Spirit Valley (Ben Blue Book 7) Read online

  Spirit Valley

  By Lou Bradshaw

  Text copyright © 2015 L E Bradshaw

  Cover Art copyright © 2015 L E Bradshaw

  All Rights Reserved

  Spirit Valley is a work of fiction and is the product of the author’s imagination. This story is not intended to depict any person living or dead.

  Dedication

  To my lovely wife, Avon, for all the love and support she’s given me during our first 50 years together. It’s been a great ride so far, but the fun is just beginning.

  Table of Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 1

  Following the windings of the canyon, to wherever it wanted to lead me, I found myself in a maze of islands made of stone. The walls of the canyon rose up four or five hundred feet, and some of those islands of rock were almost as tall as those walls. Some would go on for several hundred yards with a width of a hundred feet or more at their bases. They made me think of miniature buttes. Others were not so impressive, but they all were a bit spooky. I guess it was the quiet which made me want to look over my shoulder and not the islands of stone. The silence was almost deafening.

  I had just begun passage through a cut off to the left and away from the main canyon, and that’s when things were really started getting creepy. The cut off seemed to be the back side of another island, but this one was a big one… much bigger than any of the others. All the others were free standing with plenty of space between them and the canyon wall. This one was narrow and looked like it had been created by a crack in the wall instead of wind and water erosion like the others. The walls had sharp clean cut edges instead of weathered and rounded… it was not just another island.

  The walls of the passage were high and close, which didn’t make it any less spooky. Looking up, I could only see a jagged slice of blue sky, but there wasn’t much light where I was. There were places where it was so close; I had to pull one foot out of the stirrup to keep from scraping the sides. My big grey horse, Smoke, didn’t like it anymore than I did. But others had come through here, and so would I.

  Making a sharp turn to the right, we moved out into a wide green valley. What I saw first were the horses. The second thing I saw was a rider off to my left. He was just sitting there on his bronc smoking a cigarette. I couldn’t tell what he was looking at other than the horses out in the tall grass.

  He wasn’t more than twenty five yards away, but he was looking the other way. So I just jacked a cartridge into the chamber of my rifle and said, “Mister, don’t do anything stupid and you might still have a long and happy life.”

  Wouldn’t you know it… he got stupid. He swung around and cut loose with a couple of shots from his handgun. I held my fire and watched him as he laid the spurs to his mount. That mustang jumped and took off like a fourth of July rocket. They hit the valley floor at a full gallop and almost immediately started up what looked like a game trail by the way he was switching back and forth. With all the cedar and brush growing up on the slope I didn’t have a clear shot.

  I was contented to let him go. If he wasn’t any smarter than to run his pony up that slope at that speed, he wouldn’t last long anyway. I had what I was after. I watched him as he reached a shelf and swung his horse around to take another shot at me. He was a good hundred and fifty yards away by then. It would have taken an exceptional hand with a Colt to hit anything at that distance… he wasn’t one.

  Turning his horse and leaning, to get a better shot, he pulled too hard, and the panicked animal was fighting the bit and swung the other way unseating the rider. He was only about seventy or eighty feet above the valley floor, but there were no soft spots for him to land. He hit once and bounded into the air like a rag doll. After he landed the second time, there was nothing but a floppy roll to the bottom.

  I wasn’t expecting to find much when I rode over to a point roughly a dozen feet below where he had hung up against a scraggly cedar. The man was pretty much beat to hell, and there was no life left in him. I just eased him out and dragged him down the rest of the slope. It gave me pause to wonder what he was so afraid of.

  I went through his pockets to see if there was any form of identification, but all I could find was a few silver coins and the usual tobacco pouch, matches, and clasp knife. I left that all with him and piled loose stones on his body to keep the buzzards and coyotes off him.

