by Lisa Rae
*
While Tate saddled up the pack horses and headed for the Owens Mercantile store, Victor headed down the boardwalk to the telegraph office, where Brent Saunders worked. When he entered, there was an older lady in there sending a telegram, so Victor patiently sat down and waited his turn. Plus he didn’t want to talk to Brent with any other customers there, where they could possibly overhear his and Brent’s conversation.
The little old lady paid Brent after he sent her telegram, and then she finished telling him the story she started when she came in, about her nephew.
“Well mam, I’m sure you must be real proud of him,” Brent encouraged.
“Oh, Mr. Saunders you have no idea,” the old woman replied, as she slowly walked to the door of the telegraph office. “You have a good day.”
“I will ma’am, thank you.”
When the little old lady walked out of the telegraph office, Victor stood up and walked over to Brent. “Howdy Brent.”
“Hey Victor. I see the whole gang is in town. Are you headed to rob the Wells Fargo Bank?”
“Me and Tate are stocking up on supplies, while the rest of the gang goes. Matter of fact, they’ve already left … out.” Confused by what Brent just said, Victor asked, “How did you know we was going after the Wells Fargo Bank?”
“I intercepted a wire yesterday afternoon to the Colorado Springs telegraph office, for the city marshal and the sheriff to not engage or pursue the robbers, when they rob the Wells Fargo Bank,” Brent explained.
“I don’t … don’t understand.” Victor couldn’t of had a more dumbfounded or confused look on his scarred ugly face.
“Beats me! I assumed you guys had someone new on the payroll who could pull those kinds of strings.”
“If we do, then Clayton hasn’t told me about it. Is there anything else I should know about?”
“Nope, that is it.”
When Victor walked up the boardwalk to the mercantile store, he still had that dumbfounded and confused look on his face when he met up with Tate.
“What’s wrong with you?” Tate asked.
“You wouldn’t believe me if I told you …”
Chapter 8
The Phantom outlaw gang quietly rode into Colorado Springs. They didn’t want to draw attention to themselves, so they didn’t all ride in together. Clayton, Ted, and Gabriel headed straight for the Wells Fargo Bank; while Alex, Levi, and Chet came in from a different direction, and took up watch from different locations around the bank.
Clayton timed it to where they would be riding up just as the Wells Fargo Bank opened for business. Not only would the bank still have the safe unlocked and opened, but there would be less customers to tend with. As Clayton, Ted, and Gabriel climbed down from their horses and grabbed their saddlebags, the bank officer was rolling up the green shades in the windows, and unlocking the front door.
“Perfect timing. Let’s get in and back out before anyone has time to take notice,” Gabriel whispered to the other two Phantom outlaws.
All three looked both ways at where Alex, Levi, and Chet were positioned, before they walked into the Wells Fargo Bank. As they walked in, they slipped their bandanas up onto their nose, and slipped the leather thongs off their pistols. Gabriel went in last and stood guard by the front door, while Clayton and Ted went up to the teller window, with their .45 Colts drawn, aimed at the teller and bank officer.
“Hands up!” Clayton ordered, “This is a hold up! Don’t try anything stupid, and you will live to tell ‘bout this day. Now fill the saddlebags with all thet money in the safe.”
The Wells Fargo Bank officer and teller began to fill the saddlebags, as an elderly gentleman walked in. Gabriel, who was standing by the door, quickly grabbed the old man, and put his .45 Colt Peacemaker to the elderly man’s head. “Old man, just stay calm and don’t make a sound. When we get done making our large withdrawal, I’ll let you go unharmed.” Nervously the elderly man stood still.
With the saddlebags full of the bank’s currency, Clayton and Ted started to back away from the bank officer and teller, as Gabriel pushed the old man towards the teller window. “Now all of you keep your hands up till we are long gone,” Ted ordered as the three Phantom outlaws backed out the front door of the Wells Fargo Bank.
Once they were outside of the bank, the outlaws quickly ran and climbed onto their nervous horses as soon as they had them untied from the hitching rail. Turning their horses towards the street, they spurred them into action, and made for a fast get-a-way, with Levi, Alex, and Chet falling in behind them.
