About three hundred yards ahead of him was a waist-high boulder with a small stand of scrub oak around it. As soon as he saw it, Madigan knew this was the place he was looking for. He rode up and looked the spot over carefully. Seeing that it would do nicely, he dismounted and tied the horses to a tree a few yards behind the large rock. At this point, he couldn’t afford to be in a hurry. So he purposely paced himself, not too fast, not too slow. Madigan had a job to do and it would require rock steady nerves.
From his pack he pulled out a long leather sheath and laid it gently on the ground. Next he felt around for the small tin box that was so carefully packed for just such an occasion. Finding it, he laid it alongside the covered.50–90 Sharps. Madigan carried these to the rock and took the gun out of its sheath.
Madigan had always enjoyed the feel of this heavy buffalo gun, from its polished black walnut stock- fitted perfectly to the massive breech block mechanism with the heavy side hammer to the end of the long barrel with the three steel bands clamping it and the wood forearm together. This was a tool meant for one purpose-to kill at long distances. And this was precisely what he needed now.
Checking the barrel for any obstructions, but finding none, he opened and closed the breech to make sure it worked properly. With the rifle in one hand, Madigan opened the tin box with the other and withdrew a brass cartridge. He forced himself to keep his mind on the job at hand and not the riders that he knew would be coming fast.
The first bullet looked good, so he quickly checked another and then a third. Now it was time to give the men following him the shock of their lives. As he’d guessed, they had closed to about a half a mile, maybe just a little over, but close to the distance he wanted.
Chambering a round, Madigan took off his hat and placed it on the rock in front of him to protect the rifle’s finish from getting scratched. Figuring the wind to be about two notches from the north, he adjusted the sights for the distance. Then he held two beads to the left and squeezed off a shot. He was aiming for the leader, but knew if he missed, as he probably would at this range, the bullet would still have a good chance of getting one of the men following behind.
The kick of the rifle set Madigan back for a moment and he had to wait for the smoke to clear before he could see again. But when the smoke cleared, he was greeted with the sight of a clean miss. He chambered another round and was about to pull the trigger when the front rider tumbled out of his saddle. In his haste, Madigan had forgotten how long it took for the heavy bullet to go that distance.
Immediately the rest of the riders turned and raced back to the trees like the very devil was after them. Madigan quickly walked to his pack and grabbed his field glasses to get a better view. To his satisfaction, the man on the ground was not moving. He watched as the others headed for the only cover within reach, the tree line about a quarter mile back from where the man had fallen.
That the bullet carried enough power to kill at that range was a marvel to him. So maybe another try might just even things up a bit more and, at any rate, it sure couldn’t hurt.
Even if the bullet only kicked up dust close to his pursuers, it would scare the hell out of any sensible man. Madigan aimed the big rifle over the area that he saw the riders go into. Only this time, he held the sights at a point halfway up the trees they were hiding amongst.
He had already killed four men with three bullets, and to hope for another score would be asking a lot. Whether it was curiosity or survival instinct he didn’t know, but Madigan was already pulling the trigger before he’d given it much thought.
This time he was ready as the blast knocked him backward. Madigan quickly set the gun down and grabbed his glasses to see where the bullet would hit. To his astonishment, three riders had broken out of the trees at a full run. It was clear that they planned on running him down before he could get mounted and away.
They must have figured that he would shoot once, then try for the mountains a few miles away. The interval it took him to get his glasses was all the time needed for them to believe they were right and that he was riding off. They were wrong, and it cost them dearly. For an instant they rode hell-bent-for-leather, then as if in slow motion the last man jerked sideways in his saddle and slid to the ground.
“Damn,” Madigan whispered to himself, “this is a straight shootin’ cannon.” Anyway, he wouldn’t have to worry about the riders for the moment. The only horse coming towards him was riderless. He waited to make sure they’d given up, at least for the time being. Come nightfall he knew they would ride out and try to get behind him. But as long as they didn’t see him leave, they would not take another chance while it was still light.
This close to the mountains it would get dark fairly early. Madigan guessed there were maybe nine hours of usable light left. He wasn’t going to take any unnecessary chances, so he took his Winchester out of its scabbard and replaced it with the Sharps. He would keep an eye out for anyone following, and with the Sharps close at hand, he would be ready.
Keeping the small grove of trees between him and his pursuers, Madigan walked the horses due west toward the Rockies, and, he hoped, shelter from his enemies. Every once in a while he would turn in the saddle to see if there was any telltale dust that would give away any riders coming up hard behind him. There was none.
As Madigan rode, he mulled the events of the day over in his mind. He felt no guilt at having to kill, but it did bother him some that he’d been forced to without any say-so in the matter. Now he was forced to run for his life.
Another thought kept entering his mind-the two women and the gold. He couldn’t help but think that he was being pulled into this situation by some mysterious force beyond his control.
For now, all he could do was ride along and try to stay alive. He soon rode into the forest at the base of the Rockies, following a trail that turned south by southwest. The trail was rocky and sometimes steep, just wide enough for one horse at a time.
The last hour had been a gradual climb, and Madigan had to rest the horses often. There was still a good six hours of daylight left, but he was aware that he would have to make camp while enough light still remained, as it would be suicide to ride this narrow trail in the dark. He was at least four hours, maybe five, ahead of the gunmen and they would not be able to see any better in the dark than he would.
