Crackaway's Quest

by Will DuRey

  Crackaway’s Quest

  It is almost two years since Custer’s defeat at the Little Bighorn and apart from those few who have followed Sitting Bull into Canada, the Sioux have been chased out of the Black Hills and are now subjugated by life on a reservation. But rumours of unrest and a renewal of hostilities are causing concern among the people of the northern settlements. The arrival of a buckskin-clad stranger with eagle feathers affixed to his hat and the mane of his pony is greeted with curiosity and caution by the people of Palmersville. The violence that ensues when he voices sympathy for the plight of the tribes people might have been avoided if his attackers had first learned his name. For the stranger is wagon train scout Wes Gray, known throughout the west as Medicine Feather, brother of the Arapaho and friend of the Sioux.

  By the same author

  The Hanging of Charlie Darke

  The Drummond Brand

  In the High Bitterroots

  Return to Tatanka Crossing

  A Storm in Montana

  Longhorn Justice

  Medicine Feather

  Arkansas Bushwhackers

  Jefferson’s Saddle

  Along the Tonto Rim

  The Gambler and the Law

  Lakota Justice

  Crackaway’s Quest

  Will DuRey

  ROBERT HALE

  © Will DuRey 2016

  First published in Great Britain 2016

  ISBN 978-0-7198-2191-2

  The Crowood Press

  The Stable Block

  Crowood Lane

  Ramsbury

  Marlborough

  Wiltshire SN8 2HR

  www.bhwesterns.com

  Robert Hale is an imprint of The Crowood Press

  The right of Will DuRey to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by him

  in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988

  CHAPTER ONE

  The afternoon sun was still high when the man rode into town on the long-backed pinto. Both man and beast were dust covered and looked tired, as though they’d journeyed far to reach this settlement. The man was tall, broad across the shoulders and had a long, expressionless face. He was dressed in fringed buckskin and wore soft moccasins on his feet. His brown, felt hat had a wide brim and a long eagle feather had been fixed securely into the colourful band around its crown. A necklace of coloured stones sat tightly around his thick neck and the doeskin pouch which housed the long-gun he carried across his saddle was splendidly fringed and carefully decorated with the finest designs of the Arapaho people. As he rode, he studied those curious, perhaps cautious faces that were turned in his direction. He had the distinct impression that there was little welcome for him here.

  Any hint of recent contact with Indians was endorsed by the beast beneath him. Although harnessed with a white-man’s saddle, it walked like the pony of an Indian scout; its neck outstretched, its head low and its feet set down softly, like those of a stalking cougar with the scent of a wary pronghorn in its nostrils. The pinto might have looked exhausted but its ears were pricked upright, proving that it was alert to its new surroundings. Not only was it interested in the smells of the town but it was wary, too, of the new sounds and sights. With each careful stride, muscles rippled from its deep chest to its solid back haunches, decrying its lethargic appearance and denoting to any keen judge of horseflesh its ability to produce sustained bursts of speed. It awaited only the rider’s command to leave this town far behind. That command didn’t come; instead it was guided towards the hitching rail outside the Silver Nugget where the man dismounted.

  Palmersville wasn’t a big town, in fact, until the discovery of silver two years earlier, it hadn’t been a town at all, merely the site of a trading post whose importance had diminished since the near demise of the beaver trade. But now there was a street of timber buildings that housed the necessities of civilisation; doctor, undertaker, barber, emporium and barroom. The latter was the biggest establishment, the one that every man in town would have entered most regularly. The man pushed against the batwing doors and went inside.

  It was a big room but dingy, as though it had been built on the wrong side of the street to prohibit sunlight from shining directly through its windows, but there were low-hanging kerosene lamps to provide the necessary illumination for the card players, roulette gamblers and chuck-a-luck gamesters who would fill the place at the end of the working day. For now, only a handful of men were inside, most of them occupied the window tables where there was enough natural light to see a companion’s face. The barman was a stocky fellow, a couple of inches below average height but as rotund as one of his beer barrels. He wore a hard expression on his face, signifying that he was as tough as he needed to be to run a successful frontier beer palace. He had no facial hair and not a lot on top, either. He wore a fancy waistcoat over a white shirt and a slim black tie around his neck. Anticipating the man’s needs, he reached behind and grabbed a bottle from the shelf under the long mirror before speaking.

  ‘What’ll it be?’

  ‘A cold beer if you have one.’

  ‘I’ve got beer,’ the barman said, letting the bottle he’d reached for settle back in its position on the back counter, ‘but I can’t guarantee the temperature. Ran out of ice a week ago. Two bits if you want it.’

  The buckskin-clad newcomer dug into a pocket for some coins while the barman poured the contents of a bottle transported from a St Louis Brewery into a thick glass. Half the contents were quaffed in one swallow. It was the man’s first beer for almost six months. The last had been when he’d parted company with wagonmaster Caleb Dodge in California and then ridden north to winter with his wife’s Arapaho people along the Snake River. This beer was too warm to be good but it washed away the journey’s dust and left a hint of what awaited him in Council Bluffs where the saloons were equipped with better storage facilities than were available in this remote mining town.

