The Rider of Phantom Canyon

by Don Bendell

Strongheart said, “Why did he want me dead?”

  Stones was almost in tears. “The only thing I heerd was thet you was on the side a the Denver and Rio Grande in the railroad war. Mr. Clinton wants you outta the way, cuz Big Mouth said you was a rattlesnake-mean hombre, especially when you drew iron. I seen myself he was right.”

  Strongheart led the man’s horse over, picked Stones up, and placed him backward in his saddle. He lashed his bound wrists to the saddle horn. Stones panicked again.

  Blackstone said, “What’re ya doing? Ya ain’t gonna hang me, are ya?”

  Strongheart said, “I’m going to gag you if you don’t shut up.”

  He checked his binding and mounted up on Eagle, taking the man’s reins in his hand, and headed back toward Cañon City. Stones was headed for the Fremont County Jail.

  When they got to the ambush site, Strongheart dismounted, leaving Stones there behind on his horse. He walked Eagle around and found Big Mouth’s horse, then took it to over to the body. He tied the man’s body over his saddle, walked the gelding over behind Stones’s horse, and tied the lead line around Stones’s horse’s tail and mounted up.

  Joshua got many stares as he led his equine train down into Cañon City and to the sheriff’s office. The sheriff greeted him when he rode up to the stone building on Macon Avenue. Scottie came riding up at a fast trot on his long-stepping Thoroughbred.

  He jumped down and ran over to his hero, saying excitedly, “What happened, Joshua?”

  It wasn’t the first time he had called his mentor by his first name, but he still felt funny doing so, though it also made him feel more grown-up. After all, Strongheart had insisted he call him that.

  Strongheart, grinning, said, “Well, I saw this feller riding his horse backward pulling the other one, so I thought I should lead them back to Cañon City and introduce them to the sheriff here.”

  The sheriff and the young lad both chuckled.

  Joshua said, “Come on, Scottie. You can listen in while I tell the sheriff all about it, if he has some coffee made.”

  The sheriff said, “No, but I’ll send a deputy for some good coffee from the café. You want some milk, Scottie?”

  “No, sir,” Scottie replied, puffing his chest out. “I’d like some coffee, too, Sheriff. Thank you, sir.”

  Grinning, the lawman and Strongheart gave each other a knowing look as they thought back to their own emergent teenaged years.

  Over coffee, Joshua told them both the story, beginning with his meeting with Doc Holliday and Bat Masterson. He also told the sheriff about V. R. Clinton and wondered what he knew about him.

  The sheriff said, “Loner. Total loner. He has a big, big house up in the Wet Mountain Valley, and we have not been able to find out anything about him, except he is surrounded by gun toughs and nobody but a few of them ever sees him. This Percival Schwinn you killed was one of his shootists, but the man acted like a dude. He even had notches carved in his gun.”

  Strongheart laughed out loud, interrupting. “Percival? Did you say Percival? No wonder he had a nickname.”

  The sheriff laughed and slapped his right thigh.

  He went on. “Maybe we can find out more, since you brought this Stones back alive. We do not know where his money came from, but he has bought up large parcels of land between Cotopaxi and Pueblo and just sits on it.”

  “Mighty interesting,” Strongheart said. “Wonder if we have any info on him? I’ll find out. I have to go send a telegraph about the shooting anyway. Come on, Scottie.”

  The two rode to the Western Union office and Strongheart explained as he wrote, “When you send a telegraph, you say as much as you can with as few words as possible.”

  The telegrapher said, “Mr. Strongheart, we have a telegram here for you. Came several days ago from Chicago. So much excitement with our break-in the other day, and I heard you weren’t in town.”

  Joshua said, “Break-in?”

  The telegrapher said, “Yep. Didn’t steal anything, but broke in through a side window. Telegrapher was out delivering an important telegram to a rancher way up in the north end of town, toward Red Canyon. They did steal three dollars, but that was all that was here, except for the hidden safe.”

  Strongheart read his telegram and saw it was from his boss, Lucky. “Investigate railroad war STOP We are on side of D and RG STOP Good luck STOP.”

  That answered his question about how Big Mouth Schwinn or his boss found out Strongheart was on the side of the Denver and Rio Grande.

