Blood Feather (23 page)

Suddenly, he stopped, seeing a crowd of riders cresting the hill from the south. He watched for a minute while Zach raised his binoculars. Several riderless horses followed behind them, a remuda. The posse had regrouped and were still pursuing.

Joshua gave Zach a wave, yelling, “Keep them back. He's mine!”

Blood Feather knew Strongheart had disappeared and had not returned to terrorize him again. He decided he would try to walk up the valley as quickly as his wounds would allow and hope that Joshua had gotten injured and would not follow him. He was now carrying a branch to use as a crutch. The giant heard hoofbeats behind him, as he was now one hundred yards out on the grassy valley floor. He turned and saw Strongheart trotting toward him on a magnificent black-and-white pinto. Strongheart rode right by him, looking down at him as he passed. He went on trotting for the distant trees. Arriving, he left Eagle there and kept his knife, stripping off his holster and gunbelt. He quickly cut and sharpened a wooden peg from a stick. He then grabbed the lasso from the saddle and tied one end around his left ankle and walked forward, knife in one hand and lasso in the other.

Blood Feather's heart was doing flip-flops as he watched his enemy walking toward him, a coldness in Joshua's eyes that would have sent shivers down anybody's spine. Strongheart knew that his father Claw Marks had staked himself out with a twenty-foot leather thong and faced a band of Crow warriors who swept him under, but not before he killed some of their number. Strongheart was going to exorcise that demon, too, this day.

He picked up a rock and pounded the stake into the ground, then dropped the lasso, tied the end around the stake, and tossed the loop out. He was running nowhere, and this, too, unnerved Blood Feather. Joshua Strongheart faced Blood Feather, his father's big knife in his right hand.
We Wiyake
's knife was twice the size of Strongheart's and would have looked more like a sword in any other man's hand.

The serial killer steeled himself for the combat and walked up until he was five feet from the smaller warrior. They looked into each other's eyes.

Strongheart said quietly, calmly, “
We tiwaci au we
.”

Blood Feather lunged forward, and Joshua dived to his side, kicking his lasso up with his leg. At the same time, he slashed with his knife and cut across and through Blood Feather's hamstring, on the killer's good leg. He fell to the ground screaming. Strongheart was totally calm.

Somehow, the murderer got to his feet, let out a war cry, and charged Strongheart, knife upraised. This time, instead of diving to the side, Strongheart stood his ground and blocked the downward knife swing by canting his own knife blade down, with the back of his blade along his own forearm. The strike itself sent Blood Feather's forearm down, slicing all the way to the bone, and he screamed again. Joshua's arm was like a flash as he slashed down on an angle, with his knife blade tearing a deep gash all the way down the killer's chest, exposing chest and abdominal muscles. But Joshua was still moving, and he spun and plunged the knife backward into Blood Feather's solar plexus.

Joshua said, “That one was for Blackjack.”

Blood Feather tried to scream again, but sounds would not come out of his mouth. He had never felt such excruciating pain, and he dropped to his knees. Strongheart grabbed the killer's hair with his left hand, jerked his head back, and with a flash took his scalp off. He held the scalp high and gave out a spine-chilling war cry.

He raised
We Wiyake
's head and in Lakota said, “Here is your scalp. See it before you. I was going to cut out your heart out and eat it, but I am not you, I am better than you. They were all better than you. The coyotes and ravens will eat your heart. That is what you deserve.”

He pushed the killer forward with his foot, and Blood Feather fell facedown into the dirt, unable now to move at all. That is how he would die, his blood spilling into the Colorado soil, knowing he would be consumed by predators and nobody would care.

Joshua walked to his horse Eagle and tied the scalp to his saddle horn. Then he looked at it, and untied it, tossing it on the ground.

He patted the horse, saying, “What I do as a man will not always be what I can do if I want, Eagle. You and I will be together a long time. There will always be men like that, who need to meet the same end. Let's go find them.”

He rode toward the rock outcropping where he could clearly see his audience, the posse lined up on the rocks. They had just witnessed the most incredible one-sided fight to the death they could imagine. It was a fight of good triumphing over evil, yet the good man wore a red-and-black mask that represented what many of those men had hated and feared for most of their lives. They each realized that maybe there was good in everything and every situation, if you could just recognize it.

