Gold in the Red Desert Part 1

Gold In The Red Desert

Book One of The Owl Hoot Trail

by T.H. Bear

Published by BluewaterPress LLC at Smashwords

Copyright 2016 T.H. Bear

The contents of this book regarding the accuracy of events, people and places depicted; permissions to use all previously published materials; all are the sole responsibility of the author, who assumes all liability for the contents of this book.

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International Standard Book Number 13: 978-1-60452-117-7

International Standard Book Number 10: 1-60452-117-1

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I dedicate

‘Book One’

Of

‘The Owl Hoot Trail’

To my baby girl,

Patricia Carol,

Who I loved so and miss dearly

Gold In The Red Desert

The Owl Hoot Trail

This trilogy, we call the Owl Hoot Trail, is the story of a man, not unlike many of this very day, who leave their home and everyone they love to serve their country in the time of war. This man was a soldier, like all good soldiers, who did not question the politicians or their motives, rather he devoted his all in serving to protect his nation from an invader, only to return and find almost everything he had loved had been swept away and his homeland in the hands of corrupt officials and an occupational army. How different were the feelings of the people of Belgium, France, and Poland between 1940 and 1945 from the people of Alabama, Florida, and Georgia between 1863 and 1873?

These books were named ‘The Owl Hoot Trail’ because in those times, a person who was considered a criminal fugitive was often referred to as an Owl Hoot and the roads they took to ply their trade and evade their pursuers was known as ‘The Owl Hoot Trail.’ It is upon this trail our returning soldier must travel until he can clear his name of an uncommitted crime.

Book One: Gold in the Red Desert tells us how, in a vain effort to protect his family, Clifford Brown, was unjustly accused of murder and thrust upon the owl hoot trail, and finding this trail leading him to the gold fields in and around South Pass City in the Territory of Wyoming. There he witnessed a murder and as a result became entangled in a struggle to right this wrong. There also he found the only woman he would ever love.

Book Two: The Withlacoochee Renegades reveals his return to his native state of Georgia during the infamous Reconstruction Period, and of his forming a band of brothers, who like vigilantes everywhere throughout time, were created only by desperate souls in desperate times when legal authority either failed or was too corrupt to protect the people.

Book Three: The Long Trail allows us to ride with Cliff Brown in pursuit of the almost mythical villain who was responsible for the murder of several members of his family. A pursuit that takes him more than six years, on a 3500 mile journey through seven states, where in every corner he must struggle with the evils of greedy people and the revenge burning fiercely within himself, each begging, often commanding an inner peace that would be denied him for over seventeen years.

Acknowledgements

To say that this book is totally fiction would be an insult to most historians. Surely, all with a general knowledge of American History, especially the times of Mr. Lincoln’s War and those twenty or so years after, when great immigrations occurred into what we now call ‘The West’, would know that there was indeed a Gold Rush in the Sweetwater Region of Wyoming, that indeed there was a General Nathan Bedford Forrest, a Judge Esther Morris, a Lieutenant Caspar Collins, a Wild Bill Hickman, and other true to life people who lived and contributed to the future of America, and some of these people offer a small contribution to this story. Regardless, I must make clear that this is a novel not a history book, and the main characters, and the people and events in this story that they become involved in and with, are totally from my imagination and not to be confused with any living or dead individual or occurrence.

Appreciation

The illustrations contained in this book are either from my own family’s collection of photographs, by courtesy of The State of Wyoming Department of State Parks and Cultural Resources, State of Wyoming Archives; or taken from the web site Wyoming Tales & Trails. Were it not for the enormous labor and endless hours of devotion in preserving the pictorial history of The Great State of Wyoming by Geoff Dobson so much would not be available to the reader. It is to this site we give much credit and appreciation.

Thank you, Geoff.

Chapter One - The Scogins Affair

Chapter Two - The Sisters

Chapter Three - The Sky People

Chapter Four - The Hanging

Chapter Five - Salzburg

Chapter Six - The Sweetwater Mining Country

Chapter Seven - Monia City

Chapter Eight - The Ground Blizzard

Chapter One

The Scogins Affair

Cliff Brown had stopped at the huge rock, there in the middle of nowhere, to look at the hundreds of names carwas ved on it. He thought he might dismount and add his to the many western travelers, but a strong memory from deep in his past became painfully clear in his mind when he remembered the first week in February, in the year 1849. It had started as a special time for him; only the day before his mother had baked a cake as a present for his birthday. He surely felt special, for only once before in his life had she made a cake and that had been when his father had returned to Lowndes County after serving three long years in the service of the navy of those United States.

