Strongheart

by Don Bendell

“Come on to zee café,” Lucky said, cooling down a little. “You can buy us breakfast, and I weel tell you about your assignment.”

  There was a restaurant on the main street that had people walking in and out of the door more than any other building. That is where Lucky headed. They sat in the corner, both facing the entrance. That was a common choice among lawmen, gunfighters, and all warriors. None felt comfortable with his back to the door.

  Minutes later, Lucky leaned forward over his steaming black coffee and whispered, “Thees ees your next deelevery.”

  Strongheart took the oilskin envelope in his left hand and stood.

  He winked, saying, “Got to run out back. Be right back. Please order me a steak, potatoes, and apple pie.”

  Lucky knew what Joshua was going to do, as the tall cowboy-Indian headed to the outhouse behind the restaurant. Inside, he dropped his drawers, undid the leather money belt around his waist, and carefully folded the envelope so it would fit.

  Having redone his trousers and gun belt, he returned to the café, figuring most of the customers would not give a second thought to him not carrying an envelope back in that he had carried out. He sat down by Lucky.

  “It’s safe now,” Joshua said. “What’s it about?”

  Lucky said, “Zat ees zee most important document you have ever protected. Eet ees a personal letter from zee President.”

  “The President of the United States?” Joshua asked.

  “Oui! Yes,” Lucky replied. “He wrote an urgent message to Major General Jefferson Davis, who ees in Oregon, wheech you must deliver as queeckly as possible. Let us order, and I weel explain zee situation.”

  Over the course of lunch, Lucky explained the problem that the U.S. government was facing that had prompted the need for urgent delivery of a message to Major General Jefferson Davis, who shared the same first and last name as the more recognizable president of the Confederacy. He himself was a true character and the army really could not have picked a better leader to handle the Modoc War.

  Harvesters of fish, waterfowl, seeds, bulbs, and other wild game, the Modoc were a tribe that lived in the area of northern California and southern Oregon. Their houses were very similar to the hogan of the Navajo, which looked very similar to a beehive.

  They, too, dealt with the same problems as their red brothers, which included white men looking for gold and other riches in their territory and settlers populating their lands, having found the area very attractive for a variety of reasons. This began in earnest in the 1860s. The Modoc had finally given in and were moved onto the old Klamath reservation in southern Oregon. But they wouldn’t stay there.

  In 1870 Captain Jack led his Modoc band to California, and the government tried to get them to return to the reservation. In fact, U.S. soldiers pursued them all the way to Tule Lake. The problem for the military, though, was that that area became known as the “Stronghold,” and for very good reason. Sharp, hot, rugged, volcanic lava beds and all the caves and tunnels networking through the area made it an almost impenetrable fortress. The rugged terrain gave the Modocs numerous excellent shooting positions with outstanding “fields of fire” from which to rain withering firepower on advancing troops while maintaining total protection. The small band of about 150 poorly armed Indians held out there for six months. Repeatedly beaten back, the U.S. soldiers kept asking for reinforcements, and before long they had increased their force to one thousand men.

  In spring of 1873, the turning point came, when in the course of peace talks, General E. R. S. Canby and Eleazer Thomas came in under a white flag of truce to speak with Captain Jack and his tribal leaders. The Modocs opened up and the negotiators were killed. It was the first and only time any American general was actually killed by Indians in the Indian Wars. This infuriated the U.S. government, and the efforts against the Modocs were significantly stepped up. Now there were enough men to outlast the band of warriors, as the government kept supplies coming while cutting off supply routes for the Modocs.

  Retreat was blocked more often, and food and ammunition started dwindling for the red fighters. Soon, some of Captain Jack’s supporters started losing heart and hope, and under promises of amnesty they started sneaking away from Captain Jack and surrendering. Then a couple of his own leaders turned on him and agreed to lead the soldiers to the chief.

  In 1873, Captain Jack and his band of approximately thirty finally surrendered.