  He wrote a quick report about the shooting and then added, “Need info on V. R. Clinton wealthy rancher south of Westcliffe STOP.”

  Now Strongheart knew where he was standing with the railroad war, but his first thought was he hoped he would not have to have a shootout with Doc Holliday and Bat Masterson. Besides them, Joshua knew they had a gang of seventy gun toughs, including the infamous Ben Thompson and Dirty Dave Rudabaugh. The latter had earned that nickname not because of his ruthless gunplay, but because of his bathing and personal hygiene habits. In short, Dirty Dave Rudabaugh was, well, usually dirty and smelly.

  Joshua remained at the Western Union office, which was at the railroad depot, while he and Lucky exchanged messages. Then Joshua and Scottie left there, riding west.

  8

  PUEBLO?

  At First Street, Strongheart stopped and instructed Scottie, “Pack your saddlebags and bedroll and tell your aunt. Tomorrow morning, we’ll leave for Pueblo for several days. Make sure it is okay with her.”

  “Okay, Joshua, but I know it will be,” Scottie said enthusiastically, and he rode off with a wave.

  Strongheart turned right and rode to Main Street, just a block away, and turned east. He walked Eagle slowly through town, not realizing that many of the people looking at him thought about the fact that they were looking at a living legend. Strongheart was unaware that some men resented him and were jealous, and that many women looked at him and thought that if only their husband possessed this good trait or that good trait of Strongheart’s, all would be better with her world. Many women also simply looked at him and pictured in their mind’s eye what it would be like making love with the tall, well-muscled, handsome romantic.

  He had planned to do a little shopping for some supplies and foodstuffs. It was much easier to ride the train between Pueblo and Cañon City and did not take that long, but Joshua wanted to make the forty-one-mile ride and poke around a little bit at some of the parcels of land that Clinton owned. Lucky did not have any immediate information or intelligence on the wealthy landowner, but pledged to check him out as much as possible.

  He shopped for some supplies and would eat in town. There was a new place simply called the French Restaurant that he wanted to try out, as he had heard some good comments about it. Because of the hot mineral springs and favorable climate, Cañon City was becoming a tourist town, so there always seemed to be a few nice restaurants around.

  Strongheart walked into the small café right at dark and saw candles everywhere, melted into the tops of empty French wine bottles.

  An attractive waitress walked up to him and said, “Bonsoir, monsieur. Welcome. Where would you like to sit?”

  Strongheart pointed at a corner table and said, “Bonsoir, mademoiselle. Comment allez-vous?”

  She looked surprised and smiled flirtatiously, flicking her long eyelashes as she replied, “Je vais bien, merci, monsieur. Et vous?”

  Strongheart smiled, saying, “Bien, merci,” as he sat down in the corner facing the door, as always.

  She handed him the menu, and he started looking at items and was impressed.

  “A wine, monsieur?” she asked.

  “Non, merci, but I am ready to order. I’ll have bœuf l’entrecôte à la Provençal et sa ratatouille, s’il vous plaît?”

  “Mais oui, monsieur! Très bien,” she said. “An excellent select
ion.”

  He said, “How did Cañon City get a fine French restaurant like this?”

  Just then the door opened, and a ravishingly beautiful woman walked in. Her hair was not just blond but looked like sunlight with melting honey dripping off of it, and it was naturally curly, yet hung all the way down her very slim waistline. Above that were a very shapely and firm bust and one of the most classically beautiful faces Joshua had ever seen.

  She smiled at the waitress, saying, “Bonsoir, Michelle. Sir, the owner of the restaurant was a very successful chef in Paris, but was bound and determined to move to America, travel to the frontier, and pan and mine for gold. After leaving many holes in the ground, he decided to return to France, but was almost broke. He discovered this was a tourist area because of the wonderful climate here, the fishing, and the medicinal hot springs nearby, et voilà! The French Restaurant was born. Do you want company for dinner?”

  He stood and held her chair for her with a smile and a nod, saying, “With such beauty, nothing could go better with fine food and this atmosphere. My name is Joshua Strongheart.”

