Strongheart by Don Bendell

Author:Don Bendell
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group
Published: 2010-08-04T04:00:00+00:00

8

The Chase

In southern Colorado at the time there had been some upheaval about slavery. There were many Hispanic settlers and ranchers in the area, and many of them owned slaves, in full contradiction of the Civil Rights Act of 1866. Most of these slaves were either women or children and a great many of those slave-owners held captured Utes, Navajos, and even a few Apaches and southern Cheyenne. These captives were rounded up in raids, sometimes kidnapped, and given in exchange for money owed Spanish landholders. Some tribal elders or parents would actually allow these Spanish colonials to purchase captives, in order to keep the women and children from being killed if attack seemed inescapable.

Chief Ouray, the most famous of the Utes, was actually hired by the U.S. government as an official interpreter in 1864, and under his watch many deals were made for hapless Ute innocents.

Once enmeshed in these Hispanic ranching families, however, the slaves were often assimilated into the family, and in many cases, the wealthy ranchero fathered many children with Native American women or some captured Mexican women. Although they were slaves, for many it actually turned out to be a very good situation.

Less than a decade before Joshua Strongheart showed up in the Wet Mountain Valley, several courts found Spanish-and Mexican-born landowners in southern Colorado guilty of violations of the Civil Rights Act of 1866. To that end, they lost slaves who had in effect become members of their household in many cases. A few of these cast-off American Indians, primarily from the Ute and Navajo nations, originally formed into little bands and caused some trouble for the population of southern Colorado. Most of them spoke Spanish, English, and their native languages.

Harlance had used a couple of these gangs previously on big holdup jobs and decided now he would hire one of the gangs to help him set up somewhere to bushwhack Joshua Strongheart when he came for him.

Jeeter was the real aggressor of the two brothers, but Harlance was the brains. It did not take a college professor to see that Joshua Strongheart had fought members of the gang that ambushed him and had eliminated six out of nine members so far, including one of the gang’s two leaders. He also noted that the man did this with numerous wounds, as well. In short, Harlance was no dummy and Strongheart scared him. In fact, thinking about the half-blooded Pinkerton being on his trail sent chills down his spine.

Harlance thought Strongheart was simply executing the gang members one by one for revenge. He did not know that the man was seeking the ring, which really meant very little to McMahon, but a great deal to one of his many former victims. He had no clue that he might not have to worry about Strongheart again if he simply left the ring with Zachariah Banta at the Cotopaxi store or dropped it off in Westcliffe. He also had no idea that Strongheart was a Pinkerton agent. He

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