The Rider of Phantom Canyon

by Don Bendell

  Strongheart hissed under his breath. Nodding, he turned, with Scottie following him as he headed toward the French Restaurant. Just as he and Scottie walked up to the establishment, the waitress who had served him the night before walked out the front door, locking it behind her.

  She turned and smiled seeing the tall, dark, handsome man again.

  “Bonjour monsieur, comment allez-vous?”

  He doffed his hat, saying, “Bonjour, mademoiselle, je vais bien. Merci. Et vous?”

  She replied, “Je vais bien,” then explained, “The owner, the chef, ees my fiancé. We are closed for breakfast, but lunch is très bien.”

  Strongheart said, “No, I just wondered if you saw the young lady I met here last night with the shooting?”

  She said, “No, monsieur.”

  Strongheart said, “Does she come often?”

  She said, “Only zees past week. She came several times to eat and said she loved our food.”

  Joshua said, “What name did she use?”

  “Helena Victoria, monsieur, a beautiful name to be sure,” she replied.

  “Yes, it is,” Joshua said. “Did she say where she was from?”

  “Oui, monsieur, Santa Fe, but she said she sometimes stays in Pueblo.”

  Strongheart said, “Did she say anything else of any interest, or anything unusual?”

  “Non,” she replied. “What ees eet you Americans say? Ah, just small talk.”

  He said, “Thank you very much. You’ve been very helpful. Au revoir.”

  “You are welcome, monsieur. Good morning,” she said, as he stepped aside to let her walk toward downtown.

  “Come on,” Strongheart said. “Let’s go see the sheriff, then we have to wire my boss.”

  Five minutes later, they were sitting in the sheriff’s office on Macon Street and briefed the sheriff on what had happened. Joshua learned that Scottie came out in the middle of the night ready to go with Joshua and too excited to sleep. From two blocks away, he saw Joshua crash out the window and make his way to the building across the street. Almost immediately, obvious gun toughs were out looking for him. Scottie hid among the shadows and finally crawled under the building, where he sat watch over Strongheart for hours. The Pinkerton was very impressed.

  When they finished, the sheriff said to Scottie, “You did a fine and brave thing, young man, but we need to get you to school.”

  Strongheart said, “School? I thought you were out of school right now. Why didn’t you tell me?”

  Scottie grinned, saying, “You didn’t ask, Joshua. Besides, I want to help you solve this case. I think I can.”

  Strongheart said, “If you want to be a good Pinkerton, or just a good man, you need to get your education. Thank you very much, Scottie, for what you did, but off to school. We’ll leave when you’re out.”

  Scottie shuffled toward the door and said, “Yes, sir. I have two more days, then vacation.”

  Strongheart and the sheriff looked at each other and chuckled.

  “What now?” the sheriff asked.

  Joshua said, “I’ll send a telegraph to Lucky and head to Westcliffe. You said this V. R. Clinton has a ranch south of Westcliffe. I need a map of it and the area around it, Sheriff.”

  The sheriff said, “Have one right here with his ranch marked. Don’t get yourself shot.”

  Strongheart grinned and headed toward the door. Minutes later, he rode up to the Western Union office and sent a telegraph to Lucky. He stuck around and a half hour later got a response. Lucky had written: “Still no intel on V. R. Clinton STOP Be careful STOP.”

  9

  WESTCLIFFE

  Strongheart headed up South Ninth Street on his way to Silver Cliff and then nearby Westcliffe. He would arrive the next day, after camping overnight in the Greenhorn Mountains.

  Joshua rode up to a small café in the fairly new town of Westcliffe shortly after sunrise. He saw a buckboard loaded with mercantile goods outside and a team of four mules hooked up to it, and he felt it looked familiar. Walking in the door, he saw the grinning face of his friend Zachariah Banta from Cotopaxi, who motioned him over.

  Strongheart sat down after shaking hands with Zach.

  The white-haired, white-bearded old-timer said, “Wal, I reckon yore breakfast will be here in a few minutes. Here comes yer coffee now.”

  A waitress walked up with a cup of steaming hot coffee.

  Joshua grinned at Zach and said to the waitress, “Is it strong?”

