Massacre Cave

By Colby Van Wagoner

Massacre Cave is Colby Van Wagoner’s first book in the Crow Mountain series. Set in the southwestern territories, of the unsettled region, the Spanish fight to colonize the natives of the region. In Del Muerto Canyon, hundreds of Spanish soldiers slaughter unarmed woman, children, and elders of the Near The Mountain, and Bitter Water People Clans. Istakah, a mysterious, dark medicine man, and practitioner of the witchery way, forms a clan of Yee Naaldlooshi, Skinwalkers, to seek revenge for the slaughter of his people. Antonio Narbona seeks peace for the Navajo people, and begins to form treaties with the Spanish and United States governments. The Yee Naaldlooshi attack, and feed on travelers passing through the region to ensure their survival and strengthen their power. When one of their own betrays them, and escapes, he frees one of their captives. The Yee Naaldlooshi clan embarks on a path of revenge and chaos, changing the lives of two families that make the choice to aid the escaping couple. In the end, the confrontations leave everlasting imprints on everyone involved.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Colby Van Wagoner
• Release date: Jan 9, 2011
• ISBN: 9781458138187

Colby Van Wagoner

Colby Van Wagoner is a versatile and descriptive American author. Offering a variety of genres, the vision is to create unique plots and exciting twists in storytelling. His first book release, Massacre Cave, was written as part of a trilogy called "The Crow Mountain Series". The Crow Mountain books evolve around the Navajo shape shifter, commonly referred to as the Skinwalker, blending between combinations of horror and classic authentic late 1800s western authenticity.H.H. Holmes: The Devil In Me, is Colby's fourth full length release and best seller. The book is based on the true events of America's first captured, tried, and sentenced, "termed" and documented serial killer. Chicago's twisted killer H.H. Holmes. The book presents a unique and controversial twist, which delves deep inside the mind and from the serial killer's point of view.A 5th book release, Earth Mongers, combines historical events in an unexpected science fiction twisting finale, which explores a thrilling new approach to natural disasters, and global disasters. On the brink of global catastrophe, populations are forced to look at their choices, leaders of countries are forced to make tough decisions, or face extinction.Dead in Love is Colby Van Wagoner's 6th, and first, release in "The Dead" Zombie double release. In a small town, local residents rumor of the military's basic operations and chemical experiments taking place inside. In their complicit living is the facility's development of two separate and top secret compounds, tested on lab animals and soon local humans mysteriously removed from nearby hospitals and the local surrounding. Baxter a local resident, is soon caught up in a secretive fight to save himself and the love of his life, Laylianna, during the impending outbreak.Volume One is a collection of eight horror novellas that stretch between the paranormal and supernatural. Released in 2013. As a young child, Aurora discovers, "Baby Doll Head" a vessel possessing mysterious mind control powers. Stories include a family of inbreds who terrorize and seek to control families inside the Cult House. A Love Not Lost, explores an aging embalmer who has lost touch with reality after the loss of his wife. Alex in Horrorland takes a young boy on a journey through an imaginary world of horror. A group of travelers board a train and fall victim to a family of rail workers in Blood, Flesh, and Bone. The Shadows of Kayakoy come to life as a group of travelers make a terrible choice to remain overnight in the ghost town. Bleak, the end of all existence? Finally, Aurora's all grown up in Parallel, where her realities unite and realities occur in real time as she mentally deteriorates. She is committed to an asylum, influenced by nightmares and the supernatural, Volume One takes readers on a rollercoaster ride of suspense and horror.Compound is about a group of diverse travelers making their way through a Brazilian quarantine zone. Fleeing from town to town, the travelers attempt to survive and seek refuge from a viral outbreak.Fever is about a Texas Ranger witnessing the murders of his family. Texas Ranger Zeke Slade takes matters into his own hands. Instead of bringing his family's killers to justice, to stand trial, he makes the decision to serve his own justice, avenging the murders of his family on his own terms, breaking his oath as a Texas Ranger. The Adjutant General offers Zeke Slade the choice of facing prison time, or accepting a marshal position in an Alaskan mining town, Fever.The Jack and Jillian Book Series are Colby Van Wagoner's children's books. Jack and Jillian write about learning and creating new things. They write about the sports they are learning, how to play safely, and learning the rules to play fair. Jack and Jillian also learn about art and how to create different forms of art. The series is aimed at encouraging, challenging young minds, and motivating them to remain active, both physically and mentally.Massacre Cave, Crow Mountain, Return to Crow Mountain, H.H. Holmes: The Devil In Me, Earth Mongers, Dead in Love, Volume One, the Jack and Jillian Children's Book Series, Compound, and Fever are available online at Amazon.com, Barnes and Noble.com, and other U.S. and international book retailers. In its first month out Colby Van Wagoner's books have reached the top 50 on the Amazon bestsellers rank!After experiencing a traumatic brain injury in 2014, which required a craniotomy and recovery, Colby Van Wagoner completed a bachelor's and master's degree in psychology. After 4 years of recovery and adjustment to the physical and mental challenges, he was able to complete a new title called, A Time for Heroes: 2017 Las Vegas Shooting. The book was completed in 2018 and covers the tragic Las Vegas mass shooting through first hand witness accounts, local law enforcement's and the FBI's official case files. Working with factual combined evidence, and a thorough historical background on the shooter, the detailed research and work includes a full psychological and behavioral profile assessment of mass shooter, Stephen Paddock. The book also accounts harrowing and gripping stories of survival and honors, in remembrance, those who were lost in the Las Vegas, Nevada public attack.Colby continues to challenge his writing style and plots, improve his craft through learning different writing and editing techniques, through distinct and unique story progression, while combining historical events and exciting fictional exploration and original ideas.

