The Rider of Phantom Canyon (4 page)

Joshua Strongheart had been gone from southern Colorado for a couple weeks and was very glad to be home. His late fiancée, Annabelle Ebert, had left him her home and her Cañon City restaurant. Joshua never slept in the home after her death. He traded it for a small spread along the Arkansas River toward Florence, and he gave the restaurant to Belle's niece, who came in from Missouri to operate it. He also never went there to eat again.

*   *   *

Wannge'e wanted to scream, but no words would come out of his mouth. The
Pahi-zoho
had a hold of his upper arm and was shaking him. His head was gigantic and shaped like an upside-down funnel. His eyes were
flaming, and his teeth had fangs like the largest grizzly. Wannge'e was once again paralyzed with fear.

The
Pahi-zoho
said, “Wannge'e! Wannge'e!” and he sat bolt upright, blinking his eyes against the bright sunlight streaking in through the window of the sheriff's office. He looked straight up into the grinning face of the handsome Joshua Strongheart, his hand on Wannge'e's upper arm. The confused Ute looked around and shook his head. Now he remembered the sheriff had let him sleep on a cot in the sheriff's office.

Strongheart said, “Hello, my red brother. I am Wanji Wambli of the Lakota nation, but my given name is Joshua Strongheart.”

Wannge'e said, “I am of the Ute nation and am called Wannge'e, but you know that. I know of you—many stories of you. You are a Pinkerton and a mighty warrior with many, many scars.”

“I have some scars,” Joshua said, grinning. “How about getting up, and I will buy you a nice breakfast and lots of coffee. Then, we can smoke a cigar and talk.”

“This is a good thing, Strongheart.”

After breakfast, they went out behind the restaurant and walked to a large oak and sat down smoking cigars and watching the fast-moving Arkansas River flowing before them. Becoming animated, Wannge'e explained his misadventure in full detail.

Eyes opened wide, Wannge'e said, “This was a
Pahi-zoho
, Strongheart. I have not seen one before, but have
heard their howls and have seen their tracks. I have met mighty warriors who have seen them.”

Joshua listened and absorbed. He did not prejudge or make the Ute feel doubted. He wanted all the facts so he could unravel this mystery.

Wannge'e told Strongheart about the clear tracks now dried in hardened mud. The sheriff had already told Joshua his deputies had marked the spot. He would have to leave as soon as possible and not risk a storm washing out any more sign. Several days had passed already.

Joshua would leave before daybreak. In fact, he decided to leave then and ride the ten or so miles to the beginning of Phantom Canyon and camp there so he could be on the road at daybreak looking for sign.

Eagle seemed to understand they were on another great adventure as Joshua rode west out of town. The big black-and-white pinto tossed his mane from side to side and flipped his tail over his rump. Then, he went into one of his trotting gaits, which Joshua Strongheart referred to as his “floating gait.” The horse would start trotting, and, getting excited, trot stiff-legged at a very fast pace, almost like he was floating above the ground. As he rode out of Cañon City, Strongheart had mountains to his west, north, and south and he went slightly uphill along the piñon- and scrub oak–covered hills that started the foothills of Pikes Peak and Cheyenne Mountain far to his north. Joshua looked at the varying rock formations and the prairie that was starting to slowly
open up in front of him to the east. Leaving the greenery of the treetops behind him along the Arkansas River, he went up a long hill, and at the crest of that ridge, he came to a wagon road running to his right a few miles distant to Florence, and to his left, or north, it headed toward a canyon mouth that looked like it was innocent enough. However, Joshua knew this was the mouth of Phantom Canyon. He only needed to ride a mile and a half and the trail would start dropping down into the mouth of the rock- and tree-lined canyon.

A mile inside the rugged, narrow canyon, Strongheart made camp for the night. A stream ran alongside the narrow road off to his left, and heavy trees surrounded him, with large cliffs jutting up through them. There was plenty of graze for Eagle and clear water running in the creek. He did not anticipate any problems this night, as he was barely into the canyon.

Joshua had heard of these creatures, but in the Lakota language, the
Pahi-zoho
was referred to as
Iktomi
, which translates to “the Trickster.” It was the animal that some whites had been calling a Bigfoot.

Strongheart, in the short period he had been back, could tell there was a panic going on about the phantom in Phantom Canyon, even among the local sheriff's deputies and the guards at Old Max. Many believed it was indeed a Bigfoot-type creature, and Strongheart knew and believed that they existed. However, he was certain there were very few around here. Most were in the Northwest, where there were plenty of deer, plenty
of rain, lots of streams and rivers, and many large, forested areas with big trees. He had spoken to too many Nez Perce who'd had run-ins with such creatures and had a lot of credibility with Joshua as experienced warriors who knew what they were doing.

He felt that the semiarid parts, and even the mountainous parts, of southern Colorado would not be an environment suitable for such creatures. He had been out alone often in the mountains and had not seen tracks or sign of one. He also had occasionally heard trees being struck, but always chalked that up to a branch falling or a rock rolling off a cliff and hitting a tree trunk. A few times, he did have branches, or even rocks, land near him on the ground. He had heard of such activities by the
Iktomi
, but he chalked his experiences up to natural phenomena. Colorado was a land of more rocks than there were grains of sand in the Sahara desert. It seemed only reasonable to him that sometimes rocks would fall or roll for the slightest reason. Tree branches often fall in the forest, as do whole trees, sometimes from the lightest breeze.

One time, he was talking to his friend from Cotopaxi, old Zachariah Banta, and Zach addressed the horse he had given Joshua being half-Arabian and half-saddlebred. Arabians were known to be very intelligent horses, extremely stable and calm when well broke.

