Crackaway's Quest

by Will DuRey

  Wes Gray took the rope from the other saddle and trussed up the younger man whom he’d rendered unconscious with a blow from his pistol. He propped him against a tree then did the same to the first man. When that was done he threw water in the younger man’s face to revive him then spoke to both. ‘You call me a savage but it is you who are hunting me. I’ve done you no harm but for money you are willing to kill me. Is it not right then that I take your lives?’

  ‘Please don’t, mister,’ said Hank, the younger man, ‘we won’t do it again.’

  The other refused to beg for his life although it seemed that it was now approaching its end. The man in buckskin had pulled an evil-looking hunting knife from the scabbard at his side.

  ‘No. You won’t do it again. You will leave this territory. Go south or east. Never return. You will carry my mark wherever you go. If I see you again I will kill you.’

  He sliced a deep ‘V’ into the left cheek of each man. Through the awful pain they heard his voice.

  ‘I am not a savage. I am not a squaw man. I am Medicine Feather, brother of the Arapaho and friend of the Sioux.’

  CHAPTER NINE

  Amid the dark, high-ground shadows, Wes dismounted. The pink light of dawn was reaching across the meadowland below. The cattle were already on their feet, lowing with impatience, anxious to be moving because they needed water and perhaps had woken with the smell of the distant Missouri in their nostrils. There was activity, too, within the circle. Bedrolls had been stashed away, breakfast eaten and teams were being harnessed to their wagons. Tad Carter was issuing instructions, ordering some men who had travelled as wagon guards to saddle spare cowponies. Until the men he’d sent out to hunt down the troublesome scout had returned they would have to do the work of drovers. Some of them grumbled but no one disobeyed.

  Wes watched the preparations for a few moments, resting after the long, cautious ride from the other camp fire. The knowledge that Tad had offered a bonus to the hunters for killing him had planted the thought in his head that others might be abroad with the same incentive. So he had ridden back along the valley and into the meadowland with his senses keen to detect the slightest sound, sight or smell that was extraordinary to his surroundings. There had been no incidents, but Wes remained vigilant. He was hungry but would have to wait until he was reunited with the pinto before eating. There was pemmican in the saddle-bags which his Arapaho wife, Little Feather, had prepared for his journey to Council Bluffs.

  By his reckoning, he’d left the pinto a mile east of where he now stood, at a spot roughly adjacent to the back of the herd. It was a distance he could cover on foot in less than ten minutes. He tied the reins to the saddle-horn and slapped the horse’s rump to let it know it was free to roam. In a while it would rejoin the supply train. With luck it would approach them from the front, before they got underway, by which time he’d be behind them and heading for Spearpoint on his rested pinto.

  The morning was becoming lighter with each step he took, but he took advantage of every bit of cover and shadow as he loped across the hillside. At strategic points he stopped and assessed the situation. He watched the trees for signs of ambush, listened to the birds for unnatural chatter and raised his head to catch any uncommon scent carried in the morning air. Satisfied, he moved on again.

  From the cover of a low bush, he caught sight of the pinto as it grazed on the short hillside grass. Its neck was stretched out in that familiar manner, every movement languid, as though disinterested in anything but filling its stomach. As it ate, it turned until it was facing the bush behind which Wes Gray studied the surrounding area. The horse had seen him, looked at him although it didn’t forsake its interest in the grass at its feet. Then it lifted its head, not startled, but slowly, as it had done the morning they’d quit Palmersville when it was letting him know about the riders in the hills. Now he was sure it was warning him of another danger. Someone else was hidden among the trees, waiting to ambush him when he stepped out to claim the horse.

  Wes remained still, scanned each bush, tree and rock that could conceal a man but nothing showed. He looked high and low but there was neither an unexpected movement nor unnecessary sound. The half-light and deep shadows which provided help to his progress were also a hindrance to his ability to find a bushwhacker. He lay on the ground and squirmed backwards, back among trees that gave him greater cover.