  Zach interrupted before she could answer. “Wal, I reckon it is. She brung me my cup, and I asked her the same durned question. So, I simply walked outside. Did you see them purty rosebushes they have?”

  Joshua, laughing, nodded.

  Zach went on. “Wal, I grabbed me three a them big white rocks they had round them rosebushes. I brung ’em in here and dropped ’em in mah cup. All three of them plopped intah the coffee, then floated back up the surface. They jest floated around on top of thet coffee, like three little swans in a dirty pond.”

  Strongheart and the waitress both laughed heartily, and she returned to the kitchen.

  Joshua said, “Thanks for having her bring me coffee, Zach, but how’d you know my breakfast is coming? I haven’t even looked at the menu.”

  Zach said, “Wal, I reckon, young man, I got a brain in mah noggin. I was lookin’ at the window over theah, and seen me a tall Injun, or mebbe a cowboy, who was riding thet big ole beautiful black-and-white fancy dancer horse, so I ordered ya four eggs, a big steak, rare, taters, and biscuits, and afterward, a fresh piece a homemade apple pie. Am Ah a good boy?”

  Strongheart nodded. “Yes, you are a good boy. Thank you.”

  Joshua found out that Zach had been in Pueblo, fifty-five miles due east and four thousand feet lower in elevation than Westcliffe, buying supplies. He had business in Westcliffe, so he climbed up to the eight-thousand-foot-high valley, and would then go north a day’s ride to Cotopaxi. It would have been easier to drive his wagon from Pueblo to Cañon City and then along the river to Cotopaxi, but it was actually a much shorter route going through Westcliffe.

  Strongheart’s food came, and he dug in, while Zach ate a similar meal.

  Then, gulping some coffee, he said, “Old-timer, I have a mystery to solve, and you seem to know everyone from here to there and everything that happens.”

  Banta grinned.

  Joshua swallowed a bite of steak and said, “V. R. Clinton lives south of here, on a big spread, and I know he hired guns for the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe in this railroad war that is going on. I don’t know why, but he seems to have plenty of money. What is his stake in this railroad war? Why doesn’t anybody know him or anything about him?”

  Zach said, “Joshua, I am stumped mahself. I have heered all about this old boy, but cain’t find nothin’ out about him or his business.”

  Strongheart said, “I’m going to sneak onto his place and see what I can learn. What I do not understand is why he wants to back the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe in this railroad war. If I could figure out that tie-in, maybe then I can solve what’s going on.

  “What can you tell me about the history of Westcliffe and this area? Maybe there is a clue there why he moved here and what he has up his sleeve,” Joshua said. “Also, why has he sent gun toughs after me? Night before last, I met a beautiful woman who lured me to her hotel room in Cañon City and then slipped a Mickey into my iced tea. I managed to escape and hide, but there were gun toughs looking for me all night. That young Scottie Middleton happened to see me hide, and he put the sneak on all of them and kept watch over me until I came to yesterday.”

  Zach said, “I been keepin’ tabs on thet boy, and he is sumtin. Shore taken a shine to you. Wal, if ya want ta know the history of this area, we better order more coffee.”

  Zach then went into detail, telling Stronghear
t the history of the whole Wet Mountain Valley area.

  Custer County was one of the most beautiful, pristine spots in the world and was teeming with elk, antelope, bison, mule deer, bears, wolves, and fish, and although it was at eight thousand feet elevation, the valley had lots of natural irrigation, sunshine, moisture, and good soil. It was ideal for growing crops and grazing cattle. It began as a favorite gathering place for many American Indians, a tradition that lasted for centuries. Then in the mid–fifteen hundreds, the Spanish conquistadors arrived, hoping to annex the lands, find gold and silver, trade with the Indians, and convert the Indians to Christianity so they would be allies and not enemies. After that were the explorers: Lieutenant Zebulon Pike, Lieutenant John C. Fremont, and famed frontier scout Kit Carson, all in the early eighteen hundreds. Like they had done all over the West, adventurous mountain men and fur trappers followed the explorers. Some of them stayed in the Wet Mountain Valley and surrounding mountain ranges to trap beaver, hunt bison, elk, deer, and other game, and build trading posts.