Just as the Phantom outlaw gang headed out, the elderly old man ran out of the Well Fargo Bank yelling, “Stop them! They robbed the bank!”
Instantly the town come alive with merchants and store owners, whose life’s savings was in that bank. Angrily they pounced on the city marshal when he stepped out of his office way down the street in the opposite direction in which the outlaws left. “Marshal, get a posse and go after those outlaw!” One yelled.
“Now simmer down everyone. The matter is bein’ taken care of,” the city marshal said, as he tried to calm the growing crowd.
“What do you mean Marshal?” A shop owner asked.
“What I mean is that the U.S. Calvary has ordered all law enforcement to stand down, and that they are handling the Phantom outlaw gang.”
As all the townspeople were talking amongst themselves, and with the city marshal, Max Ogden was listening closely nearby. Max Ogden was a ruthless bounty hunter. He didn’t care that the U.S. Calvary ordered all law enforcement to stand down. There was a $1,000 reward on the gang leader, Clayton Garret. Besides, he wasn’t the law, so why should he have to follow those orders?
Having just restocked his saddlebags, Max climbed on his horse and headed out of town in the direction the Phantom gang had gone. Once he cleared town, he spurred his horse into a steady lope after the outlaw gang. He figured the gang had enough lead on him that when they didn’t see a posse right on their tail, that they would not notice a lone man following them.
*
When Angel walked into the cook’s shack, Barry’s day brightened immensely, and it showed with the wide grin on his face as he hurried over to greet her, “Good afternoon, Angel.”
“Hello Barry,” Angel said, with a big smile.
“Would you like something to eat?” Barry asked, as he started to get nervous around her.
Nodding her head yes, she answered, “Yes please. I left out before daybreak and didn’t stop along the way to eat anything.”
“Did your trip to Canon City go well?” Barry asked, as he poured Angel a cup of coffee.
“Yes.”
When Angel wouldn’t say anything more, Barry figured he better not pry, so he went to fill a plate of food for her to eat. When he was on his way back with the plateful of food, a group of outlaws walked in and sat down at a table in the back of the cook’s shack.
One of them, upon seeing Angel, walked over to her table. “Hello Angel, may I sit and join you for supper?”
“Hello Roark. Your welcomed anytime.”
Smiling, Roark joined Angel as Barry brought her plateful of food and set it down in front of her. “I’ll take a plate of what she’s having,” Roark ordered, as he looked over the food on Angel’s plate.
After Barry brought Roark a plateful of food, he took the rest of the outlaws orders. While he was making their plates, Julianna walked in to help with the evening meal. Seeing Barry was already busy, Julianna quickly jumped in to help, and carried some of the plates over to the outlaws.
“Is that her?” Roark asked Angel in a hushed tone, as he nodded his head towards Julianna.
“Ya. She just recently found out I was his sister. Before then, she was extremely jealous of my visits, because she thought there was something going on between me and Gabriel.”
Laughing, Roark said, “Ya, I bet you had to rub it in a little too, didn’t ya?”
“Well …” Angel said, with a sheepish
smile.
Grinning … Roark started to eat his supper.
*
Victor and Tate had the pack horse string loaded and was moseying out of town. They skirted the Pikes Peak mountain range heading to the east, until they come to an old stage road going south through the mountains that took them on to Rosemont. Where they hoped to meet up with the rest of the Phantom outlaw gang.
While they were climbing up into the Pikes Peak mountain range, Tate asked Victor, “So tell me, what’s got that ugly face of yours lookin’ so bewildered?”
“Brent told me he intercepted a wire yesterday afternoon to the Colorado Springs telegraph office, for the city marshal and the sheriff to not engage or pursue the robbers when they rob the Wells Fargo Bank.”
“Re … repeat that,” Tate said, with the look of confusion on his face.
Victor repeated what he had just told Tate and then added, “When I told him I didn’t understand, he said he assumed we had someone new on the payroll who could pull those kinds of strings.”
