by Don Bendell
“Yeah, and Robert Hartwell wants all of ya dead,” the large one said.
Skinny Tom said, “Hush up, Rufus. Why’d’ya say Hartwell’s name, ya big lummox?”
Rufus said, “Don’t matter none. We’re gonna kill these two, and they know it.”
Skinny Tom said, “Rufus, you finish off this Frenchyman in the bed here, and ole Pinkerton’s gonna start squawking. Cover yer gun with the pillow, so it ain’t so loud.”
Rufus pulled out a long hunting knife and approached Lucky menacingly. Lucky spit in the man’s face and stuck out his chin defiantly. He raged and raised the knife.
Boom!!!! He looked down, clawing at the giant gaping bloody hole in his chest, and he heard the knife hit the floor, and he realized he was looking at pieces of his lung and sternum around the edge of the large hole, the exit wound from Strongheart’s Colt .45 round that had torn through his back. His legs folded as everything went black, and he was dead before his body hit the floor.
Skinny Tom spun with his pistol only to see his right thumb disappear in a splash of blood, as Pinkerton’s shot from his Navy .36 in his shoulder holster tore off his thumb and the hammer of his .44. He screamed and grabbed his hand, as nurses and a doctor came around the hallway, but Strongheart waved them back.
Lucky and Allan Pinkerton looked at Strongheart standing in the doorway, gun in his hand.
He nodded and smiled and chuckled when Lucky said, “What took you so long, dead man?”
Skinny Tom said, “We kilt you. I seen the bullet hit yore head and knock ya off’n yer horse!”
Strongheart chuckled sadistically. “I’m a Pinkerton. We don’t die so easy, in case you hadn’t noticed.”
He caught sight of Allan Pinkerton straightening his shoulders a little more, his chest sticking out.
“Now, before the police get here and worry about your rights, you are going to give us some answers, some important ones,” Strongheart said.
Skinny Tom said, “You can go ta hell, blanket nigger! I ain’t sayin’ nothin’!”
Strongheart fired from the hip and the man’s index finger on the same hand disappeared, and Skinny Tom clutched at his hand, screaming.
Joshua grinned, saying, “Pretty please? You still have eight more fingers, ten toes, and more body parts I can shoot off. I have a lot of bullets.”
“Okay, okay, I’ll talk,” Skinny Tom cried out. “Jest fix my hand!”
Allan Pinkerton winked at Strongheart, while Lucky lay in bed, grinning.
Joshua hollered over his shoulder, “Doctor, we need assistance!”
Skinny Tom fainted as the doctor and two nurses rushed in the door. They immediately started tending to the assassin’s wounds.
In less than an hour, his whole hand was bandaged, and he was lying in his own hospital bed, but cuffed to the rails. Allan Pinkerton had a stenographer, and once Skinny Tom started spilling the beans, he held nothing back.
Strongheart and Allan were questioning Skinny Tom when Lucky, in a robe and slippers, slowly walked into the room.
Strongheart said, “You need to be in bed, boss.”
Lucky said, “No, I do not. I have been walking some since yesterday.”
Strongheart shook his head, “I knew you were too ornery to die.”
Pinkerton said, “Somebody has got to keep watch on you. Might as well be Lucky. What’s this about them killing you?”
Strongheart said, “They nicked my head and my friend Custer’s Chief of Scouts Chris Colt found me. He chased these bushwhackers away and nursed me a little.”
The doctor walked in and Allan said, “Doctor, my employee here also has a head wound, and I would like him checked out.”
Joshua started to protest but Pinkerton put his hand up, and Joshua stopped.
10
HARTWELL
Robert M. Hartwell was born in 1840 in Baltimore, Maryland. His father was a Baptist minister and his mother was a housewife. Robert was very intelligent and an excellent student in school. His one drawback was that he was stunted at birth and was extremely short and slender his whole life.
He was bullied and teased in school growing up because of his slight stature. The worst of the lot were the Baxter bullies. All the kids called them that behind their backs because it aptly described them. Both boys were very large and very mean.
