Crackaway's Quest

by Will DuRey

  Twenty yards away, astride the black horse, John Lord was making another attempt to talk to the girl. ‘Why are you being so obstructive?’ he asked.

  ‘Perhaps because I don’t like you.’ She was trying to work her way around the horse that he was using to obstruct her route back to town. Exasperated, she pushed against the horse’s breast and dodged around the animal.

  ‘I’ll call tonight,’ Lord insisted, ‘and we’ll discuss it in a sensible manner.’

  ‘Don’t bother,’ snapped the young woman, who found herself confronted by the horse once more.

  ‘Who else could you choose? No one within two hundred miles matches my wealth or influence.’

  From up the trail, Wes Gray called, ‘You have no influence over me nor, I suspect over the lady. She’s made her position clear so I suggest you stop bothering her and catch up with your buddies.’

  John Lord pulled his horse’s head around then spurred the animal up to where Wes Gray was standing. ‘You might have a reputation for fighting savages but that doesn’t give you any right to interfere in my affairs. My advice to you is to get back on your horse and get out of Palmersville at the earliest opportunity.’

  ‘You might be wealthy but you don’t own the town. I’ll go when I’m ready and my advice to you is to leave that young woman alone.’

  ‘What I do is no business of yours.’

  ‘I’m making it my business. Stay away from her.’

  John Lord made a movement towards his six-gun but arrested it before his hand reached the pistol’s butt. He was looking down the long barrel of Wes Gray’s Colt.

  ‘Now ride,’ Wes ordered and he remained at the graveyard gate until John Lord had put half a mile between them.

  By that time, the girl was almost back to the best livery stable in Palmersville. Wes re-holstered his gun and went deeper into the cemetery. He found the fresh grave near the back rails. It seemed to be the place where the least wealthy were put to rest. A simple wooden plaque bore the legend Crackaway Died 1878. It wasn’t much of an epitaph for a brave man, but a small bunch of violet flowers rested against the marker. Wes wondered who had shown that token of kindness.

  CHAPTER THREE

  The blacksmith ceased pumping the bellows and cast a silent, candid gaze at Weston Gray as he passed by on his return from the cemetery. It carried the message that he’d witnessed the confrontation at the graveyard gateway and approved of the outcome. Perhaps it also carried the hope that if the frontiersman hung around long enough he could bring about a lot of changes in Palmersville.

  To Wes Gray’s knowledge, Best’s forge and livery was the only stable in town so the building he was passing had to be the place where Crackaway had died. He wondered if the blacksmith had been the one to discover the old man’s body. Perhaps he would ask the big man what he knew about his friend’s death, but that would keep until later. For now, his first task was to find a room for the night. He took the turning at the bank, immediately identified the property he was seeking and made a bee line for it.

  The fence that surrounded Mrs Trantor’s lodging house was freshly white, as was the paintwork around the windows and door. The rest of the woodwork was green and it, too, seemed to have been applied recently. There was a garden between the fence and the porch, which was packed with a variety of flowers that Wes couldn’t identify. His knowledge of plants was restricted to those with medicinal value and those which he knew were dangerous to eat. He hadn’t learned the names of those that were only for ornamentation. But his eyes were drawn to a row of small, purple, bell-shaped flowers growing at the foot of the veranda. They were identical to those that had been placed against Crackaway’s graveyard marker. If Crackaway’s landlady had been moved to mark his passing then the old man’s liquor intake hadn’t been as offensive to her as the sheriff had supposed.

  A voice broke into his reverie. ‘They were his favourite.’

  Wes turned his attention to the porch. She was sitting on the swing, motionless, swallowed by the shadows that were lengthening as the sun slipped lower in the sky. Her feet were planted solidly on the wooden boards of the porch and the tips of black shoes showed below the hemline of her long grey skirt. Her hands were lightly clasped in her lap, a sign of contentment, as though she was at a Sunday Meeting after a good harvest had been gathered in.

  ‘Crackaway’s?’