Zach made the statement, “Wal, Strongheart, I reckon in this here country, we got rocks that sometimes decide ta move. When they do move, ya want a horse unner ya that don't.”

Strongheart made camp for the night and slept soundly, knowing his “warrior's sense” would alert him if trouble started brewing or danger approached. Warriors have a sixth sense more highly developed than that of most people. It is a sense of knowing when danger is approaching. In trying to explain this to Lucky, Joshua asked if he ever got a chill-down-his-spine feeling when someone was looking at him from behind. Lucky responded that he had such an experience when a man he was investigating watched him at night looking into a house through a window behind him. Lucky whirled and saw the man just as he was pulling out a derringer to shoot at the Pinkerton. Strongheart explained that was the “warrior's sense of knowing,” something that was very developed in men, and women, whose lives depended on always being alert. When hunting, especially with a bow, he explained that he never looked directly at an animal but right behind its tail for that very reason. Prey animals, such as deer and elk, can sometimes sense when they are being watched closely. He further explained that was why some hunters could not understand why they spooked game at the last second when they made no noise and the wind was not blowing.

Shortly before dawn he came out of a sound sleep, his Colt Peacemaker drawn and his eyes straining against the predawn darkness. He heard a light whinny from Eagle, who was grazing nearby, and he looked at Eagle's ears and eyes to see where he was focusing.
They centered on a small break in the trees, and Joshua saw several mule deer slowly walking between the shadows, headed downhill. Any large predator around probably would have alerted them, so Strongheart immediately went back to sleep.

He awakened right at dawn and cleaned up in the little creek, then made breakfast and thought about what he would do that day. He soon saddled up after two cups of coffee and some food and headed up the road toward Cripple Creek.

An hour later, the muscular Pinkerton agent spotted a red scarf tied to a branch on the left side of the road, and he dismounted, going forward slowly and retrieving the scarf. The deputies had wisely placed long branches as a border around the dried tracks in the mud to discourage deer and other grazing animals, or any simply passing through. Joshua, as he approached, could already see that they looked like very large barefoot human tracks with large spaces in between. The stride would fit with a human maybe nine or ten feet tall. A shiver ran down Strongheart's spine, but he shook that off, knowing it was a normal human reaction to such a sight. He was tracking now and was a warrior trained to track. Not quite as good as his friend Chris Colt, up near Westcliffe, but much better than most any man around, red or white.

He dropped his reins so Eagle would ground-rein automatically and not move until Strongheart raised the reins again. If he left the reins over the saddle horn, Eagle would follow him, but if they were dropped, he
was trained not to move. This was easily accomplished by burying several logs with attached lead lines coming out of the ground. Joshua would stop the paint at each one, dismount, and subtly hook the lead line under the bridle. In that manner, Eagle would try to take a step and could not move. Horses are pattern animals and stick to preset patterns. When Strongheart did this a few times, it became ingrained in the big pinto's brain not to move if the reins were dropped.

Strongheart got down on his hands and knees and started to closely examine the tracks. No sooner had he started looking than he heard the clicking of three guns behind him. He turned slowly and saw three prospectors or miners who had just come around the bend in the road to his front. One was pointing a Henry rifle at him, while the other two were pointing pistols. All three were on foot.

“Wal, wal, wal,” said the rifleman. “Lookee here, boys. We caught us a thievin' red blanket nigger. Where did ya put our horses, redskin?”

Strongheart said, “There has been a misunderstanding, gentlemen. I am a Pinkerton agent, not a thief.”

The man just to the rifleman's left, Foster Shane, said “Naw, you ain't. Yer a blanket nigger, and thet makes you one a mah favorite targets. Jest shoot him, Blackie. We'll find the horses.”

He laughed at his own comment.

Luke Blackwell, the rifleman, said, “Naw, we're gonna hang this ole redskin. The only good Injun is a dead Injun.”

Strongheart bristled. He had heard that quote attributed to both General Philip Sheridan and seventh U.S. president Andrew Jackson; he doubted if either had said it. But, having just finally helped speed the demise of the notorious Indian Ring, Joshua knew that saying was the sentiment among many white men.

Tactically, he knew he was in trouble and needed an immediate plan. The man on the right who had not spoken, Dane Mathews, had dangerous eyes, and Strongheart noticed the holster was worn at the top from the man practicing quick draw a lot. The rifleman would be the next to go, as he could not move the rifle as quickly, and the one to his left, Foster Shane, would be third. Joshua had to disarm them for a minisecond anyway.

He 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.

Without thinking, Joshua started ejecting spent cartridges and thumbing new ones into the revolver as he walked forward, watching all three for any signs of life. Shane's legs were spasming slowly and involuntarily, but he was dead. All three were indeed dead.

Strongheart just shook his head thinking about what a shame it was that they had to die. He knew it was their choice, and they obviously were terrible racists, but they were men, and he did not want to kill anybody. They simply had given him no choice. He wondered, as he usually did after a gunfight, if he would not be happier running a ranch or a business. Then he smiled to himself, knowing better. Strongheart was a warrior, a man of the West. Adrenaline made him feel alive, and he was a protector.

Joshua knelt down by the body of Luke and went through his trousers and shirt pockets, looking for any signs of identification, and found a few dollars and nothing more. He set this aside to put in an envelope from
his saddlebags; the collected money would probably help to pay the undertaker. The same was repeated, with the second search retrieving only small change. However, in the pocket of the third shooter, Dane, he found a small tintype of a beautiful young woman. With it was a short letter that read: