BATTLEGROUND

  BROKEN BORDERS

  CRIMINAL INVESTIGATION DETACHMENT

  DETACHMENT DELTA

  BERKLEY

  An imprint of Penguin Random House LLC

  375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014

  Copyright © 2016 by Don Bendell

  Penguin Random House supports copyright. Copyright fuels creativity, encourages diverse voices, promotes free speech, and creates a vibrant culture. Thank you for buying an authorized edition of this book and for complying with copyright laws by not reproducing, scanning, or distributing any part of it in any form without permission. You are supporting writers and allowing Penguin Random House to continue to publish books for every reader.

  BERKLEY is a registered trademark and the B colophon is a trademark of Penguin Random House LLC.

  eBook ISBN: 9781101617182

  First Edition: October 2016

  Cover art by Bruce Emmett

  Cover design by Lesley Worrell

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

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  It is far harder to kill a phantom than a reality.

  —Virginia Woolf

  The character Joshua Strongheart is a true American hero that I have created, and this is the fourth and final book in the series. It is only appropriate that I dedicate this book to three very important heroes whom I truly love and who have played major roles in my own personal life. While writing this book, I went through a heartbreaking issue barely two years after losing my soul mate and wife of thirty-two and a half years, Shirley Bendell, whom I dedicated The Indian Ring to. I had several friends comforting me, but one friend truly helped me daily through the process, because she has been through so much trial by fire herself, and on an international stage, and emerged a major hero in more ways than one. She was personally honored as “a true national hero” by then-President George W. Bush, and she has been vilified by liberal media pundits and gossiped about by many of those whom she made look like fools. Jeanne Assam is a very close and trusted friend and confidant of mine. She is the courageous police officer who was forced by circumstance to engage in a shootout with serial killer Matthew Murray, the gunman who entered New Life Church in Colorado Springs on December 9, 2007, and opened fire on innocent, screaming churchgoers after he had already shot and killed four people near Denver, killing two and wounding two others. After sending an email warning and armed with numerous weapons and thousands of rounds of ammunition, Murray drove an hour south to New Life Church in Colorado Springs, where he killed two sisters and wounded their father and another in the parking lot. Then, he entered the church with seven thousand people at the service and opened fire inside. He was shooting a semiautomatic rifle with rounds spewing out as fast as he could pull the trigger. Jeanne, who was going to stay home while praying and fasting for several days, but felt “strongly inspired” that day to go to church, where she volunteered as a security officer, held fast in a hallway while others ran screaming. Jeanne prayed, then gave him a chance to lay down his weapons. He fired wildly. She was the only officer there who did not know that Matthew Murray had emailed and warned the church leadership he was coming to kill more, and that the Colorado Springs police were warned he was coming. They’d beefed up security, but he waited until some off-duty officers left. Jeanne did not run screaming. She never runs with the flock. Jeanne was, and is, a sheepdog, a professional police officer whose goal was always to serve and protect others. He could kill or wound no more, because armed only with a trust in God, the raw courage of a true warrior, and a 9mm pistol, she ran into Murray’s withering rifle fire, shooting back at him with very accurate fire while moving forward at him, and hit him ten times with her own bullets, the last from only five feet away, killing him, saving countless lives, and she was covered with his arterial blood. Not only is Jeanne one of my heroes, and a true, genuine law enforcement professional, she is a very close and trusted friend who was solidly there for me at a very critical and painful time in my life. That negative situation turned into a positive for me anyway, but could have been worse had Jeanne not been there uplifting me. Thank you, Jeanne. I love you very much, my beautiful friend.

  The second person I honor herein is another of my heroes and a man with only one name, Ek—a name that means “manure.” A native belief was to give men such names to ward off evil spirits from the jungle. In 1968 and 1969, when I served in South Vietnam as a young U.S. Army Special Forces (Green Beret) first lieutenant, I lived with, trained, and fought alongside the Vietnam War’s toughest fighters: the aboriginal nomadic Montagnard tribespeople. I lived with the Jeh tribe at a very remote place along the Laotian border called Dak Pek. Having a Montagnard lover, as well as a seven-year-old orphan named Plar whom I wanted to adopt, but who was raped and murdered by the Vietnamese, I developed a very close relationship and strong bond with the “Yards.” In short order, they assigned six bodyguards to me, who shadowed me everywhere that I went day and night. It was a great honor among them to be a bodyguard for me, because I was an American, and they were each supposed to die before I would. They called me “Trung-uy (First Lieutenant) Cowboy.” One of those bodyguards was a delightful, muscular little man named Ek, who had five sons who fought for us, and a nephew who was also one of my bodyguards. In late summer of 1968, after our sister Special Forces A camp of Dak Seang came under siege, I commanded a 160-man joint operation with one hundred Montagnard strikers (mercenaries) from Dak Pek and sixty from Dak Seang. I was joined by two fellow Green Berets, who were sergeants. Dak Seang had been under siege and attack for days by a regiment of highly trained, well-equipped NVA (North Vietnamese Army) regulars. We got into a major battle west of Dak Seang, and I was wounded, with my right wrist bandaged up, unusable, and in an expedient sling. I was firing my own weapon left-handed, was directing a counterattack, and was also on the radio directing mortar, artillery fire, and, later, tactical air strikes onto t
he enemy positions. During the height of the battle, when NVA sprang a spider hole ambush with American Claymore mines and automatic weapons at point-blank range, Ek immediately ran in front of me to shield and protect me and was shot three times by an AK-47 and blasted by an American Claymore mine that literally blew the canteen off my hip, tore my camouflage tiger suit all over, and sent me flying backward onto my back. Ek took the whole blast in his legs and torso. I ended up giving mouth-to-mouth resuscitation to the dying man while left-handed, while also administering IVs into each arm with serum albumin, a blood expander. He died as the skids of the medevac helicopter touched down. His large, muscular nephew, another one of my bodyguards, had Claymore pellets in his shins and had his left eye shot out. I took my black cowboy kerchief and bandaged his eye and stuck and lit a cigar in his mouth during the fight. Ignoring his wounds, he bent over, picked up Ek, and proudly placed his uncle’s body on the dustoff chopper, and then argued with me as I made him get on the medevac, too. He wanted to stay and guard me.

