The Indian Ring

by Don Bendell

  “Life goes on,” Joshua said. “In fact, Shakespeare said, ‘The golden age is before us, not behind us.’”

  He went on, “Lucky, I need a few agents to help me. I am heading back to southern Colorado and will make sure that Robert Hartwell knows it. He will come. He is obsessed with killing me now. He cannot help himself.”

  Lucky said, “He does not want you destroying his money well. You will have your agents. Just end the Indian Ring.”

  Strongheart said, “That’s simple. It will end with the end of Robert Hartwell. The problem is the nature of man. It may not be called the Indian Ring, but there will always be such policies as long as one group has dominion over another.”

  Lucky said, “Very true. I am glad to see at least you are not full of holes again.”

  Joshua laughed, touching his bandaged upper arm, which was not visible because of his shirt’s now-repaired sleeve, saying, “Only one hole this time, but not so bad.”

  Lucky smiled and just shook his head.

  • • •

  Two days later, Strongheart got off the train in Denver and made arrangements to take one to Pueblo and then connect to another going to Cañon City. He knew that by now Robert Hartwell would wonder if they had really gotten lucky and killed him, or if he was still alive. He knew that by now, Hartwell would have sent some of his gunmen out, maybe in twos or threes to major population centers to see if Joshua would show up. He would ensure that he was seen, and he was positive that Hartwell would definitely have people in Denver, his home base and the hub of Strongheart’s travels.

  Instead of riding in a passenger car, he stayed in the comfortable and safe confines of the boxcar Eagle was traveling in. They rode away from the train station looking for any of Hartwell’s well-dressed shootists. He did not see any around the depot, so he figured since it was lunchtime, they may have gone to a saloon to have a sandwich. He rode to the saloon where Hartwell could always be found.

  Strongheart entered the saloon, and immediately spotted Kirby Hoover and Ed Ragan, another gun tough of Hartwell’s. Both wore tailored gray suits and both wore tied-down guns with double holsters. They spotted him, and he saw Kirby tap Ed and whisper something. They were back in the far corner of the saloon. At an unspoken signal, both men stood, pulling back the tails of their suit coats. Men seeing what was happening jumped up from tables and back up to both side walls of the saloon.

  Joshua said, “It does not have to be this way. You can slowly unbuckle your gun belts, and we can march to the police department.”

  Kirby snarled, saying, “You go to hell, Strongheart.”

  Joshua smiled and replied, “Naw, you two will be there in a minute. I am planning on heaven.”

  He had walked into the saloon not expecting action so fast. He also knew that the men around Hartwell were the toughest and the best gun slicks around. To outshoot them he would need an edge, and the only one he could think of was beating them to the draw. Instead of waiting for either to make a move, he drew first.

  “Draw!” he commanded, as he whipped out his Peacemaker and fired, his first bullet slamming into Kirby’s belly, folding him like a new suitcase.

  He stepped to the right, fanning his gun. The next two bullets slammed into Ed’s chest, and then his left cheek. He spun and slammed face-first into the wall, and his limp body crumpled and fell to the floor, like a burlap bag full of rags that had just been dropped. Strongheart quickly ran over to Kirby and kicked his fallen pistol away. The man started crying like a baby and screamed.

  “You gut shot me, Strongheart! Git me a doctor, please!” he yelled.

  Joshua shook his head seeing this big gun tough bawling like an infant child. He thought about the fact that so often these supposed tough guys were nothing more than scared little boys with grown-up bodies and six-shooters.

  Strongheart hollered out, “I am a Pinkerton agent! Somebody fetch the police and a doctor!”

  He looked at the saloonkeeper and remembered his times with the man before. Two Denver police officers rushed in, guns drawn, and Joshua quickly identified himself and briefed them.

  Kirby lay on the floor moaning, with tears still running down his face. Joshua knelt down next to him and said quietly, “A doctor’s coming, but you are gut shot, and you are dying. Do you want to do one thing decent in your life, for a change, and talk to me about Hartwell?

  Hoover was scared, and his chest was making a sucking noise.

