It all happened so fast that the horses didn’t get wind of the bear hiding in the brush. In a flash all hell broke loose, starting with a blood-curdling scream, then the two riderless horses breaking out of the underbrush at a full run. Then another scream, followed by the sound of something huge moving fast through the brush. In the next instant the grizzly came charging out into the open, blood dripping from his muzzle, his eyes showing red and fierce. The beast stopped after a few feet and rose up on his hind feet, pawing the air like a punch-drunk boxer, pieces of flesh clinging to his claws.
For a few seconds Madigan and the grizzly faced each other, the bear glaring wildly at the man. Then like a fighter called back to the ring, the beast was gone out of sight into the brush from which he came. As a stunned Madigan watched, a tremendous growl floated through the air answered by another scream. Then all grew silent except for an occasional grunt from the bear. Madigan had never witnessed anything like this in his life and was dumfounded at what he had just seen.
Then the realization hit him that here he sat out in the open, a mere hundred and fifty yards from a man-killing grizzly. He began to sweat and his mouth felt dry. At that moment he felt very vulnerable. After checking behind him, he quickly covered the distance back to the horses and traded the Winchester for the Sharps. Now at least if the grizzly charged he would have a gun big enough to give him a fighting chance. Still it was funny how small the Sharps looked in his hands.
Even from this far away he could still hear the bear. After a while he decided to climb a rock to get a better view of the situation. From his position on the rock, Madigan watched the bear leaving a half-hour later, going back down the trail in the opposite direction a short way, then climbing up into the trees above.
Even so, he waited another fifteen minutes before going down to investigate the scene of the attack. He was plenty nervous as he walked toward the clump of trees, and every few steps he would stop and listen for any sounds that might mean the grizzly was returning.
What he saw was a scene from hell. One man was laying up against a tree, his six-gun in his hand, and it looked to Madigan that the cowboy tried to shoot himself before the great beast came back. The man needn’t have worried. He bled to death from his extensive wounds before he could get off a shot.
Madigan was not prepared for the sight that greeted him next. The other man lay with his hands up behind his head, just as one might do while getting some rest. From Madigan’s position, all he could see was from the middle of the man’s chest on up. On a different occasion the cowboy might just be laying there sleeping. But as Madigan stepped around the bush, he grew sick to his stomach. The bear had fed on the gunman and all that remained was the top third of the body.
Madigan’s legs suddenly felt weak and his head swam. All he could think of was to get out of there, so he ran the distance back to the buckskin, who watched his approach with interest. Soon he was galloping up the trail. In a few minutes he returned to his senses.
It is an unwritten law of the West to bury the dead, friend or foe, and part of Madigan agonized over leaving the bodies without putting some ground over them. He tried to convince himself that there was no choice but to leave the bodies, but a conscience is a powerful thing. So he headed back to do what was right.
That’s when the mountain man’s voice came to him again. “Never stay around where a grizzly has eaten. He’s not going far from his food, and if you mess with it, you just may be his next meal!” Good advice, Madigan thought as he reined the horses back around and rode on toward Poncha Pass. As he rode he looked down at his hands. They were shaking.
Chapter 3
Pete LaRue Looked down at the body in the dirt at his feet. Gonzales was a tough man to beat with a gun, yet here he lay-dead!
“You men look around for tracks!” he ordered. “Jesus, you put him under the dirt, the rest of you follow me.” Pete LaRue walked quickly to his horse and was soon riding out with eight of his men.
The tracks were easy to follow and from the looks of them, Pete surmised that there were two horses-one being ridden, the other probably a pack animal.
It had taken a while before he and his men chanced leaving the protection of their cover to investigate the hilltop where the shots were heard, giving the man they were after a small head start.
The LaRue men were a wild, unkempt lot. Most were Mexican, some with Indian blood. The rest were an assortment of hard cases brought together by the common bond of men on the run.
Pete LaRue harbored no illusions about his position of being leader. Some men were fast with a gun, others with their fist. Pete LaRue was faster with a gun than most men, and being big and raw-boned he could more than hold his own in a fight. But LaRue ruled with a quiet strength, a strength only found in a very few-the few that knew how to use their minds as well as their brawn.
LaRue was smart and knew that vengeance would have to be taken on whoever killed Gonzales, even though he personally knew the man had only been defending his own life. It was the cutthroat code, as long as there were enough men to place the odds heavily in their favor. As LaRue rode he silently prayed his men would lose the trail of the stranger ahead.
The man that shot Gonzales had gotten a twenty minute head start, but with a packhorse in tow, he wouldn’t be able to travel very fast.
LaRue and his men rode on in pursuit. At first the trail was easy to follow, but when it went into the trees it became more difficult, so the men had to spread out to find it again. Finally they found where it went out across a high plain toward the distant Rockies to the west.
Looking far in the distance they could see dust rising and knew they were well within a mile of the man they hoped to kill. Jack Lasson was the first to break out of the trees, and was followed closely by Art Simson and a couple of the others.
Pete LaRue knew better than to try to stop them. Jack and Gonzales had ridden together for several years, and if anybody would kill the stranger ahead, it should be him. Pete and the rest followed a short distance behind.
They hadn’t gone more than a quarter of a mile when a puff of smoke far ahead caught Pete’s attention. The fool’s going to waste all his ammunition before we’re even in range, he thought. Then he heard the eerie noise, a noise he heard only once before. In a few seconds Jack was knocked from his saddle.
“A Sharps!” LaRue shouted while spurring his mount back for the cover of the trees. “He’s got a Sharps! He can pick us off before we can get within half a mile of him!” he yelled to the other men who had also retreated to the safety of the trees.
“No man can shoot that well! It’s close to half a mile he’s shoot’n from!” one of the men hollered back.
“Then what do you think hit Jack?” LaRue asked.
“I don’t know, but it wasn’t no bullet. Maybe he’s just playing dead. Maybe he’s afraid of whoever killed Gonzales.”
Marty Manning, who on several other occasions had challenged LaRue for leadership, was doing the talking. It made no difference that what he said made no sense. He had the men’s attention and that’s what he wanted.
“I don’t know what’s wrong with Jack, but I’m tellin’ ya, nobody can shoot and hit anything that far!”
“You ever hear of a Sharps?” LaRue asked disgustedly.
“You mean one of those buffalo guns?”
“That’s the one I mean. Just before Jack went down, I heard a noise that I’ve heard before. It was the sound of a heavy bullet fired from a Sharps! No other sound like it in the world!”
“You sure about that? A rifle can’t hit something at that distance!” Manning sneered.
“I’m sure. Of course it would take one hell of a shooter. You saw what it did to Jack out there. I’d say the man at the other end of that rifle knows what it can do and he knows how to use it!” LaRue was nervous and Manning picked it up in the tone of his voice.