  It was time to get under cover in case some of his friends were in the vicinity. If they’d heard the shots, they would be on the run to see what was going on. I found myself a hole to hide in and waited. While I waited, I got to wondering what I knew about this bunch and what I could expect to be faced with.

  ~~~~~ o ~~~~~

  My first indication that there was anything in the wind was, when I was getting ready to meet Delgado at the main horse pasture. Tom Grayson, known generally as Gracy, came ridding up to the corral. Tom was a good steady man, who never rode a horse any harder than was needed. He was in a hurry. Pulling up, I could see he was worried as the dust overtook him.

  “Boss, I think we may have a problem.”

  “How’s that, Tom?”

  “I went up north, to the new horse pasture, and the fence was down. I looked back in the canyon, but that young stallion and the mares ain’t nowhere around.”

  “We’ll stop by and pick up Delgado and go lookin’ for them… They’ll stay pretty close; there’s plenty of grass and water back in that canyon. And it’s been their home for about four months.”

  “I don’t think so Boss, that fence was pulled down and those critters were run out rounded up and chased out of there…. And there was a bunch of shod horse tracks. I followed them till they took a sheep trail up into the Cristos…. That’s when I hightailed it down here.”

  “You did the right thing, Tom. How long d’you suppose they been gone?”

  “I’m no tracker, but I can tell a two or three day old track… been a couple of days anyway.”

  “Come on in and grab a cup of coffee while I have a word with the misses… looks like I’ll be gone for a bit.”

  We went in and I told Patty Anne what had happened, and I was going to have to be gone for a while. She started packing my stuff and had Maria fix me up a week’s worth of supplies. She knew what to do, from long experience. She knew that she was perfectly capable of running the ranch, and if she had any doubts, her grandpa was just across the hall.

  “You want Dusty saddled when you come back?”

  “Any other time, I’d say yes, but I’ll take Smoke instead. That stallion and the mares all know him better. They’ll follow him, or at least they’ll be less trouble with him. If I put a lead on the stallion the mares should come along peaceful.”

  Gracy and I rode up and looked the situation over. He had made a pretty accurate assessment. The way I read it, there were four riders, and they had been gone three days. The trail was old, but you can’t move that many horses without leaving sign…. Where they went, I would follow.

  I figured those nine horses would be worth as much as a trail drive to the railhead in their life time, and I’ve never lost a herd…. I
wasn’t about to lose those horses.

  Before noontime, I was following that sheep trail up a mountainside, looking back I could see my valley laying green and peaceful in the sun. I’d have to admit to a whole lot of luck when I found this place. It was close to seventy square miles of graze, and the only way to get in or out with a herd of cows was through my gate. It had only been tried once, and no one ever tried again.

  The problem was a horse or a sheep could make its way in… and out. There were several Mexican and Navajo sheep families using the surrounding mountains and canyons. They were all good hardworking folk, and I had no problem with them being there. In fact I welcomed them because they kept the wolves and cougars at bay.

  I’d been a little too secure in my thinking. I never even considered someone coming in here and taking my horses. It just never occurred to me. My valley had sprung a leak, and I needed to plug it up. If that meant more hands, then I’d have to hire more. I’d never needed more than five riders in the past, but the value of those horses was growing, and I needed to upgrade.

  Coming through the pass, I headed down the other side toward the village of Rio Quatro. There were five Mexican families living there not counting the storekeeper and his wife. When I say storekeeper, that takes in a whole lot of territory. Señor Sosa and his wife also kept an inn and cantina… he was probably the mayor as well.

  We exchanged pleasantries, and I asked him if he’d seen anyone come through with some horses about three days back.

  “Si, Señor, Benito…. We hear them come through in the dark, but they did not stop. That was dos noche.”

  Two nights ago, that would be about right… It took a good deal of nerve coming up that trail in the dark. They must have had a pretty good idea of what those horses would be worth. I thanked him and bought a croc of good Mexican beef and beans to take along for my supper.

  I was able to follow them beyond Blackmon’s Creek and up the valley before darkness overtook me. I made camp on the east slope of the western face of the Sangre de Cristos. I had a hunch that tomorrow I would be on the plateau and crossing the upper Rio Grande soon. Supper was a simple matter of a small baked clay jar full of delight. It was washed down with stout coffee and a handful of dried apples. I’m an easy man to please.

  The next morning, I was on the trail again as soon as it was light enough to see. Sure enough, they took the trail up through Medder pass and down the other side to the plateau and across the river. I lost a little time finding their tracks on the other side. They had gone downstream about a mile. Actually, they had lost as much time because that was the oldest trick in the book. Fortunately, I had guessed right and went downstream first.

  It looked like they were heading for the lower San Juan’s. There was some mighty rough country over that way, but not like some of those sky scratching peaks up north a ways in Colorado. But I’ve been in rough country a time or two.

  That night’s camp was on the western edge of an old burnt out volcano with great fingers of long cold lava twisting and turning like so many huge black snakes. A man needs to be careful when he goes up into that mess. It’s full of blisters that can break under a man’s weight, and once he’s in there, his chances are almighty slim of ever getting out without some help and a lotta luck. I never count on luck… I enjoy it when I get it, but I try to take precautions in case it doesn’t show up.

  This part of the plateau was mostly desert with very little vegetation, and what was there was dried up and turning brown shortly after the spring rains ended. The ground was cracked and you couldn’t take a step without kicking up dust. We’d had water the night before, and there was water in the mountains. I had one full canteen and a bit left in the other, so Smoke and I would survive.

  Those we were following must know where there was water and graze for at least twelve or thirteen horses and four men. I wasn’t worried yet. Someone in that bunch was pretty savvy and had a bit of nerve. Someone had known about those horses, and they’d known where they were. So they had scouted that pasture…. Or they or one of them was someone I knew and trusted because I don’t give guided tours of the MB connected to just anybody.

  As the landscape became more and more desert like, the dry cracked earth turned to sand. The vegetation changed to prickly pear and dry brittle scrub with little or no color beyond a faint blue gray. Off in the distance I could see the foot hills of the San Juans. There was water in those mountains, so I wasn’t too concerned about that. My main concern was losing the trail in the sand. The wind had been coming from the southwest the last few days and it was blowing with some determination.

  I felt pretty secure in the knowledge that I could pick up the trail again once I reached solid ground again, but I’d lose time. Sandy ground will hold a track but there’s no way of knowing if it’s a horse track, cow track or one of the few buffalo that come into this part of the country. I’d just have to go on and see what turns up. A mile farther, the trail petered out.

  There wasn’t anything to do but keep going and accept the loss of time. I gave the big gray horse his head on the off chance that he might be able to stay on the trail either by scent or instinct. He had run with those mares in the wild and had spent much time in the pasture with them… they were family.

  As we neared the foot hills the desert started changing, and the sand turned to solid ground again. It was dry cracked and dusty, but it was dirt and it would hold a print… and did. A few tracks of the shod horses started showing up. They were faint but they were tracks. By the time we were among green growing things again, the trail was plain and clear.

  Chapter 2

  Whether I had been shot with luck, or I was sitting atop the world’s tallest bloodhound, I didn’t know, but I was willing to give that Smoke horse the credit. We found where they had watered just a few miles into the foot hills. I could tell by the tracks that I’d gained a half a day on that bunch.

  I hadn’t thought far enough ahead to know what I was going to do when I caught up with them, but I knew they’d have a hard time keeping my horses. Chances were, they’d find a place to cache them until they could get a buyer in there. All my horses had the MB connected brand on their left shoulder, and the brand was too well known in these parts to pass off as anything else. They’d have to take them as far as Wyoming or California to feel secure selling them. Of course, they could always find a remote valley somewhere, and go into the breeding business. It would take a few years, but that pretty much what I’d done.

  Well, I’d just have to wait till I caught up with them and figure something on the run. A man can work out all the plans in the world, but when it comes to putting those plans to work, he’d better be creative. There’s almost always some wrinkle in the paper he wrote those plans down on, to throw the whole thing out of whack. I always figured a quick thinking man was better off than a smart man. I always like to have an overall plan, like go get the horses back. But the details of that plan will depend on variables, such as terrain and the intelligence of them that’s got ‘em.

