The Indian Ring

by Don Bendell

  A very large man came out of the house dressed in coveralls like a farmer and pointed to the corrals behind the barn. The posse rode over there, following the sheriff. The farmer followed. Everybody dismounted and started stripping saddles, bridles, and other tack off of horses. Finally, Josh was untied from the saddle horn and followed the sheriff and two posse members. Two more followed behind him. All but the farmer held their guns at the ready. The farmer led them to a large well. The sheriff looked over the edge and saw a deep dry well that went down about thirty feet or more. The sun was positioned so that he could see the bottom contained a few rocks and boards.

  The sheriff stepped forward with his .45 stuck up under Joshua’s chin, saying, “All right, half-breed, have a seat on the bucket and we’ll lower ya down.”

  Joshua said, “What kind of sheriff are you?”

  “Sheriff.” The man laughed and replied, “I’m no sheriff, but my boss can sure get good printing done, huh?”

  He chortled at his own joke.

  Joshua was not laughing. He could see no escape, so he quickly looked around him and assessed the surroundings in case of future escape, which he now figured he would do.

  “Who is your boss?” Strongheart asked.

  “Get in the bucket now!” the man said.

  Joshua knew there was no way out of this with all the guns pointed his way. He would have to go down in the dry well and then try escaping. He lifted his leg and placed it between the ropes and settled his buttocks on top of the wooden bucket.

  Strongheart said, “I need my hands to hold the rope or I will fall off and then how are you going to explain a dead Pinkerton to your boss?”

  The fake sheriff nodded and the coverall-clad farmer moved over to him and freed his hands. Joshua nodded, smiled, and grabbed the rope. They started lowering him down into the dry well. The rocks and dry boards he’d seen at the bottom earlier were heartening. That meant he would have tools and possible weapons. He also had his hideout emergency pocket knife, which he carried in a pocket inside his right boot. Nobody had checked him for such a small weapon. In fact, Joshua decided that once he did indeed escape this and prevail, he would buy a small derringer to keep as a hideout gun for any future problems.

  He was soon down at the bottom of the well, and he remained in the bucket. The fake sheriff yelled down to him to get out of the bucket, and Strongheart refused. Joshua counted on the sheriff being under orders not to shoot him, probably so that Robert Hartwell could come and execute him personally and gruesomely. He wanted the rope and hoped his plan might work if he could frustrate the sheriff the way he figured he could.

  The sheriff pulled out his pistol and pointed it down at Joshua, saying, “Strongheart, you get the hell outta that bucket! Now, or I’ll shoot you.”

  Joshua had to take a risky but strong action. He yelled back up, “You have to be kidding, whoever you are! You sure aren’t any sheriff! That bucket is the only way I am getting out of here, so I am staying on top of it until you hoist me back up!”

  “The hell you say!” the angry man replied. “See how this sows yer bean crop!”

  Joshua saw a flash in the man’s hand, and he grinned. The large knife passed across the rope all the way up at the crank and sliced through it, letting the large rope fall down into the well. That was exactly what Strongheart wanted. Now he felt he could escape, and would be unbothered until the boss arrived, maybe a day later. His guess was that they had telegraphed Hartwell, and he wanted Joshua imprisoned until he could arrive and deal with him personally.

  He only had minutes left of daylight to see what materials he had to work with in the dry well bottom. There were several boards, a large hard stick, a handful of fist-sized rocks, an old pair of dirty trousers, and several pieces of twine. Joshua immediately gathered wood he would use to built a teepee-type fire, and used his little pocket knife to shave off wood to use as kindling. He cut a small section of the twine to use with the kindling to start the fire. He would wait until after dark before lighting it. In the meantime, he would sleep. Most of his activity would be at night. He correctly figured that, with the rope cut, they would assume he could not possibly escape and would just occasionally look down into the deep hole to ensure he had not miraculously figured out some way to do so. Not seeing or hearing any activity, they would probably not check as often and get more careless, simply assuming that he was safe down there until Hartwell showed up the next day.