He remembered well, going to school that morning full of joy and energy. He, being so proud of that cake, had stolen a piece and brought it to share with and to brag about to Andy Bell and Jim Taylor, his two best friends. Unfortunately, the trio soon found themselves in mischief, and Miss Zimms, the teacher, caught them painting their names on the back side of the one room schoolhouse with her last pail of milk paint. Her fury had only been exceeded by his embarrassment when he was ordered to stand before the whole school and repeat one hundred times, Fool’s names and fool’s faces are often seen in public places. He remembered well the face of Mary Annette as she giggled at him while he stood there reciting that phrase. And he wondered, ‘Is she the one who told on us to Miss Zimms? It would be like her.’

Now twenty-one years later, he decided against carving Clifford Brown, or even Reb, as he had become known, on the turtle shaped Registry of the Desert. Instead, he gently touched his heel to the side of the big sorrel moving on to the promised river that was supposed to lay a short distance to the west.

Looking down at the narrow stream he laughed to himself, ‘River’? Hell, I’ve seen ditches wider than that, back in Georgia.’

Independence Rock also known as ‘The Registry of the Desert’

Looking across ‘The Sweetwater River’

Still it had been sixty or so miles of nothing but alkali desert covered by little more than scattered sage since he had left the remains of old Fort Caspar, and the coolness of the Sweetwater River did bid a friendly welcome. Cliff let Red enjoy a long drink as the sun began to settle behind the towering peaks some miles beyond. Then he took water for himself and gathered a few dead branches that had long since fallen from the three cottonwood trees on his side of the riverbed, the dead wood being more than enough to cook his supper.

After building the small fire, he sat a pot of Arbuckle’s on to boil while he removed the saddle and hobbled Red close by. His next chore was to clean the alkali dust from his weapons. Slowly and carefully, he removed the cylinder from his revolver and wiped it clear of all signs of the white powder. With a small stick he had long ago whittled from the limb of a hickory tree, back where there were hickory trees, he pushed a portion of his red silk neckerchief through each chamber. Then using the neckerchief, her cleaned each of the six cartridges before reinserting them into the cylinder. Then, admiring his labor, he returned the cylinder into the frame of his old Colt.

Carefully with much tenderness, he caressed the revolver. It had saved his life many a time in the bitter days when he had been with Forrest in Tennessee.

Slowly his mind drifted from the brown plains of Wyoming Territory to the green fields of middle Tennessee. He had gone there in November of ’62 where they met the enemy. It had been the Fourth Illinois who had been assigned by Sherman to hold the burg of Lebanon some twenty to thirty miles east of Nashville.

He had been issued a shotgun, being unable to afford his own musket, as were most of Forrest’s mounted men at that time. These weapons were of little or no value except at very close range, and it was General Bragg’s intention for Forrest and his men to get in that close amongst them. The shotgun did have the advantage, of having two shots before reloading, but that was the only advantage and no one, save a very few, looked at it with favor. Cliff had made up his mind he was going to trade it to the first Yankee he saw, and that was almost exactly what had happened.

Lebanon was centered around a square, as typical of most towns in the south, having once been a small fort where the town’s people could enter to escape Indian attacks. The civilian buildings were built around the outsides of the fort, often using the walls of the fort itself as their backsides. After Jackson had driven all the redmen from their homes in middle Tennessee, the need for such forts had gone with them. What became of these forts, after their abandonment by the army? They simply became a town square. This little borough, however, held a special spot in Cliff’s mind. It was here at Cumberland University that he had attended college, and he wanted desperately to keep the Federals from destroying his old school.

The square in Lebanon was also the intersection of the Knoxville-Nashville Pike and the north-south road that led from Murfreesboro into Kentucky. The men of the Fourth Illinois had barricaded the square, and Dickey had set up his headquarters in the newly constructed courthouse there.

