The Indian Ring

by Don Bendell

  The warrior looked skyward, then at the big cat. Smiling and quoting Shakespeare’s Richard II, Act III, scene 2 in perfect English the warrior said,

  Nothing can we call our own but death

  And that small model of the barren earth

  Which serves as paste and cover to our bones.

  He grinned and added, “Sleep ye well, yon lion, and may I not waste your hide or meat, for the Great Spirit has indeed blessed me this day. Thank you, God. Amen.”

  Within an hour, his snowshoes replaced, and a field-dressed mountain lion hanging limply over his broad shoulders, half-white and half-Lakota Pinkerton Agent Joshua Strongheart started down the long ridge to the trees below timberline where his magnificent pinto gelding Eagle waited, as did a campfire just waiting to be lit.

  The snow ended before he entered the big stand of lodgepole pines, so he removed the snowshoes and cast them aside after retrieving the leather thongs used to construct them.

  When he arrived at his camp he immediately started the fire and placed some cougar steaks on a spit he made out of a green branch. He would eat a meal and then dress and cape out the lion, and stake the hide out in the sun and brain-tan it with the lion’s brains.

  After dinner, Joshua walked out onto a large rock outcropping jutting out from the trees. The terrain was very rocky in this area. He was down below Colony Lakes with his camp and now looked up at the peaks towering above him: Crestone Needle, Humboldt Peak, Crestone Peak, each sticking up through the white fluffy clouds that were hanging around fourteen thousand feet.

  He thought about the woman he loved, the woman he’d lost. Her murder had been so horrible and so brutal, it had a tremendously negative effect on him, which still bothered him. A seven-foot-tall psychotic serial killer, a Lakota or Sioux, named We Wiyake, meaning Blood Feather, had killed her. Joshua Strongheart, after a year, still blamed himself for not protecting her. It made him decide he would never marry again. His work would become his life, but Strongheart was still grieving and spending much time like this in the high lonesome. He looked out over the Wet Mountain Valley and the Greenhorn Mountains on the eastern side of the emerald-colored valley. Tiny specks of ranches dotted the landscape, and to his left front he could see the growing town of Westcliffe.

  Joshua Strongheart was one of the premier agents of the famous Pinkerton Detective Agency and was a favorite of Allan Pinkerton himself. Joshua’s immediate supervisor was Lucky DeChamps, a Paris-born, very dedicated manager with the Pinkertons and Joshua Strongheart’s strongest supporter and harshest critic when need be.

  The tall Pinkerton agent’s mother was a successful store owner in northern Montana who left him a healthy inheritance and his father was a Lakota (Sioux) warrior named Claw Marks, who fathered Joshua when he had a love affair with Joshua’s mother, who was then fifteen years old. Feeling strongly that life would be too rough for her and his child, Claw Marks left her, telling her that the world would be too cruel for her and a half-red child if they stayed together as a couple. He died later heroically fighting a band of Crow warriors while serving as a rear guard for fleeing tribal members. He told Strongheart’s mother that he knew their baby would turn out to be a boy, and said he wanted to leave his knife for him. It was the size of a Bowie knife, very well made, scalpel sharp, and was carried in a fringed beaded and porcupine-quilled ornate sheath, with the instructions that it was to be kept sharp, used effectively, and treated with respect by his son. He was a member of the newly formed Strongheart Society, so he told her to use Strongheart as their child’s surname.

  She married a very courageous, tall, slender lawman, Dan Trooper, who was a harsh taskmaster for Joshua but loved him like his own son. He left him his Colt .45 Peacemaker, one of the first made by Colt firearms, which had a miniaturized copy of his sheriff’s star on the pearl handle of the gun. After spending years teaching Joshua how to handle pistols and rifles, and how to fight with his bare hands, he too left instructions that the weapon be kept clean and well oiled and only used as a tool to protect others, for self-defense, or sometimes for hunting.