  She said, “Helena Victoria. Please to meet you, sir. Would you like to order for me? I like everything.”

  Joshua smiled, saying, “You are easy to please.”

  She quickly replied, “I have very high standards, but am easy to please once they are met.”

  He said, “Well, with such beauty you should. And you even have a very beautiful name to go with your looks.”

  “Thank you,” she said demurely.

  Strongheart said to the waitress, “A white wine for the lady, please, and I will order for her.”

  Michelle said, “Oui, monsieur. And I need to know how you want your steak cooked?”

  “Medium rare. And bring me coffee, please?” he responded. “The lady would like coquilles St. Jacques à la Provençal et sa riz de veau et sa ratatouille.”

  “Oui, monsieur, merci.”

  She brought a glass of white wine for Helena, who nodded her appreciation, and Strongheart found himself lost in her bright green eyes. He had never seen such a striking color of eyes in his life.

  She said, “Your French is excellent, and you are eating here and not in a saloon down the street, and the way you are dressed . . . Frankly, are you an Indian or a cowboy or a world traveler?”

  Strongheart laughed. “I am a Pinkerton agent.”

  “A Pinkerton agent who speaks French?” She laughed. “That one caught me off guard. I would not have guessed.”

  Strongheart grinned. “My father was a Lakota warrior. My mother was white. She was a teenaged girl traveling West with a wagon train, but her parents were both tragically killed en route. She was left by the wagon train in Montana Territory.”

  “My word!” said Helena.

  Joshua continued, “Her parents were going to open a mercantile store, and she was left in the middle of the wilderness with two large Conestoga wagons filled with goods, then was attacked by a large grizzly bear. My father was a Lakota—you call us Sioux—warrior and he happened upon her and fought the grizzly, getting mauled horribly, but he killed it. She nursed him back to health out there in a lonely mountain valley. Nine months later, I was born, and he rode off with a wave.”

  “What a story!” she said. “How fascinating! Then what happened to your mother?”

  Joshua said, “I did not mean to get into such detail and dominate the conversation.”

  “Nonsense,” she said. “I am enthralled with the story, sir. Please tell me?”

  “Well,” he said, “please call me Joshua, not sir. They were there a little while and she knew she was in the family way. So, my father told her that they could not go anywhere and love as a couple. Their worlds were too different.”

  “Heavens to Betsy!” she said. “Then what happened?”

  “Sadly, he gave her this knife and sheath”—and Joshua pulled them off his gun belt and sat them before her—“and told her he knew they would have a son. He said he would tell his family and tribe about her, so she could travel there freely with me and I could be taught his ways. I was also to be given this knife when old enough and was to keep it very sharp and clean. Then, he hugged her, hopped on his pony, and rode off into the mountains. She never got over him.”

  “Oh,” Helena said, and dabbed at her eyes with a hanky, and then admired the knife.

  Strongheart said, “My mother opened a mercantile in a small town, where I was born. She fell in love with a tall, quiet lawman named Dan Trooper and married him. He became my father and was very strict, but I knew he loved me. He taught me to shoot and fight. My mother made a lot of money and inherited a lot, too. She made sure I got an education. That was very important to her.”

  “Oh my,” she said. “Where did you matriculate?”

  “Princeton,” Joshua said.

  “Princeton!” she said. “Did you graduate?”

  Strongheart said, “Yes, I got my baccalaureate degree.”

  “What did you major in?”

  He grinned. “Philosophy, with a minor in English literature.”

  “You just get more and more fascinating!” she cooed.

  Strongheart said, “Well, it must be your eyes, but that is the most I have ever spoken about myself, and it is enough. More than enough.”

  Their meals were brought out and served and both thought them to be very delicious.

  He finished a mouthful of wonderful steak, saying afterward, “Did you get an education?”

  “Oh yes,” she said. “I grew up back East, a very proper young lady. I went to a series of private girls’ schools and graduated from Wesleyan College in Macon, Georgia, suh,” she said, inflecting her speech with a Southern accent and a chuckle.

  “It was the first women’s college in the nation. Now, just in the past few years, they have been opening more colleges for women,” she said. “I majored in business.”

  “What brought you out West?” Strongheart asked.

