Strongheart (21 page)

Annabelle was able to get some used tables from a hotel down the street, and she sanded and finished them herself. Within a few weeks, she was ready to open her new café, and she gave thought to the operating oil wells and mines in the area, as well as the hungry travelers who frequented the town. She decided to start with large portions and low prices. It did not take long for her small restaurant to be packed at each meal. The men in the area especially loved being waited on by the beautiful widow, and the food was delicious and plentiful.

Plenty of wives from around town were brought to the café by their husbands to eat, with admonishments to “Get the recipe.”

By the time Strongheart was in his fight in Villa Grove with Gorilla and Percival Moss, “The Café” as it was being called, had become the most popular eatery in the Canon City or Florence area. The place was packed with diners at breakfast, lunch, and dinner, and despite working her fingers to the bone, Annabelle always seemed to look fresh and to wear an ever-present smile.

One day at lunch, she waited on a man who gave her the chills. He was large, gruff, bearded, and had a strong Southern accent. Then it hit her: He was one of the holdup men. He had simply grown a long, unkempt beard. It was Harlance McMahon.

It was almost as if an alarm bell went off with the outlaw, because she could tell he realized that she had recognized him, or at least he had sensed it. Fremont County sheriff Frank Begley had become a regular customer in her café, and she wished he was there right then. She could tell that Harlance was nervous now, and she kept glancing at the door to see if the sheriff or a deputy might walk in.

Harlance had to get out of there as quickly as he could and decided to forgo a lot of the supplies he was planning on buying. He could have bought them in Florence, but the tree broke in half on his saddle. The tree was the hardwood frame inside the leather of the saddle, and a broken tree made the saddle almost useless. His horse and saddle were two of the most important tools of an outlaw, second only to his guns.

It was imperative that he have good ones, and he had bought a new saddle down the street and just happened to go into the café to eat. He was totally shocked to see Annabelle and recognized her immediately, as her beauty would be difficult to hide or forget. He made his way toward the front door, having left money on the table, as he did not want any men chasing him down the street.

Annabelle did not know what to do, but she set her jaw as she headed toward him. There were so many customers around, though, that she could not get there in time and could only watch helplessly as he rode out of town, turning south on Fourth Street, perhaps using her own escape technique.

Seeing Harlance had unnerved her and sent chills up and down her spine. What if he came back, she wondered, and why had he come in? It hit an emotional nerve with her as well, causing her to relive the fear, anger, and feelings of intrusion and violation she had felt during the holdup.

Actually, Annabelle had to go out her back door, stand outside, and just sob for a minute. Then she got angry. She looked up at the evergreen-covered mountains in the near distance south and west of town.

And she got angrier. She got shaking angry and set her jaw.

Looking at the clear blue sky, jaw firmly jutting out, Annabelle said, “That scoundrel—no scoundrel is going to have that kind of control over my emotions. Only I shall. Oh, Joshua, where are you?”

10

The Gunfight

Joshua Strongheart went back to town. He decided to buy some more ammunition, sensing he was in for a fight. Maybe it was apprehension, but on a whim, he turned Gabriel around and rode back to the little smattering of buildings. Before him, directly across the valley beyond Westcliffe, he saw lightning flashes and angry clouds up smothering the top of Hermit Peak. Shortly after, he heard the distant sound of thunder. This was common along this long range of fourteeners, seeing blizzards way above timberline, or thunderstorms, even hearing thunder, but the storms were only above those mountains and seldom came overhead. It was strange to have such raging storms seemingly so near, yet also have beautiful sunny weather.

He bought ammunition and then stopped at the saloon again.

As soon as he entered, Jerome Guy raised a finger and smiled, saying, “Strongheart, so glad you returned. I forgot. Hold on please.”

He walked into his back room and emerged with a hat-box. Opening it, he produced a black hat with round crown and flat, wide brim, identical to the one Joshua was wearing, minus the wide beaded headband. And also minus the large bullet hole produced by Big Scars Cullen during the shoot-out in Maverick Gulch.

Joshua was shocked, and even more so when Jerome said, “I forgot to give this to you. Zachariah Banta from up north rode in here yesterday and told me you would be riding through. He said to tell you simply that your new hat had come in. He had to order it from Texas from John B. Stetson, best hatmaker around, he said.”

Strongheart shook his head and took the hat, then removed his own and switched the hatband to the new hat.

He handed the one with the bullet hole to Jerome. “I swear. That Zack Banta is one strange hombre. I never ordered a hat.”

Guy chuckled. “That sounds just like Banta.”

The Pinkerton put the new hat on, and it fit perfectly.

Jerome asked, “Why did you come back anyway?”

Joshua said, “I decided you can never have enough ammunition.”

“In fact,” Jerome Guy said, placing his index finger alongside his nose, “I would like to contribute to your continued survival, too. I just got a brand-new Winchester's newest model, the 1873. Instead of the straight .44 you shoot in your old Henry, it shoots a .44-40 center-fire cartridge and shoots much better than that Henry rimfire Yellowboy you have been carrying. I had mine specially tooled and am giving it and several boxes of ammunition to you as a gift. I will be totally insulted if you refuse it or say anything other than thanks.”

Strongheart was touched, deeply, and he humbly said, “Thanks.”

“Yellowboy” was the nickname for the Model 1866 Winchester repeater, so named for the bronze-alloy receiver, which was actually made from a metal called “gunmetal.”

Joshua gulped when the wealthy businessman produced the weapon from the back. The lever-action rifle was engraved along the entire barrel, and there was a gold inlaid grizzly bear on one side of the receiver and a bald eagle on the other. The stock was engraved as well. There was just no telling how many hours of labor had been put into the engraving. Strongheart knew that this brand-new rifle was a very expensive weapon.

They went out behind the saloon and Joshua test-fired it, loving the action and the handling. Having shot for only a few minutes, they went back inside, where he quickly cleaned the rifle, thanked Jerome profusely, and left for a destination uncertain and a fate even more so.

Within an hour, he was riding down through Hardscrabble Canyon, knowing a very ruthless killer and a gang of wannabe shootists were probably practicing and plotting his impending death.

If nothing else, Strongheart's mother had made him study and read constantly. One of his favorites was a poem written nineteen years earlier, in his youth, by Alfred, Lord Tennyson, called the “The Charge of the Light Brigade,” after the famous action during the Crimean War the same year.

As he rode, looking up at the sheer cliffs on his left and the tall evergreen-enshrouded peaks rising above them, he recited the poem, maybe hoping to alleviate some of the fear and apprehension he was feeling.

With a deep voice, Joshua recited the first several stanzas:

Then, following that, Strongheart chuckled, saying aloud, “What in the hell am I doing? All of this over a promise? I have to be insane.”

He patted Gabe's neck and laughed, and Gabriel nickered in response. He seemed to raise his head a little higher, collecting himself even more regally, and went into his floating stiff-legged trot, as Strongheart called it. Joshua felt the long tail slap him in the small of the back, so he knew the horse was doing his peacock strutting, with his tail curled up over his rump and hanging off to one side. The horse tossed his long mane from the left side of his neck, and it quickly fell back over the right side of his neck, where it usually lay.

The miles dropped away beneath the long legs and the easy riding fast trot. Joshua thought about other horses he had ridden, and he compared riding them with riding an old buckboard, while riding atop Gabriel was like riding in a Concord stage it was so smooth.

At the bottom of the grade, he turned north and now had the mountains to his immediate left and a wide valley opening out to his right with prairie to the east. He stayed at the edge of the range and kept close to the trees. Strongheart was close enough now that he decided to go into the trees at the first gulch and make camp for the night.

He did, not totally realizing that the gang of Harlance's was already in camp in their hideout at Hardscrabble, less than five miles north of him. At that time, there was actually the Hardscabble Mining District several miles south and west of him, which contained the nearby Pocahontas-Humboldt and Bassick Mines.

Joshua found a good site and made camp with a smokeless fire. What little smoke it made was totally filtered by the trees so it was not visible by anybody traveling between Hardscrabble Junction, also known as Wetmore, and Florence eleven miles to the north. He heard a few shots well before dark, echoing off the ridges, which he correctly guessed were the young Indians practicing quick draw.

At first light the next morning, Joshua Strongheart dismounted, leaving Gabriel grazing in a small meadow among the trees on a ridge running from the peak directly overlooking the ruins of Hardscrabble and the sleeping outlaws down below. The Pinkerton considered just raining fire down on them from the safety of the rocks above with his new Winchester 1873. The Lakota half of him saw that as practical, but the white half of him, raised by a lawman, knew that he would have no solid argument in any court. He knew these men were training to kill him, plotting to kill him, practicing to kill him, but they had not attacked him, yet.

He slowly made his way down the ridge overlooking their hideout and simply watched. They had one man as a lookout in the rocks above their camp, but he was out of sight hundreds of feet below Joshua right now. Strongheart lay down with a telescope he carried in his saddlebags and simply watched the morning activities.

He was surprised at how lazy criminals actually were. These men slept until well past dawn, then he could tell they argued over who would stir up the morning fire. The outlaws had the remains of adobe buildings to stay in, which could have been made into very efficient shelters with a little effort. Strongheart had made camp during the night, eaten a nice dinner, breakfast, had hot coffee, good cover, water, and had struck camp, ridden several miles, climbed the mountain he was on, and down to his perch, all while these young men and Harlance were still in bed burning daylight. Their hideout was inefficient and trashy. They finally got a fire going and put a large coffeepot on it. Each man seemed to be responsible for his own breakfast, and two of them were drinking from whiskey bottles. A couple more had only coffee. The others seemed to just eat hardtack and maybe jerky. He saw one man make himself breakfast with a skillet and that was Harlance. Finally, two of them went to the makeshift stable to take care of the horses. Joshua's horse always ate and drank before he did. That was his rule.

Four of them got into a card game with a lot of arguing, and two practiced quick draw a short distance from the camp. Strongheart watched and started mentally making notes on each man. In a gunfight, if forced, he would probably concentrate on eliminating these two first, as they were practicing. None of these young men impressed him, but there were seven of them altogether. He knew they would not come after him individually, but probably by ambush or by confronting him all at one time.

Fortunately Strongheart had his canteen with him, as they did not really do anything until noon. Then they all saddled up and rode toward Florence. He watched until they were several miles away, and then he sneaked down into their hideout to snoop around.

Joshua found several boxes of Colt .45 rounds, and even a box of .44-40s. He took them, figuring it was more important for him to possess them, than those who would kill him. He also figured that they would accuse one another and that would help his cause even further. He found items that he felt certain had been stolen, probably from Florence, such as women's jewelry, and he made a mental note of each so he could tell the sheriff and provide descriptions. He figured maybe he could get these men arrested and avoid having to fight them, or at the least avoid having to fight all of them.

Joshua poked around their camp for another hour and decided he'd better get out of there. He carefully covered all tracks and signs of his presence and made his way back to the ridge. Just as he got to the base of the ridge, he heard them riding back toward camp, and he scrambled up the slope, trying not to leave obvious tracks and using every available piece of cover to conceal his movements.