  ‘New in town?’ the barman asked, and when the stranger answered with a nod, posed another question. ‘Just passing through?’

  The stranger’s grey-eyed stare pierced the barman. It was an unwritten code throughout the west that a man’s business was his own and it didn’t pay to pry too deeply.

  ‘No offence meant,’ the barman said, ‘but you don’t look like you’re here to grub for silver.’

  ‘That’s right,’ the stranger told him, then downed the beer that remained in the glass.

  ‘You been west of here? In the Black Hills? There’s talk of trouble with the Sioux. Just wondering if you’d seen any sign.’

  ‘Those that aren’t in Canada with Sitting Bull are on reservations. There’s no trouble with the Sioux or any other tribe in this territory.’

  ‘Still a few hostile bands roving the high ground and attacking isolated farms,’ insisted the barman.

  The stranger shook his head. ‘That’s not true. Perhaps a cow or two has been stolen in the night but not by war parties. More likely the work of an individual warrior trying to feed his family.’

  ‘You talk like you’re on their side.’

  The gruff barman’s voice attracted the attention of a couple of men at the far end of the bar who turned with unfriendly scowls on their faces. Their clothing wasn’t redolent of mine-workers, more the apparel of range riders. One wore black trousers, a rough red shirt and a black hat; the other wore denim trousers, a black shirt topped by a short jacket and a grey hat. The stranger noted their interest but was neither looking for trouble nor keen to get involved in a discussion about the rights and wrongs of the government’s Indian policies. In his opinion, the changes demanded of the tribespeople were too much, too soon. It would take time, perhaps another generation or more before they could begin to a
dapt successfully to the culture of the Americans. Even then, it would only be achieved if they were treated with honesty and goodwill. But for now, the fighting was finished, that was a good starting point. So his reply was meant to placate any anger that seemed to be simmering among the men in the room. ‘Just stating a fact. Leave the Sioux alone and they’ll keep to the reservation.’

  One of the men, the red shirt, pushed himself away from the counter, drew himself to his full height which was no less than the stranger’s six feet. He inspected the newcomer’s attire, taking special interest in the long feather in the newcomer’s hat. To his friend’s amusement, he said derisively, ‘You look like you belong on a reservation yourself.’

  All other conversations in the room had ceased; everyone was listening to the talk at the counter. The barman’s eyes shifted warily to the left, as though the two had a history of causing trouble on his premises.

  It wasn’t the first time the stranger had been singled out in a new town. His appearance had got him into more fights than he cared to remember but he had no plans to discard the buckskins. When he rode west again, when he was crossing the continent with Caleb Dodge’s wagon train, the tough wearing clothes outlasted anything he could buy in the mercantile stores of the east. So, for now, he was prepared to ignore the man’s goading. ‘I’m looking for a man called Crackaway,’ he told the barman. ‘Do you know where I can find him?’

  It was the man along the bar who spoke in response. Again his voice full of disdain, as though believing the stranger was afraid of him because he’d refused to respond to the previous taunt. ‘That drunken old coot,’ he said. ‘Should have known you and he were partners. You carry the same dirty smell of Indians.’

  With startling suddenness, the stranger turned to face the jeering man, the expression on his bronzed face as terrible as any depiction of blood-thirsty savages in a penny dreadful, and the cold stare of his ice-grey eyes froze the leer on the other’s face. When he took a step forward his agitator took steps to defend himself, his right hand dropping towards the butt of his holstered pistol.

  The barman said, ‘No fighting in here,’ but with a tone that implied he had no expectation of his demand being observed.

  The stranger growled at his opponent. ‘Touch that gun and I’ll kill you.’

  The man stilled his hand, his previous aggression shattered by the certainty that his opponent was capable of fulfilling his threat. He watched with unblinking eyes as the other approached.

  The stranger began talking, declaring that not only did he have friends among the Sioux but he also had a Sioux wife. ‘When you insult them you insult me. Next time I’ll. . . .’ The stranger didn’t finish his sentence, his eyes suddenly stung by whiskey that had been thrown by the second man. Half hidden by his companion, he had flung the contents of his whiskey glass and now, while their adversary was rubbing the liquid from his eyes, followed up with the whiskey bottle which he was holding by the neck.

  The stranger had been fighting all his life; he knew as much about barroom tactics as he did about military tactics in war. He reacted instantly, grabbing the wrist of the arm that was descending towards his head and twisting with as much violence as he could generate. The man yelled and turned in an effort to free himself of the pain. He dropped the bottle, which smashed on the floor and the stranger released him, pushing him so that he collided with his partner.

  Red shirt’s former bravado had been restored by his companion’s attack and, sensing they were about to gain the upper hand in the affray, reached for his gun. When his companion crashed into him he was hurled backwards on to the floor, his weapon sliding away across the room. Anxiously, he looked around for it, spotted it under a table and, seeing that the stranger was re-grappling with his friend, began to scuttle across the floor to collect it. He hated to admit it, but he’d been more frightened for his life in the past few moments than he’d ever known before, chilled by the expression on the frontiersman’s face. It was an experience he hadn’t enjoyed and didn’t want to repeat. If he got the opportunity to kill the stranger he would take it.

