R. Trembly - Madigan

After unloading the pack, he checked the packhorse’s hoof. There on one side of the frog was a small cut that went unseen earlier when he examined the hoof for any injury. He took some water and washed it out, then took a small patch of tar that he carried for just such a purpose and put it in the sun on a rock to get hot and melt. He then unsaddled the buckskin and made camp. By this time the tar was good and hot. With a stick he placed some of this over the cut, smearing it around good to make sure it covered the whole injury, then he cooled it with some water. Now nature would have to do its magic.

While riding in, Madigan had studied the canyon walls; which were steep and went up forever. About ten feet from the top were between fifty to seventy nesting pigeons. It couldn’t be better. If anyone got above camp, the birds would warn him long before there was danger. The only place that really needed to be guarded was the entrance, and unless someone had seen him go in, there wasn’t much chance of it being found by anyone riding by. And if someone did come through, the buckskin never seemed to sleep and would give the alarm.

Before long, Madigan felt fat and sassy. His belly was full of beans and side meat and he found a soft place to settle down for the night. He wondered how many canyons like this little paradise there were around here. No doubt the Indians have camped in many of them, but he found no sign of any such camps within these walls. He finished the piece of jerky he’d been chewing on for desert, then spread the bedroll out in the soft, green grass. The horses grazed a few feet away. Madigan took one last look at the campfire to make sure it was out and closed his eyes for what he truly believed would be one of the best sleeps of his life. In a few minutes he was out to the world.

The nudge from the great buckskin awakened Madigan around two in the morning. He came instantly awake while reaching for his gun. Then he listened for all he was worth. At first he heard nothing. Then through the crisp mountain air he heard the faint sound of a baby crying.

Out here all alone a man’s mind can do funny things to him, so Madigan made no judgments until he was sure of what he was hearing. Minutes seemed to go on for hours, then he heard the sound again only this time much closer. Although it sounded like a baby crying, Madigan recognized the sound of that made by a mountain lion, or puma as they are called in the Southwest. From the pitch, Madigan knew it was a big cat. Probably the same lion whose tracks he’d seen earlier in the day.

The buckskin grew more restless but stood his ground; it looked as if the packhorse was about to run. Madigan got up and carefully caught her by the halter. Taking a short rope he tied her to a stout tree where she would be out of danger and not get in his way if he had to get off a quick shot.

Madigan levered a round into his Winchester.44-.40. There was little moonlight in the deep canyon so he knew he must find some way of spotting the cat if it came any closer. Finding his pack in the dark, he quickly pulled out a leather bag filled with black powder. When prospecting, one never knows when some powder will be needed to blast out an opening somewhere. So through habit he always kept some handy.

The mountain lion cried again, this time from just outside the entrance to Madigan’s hiding place. Now he was sure it was on the scent of the horses and that the big cat was hungry. He also knew that where the horses’ scent was strong, his would be too. Normally human scent stops a cat dead in its tracks. But if they are hurt or old and cannot hunt their normal prey, they turn to easier game. From its cry, he did not believe this cougar to be old.

Then a chilling thought struck him-rabies! He had seen many fox along the way, and wherever there was an abundance of fox, there was a high probability that there’d be some diseased animals close by. If a puma caught one of these sick animals, it would contract the sickness also.

A mountain lion with rabies feared nothing. And this cat was heading Madigan’s way! Another thing that tended to confirm his theory was the fact that this cat was making more noise than normal for a cat on the prowl. Something was wrong and he’d better be prepared to defend himself and the livestock.

First thing he did was to get a fire going, which only took him a couple of minutes. The light from the fire was somewhat reassuring, but it only lit an area of about twenty feet. The lion could get within a few yards of him and he would not be able to see it. He waited for the cougar to scream again to make sure it was still outside the small canyon, then he stepped quickly into the darkness and paced off another twenty-five feet.

Scooping out a small depression in the dirt, he poured most of the black powder into it. Then he carefully poured a trail with the rest of the powder back to where he’d be waiting for the big cat. This took some time, as he had to be sure not to leave any breaks in the powder line. Now he nervously sat down with rifle in hand to wait.

It is a unique experience to sit out in the wilderness a hundred miles from help, in the dark, with a rabid mountain lion tracking you down. There isn’t a gun made that looks big enough at these times. Madigan thought about getting the Sharps out, but if he missed the first shot, he would not have time for another.

Madigan’s lever action Winchester in.44–40 caliber would do the job if his aim was good, as long as it didn’t jam. In his haste to try for Harry O’Neill several days before, he’d inadvertently smashed the rifle into a tree in the dark. When he tried for one last shot at the bushwhacker as he was riding out, his rifle had jammed.

The next morning he cleaned it thoroughly and found that the bolt going through the cocking lever was bent. As long as he worked the lever slowly it worked all right, but if he got in a hurry it would jam. There was nothing he could do about it until he got to a town with a gunsmith. He made a mental note to work the lever as slowly as possible if a second shot was needed.

A series of short screams brought Madigan to full alert. Somewhere a short distance from him the big cougar was stalking his next meal-Madigan! The packhorse that he had wisely tied a short distance behind him was terrified. The buckskin was jittery but kept his ground. Madigan poked a stick in the fire behind him and strained to see into the darkness.

Even with all the noise the packhorse was making, he could hear the labored breathing of the puma in the darkness. He had not yet seen the glow from the cat’s eyes, which meant it was keeping well out from the fire. Madigan’s guess was that the cougar was just far enough along with rabies to slow it down some and cause it to lose its fear of man, but not far enough along to lose its natural fear of fire.

A few more hours and the cat might have just rushed in and attacked him without warning and that would have been that. Like he thought earlier, this whole trip had been very nerve-racking. He was thinking that he’d have been better off to have stayed with the army where he only had to fight Indians and Generals for a living.

The buckskin’s ears pointed forward, looking off to Madigan’s right where the fir trees were thickest. No wonder he was unable to see the feline’s eyes. The big cat was using the trees as cover and was probably right now getting ready to make his charge. The hair on the back of Madigan’s neck crawled as he grabbed a glowing stick from the fire and touched off the black powder. Even as the powder flared up, illuminating the area in a blinding flash, he only had time to see the mountain lion in full flight before it would be on him.

Madigan had no time to aim as he pulled the trigger, then dove for the ground, rolling in an effort to escape the cat’s savage claws. He knew he had missed, but the cougar was blinded by the flash and it also missed. Madigan quickly came to his knees aligning the rifle in the direction of where the cat had landed. He jerked the Winchester’s lever down to eject the spent shell and reload another.