ReadWest

by Elmer Kelton

  “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 get 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.

  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, 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, the massive grizzly had mauled Strongheart who 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 stopping at mid-chest, actually served to accentuate the muscular build and narrow waist that looked like a flesh-covered washboard.

  Levis 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 for each dozen pairs. 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-step-father and the other a gift from his late father. On the right hip of the engraved brown gun-belt was the fancy holster, which held his step-father’s Colt .45 Peacemaker. It had miniature marshal’s badges, like his step-father’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 two years earlier in 1873, and this one was a special order by his step-father’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 jingle-bobs that hung down on the outside of each from the hubs and clinked on the spur rowels as they spun or while he walked.

  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 nervous, “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 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 man 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,” as 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 Annabelle Ebert, the love of his life and fiancé who was murdered earlier in the year by a seven foot 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 getting’ 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 Strong-heart’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 Canon 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 Canon 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 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, dismounting, and Scottie rushed out of the house grinning broadly. A middle-aged woman with a kindly 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, and he tipped his h
at brim again. This brought a big smile on her tired but pretty face.

  Strongheart walked straight up to the uncle and said, “And you must be Marcus.”

  The man started to say something, but his words were shut off when Joshua suddenly reached out and grabbed him, spinning him around. He then grabbed the back of the man’s unkempt hair, then grabbed the waistline of his homespun trousers in his other hand, jerked up, and gave it a twist. Now holding Marcus up on his tiptoes, he started marching him towards the river in a rapid manner. Reaching the river’s edge, Strongheart pitched the drunk into the cold glacial-fed water. The man went under and came up ten yards downstream gasping and flailing at the water, while his family watched from the house in horror. Strongheart jogged along the river’s edge and waded into the water at a shallower spot.

  He grabbed the drunken uncle and pulled him to the water’s edge, dragging him up on the bank. The man lay there gasping and sputtering.

  He finally sat up and said, “What dja do that fer?”

  As the man flinched, Joshua reached down, grabbed him by the collar and dragged him, screaming, back into the water. He held him by the lapels and shoved his head under the fast-flowing current and held it there. After several more times, Strongheart pulled him out of the water and once again up onto the bank, where the man moaned and groaned and sputtered for several minutes.

  “I did all that,” Strongheart said, “Just to make sure I had your full attention. Are you paying very close attention?”

  “Yes sir!” the uncle said with great enthusiasm.

  Strongheart said, “Good. That is a fine young man, and he recently lost his ma and pa. He needs a strong man in his life to teach him how to grow into a man. Just like me, mister, you cannot hold your liquor. Therefore, just like me, you are making an iron-clad decision today, right now, to stop drinking. If you don’t, every time I am in town and find out you drank, you will go back into the river but a little longer each time. Do we understand each other?”

  Now, the uncle’s masculinity had been challenged, so he flexed his whiskey-muscles and straightened his back a little, hand hovering near his pistol, saying, “Yeah, wal, what if ya was to try to throw me in the river, and I yanked my hogleg and put some holes in ya first?”

  Joshua stepped forward, his own hand near his gun, saying angrily, “Go ahead, grab that smokepole, and start the dance! Please do. Skin it! Draw down on me, and see if I don’t punch your dance ticket for you!”

  Joshua moved in as the man’s eyes opened as wide as the canyon not far from them, and he obviously was in a panic, looking for a place to hide. Strongheart’s hand shot out, grabbed the uncle by the lapels, and by pulling and taking two steps backwards, he flung the uncle through the air one-handed. The man hit the river once more with a splash and came up sputtering and coughing again.

  Strongheart walked back up to the front of the house and took the reins from a broadly-grinning Scottie and mounted up. He doffed his hat to Scottie’s aunt and got a slight self-satisfied smirk and almost-hidden grin and nod of gratitude from her. He galloped away from the house, and rode towards the depot. He would telegraph Lucky, his boss in Chicago, to keep him apprised of what he was doing, then book a train to Pueblo and from there north to Denver.

  He had gotten information that a few reports stated the gang had been in Denver City and had moved into the mountains northwest of there. The pony which was not albino but pure white had been used as a pack animal. He got a train fairly quickly to Pueblo but had a two hour wait there before he could load Eagle on a car and get a seat himself.

  It was night time before Joshua had gotten Eagle fed, bedded down in a livery stable, got dinner, and a hotel room. He was going to be busy the next day, he knew.

  The following day, at daybreak, Strongheart went to the Pinkerton Agency office in Denver and started researching all the reports he could find about the gang. He found two of the alerts indicated the gang had been in a place in Denver called the Cowboy Saloon and were nothing but trouble. He would start there.

  He rode towards downtown crossing a bridge over Cherry Creek and pulled up in front of the Cowboy Saloon, which was in a two story red brick building with rooms above it. He tied Eagle to a hitching rack and went inside. He was almost knocked over by painted ladies and there was a man with gartered sleeves in the corner playing tunes on a piano. It was raucous, and he saw a number of drinkers giving him dirty looks, probably simply because he was an outsider.