  Then, around 1869, the first settlers and pioneers arrived. Elisha P. Horn, John Taylor, and William Vorhis were three of the more powerful ones, and each claimed a section of the valley. Elisha Horn settled near the base of one large fourteen-thousand-plus-foot peak, which was named Horn’s Peak after him. Taylor placed his spread on what was named Taylor Creek, and Vorhis helped found the town of Dora.

  A year later, German colonists journeyed to the valley after leaving Chicago. Their leader was Carl Wulsten, and another of the prominent fourteeners was named after him, Wulsten’s Baldy Peak. They left Chicago by train and traveled as far as they could, then got Conestoga wagons from Fort Lyons, far to the east of Pueblo out on the prairie. They started a new town fifteen miles west of where Westcliffe would be located and named the new town Colfax, after the then-current Vice President Schuyler Colfax.

  In less than a year the town failed because of the lack of experience and knowledge about farming and ranching. The original one hundred families disappeared from Wet Mountain Valley; however, a few, such as Carl Wulsten, remained and claimed individual plots of land under the Homestead Act. He worked and found success, in fact, as a mining engineer in the Rosita mines.

  Rosita’s mining history began in Hardscrabble Canyon at the head of Grape Creek in 1863 with gold and silver discoveries by two brothers, Si and Stephen Smith. More was found in 1870 by Daniel Baker, and the Hardscrabble Mining District was born in November of 1872. By 1875 the population finally peaked at over 1,500 inhabitants, with close to five hundred houses and other buildings. Then there was a mine takeover attempt by two prominent residents named Walter Stuart and James Boyd, who hired a gun hand who was actually an escaped convict named Major Graham, plus they hired a gang of twenty ne’er-do-wells and saddle bums. These men took over a mine by force. However, this was Colorado, not back East, and one hundred angry citizens organized a vigilance committee called the Committee of Safety, and they took back the mine, scattered the entire gang, and shot and killed Graham the shootist. Walter Stuart stole all the money from the bank that he and his partner had started, and it turned out later that he was actually Walter C. Sheridan, one of America’s most notorious bank robbers and forgers, and over the next several years the town died out, but eight miles away, Silver Cliff sprang up.

  There were more mines, such as Edmund Bassick’s large Bassick Mine, and the town of Querida had sprung up. Then, in the late seventies, the Bassicks sold most of their mine stock to a group of New York investors. Then scoundrels started stealing gold and silver ore from their absentee owners in New York and sold salted mines to unsuspecting people coming to the Wet Mountain Valley to seek their fortunes. Another vigilance committee was formed, secretly called the Querida Protective Society. They roughed up and threatened these crooks, making them leave the Wet Mountain Valley.

  By June of 1880, over five thousand people had settled in the valley, and a thousand more prospected in the surrounding area. Silver Cliff was incorporated as a town in 1879. However, now the Denver and Rio Grande cut their way up and laid tracks in Grape Creek Canyon, and Westcliffe, just west of Silver Cliff, started growing by leaps and bounds as the Denver and Rio Grande Railroad ended its tracks on the edge of town. In fact, Dr. William Bell, the founder of Manitou Springs, and General Palmer, the founder of Colorado Springs, planned Westcliffe as the new town before the completion of the Denver and Rio Grande Railroad line. Westcliffe began to thrive as a supply center for not only miners and tourists but for local ranchers and farmers as well. On top of that, several very large cattle herds started arriving in 1870, with Edwin Beckwith’s herd of fifteen hundred Texas cattle. By 1880 there were over thirteen thousand head of cattle at ranches throughout Custer County.

  By the time Zachariah Banta had finished telling the history of the Wet Mountain Valley area, Strongheart had already concluded that V. R. Clinton wanted to bring in the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe to compete with or replace the Denver and Rio Grande. Possibly he was going to bring in more cattle and try to start shipping by rail out of Westcliffe. Since his spread was well south of town, Joshua figured he might even want to expand the railroad down the valley, too, toward Alamosa.