Book preview

Massacre Cave

Book one: The Crow Mountain Series

By

Colby Van Wagoner

© January 10, 2010.

Unauthorized reproduction, or use, is prohibited, without express written permission by the author. Cover photo obtained from Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division, Edward S. Curtis Collection, [reproduction number, e.g., LC-USZC4-4641] and is public domain.

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SMASHWORDS EDITION

PUBLISHED BY:

Colby Van Wagoner

Copyright© 2011 by Colby Van Wagoner

EBook Edition License Notes

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person you share it with. Thank you for respecting the author's work.

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Other titles available from the author:

See Through Myself: A Memoir

A Time for Heroes: 2017 Las Vegas Shooting

H.H. Holmes: The Devil in Me

Crow Mountain Series

Massacre Cave - Book one

Crow Mountain - Book two

Return to Crow Mountain - Book three

Life of Zeke Slade Series

Ranger - Book one

Fever – Book two

Compound

Dead in Love

Volume One – (The Volumes)

Earth Mongers

Jack and Jillian Children’s Book Series

Chapter One

In 1770, many of the Navajo clans had settled among the red rock towers and plateaus in the valleys of Canyon de Chelly and Canyon Del Meurto of the Crow Mountain in northeastern Arizona. The chosen landscapes colored with bright red rocks and cream-colored mud that coated the hills, elaborate arches, and plateaus of the valleys and prairies. Large rock towers randomly adorned the land, and most had become weathered in yellowish colors. Their shapes like circling stairways to reach their tops, while others dark and light red cream-colored, with shades of browns and glowing yellows in the sunsets.

Livestock was the primary sustenance for being part of Navajo survival. Aside from much-needed food and protein, bone and muscle tissues, colorful clothing, and woven blankets offered the comforts of warmth in the winter season. Their skills in crafted goods provided items for sale and barter to passing travelers. Some of those travelers which the people never approached, and if so, never without their most skilled warriors.

There were fields of corn, a variety of plants that included beans, squash, specific fruits and berries, and cactus fruit in the warmer times of the seasons. The heard of their cattle and abundance in growing seasons offered the opportunity to move from their past lifestyle of hunting for deer, mountain sheep, antelope, and rabbit. The Navajo had become exceptional in raising and herding sheep as well as their herds of cattle.

Spanish settlers introduced Churro sheep into the territory for grazing and trade. Many of the clans were forced to relocate to a new land as the sheep consumed the grass. The Red Running Into The Water People Clan were raiding Spanish settlers and ranchers moving into the southwest territories. They were taking their horses for hunting and fighting and their sheep to sustain the herds of their clan, during the harsh winter seasons.

1775 brought the American Revolution with resistance in the thirteen eastern colonies of North America. American patriots were frustrated with British rule and declared their independence. After the seven years of conflict, the declaration had been made the colonies won the victory, creating the first states of North America. News of the formation of the state lines within North America traveled from the east coast to the southwestern territories, causing new concerns within the Spanish government.

Many of the frontiersmen who traveled and lived among their lands before foreign settlers arrived had trapped and traded furs with indigenous tribes, other frontier families, and friends. These families of original eastern frontier people were now in the stages of leaving the eastern colonies to seek new beginnings in the western territories. The frontiersman learned of the freedoms in the unsettled lands through rumor and word of mouth, and their imaginations had drawn them with hopes of living on their terms. The opportunity to leave the political fighting and wars behind and own their lands in prosperous free territories, to hunt and grow crops on untaxed lands, drew them to the west. With the defeat of the British and the formation of the thirteen states, the United States government began to seek expansion and quickly colonize the west, set its focus on the surrounding territories of land.

