Strongheart (8 page)

“You gave your word to your mother?”

“Yes,” he said, “but even if I gave it to the spring keeper here, my word is my word. A man's only as good as his word.”

She smiled and looked off toward the full moon over the ridgeline.

“Something wrong, Annabelle?”

She said, “That just reminds me of someone.”

She turned around, tears in her eyes, and said, “Joshua, since I can tell you are going after those men no matter how foolish, will you give me your word on something.”

“Just ask,” he said.

“My wedding ring. You saw it,” she said. “It is the only thing I have left of my marriage. Please get it back for me, too.”

“You have my word, Annabelle,” he replied solemnly.

“Oh thank you,” she said. “To me, that is as good as having it back.”

He said modestly, “Oh, I wouldn't say that.”

She interrupted, “I would.”

She started breakfast for him while he checked out his new horse, Gabe. Strongheart found the bill of sale in the saddlebags and figured he would get sworn statements from Annabelle and the driver that the horse and gear were left to him. He had a good rough-out saddle, saddlebags, and the horse was trained to work with a hackamore instead of a bridle and bit.

The hackamore was a firm leather band going across the bridge of the gelding's nose, and when the rider would move the reins to the left, it would push down on the left nostril. Horses only breathe through their nose and not their mouth, but if the rider had light hands, the hackamore was very comfortable for the horse. If, however, the rider had heavy hands or short-reined the horse, then the hackamore could even cause a horse to rear or start bucking. Heavy hands are when a rider jerks on the reins or pulls hard. In the case of a hackamore, this would pull down hard on the horse's nose, and if held, it could cut all the air off, making the horse panic.

Joshua Strongheart would soon be riding the magnificent spotted horse and would learn that he could turn, stop, or motivate the horse with leg aids alone.

Leg aids are when you use your heels, calves, and knees to touch the horse or push on parts of the horse to turn it. For example, if you want a horse to turn left, you would slightly move the reins to the left while lightly squeezing your left calf against the horse's left side, or even touch it on the left side with a heel or spur. You could even make a horse turn faster if you also pushed inward on his front shoulder with your right knee. Gabriel was so well trained, even before Long Legs bought him, that he could feel the body lean of a rider or a leg aid and respond, even without the rider touching the reins.

Gabe was also trained to ground rein, which was critical for a traveler like Joshua who traveled long miles over large distances. What that meant was that Joshua would be able to dismount and leave his reins hanging down and Gabe would not move. At the breeder's where Long Legs bought him, the trainer had had pieces of lead line tied to logs buried in the ground. The lead lines had hooks on the ends of them. He would teach Gabe to follow him when his reins were up over his neck or wrapped around the saddle horn. However, whenever he wanted Gabe to stop and stand, he would drop the reins, and secretly do it at each lead line. Without letting the horse see it, he would hook the lead line up to the bottom of the hackamore.

He would then command, “Stand,” and walk away.

Gabriel quickly learned that if he moved at all, the band on his nose would pull down and make it uncomfortable. Horses are pattern animals, so they quickly learn and develop certain routines. Gabe found that if he moved when the reins were hanging down, it was no fun, so from then on, he would ground rein, or never move an inch, if the reins were dropped.

There were two other things Joshua would soon be learning about him. The first was that he always would come when called, whistled at, or even given a hand signal. The horse had learned even as a foal that he would get rubbed and nuzzled when he did that. This was going to be refreshing for Strongheart, because unlike so many horses just picked out of the remuda, or the horse herd with cattle, the kind so many cowboys were used to, Gabe would become Joshua's trail partner.

The second thing Joshua would learn was that Gabe had a mile-eating, very comfortable fast trot that he always went into. However, if Joshua wanted to eat up ground but slow things down, he would simply be able to say, “Slow trot,” and Gabe would trot much more slowly. The normal walk on this long-legged athletic horse was much faster than some horses' trots anyway.

Joshua returned from packing the horse and was shocked to learn that Annabelle had fixed bacon, eggs, biscuits, and coffee for him. He was hungry enough to eat the pan also.

Joshua sat down on a log by the fire and said, “How did you manage this? This is wonderful. I have had a goat inside my belly wanting to eat everything.”

Annabelle giggled. “The driver was taking a load of steaks up Copper Gulch Stage Road and was meeting a wagon from Westcliffe. The driver carries eggs and a slab of bacon with him in case of breakdowns.”

“Why would somebody in Westcliffe want steaks all the way from Canon City?” he asked. “Don't they have cows in Westcliffe, and where is Westcliffe?”

Annabelle grinned. “You eat and I'll tell you about Westcliffe.”

While Strongheart ate, she told him about the beautiful high mountain population center. Little did either know that in just a couple years silver and gold would be discovered in the area, and Silver Cliff would be started just east of Westcliffe, and both would become boomtowns. Copper Gulch Stage Road would become a very highly traveled road.

Annabelle explained that Westcliffe was located in a large, high mountain valley. The town was just under eight thousand feet in elevation and had the fourteen-thousand-foot Sangre de Cristo range directly to the west of it, and the mountains could be seen from one horizon to the other. On the east side of the valley was the Greenhorn mountain range, with much shorter peaks, rocky and covered with trees in most places. At the far south end on a clear day, you could see the twin Spanish Peaks near the border of New Mexico Territory. And to the far north end of the valley the Collegiate mountain range was visible. Joshua would be heading that way and would cross over that range later.

