The Rider of Phantom Canyon

Book 4: A Strongheart Western

by Don Bendell

Genres: Action & Adventure; Historical Fiction; Westerns

Synopsis

A brand-new Western adventure from the bestselling author of Strongheart and The Indian Ring.

Cutthroat competition between railroad companies to lay track through the Royal Gorge territory is threatening to escalate into all-out war, with hired guns on both sides trading lead. If one man can bring peace to the territory, it’s half-Lakota lawman Joshua Strongheart.
 
Already looking into tales of a mysterious lone rider haunting Phantom Canyon, Strongheart braces himself to face down an army of gunfighters. But his most dangerous quarry may be a ruthless businessman with a one-track mind and a heart blacker than coal.

Release date: October 4, 2016

Publisher: Berkley

Print pages: 272

Sample

1

The Teamster

Dub Tabor was a popular teamster, mainly operating out of Bent's Fort, far to the east of Pueblo on the Santa Fe Trail. Dub was given that moniker as a child, which made him eternally grateful, as his real name was Durwood, a label he dreaded. Dub had been a very energetic and precocious lad. He grew up the son of a farmer near Wichita, Kansas. Young Dub was always running, and his pa joked with his ma that he felt Dub might have actually not been his son but the offspring of a whitetail deer.

When he was a teenager, he watched teamsters with fascination and liked how they walked along the left side of their horses, mules, or oxen. It was a practice that decades later would prompt the positioning of the steering wheel, pedals, and instruments in automobiles. While still a teen, he got his first freight wagon and started hauling goods for various clients. Working his way to Bent's Fort on the Santa Fe Trail many miles out on the prairie from Pueblo, Colorado. Now in his late twenties, he had teams of horses, oxen, and mules and several wagons. He hired a handful of part-time teamsters, who he trained himself.

On this day, he was hauling supplies back from Cripple Creek, on the western slope of Pikes Peak, and was taking the scenic, but dangerous, Phantom Canyon road. Just after the sun set and the greens and browns of cliffs and trees started melting into each other, Dub walked along the wagon on the left side of the four bay horses, heads down, pulling the heavy load. They rounded another bend in the road, and he heard a noise off to his right. By the time he rounded two more bends, it was dark and pitch-black in the trees, excepting the sharp daggers of moonlight stabbing their way between branches and leaves. The moon glowing on the towering cliffs gave the whole scene an eerie look, and Dub felt a shiver run down his spine.

He stopped the horses with a gentle but firm "Whoa!" and turned to relieve himself right there on the road. His shoulders shivered as he did so, and he laughed at himself for being jumpy. However, he had the creepy feeling that someone or something was staring at him, and he heard sticks breaking in the trees behind him. He suddenly had to go some more. Then, he turned and looked into the trees and saw a shadowy black form that stood maybe eight to ten feet tall.

Scared to death, he drew his old Schofield revolver and yelled, "Who's there?"

He saw the shadow farther down the trail, and it was moving fast through the trees. The size was enormous-wider than a grizzly bear, and much taller. His knees literally started shaking, and he fired a snapshot with the gun, knowing it was already out of range. The shot spooked the horses, and they bolted down the wagon road, merchandise in the back making louder noises banging in the wagon, which panicked them even more. His right hand was wrapped with one of the reins, which snapped around it like a bullwhip. Eyes bulging in panic, like his team of Morgans, Dub was dragged, with his right hand and arm being jerked up over his head. They rounded the next bend, and there was a cliff with a three-hundred-foot drop into a rocky canyon.

Seeing his life flash before his eyes, Dub was dragged toward the precipice, the horses now at full gallop, and he screamed as the first pair of hapless steeds ran right off the cliff, with the other two following, and pushing as well. His hand came free and his heart pounded wildly as Dub lay there watching all four horses and his wagon propel into blackness, only to hear them all crashing on the rocks seconds later, three hundred feet below.