  Crouching low, moving in short, swift stages of no more than ten steps, he circled the spot where the pinto was tethered. At the completion of each stage he examined the undergrowth, strained his eyes and ears for a tell-tale sign. He was almost directly opposite the place where he’d watched the pinto when he saw the man who was lying full length on the ground. The dark clothes he wore allowed him to blend into the shadows and, coupled with his stillness, had made detection of his presence almost impossible. His rifle was close to his side, which implied he wasn’t aware that Wes was close at hand. Wes drew his knife from its sheath and moved stealthily forward.

  At that moment, somewhere behind Wes, a horse snickered.

  The man on the ground half turned. ‘Can’t you keep them quiet, Pecos?’ he said.

  Wes, too, turned, looked back to see another man with two horses.

  The second man yelled a warning, drew his pistol and fired two shots at the place where Wes had been standing.

  The man on the ground rolled, gathered up his rifle but by the time he fired a shot he, too, was too late to hit the frontiersman.

  Because he was already holding the knife in his right hand, Wes knew he couldn’t beat to the draw the man with the horses. Instead, he moved swiftly, hurdling a fallen tree then rolling into some deep groundcover which took him out of sight of his two adversaries.

  The man with the rifle fired four shells at the fallen tree, ripping out chunks that spiralled in the air. The second man, approaching from a different direction could see that Wes wasn’t behind the trunk.

  ‘He’s not there,’ he called. He sought refuge behind a high willow, peering first round one side then the other in a bid to see where the scout was holed up.

  The man with the rifle signalled for his companion to circle behind the place they assumed Wes to be, try to catch him in a crossfire. As soon as the other began to move, the rifleman scuttled across to the fallen tree. He’d expected his advance to draw shots from the man they were trying to kill but nothing came. He rested the barrel of the rifle across the trunk so that his aim would be steady when the man called Medicine Feather was in his sights. The bonus money, he reckoned, belonged to Pecos and him.

  But the manoeuvre was not a new tactic to Wes Gray. Enemies had tried to catch him in a crossfire on other occasions and he was still alive to tell the tale. Experience had taught him three things about such situations. Superiority of numbers often lulled adversaries into acts of carelessness, the best hope for survival was not to be where your enemies expected you to be when the trap was sprung, and always strike first.

  The groundcover of low brush and forest ferns into which Wes had rolled after clearing the tree trunk hid the fact that the land sloped gently into a dell which gave him the freedom to move undetected away from spot where he seemed to have taken refuge. Knowing the location of his two assailants was an advantage. Although plunging deeper into the surrounding woodland to escape their guns might have been an obvious course of action, Wes chose to do the opposite. Slithering like a snake he made his way towards the circling man. He, Wes calculated, was the weak link. He anticipated sneaking up behind Wes and shooting him in the back. He wouldn’t expect to be confronted by the man he was hunting.

  The name Pecos had been uttered by the other man before shots were fired and Wes watched him hurrying forward, stoop-shouldered, a token gesture to caution as he sought for his victim. Wes lay still, gripped his knife tightly, almost reluctant to slay such an unworthy opponent. But the man had shot at him – would do so again if he got the opportunity so couldn’t be spared. Wes had been generous with the two at Clem
’s camp but he had captured them before they had had a chance to show their true intention. They hadn’t attacked him in any way, so perhaps they never would have done. He wouldn’t kill a man who hadn’t tried to kill him first.

  Pecos had the tracking skills of a grizzly bear. Wes could hear every footfall, every ragged wheeze as the man pushed aside fronds and branches, peering forward in the expectation of setting eyes on his victim.

  ‘Pecos,’ Wes whispered, so close behind that the other man felt his breath on his neck. Startled, Pecos turned, so surprised that he almost forgot he had a gun in his hand. It didn’t matter. Wes thrust the big, cruel hunting knife into the other’s chest, twisted it, then caught the man as he began to collapse to the ground. He wiped the blood off the blade on Pecos’s shirt and returned it to its sheath. Then, with his pistol in his hand, he back-tracked the dead man’s route to bring him round behind the first man.

