The Rider of Phantom Canyon Page 2
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 Cañon 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.
Panicked himself, Dub started yelling, “Whoa, boys! Whoa!”
* * *
It was almost dark when Jerome sat up, shaking his head and looking around. He was totally confused and disoriented. He stood on rubbery knees and walked over to a rivulet of water running down the roadside cliff. He cupped his hands, splashing water all over his face. Jerome did not know what had happened, but he did remember meeting this Dub hombre who’d scared him half to death with tales of a ten-foot-tall, hairy monster.
Thinking of that, he started moving ahead as quickly as he could on wobbly legs. His head ached horribly, but he had to head toward Cañon City. Jerome was very nervous, almost as bad as Dub had been. He finally came to a spot along the wide trail where he knew there was an overhang right below the rock outcropping he saw. He had weathered there five years earlier during a major spring thunderstorm. He would stay there, build a fire, and hope to be safe until daylight.
Jerome found the small cave and grabbed some squaw wood to start a fire. He soon had one going, and he then ventured out to break off some branches to make himself a bed. An hour later, he was fast asleep and slumbered fitfully.
In the morning, at full light, Jerome started walking . . . fast. He could not get to town soon enough. He saw the tracks of his stampeding horses and then figured he must have been thrown from his wagon. Following them around one of the many turns in the road, he gasped.
He clearly saw the tracks of his wagon and horses going into the trees, and there before him about eight feet up off the ground, he saw the limp figure of Dub Tabor, neck broken and wedged in the V of an extended, large cottonwood limb. The tracks told the story, and he hung his head down as he walked past the body. He could tell the man was wedged firmly into the tight V of the limb, and there was no way he could retrieve the body.
Two hours of walking brought him to the team and wagon. The horses, still in their harness, were grazing on tall green roadside grasses, and a small stream ran down the side of the ridgeline nearby. Jerome thought about going back with the wagon to cut the branch down and take the body back with him, but he thought better of it. The frightened man pictured every sort of monster imaginable, and he wondered if the phantom was watching him now. His mind raced as he tried to figure out what had happened. He clearly remembered his talk with Dub about the large, hairy, black creature he had seen that ran his team over the cliff, and about the creature stalking him. He remembered it was at least eight feet tall and wider than a pair of oxen.
It was all he could do to keep his panic in check and not run his horses to death all the way to the mouth of Phantom Canyon. Finally egressing the twisting, turning canyon, he went uphill for a mile or so and emerged at the beginning of the prairie stretching to the east. To his right was Cañon City, now only a few miles distant. In two hours, he pulled up in front of the Fremont County sheriff’s office and tied his team at the hitching rail and watering trough out front. He had quite a tale to tell and knew many deputies and others would be going back to Phantom Canyon to investigate and retrieve the body. He wondered if they would want him to lead them back to where the body of Dub was hanging from the tree. That was the last thing he ever wanted to do. Jerome did not want to go to Phantom Canyon again. He now knew the legend about the phantom was not a tale. It was something to be feared, and he wondered if there was anybody, anywhere who could find and conquer the monster.
2
CHICAGO
Men tried to envision the shapely body and long, muscular legs under the classy gold lamé dress, while women watching the duo walking down the well-lit Chicago street marveled at the man at her side. He was much taller than other men, with a similar waistline to most, yet he had a chest and shoulders much larger than just about any man. The suit he wore strained to contain the bulging muscles all over his body. Properly tailored, it hid the specially designed Colt .45 Peacemaker with a tiny lawman’s badge on either side of the ivory handle, an inheritance from his stern but fatherly stepdad. The back of his suit jacket also hid the large fringed and porcupine quill–decorated sheath of the razor-sharp, antler-handled Bowie-size knife, an inheritance from his biological father, a Lakota warrior named Claw Marks who left this man’s white mother to a life that would be productive and less complicated without a “red savage” in her world.
The pair were leisurely walking and talking after having dinner on Randolph Street, the site of numerous restaurants in Chicago. As they passed under a gas streetlamp, he looked over and stared into her deep brown, smiling eyes. She did the same to him, and it seemed as if they had aimed bows of passion at each other loaded with arrows of desire. They stopped and faced each other, and each of their lips slowly moved toward the other’s. The arrows had been released and were flying true. Their lips came together.
“Well, lookee here, boys. One a them blanket niggers come off the reservation and thinks he is gonna git hisself a white woman,” came a voice from behind them.
They both pulled apart, and the man, Joshua Strongheart, pushed her protectively behind him. He face
d the gang of five who had come up behind him. All of them were obviously drunk. They also were all angry railroad workers, taking part in the nationwide railroad strike that had begun a month earlier in Baltimore and quickly spread across the country. These ruffians were angry at the management of several railroad lines, but were now focusing their anger on Strongheart, the half-breed premier Pinkerton agent.
The beauty, Brenna Alexander, tried to step around Joshua to confront the men, too, but Strongheart’s sinewy arm pushed her back out of harm’s way.
He turned and softly commanded, “Brenna, go sit on that bench. I’ll just be a minute.”
Seeing the command presence he had when he spoke, she immediately went to the nearby street-side bench and sat obediently. This man was in charge right now in the face of danger, and she was glad. She had seen him in action before, when her Indiana mansion was burned to the ground while she and Joshua barely escaped. Like her father before her, Brenna abhorred racism and was active in the Underground Railroad, smuggling slaves and oppressed sharecroppers from the South to more freedom and paying jobs in the North and Midwest.
The worker who had made the initial comment was a big, beefy man with wide shoulders, a barrel chest, and massive arms from years of laying railroad ties and driving in spikes.
The man guffawed and started to make a comment, but Joshua’s hand came up quickly, palm toward the man’s face. Joshua’s mind was working rapidly. He was facing five large, muscular men, and he preferred defusing this situation and getting back to the lovely Brenna. He had no desire to fight, especially with the odds so much against him. He knew a fight was inevitable unless he could stop the five in their tracks.