He lay there at the edge of the darkened cliff, sides heaving, heart pounding in his ears, and he thought the veins in the side of his neck might explode through the skin. His knees were shaking so badly, he couldn't stand, and now his stomach erupted as he vomited right over the edge of the cliff. His stomach hurt, and Dub stood on rubbery knees, having to relieve his bladder again.

Tears filled his eyes, and he got up, pacing back and forth near the cliff edge. The creature, the shadow, totally unnerved him. He had never been so frightened in his life.

No wonder they call this Phantom Canyon! he thought.

On shaky legs, he stumbled forward through the darkness, his eyes darting all around. He kept looking off to his right, trying to see that giant form again and praying he would not. Dub walked rapidly, dreading what he might see as he went around each bend and praying someone would venture along, but knowing they would not. This was not a busy road by any stretch.

Dub kept one leg stepping in front of another in what could only be described as a fast walk. All his senses were on alert, and tears stung his eyes as he moved. The tears were partially because of the sadness over losing his best wagon and team of horses, but also because of the wind whipping into his face as he walked rapidly southward, straining his eyes to identify every shadow, every shape.

Dub rounded a bend into total shadow and just listened. His heart pounded so hard it was all he could hear. Then he noticed he was breathing as if he had just run a race up the side of Pikes Peak. Fear gripped him like the claws of a cougar sinking into the flesh of a panicked prey. Then, in the moonlight, he saw the shadow back behind him, moving along the cliff. This was a smaller shadow, yet still very large. It was not the humongous beast he had seen, but something closer to the ground, yet silent.

Dub turned, half running, half fast-walking down Phantom Canyon wagon road. With every bend he went around, there were new goblins and new ghosts to haunt him.

The large tom mountain lion following Dub was indeed trailing him at a distance, but that was not unusual. This lion, like all his cousins and ancestors, quite often did trail people and animals down mountain roads and paths, especially after dark. It was just a natural predatory instinct, but like most big cats, this one would never attack a human unless it was cornered, though if the prey ran it might set off an attack. It did its best to stay out of sight of the occasional humans it saw or smelled. He also had winded not only the human, but his horses, and the large creature that passed by in the trees.

The human creature was walking rapidly down the road, but not moving fast enough to trigger the predatory attack response.

Dub was shivering, looking all around, his eyes searching every shadow until they watered some more. He heard a loud snap of a branch down the road below him, and he stared into the blackness. His heart now pounded so hard, he really felt it would explode in his chest. The smaller figure behind him was large, but nothing like the one that had spooked his horses and him. It had been humongous. Dub did not know what to do, so he just moved quickly onward. The teamster did not want to run, as he might run right into the giant creature. He did not know that the decision actually prevented an attack by the cougar, as moving at a run surely would have triggered a charge.

His fast-walking continued for an hour, and at some point the mountain lion gave up the curious pursuit and returned to the smell of the dead horses that had gone over a cliff. Contrary to many beliefs, cougars did not really care much for the taste of beef, but they loved horseflesh. Ninety-eight percent of mountain lions' diet was deer, which they killed. They did not eat carrion, but the horses had just died, so the big cat would feed on them for several days, until the meat got a little tainted. The finicky cat would then abandon the meal and leave it for bears, coyotes, and other predators. Besides deer, cougars loved to eat skunks and porcupines, which they would reach under and flip on their backs, then biting their stomachs. However, these little critters only constituted two percent of a big cat's diet. Horses, especially newborn foals, were loved by pumas but hard to catch and kill. These horses that had just died would be a nice treat for the big tom for a few days. Unfortunately, Dub did not know that the cat was now long gone, and the fear of it would plague him, as well as that of the monster he was seemingly chasing down the long, winding canyon.

At every turn now, Dub wondered if the hideous creature was on one of the steep, shadowy cliffs often towering above the trail. He pictured a gargantuan monster ready to pounce on him and devour him. He had to stop, though. He had gone many miles much faster than he was used to traveling. His legs now felt like each step was calf-deep in quicksand, and he was sucking air, although he had been steadily dropping in elevation.