  The buckskin-clad man had hoped that the fight would come to an end when he took away the bottle, but that hope soon vanished when he saw red shirt attempt to draw his gun. For the moment though, red shirt was on the floor and separated from his weapon – it was the first man who was the major threat. He was on his feet, armed and as full of murderous intent as his companion. In order to prevent him from drawing his gun, the stranger hurled himself forward. He threw a low, left arm hook that struck the man in the solar plexus, doubling him over and making his jaw an open target for a vicious, downward right-hand punch. The man in the grey hat dropped to his knees and his body would have stretched its length on the floor if the stranger hadn’t grabbed his shirt with his left hand and held his head up to enable another right-hand punch to be delivered. Then he let the senseless man drop.

  By this time, the man in the red shirt was slithering under a table to reach his gun. The stranger raced across the room, casting aside chairs and overturning a table in his haste. Just as his opponent’s fingers were about to settle on the gun handle, the stranger grabbed his legs and pulled him away. Instinct was the source of red shirt’s resistance and as he was being dragged across the floor he grasped the leg of a chair and hurled it at his opponent. It struck its target, one leg connecting with a cheekbone just below the eye. The man released his hold for an instant and his adversary came up off the floor, pulling a knife from a sheath as he did so.

  ‘I’m going to gut you,’ he snarled but it was a prediction with little chance of success. His chest-high swipe was easily evaded by the lithe, buckskin-clad figure who then took two steps back and put a table between them, giving himself time to draw his own weapon, a big hunting knife that hung down his left thigh. He hefted it from right hand to left then back again, letting his opponent know that he was accustomed to using the weapon, that he was skilful and deadly.

  Red shirt swiped again, the impetus almost making him fall forward on to the table. Before fully regaining his balance, the stranger grasped the edge of the table and pushed, forcing his opponent to retreat until he was trapped against the back wall. Angry, desperate, casting caution aside, red shirt slashed again and again without success.

  While the knife was at the highest point of its arc, the stranger struck, smashing the butt-end of the bone handle of his own knife against red shirt’s temple. With an ugly, pain-filled yell, he slumped forward on to the table. The stranger took the knife from his enemy’s hand, dropped it on the floor near the pistol then pressed the man’s head against the table and put the point of his hunting knife to his throat. He could hear the man’s breath rasping horribly in his throat. His eyes bulged horribly at the prospect of death.

  The stranger had no intention of killing the vanquished man but wanted him to know that, if he chose, he had the power to do so. He wanted to find the words that would put an end to the intolerance which was the biggest obstacle to a lasting peace with the tribes, but he couldn’t even explain to himself how the few minutes he’d spent in this town had brought him to being within a thrust of taking another man’s life. He’d done so with similar provocation in the past, but he wouldn’t this day. He was in Palmersville merely to meet his old friend Crackaway and had no desire to be detained here because of other men’s prejudices. There were wagons assembled at Council Bluffs and a wagonmaster waiting for him to guide them west. Even while that thought was in his head, a gun butt cracked against his skull and he dropped into unconsciousness.

  When he opened his eyes he was lying on a bunk and confronted by a line of iron bars. He moved, tried to sit upright and groaned with the effort. Holding his head in his hands, he sat on the edge of the low bed. Somewhere from the other side of the bars a chair creaked and footsteps approached. The man who hovered into his view was broad and grey and had a star pinned to his shirt.

  ‘Take your time,’ the sheriff said. ‘People move too quickl
y after taking a heavy blow and they’re likely to spew. Can’t abide the smell and I daresay you don’t relish the prospect of swilling out the jailhouse.’

  ‘Who hit me?’ asked the stranger.

  ‘I did,’ the sheriff told him. ‘Didn’t want you shoving that great blade through Carter’s neck. He’s not the town’s most prestigious citizen but I’d have been obliged to hang you for murder if you’d gone through with it.’

  ‘I wasn’t going to kill him,’ the stranger mumbled.

  ‘Only got your word for that.’ He threw another sentence over his shoulder as he walked back towards his desk. ‘Come on out when your head clears, the door’s open.’

  ‘If I’m not under arrest what was I doing in one of your cells?’ the stranger asked when he joined the sheriff in the outer office.

  ‘Arresting you was my intention when I cracked your head open but when I asked around it became clear that you’d been acting in your own defence. Didn’t take a lot of deductive power to identify the aggressor. Carter’s gun was across the room but yours was still in your holster, which tends to support your statement that you didn’t intend killing him. Besides, Benny Kingston at the saloon told me that Carter had been the first one to pull a knife. He’s a mean fighter. You did well to best him. What’s your name?’

  ‘Wes Gray.’

  The sheriff looked at the stranger with renewed interest. ‘Wes Gray! The same Wes Gray that some people call Medicine Feather?’

  ‘That’s me.’

  ‘Well, I guess Tad Carter was a lucky man. It also explains the cause of your fight. Benny Kingston said you were arguing about Indians.’

  Wes Gray didn’t respond. He’d seen his hat and gunbelt on a rack near the door and his Winchester in its fringed pouch propped against the wall below them. He stepped over to retrieve them.