“Do we?” Tate asked, shocked at what he had just heard.
“Like I told Brent, if we do, then Clayton hasn’t told me about it.”
“But you and Clayton go back a long ways. Wouldn’t he tell you somethin’ like that?”
“I would think so. That’s why I’m so dumbfounded by it. And if Clayton doesn’t have someone on the inside, then who is behind it?” Victor wondered, as the two outlaws rode on in silence, both pondering the information.
*
The Phantom outlaw gang first headed west to get out of Colorado Springs as fast as they could, before heading south towards the Pikes Peak mountain range. They splashed across Fountain creek and raced up into the foothills of the mountains, before they allowed their horses to slow their speed.
Levi and Alex were bringing up the rear. They had been watching their back trail closely, and had not seen anyone following. The Phantom gang was headed for the old stage road that headed south through the mountain range towards Rosemont, where they planned to meet up with Victor and Tate.
Once the gang had ridden a little ways up into the mountains, they stopped to rest their horses as they looked out on the valley below, to see if there was a posse following.
“Shouldn’t we see a posse by now?” Alex asked, as she stared intently below.
“We should. They should be at least half way to us by now,” Levi said, as he thoroughly scanned the valley below. “But all I see is that lone rider headed this way, and he don’t look like nothin’ to worry about.”
“Are you sure there’s no one followin’?” Clayton questioned in shock that they weren’t being pursued by a posse.
“Look for yourself, boss!” Levi exclaimed, as he handed Clayton the spy glass.
“Alright, we’ll take it easy on the horses. Let’s head for the spring to water them, and then keep a movin’,” Clayton ordered the outlaw gang, after he looked through the spy glass.
Once they watered and rested their horses at the spring, they went back to the old stage road and headed south again. The road was not used often, as the Ute Pass to the west of them, was a better and more desirable road to take to the South Park area.
As they followed the road south through the mountains, Gabriel was busy giving thanks to Angel for getting to Governor Whitaker in time. Had she not, it could of been a bloody mess trying to get out of Colorado Springs. He had seen the city marshal take his time as he came out of his office. If the city marshal had come out as soon as he heard the yelling, and jumped on his horse, he would of caught up to them right away before they made it out of town. And the odds are the marshal would have killed or wounded, at least a couple of them, before he turned back to round up a posse.
With everything coming together as Gabriel had planned, he relaxed his guard a little as they caught up with Victor and Tate leading the loaded down pack horses. They all turned off the stage road and headed southeast, while Levi stayed back and covered their tracks so no one would notice they turned off.
After they rode a good ways from the old stage road, the Phantom outlaw gang stopped at a gently flowing stream to water their horses again, and let Levi catch back up to them.
Victor pulled Clayton aside from the rest of the gang. “Is there something you’re not tellin’ me?”
“What are you talkin’ ‘bout Vic?”
“Well, I went to see Brent at the telegraph office before me and Tate left this mornin’, and he told me he intercepted a wire yesterday afternoon to the Colorado Springs telegraph office. It said for the city marshal and the sheriff to not engage or pursue the robbers when they rob the Wells Fargo Bank. When I told him I didn’t understand, he said that he assumed we had someone new on the payroll who could pull those kinds of strings. So I was wonderin’ why you hadn’t told me?”
“Told you! This is the first I’ve heard of it!” Clayton exclaimed, as he sat his horse and pondered the new information. “This explains why we don’t have a posse followin’ us, but it still don’t make a lick of sense.”
While the outlaw gang was now taking their time getting back to the Phantom hideout, Max Ogden the bounty hunter was quickly catching up. He had spotted their horse’s tracks disappearing on the stage road, so he started circling around the area in bigger and bigger circles, until he picked up their tracks again off to the southeast.
Max noticed at the bank of the flowing stream that there was twice as many horse tracks there, than he had originally been following. They must have met up with more members of the Phantom gang he assumed. He didn’t care at this point though, as he still had the element of surprise.