  Joshua lay at the bottom of the well the rest of the day, feigning sleep sometimes and sometimes getting up. He would wait until somebody checked on him, looking over the edge of the well, then he figured he had a little time to work. He took the pole and started whittling the end with his knife. He was able to sharpen the blade on one of the rocks, and he continued this throughout the day. After dark, someone would come up with a torch and look down, so he kept up the same ruse throughout the night.

  It was two hours before daybreak and Joshua had just seen a lookout check on him. Now, he was ready to make his daring move. He had been preparing all night. He had carved the end of the large stick into a spear. Now, he held his first board with the end whittled to an edge, grasped the rock wrapped in his shirt, and pounded the board into the wall of the well about five feet up. He set the rock on the board close to the wall and pulled himself up and stood on the plank now sticking from the wall. He lifted the spear, and wedged it up well above the board between the walls, and now pounded a second board into the wall of the dry well five feet up. He repeated the procedure and was now standing on a board ten feet above the bottom of the well. He had placed a third board on this second one, and he pounded that one into the wall, too.

  He now stood fifteen feet up in the well and was ready to carry out the next part of his plan, but suddenly he heard spurs jangling and heading his way. Joshua thought quickly.

  • • •

  Bugger McDonald liked Robert Hartwell simply because both men were the same size—tiny—and Hartwell wielded tremendous power.

  Bugger looked down into the hole with the lantern in his hand, simply trying to be cautious. He had heard the dull thudding sound of Joshua pounding the boards into the wall, and Bugger wanted to impress his bosses by doing his job thoroughly. He knew something was wrong before his lantern could shed its full light down into the deep hole. However, a spear came up out the shadows directly below him and hit him under his chin and went up through his throat and penetrated directly into his brain. He died instantly. His body slumped lifeless over the edge of the well, and the lantern slipped from his fingers. Reacting quickly, Joshua stuck his hand out and the bottom of the lantern struck it, halting its fall, and he withdrew it and immediately inserted his fingers into the handle, grabbing it before it could descend any farther.

  Strongheart whispered, “Whew!”

  Now, he had a new challenge. He had to get Bugger’s body out of sight quickly. He wiped the point of the spear and wedged it across the well again, so he could grab it if needed. Next, he took the important well rope that was coiled diagonally around his muscular chest. He formed a double overhand knot. On the second toss, he got it around the neck of the dead Bugger McDonald. Carefully, Strongheart tightened the lasso, then using one hand pulled on the rope and lifted the dead weight of Bugger’s body up over the edge of the well and finally, with a jerk, sent it falling past him down to the bottom of the dry well. It hit the floor with a thud. It actually took him longer wiggling and shaking the rope to get the lasso loop off of the dead corpse than it did to lasso him. He finally got the rope free.

  Joshua coiled up the rope again, and attached it to the spearhead with a loose knot in a leather thong from his clothing. He reached up with the spear and was able to just get the coil of rope over the top of the crank for the well. He held the end of the rope and the weight of the coil pulled the loose knot free and the rope fell down into the well, where Josh easily grabbed it. Quickly,
the Pinkerton agent formed another loop and immediately stuck his left toe through it, like a stirrup. He stuck the end of the spear into his boot and attached it to his belt with another thong from his fringe, so it remained alongside his body, and he did not have to worry about it swinging from side to side or banging it into something.

  He pulled himself up quickly to the edge of well, peered over and saw two guards sleeping by a campfire made out in front of the main farmhouse. They seemed to be sleeping soundly, and he dropped into the shadow of the well on the far side of it opposite from the two guards. Undoing the spear, he freed it from his boot and started crawling on his belly toward the barn and corrals where his horse had been placed. Trying to stick to the shadows, it took him nearly a half hour to make it the short distance to the barn. There, he found a very alert guard looking all around with a Henry carbine in his hand. It was getting close to dawn now, but Strongheart took his time sneaking up on the man. He removed his boots and crawled around the barn, then got to his feet and went forward barefoot. Joshua was ten feet away when the man turned, bringing the rifle up. Strongheart had wanted to get close enough to stab, but had to throw the spear, with adrenaline coursing through his body. The spear actually went through the guard’s body right in the abdomen, slicing the celiac artery in the process, and the man sensed he would be dead in seconds. He instantly thought he had to fire a warning shot, but he could not pull the trigger. His fingers would not work. Then, as if in slow motion, he saw the carbine tumble from his hands onto the ground. The last thing he saw was Joshua Strongheart pulling out his .44 revolver and grabbing the Henry repeater. Everything went blank.

