Another thought kept entering his mind-the two women and the gold. He couldn’t help but think that he was being pulled into this situation by some mysterious force beyond his control.
For now, all he could do was ride along and try to stay alive. He soon rode into the forest at the base of the Rockies, following a trail that turned south by southwest. The trail was rocky and sometimes steep, just wide enough for one horse at a time.
The last hour had been a gradual climb, and Madigan had to rest the horses often. There was still a good six hours of daylight left, but he was aware that he would have to make camp while enough light still remained, as it would be suicide to ride this narrow trail in the dark. He was at least four hours, maybe five, ahead of the gunmen and they would not be able to see any better in the dark than he would.
At the start of the trail he was now on, there were at least two others branching off in other directions. One of these went to a hidden lake a few hours’ ride into the mountains, while the other led to a pass much higher than Poncha Pass, which Madigan now rode towards. Unless these men were familiar with the area, they would have to guess where each trail went, and Madigan made sure that he had left no tracks on the trail below for them to follow.
For the moment he relaxed and breathed in the fragrance of the high mountains. The air had a coolness about it, yet it was more refreshing than cold. He pulled the collar of his shirt up over his neck and was soon lost in the splendor of the sights that surrounded him.
As he rode along he whistled and sometimes sang. This was bear country and he didn’t want to startle a grizzly. He remembered a mountain man once telling him that unless you were hunting bear, always make some kind of noise to let them know you are there. “Give a bear a chance to get out of your way and you’ll likely not be bothered by them,” the old trapper told him so long ago.
The trapper also told Madigan that bears seem to have good days and bad days, just like humans. On a good day they run at the first sound from you. On a bad day you could very well end up being the bear’s dinner.
“Be prepared for the worst, then when it comes you won’t be surprised,” the grizzled old mountaineer said. Although the old man of the mountains had given Madigan that advice some ten years past, he still remembered it as though it was yesterday. Another thing the old man mentioned about bears: “Never go into the brush after one. They may be playing you for a sucker, settin’ you up for an ambush. No animal can do it better than a big black or grizzly!”
Several times since he started on this trail, Madigan had passed bear sign. Afterward, he would have an uneasy feeling when the trail went around a bend, and the more he thought about what the old-timer said about bears, the louder he whistled. When he tired of whistling, he sang. He was sure the horses were glad when he started to whistle again.
It was getting late, so when a little clearing came into view he decided to make camp. By walking a few feet from camp, Madigan came to an outcropping of rock from which he had a clear view of the valley floor below. He figured he must have come close to fifteen miles since starting up this trail and hoped he could get some much needed rest.
Madigan lifted his binoculars to his eyes and scanned the flats below. A dust cloud marked the passage of the riders on the valley floor far to the east, and Madigan knew they would not dare try to go any further than across the valley until daylight.
Even as he stood watching, the light was fading at an alarming rate. Madigan walked back to camp satisfied that he would be safe for the night. He would trust the buckskin to warn him if any predators got too close. Before retiring, he took the precaution of tossing a rope over a branch and pulling his food pack out of reach of any fur-covered creature of the night. One last cup of coffee and it was time to turn in.
Madigan was up as usual the next morning in time to watch the sunrise in the east. It promised to be a glorious day. If it hadn’t been for the wild bunch following him, he would have stopped at the next stream to catch himself a passel of trout. The thought intrigued him, but to stop now meant almost certain death. The fish would have to wait for another time; for now he’d better plan on what he was going to do to get out of the frying pan himself, without getting into the fire.
As soon as the sun got high enough for him to see the valley floor below, he glassed the area thoroughly. About midpoint across the plains below, there was dust rising. So, they chose to go but a short distance last night, he thought. They were probably afraid he might try to sneak around behind them. All the better for me, he surmised.
Each time Madigan passed a stream tumbling down into a pool of fresh mountain water, he had thoughts of trout and the fishing trips he and his folks had taken to the mountains around Tennessee. The Tennessee mountains weren’t anywhere near the size of the Rockies, but to a seven-year old they looked mighty big.
He remembered his mother’s excitement at the prospect of going for a week into the mountains with him and his father. Madigan’s mother was a beautiful woman and would have followed her husband to the edges of hell. And, in fact, did three years later. Madigan would remember the terror of that day for the rest of his life. Sometimes he’d be wakened by the nightmares of what happened so many years before.
His family had been on their way to a new life out West when the Indians struck. It was a terrible thing for a boy to witness, and Madigan could still hear his mother’s screams as she kneeled over his father’s body as it lay in the dirt where he’d fallen from the Kiowas’ arrows. Then the Indians came and took her. There were three of them. They were ugly beasts, painted with war paint and splattered with dried blood, and they smelled of sweat and death. Madigan watched them from the wagon where she had hidden him. After they raped his mother, they cut her throat. He had wanted to cry out but was too afraid, so before they came to the wagon he crept away and hid in the trees. By then it was night and they did not see his tracks.
In the morning he waited to make sure they were gone, then took a shovel and buried his parents in the desolate land where they died. Ashamed of himself for not trying to help them, Madigan made a vow that he would find their murderers and either kill them or be killed trying.
For two days he followed the Kiowa. Hungry and tired, he made himself keep on, not knowing what he would be able to do when he caught them. The renegades did not know they were being followed and made no effort to hide their tracks, while something deep within the boy kept pushing him harder and harder to find these men and make them suffer as much as possible before he killed them.
The Kiowas did not go far-only until they found another wagon to raid. They found liquor and drank themselves unconscious. While they were passed out drunk, Madigan tied each of them to a wheel of the wagon. When they came to, the boy showed each a tintype of his mother and father so that they would know who he was and what he must do.
Then he took a cask of coal oil from the wagon, for it was a peddler’s wagon they raided this time, and poured it over the confused men. When he lit the match, the realization of what he was going to do hit the Indians and they struggled to break free from their bonds, but he’d tied them tight and there was no escape for them. The ten-year old boy dropped the flame into a small pool of oil under the wagon, and in a flash the flames engulfed the wagon and Indians together.
Whether they screamed he couldn’t remember, only that as the fire devoured the men, it also cleansed his soul of the hatred within him, and he lay down and slept for the first time since his parents’ death. When he finally awoke, he cried for his mother and father whom he would never see again.
It was then that Madigan heard the noise behind him and turned to face a band of Kiowa braves. There were ten, maybe more. The memory of that day was hazy after all these years, and the number is unimportant. It was easy to see that one was their chief. Madigan expected to die and knew that he was ready. Instead of killing the boy, the braves took him to a town, riding through the night to get there.