They had just watched the ultimate bully get exactly what all bullies need to get—a taste of justice. And as the proud black-and-white pinto trotted sideways toward them, his tail flipped up and off to the side of his rump, the ultimate warrior seated so well on his back, each man knew he had just witnessed the legend of Strongheart grow even more.

EPILOGUE

The descendants of Zachariah Banta all had a quick wit and a dry humor, and they ran cattle all around the Cotopaxi area for many decades, finally moving the ranching operation to southwestern Texas in the early twenty-first century via Zach's great-great-great-grandson Byk Banta. Byk still runs his ranching operation from the back of a horse.

Sheriff Frank Bengley was the sheriff, in fact, of Fremont County, Colorado Territory, in 1874, one of many in a long line of fine lawmen in southern Colorado.

Quanah Parker ended up signing a peace treaty and in just a few years became a multimillionaire businessman in the white man's world. He kept his three wives and freely went back and forth between both societies the rest of his days.

Except for Belle's café and other obvious exceptions, all the locations and local histories mentioned herein were actual places, and many still exist today. I have ridden my horse over almost every piece of land mentioned in this book and in my other Westerns, so you will know it is real and not a Hollywood movie set. For example, I killed and was charged by a blond-and-cinnamon black bear (black is a breed, not a color) in 1985, within a mile of where Strongheart had his fight with the big silvertip grizzly bear. Please come along and join in sharing with me the rest of the tale about Pinkerton agent Joshua Strongheart in his future adventures, also from Berkley. Strongheart's friend Chris Colt was the hero of ten Westerns I also wrote, for Berkley's parent company. He will be featured in future Strongheart novels, too.

Family illnesses kept this sequel from being published closer to
Strongheart
, but hopefully that is behind us and you will see more of Strongheart soon.

Sadly, my horse of 22 years, Eagle, had to be put down in January, 2013. I will never forget him. He was a once- in-a-lifetime horse that saved my life several times. Strongheart can keep riding him though.

Until then, partner, keep your powder dry, an eye on the horizon, and an occasional glance toward your backtrail, and sit tall in the saddle. It does not matter if your saddle is a computer desk chair, upholstered armchair, porch swing, or deck chair on a cruise ship. Many of us grew up with the spirit of the American cowboy and pioneer woman. It is good to keep a door to our past open, so we know where our strength, courage, and tenacity came from. It is the legacy of honor forged from the steel characters, blessed by God, who created some of his mightiest warriors in the American West. It is indeed the backbone of America.

If you need me, I will be on my horse in the high lonesome coming up with more stories for you. That is where I get my tales. They are up there above the timberline, written on the clouds, and I swear that handwriting looks perfect.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Don Bendell is the author of well over two dozen books, with over 3,000,000 copies in print worldwide, as well as a successful feature film. An action/adventure man he is a disabled U.S. Army Special Forces (Green Beret) officer and Vietnam veteran, and two of his sons are Green Berets serving now. He is a grandmaster instructor in five martial arts, and he and his wife were the first couple in history to both be inducted into the International Karate and Kickboxing Hall of Fame. He still teaches martial arts once a week, Don says, “to help keep my sanity as a writer.”

Don describes himself as “a real cowboy with a real horse and a real ranch.” He and his wife own the beautiful Strongheart Ranch south of Florence, Colorado. He also vacations and writes in his motor home on the side of the majestic Sangre de Cristo Mountain Range near Westcliffe, Colorado, that Don often writes about, in this book, in
Strongheart
, and in others. He owned horses identical to Strongheart's, named Gabe and Eagle, and he rode Eagle over all the ground that he writes about, but Eagle died in early 2013. Hardscrabble Creek, mentioned in both books, runs for a half mile through Don's ranch.

Don and Shirley Bendell travel a lot and enjoy dancing, bow hunting, fishing, and camping with their horses in the Rocky Mountains. Don is the father of six grown children and has eleven grandchildren. He has a master of science degree in leadership from the Ken Blanchard College of Business at Grand Canyon University in Phoenix. In 2011, Don was awarded the first annual Excellence in Western Literature Award by the Read West Foundation.