The United States quickly organized and gained the support of the frontiersman and people living in Eastern North America. A focus through discussions for arrangements and to spread the word of benefits by joining the states and what America could offer. The original settlers of the eastern territories swift willingness to form statehoods and alliances with the new colonies and expand met with little conflict. These alliances allowed America’s newly formed government more options to influence extensive control by merging militias to fight for the expansion of the United States Army which swept across the frontier.

By 1785, Spanish interests frequented military expeditions against the Navajo. In many of the battles, the Navajo of the Red Running Into The Water People Clan had become known by the Spanish and other indigenous tribes as courageous and fearless warriors. The Navajo did not live as settled tribes in single villages, but as a people who moved throughout various locations across Arizona and New Mexico. Their Hogan structures were destroyed in violent conflicts during the Spanish raids, but easily rebuilt with wood poles, abundant brush, and mud collected from their surroundings.

At the turn of the century, in the early 1800s, the unsettled southwestern territories remained a place of brutal survival for the natives and travelers that passed through the lands. It was known by all those daring to travel in small numbers their likelihood of attack would be eminent. Yearly widespread famines in the southwest territories became influenced by drought and overgrazed lands.

To overcome the drought and overgrazed lands, the people were able to supplement their supplies by trading with other tribes in the area and travelers passing through on their way to the Pacific. The Near the Mountain People Clan flourished in the trade of woven blankets intricately woven with their unique looms. Navajo silversmiths in the villages crafted beautiful handmade bracelets, tobacco flasks and necklaces. As their experience progressed, they added earrings, buckles, bolos and hair ornaments and squash blossom necklaces.

Pawnee, Ute, and Apache raid parties surprised their enemies through attacks and bloody wars on opposing tribes, capturing prisoners to force their enemies to work as slaves. Other tribal captives sold and traded for horses, weapons, food, and other supplies to the Spanish expeditions for defense of tribal territories. Rumors of these actions had quickly spread throughout the tribes and clans. The Spaniards’ Catholic Churches were forcing the captive native slaves into baptism not only for work but forced to worship unfamiliar Gods in ceremonies on the Catholic mission grounds.

In the Spanish mission, near the settlement of Fort Cebolleta held many Native captives from various North American tribes. Younger captives brought into the mission had strict rule and taught the religious ways and language of the church. Rumors that concerned aggressive abuse, rape, and outright neglect of child captives simply ignored upon report. The native women captives more often taken and later discovered found bruised and beaten in the surrounding encampments. The assaults so unspeakable the women were unable to speak the language or show their aggressors, so no investigations or further inquiries explored.

Often, disappearances of captives would result with no resolution. Other times, Spanish soldiers and scouts would return to the encampments with unidentified remains of Navajo captives. The body’s wounds and the attack patterns matched those of other bodies recovered to reveal similarities in the way the murderer or group of murders had killed the women. Investigations undertaken in the types of murders, that occurred around Fort Cebolleta, turned up that a knife was used in many of the killings and the patterns were similar.

Sometimes, the recovered bodies had been mangled by the local wildlife; coyotes, wolves, buzzards and were beyond examinations. Spanish medical doctors were concerned after seeing the slayings, but Spanish government officials were not, until some of the bodies started to be Spanish victims. The Spanish governor Juanalito Salazaro, of the New Mexico territory, was beginning to make secret promises between tribes, instigating the force behind the raids of the opposing native tribes and the Navajo clans.

He promised the Ute tribe he would remain neutral in the war they were planning against the Navajos. His reasoning to remain neutral was to gain new land and workers for Spanish ranchers and the government. Governor Salazaro set up a meeting with the chief of the Ute tribes Pajamachk and tribal elders, in order to discuss the Ute plans to invade the strong Red Running Into The Water People Clan. The meeting was arranged. The parties agreed to meet in an open area, north of the Spanish military settlement Cebolleta. This arrangement was made in order to make both parties feel more at ease, since not long before, the Spanish attacked the Ute tribes in their conquests over the southwest territories. Members of the Ute tribe and Spanish military set up a temporary encampment for the meeting to take place.

The governor arrived at the encampment, after chief Pajamachk and the two entered a large tent for the meeting. Pajamachk stood before the governor and greeted him.

Greetings, Governor Salazaro!

Greetings chief, replied the governor.