  Unlike Pecos, Wes moved as swiftly and softly as a shadow. He was a big man yet he had stalking skills that were the equal of any native tribesman. Learning to move with uncommon stealth had been essential to provide him with meat and to defeat his enemies. His latest enemy was currently prone a dozen yards from where he stood. The man was sighting along his rifle, which was resting across the felled tree trunk that Wes had earlier hurdled. He lifted his head, listening for a sound, expecting, Wes supposed, Pecos to begin firing shots that would either kill or flush Wes out of his hiding place.

  ‘Pecos can’t help you,’ Wes said.

  The man began to turn then stopped. The rifle was cocked, ready for firing, calculations were happening in his mind. Could he turn quickly enough to outshoot the man in buckskin? Would he expect him to discard his weapon and surrender? A look over his shoulder told him that the man had his arms hanging at his side, wasn’t prepared to fire. He rolled on to his back and lifted his rifle with deadly intent.

  Wes wasn’t unprepared, it was the reaction he both expected and wanted. The scout’s right arm bent at the elbow and his Colt roared twice. Both bullets found their mark and another man he’d never known lay dead at his feet. Wes had no sympathy for him, no regret that he’d been forced to kill him.

  The pinto lifted its head as Wes approached and accepted the muzzle rub that was reward for the warning it had given. Wes climbed on to its back and turned it towards Spearpoint. At first, he let it run easy, let it find a rhythm until he felt it stretching out, eager to run hard. He was anxious to be clear of the herd. If the cattle weren’t yet moving it was possible that the gunshots had been heard by those on the meadow below. In which case, riders might come to investigate. Besides, he didn’t know how many men Tad Carter had sent against him; there could be others riding the hills hoping to reap a bonus by killing him.

  He could hear the whistle of a train as he took the downward slope into Spearpoint and he could see its black smoke chuffing above the tops of the buildings. It was a timely guide because he figured the telegraph office would be part of the railway facilities. He avoided the main street, veered around the top end of the town until he encountered the rails, which he followed down to the depot. Beyond, there were two empty stockyards each of which looked capable of holding a thousand head of cattle. A few men were hovering near those pens watching the train that had just arrived at the platform. People had congregated at the trackside, not to board the train, merely curious about anyone who might be leaving or arriving in their town.

  Wes dismounted at the corner of the station building, raising as many eyebrows by his backwoods appearance as the dandified rail travellers from the east. Wes ignored everyone and entered the station office. ‘I need to send a telegraph message to Fort Pierre,’ he told the clerk. ‘It’s urgent.’

  He wrote his message and handed it to the clerk for transmission. ‘How much is that?’

  The clerk read the message, counting the words as he did so. When he was done he quoted a price but his eyes lifted over Wes’s shoulders to catch the attention of a man who had followed the scout into the railway office. Wes had been too busy with pad and pencil stub to pay him any heed. He was dressed in a dark vest and jacket and wore a black derby on his head.

  ‘Stranger in town,’ he said, almost conversationally, but edged with presumptuousness.

  ‘That’s right.’ Wes didn’t like people prying into his business.

  ‘Thought so. Saw you ride in. You looked like a man in a hurry. Always arouses my interest.’

  ‘Not your concern,’ Wes told him.

  The man held out his hand to the clerk who handed over the form that Wes had completed.

  ‘Hey,’ Wes protested.

  The man gently tugged aside the jacket lapel to reveal the tin star pinned to his waistcoat. ‘This is my town. I like to know what’s going on, Mr. . . ?’

  ‘Gray. Wes Gray.’

  The sheriff nodded his head. ‘Thought it might be. Heard you were up in Palmersville. Some teamsters were talking about you a day or two ago. They couldn’t have been describing anyone else.’

  ‘I don’t think being sheriff gives you the authority to intercept telegraph messages,’ Wes told him.

  ‘Like I say,’ the sheriff answered in his slow-talking manner, ‘this is my town. I keep trouble at bay any way that suits me.’

