Harlance had a problem, though, covering all of his tracks. Joshua Strongheart had just ridden into Cotopaxi and was now drinking a cup of coffee with Zack Banta.
“Wal,” Zachariah said, “reckon old Harlance McMahon's looking fer a place ta hibernate north a here.”
“Really?” Joshua asked, knowing Zack liked to play mind games before letting all his news out.
“Reckon so. He bought a speck a fixin's, and he headed out Maverick Gulch,” Zack said, as he pulled out a brown block of tobacco and bit off a chew.
He looked like a white-haired chipmunk to Joshua, who grinned to himself, seeing the large bulge in Zack's cheek, as he started chewing. He offered the plug to Joshua, who declined with a slight nod, still waiting patiently for more information to come out.
Zack poured Joshua another cup of hot coffee and went back to braiding some leather reins he had been working on. Joshua enjoyed the strong coffee and still waited.
“Cain't hardly believe how these ole boys on the owlhoot trail stay alive,” Zack mused.
Joshua decided to play Zack's game and finished his cup then responded, “Oh?”
Zack said, “Yep. Tell ya tomorrow over breakfast. 'Spect you'll wanna rest up next door in the hotel.”
“If McMahon is around, I don't want him to get away.”
Banta winked at him and grinned, “They'll keep.”
“They?” Joshua said.
Zack said, “See ya at breakfast. I'll draw ya up a purty map tonight.”
Joshua went out the door, laughing with a wave.
Zack waited until Joshua was halfway through with breakfast before he said, “Reason I said that was 'cause they don't cover their tracks good.”
“How is that, Zack?” Joshua asked.
“Wal, he come in here fer supplies and tole me ta give a message to thet ole he-bear Big Scars Cullen,” Zack replied. “I swear when he walks, he scratches the clouds with his hat, he is so durned tall.”
Joshua grinned and waited. He had learned this game in the lodges of the Lakota.
Zack buttered a couple rolls and ate them, swallowed some coffee, then went on. “He was never smart enough ta ask me ta keep it quiet.”
“What was the message?” Joshua queried, then had to wait through another cup of coffee.
Zack said, “The ole boy has him a hideout somewhere up Maverick Gulch. Reckon he tole me thet he wanted Big Scars ta jest ride up Maverick Gulch till Harlance give him sign.”
Zack walked over to the table and sat down, pulling out a piece of paper. It was a very carefully handwritten map. Strongheart was impressed.
Pointing out the window, Zack said, “Now, ya cross the river and head right up thet trail. It ain't long fer ya get to Maverick Gulch. It'll be runnin' off to yer right, headin' east. It's gonna cut inta Long Gulch, right heah on the map. Long Gulch opens up and comes out on the river.”
Joshua said, “I really appreciate this, Zack. You did a great job on this map.”
“Reckon I figgered McMahon and Cullen are disposable. You ain't.”
Joshua chuckled. “How is that, sir?”
Banta said, “Wal, yer gainfully employed. They don't like workin'. Yer a nice young feller. They ride the owlhoot trail. You might bring purty young gals around I kin look at. Them two attract vermin. Ain't no big reckonin' on my part.”
The two spent the next half hour with Zachariah telling Joshua all about the terrain, and Joshua especially wanted to know what the two parallel gulches were like.
Strongheart set out for Maverick Gulch while it was still early morning. He started out up the gulch to get a feel for it, but Harlance's remark about spotting and signaling Big Scars told him that he was up high and commanded a good view. That remark also told Joshua that the outlaw was very secure about his hiding place. Zack Banta had told him that there were several rock outcroppings up high on the northern side of the ridge bordering the gulch, and Joshua felt that it was more than likely Harlance's hiding place would be closer to Long Gulch.
It was a simple trick, used by many tribes.
Harlance had paid a bottle of whiskey and ten dollars to Charlie the Ute, a kind of worthless Ute Indian who had emigrated all the way from the Towaoc area in what would become the Four Corners and never fit in with his own people or whites. Charlie looked twenty years older than he actually was and spent most of his time trying to earn free drinks or drinking money.