The outlaw gang had continued on from the gently flowing stream, and was now skirting a high ridge that followed the Beaver Creek hundreds of feet below them. It was an area that only the best of mountain horses could handle. It was a narrow path on the rocky edge of the side of a mountain. One false step by the horse and both the horse and rider would fall over the edge, to their death in the creek below. Once on this part of the trail, there was no turning back. The path was only wide enough to go forward.
By the time Max caught up with the Phantom gang, the outlaws were already on that narrow ledge of a trail. Gabriel and Levi were bringing up the rear, when Levi felt something whiz by his check. He saw Gabriel, who was in front of him, fly out of his saddle, suspended in mid air for a brief moment, before dropping over the edge of the cliff. A loud boom echoed in the mountains covering up the splashing sound, as Gabriel hit the ice cold water below.
“Hurry up! Someone shot Gabriel out of his saddle,” Levi yelled. Then he looked back over his shoulder to see if he could spot the shooter.
Max had already ducked behind a large boulder, by the time Levi had turned to look back his way. He figured he could keep picking them off one by one. But what he hadn’t expected, was that the outlaws carried some dynamite with them.
Levi pulled a stick out of his saddlebags, lit it with the cigarette he already had in the corner of his mouth, and threw it in the direction beyond the ledge that the rifle shot had come from. The explosion sent boulders rolling down the mountainside where he threw the stick of dynamite. The rumble of the ground under the feet of the gang’s horses made them nervous. It wasn’t long before the outlaws heard both the man and his horse scream.
“If that didn’t kill whoever was trackin’ us, then it at least slowed them way down,” Levi said to the rest of the outlaw gang. He still kept watch over his shoulder, as they continued along the ridge above the creek far below.
Once they were off the narrow mountain ledge, they hightailed it the rest of the way back to the Phantom hideout, with Levi making false trails and hiding their tracks behind them.
*
Julianna was just finishing up at the cook’s shack, when the Phantom outlaw gang rode in leading Gabriel’s horse, and the pack string of horses loaded down with the camp’s supplies. Hearing the commotion outside, Julianna stepped outside of the cook’s shack in ho
pes of seeing Gabriel. When she saw his horse and the saddle empty with dried blood on it, she started screaming hysterically.
Roark and Angel had been a couple shacks away at the saloon playing poker, when they heard Julianna scream and came running to find out what had happened. They instantly figured out the root of her hysterics, when they saw Gabriel’s empty saddle.
Hurrying over to Julianna, Angel grabbed a hold of her in a big tight hug and cried uncontrollably with her. Roark couldn’t let anyone know he was connected to Gabriel, so he turned around and took off towards the stream, to grieve alone …
The Phantom gang started to disperse in different directions, as Angel led Julianna to Gabriel’s shack while she still sobbed. Inside they sat down on the small bed, and cried in each other’s arms for a good half hour. When Angel and Julianna had went from sobs and tears pouring down their faces, to wet swollen eyes and deep breaths, Angel stood up saying, “Why don’t you lay down and rest. I’m going to go find out what happened to Gabriel. Try to get some sleep while I’m gone.”
Nodding her head, Julianna laid down while Angel covered her up with the homemade quilt. “Angel, will you come back and stay here with me tonight? I don’t want to be alone.”
“You bet. I’ll be back in a little while.” As Angel walked to the shack door she said, “You just try and get some sleep.”
Walking into the camp’s saloon, Angel wondered where Roark had disappeared to? He was not in the saloon like she expected he would be. She knew she needed to find him, and see if he was okay. But first she needed to know what happened to Gabriel?
Spotting Clayton sitting at the bar with Levi and Alex, Angel walked up to him. “Clay please tell me what happened to Gabriel?” She asked sadly, with tears in the corners of her eyes.
Clayton gave Angel a big hug and then said, “I’ll let Levi tell you. He saw what happened.”
When Angel turned to face Levi, he started telling her what he had seen. “We were headed this way from that old stage road up by Rosemont, and we was riding along that narrow mountain ledge that runs along above Beaver Creek. I’m sure you know what place I’m talking about?”