Robert devised a scheme and stopped in at a general store, which had a huge selection of guns, on his way home. This was something Robert frequently did. He stared in particular at two matched derringers, .45-caliber Philadelphia derringers. They were displayed with a leather bag of ammunition and were in a felt-lined cherrywood box. One day, Robert went behind the downtown buildings and set fire to a millinery down the street from the general store. Soon, a bucket brigade was formed and everyone ran to watch. He ran into the store, unseen, stole the guns and ammo, went out the back door, and headed home, his heart pounding.
He was small but his arms were strong from splitting wood for the fireplace and cooking stove, so he soon developed the ability to absorb the recoil of both guns. He could only practice so much, because he could not come up with more power and ball for the guns.
The Baxter bullies had a farm just outside town overlooking one of the many wooded creeks in the area. Besides being mean, the two loved fishing. One summer morning, they arrived at the fishing hole with some grubs and red worms they had saved up for this day. Their plan was to catch a lot of sunfish and bluegills, and maybe a crappie or two. They sat down in their favorite spots along the creek bank, and Robert came out of hiding. Spotting him, one stood while the other remained seated. Robert grinned evilly and drew both derringers out, shooting both boys in the face point-blank. He stared at their faces in death for a few moments and then ran, undetected. Mrs. Baxter heard the distant gunshots, then thought it might be the neighbor shooting groundhogs. People were mystified at the shocking murders of the Baxter boys but the murders remained unsolved.
Robert was pretty much guiltless about the whole affair, even burning down the store just to create a diversion. What he wanted to accomplish was all that was important to him. This success would set a pattern in his life.
He learned that the woman who owned the millinery store lost everything. The store burned to the ground, but in young Hartwell’s mind, she was simply another Baxter bully to be used and cast aside for his needs. At the funeral of the two boys, it seemed like half the town showed up and many tears flowed. Instead of feeling remorse, this emboldened him. Not even a teenager yet, Robert was a complete sociopath. Worse yet, he knew that he could get away with whatever he chose to do in order to pursue whatever goal he was after.
As time passed, Robert did not grow in stature, but he grew alarmingly in ruthlessness. By the time he was full grown, he had murdered several more boys, two grown men, and one woman. In each case, it was to rob those people of large sums of money, with which he used to buy a wardrobe of respectability, or so it was in his mind.
He started acquiring gun hands and heavies, always the most ruthless, insisting that they wear expensive suits. Something psychologically made him do this, thinking it somehow made him more respectable. Little did he know that decades later, men like Alphonse Capone and Meyer Lansky would be born to a similar life, and would become known as gangsters. Hartwell always wore tailored suits and rode expensive Thoroughbred horses.
One of the defining moments of his life came in his mid-twenties. He had consorted with many bawdy-house women since his mid-teens, but he accidentally found a woman who took his breath away. She was only a few inches taller than he, which was unusual as most women were much taller. She had strawberry-colored hair and owned a large restaurant in Saint Louis, and she had inherited a very large estate from her wealthy parents in New York. Isabella did not trust banks or attorneys at all, because of her late father’s outspoken opinions.
She made the
mistake of letting Robert see her tens of thousands of dollars in cash stored in her large safe, leaving him on the horns of a dilemma. There really was not much of a moral struggle in his mind. She was a woman he cared for, yes, but this was cash that would help him further his quest for his version of power, riches, and fame. He killed her and burned her down with her house. His sacrifice was one of his nice suits, which was singed in fire. He even put a minor burn on his arm when he acted like he was trying to get into the inferno to save her when townspeople rushed up.
