Bitterroot: The Trail of Death

By Karlheinz Moll

In 1858, four hard men ride across the border into the New Mexico Territory. Their target is a large ranch where they hope to get rich. After the raid they ride off with a box of ancient coins, leaving the rancher's family dead and the ranch burnt down. Before he dies the rancher sends a letter to his friend, Abraham Lincoln. During the Civil War, some of the stolen coins turn up in the western Territories. President Lincoln nominates former Cavalry Caption Joseph 'Joe' Pernell as U.S. Marshal and requests him to follow the trail of coins and get justice for his dead friend. From Fort Union in New Mexico, the Marshal starts his search which ultimately brings him to the Montana Territory, where he was born and raised. During the journey Joseph Pernell has to use his wits and military experience more than once to solve the mystery of the stolen coins and to bring the raiders to justice.

• Language: English
• Publisher: tredition
• Release date: May 6, 2021
• ISBN: 9783347310193

Karlheinz Moll

Karlheinz Moll, geboren 1966 in Meckenbeuren, lebt und arbeitet primär in München. Hauptberuflich ist er als Unternehmensberater, Projekt Manager, Fachspezialist und Trainer in der Finanzwelt tätig. Mit seinem Abschluss als MBA für Finanzdienstleistungen der University of Wales blickt er auf 30 Jahre Erfahrung in der Finanzdienstleistungsbranche zurück. Er begann seine Tätigkeit als Autor in 2014 mit der Veröffentlichung von Sachbüchern. Sein erstes Buch ´FATCA – Wenn der Fiskus zweimal klingelt´ befasste sich mit dem amerikanischen Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FATCA) und einem Einblick in die U.S. Steuergesetze. Ein Jahr später folgte sein zweites Sachbuch ´Amerika – Land der unbegrenzten Gegensätze´. Während das Buch zu FATCA nur auf Deutsch verfügbar ist, wurde ´Amerika´ in 2016 auch auf Englisch veröffentlicht. 2017 schrieb Karlheinz Moll den ersten Band ´Ego Shooter – The Depth of the Pain´ zu einer Serie von internationalen Thrillern rund um den BKA-Agenten Alexander Granger. Ein Jahr später folgte mit ´The FAKE – Deadly Finances´ der zweite Band. In 2019 wurde ´Downhill – Whatever It Takes´ als dritter Band in der Serie veröffentlicht. Alle Bände der Serie sind auf Englisch erschienen. In 2020 verfasste er mit ´Espresso Morte´ seinen ersten deutschsprachigen Roman und in 2021 folgte mit ´Bitterroot – Trail of Death´ sein erster Western. Der nun vorliegende Roman ´Das Puzzle des Todes´ ist der erste einer Reihe von Krimis, die in der Heimatstadt des Autors angesiedelt sind.

Book preview

Prologue I

April, 1858 – Nogales, New Mexico Territory

He rode ahead of a small group of rugged men. Their horses, exhausted from a long ride and covered in desert dust, matching the equally dusty clothing of the four men, walked in a line along a gravel path. The men had nothing in common except for one thing; the lust for wealth in the form of gold, money or anything else of value. The quartet anticipated that plenty of it would be available at the ranch they were approaching.

The man up front who clearly led the pack was in his early thirties with a shaggy beard over weathered, deeply-tanned skin. He wore a dark-brown poncho over a worn-out shirt and his pants were stuffed into his boots. On his head he had a dark blue woolen army hat from which he had removed the insignia. He was a half-breed, although it was unclear whether one half of his ancestry was of Comanche or Apache descent and nobody had ever dared to ask.

On his belt and in stark contrast to his clothing and general appearance, he carried a mint-condition Bowie knife on one side and what looked like one of those brand new Smith & Wesson 1855 revolvers on the other. His Palomino carried a well-maintained Springfield Rifle. The weapons he carried might have been new but he himself, despite his age, had had his share of fighting and violence and he was ready to apply both in the compound coming into sight which they would reach shortly.

They had crossed the border north of Embarcadero and had entered the United States south of Nogales. It was hard to tell where one country ended and the other began, except there were brothels on the Mexican side and they were nowhere to be found north of the border. It was in one of those immoral establishments that an old town drunk told them about a big American ranch which stretched across ten thousands of acres, starting several miles inside Mexico, passing the outskirts of Nogales and ending more than a hundred miles to the north.

After they had loosened his tongue with a few more glasses of mescal he´d kept on talking about the ranch, its owner and his family and, most importantly, the riches which could be found there. The four men weren´t sure which parts of the man´s story were true and which were simply the fantasies of a drunken old man but they had no specific plans anyway other than to get hold of desperately needed money, in any currency or form. They didn´t need much to convince themselves to get back on their mounts and to head for the border.

Halfway to the ranch they paused and watered their horses at the Patagonia Lake. One of them took the reins and let them fall to the ground, the clear sign for the trained horses to relax but not to go anywhere. The man stayed very close to them anyway as they would all be lost out here without their mounts. He was older with salt and pepper hair and was taller than the leader of the group with a strong build and big hands. This second man wore a buckskin jacket with a flannel shirt underneath and infantry pants. He kept his eyes fixed on the horses and checked that there were enough cartridges in the old Colt Paterson which he´d kept after he had been demobbed two years ago. He wore the holster on the right side buttforward so that he could draw it with his left hand.

While the three quarter horses and the palomino grazed on the fresh green grass alongside the lake, the other three men also checked their guns and agreed on a simple plan of action of how they would play it out once they reached the main building of the ranch.

The main building of the ranch was located between the lake and the lower hills of Madera Canyon, close enough to the reservoir but equally close to higher altitudes to escape the summer heat.

