Madigan

by R. Howard Trembly

  Whether they screamed he couldn’t remember, only that as the fire devoured the men, it also cleansed his soul of the hatred within him, and he lay down and slept for the first time since his parents’ death. When he finally awoke, he cried for his mother and father whom he would never see again.

  It was then that Madigan heard the noise behind him and turned to face a band of Kiowa braves. There were ten, maybe more. The memory of that day was hazy after all these years, and the number is unimportant. It was easy to see that one was their chief. Madigan expected to die and knew that he was ready. Instead of killing the boy, the braves took him to a town, riding through the night to get there.

  Before they turned him loose, the chief said something to the others that Madigan did not understand. One of the braves brought forth a small pouch and took some red powder from it. He then spit in his palm and mixed the powder to a paste. With this he then painted several red stripes across Madigan’s cheeks. This done, the Indians rode off in a thundering of hooves and war hoops.

  The town was called Bonner Springs because of the springs at the edge of town. He remembered almost everyone in town had a garden behind their house, and Madigan could still taste in his memory the fresh strawberries and rhubarb pies Aunt Jane would bake every Sunday in the summer. Aunt Jane, as he called her, was the schoolteacher there at Bonner Springs. Of course, she wasn’t his real aunt. She’d taken him in the very first day he showed up in town, and she liked him to call her by that name. While Madigan lived with Aunt Jane, she instilled in him the love of reading. And to this day some twenty years later, he still carried one or two books along with him to read by the campfire at night when he was alone.

  Madigan had also found out from one of the old Indian fighters in town that the paint the Indians put on his face was their way of telling others that he was a brave warrior.

  A menacing growl startled Madigan back to his senses. The trail ahead wound through thick brush and fir trees, sometimes growing right up to the edge of the trail. In the middle of the path, standing on his two hind legs, was the biggest grizzly Madigan had ever seen. His right hand edged down toward the Sharps in the saddle boot by his right leg. At the same time he urged the horses back, trying not to make any quick movements that might scare the bear into action.

  The bear stood there, his gray-black lips wrinkled back to display large yellow fangs that Madigan could almost feel tearing into his flesh, three-inch claws still dripping blood testifying to a fresh kill. The bear’s coat was a rich brown with tinges of gold where the sunlight fell on it, his head ten feet off the ground. The bear let out a woof from time to time while his little red eyes glared at Madigan as he backed the horses further away, his rifle at the ready. Madigan guessed the brute must weigh close to a thousand pounds, or more.

  He felt no desire to kill this magnificent beast, but he was scared and would have no choice if the bear decided to charge. For several minutes Madigan and the brute faced each other. Then without warning the grizzly dropped to all fours and ambled off into the brush beside the trail. Madigan watched, relieved at the confrontation coming to an end. By watching the brush moving, he was able to tell that the bear only went in a few feet from the side of the trail and stopped.

  The words of the old mountain man rang in his mind. “Never go into the brush after a bear. They may be playing you for a sucker, settin’ you up for an ambush. No animal can do it better than a big black or grizzly bear!” And from the size of this bear, Madigan thought, he must be very good at getting his food!

  Not wanting to take any chances by getting too close to the thicket where the bear was, Madigan scouted his back trail looking for a spot where he could ride around the animal without spooking him into a charge. About a half-mile back, he came to a game trail going up the side of the mountain. Taking his rifle, he set out on foot to see if it would circumvent the bear’s hiding place.

  After walking for about twenty minutes, he was well above the main trail and could see not only the bear hiding in the bushes below, but a good portion of the trail in either direction. The game path did indeed go well around the bear’s hiding place, coming out about a quarter-of-a-mile ahead and around a bend in the trail from the grizzly.

  Madigan would have to walk the horses, but it would not be hard for them to move over the path. The hiding place of the bear was backed by a natural rock wall going up to about sixty feet, so he was not worried about the bear coming at him on the game trail.