  Captain Jack and his three top leaders were arrested. Major General Jefferson Davis knew that Captain Jack had become a hero among the other American Indian nations. He wanted to make an example of the man who had murdered an army general in cold blood under the white flag of truce, so he planned to simply execute all three by firing squad. He did not, however, want to get court-martialed, so he sent a message to Washington that he was planning to shoot all three.

  His superiors were horrified. The government had already spent more than one half million dollars on the Modoc War, had an army general shot and killed, and Captain Jack was becoming a legend among other tribes. The last thing they wanted was for him to become a martyr.

  Lucky explained to Joshua that he was to get to Oregon as quickly as he could and deliver an urgent response to General Davis. The contents of Joshua’s envelope were not to be seen by anybody but the general, and Davis knew a courier-delivered letter was on the way. The letter ordered the general to take all precautions to insure that Captain Jack and his three leaders were publicly tried in a very fair and judicious manner and then hung after being found guilty.

  Joshua had to leave immediately to head toward his meeting in Poncha Springs and then on to Oregon from there.

  5

  The Stage

  Joshua Strongheart was on a large red Concord stagecoach traveling west out of Canon City, after a quick train ride down along the Front Range. He was traveling along the Arkansas River. Later he would cross the river at Parkdale and head out Copper Gulch Stage Road, climbing from 5,300 feet elevation to 8,000 feet some twenty-seven miles southwest of Canon City. From there the stage would take Road Gulch Stage Road downhill for five miles. This would bring him out at a spot along the river where another gulch came in from the north, nestled in the mountains and the rocky corridor cut through by the wild, raging Arkansas River. He would head west from there toward Poncha Springs, make his delivery, then head west and northwest as quickly as possible on horseback to Grand Junction, where he could start using trains again. He figured to stop along the way, trade in the horse he would use, and buy another, so he could stay in the saddle at a slow gallop or fast trot a good part of the way.

  The tall, handsome half-breed looked at his fellow passengers. There was a drummer with a carpetbag held close to his chest from the start of the ride, an old cowboy who’d tossed his saddle and bedroll up on the roof of the stage before he sat down, and a beautiful young woman who had long black hair, brilliant blue eyes, a proud jaw, and high cheekbones. What stood out most clearly, however, was the intelligent look in her eyes. Joshua, always alert, could detect a distant sadness there, too. He was instantly attracted to her, which happened with most men, but that attraction turned into a slight disappointment when he noticed the beautiful antique-looking wedding and engagement ring on the third finger of her left hand.

  Joshua said, “On your way to meet your husband, ma’am?”

  She smiled, but a tear formed in the corner of her eye.

  She shook her head almost imperceptibly, saying, “No, sir. I lost him to a fire several months ago.”

  “I am sorry,” Joshua said. “I saw the ring, or I would not have asked. Were you married long?”

  “No,” she replied. “Two years. We were happy though. He was a lieutenant in the U.S. Army. The cavalry. He was out on patrol and got caught in a grass fire, and he and his horse were trapped. High winds.”

  The cowboy doffed his hat. “Sorry, ma’am.”

  Joshua added, “Me, too, ma’am. Very sorry for your loss.”

  “Thank y
ou both very much,” she added, giving a slightly cold look to the silent drummer.

  They went west of Canon City and climbed up a long, steep hill and across a small plateau. In the distance to the south they could see the top of the giant slash through the rocks that was called the Grand Canyon of the Arkansas. Over there, a rock-walled canyon encased the Arkansas River, which tumbled along in a churning, angry foam. The cliffs rose straight up from the narrow canyon floor, more than one thousand feet in most places. At the west end of the plateau, the stage road dropped down sharply to the river in a serpentine route. The driver had to hold back on the team and used his brake a lot down the steep, winding, twisting wagon road. At the bottom, a large wooden bridge crossed the river. Crossing it, the passengers looked east along the river and saw the roaring foamy flume of water charging into the high-walled canyon like a liquid avalanche crashing and plunging into a giant rocky funnel. To their right, the west, they saw the river snake its way through a broad valley, which narrowed into a similar rocky canyon that stretched for miles to the west, with numerous herds of Rocky Mountain bighorn sheep and Rocky Mountain goats inhabiting its impassable granite walls.