Please sir, the governor raised his hand towards a small makeshift table, surrounded by blankets. The governor and chief sat down on the blankets, adjusting their clothes to make them feel more comfortable in the sitting position.

Pajamachk spoke first, Governor Salazaro, we are moving into a position of war with one of the strong Navajo tribes, the Red Running Into The Water People Clan. We plan to move into this war in the coming month and ask that you agree to stay out of the battle.

Governor Salazaro replied, Chief, we have no desire to interfere with your war plans. The Governor reached for a cigar, lit it and took a few puffs, blowing the smoke into the air. You can be assured the Spanish military will not interfere with your plans, but also understand we cannot assist you in any way, since the Spanish has made many alliances with the Navajo clans in the area.

The Governor continued The Red Running Into The Water People Clan entered into an alliance with the Spanish and we will not interfere with the clan’s activities and they in turn would not attack the Spanish ranchers or their settlements.

The chief looked at the governor, knowing the Spaniards would keep to this agreement. Governor, we understand that you have had many troubles with the Comanche to the east?

The governor, looking concerned replied, Yes Chief, this is true. The Comanche has been located miles east of Cebolleta; we are prepared to meet their warriors in the coming days.

Pajamachk extended his arms, We can offer assistance in this battle should you require our Ute warriors.

The Governor let out a boisterous laugh, Chief, while I thank you for the offer, my Spanish Lieutenant Manuel will be leading soldiers in the battle and he will prevail.

The chief looking surprised at the governor’s response and insisted, Governor, the Comanche are not to be underestimated, their tactics are well known throughout the tribes for being fierce and unforgiving!

The governor, too egotistical to accept, replied, Chief, listen, my soldiers and their leaders are well equipped with the weaponry and tactics to easily overtake the Comanche.

The chief shrugged of the governor’s response and stood. Blessings in your war plans and to your family as well. I will now return to my people and continue to prepare my war parties. The chief stood, turned and left the tent with the other elders, allowing no time for the governor to stand from the blankets. The governor sat in confusion at the chief’s quick exit and pondered the meeting that had just occurred. He took a few puffs from his cigar and stared at the opening of the tent.

Throughout the southwestern territories, other tribes were fighting to maintain their lands as well. The Pawnee, Ute and Apache had become swept up in the Spanish conquest for land. Tribes were being sent, one against the other by Spanish officials in order to break down any possible alliances forming between the tribes. Any alliances between tribes would build power within the tribal nations and make the Spanish conquest of land and slaves difficult.

The Spanish was beginning to have trouble from the Comanche, east of New Mexico, who were recently armed with French weapons. They had become a dangerous threat to the Spaniards military settlement Cebolleta. The Spaniard soldiers and Comanche warriors were prepared to meet in battle in a wide open valley, during the cold winter season.

The battle presented the Spanish soldiers fighting tactics they were unfamiliar with and unable to defend against. The tactics of the Comanche warriors were chaotic and scattered but precise and effective. As the Spanish soldiers advanced, they were first met with an attack head on from a large group of warriors. The Spanish soldiers easily engaged the Comanche, firing their powder rifles. Warriors were being struck by the hail of bullets and falling from the shots, in moments it looked as though the soldiers would easily take the warriors.

As the Spanish soldiers advanced forward, taking the initial strike, they were flanked from the sides and rear by another war party of fearless and determined Comanche warriors. Not only did the Comanche warriors attack with the weapons of the French, they used their arrows and axes. They hid under covered crawl spaces located at key areas in the open valley.

When the Spanish soldiers were flanked from the sides, their retreats led them straight into the hidden crawlspace traps sprung by the warriors. The soldiers were soon overtaken by the Comanche and the clubs, axes and knives of the warriors were red with the blood of the Spanish soldiers.

Defeated, the remaining Spanish soldiers were taken to a grove, into the center of the valley and strung up with ropes to the trees. The fearless and relentless Comanche warriors cut the remaining soldiers' throats, as they hung from the trees by their ankles.

The soldiers were bled and their hearts cut out from their chests. Their scalps were cut from their heads with dull knives and taken by the warriors as a sign of victory. The leader of the Spanish soldier's head was chopped from his body and put in a cloth satchel. Machkedagik, the Comanche war party’s leader, delivered the cloth satchel to the military settlement Cebolleta and presented it to the Spaniard military officials in charge of the camp, indicating their army had been defeated.

The Spanish now recognized this threat and sought an alliance with the Comanche tribes with promises of rewards from attacks on not only the Navajo tribes, but also the Ute, Apache and Pawnee.