  While walking back to the horses, he chanced to see the sun flash off something metal down the trail in the distance. He stopped and waited, shielding his eyes from the sun so as to get a better view. The pure mountain air afforded him a clear picture of what was taking place further back down the trail from which he came.

  Two riders and four horses were coming fast. They were wearing hats and were fully dressed, so Madigan knew they were not Indians. And he didn’t have to be told what the riders were up to. Each man would trail a horse behind him, and when his mount gave out, he would switch to the less tired horse. The Comanches had a name for it. They called it the Death Ride. It enabled a rider to run down someone that was far ahead of him.

  So, they knew the lay of the land and were hoping to catch him off guard. And they would have too, if it hadn’t been for the bear blocking his path. He hurried to get back to the horses. At best he’d only have about an hour, maybe less. But if what he had in mind worked, it would be all the time he needed.

  Madigan led the horses up the path, keeping to the edge of the trees and out of sight from the riders coming from below. Finding a place in the trees to hide the horses, he quickly tied them and then hurried back to cover his tracks. At the rate the gunmen were coming, he doubted whether they would see them anyway, but wanted to make sure they didn’t.

  Next, he returned to the horses and led them on the path above the bear and back to the main trail. Finding a place with some grass, he tied them so they could graze a little. Then he walked back down the path to within a hundred and fifty yards of the bear and waited.

  It wasn’t long before he could hear them coming. At first it sounded like rocks falling down the side of a rocky hill. Then the sound became more distinct, that of horses’ hooves pounding the ground at a fast run. Somehow the riders must have gotten a glimpse of him on the trail ahead of them earlier. The trail twisted and turned so that at times you could see far ahead while at other times you couldn’t see more than a hundred feet.

  His guess was that they must have caught sight of him just before he stopped for the grizzly. He was almost certain they’d spotted him earlier or they would not be running the horses as hard as they were. Probably trying to overtake me without warning while I was off guard, he thought. They might have succeeded, too. He didn’t think he would have heard them coming if he’d not been expecting their company.

  Only blind luck had betrayed them to him, and he wasn’t the kind of man to throw an advantage away once he had it. How many times did man live or die because of luck, he wondered. At least today his luck was good and he hoped it would hold for another few minutes. One thing for sure-he’d know the answer either way.

  He was crouched down in the middle of the trail when the horsemen came into view. He came to his feet with the Winchester leveled at them, but he’d no intention of firing unless he was forced to. Shots might be heard by their friends. And right now he had all the company he wanted.

  Seeing Madigan in front of them brought a look of shock from both men. They’d been racing along single file, and as the trail at this point was only wide enough for one horse at a time, they knew that to turn their horses around and flee would be almost certain death. There was only one option open to them.

  “Look out!” the first rider yelled as he suddenly saw Madigan in the middle of the trail in front of him. “He’s got us covered!”

  In less than a heartbeat, they whirled their horses to the right and spurred them into the cover of brush and trees. Madigan almost lau
ghed at the sight of them doing exactly as he had planned. But what he had planned was no laughing matter.

  It all happened so fast that the horses didn’t get wind of the bear hiding in the brush. In a flash all hell broke loose, starting with a blood-curdling scream, then the two riderless horses breaking out of the underbrush at a full run. Then another scream, followed by the sound of something huge moving fast through the brush. In the next instant the grizzly came charging out into the open, blood dripping from his muzzle, his eyes showing red and fierce. The beast stopped after a few feet and rose up on his hind feet, pawing the air like a punch-drunk boxer, pieces of flesh clinging to his claws.

  For a few seconds Madigan and the grizzly faced each other, the bear glaring wildly at the man. Then like a fighter called back to the ring, the beast was gone out of sight into the brush from which he came. As a stunned Madigan watched, a tremendous growl floated through the air answered by another scream. Then all grew silent except for an occasional grunt from the bear. Madigan had never witnessed anything like this in his life and was dumfounded at what he had just seen.