Timing was on their side as the majority of cowboys and ranch hands were spread throughout the property. They were tending to the cattle and the rich fields where various kinds of fruits and vegetables grew alongside the seemingly endless pastures necessary to feed the people and animals living out here in the middle of nowhere. The next town was more than a day´s ride away.

When they arrived and rode through the main gate, only a few people were visible working in the fields. The four men ignored them and the ranch hands kept their heads down pretending to be occupied with their work. They didn´t know why, but they had a bad feeling when the quartet passed by them. Once the four riders had passed, they watched after them and then looked at each other with eyes full of worry but they decided to get back to work hoping their first impression was wrong and these men were just passing through or wanted to meet with their boss.

At the main building the four halted their horses and dismounted as a woman came outside to greet them.

Buenos Dias. I guess you are looking for my husband?

Good day…how did you guess?

That was easy…there are not many things here that would warrant a long hard ride…

You shouldn´t say that. said the man with the poncho grinning through his teeth as he got closer pulling his left leg. Could we have a talk with your husband? he continued, knowing what the answer would be.

He´ll be back later in the afternoon. He and some of the hands are out after some strays. Can I offer you something to drink while you wait?

We´re sure you can offer us more than just that. the man with the poncho said in a tone which sent a shudder through her, as it was more a statement than a question.

Her eyes widened as she realized that she was facing a bunch of very bad men. She turned around and tried to rush back into the house but was stopped forcefully before she could reach the door by the man with the poncho. Once he, the left-handed man and one of the other two had entered the house all hell broke loose inside. The painful shrieks, cries and begging were heard by the ranch hands who dropped their gear and started to run towards the house, wanting to help.

The fourth man, the youngest among them, blond, baby faced and with a black patch over his left eye, showered them with a spray of bullets from his two Colt Paterson revolvers, only stopping when they weren´t moving anymore. He quickly removed the empty cartridges and reloaded the revolvers in case any additional staff came running.

The man with the poncho was the first to come outside to check what the shooting was about and he waved the fourth man inside. When he saw the carnage he grinned again in satisfaction.

Your turn…but hurry…not much left. he said with a broad grin showing his teeth.

When the assault was over, the four men walked back to their horses as if nothing out of the ordinary had happened. Maybe for them it really was just another day on their path through the Territory. They packed everything they had robbed from the house into their saddlebags.

The young man fixed his pants, still exhausted from his violent act, as he took out several matches, lit them and threw them inside the house. He waited until the house caught fire before he turned around and got on his horse, catching up with the others.

The last of the men wore military clothing too, including a marine-blue cap atop thinning black hair. He carried the heaviest of the stolen pieces; a wooden, metal-plated casket which he covered with his bedroll and put on the backside of his saddle as his saddlebags were already filled with other souvenirs.

Many people couldn´t look at his face because of the scar running straight across from above the right eye to below the left lip, the result of a saber blow during his tenure in the military, when medical attention had come too late for the wound to heal properly. He had developed a habit of killing anyone who looked into his face for more than a few straight seconds with his saber and the daughter in the ranch house was no different.

As they rode off the ranch property, the house caught fire everywhere and was burning to the ground. The smoke was visible from a long way out. Two cowboys from the ranch who were herding a small herd of cattle to another pasture noticed the smoke from miles away and rode straight back to the main house as fast as their mounts could carry them.

There was nothing they could do but to stare at it in agony. The structure of the ranch was completely gone. In the ashes they found some burnt, hardly identifiable bodies in the rubble but instantly they knew who they were.

Nothing had survived the blaze inside the house when the rancher returned from his trip. He too had seen smoke in the air coming from the direction of the ranch and galloped home in full speed. As he saw the rubble he fell to his knees and wept. Only after a few minutes he notice a movement close to the flower bed. It was one of his ranch hands, more dead than alive.

Later, after the rancher had buried the remains of his wife, his four children and the helpers who had died during the raid, he and his men built a basic house where the big main house had once stood.

It took several weeks for the ranch hand to recover from the gunshot wounds. Luckily, the doctor in Nogales was used to treating this sort of injury because he had spent time in field hospitals during the war with Mexico. When the ranch hand was awake and strong enough to speak again he told the rancher everything he remembered.

One evening the rancher sat down in the new, much smaller house and started to write a letter to his friend in which he wrote down everything his ranch hand had told him.

The letter was addressed to a man in Illinois and started with ´My dear friend Abe´.

Prologue II

March,1862 – Glorieta Pass, New Mexico Territory

Atroop of cavalry men were riding through the rugged defile of the Sangre de Cristo Mountains when they spotted a larger, but obviously disorganized party of Confederates on the other side of Apache Creek.

The Union riders belonged to the 1st Cavalry under the command of Major John M. Chivington, and had been ordered to scout the terrain in search of the enemy. A dispatch rider was sent back to the main body to let Major Chivington know where the enemy soldiers were camped and to request infantry support.

The Captain who led the cavalry troop had already decided to seek an engagement with the Confederates to seize the opportunity of a surprise attack, to take revenge for Valverde. Standing at 6´4 the Captain in his late thirties was taller than his men by far. He had dark-blond hair and was of muscular build. He had been wounded twice already in confrontations before the war and hoped to get through this conflict alive.

The Union cavalry troop rode alongside Apache Creek for more than a mile and crossed the creek at a spot where the water was shallow. The Confederates hadn´t noticed their movements and, if things went well, they could attack them from the rear with the advantage of surprise, the Captain thought.

But like his fellow men, he tried to remain cautious. The memory of the Battle of Valverde, which had happened just a month ago, was still fresh. He remembered well that everything had felt good back then too, at least in the beginning. Colonel Edward Canby