Rounding one bend, Dub spotted a large rocky overhang with a natural cavern going back into the mountain maybe forty feet in depth. He felt he could make a fire here and get some rest. A creek ran the length of the canyon, so water had not been a concern. He also wisely had carried a small emergency parfleche on his side with hardtack, jerked elk meat, matches, and bullets for his pistol. He soon had a small fire going in the back of the natural cavern, and despite his extreme fear, exhaustion took over, and he fell into a deep sleep.

At some point, Dub started having a nightmare, and in it a giant apelike creature was standing over him while he lay on the ground. It picked a large log out of the fire and let it cast light down on Dub, who was so frightened he could not get his legs to move. The shoulders were twice as muscular as a grizzly's and twice as wide, and the chest was more massive, too. The creature was standing and walked on two legs like a human and bared long fangs like a grizzly.

Dub wanted to scream but he could not get anything out of his mouth. Then the light from the burning log really bothered his eyes and the heat was getting unbearable. The creature started to make noises that sounded strangely like one of Dub's wagons, and it came even closer to his face. He gave a loud whimper and sat bolt upright, the bright morning sun shining directly into his face. His sides heaved in and out, and he looked all around. Dub pulled his old pocket watch out and saw that it was well past nine in the morning. He had not slept this long since the day after his wife had passed away from consumption.

It was then that Dub noticed the man. He sat in a small wagon, a two-wheeled wagon, loaded with some kind of goods, and the man was staring at Dub. The worn-out teamster jumped to his feet, wondering what was happening to him now. The man smiled and doffed his hat. Dub nodded, shivered, and turned to relieve his bladder. The man said that he had come out of Florence and was carrying supplies up to a mining claim he had filed miles up the road.

Bringing a coffeepot and some food over to the cavern, he gave his horse a rest and made breakfast for the two of them while Dub explained his tale. It was very obvious to the man that Dub was indeed frightened out of his wits. He did not know what to make of the monster story, but he did not believe in spooks and haunts. Nonetheless, he caught himself looking all around at the surrounding cliffs and trees while they spoke.

The cougar was long gone and had fed on the horses earlier, but now was sleeping on a ledge above them. Mountain lions would make a kill, almost always a deer, by attacking from a short run or jumping from above and would grab the prey on both sides of the body with their long, curved, retractable claws and then would bite the back of the spine in order to break the neck. After making the kill, a lion would feed on the intestines first, then the leg meat. After a first feeding, it would select a perch, as this one had, above the kill site and keep watch over it while it napped.

This particular tom would soon leave the horses, because a silvertip grizzly four miles away was now standing on its hind legs, nose testing the wind. Grizzlies' sense of smell, like that of all bears, was incredible. This big boar grizzly instinctively catalogued the smells entering his nostrils. He smelled some cedar trees, water from the creek, various human scents still coming off the road, and the smell of the crashed wagons, but beyond all, he smelled the spilled blood and meat of the horses. He would trot, nose working feverishly, downhill to the source of the smell. When he arrived, the cougar would begrudgingly slink away to search for more prey elsewhere. The grizzly would remain there and would not be a threat to Dub.

The man in the wagon offered to take Dub to Ca–on City to the sheriff's department, an offer that the teamster gladly accepted. He just wanted to get home, and he could not wait to tell his story again, but he wondered if the sheriff would think he was drunk. They doused the fire, buried it, and loaded up. Dub was fast asleep within one minute, sitting up on the buckboard.

They had not gone a mile when a large mule deer buck bolted from some scrub oak along the road, and Dub, in shock, sat up and drew his pistol, firing at the shaking, small trees. The horses pulling the wagon bolted, eyes wide open in panic. The driver, Jerome Taylor, who had been dozing almost, was completely relaxed and was flung from his wagon seat, landing on his back, and his head hit a rock. He was knocked out cold. The wagon traces fell down between the horses, and Dub holstered his gun, his heart still pounding wildly as he stood on the wagon seat peering down for the flying reins. The horses, in full-panic flight mode, ran into the trees alongside the road now.