Now, his black horse stabled in a stock car, Robert Hartwell was on his way back to Washington, D.C., to meet with Belknap. Through his own extensive network, he knew that the Pinkertons had Skinny Tom in custody, and he knew the man’s character. He would definitely talk. In fact, Hartwell knew that he would sing like a canary. An all-out plan would need to be developed to wipe out, bribe, or blackmail the Pinkerton leadership, and Joshua Strongheart definitely would have to be killed. Hartwell wanted to get to Washington and meet with his former boss, William Belknap, and figure out the best way to do this. The ambush attempts were obviously not working at all. They also had to meet with other members of the Indian Ring to figure out how to make even more millions at the hands of the tribes who had signed treaties. They would also discuss their brand-new victory. Presidential hopeful Lieutenant Colonel George Armstrong Custer and a battalion from his 7th Cavalry regiment had just been wiped out, to a man, by a combined force of Lakota, Cheyenne, and Arapaho warriors. The only living friendly to survive was the badly wounded horse of Captain Myles Keogh, a horse named Comanche. It would be treated and live many more years in the lap of equine luxury. Major Reno and Lieutenant Colonel Benteen and their battalions were also attacked but survived in battles farther down the valley of the Little Big Horn River. This was what Hartwell had hoped for, a major red victory, which would fan the flames of hatred and anger toward the red man and only help further the goals of the Indian Ring.
The Indian Ring had already initiated and created a market for buffalo robes and had tourists even shooting bison from trains for sport, with teams of hide hunters slaughtering them by the dozens each day. Each incursion killed hundreds of thousands of bison. This was the staple of the major plains tribes such as the Lakota, Cheyenne, and Arapaho. The reasoning was, if the buffalo vanished, so would the Plains tribes. Gold had been discovered in the Black Hills, but it was a sacred ground for the Lakota and prospectors were flooding into the Black Hills.
Ephraim Johnson was far and away the largest and strongest man that Robert Hartwell had ever seen in his life. He was taller and broader than anybody they ever encountered, and he was Hartwell’s toughest and most trusted henchman. If he grabbed a table, a log, a chair, or anything, it moved.
The train started slowing down and soon was at a crawl, so Hartwell summoned Ephraim to check it out. Ten minutes later, he returned to the tin man’s private car.
He said, “Boss, there is thousands a buffalo blocking the tracks, thousands!”
Hartwell grinned, standing and fetching a Sharps .45–70 long-range buffalo rifle.
He said, “Grab weapons, boys! We’re going to shoot bison!”
As he walked through the next passenger car, Hartwell, laughing, yelled out, “Come on, gentlemen. Thousands of buffalo out here for us to shoot at, grab your weapons.”
Men rose throughout the car and followed Hartwell’s gang out the back door and soon shots rang out from all over the now-still train.
Almost blocking out the sun with his body mass, Ephraim led them forward to a flat car and Hartwell and his men took firing positions, and soon the large hairy beasts’ bodies were lying everywhere in perfect position to start rotting in the prairie sun.
Robert Hartwell smiled seeing the crimson carnage all about them. This was becoming a major strategy of the Indian Ring: getting people to kill as many bison as possible, with ridiculous strategies such as this, and manipulating the commercial market for buffalo robes. The Plains tribes were so dependent on the large herds of bison all over the frontier prairies, the Indian Ring felt that they could see the demise of the troublesome Plains tribes commensurate with the destruction of the bison. This would open up the Black Hills much more for the exploration and prospecting of gold all over the Lakota/Cheyenne/Arapaho sacred hunting grounds and there were many under-the-table deals with mining companies connected with such exploration. Having Custer killed at the hands of the red hostiles was very fortuitous, because he was very popular in some quarters as he had presidential aspirations. He felt that his former boss in Washington would have many plums for his pie from investors in trading posts all over the West, when he got there because of the Ring’s recent successes. Custer’s death was his biggest key.
11
THE BATTLE
Joshua Strongheart was grim-faced and determined as he left the hospital. He was going to Washington to find Robert Hartwell and probably kill him and all his men. This was a strange challenge, as he had never been back east where civilization was more structured, more established, more settled.
The tall half-breed was saddling Eagle when the arrow hit the wall of the livery stable high above his head. He looked up and saw it was a Minniconjou Lakota arrow, a signal to him. Someone had come to the land of the wasicun to speak with him.