At the start of the trail he was now on, there were at least two others branching off in other directions. One of these went to a hidden lake a few hours’ ride into the mountains, while the other led to a pass much higher than Poncha Pass, which Madigan now rode towards. Unless these men were familiar with the area, they would have to guess where each trail went, and Madigan made sure that he had left no tracks on the trail below for them to follow.
For the moment he relaxed and breathed in the fragrance of the high mountains. The air had a coolness about it, yet it was more refreshing than cold. He pulled the collar of his shirt up over his neck and was soon lost in the splendor of the sights that surrounded him.
As he rode along he whistled and sometimes sang. This was bear country and he didn’t want to startle a grizzly. He remembered a mountain man once telling him that unless you were hunting bear, always make some kind of noise to let them know you are there. “Give a bear a chance to get out of your way and you’ll likely not be bothered by them,” the old trapper told him so long ago.
The trapper also told Madigan that bears seem to have good days and bad days, just like humans. On a good day they run at the first sound from you. On a bad day you could very well end up being the bear’s dinner.
“Be prepared for the worst, then when it comes you won’t be surprised,” the grizzled old mountaineer said. Although the old man of the mountains had given Madigan that advice some ten years past, he still remembered it as though it was yesterday. Another thing the old man mentioned about bears: “Never go into the brush after one. 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!”
Several times since he started on this trail, Madigan had passed bear sign. Afterward, he would have an uneasy feeling when the trail went around a bend, and the more he thought about what the old-timer said about bears, the louder he whistled. When he tired of whistling, he sang. He was sure the horses were glad when he started to whistle again.
It was getting late, so when a little clearing came into view he decided to make camp. By walking a few feet from camp, Madigan came to an outcropping of rock from which he had a clear view of the valley floor below. He figured he must have come close to fifteen miles since starting up this trail and hoped he could get some much needed rest.
Madigan lifted his binoculars to his eyes and scanned the flats below. A dust cloud marked the passage of the riders on the valley floor far to the east, and Madigan knew they would not dare try to go any further than across the valley until daylight.
Even as he stood watching, the light was fading at an alarming rate. Madigan walked back to camp satisfied that he would be safe for the night. He would trust the buckskin to warn him if any predators got too close. Before retiring, he took the precaution of tossing a rope over a branch and pulling his food pack out of reach of any fur-covered creature of the night. One last cup of coffee and it was time to turn in.
Madigan was up as usual the next morning in time to watch the sunrise in the east. It promised to be a glorious day. If it hadn’t been for the wild bunch following him, he would have stopped at the next stream to catch himself a passel of trout. The thought intrigued him, but to stop now meant almost certain death. The fish would have to wait for another time; for now he’d better plan on what he was going to do to get out of the frying pan himself, without getting into the fire.
As soon as the sun got high enough for him to see the valley floor below, he glassed the area thoroughly. About midpoint across the plains below, there was dust rising. So, they chose to go but a short distance last night, he thought. They were probably afraid he might try to sneak around behind them. All the better for me, he surmised.
Each time Madigan passed a stream tumbling down into a pool of fresh mountain water, he had thoughts of trout and the fishing trips he and his folks had taken to the mountains around Tennessee. The Tennessee mountains weren’t anywhere near the size of the Rockies, but to a seven-year old they looked mighty big.
He remembered his mother’s excitement at the prospect of going for a week into the mountains with him and his father. Madigan’s mother was a beautiful woman and would have followed her husband to the edges of hell. And, in fact, did three years later. Madigan would remember the terror of that day for the rest of his life. Sometimes he’d be wakened by the nightmares of what happened so many years before.
His family had been on their way to a new life out West when the Indians struck. It was a terrible thing for a boy to witness, and Madigan could still hear his mother’s screams as she kneeled over his father’s body as it lay in the dirt where he’d fallen from the Kiowas’ arrows. Then the Indians came and took her. There were three of them. They were ugly beasts, painted with war paint and splattered with dried blood, and they smelled of sweat and death. Madigan watched them from the wagon where she had hidden him. After they raped his mother, they cut her throat. He had wanted to cry out but was too afraid, so before they came to the wagon he crept away and hid in the trees. By then it was night and they did not see his tracks.
In the morning he waited to make sure they were gone, then took a shovel and buried his parents in the desolate land where they died. Ashamed of himself for not trying to help them, Madigan made a vow that he would find their murderers and either kill them or be killed trying.
For two days he followed the Kiowa. Hungry and tired, he made himself keep on, not knowing what he would be able to do when he caught them. The renegades did not know they were being followed and made no effort to hide their tracks, while something deep within the boy kept pushing him harder and harder to find these men and make them suffer as much as possible before he killed them.
The Kiowas did not go far-only until they found another wagon to raid. They found liquor and drank themselves unconscious. While they were passed out drunk, Madigan tied each of them to a wheel of the wagon. When they came to, the boy showed each a tintype of his mother and father so that they would know who he was and what he must do.
Then he took a cask of coal oil from the wagon, for it was a peddler’s wagon they raided this time, and poured it over the confused men. When he lit the match, the realization of what he was going to do hit the Indians and they struggled to break free from their bonds, but he’d tied them tight and there was no escape for them. The ten-year old boy dropped the flame into a small pool of oil under the wagon, and in a flash the flames engulfed the wagon and Indians together.
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 laughed 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.