Free Strongheart by Don Bendell Page B

escort the group of settlers to the Wet Mountain Valley.
    The Colfax Colony started in March 1870, only one month after leaving Chicago. Some businesses in Denver who wanted to help this town bloom sent supplies, but the colonists were used to Chicago. They planted fruit trees and some gardens, but an unexpected early frost ruined their produce. Then, after getting some buildings put up before winter set in, they had another terrible thing happen. One of the major buildings exploded into millions of splinters when a keg full of dynamite was accidentally detonated. They had already lost their supply of funding from the government just due to politics, so the town basically disappeared before it was even a year old.
    However, there were other residents and a few with money, such as Dr. William A. Bell, who owned land where Westcliffe was now located, Annabelle explained, and really wanted to try to get a railroad to come into the valley. Dr. Bell had already started another town, Manitou Springs, not too far west of Colorado Springs, nestled in among the northeastern foothills of Pikes Peak. General William Palmer was one of his closest friends, and at Dr. Bell’s urging he came to Bell’s ranch lands in 1870, the same year the colony started and ended. Palmer was the man who created the Denver & Rio Grande Railroad. He was also the founder of Colorado Springs.
    Bell started Westcliffe on his own property and named it Clifton, but he changed the name to Westcliffe shortly after that. Palmer wondered if this might be the area for a southern railroad route, which eventually was going to go farther south, then right along the Arkansas River by Canon City and straight west to Salida and Poncha Springs.
    The railroad would eventually be started and run in and out of Westcliffe eight years after Annabelle and Joshua’s conversation, but because of rock slides, avalanches, and washout from occasional torrential rains and flash floods in each of the steep canyons running away from the valley, the railroad would eventually die out. However, even at that time, Westcliffe was gaining a reputation in the inner circles of Denver and Colorado Springs as one of the beautiful safer tourist areas to visit in Colorado. The Utes were friendly with the white man, and the other tribes usually did not come into that area.
    It was almost daylight, and Strongheart could see the grayish blue skies of false dawn. He was ready to mount up. The sky was occasionally spinning, and he knew he had to keep packing strong food into his body. To that end, Annabelle packed what she could into his saddlebags, and she handed him a cloth bag.
    He said, “Thanks. What’s this?”
    She said, “It’s hoecake.”
    â€œHoecake?”
    She laughed. “Corn dodger. The driver had some corn-meal, so I made you a bunch in the griddle. There was a jar of honey, so I stuck it in there. You can roll them up and dip them in it. I also put a bunch of coffee and his extra small coffeepot. You make sure you drink a lot of water. And try to get rest.”
    He grinned. “Yes, Mother.”
    She started laughing at herself and put her hands on his chest, looking up into his face. Joshua wondered if she could feel his heart suddenly beating much faster.
    â€œThank you so much. Please be careful, Joshua.”
    He grinned at her again and mounted up.
    Annabelle was still grieving her husband, but she could not help herself. This man made her heart flutter, and her face would get red just having any thoughts about him. He was so handsome, with his dark complexion, long, shiny black hair, high cheekbones, intelligent eyes, and that almost smile most of the time, even in what she knew was excruciating pain. He was tall, and he had muscles on top of muscles. Half-Indian and half-white, he was such a man of mystery, and she just knew that in his arms she would feel more protected than with any man in the world, even her late husband. Even thinking