Joshua saddled up and rode into the darkness in the direction the arrow had flown from. He was near the edge of the massive town, which had been growing since 1860 when it had maybe five thousand residents and within a few years its population would reach greater than one hundred thousand.
He heard a bird whistle from the trees that ran along the creek that poured into centralized Cherry Creek. Joshua swung Eagle toward the sound and the big paint stuck his ears forward, seeing the person with his large eyes and smelling them with his flaring nostrils long before Strongheart would see them. As he dismounted, the shadowy figure ran forward and threw small arms around him. It was Joshua’s beautiful cousin Lila Wiya Waste. Joshua could not help himself. He wanted to take her to the ground right there and make love to her the rest of the night. She was truly beautiful and truly loved this tall half-breed relative of hers. She reached up with both arms and pulled his lips down to hers. Strongheart kissed his cousin passionately and thoughts swirled in his head. He pictured Belle that he had loved so much and missed her touch and kisses so. He pulled away and pushed Lila back. Neither of them spoke, just stared into the other’s shadowed face.
She said, “Wanji Wambli, we must talk. Follow me.”
They mounted up and rode northwest, leaving Denver’s lights behind them and riding into the foothills, which gave way to the snowcapped peaks that were clearly visible during the day. An hour later, Lila pulled into a tight grove of trees and boulders with a small creek running through it. There was a second pony grazing there, which gave a welcoming whinny when they rode up. They dismounted, unsaddled, and Joshua rubbed Eagle down with some dry grass.
In minutes, Lila had a nice fire going, which she had already built earlier. It was clear to him she had camped here several days already. Neither spoke while Strongheart put on a pot and made coffee. He turned to see his beautiful cousin totally naked, the light on the fire dancing on the many curves of her body. Joshua poured two cups of coffee and handed one to her.
He said slowly, “My beautiful cousin, please pull your dress back up.”
She reached down, staring at him all the while, her chest heaving in and out rhythmically, and pulled the elkskin dress up, tying it over each shapely shoulder.
Joshua kept seeing the image of her nakedness, and he wondered why he had to be so principled. He wanted to hold her, caress her so badly.
He said, “Your name is Beautiful Woman, because you are. I was wrong to kiss you and will not do it again.”
She interrupted, “Why Joshua? You are in my heart, where you have lived for many summers.”
He said, “Y
ou are my cousin. You are almost like my sister.”
“No,” she said, tears filling her eyes.
“Hear me,” he said firmly. “I must speak on this. Lila, I have thought many days about Belle and how much I loved her. The wasicun had a great storyteller and his words, all his tales, have lived well beyond his death. He told a story of great love called Romeo and Juliet, and he wrote:
‘Death, that hath suck’d the honey of thy breath,
Hath had no power yet upon thy beauty;
Thou art not conquer’d; beauty’s ensign yet
Is crimson in thy lips, and in thy cheeks,
And death’s pale flag is not advanced there.’
“That was Romeo speaking to his lover Juliet, lying dead before him. He was basically telling her that she was still beautiful, even in death, and that is what I have remembered of Belle. I saw her in death, and she was butchered by We Wiyake, but in my mind here, I see her only as the beautiful woman I loved.”
Lila put her hand up and sipped her coffee.
She said, “I have brought you much news, but this is what I wanted to speak to you about. Yes, I have always loved you, Joshua, but my heart tells me to speak to you because I love you. I know you loved Belle so, and you miss her like you would miss the air if your breath was taken away from you. I must ask you a question. Have you not almost been killed by the mighty bear?”
Strongheart said, “Yes.”
She said, “And my husband was killed by the mighty bear long ago, and your father, my uncle, was almost killed by the mighty bear saving your mother. Is this not right?”
“Yes,” he said wondering what she was getting at.
“Then, why did you follow me to this place? Are there not bears here?”
“Yes,” he replied.
“Why do you ride alone all over the country where the mighty bear lives? Why do you camp at night alone, by yourself, when you know the bear will smell your food and come?” she asked.