  Joshua Strongheart was certainly confronted with racism plenty of times, but in the nineteenth century American West, only one third of all cowboys were white, another third were black, and the final third were either Mexican or American Indians.

  That was certainly the case with the six cowpunchers who confronted him: two were white, two were black, one was Jicarilla Apache, and one was Mexican. They came up around him at the bar giving him the evil eye.

  The bartender said, “What do you want?”

  Joshua said, “I need some information about a gang that was in here causing trouble.”

  The bartender grinned saying, “Mister, information does not go across this bar if money is not being spent.”

  Strongheart smiled, “Fair enough. There is a new drink just been around a few years I have taken a liking to. It is called iced tea. You serve that?”

  The bartender pulled a jug of sun tea from behind the counter and chipped some ice off a block, filling a mug with tea.

  He handed it to Joshua saying, “I have taken a hankering to it myself.”

  Joshua said, “Then let me buy you a glass, too. Here, this should take care of both of us.”

  He tossed ten bucks on the bar. The bartender made himself a glass of iced tea, too, and they touched glasses in salute.

  The bartender said, “The gang is called The Teamsters, ‘cause every dang one a them drove a freight wagon in this area. We got over a hundred people moving into Denver every single day, and these boys found out instead of earning honest keep it was a lot easier to steal possessions from innocent families. Their leader is a big man, even bigger than you. His name is Crabs Hamrick. Red hair and big, big frame. He grabs a hold a something, it moves.”

  Strongheart said, “That sounds like them. Do they have a white pony they are using as a pack animal?”

  The bartender said, “That’s them all right. Suspected in two killings of new settlers lately. They busted this place up and beat up one of our girls upstairs one night just out of meanness. I heard they have a hideout on the Cache La Poudre up beyond Fort Collins maybe ten, twenty miles. You know where I’m talking about?”

  Strongheart said, “I have heard from others about it. Have not been up that river myself.”

  The bartender looked at the six men who were closing in a lot on Strongheart obviously trying to make him feel uncomfortable.

  He gave Joshua a questioning look and Joshua quietly said, “That back door, what is behind it?”

  “Just empty fields then trees along Cherry Creek, why?”

  Strongheart said, “If I want to get those bad boys, first I will need to take care of these.”

  He turned around and faced the six cowhands who had obviously been doing some drinking. They each braced themselves for trouble and two let their hands hover near their six-guns.

  Joshua said, “Boys you seem very friendly, so let me buy each of you a glass of iced tea. It tastes great on a hot day especially if you add sugar.”

  One of the white punchers seemed to be the leader, and they were all young.

  He said, “We don’t need your stupid dandy boy drink, mister.”

  He started to say more, but Strongheart’s upraised hand stopped him and Joshua interrupted, “Wait, gentlemen.”

  He took a long swallow of iced tea and said, “Hate to see you pass this up. As soon as I walked in I saw what was going to happen. You don’t know me, so you guys want to come up and sniff around, pee on trees, and growl a little, and see if I act like a coyote or a rabbit.
Come with me please.”

  Curious, but still trying to look tough, they followed him to the back door. He opened it and faced the doorway.

  Strongheart said, “Just watch.”

  He set the glass with just the little bit remaining of his iced tea on the back of his hand palm down. He balanced it there, and several other patrons gathered around, curious. It was a blur when his hand whipped down and suddenly his Colt Peacemaker exploded and pieces of glass, ice, and tea flew everywhere in the back. He had drawn his pistol that fast, cocked it, and fired shattering the glass before it had even dropped five inches. Colt then smiled, spun the Colt backwards into the holster.

  The leader said, “Wow! I have never seen shooting like that anywhere! Sorry to bother ya, mister. We was just going to fun ya a little.”

  Strongheart said, “I was just leaving anyway.”

  He stopped by the bartender and asked what the glass cost.

  The bartender said, “You’re Strongheart, ain’t you?”

  Joshua said, “Afraid so. How much for the glass?”

  The man said, “No worry on the glass. When you walked in here I figgered you was Strongheart from all I have heard. I am pleased to meet you, sir. Ed LeDoux.”

  He stuck out his hand. They shook and Joshua tipped his hat.

  “Thanks, Ed. Guess I better get to Fort Collins.”

  He went out the door and the six cow-punchers walked to the door and windows and watched him ride away.

  The bartender called them over and said, “You owl-hoots better start watching who you try to tangle with. That was the Pinkerton agent Joshua Strongheart.”

  The tallest cowboy who was black and had a thick southern accent said, “Y’all hear that? Ah tole y’all he looked like trouble when he come in. I tole ya not to bother him. Ya’ll coulda got me kilt dead. Gimme a whiskey, Ed.”

  Strongheart had to take another train north where he could unload at Fort Collins, which was about sixty miles north of Denver.

  Scottie’s uncle moped around the house for the next day, and several times he started to head to his favorite saloon on the corner of 4th Street and Main Street. Each time, he thought about his dunking and the look on Strongheart’s face when he braced him and that stopped him. He remembered most being flung through the air, one–handed, like he was a ragdoll.