  He wanted to go reconnoiter the Clinton ranch, but first he had to find the Westcliffe Western Union office and send a telegram to Lucky, asking him to find out if Clinton had approached the senior officials of the Denver and Rio Grande about buying stock or becoming a partner. If he was turned down or snubbed, that might explain the reason for his financial investment in the railroad war. Joshua waited for a response and got one. Lucky was already ahead of him and had spoken to them. They had indeed turned down financial overtures by Clinton through his attorney out of Denver. The attorney was persistent and said his client did not take well to losing, ever.

  Zach had to get back to Cotopaxi and Strongheart picked up a better map of the area showing V. R. Clinton’s property. The two men shook hands and parted company.

  10

  THE FORTRESS

  Strongheart took off, heading west from Westcliffe, then turned south, the thirteen- and fourteen-thousand-foot peaks of the Sangre de Cristo range towering before him in the sky. Clouds hovered over some of the majestic peaks, looking as if they were straining to break over from the western San Luis Valley side of the range. He would spend the night up high in the trees on Medano Pass, which crossed over the range into the San Luis Valley and into the Great Sand Dunes. He had been over this pass, located twenty-three miles south of Westcliffe, many times. The Great Sand Dunes was a large, 44,000-square-mile area right up against the mountain range made of fine sand with dunes that rose as high as 750 feet up into the air, constantly shifting, with a few streams of water that actually ran under and around them and, like the dunes, were always shifting course and location. The San Luis Valley was the largest high-mountain valley in the world, and the winds in the valley were such that the sands would come from dry areas of the Rio Grande at the southwestern end of the 50-by-150-mile, 8,000-foot-high desert valley and settle up against the twelve to fourteen thousand peaks in the southeastern portion of the valley. In fact, it would eventually become a national park.

  On the eastern side of the range, Strongheart made camp later up in the trees overlooking the V. R. Clinton Ranch. He could see several thousand head of longhorn cattle grazing in the lush green pastures. The Wet Mountain Valley was fast becoming known for outstanding pastures and hay and alfalfa. Looking around the valley spread out before him in the late afternoon, Strongheart could see large harems of elk and large herds of mule deer with hundreds in each group grazing in several of the giant pastures.

  When he set up camp, Strongheart made a large pile of rocks as a solid rest for the powerful binoculars he obtained from Zach Banta. He would use all available light to glass the ranch often and figure out his best route of approach. There was no information, no intelligence on V. R. Clinton, his ranch, or his plan
s, and Strongheart was bound and determined to find out more by sneaking in as close as he could to the main house, which was a large two-story stone building with a very large rock wall around it inside the sprawling ranch perimeter.

  One thing he easily identified was ranch hands down below working the cattle and doing ranch chores, but there were others who looked to be vigilant and were obviously hired guns, not real cowboys.

  He sat down after dark eating his supper and drinking coffee, then rolled up in his bedroll, looking at the stars and the snow-covered peaks of the range, such as Colony Peak and the distant Crestone Needles and Crestone Peak, as well as Marble Mountain, which has the Spanish Caves in an area up very high that is honeycombed with limestone caverns and connecting caves called the Caverna del Oro, or the Cavern of Gold, said to contain millions of dollars’ worth of gold treasure left by the Spanish conquistadors.

  Little did Joshua know a rider was aware of his intentions and was searching for him now, even after dark. The follower finally made camp himself, knowing it was insane to try to find the Pinkerton agent in the trees and rocks when he knew Joshua would make a camp that would not be easy at all to detect.

  The follower also did not know that he was being followed as well. The follower made camp about one mile north of Strongheart, and his follower made camp about one mile north of him. Nobody seemed to want to let Strongheart know in the darkness how popular he had become, mainly because such a revelation might be met with a hail of bullets. The follower, knowing Strongheart would be awake before dawn, would awaken then and start moving at daybreak. He did not make a campfire, worried that Strongheart might see it during the night and sneak up on him. His follower was even more experienced in the wilderness than he was and did make a small, smokeless fire, snugly nestled in a small jumble of boulders that reflected the heat from the fire, blocked out any reflection, and filtered much of the little smoke there was. That watcher knew there was little chance he would be discovered by Joshua or anybody.