  Joshua had learned several years earlier that he simply could not drink, that he had a problem with alcohol. Lucky had paid his fine to get him out of jail, in fact, over an incident that he did not even recall. He had severely injured several men in a saloon fight, and was very fortunate that Lucky was able to essentially bribe Strongheart out of the problem, but his charge was to pay him back from his pay for months. In actuality, Joshua could have paid from the generous inheritance his mother had left him, but he was very conscientious about credit.

  As he ate a delicious piece of meat, he thought about the Spanish who had come through this area decades before and reportedly left a giant cache of gold nearby on Marble Mountain in a place called Caverna de Oro, the Cavern of Gold.

  After eating, Joshua worked on tanning the hide and kept sorting his thoughts. His job as a Pinkerton agent was an important one. The big half-breed did not know it, but his business would end up becoming the model for the U.S. Secret Service. He had to be on top of things, and he knew he was not. He knew that he often sorted things out up where the eagles soar and people’s voices could not be heard. Before dark, he moved to the shore of Colony Lake and fished for cutthroat trout, and kept several nice ones. He returned to camp and cooked them up for dinner, then slept early.

  It was two hours before daylight when Eagle’s soft whinny brought him wide awake. Joshua looked at Eagle’s ears and they were pointing toward the winding trail he took to ride up to this loft. His powerful black nostrils were clearly flaring in and out. Rifle in hand, Strongheart ran over to the large rocks overlooking the trail as it rose from far below. The wind was carrying a scent up the ridge from someone or something out of sight thousands of feet below, but Strongheart could see nothing, nobody, no animals.

  • • •

  The small patrol had camped for the night one thousand feet below Strongheart. They were well back into a grove of aspen trees and one man sat on guard while the other five slept.

  The sun started to peak through the aspens above as it rose over the Greenhorn mountain range across the valley to the east. Shards of light pierced the forest veil like arrows seeking unseen targets in the dark green morass of leaves. The guard had fallen asleep right before dawn and right after he built the fire to be ready for warming his waking fellow cavalrymen. The corporal in charge chewed him out for sleeping on guard while relieving his bladder. The men stirred and started to move toward the fire and suddenly saw the tall Indian half hidden in the forest shadows. There was no hiding the sixteen-hands-tall black-and-white pinto horse he sat upon. All the men froze staring at the business end of Strongheart’s Colt Peacemaker. He had dealt with deserters before so he was not taking any chances.

  “Howdy, boys,” he said with a smile.

  “Mr. Strongheart?” the corporal said, relieving Joshua’s concern.

  He holstered his pistol, clearly seeing the relief drain from several faces.

  “What brings the cavalry up here in the mountains, Corporal?” Joshua asked.

  “We were sent, Mr. Strongheart, to find you, sir.” the cavalryman replied, “You are supposed to report to your boss with the Pinkerton Agency. They said it is top priority.”

  “Well thank you for all the effort, gentlemen,” Joshua said. “How about breakfast?”

  The corporal said, “Sure, Mr. Strongheart. We were just gonna fix hardtack, beans, and sourdough. Will, get the fire going better.”

  Strongheart said, “Instead of that, how about some fresh cougar meat and wild turkey eggs?”

  “Cougar meat,” one of the soldiers said, “Ah’m gonna git sick.”

  The corporal said, “Lion is the best wild meat there is. I’ll take some, Mr. Strongheart.”

  Joshua looked at the naysayer while he dismounted and started getting the food out of his saddlebags, and said,
“Stop and think about it, partner. Most of their diet is deer. They only feed on a fresh-killed deer a few days, and then leave it for other predators, and find another one to kill.”

  The young trooper said, “No thanks, Mr. Strongheart. Every bite I would be picturing eating mah paw’s barn cats. Ewww.”

  The other men chuckled but all except the one tried it and loved it.

  Strongheart, accompanied by the patrol, rode into Canon City two days later. They left on the train, and he rode immediately to the Western Union office.

  The telegram from Lucky said one thing, “Must talk STOP Meet in Denver STOP.”

  2

  THE ASSIGNMENT

  It was two days later that Strongheart sat down across from his boss in a small café, drinking coffee.

  “Are you ready to get back to work?” Lucky said.

  “Of course, boss,” Joshua said, “You pay me to be ready.”

  “Sacré bleu,” Lucky replied, “I want to know if you are ready to work, not that you are willing to. You have been through a great deal, my friend, but I have an important assignment if you are ready.”

  Strongheart said, “All I have is my work, Lucky.”

  “President Grant wants us to discreetly investigate criminals in his own administration,” Lucky began, “Secretary of War William W. Belknap and someone who seems to be a strong ally of his: Robert M. Hartwell, who we believe leads a large syndicate of very corrupt individuals.”

  “The Indian Ring,” Joshua replied.

  Lucky smiled, “Ha ha, you have been keeping up with things. Yes, the Indian Ring. We want a complete investigation of it. Belknap, as you know well, found out, resigned his post in disgrace, and was actually impeached by the House. Hartwell is the true leader now. Strongheart, zee, the president said that Belknap is highly visible, and he may have to end up dealing with him even more politically, but Hartwell is not as visible, and the president does not care much about his fate.”

  Strongheart simply grinned while sipping coffee. He understood the message and was thankful.

  Lucky said, “We want you now to go to your father’s people and speak with them. We have had many reports that the Lakota as well as the Cheyenne and Arapaho are banding together because of the Indian Ring. So many white men have been invading the Black Hills in search of gold, the buffalo are being slaughtered, they geeve the tribes cheap blankets and sell zee ones the government issues, and so many things.”

  Joshua took a sip of coffee and said, “Tell me about Crook.”

  Lucky motioned for the waiter and said, “We better order a meal.”

  A waiter came over, they both ordered food, and then Lucky started to explain the situation that was fast developing. Twenty-four hundred soldiers were going to try to force the Lakota, Cheyenne, and Arapaho back onto their reservations, including the band of Joshua’s father. Brigadier General George Crook had become the commander of the Big Horn/Yellowstone Expedition on May 28, 1876. It was now approaching mid-June. The day after he took command, he led a force out from Fort Fetterman with fifteen companies from the 2nd and 3rd Cavalries, five more companies from the 5th and 9th Infantries, more than a hundred wagons, pulled by more than 250 mules, and they were being joined by 261 Shoshone and Crow, who were also referred to as the Absaroka and were bitter enemies of the Lakota, Cheyenne, and Arapaho.

  Lucky explained that Crook gave orders for all the men to travel very light but to carry a lot of ammunition. When the column reached Goose Creek, the wagons and all the teamsters would bivouac there, and the infantry would mount up on mules and join the cavalry that way. Up until then, he gave orders for a quick march.

  Crook had already made a major error in March when he’d attempted to force the Lakota and Cheyenne back on their reservations. The general had actually delegated to Colonel J. J. Reynolds to continue the pursuit of a large number of Lakota and Cheyenne after Crook and his troops got stopped before they even got to the Yellowstone River by a blinding blizzard. Reynolds found a village with many guns and much ammunition and a remuda of close to 1,500 horses.

  Strongheart listened intently as Lucky explained that Colonel Reynolds attacked the large Cheyenne village with just one of the three 2nd Cavalry companies he commanded, leaving the other two behind. He attacked the camp and seized or destroyed much of the guns and ammunition, as well as the large herd of horses, but the surviving Cheyenne defenders started fighting more viciously to protect themselves and the village. Reynolds failed to bring reinforcements in to help him out.

  Strongheart spoke, “Where the white man has really underestimated the fleeing of Cheyenne and Lakota warriors is a major misconception on his part. Those tribes and some of the other tribes are realists and they know that white men are many and just keep coming. However the male populations of the tribes keeps dwindling. Often, in attacks like that the warriors run and are pursued by the army. Most commanders feel that they are afraid, but they are not. It is tactical, Lucky. They only want to fight when they are certain of winning, because they must preserve their numbers.”

  Lucky smiled, saying, “Well those Cheyenne did not give up. They kept up attacks until Reynolds’s men were exhausted. That night the cavalry troopers all fell asleep they were so tired. The Cheyenne sneaked in and got back all their captured horses.”

  Joshua grinned.

  Lucky went on, “I understand that Crook ees—I mean, is—very angry and is court-martialing Colonel Reynolds.” He took a long sip of coffee and went on, “We have been very frustrated because Hartwell always seems to be one step ahead of us.”

  Joshua said, “Then they probably have a spy somewhere in your line of communication.”

  Lucky replied, “Oui, that has been a major topic of discussion with us. Mr. Pinkerton feels that strongly and ees worried that maybe it ees someone in our organization.”

  Strongheart said, “Why don’t you put the word out today within the Pinkerton Agency that I am going to meet with the Lakota and will be leaving Denver tomorrow to speak with them because they have important news about the Indian Ring that they will only tell me. If there is a spy, maybe he will have someone try to stop me.”

  Sarcastically, Lucky replied, “Maybe we could just paint a large target on your back?”

  “I didn’t say I was planning on getting shot, Lucky,” Joshua responded, “I will watch my backtrail. If there is a spy, this might flush him out.”

  “You must give me your word you will be very careful,” Lucky replied.

  Joshua chuckled, “I am a Pinkerton Agent, not a school marm or a suffragette. I didn’t take this job, Lucky, because I wanted to run a museum or a library.”

  Lucky laughed heartily and raised his coffee cup in a toast.

  3

  THE BUSHWHACKERS

  Strongheart had not even ridden more than ten miles north of Cheyenne, Wyoming, when Eagle, his magnificent black-and-white pinto, started snorting. Eagle’s left ear started turning toward the hillock directly to the west of the trail, which ran north and south. Joshua put the spurs to the big horse and Eagle sprinted forward, and Strongheart heard the bullet crack behind his head as the big horse propelled him forward. Fifty feet on, he spun him around and drew his Colt .45 Peacemaker, firing a snap shot at the top of the bluff where the shot had come from. He ran fast until he came to the end of the low ridge, and he quickly veered left into the prairie grass, bounding around the north end of the ridgeline.

  Now, on the western side of the ridge, he saw two riders climbing into the saddles of two bay geldings. The cowboys took off south at a dead run, but it did not take long for the long legs of the sixteen-hands-tall pinto to start catching up.

  The one on the right made a big mistake and foolishly drew his .44, turned in the saddle, and tried to make a snap shot back at Strongheart. Joshua did a quick draw and fired, his bullet catching the man under his bottom rib and going through
his torso, tearing out the other side. He literally flew from the saddle and landed in a giant patch of prickly pear cactus. Obviously, he immediately started screaming in pain.

  Strongheart yelled to the other, “You want to end up like him? Just keep running!”

  The bushwhacker only thought this over for ten seconds before sliding to a stop. He spun his horse around and his hand immediately started hovering over his own .44. Strongheart slid Eagle to a stop less than ten feet away now, and they could hear the other behind Joshua moaning in the patch of cactus. Joshua knew that the man was seriously thinking about drawing.

  Strongheart said, “Mister, in his play Julius Caesar, Shakespeare said, ‘Until the day of his death, no man can be sure of his courage.’ Now the question is, do you want today to be the day of your death? If you do, just yank that smoke wagon and try going to work. I’ll make a believer of you.”

  The ambusher’s hands went up in the air still holding his reins.

  “I ain’t no hero nohow, Mr. Strongheart,” he drawled with a thick Southern accent. “Please don’t plug me, suh. Kin we check on Jim-Bob?”

  Strongheart said, “Yeah, climb down and let’s walk back to him.”

  Strongheart took the man’s reins and led the other horse and flipped Eagle’s reins over his neck. The big paint followed him as trained. If he dropped the reins on the ground, the horse would ground-rein in place and not move, but when he put them over Eagle’s neck, the horse would follow him like a puppy dog.

  Jim-Bob was screaming in pain. He was black. Joshua signaled the other outlaw to sit cross-legged where he could watch him, and he knelt down by the man, checking his wounds.

  Jim-Bob, also with a Southern accent, said, “Please help me, Mr. Strongheart. It hurts so bad.”