  They turned southwest and left the river canyon behind them. The big red stage crossed a narrow, fairly flat valley as it wound its way toward another high-walled canyon, which had inspired the name of the route they were traveling on, Copper Gulch Road. The road would wind for miles, slowly climbing uphill. The coach would stop in ten miles so the passengers could take a break and the team of horses could be watered at Sunset Gulch, where there was a spring and a tank among the trees back up the very narrow gulch.

  Unfortunately, Jeeter and Harlance McMahon were planning to hold up the stage at Sunset Gulch, where they were now hiding among the trees. They had tied up the stage employee who manned the watering spot at the spring, and they had him tucked back safely in the scrub oaks.

  Orville Reichert’s eyes darted all about the scrub oak thicket, as he lay there, gag wrapped tightly around his mouth. A silvertip grizzly had frequently watered at this spring, as well as a number of black bears and mountain lions. Orville was tied up and gagged, so he was even prey to coyotes if they chose to attack him, which he sensed would be in their predatory nature. There was one very small spring, which only had water part of the year, farther up Copper Gulch Stage Road, before it topped out at the intersection of Road Gulch Stage Road, but even in good years the spring did not produce enough water to provide for more than a few deer or bighorns. The spring at Sunset Gulch was a good one and was the main watering place for a number of miles for most of the wildlife in the area, especially larger animals. All these thoughts went through Orville’s mind as he lay there petrified about getting mauled and eaten alive.

  The Copper Gulch Stage Road wound up through very steep, narrow passes like a giant rock- and piñon-encrusted serpent, but just below Sunset Gulch it opened up a little into an elongated bowl, surrounded by wooded rocky ridges. It was in this bowl that Sunset Gulch poured out, and the spring would be on the left side of the coach. Most of the highwaymen were assembled there in the cover of the evergreens and cottonwoods growing near the spring. It was a great place for them to pull off a holdup because Sunset Gulch ran uphill from there one ridge over from Copper Gulch Stage Road, paralleling it, but actually made a sharp right turn up on top and came out onto Copper Gulch. They could travel the rugged gulch when escaping and come out farther up on the stage road and then turn onto Road Gulch Road and head downhill about ten miles and come out on the Arkansas River. Or they could stay on Copper Gulch and come out a little north of the town of Westcliffe and head south or east from there. They planned to hold up the stage, move up the gulch a mile or so to a good ambush site, quickly divide up their spoils, then continue on toward the Arkansas River, the same direction the stagecoach was destined. First, they would scatter the team from the coach, so the horses would not be available for anybody from the stage to trail them on.

  Across the road, one of the outlaws, Long Legs Westbrook, was standing lookout on one of the rocky outcroppings rising high above the canyon floor, from where he caught glimpses of the stage road far down the canyon, winding its way up the twisting hardpack. Using a small piece of mirror, he flashed light on the patch of trees where Jeeter and Harlance were hiding. He then made his way down the rocks, hopped on his beautiful gelding, and hid it across the road, behind a large cottonwood and a pile of collected dried logs and boulders left there from the last of the flash floods that occasionally plagued Copper Gulch.

  Jeeter and Harlance had grown up in the steep mountains of West Virginia north of Charleston and felt right at home in these rocky canyons, which were like exaggerated versions of their home territory. The canyons out west in southern Colorado, however, were much larger, rockier, and more rugged than their homeland, but that presented the two criminals with a haven that was like Heaven to them.

  Besides Westbrook, they had Ruddy Cheeks Carroll, Wilford “Slim” Dyer, Stumpy Shaw, Gorilla Moss, his son Percival, and Big Scars Cullen in their gang, each a dangerous and calculating outlaw capable of murder and other types of mayhem.