  Right before Ek died, he looked up at me, smiling with yellow teeth, and weakly said, “Me go see Jesus now.”

  Choking back tears, I said, “I will take care of your family. Tell Jesus I said hi.”

  Thank you for saving my life, Ek. I love you.

  Green Beret Colonel Roger Donlon, MOH, was the very first recipient of the Congressional Medal of Honor in the Vietnam War. On July 6, 1964, then-Captain Roger Donlon was serving as the commanding officer of the U.S. Army Special Forces Detachment A-726 at Camp Nam Dong when a reinforced Viet Cong battalion suddenly launched a full-scale, predawn attack on the camp. The battle lasted five hours, and during the battle Roger was wounded many times, yet crawled from position to position, dragging wounded men from bunkers, carrying ammunition and weapons to defenders, administering first aid, and continually exposing himself to enemy fire while doing so. He kept getting wounded in the face, arms, legs, and abdomen but would not stop and take care of himself, only of his men. By daylight, the Viet Cong were defeated and retreated into the jungle, leaving fifty-four dead behind and many weapons. In December of that year, President Lyndon Johnson awarded him the Medal of Honor in a White House ceremony.

  When I was in Infantry Officers Candidate School at Fort Benning, Georgia, in 1966 and 1967, for six months we were mercilessly harassed physically, mentally, and emotionally as we tried to become second lieutenants in the U.S. Army. The only personal item we had that was not ready for inspection twenty-four hours per day was our locked footlockers. I kept a photograph of Roger taped inside the lid of my footlocker wearing his Medal of Honor neck ribbon, captain’s bars, and green beret and looked at it and got inspired every time I opened that footlocker. Years later, in the early nineties, I met Roger and his lovely wife, Norma, as my wife, Shirley, and I sat with them at a banquet. I told him that story, and we became fast friends.

  Then, about six years ago or so, Roger was asked to be the special guest of honor of a company of the Tenth Special Forces Group at the U.S. Army versus U.S. Air Force football game at the U.S. Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs. Norma fell ill shortly before the game, so Roger called me and asked me to go in his place as special guest of honor. I was so deeply humbled and appreciative of the first recipient of the Vietnam War to be awarded the coveted Medal of Honor asking me to stand in for him; words could not express my feelings. Roger is fighting another battle these days . . . Agent Orange–related Parkinson’s disease, while I fight Agent Orange–related type 2 diabetes and heart disease.

  Thank you for your heroism and inspiration and friendship, Roger. I love you, my friend.

  This book is dedicated to these three heroes who have played such important roles in my life.

  Don Bendell, 2016

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  I must acknowledge my longtime close friend and former pastor Dr. Scott Middleton. Scottie Middleton, my character in this novel and its prequels Blood Feather and The Indian Ring, is named after him. A Texas boy originally, Scott has been a missionary in Scotland and created and heads Alba Ministries, which is still ongoing. He is the pastor of Craig Christian Church in Craig, Colorado, and is an adjunct professor of New Testament at Dallas Christian College. He has a doctor of ministry degree in pastoral theology from Highland Theological College. When my late wife passed away, Scott conducted her funeral, which she and I both requested when planning our funerals. He baptized me in the Arkansas River years ago, as well as two of my sons; and has been a confidant and very close friend to me for decades. He is my go-to man when I need a prayer to actually get through to God.

  I want to also acknowledge another close friend and all that she represents. The summer before I started writing this, in June 2014, I was the official escort of a woman who became a very close friend. Anita LaCava Swift and I attended the Special Forces Association National Convention in Columbia, South Carolina, together, where she was a VIP guest and a featured speaker. Anita is the oldest grandchild of John Wayne and is the president of the John Wayne Cancer Institute Auxiliary. Even though he has been dead for years, John Wayne was recently chosen by fans as the second most popular movie star in the world. He had a significant influence on me growing up, and I have so much respect for the John Wayne family for carrying on his important fight against cancer, which he succumbed to himself. Every day I wear five Montagnard brass bracelets on my right wrist for the indigenous tribal people I lived with and fought beside in South Vietnam in 1968 and 1969. I also wear a leather bracelet with a little steel engraved plate reading COURAGE on one side and JOHN WAYNE FOUNDATION on the other. It was a treasured gift from Anita. She is not only a beautiful lady and a classy friend, but is typical of the John Wayne family in carrying on his legacy, and I guarantee that the Duke looks down fondly from Heaven on them with a great deal of pride. He, too, is wearing in Heaven, I’m certain, his own Montagnard bracelet, which he received in 1968 while making the film The Green Berets and wore the rest of his life.

  Scott and Anita, I love you both, my friends.

  Don Bendell

  CONTENTS

  TITLES BY DON BENDELL

  TITLE PAGE

  COPYRIGHT

  EPIGRAPH

  DEDICATION

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  FOREWORD

  CHAPTER 1: THE TEAMSTER

  CHAPTER 2: CHICAGO

  CHAPTER 3: THE PHANTOM NEVER SLEEPS

  CHAPTER 4: PROTECT YOUR HOME

  CHAPTER 5: THE MONSTER

  CHAPTER 6: EDUCATION

  CHAPTER 7: GUNFIGHTERS

  CHAPTER 8: PUEBLO?

  CHAPTER 9: WESTCLIFFE

  CHAPTER 10: THE FORTRESS

  CHAPTER 11: THE BATTLE

  CHAPTER 12: WOUNDS

  CHAPTER 13: THE FINISH

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  FOREWORD

  Phantom Canyon is not a creation of this writer’s imagination. I have ridden its length many times in cars and have ridden much of it on horseback. Sitting a saddle while riding alone in Phantom Canyon, listening to the mountain breezes whistling through tall trees and rocky crevices, seeing the shapes and shadows as the sun advances overhead, and especially riding it after dark, which I have done, one can see how people could get spooked and unnerved. One might liken the experience to trying to make love to a grizzly bear: Although it may be a unique and colorful experience, it is nonetheless a tad unsettling.

  Phantom Canyon wagon road was a twenty-five-mile-long real wagon and horse trail that became the Florence and Cripple Creek Narrow Gauge Railway in the 1890s, and which still exists today as a winding, scenic hard-packed road available for cars without trailers to travel between the old mining towns of Victor and Cripple Creek, on the western slope of Pikes Peak, and Florence, which, at 5,000 feet elevation, is 4,500 feet lower. Very popular tourist attractions along the way are the ghost towns of Wilbur, Adelaide, and Glenbr
ook, which were all swept away in flash floods. The scenic road has two large hand-dug tunnels and many twists and turns, with rising mountain cliffs and steep, high drop-offs. The route has a great deal of wildlife, which in the nineteenth century also included grizzly bears and wolves. It has always been rumored to harbor ghosts of executed fugitives from Old Max Penitentiary in nearby Cañon City as well as American Indian braves and other travelers who perished. Enjoy your adventure in Phantom Canyon.

  1

  THE TEAMSTER

  Dub Tabor was a popular teamster, mainly operating out of Bent’s Fort, far to the east of Pueblo on the Santa Fe Trail. Dub was given that moniker as a child, which made him eternally grateful, as his real name was Durwood, a label he dreaded. Dub had been a very energetic and precocious lad. He grew up the son of a farmer near Wichita, Kansas. Young Dub was always running, and his pa joked with his ma that he felt Dub might have actually not been his son but the offspring of a whitetail deer.

  When he was a teenager, he watched teamsters with fascination and liked how they walked along the left side of their horses, mules, or oxen. It was a practice that decades later would prompt the positioning of the steering wheel, pedals, and instruments in automobiles. While still a teen, he got his first freight wagon and started hauling goods for various clients. Working his way to Bent’s Fort on the Santa Fe Trail many miles out on the prairie from Pueblo, Colorado. Now in his late twenties, he had teams of horses, oxen, and mules and several wagons. He hired a handful of part-time teamsters, who he trained himself.

  On this day, he was hauling supplies back from Cripple Creek, on the western slope of Pikes Peak, and was taking the scenic, but dangerous, Phantom Canyon road. Just after the sun set and the greens and browns of cliffs and trees started melting into each other, Dub walked along the wagon on the left side of the four bay horses, heads down, pulling the heavy load. They rounded another bend in the road, and he heard a noise off to his right. By the time he rounded two more bends, it was dark and pitch-black in the trees, excepting the sharp daggers of moonlight stabbing their way between branches and leaves. The moon glowing on the towering cliffs gave the whole scene an eerie look, and Dub felt a shiver run down his spine.