Charlie the Ute made himself a camp atop the high red cliff overlooking Cotopaxi and waited for two days. When Joshua Strongheart rode down the road toward the new settlement, Charlie set light to the piñon fire he had built inside a box made of flat rocks. When the fire was going well, he placed several branches of cedar greens on it and smoke started pouring out. He placed a blanket over it and let the smoke build up, then released a large cloud, then did it again, and a third time. His directions were to do it again in three segments of two puffs if and when Joshua left Cotopaxi and headed north, in the direction of the head of Maverick Gulch. If he rode any other direction, Charlie the Ute was to send up single puffs.
It was morning when Harlance took a sip of coffee and looked to the southwest, seeing three sets of two smokes coming from Charlie's ridgeline.
He sat down on a log across from Cullen, saying, “Thet Strongheart is on his way mebbe this direction.”
“How do you know that?” Big Scars asked.
Harlance pointed at the smoke signals and chuckled.
Big Scars said, “You have your own tribe of redskins now?”
Harlance laughed. “Naw, jest need ya one blanket niggah to send ya a smoke. Done let me know thet breed showed up yesterday. He set out north from the store jest a little bit ago. He turns inta Maverick, we'll see a long column a smoke. He comes this way, we'll see 'im, and he cain't escape, no way. He's dead.”
Joshua headed into Maverick Gulch with a long column of smoke reaching up into the morning sky far above and behind him. Charlie the Ute was amazed at how much this half-breed had stopped to fix his stirrups the past two days. He wondered if the man could even ride bareback like most red brothers. He was not sure of his tribe, but knew this warrior was not Ute. He thought he could be Cheyenne. Charlie did not realize that Strongheart, though half-white, had spent plenty of days in the villages of his father's people, and spotting Charlie's first signals had been nothing. Joshua would get off his horse, tighten the cinch strap, and try to figure out the simple message. When he saw the first smoke, he knew someone was signaling that he was arriving. He reasoned another would tell when he left and maybe more would indicate direction. So Joshua knew that Harlance was aware he was headed into Maverick Gulch. That was also part of Strongheart's plan. His eyes searched the left side of the gulch for the long crease and rocks he needed. The farther he went down the gulch, the greater his chance of being spotted by Harlance and Big Scars.
An hour passed and Harlance had his horse saddled.
Big Scars said, “What are you doing, Harley?”
Harlance said, “When he comes up the gulch, we're gonna fill 'im full of holes. Then I am gonna charge down and put six more in his durn haid. He's one tough hombre, an' we gotta be careful.”
Big Scars said fairly calmly, “There he is.”
Harlance looked and grabbed his carbine. Cullen grabbed his Sharps buffalo gun, which probably was why he was so calm. With that, even shooting right then was a simple shot and could blow Joshua out of the saddle. Strongarm's eyes were on the ground, apparently sweeping the ground in front of him, his rifle across the swell behind the saddle horn and resting on his upper thighs, as Gabriel walked slowly down the trail at the bottom of the gulch.
Big Scars put his sights on the front brim of the hat, knowing his shot would take the back of Strongheart's head off. Harlance aimed at the center of his chest.
He whispered, “When his paint gets even with that dead tree, blow him outta thet saddle.”
Cullen replied, “The side of the horse or the front of him?”
Harlance said, “The front. Soon as he's even, start the ball.”
The horse kept approaching and was now just a few feet away. Two more steps. One more.
They both fired and hit Joshua simultaneously in the middle of the head and center mass. His lifeless body flew backwards out of the saddle and beyond the horse. Harlance ran for his own horse and leapt into the saddle.
“Stay here, whiles Ah finish him off!” he commanded, certain he would act heroic in this way, although he knew Strongheart was already very dead.
As he inched along the caprock above Big Scars Cullen, Joshua was upset that Harlance had taken off after Gabriel. Joshua wore moccasins, a Sioux breechcloth, and his gun rig and knife. His face and body were streaked in mud to better camouflage him.
Cullen turned around in time to see Joshua's body hurtling at him from the rock above, both heels striking him simultaneously, one in the jaw and the other in his massive chest. He flew backwards and landed hard on a flat rock, on his back and hitting the back of his head. The wind left him in a rush and the sky started swirling around. He shook his head and came to his feet with a roar.