  ‘Yes,’ she confirmed, ‘Crackaway’s.’ Her voice was heavy with reflection, as though the death of the old man had greatly lessened her own existence.

  ‘You put some on his grave.’

  ‘The marker needed embellishment.’

  ‘Yes ma’am. There was a lot more to Crackaway than a name and the year of his death.’

  The woman turned and went inside the house. She paused in the doorway to assure herself that Wes Gray was following.

  ‘Are you Mrs Trantor?’ he asked. ‘The sheriff said I might get a room here.’

  ‘Of course. There’s one ready for you. I was a bit concerned that you might ride on when you heard that your friend was dead. Or take a room at the saloon.’

  Wes Gray was surprised by the young woman’s words. ‘You talk like you were expecting me,’ he said, ‘perhaps you’ve mistaken me for someone else.’

  ‘No,’ she told him, ‘I know who you are. Even if your fight with Carter and Oates hadn’t become the topic on everyone’s lips I would have known you from my father’s description. You’re Wes Gray, sometimes known as Medicine Feather. My father sometimes used your Sioux name Wiyaka Wakan. But whatever name you choose to go by, my father never doubted that you would come.’

  ‘Your father?’

  ‘John Philip Trantor. I don’t know how he came by the name Crackaway. Perhaps you can tell me.’

  Wes Gray shook his head, not only to deny any knowledge of the derivation of Crackaway but mainly because he’d known the man for more than twenty years and had never heard him speak of any family. He removed his hat and held it by the brim while he observed the girl.

  ‘I’m Jenny,’ she told him. ‘Mother and I moved here from Ohio two years ago.’ She expanded the family story, telling Wes how her father had gone in search of gold when she was a baby and when that failed to bring in the riches he required he had turned his hand to hunting and trapping. That period in his life, as Wes knew from his own experiences, had proved to be no more profitable; fashion and excessive hunting had combined to put an end to the once lucrative trade in beaver pelts. Crackaway had barely managed to scrape together enough money to support himself and his family from one year to the next. Then the war had erupted and his services as a scout had become invaluable to the Union cause, but still failed to fill the coffers of the Trantor family and at the end of hostilities had headed west once more, hunting meat for the railroad gangs and scouting for the army in their Indian campaigns. Eventually, when he’d amassed sufficient money to purchase a strip of land he could settle on and farm, he’d sent for his wife and daughter and they’d arranged to meet up in this frontier town before heading west to the site he’d selected near Colorado Springs. Before he could join them, however, the army pressed him into service once again. The Black Hills campaign in the summer of 1876 had effectively ended the military resistance of the Plains Indians, but small bands remained at large in defiance of the government’s policies. It took more than a year to wheedle them all out of the hills and on to reservations. By early 1878 only Sitting Bull commanded a tribe that roamed free but they had crossed the border into Canada. Crackaway’s usefulness to the army was at an end.

  ‘Sadly,’ Jenny told Wes Gray, ‘my mother died before being reunited with Dad. He’s buried near to her.’

  The question uppermost in Wes Gray’s mind concerned the name on his old friend’s marker. Although he had always known him as Crackaway, it seemed strange that his proper name had not been used by his daughter.

  ‘He didn’t want anyone to know I was his daughter,’ Jenny told him. ‘He was protecting me.’


  ‘From what?’

  ‘Something that he’d discovered on his journey here. Something that it was dangerous to know.’

  ‘What was it?’ pressed Wes.

  ‘I’m not sure. He was still gathering information when he was killed.’

  ‘The sheriff told me his body was found trampled in the stable. General opinion has it that he was sleeping off a drinking session. Do you agree?’

  ‘Of course not. Pretending to be drunk was his excuse for hanging around the saloon where he hoped to pick up the information he was seeking. People assumed he was permanently drunk because he threw whiskey on his shirt so that the smell of alcohol accompanied him wherever he went.’