  ~~~~~~ o ~~~~~~

  The following morning, I followed the trail into that spooky canyon with those islands of stone, and then on through that narrow and creepy crack. And now here I was in a pretty little valley having watched one man prove that stupidity can’t be cured, and it can often be fatal.

  It took me more than a few minutes to come out of my hidin’ hole. I’ve learned that cautious men seem to live longer than them afflicted with impatience. So I led my horse out from the cedars and watched his head and ears as we moved out. He’d know if we had company much sooner than I would. His main interest was centered on the horses out in the valley, as it should be. This was like a family reunion for him.

  The young stallion came out to challenge Smoke, but was rudely ignored by the older and wiser horse. That youngster was a year and a half old, and I had recently put him in with some mature mares, all of which were already bread, simply to get him used to running with the girls. That way, he
should be ready when they were.

  He had been around men and me in particular since the hour and minute he was born. When we left this valley, I’d just put a lead on him and the rest would follow along like so many puppies. But I wasn’t ready to leave yet. I’d like to spend at least the rest of the day and night here, and see if I can get a line on whoever set this up. I was pretty sure that fella back there under the pile of rocks wasn’t the brains of the operation… he wasn’t even a good horse guard.

  Following the trail left by the horses and the horse guard, I worked my way back up the valley. As it turned to the right, I found myself looking at another part of the valley which was at least as large as the first, with every bit as much grass. At the far end was water coming from a crack in the left wall. It wasn’t a roaring water fall, but it was a nice little tumbling stream with a twenty or thirty foot drop. When it hit the flat rock at the bottom, it created spray enough to wet an area of nearly ten feet in all directions. The falling water pooled at the bottom and ran off in a shallow stream. The little stream found its way across the valley where it disappeared into another crack.

  Looking at the valley, I realized that it hadn’t been created by a crack in the canyon wall because it had spread too wide, and there was no return to the canyon. Not being a professor or a person who knows about such things, I could only surmise that either the surrounding mountains had risen up or the valley had dropped. It could have been isolated for thousands of years before that passage from the canyon had opened up.

  It was a beautiful little valley with plenty of grass and water. It would be perfect for a horse pasture. Cattle wouldn’t worth driving in here; for one thing, you’d never get a longhorn through that crack without dehorning it first. Also, there wasn’t enough grass here for enough cattle to make it pay. As nice as this valley was, it wasn’t over three hundred acres total.