  ‘Well that’s an important message, Sheriff, and it needs to reach Fort Pierre as soon as possible.’

  The sheriff re-read the note. ‘Is this true, illicit whiskey among the supplies on their way to the Sioux Agency?’

  ‘It’s true.’

  ‘Among the supplies that left here yesterday?’

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘Well that won’t look good for us if word gets round that Spearpoint is sending whiskey to the Indians.’

  ‘When the army halts that supply train they might find that whiskey isn’t the only problem they’ve got.’

  ‘I’m intrigued, Mr Gray. Tell me more.’

  ‘No. Send that message to the Commanding Officer at Fort Pierre. It’s a government matter.’

  ‘Government! Well, perhaps I can help you there. Come with me, there’s someone at the hotel you should meet.’ He handed the message form back to the telegrapher with a nod of approval.

  Wes Gray hadn’t arrived in Spearpoint a moment too soon. The man Sheriff Dix introduced to Wes already had his bags packed and would have left town already if there had been an earlier train to travel on. As it was, as soon as the crew had done the necessary checks, filled the tank with water and had a meal, the train that had recently arrived would be hauling its four carriages and caboose back to Kansas City at which intersection passengers could change to mainline trains for all points east and west.

  As far as Wes could tell, the man was around his own age and although he was well-barbered, finely dressed and fleshy about the face and body, he gave the impression of strength, intelligence and good-humour.

  ‘Mr Hunter,’ Sheriff Dix told Wes, ‘is with the Bureau of Indian Affairs. He came here to supervise the unloading of the cattle and see them off on their journey across the Missouri.’

  Rumours of unrest among the Sioux had been gathering strength over the winter and there were grave fears that the warmer weather would initiate an exodus of warriors from the Agencies and hostilities would be renewed. Anxious to prevent an uprising and to prove themselves capable of controlling the situation, the newly formed Bureau of Indian Affairs had posted capable men to the troubled areas to glean whatever information they could about the situation. More than once, the story of infected cattle had reached the Washington authorities.

  As a result, Jim Hunter had been sent to the unloading pens at Spearpoint to inspect the latest delivery. He had found no evidence that the animals were anything but top quality beef.

  Wes outlined the scheme that had been put in place to switch those animals before they reached the river.

  ‘I scattered the infected cattle last night,’ he told the others, ‘but it doesn’t mean they won’t still try to carry
through their plan. It might take a couple of days but they’ll be able to round them up and drive them on to the Reservation.’

  ‘What will they do with the prime beef?’ asked Jim Hunter.

  ‘Cut the government tags out of their ears, rebrand them and sell them on. Could be they’ll drive them back into the pens here.’

  Sheriff Dix snapped his fingers. ‘There’s a cattle buyer staying in this hotel. I wondered what he was hanging around for so early in the year. Perhaps he’s expecting to take possession of a herd. Let’s go and have a word with him.’

  The cattle buyer, Ben Warren, was alone and drinking coffee in the hotel dining room when the three-man party caught up with him. He and Jim Hunter had already met, had dined together two nights earlier in company with a common acquaintance. As the holder of the contract for delivering supplies to those Agencies that were situated in the most easterly locations of the Great Sioux Reservation, Jim had sought out John Lord to get his opinion about unrest among the tribespeople. Ben Warren had done business with John Lord in past years, and yes, he confirmed that John Lord was the owner of the herd due in the stockyards any day soon.

  ‘You’re not suggesting that John Lord is involved in this swindle, are you?’ Sheriff Dix recounted the rancher’s high standing in the surrounding territory.

  ‘It’s not just the cattle,’ Wes explained. ‘He’s also stealing the goods that are stored in his Palmersville warehouse and sending out shoddy replacements. I thought when the Secretary reformed the War Department it was meant to put an end to the double-dealing that was rife under William Belknapp.’

  ‘Those changes affected the traders in the military forts,’ Jim Hunter announced, ‘but the Bureau of Indian Affairs is determined that corruption will not succeed in their dealings with any of the many tribes that have been forced to abandon their traditional ways.’