  Strongheart quickly searched the man’s pockets looking for clues but found nothing but tobacco and some paper money, which he left. He was so thankful that his mother took him to his father’s village circle so often as a child so he could learn the skills of the Lakota warriors. He now had the man’s Henry and pistol, so he went into the barn searching for his saddle, tack, and saddlebags. Strongheart found a well-appointed tack room and there was his gear and, surprisingly, his guns and knife.

  He quietly saddled Eagle and led him from the barn, then disappeared into the orchard, grabbing some apples as he moved along. Deep into the trees, Joshua saddled up and moved away heading into deeper woods. Strongheart identified several higher wooded hills, so he headed for them so he could look out and get a vantage point. As always, he had paid attention to what direction they had traveled in to get to the farm he was escaping from.

  13

  THE CHASE

  Joshua soon found himself atop the highest ridge around, which would not even compare with a small rise in his part of the country. Nonetheless, he got a view of the countryside around, and he took in drainages, thick woods, trails and roads, including the one they rode in on. Strongheart planned his escape routes in his mind, thinking of each possible attack. He saw movement down below and got his telescope out of his saddlebags. There was a posse following him and there was a tracker in the lead.

  “Shawnee,” Strongheart said to himself. “Let’s see how good you can track.”

  Strongheart took off down the other side of the ridge, then doubled back, reached the top of the ridge, and doubled back again down the gentle ridgeline, making three sets of tracks going both up and down the ridge. He went into a stream running along the bottom of the gulch to the east and slowly walked through the stream until he came to a rocky bank, left the stream, and carefully rode up the opposite ridge a short distance. There, he dismounted, left Eagle grazing on the wild grasses, and he went back to the stream, and covered up all signs of him leaving the waterway. He thought about even drying the grass where they came out and went up the bank, but he figured that the sun would dry the grass by the time the tracker led the posse there.

  The Pinkerton returned to Eagle, and took the leather hoof covers from his saddlebags and slipped them over each hoof, tightening them at the top of each. He then slowly walked to the top of the ridge and removed the leather horse moccasins. It was important to Joshua to remain on high ground, so he could see when Robert Hartwell was coming on their backtrail.

  He soon found a thick stand of hardwoods on the south side of the ridge overlooking the trail the posse brought him in on. It was not as high as the previous ridge and there was plenty of grass for Eagle to graze on. Strongheart made camp.

  Hokolesqua, which was a Shawnee name for “cornstalk,” was simply called Johnny in this part of the country. He was the only tracker around and was frequently hired by hunters and lawmen searching for fugitives. He had a great reputation locally, but he had never tracked anybody like Strongheart before. He was still working out the jumble of tracks going up and down the end of the ridgeline across the valley and had not even gotten to the creek yet.

  Knowing he still had hours of time separating them, Joshua made camp and built a small low smoke fire out of very dry wood, knowing the heavy cover from the oaks and maples about him would dissipate the smoke as it filtered through the tree canopy. He took a risk and decided to take a nap, sorely needing sleep.

  Joshua’s eyes opened, and he looked around. It was nearing dark. Quickly, he saddled Eagle, leaving his camp in place, and rode back to the other side of the smaller ridge he was on. Reaching a good vantage point with cover, he retrieved his telescope. Far down the valley, he spotted patches of color here and there as the posse moved along the creek. He finally spotted Johnny as he walked along the small waterway, searching for clues. Strongheart rested easy, knowing he had been very effective so far covering his trail. He decided he would nap for a few hours, every once in a while awakening and checking for both posse and Robert Hartwell.