In 1806 the men of Lieutenant Zebulon Pike's big exploration project were the first white men, aside from the occasional mountain man or wanderer, to pass through and explore the Wet Mountain Valley, which was inhabited only by Ute Indians, grizzly and black bears, many large harems of elk, large herds of mule deer, and wolves, and the valley was so large, there were also large herds of antelope and buffalo. In 1870, a wagon road from the Wet Mountain Valley to Canon City opened up.

The first real group, besides the Utes, to settle in the Westcliffe area were German-born adventurers. A colony of these people from Chicago arrived in 1870, led by a Civil War veteran named General Carl Wulsten. Annabelle, fascinated by the area, had read the actual news story about it.

Leaving Chicago in February, the group was described this way in the Chicago newspaper account:

However, there were other residents and a few with money, such as Dr. William A. Bell, who owned land where Westcliffe was now located, Annabelle explained, and really wanted to try to get a railroad to come into the valley. Dr. Bell had already started another town, Manitou Springs, not too far west of Colorado Springs, nestled in among the northeastern foothills of Pikes Peak. General William Palmer was one of his closest friends, and at Dr. Bell's urging he came to Bell's ranch lands in 1870, the same year the colony started and ended. Palmer was the man who created the Denver & Rio Grande Railroad. He was also the founder of Colorado Springs.

Bell started Westcliffe on his own property and named it Clifton, but he changed the name to Westcliffe shortly after that. Palmer wondered if this might be the area for a southern railroad route, which eventually was going to go farther south, then right along the Arkansas River by Canon City and straight west to Salida and Poncha Springs.

The railroad would eventually be started and run in and out of Westcliffe eight years after Annabelle and Joshua's conversation, but because of rock slides, avalanches, and washout from occasional torrential rains and flash floods in each of the steep canyons running away from the valley, the railroad would eventually die out. However, even at that time, Westcliffe was gaining a reputation in the inner circles of Denver and Colorado Springs as one of the beautiful safer tourist areas to visit in Colorado. The Utes were friendly with the white man, and the other tribes usually did not come into that area.

It was almost daylight, and Strongheart could see the grayish blue skies of false dawn. He was ready to mount up. The sky was occasionally spinning, and he knew he had to keep packing strong food into his body. To that end, Annabelle packed what she could into his saddlebags, and she handed him a cloth bag.

He said, “Thanks. What's this?”

She said, “It's hoecake.”

“Hoecake?”

She laughed. “Corn dodger. The driver had some corn-meal, so I made you a bunch in the griddle. There was a jar of honey, so I stuck it in there. You can roll them up and dip them in it. I also put a bunch of coffee and his extra small coffeepot. You make sure you drink a lot of water. And try to get rest.”

He grinned. “Yes, Mother.”

She started laughing at herself and put her hands on his chest, looking up into his face. Joshua wondered if she could feel his heart suddenly beating much faster.

“Thank you so much. Please be careful, Joshua.”

He grinned at her again and mounted up.

Annabelle was still grieving her husband, but she could not help herself. This man made her heart flutter, and her face would get red just having any thoughts about him. He was so handsome, with his dark complexion, long, shiny black hair, high cheekbones, intelligent eyes, and that almost smile most of the time, even in what she knew was excruciating pain. He was tall, and he had muscles on top of muscles. Half-Indian and half-white, he was such a man of mystery, and she just knew that in his arms she would feel more protected than with any man in the world, even her late husband. Even thinking that made her feel guilty.

Joshua winked and spun the big horse around, then trotted up the stage road. He had left written directions for her to give to whoever came along the road and could get them help. He would also summon help as soon as he ran into anybody who could get messages through. Strongheart had only ridden two miles up the road when he ran into such help. A virtual posse came riding around a sharp corner, and he pulled up.

The man in front held up his hand and said, “Howdy, Chief. You happened to see the stagecoach along the road?”

Joshua felt a brief twinge of anger, but he smiled and calmly said, “I am not a chief. The stage was held up, people were killed, and the team of horses was run off. They are waiting two miles behind me. I'm after the men who held us up. I have to go.”

He kicked his new horse and saw how easily the steed could leave a crowd behind. The posse leader didn't even have time to ask the first of the many questions that popped into his mind.

Strongheart was very impressed with this flashy new horse. He was not only beautiful, he was a dream to ride. The seat was so smooth atop his back, and the gelding seemed to love trotting, which would eat up the miles. The gulch slowly climbed, with high, rock-strewn, tree-covered ridges on both sides. Every once in a while, he would pass by a pile of large boulders obviously carried there by the latest flash flood.

After several more miles, the canyon suddenly opened up and gave way to rolling small hills with piñons and stunted cedars, as well as mountain gamma grasses. Gabriel trotted up over a couple of those hills, and suddenly a high mountain valley opened up, and Strongheart looked at the snowcapped Sangre de Cristo mountain range, which ran from the left to the right, with peak after peak stretching up into the clear blue sky. The more he saw the mountains, ten miles distant, the more fascinated he became with them. These thirteen- and fourteen-thousand-footers were the most majestic Joshua had ever seen, and he had seen plenty already.