  He said, “Mr, Hartwell’s in Washington, D.C. He thought you were burned up, but wanted to make sure. He told Ed and me either one of us could outdraw and outshoot you.”

  “Will the bartender here send him a telegram about me being here?” Joshua asked.

  Kirby smiled, “Hell yeah. Mr. Hartwell owns this saloon. Ya didn’t know that?”

  Joshua started to answer but saw that Kirby Hoover’s eyes were unmoving, as was his chest. He died just like that.

  He went to the police department and filled out a report, then sent a telegram to Chicago reporting the incident. He also reported that Hartwell owned that saloon.

  The next day, he boarded a train for Cañon City via Pueblo. He arrived in Cañon City that afternoon. Strongheart was glad to be back to southern Colorado. He loved the climate, especially the very mild winters, and the many days of sunshine. More than three hundred thirty days per year, in fact, and less than a foot of snow in the winter usually, often only an inch or so at a time. And even that was almost always gone by the following day.

  The following morning, Joshua rode Eagle to the west end of town, passed the big state prison, Old Max, and went to one of his favorite places by the river near the mouth of Grape Creek where it poured into the Arkansas River. Situated very close to the east entrance of the Royal Gorge, which was known as the Grand Canyon of the Arkansas, the Hot Springs Hotel was one of Joshua Strongheart’s favorite spots. It was constructed in 1873 by Dr. J. L. Prentiss of Cañon City. The hotel consisted of thirty-eight rooms. It also had a very large lobby and a large dining room that also doubled as a ballroom, which cost $38,000 to build in 1873. There was also a popular swinging bridge over the river and a railroad depot as well. When Joshua had gotten shot up in a gunfight with an outlaw gang in nearby Florence several years earlier and when he was recuperating from an attack by a large grizzly bear, he spent many days at the Hot Springs Hotel just soaking in the hot mineral water.

  He decided he had a little time before the vultures would start appearing, and his arm was very sore from the bullet graze. Strongheart almost fell asleep in the hot water.

  “Wal, youngster, I reckon I might jest as well soak these old bones, too,” said a voice that brought a smile to Joshua’s face.

  He turned to see his old white-bearded friend Zachariah Banta from Cotopaxi, about thirty miles west along the rumbling, tumbling whitewater Arkansas River.

  “Zach, what a coincidence,” Strongheart said looking at the leathery-skinned seventyish or eightyish storekeeper. “How are you doing?”

  Zach said, “Wal, I guess a whole lot better ’n’ you. I ain’t been in no shooting scrap back east, saving no purty gals.”

  Joshua just shook his head. It seemed like every place that he went in the West he would find people who knew Zach from his current or one of his many past ventures. He always knew what had happened with Strongheart long before anybody else knew.

  The township of Cotopaxi was located at the juncture of the railroad and river road between Cañon City and Poncha Springs a couple days’ ride to the west. Because of the jutting rocks around the little community, it was named after the Cotopaxi Volcano in Ecuador, which was one of the highest active volcanoes in the world. Henry Thomas, a prospector, was the man responsible for naming Cotopaxi, which he had seen in Latin America. Strongheart had a lot of history already with Cotopaxi and with Zach Banta, a man always with a twinkle in his eye and something clever to s
ay.

  Chances were, Strongheart would soon be leading or maybe stalking Robert Hartwell and his gang in that area. He could see, from the Hot Springs Hotel, the little gulch opening for Grape Creek, and he may just lead them up that gulch for starters. Strongheart was very thankful to Brenna as this was indeed his area now, and he knew it all very well. Joshua spent an hour in the mineral springs and had a good talk with Zach, telling him about his most recent adventure.

  Two hours later found him on the river road to visit his young friend Scottie Middleton. Joshua thought back to his very first encounter with Scottie.

  18

  THE HANDSHAKE

  Scottie Middleton was a towheaded youngster with freckles and an infectious smile. He had a serious set to his jaw when he looked at the imposing three-story brick Fremont County sheriff’s office and jail on Macon Street one block over from Main Street. It was 1875, and Cañon City, Colorado, home of the territorial prison, was a small bustling town enjoying the best climate in the Colorado territory, which would become a state in less than a year.