  Eagle whinnied lightly and Joshua’s eyes came open. His hand was already on his Colt Peacemaker, and he doused the small fire and then urinated on it. He then covered the fire completely with soft dirt. Strongheart ran through the trees and saw that a second posse was coming up one end of the ridgeline, and the first with Johnny tracking was coming up the backside. The two would soon meet on both sides of his makeshift camp. Strongheart made it back, saddled Eagle, and scraped out the fire pit, quickly rebuilding it. He lit the fire and fanned the flames. He then stacked some pine boughs he had used as a bed so from a distance in the dark they might look like a sleeping man’s figure. With the flames licking up higher, he tossed nine bullets into the fire and crept away into the darkness. Retrieving Eagle, the two quietly slipped down the steep side of the ridge between the two posses.

  Down below, Strongheart slipped into the saddle and grinned as he heard his rounds now cooking off in the fire. As he hoped, both posses opened fire on the camp and each other. The large farmer with the coveralls was hit in the heart and killed instantly with the very first shot. Several men on both sides lay on the ground moaning with wounds.

  Joshua Strongheart was now in the creek bottom down below the northernmost ridge and would exit the stream on the main road. Once on the main road, his tracks would mix in with all the other tracks. He would move farther down the road, find another vantage point to see the road, yet still be far enough away that he could catch up on some much-needed sleep. If Robert Hartwell ever appeared, Strongheart would snipe him out of the saddle. He was a very destructive force, especially for the American Indian nations, and most especially the Plains tribes. It was a matter of national security and Joshua saw Hartwell as a traitor and enemy combatant. He needed to be killed on sight.

  He rode down the road over a dozen miles and was now at the end of the long valley where he could see from the high ridge before. If Hartwell came, he would have to come that way, as the railroad was that direction.

  Strongheart hid his sign well as he left the road and went into the trees and made a safe camp in a thicket with lots of sign of game, but no humans. He built a smokeless fire and a comfortable bed of pine boughs, left Eagle to graze nearby, and went to sleep. If riders came, Eagle would whinny or snort when
he smelled or heard them in the distance, and Joshua would check it out. In the meantime, he had to get caught up on sleep.

  The Pinkerton agent slept the sleep of the dead for hours. When he awakened, it was dark out, and he built up the fire a little, made breakfast and coffee. He checked on Eagle, who grazed peacefully in the trees nearby. Joshua felt much better after food and a few cups of coffee. He needed some more meat though, so he got his Lakota bow and arrows from their hiding place in his bedroll. Stringing the bow, Joshua slipped on his moccasins, and left the camp, not intending to go far.

  As the first streaks of daylight began to slice their way through the green forest canopy, Strongheart drew the bow, and launched an arrow into the left ribcage of a young whitetail buck. He was less than one hundred yards from his camp. He rolled the buck on its side and quickly field-dressed it, then cut the two scent musk hocks out of the inside of the hindleg kneecaps. He carefully cleaned his knife blade, knowing the strange gland scent could taint the rest of the meat. He carried the deer back to his camp and started cutting meat. He put a couple backstraps on the fire and ate until he was stuffed. He knew the protein, the meat, would help him be more alert and stronger, and Strongheart did not know when he might have his next meal.

  After preparing some of the meat and placing it in his saddlebags, he packed up his camp and started covering all signs of its existence. He then headed back toward the road to get a closer vantage point. Right after dismounting, Joshua spotted a group headed toward him in the distance. The group had men all dressed in suits, and then he spotted him. It had to be Robert Hartwell. In the midst of the group was a tiny man, even obviously so without Strongheart’s telescope. He was riding a large black horse, larger than the others in the group. Joshua ran to his saddle and grabbed his Winchester carbine. He found a stump where he could rest the barrel, and he ran to his saddlebags and grabbed his spare shirt, brought it back and used it as a pad for the rifle. The group was riding slowly, carefully. He would simply bushwhack Hartwell from a distance, shooting him out of the saddle.