  It was understood that once they divided the spoils from the holdup, any of the gang could go where they wished, and in fact, Moss and his kid had always liked traveling and seeing new country, so they planned to break off on top and head down past Westcliffe and cross over the Sangre de Cristo mountain range on Music Pass. They would come out in the San Luis Valley at the Great Sand Dunes, and they knew that when they crossed them, the wind would take care of covering all their tracks. The Great Sand Dunes were located at the base of the Sangre de Cristos and contained pure sand dunes over five hundred feet high, stretching for some miles. There was no vegetation at all, just sand, which was constantly shifting. It was an area in the western slope of the range where all the sand from the largest high mountain valley in the world accumulated. The others would stay with the McMahon brothers for a while, pulling off more holdups, and they had spoken about trying some train robberies.

  When he was thirteen, Jeeter had had a problem with a neighbor boy who had stolen some muskrats and beaver out of the trap string Jeeter had run along a stream that emptied out into the Elk River, near its junction with the Kanawha River, near Charleston. Jeeter and his younger brother Harlance told their pa about the neighbor boy stealing their animals from the leg hold traps they set along the creek.

  His solution was simple: “When someone takes waz your’n, ya kill ’im.”

  That was that. Jeeter grabbed a pick handle, and Harlance took his uncle’s hickory walking stick that stood two feet above the boy’s head. There were steep ridges on both sides of the heavily wooded stream, and the brothers took off into the woods, heading toward the stream. There, they slept during the night behind two side-by-side trees halfway up the hillside. Sure enough, the next morning right after daybreak, they heard Wilford Fisher walking down the bank toward the muskrat trap below them. As he approached the log where the trap was attached, the two started slowly down the hill. They made it within ten feet before Wilford heard Harlance step on a twig and spun around. The two rushed him, screaming like banshees and swinging their heavy clubs. By the third strike to his head, Wilford saw the sky swirling above him and felt himself falling faceup into the cold stream. The brothers plunged in after him and stomped on his face and body, holding him under until he was a lifeless, bloody mess. They let him go, and the body slowly disappeared down the stream, heading toward the big river, where it was found two days later caught in a pile of branches along a bank of the Kanawha. Wilford’s folks knew who did it and why, but they wanted no part of Jeeter’s family and surely did not want a blood feud. The family packed up a wagon and moved south, finally settling in a large valley near Wytheville, Virginia.

  That was just the first of several killings for Jeeter and Harlance, and although it was winter in West Virginia, they felt the climate had become a bit too hot for them, and they should move elsewhere
, far away.

  The two made their way across the country the best way they knew how, by holding people up and stealing what was not theirs. Their father taught them to protect what was theirs, with killing if need be; however, they’d been taught no respect whatsoever for the property of others.

  Now they lay in wait with their gang wanting to rob a stagecoach. If people died in the process, neither of these men cared.

  There was one thing about highwaymen and holdup men that was a constant throughout the West. If they robbed and stole on a consistent basis, many of them bought or stole the very best horses they could find. Many times these men were chased by posses for days. They needed a horse with speed, staying power, and endurance. Such was the case with Long Legs Westbrook. He was a scoundrel of the worst sort, but he had a horse that was the envy of everyone who met him. He’d actually purchased this one from a wealthy breeder in Texas, although most of the horses he’d had were stolen. The breeder had named the horse Gabriel, which was Spanish, meaning “God is my strength.” The very first Arabian horse imported into America was an Arabian stallion brought over in 1725 by Nathan Harrison of Virginia. Gabe was a direct descendant of that stallion, and so was his father, a purebred Arabian stallion. Gabriel’s dam, however, was a chestnut horse that was called an American saddle horse or American saddlebred. She had five different gaits and so did Gabriel. She was a direct descendant of Denmark, which was the foundation stallion of the breed, born in 1839 in Kentucky. Her father was a son of Denmark. Gabe’s dam had a long stocking on each leg and a white blaze face. Gabriel ended up as a brilliantly marked Overo pinto with a predominately chestnut, or red, head and body, and numerous white jagged or splotchy patches covering him all over. He stood sixteen hands tall and had very muscular legs, rump, and shoulders. His head looked very Arabian, but Gabe had a very long pure white mane and tail, which he liked to toss from side to side with great pride.