  Then the realization hit him that here he sat out in the open, a mere hundred and fifty yards from a man-killing grizzly. He began to sweat and his mouth felt dry. At that moment he felt very vulnerable. After checking behind him, he quickly covered the distance back to the horses and traded the Winchester for the Sharps. Now at least if the grizzly charged he would have a gun big enough to give him a fighting chance. Still it was funny how small the Sharps looked in his hands.

  Even from this far away he could still hear the bear. After a while he decided to climb a rock to get a better view of the situation. From his position on the rock, Madigan watched the bear leaving a half-hour later, going back down the trail in the opposite direction a short way, then climbing up into the trees above.

  Even so, he waited another fifteen minutes before going down to investigate the scene of the attack. He was plenty nervous as he walked toward the clump of trees, and every few steps he would stop and listen for any sounds that might mean the grizzly was returning.

  What he saw was a scene from hell. One man was laying up against a tree, his six-gun in his hand, and it looked to Madigan that the cowboy tried to shoot himself before the great beast came back. The man needn’t have worried. He bled to death from his extensive wounds before he could get off a shot.

  Madigan was not prepared for the sight that greeted him next. The other man lay with his hands up behind his head, just as one might do while getting some rest. From Madigan’s position, all he could see was from the middle of the man’s chest on up. On a different occasion the cowboy might just be laying there sleeping. But as Madigan stepped around the bush, he grew sick to his stomach. The bear had fed on the gunman and all that remained was the top third of the body.

  Madigan’s legs suddenly felt weak and his head swam. All he could think of was to get out of there, so he ran the distance back to the buckskin, who watched his approach with interest. Soon he was galloping up the trail. In a few minutes he returned to his senses.

  It is an unwritten law of the West to bury the dead, friend or foe, and part of Madigan agonized over leaving the bodies without putting some ground over them. He tried to convince himself that there was no choice but to leave the bodies, but a conscience is a powerful thing. So he headed back to do what was right.

  That’s when the mountain man’s voice came to him again. “Never stay around where a grizzly has eaten. He’s not going far from his food, and if you mess with it, you just may be his next meal!” Good advice, Madigan thought as he reined the horses back around and rode on toward Poncha Pass. As he rode he looked down at his hands. They were shaking.

  Chapter 3

  Pete LaRue Looked down at the body in the dirt at his feet. Gonzales was a tough man to beat with a gun, yet here he lay-dead!

  “You men look around for tracks!” he ordered. “Jesus, you put him under the dirt, the rest of you follow me.” Pete LaRue walked quickly to his horse and was soon riding out with eight of his men.

  The tracks were easy to follow and from the looks of them, Pete surmised that there were two horses-one being ridden, the other probably a pack animal.

  It had taken a while before he and his men chanced leaving the protection of their cover to investigate the hilltop where the shots were heard, giving the man they were after a small head start.

  The LaRue men were a wild, unkempt lot. Most were Mexican, some with Indian blood. The rest were an assortment of hard cases brought together by the common bond of men on the run.

  Pete LaRue harbored no illusions about his position of being leader. Some men were fast with a gun, others with their fist. Pete LaRue was faster with a gun than most men, and being big and raw-boned he could more than hold his own in a fight. But LaRue ruled with a quiet strength, a strength only found in a very few-the few that knew how to use their minds as well as their brawn.

  LaRue was smart and knew that vengeance would have to be taken on whoever killed Gonzales, even though he personally knew the man had only been defending his own life. It was the cutthroat code, as long as there were enough men to place the odds heavily in their favor. As LaRue rode he silently prayed his men would lose the trail of the stranger ahead.

  The man that shot Gonzales had gotten a twenty minute head start, but with a packhorse in tow, he wouldn’t be able to travel very fast.