It was dawn on a cold December morning when Cliff found himself at full gallop westbound on the pike. He could hear the sounds of gunfire and knew Forrest had begun his attack from the south. When his squad arrived at the east barricade, they found it abandoned. All the defenders had run towards the center of the square to man the 12-pound Napoleon located there. Several blue uniformed men were just turning the big gun to ward off the attacking charge they could see was coming up the Murfreesboro Road, when Cliff’s horse leaped the bales of hay and corn stalks that had been placed there as a road block. The square was already full of smoke from all the gunfire, and he knew that their flanking movement had been a total success. Not one Yank seemed to even know they were there before they opened up with their shotguns.

He had loaded the weapon with pistol ball, and the discharge of his right barrel caught an invader full in the chest, taking him off his feet and over the shiny barrel of the cannon.

Cliff’s horse reared at the blast so near his right ear, before he began bucking. Finally when he could, with some sort of design on his own, he left the mount and hit the yellow clay with both feet. A man with bright yellow chevrons on his blue sleeve had just reached to the frog on his belt for the long skinny bayonet and was trying to attach it to his musket when he saw Cliff raise his shotgun. Frantically, he attempted to fix the long knife to the gun, but they both knew he had no chance. Again Cliff saw a man leave the earth for a short time when he was struck with the twelve .36 caliber balls full in the chest.

When the smoke of his shot cleared, he saw another man in blue standing there with a revolver in hand who looked first at his companion and then back at the man who had just snapped out his life. It seemed as if the world had suddenly begun some sort of half-time movement, or as some would say, everything went into slow motion in both of their minds. To this very, day Cliff remembered watching the man slowly cock the Colt and begin to raise it in his direction. Instinctively, he cocked the right hammer on his shotgun. His opponent saw the motion, turned his head and again looked at the lifeless mass of bloody wool and body parts that seconds before had been his leader. Immediately, fear mingled with good sense overtaking his courage. He raised his hands, letting the cocked revolver swing away, with his finger still in the trigger guard.

Cliff wasted no time in retrieving the pistol from Private John Morris’ hand along with his belt and cartridge pouch. Then without care he pitched the empty shotgun away, grabbed his prisoner and used him as a shield.

Before this minute was up, Forrest himself, who had led the frontal charge, was in the square firing his LeMat first to the right of his horse and then to the left. Very soon the remainder of Dickey’s men were following their leader in a scattered and unorganized, though rapid, retreat towards Nashville. It was obvious that Morris had not taken the time to look at or perhaps could not see the spent percussion cap under the hammer of Cliff’s right barrel. It mattered not either way, for the bluff had paid off, and Cliff now had a fine .44 caliber Colt. It was this same weapon that he now caressed on the bank of the Sweetwater River nearly eight years later.

The war had also brought him his rifle, although in an around about way. It was some two years after he had taken his prized Colt, that Cliff found himself again on a flanking movement pursuing the remains of a company of Union Cavalry who had tried to fire the home of Colonel Looney.

In November 1864, Forrest’s men were in an advance circular maneuver ahead of Hoods Army, then marching north to retake Nashville.

In what was to become known as the Franklin-Nashville Campaign, the Union Army was preparing defensive positions ahead of the oncoming gray tide. Their line of defense extended from the Mooresville Pike to the Mt. Pleasant Pike. Major-General John M. Schofield’s troops began their hasty withdrawal from Columbia, and a common defensive tactic often used by Union forces was to destroy important buildings along the line of retreat. Many of Maury County’s majestic antebellum homes were selected to be torched that day.

Elm Springs was slated to be on the list, not because it had any important military value, but rather as an act of retribution because it was the historic home of Confederate Lieutenant Colonel Abraham M. Looney, whose often outspoken position for the southern cause almost resulted in the loss of his home.

Cliff was then a sergeant and leading thirteen men comprised of both mounted infantry and cavalry. They arrived just as three bluebellies were departing Elm Springs and two were shot and the third taken prisoner. His men were able to put out the fires started by these arsonists and soon were in pursuit of others. They had crossed the small stream that was surely a tributary of the Tennessee and were now awaiting the retreating union infantry that they could see some distance up the road. Cliff knew that Lieutenant Bob Willis had taken a detail of nearly twice his strength and was supposed to be on the opposite side of the road where their concerted crossfire should have been devastating to the fleeing troops. When the targets were at a point across from a small barn, which had been burned nearly to the ground, they were to open up