  “Adventure,” she said with a smile revealing thirty-two perfect white teeth.

  This woman was taking Joshua’s breath away.

  “How is your food?” he said.

  “It is delicious,” she replied. “Here, have a bite.”

  She held a forkful of food up, and Strongheart gobbled it down.

  He said, “I hope this restaurant stays in business. This food is very good. This is a restaurant I would expect to see in Chicago, or maybe Denver.”

  He thought about her offering him the bite of her meal. That was very forward and unusual in that day and time. He knew she was teasing him, but he did not mind one bit. He briefly thought about Brenna Alexander, whom he had been seeing some when in Chicago and who he knew was serious about him. Then he wondered why he even thought anything about it. They were not betrothed. As always, although he forbid himself from thinking about it, he also envisioned his first cousin, Wiya Waste (Wee-ya Waas-Tay), whose name meant “beautiful woman.” She had always been madly in love with Joshua and had offered herself to him, but he would not let himself fall prey to her tremendous beauty and charm, because they were cousins. He still could never think about any pretty woman, though, without first thinking of her. He was very proud that she was family, because she had such quality to her.

  Helena spoke about fine restaurants in various cities, but Strongheart had to concentrate on the three men who walked in and took seats at a table nearby. They did not fit in this restaurant. These three were hard cases. One was an Apache-turned-cowboy-gunfighter, one was Mexican, and the third was white and possessed a pair of the most evil eyes Strongheart had ever seen. They were almost slits, and with his angular jawline, the man reminded Joshua clearly of a rattlesnake. Strongheart’s mind was cataloguing potential threats while politely listening to the beauty across from him. The rattler face wore twin cross-draw Colt .45s, but he had a s
uit jacket on with a bulge under his left armpit, so he had a hideout gun there, too. The Mexican did not realize it, but when he moved, Joshua could make out the outline of the knife he had sheathed down the back of his shirt, between the shoulder blades. Strongheart sensed that knife could be thrown and strike any target in the room accurately and swiftly. He also wore a .44 on his left. Strongheart could tell it had not been drawn over and over by the lack of wear and tear on the leather rough-out holster. The Apache would be his biggest threat, because like Strongheart, he wore a Colt .45 Peacemaker on his right hip and a long Bowie-sized knife on his left hip. Joshua saw that both the sheath and the holster had worn spots where this man had drawn both weapons in practice over and over. His face was expressionless, and this lack of emotion really put Joshua on the alert. These three were up to no good. He could sense it. The warrior’s sense.

  This woman sent stirrings in Joshua that made him feel very unsettled. That feeling he did not like. He was trying to be cordial, even flirty with her, but at the same time, he knew these shooters were indeed here for him, just waiting.

  After their meal, they both drank some delicious coffee while making small talk. He could even tell that the three men made the waitress uncomfortable.

  He had to act and act fast. They were shifting, unsettled themselves, and even moved their chairs so they could draw pistols if needed in the French Restaurant. The men were getting antsy and wanted to kill.

  Strongheart stood and said, “Helena, excuse me. I just remembered, I did not unsaddle my horse, and he’s been wearing it too long. I will be right back, okay?”

  She smiled pleasantly and nodded, but hated being left alone with the three men at the nearby table, who looked like miscreants. After Strongheart left, the Apache got up from the table and followed him outside. The livery stable was next door, so he slipped into the shadows, drawing his pistol, and followed where he figured Joshua had gone. He moved silently through the shadows and worked his way along the wall by one of the two big open doors and into the doorway of the large stable. A lasso dropped down from the hayloft above and fell to the ground around his ankles. It was quickly pulled tight, and the gunman was jerked upward by the force of Strongheart holding the other end of the rope, which passed over a pulley, and Strongheart went to the ground while looking up at the Apache, grinning. Joshua held up the Apache’s knife. He had grabbed it as he passed the man going upward, ripping it out of the Apache’s sheath. His gun had also fallen out of his holster and was lying on the ground at Strongheart’s feet. The Apache, seeing the knife, automatically reached for the pistol, then the knife, even though he could see it in Strongheart’s hand. Joshua tied the rope to a nearby corral post.