  Wes Gray was content to accept the girl’s explanation, it was more in keeping with the man he’d known than the notion of a town drunk. It still didn’t explain why he was in the stable or how he’d met his death under the feet of the animals. Accidents happened to the most experienced horsemen and perhaps Crackaway had just been in the wrong place at the wrong time, but Jenny’s story had tilted his thinking towards murder. ‘Don’t you have any clue about what your father had become involved in or why he sent for me?’

  ‘I only know that he’d sent a message to you before he arrived in town. He wanted me to go with you to Council Bluffs, to wait there for him until he’d done what needed to be done here.’

  ‘But you don’t know what that was.’

  ‘It might have had something to do with John Lord. Dad didn’t like him coming here or pestering me, but I’m sure he was wary of him before he was aware that he was a nuisance to me.’

  ‘John Lord appears to be an important man in this town.’

  ‘He is. He has a large spread south of here and also owns a lot of properties in town. He either owns or holds the deeds to the premises of most of the businesses in Palmersville and has no hesitation in using his power to get his own way. Everything he does is to advance his own wealth and power. He’s ruthless and I believe merciless to anyone he sees as a stumbling block to his ambition.’

  Wes had known such men in the past and expected to meet more in the future. They weren’t a rare breed in any part of the world, but that provided no specific indication to the purpose of Crackaway’s crusade. Wes looked at the daughter; her green eyes were fixed intently on his face. When he asked if she thought John Lord was responsible for her father’s death they darkened slightly then narrowed as she considered her reply. It was clear that she wanted to say yes but also obvious that she had no grounds for making such a claim.

  ‘They argued,’ she told Wes. ‘It was the night my father died. John Lord came here to persuade me to marry him. My father was in the room, pretending to be drunk and asleep and doggedly refused to go when John Lord tried to chase him away. There was a scuffle, which ended with John Lord on the floor and his gun in my father’s hand. I told him to leave, which he did, but the menace in the expression he threw at Father could easily have been a death sentence.’

  Jenny’s account seemed to point to the fact that if John Lord had killed Crackaway it was due to being bested in front of a woman he was trying to impress and not because of the quest embarked upon by the old man.

  ‘And your father died that night?’

  ‘Yes.’

  There was something in the poise of her body, the angle at which she held her head that suggested to Wes that the girl expected him to announce a plan of revenge; that she believed that he would exact vengeance for Crackaway’s death. Initially, such a thought barely existed for him but he knew it was there, flitting through his psyche without substance, an uncatchable butterfly that showed its wings for an instant before disappearing into the back reaches of his mind; Crackaway had been a friend and if his death had not been an accident then someone had to seek justice for him. It wasn’t right to let the task fall to the girl who was his only family, and the sheriff had already decided that no crime had been committed by permitting the immediate burial of the body. So by default it was his duty to uncover the truth of the matter.

  But even if he couldn’t find proof that Crackaway’s death had been other than an accident he was unwilling to leave Palmersville without unearthing the reason for his summons. Crackaway’s daughter believed he’d been brought to town merely to escort her to Council Bluffs but, if so, then Crackaway’s reason for remaining in Palmersville must have been of some importance. He’d spent a lifetime struggling to amass the wherewithal to provide her with a decent home so it was only natural to assume he would want to go with her. Wes was determined to resolve the matter but he was short of information. Talking to Bob Best seemed to be the logical starting point.

  It soon became apparent that Jenny Trantor had no other lodgers. Because of her impending removal from Palmersville she had been reluctant to take in any new paying guests, but the townsfolk, in ignorance of her plans to leave town, attributed her empty rooms to the recent death of her mother. One person, however, did arrive to take an evening meal with them. Harry Portlass was a lawyer with a small office on the block down the street from the bank. He was a tall, fair-haired man probably a decade younger than Wes, well-groomed and wearing a smart store-bought suit with brown, polished boots. When introduced, he was instantly wary of Wes Gray, as though in awe of his reputation and anticipating some violent or uncivilized demonstration of his frontier lifestyle. But, as the minutes passed, it was clear that Harry Portlass’s trepidation was in respect of the house owner’s safety. It didn’t escape Wes’s notice that the lawyer’s eyes followed every movement made by Jenny Trantor, desperate for a glance or a smile to be cast in his direction. As a consequence, when the meal was finished, Wes left the couple alone, at first stepping outside to drink his coffee then following the narrow lane that led back to the main street.

