Stryker's Posse by Chuck Tyrell

Author:Chuck Tyrell
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: pulp fiction, wild west, bounty hunters, western fiction, chuck tyrell, cowboy fiction, piccadilly publishing, matt stryker, oold west
Publisher: Piccadilly Publishing

Chapter Nine – Dead Man’s Notch

Dred led half of Stryker’s posse toward Silverton. Not by the straight route, but by a way that would give them places to rest, water to drink, quails and rabbits to hunt if necessary, and caves and fissures in which to hole up when the time came. There was no hurry to reach Silverton, so the Seminole chose the easiest way.

Just west of Dead Man’s Notch, Cap Grant called a halt. He beckoned Dred over. The Seminole came to stand by the shoulder of his horse. “I don’t like the notch,” Cap said. “Likely place for the Shadow Box Gang to lie in wait.”

“Why?” Dred said. “They ride for a place to cross the Colorado. Pearce’s or the Calleville ferry. I think they want to go to Mexico to spend gold.”

“Maybe. Maybe not. Pays to be careful.”

“I’ll go first,” Dred said. “If someone shoots at me, ride away. Fast.”

Cap nodded. “We’ll stay a quarter of a mile behind.”

Dred stared at Cap. “Good,” he said. He turned and trotted toward Dead Man’s Notch, a crack in the Mormon Range that stood between the Muddy and Virgin Rivers.

Milt came up alongside Cap Grant. “What’s going on,” she said.

Cap thrust his chin at the steep stone walls of the notch. “They don’t call that Dead Man’s Notch for nothing,” he said. The Old Spanish Trail goes through it. Quickest way from Santa Fe to California.”

“Dred’s going down the middle,” Milt said, “but it seems to me we oughta stay against one side or the other, or split up and go down both. Me and Maggie and Elly will take the south wall, and you and the men can take the north one.”

Who knew what freak of nature made Dead Man’s Notch, a path of sand wove through the Mormon Mountains, climbing slightly from west to east. Walls of stone towered on each side of the sandy trail, rising fifty to a hundred feet, then the mountains rolled away to the northwest and southeast. Dead Man’s Notch got its name from the Howard Early Expedition that followed the Old Spanish Trail from Santa Fe to California in the early fifties. Somewhere in the middle of the notch, the pathway takes an S-shaped turn. Early’s men came from the east, and took special care moving through the S. As they trudged around the second curve, they came upon a jumble of sun-whitened bones. The arrows and spears that killed them were still there. Rusted helmets and breastplates lay with the bones. Early’s men found only human bones, though the Spaniards, for Early assumed the bones were Spaniards’, most certainly were mounted. Early’s men buried the bones and scratched a cross in the stone wall above their grave. “Buried a dozen people, judging by their skulls,” Early wrote in his journal. “Left their bones to guard Dead Man’s Notch.”

“Milt, I think you women had better take the north wall,” Cap said. “And make sure you keep under the overhang.”

“Yo,” Milt said. “Come on, Maggie, Elly, let’s get on the road to Silverton.

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