  LaRue and his men rode on in pursuit. At first the trail was easy to follow, but when it went into the trees it became more difficult, so the men had to spread out to find it again. Finally they found where it went out across a high plain toward the distant Rockies to the west.

  Looking far in the distance they could see dust rising and knew they were well within a mile of the man they hoped to kill. Jack Lasson was the first to break out of the trees, and was followed closely by Art Simson and a couple of the others.

  Pete LaRue knew better than to try to stop them. Jack and Gonzales had ridden together for several years, and if anybody would kill the stranger ahead, it should be him. Pete and the rest followed a short distance behind.

  They hadn’t gone more than a quarter of a mile when a puff of smoke far ahead caught Pete’s attention. The fool’s going to waste all his ammunition before we’re even in range, he thought. Then he heard the eerie noise, a noise he heard only once before. In a few seconds Jack was knocked from his saddle.

  “A Sharps!” LaRue shouted while spurring his mount back for the cover of the trees. “He’s got a Sharps! He can pick us off before we can get within half a mile of him!” he yelled to the other men who had also retreated to the safety of the trees.

  “No man can shoot that well! It’s close to half a mile he’s shoot’n from!” one of the men hollered back.

  “Then what do you think hit Jack?” LaRue asked.

  “I don’t know, but it wasn’t no bullet. Maybe he’s just playing dead. Maybe he’s afraid of whoever killed Gonzales.”

  Marty Manning, who on several other occasions had challenged LaRue for leadership, was doing the talking. It made no difference that what he said made no sense. He had the men’s attention and that’s what he wanted.

  “I don’t know what’s wrong with Jack, but I’m tellin’ ya, nobody can shoot and hit anything that far!”

  “You ever hear of a Sharps?” LaRue asked disgustedly.

  “You mean one of those buffalo guns?”

  “That’s the one I mean. Just before Jack went down, I heard a noise that I’ve heard before. It was the sound of a heavy bullet fired from a Sharps! No other sound like it in the world!”

  “You sure about that? A rifle can’t hit something at that distance!” Manning sneered.

  “I’m sure. Of course it would take one hell of a shooter. You saw what it did to Jack out there. I’d say the man at the other end of that rifle knows what it can do and he knows how to use it!” LaRue was nervous and Manning picked it up in the tone of his voice.

  �
��Are you maybe getting too old to lead us? Maybe you want to let this man get away so you won’t have to face him!” There was a taunt in Marty’s voice, a challenge to LaRue. He antagonized LaRue some more. “I’ll show the men what you really are-a coward, afraid to go after one man.”

  LaRue was angry inside but he let little of it show. He knew from years past that Manning was the real coward and, like scum everywhere, his mouth was bigger than his brains.

  “Just how would you handle this situation, Marty?” LaRue asked.

  LaRue had taken Manning off guard, and for a long moment Marty was silent.

  “He’s riding out on us right now as we sit on our butts talking! I’d go after him, that’s what I’d do!” Marty turned his horse toward the open plain. “Who’s man enough to go with me?” he shouted. Before LaRue could stop them, two other riders answered by kicking their horses out into the open, Manning following a short distance behind.

  Just like Marty, thought LaRue. Stay in the rear while others put their lives on the line. The thought hadn’t left LaRue’s mind when off in the distance a puff of smoke told him that the man was still waiting.

  “Hit the dirt!” LaRue ordered.

  For Marty Manning it was too late. As LaRue and his men watched from their hiding places, Marty was knocked off his horse. LaRue wondered if Marty had known what hit him. The other men yanked their mounts around and raced back to the sanctuary of the trees.

  At least LaRue would have no more trouble with Manning, and from the looks of the others, he wouldn’t have any problems from them either.

  “What do we do now, boss?” one of his men asked sheepishly.

  “We wait till dark, then we circle around and try to get the drop on him from behind.” LaRue felt in his heart that the man with the long gun would be gone by then. But after just losing two more men to him, he wasn’t about to do anything stupid.