Down below Gabriel trotted off up the gulch, and Harlance drew his pistol, approaching what he thought was the body of Joshua Strongheart. Then he saw that it was a dummy made of Joshua's clothes filled with leaves and cedar needles, and he cursed to himself.
It was then that he looked back up the ridge and saw the gargantuan Big Scars Cullen rush forward, arms outstretched. Strongheart grabbed Cullen's right sleeve with both hands, then stepped back, dropping to his left knee and pulling, and the big man's weight sent him flying past the warrior and face-first into a large boulder. He was clearly staggered, his face pulped and bleeding.
Harlance McMahon had never seen and had never dreamed he would see any man manhandle the monstrous Big Scars Cullen. He was too big, too strong, too grizzly bear mean.
He needed to see no more. Harlance put his spurs to his gelding and ran back up the gulch like his tail was on fire. The heck with his grub, his bedroll, slicker, and everything. This man had already killed his brother and others in his gang, after they thought they had shot him in the head. Harlance still wanted to pay him back for killing Jeeter, but he wanted to pick the battlefield. He wanted to pick the strategy for the fight, and he wanted to make sure he would win. For now, he would not even stop in Cotopaxi, but just ride on roads where his tracks would mix in with others, and he would not slow down for a long while.
In the meantime, Joshua Strongheart did indeed have a fight with a grizzly bear on his hands. Cullen was now growling and roaring with rage, and he beat his barrel chest with both hands. He swung a vicious right and Strongheart blocked it with both arms, yet it rammed his own arms into his face, bloodying his nose and swelling his left eye and sending him flying backwards about ten feet.
Cullen then came roaring in like a charging bull, and Strongheart reached out, grabbed both arms, and stuck his right foot in the giant's belly, then went backwards with the momentum and shoved as hard as he could, straightening the leg out. With a scream, Cullen sailed over Joshua's head, then over a small drop, landed on his back down below, and rolled twenty more feet down the ridge and up into a large cactus. Hundreds of needles penetrated his skin, and he screamed in pain, squirming to get away from the giant spiny monster.
As he came to his feet, weaving, and bleeding like a pig at a barbecue, his left hand grabbed his cross-draw holster, and his right hand closed on the handle of his .44. His eyes looked up to see flame shooting from Strongheart's gun, once, twice, and three times, as he felt the bullets slam into his chest. His knees failed him, and he saw the ground rushing at his face, then slamming into it. He rolled over on his back, moaning. Joshua walked forward, ejecting the three shells and thumbing three fresh bullets into his cylinder.
He saw the life slowly draining out of the behemoth and was shocked to see that tears filled the big man's eyes.
Cullen said, “Ya killed me, Strongheart, and one of your bullets broke my back. I can't feel anything. I deserve this. I have been a bully my whole life. You whupped me with your hands and plugged me with your shooter. Guess I deserve this. Wish I could do it all over.”
“You chose the outlaw trail, Cullen. Nobody to blame but yourself,” Joshua replied.
“Am I dying for sure?”
“Yes,” Strongheart said honestly and bluntly. “You won't see tonight's sunset for sure.”
Cullen said, “You are a good man. Can I ask a favor?”
“What?”
Big Scars said, “See that my horse gets a good home. You can sell him, but make sure he will get treated right. Also, please don't leave me for the bears and coyotes and buzzards. Please give me a grave and say some words over me.”
Strongheart wanted to pursue Harlance, but he nodded and said, “I will. Want some water?”
“Yep.”
Joshua said, “I am after an antique wedding ring that belonged to that pretty woman on the stage. I said I would get it back.”
Big Scars started chuckling and coughed with a little blood coming up.
“That's why you've been chasing us and killing us? Over a ring?” Cullen asked.
Joshua said, “Reckon so.”
Cullen tried to shake his head, but it would not move. He started to panic but stopped himself. He had been a miserable failure, he thought, but by God he would die a man.
“You know what, Injun?” he said.
“Strongheart, Joshua Strongheart is the name.”