  It had been less than a year since Strongheart had lost his fiancée and true love, Annabelle Ebert.

  Scottie hitched up his homespun trousers, wiped the drainage from his nose, and walked into the big, imposing building. In the front, he first stopped and looked again at the tall black-and-white half-Arabian, half-Saddlebred gelding, Eagle, which was ridden and owned by the famous half-Sioux, half-white Pinkerton agent Joshua Strongheart. When he got inside, he saw a large sheriff’s deputy with a large muttonchop mustache.

  “Well, saints preserve us!” said the deputy. “It is a leprechaun we have here. Or is it just a strappin’ young lad?”

  “I’m a boy,” said Scottie, his jaw set despite feeling intimidated in the strange surroundings. “I want to see Mr. Strongheart, sir,” Scottie said.

  “Well, he is here visiting Sheriff Bengley,” the deputy replied. “Let me tell him you are here. And what be yer name, lad?”

  “Scottie Middleton, sir.”

  “You stay right here and have a chew on this wee bit a licorice I had back here, an’ I’ll go fetch him,” the deputy replied.

  He handed a small licorice whip to the boy, who took it with wide eyes saying, “Thank you, sir.”

  A few minutes later, the deputy had the little boy follow him and escorted him into the sheriff’s office. The sheriff sat behind his desk grinning, and the boy looked with awe at Joshua Strongheart. He took it all in with his jaw hanging at knee level. Strongheart stood and winked at Scottie. This man was such a giant in Scottie’s mind and now he was looking at him in person.

  His long, shiny black hair was hanging down his back in a single ponytail, and it was covered by a black cowboy hat with a wide, very flat brim and rounded crown. A very wide, fancy, colorful beaded hat band went around the base of the crown.

  He wore a bone hair pipe choker necklace around his sinewy neck and three large grizzly bear claws helped separate some of the rows of bone hair pipes. Just months earlier, a massive grizzly had mauled Strongheart, who’d eventually killed it with his knife and pistol, and he still bore many scars from the attack. They fit in just fine with the many bullet scars covering his body. His soft, antelope-skin shirt did little to hide his bulging muscles, and the small rows of fringe, which slanted in from the broad shoulders in a V shape above the large pectoral muscles and stopped at mid-chest, actually served to accentuate the muscular build and narrow waist that looked like a flesh-covered washboard.

  Levi Strauss had two years earlier patented and started making a brand-new type of trousers made of blue denim, which folks were calling Levi’s. They had brass rivets and Joshua had bought a couple pairs from a merchandiser, who bought them himself for $13.50 a dozen. They were tight, and they too did little to hide the bulging muscles of his long legs.

  Around his hips, Joshua wore his prized possessions: one a gift from his late stepfather and the other a gift from his late father. On the right hip of the engraved brown gun belt was the fancy holster, with his stepfather’s Colt .45 Peacemaker in it. It had miniature marshal’s badges, like his stepfather’s own, attached to both of the mother-of-pearl grips and fancy engraving along the barrel. It was a brand-new single-action model made especially for the army in 1873, and this one was a special order by his stepfather’s friend and Strongheart’s new friend Chris Colt, who was a nephew of inventor Colonel Samuel Colt.

  On his left hip was the long beaded, porcupine-quilled, and fringed leather knife sheath holding the large Bowie-like knife with the elk antler handle and brass inlays. It was left to him by his father.

  He wore long cowboy boots with large-roweled spurs with two little bell-shaped pieces of steel that hung down on the outside from each of the hubs and clinked on the spur rowels as they spun or while he walked. These were called jinglebobs.

  Joshua stuck out his hand saying, “Sir, I heard you were looking for me. My name is Joshua Strongheart, and what is your name, sir?”

  A little of the trepidation disappeared while the kid’s shoulders went back a little, and he shook hands with his hero. He tried to lower his voice and said, “Howdy, sir. My name is Scottie Middleton.”

  Joshua stuck out his hand and shook, saying, “I like that. You have a good, firm handshake and you look a man in the eye. Now, what can I do for you, young man?”

  “Well, Mr. Strongheart,” the tyke said, “I want to hire you.”