  At the end of the street a lantern burned brightly on a pole outside the forge but the doors were closed and Wes figured that the blacksmith had finished his business for the day. He was hoping to speak with Bob Best and the only possibility for doing so this night was if he found him in the saloon. Even if he hadn’t become acquainted with it earlier in the day he would have found it the easiest place in town to find. Not only were there coal-oil lamps burning all along its frontage, but the silhouettes of customers showed clearly against the building’s big glass windows. There was noise, too; a mumbling, grumbling sound that rose to a crescendo when Wes pushed aside the batwing doors to gain admittance to one of the smallest barrooms he’d ever been in.

  The place was full, not only of men but more especially noise. The hubbub reminded him of the crash of the waterfalls and white water stretches of the upper Missouri where the river’s impenetrable noise belittled man’s voice. But this noise consisted solely of the voices of men, a hundred conversations being conducted at full volume. It was an atmosphere that Wes didn’t enjoy, but this was the only saloon in town and he had nowhere else to go. He pushed his way through the throng to join the crush of people ranged along the bar.

  Bob Best wasn’t difficult to spot in the crowded room. Even though he was half stooped against the counter he seemed to cause a ripple effect among the men lining the bar every time he shifted his shoulders to lift his glass to his lips. He raised his head slightly when his eyes focused on the buckskin-clad figured farther along the counter. Bob spoke a few words to his companion, adding a head movement to direct the other’s attention towards Wes, then pushed himself upright when he saw the frontiersman, beer glass in hand, heading towards him.

  ‘I wanted a word,’ Wes told the blacksmith when he reached him, ‘but it’s a bit loud in here for conversation.’

  Bob Best laughed. ‘It’s the penalty we’re paying for having a celebrity in town.’

  ‘Who is that?’

  ‘You, Mr Gray. Everyone’s heard your name. You’re as famous as Davy Crockett, Kit Carson and Wild Bill Hickock.’

  The blacksmith’s words didn’t bring Wes any pleasure. In his opinion, his only claim to fame was the fact that he had
survived those forces of nature which had taken the lives of many others, but he couldn’t take any credit for that. In the main it had been due to the generosity and protection of the various tribes with whom he’d travelled and wintered. They had taught him how to live off the land, had sheltered him when homeless and cured him when ill. Whenever he tried to explain those facts to his fellow Americans, his words were brushed aside like autumn leaves. Now he didn’t try but nor did he try to claim unearned glory. ‘You know who I am!’

  ‘Sheriff Johnson was quick to spread the word.’

  ‘Why did he do that?’

  ‘Perhaps, like me, he hopes you’re in town to stay.’

  ‘Why would he want that?’

  Bob Best turned his head a little to the side, directed his gaze to one of the tables around which a group of men were gambling over the cards in their hands. Among them were Carter and Oates. Both men were studiously avoiding making eye contact with the men at the bar, but it was equally obvious that both were aware of Wes Gray’s presence. ‘I guess the sheriff was as impressed with the way you turned the tables on those two in here as I was with the way you handled John Lord and his hirelings outside the cemetery. One man has too much power in this town. If the community is going to develop then changes need to be made.’

  ‘And you think I’m the man to do that?’

  ‘Certainly.’

  ‘Sorry to disappoint you but you’re wrong.’

  ‘We’re not expecting you to do it without reward. Hal here,’ Bob Best indicated his companion, ‘is a leading figure on the town committee and he’s sure that they’ll pay well to be rid of John Lord and his cronies. Their grip on the town is suffocating trade and development.’

  Wes Gray held up a hand to put an end to the blacksmith’s oratory. When he spoke he could barely conceal the anger from his voice. ‘I don’t know what help you think I can be. I’m not a hired gun.’