  Strongheart looked over at the sheriff and grinned.

  He replied, “You want to hire me? What makes you want to do that?”

  Scottie said, “Yer a Pinkerton agent, ain’t ya?”

  Strongheart said, “I am that Scottie. So, what is this all about?”

  “Well, sir,” Scottie said bravely but still nervously, “my pa said that you are the best there is even though you are a blanket nigger.”

  Joshua interrupted, grinning. “Son, first let’s start things off right. Do you think calling me a blanket nigger is the kind of language we should use for somebody that does not look like us?”

  Scottie hung his head and Strongheart felt bad. He knew this must be tough for him already,

  He said, “Go ahead, Scottie.”

  “Well,” Scottie said, “my ma died last year of consumption. Then some bad men come last month and killed my pa.”

  “I am so sorry, Scottie,” Joshua said. “Do you have folks to live with?”

  Scottie said, “Yes, sir. My sister and I live with my aunt Kathy and my uncle Dave, but he is a drunk and don’t amount to much. She is nice to me.”

  Strongheart said, “So what did you mean you wanted to hire me?”

  The little boy reached into his trousers and pulled out a small leather bag, He opened it and marbles rolled out on the desk. He reached in and pulled out some change and held it out.

  He said, “Mr. Strongheart, I saved me up some money and have four dollars here. I want to hire you to find the men who stole my pony Johnny Boy and get him back for me. Ma and Pa gave me Johnny Boy last Christmas, and it is all I have from them. That gang a men burnt our house down when they kilt Pa.”

  Strongheart winked at the sheriff.

  He said, “Well, Scottie, you brought too much money. I only charge one dollar to recover ponies.” He took one dollar in change from Scottie’s hand.

  Scottie beamed.

  He said, “My pa told me to always sign a paper when you make a deal. But I heard you was gonna marry that sweet Missus Ebert, the widow woman with the café and she got kilt. But I heard, before, some bad men stole her ring and you give your word you would get it back. Then I heard you went out and tracked each of them down and kilt them and got her ring back. I just want to know if you will give me your word to get me Johnny Boy back.”

  Strongheart got choked up thinking about Belle Ebert who had been murdered earlier in the year by the seven-fo
ot-tall Lakota mass murderer named We Wiyake, Blood Feather. The monster paid dearly for that, his greatest mistake ever.

  Scottie’s words snapped him out of it as he heard the little boy get choked up, too, while saying, “I can’t have my ma and pa back, but getting Johnny Boy back would be kinda like getti’ part a them back, Mr. Strongheart.”

  Joshua stuck out his hand and said, “If he is alive, I give you my word I will get him back for you.”

  The little boy proudly shoved his hand into Strongheart’s, and they shook.

  He said, “Scottie, I will need you to tell me everything that you can remember about those men. Sheriff, I remember hearing about this case and believe you had a posse after them for a while. I need to know all the details.”

  The following day, shortly before daybreak, Joshua Strongheart rode his big majestic half-Arabian, half-Saddlebred black-and-white pinto, Eagle, out of Cañon City headed in pursuit of the killer horse thieves. First though, he stopped at Scottie Middelton’s house, where he lived with his aunt and uncle, on River Street. He had to cross the Fourth Street Bridge over the fast-moving Arkansas River. The Arkansas River due west of Cañon City, where it churned its way through a rocky canyon for miles, dropped thousands of feet and produced some of the largest and wildest whitewater rapids in the world. After it poured out of the Grand Canyon of the Arkansas, which was starting to be called the Royal Gorge, the whitewater rapids disappeared pretty much, but the water still rushed with more power than most rivers in the West.

  Seeing Scottie’s place he rode up to the front of the modest home, dismounted, and Scottie rushed out of the house, grinning broadly. A middle-aged woman with a kind but haggard face walked out, and Strongheart doffed his hat to her. She was followed by a staggering brute of a man who obviously had been drinking.

  As Strongheart walked up to the group, he said, “You have a fine young man here in this nephew of yours. My name is Joshua Strongheart.” He tipped his hat brim again. This brought a big smile to her tired but pretty face.