Across the High Plains

By Kenny W. Duncan

Across the High Plains is a new work of fiction that follows the exploits of Clancy Delaney. Born in Boston to immigrant parents and orphaned as a teenager, he is forced to grow into a man at an early age. He runs away from trouble, leaveing behind the girl he loves (Mary Anna Flann), and even falsifies his death in Missouri.

He changes his name to Charlie Dodd to start a new life and starts roaming the west from one job to another, from town to town. Meanwhile, his old flame strives in her search for him.

Can fate and the magnetic pull of love ever cause their paths to cross again? Read the book to find out

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Oct 7, 2009
• ISBN: 9781462806614

Kenny W. Duncan

The Author: Kenny W. Duncan, just your ordinary man with simple values of life, values of honesty and hard work. Born and raised a farm boy in northwest Missouri with “old school” values that he has tried to pass on to his own family. Kenny farms in northwest Missouri, raising cattle and crops with a corn and soybean rotation, with his choice of cattle being Angus, black and red. His passions in life include his family and farm followed by his hobbies of golf and riding his Harley and fooling around with the horses. A quarter horse hard to beat.

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Clancy Delaney, born in Boston to immigrant parents, orphaned as a teenager, is forced to grow into a man at an early age . . . He runs away from trouble and the girl he loved, Mary Anna Flann, leaving her behind so she can have a better chance at life without him . . . He runs to the great west to find his calling in life, falsifying his death in St. Joseph Missouri, he changes his name to Charlie Dodd for a fresh new start on life . . . Mary Anna Flann follows after him only to find his grave in St. Joseph Missouri, going back to Boston alone, with a devastated heart and soul; she throws her life into the family business . . . Charlie Dodd roams the west from job to job, from town to town . . . Can fate and the magnetic pull of love ever cause their paths to cross again, or is it narrowly missed?

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My grandfather, Charlie VanGundy,

standing alongside Kate and Rex.

Long gone, but ne’er forgotten . . . I thank you for living life as simple as it can be . . . A man of few words but of strong character, who taught us the value of hard honest work . . . I thank you for passing on the gene of the passion for your horses, to me, and generations of mine to follow . . .

Chapter One

Lightening streaked across the sky as thunder rumbled across the high plains . . . Charlie Dodd pulled reign on the black horse he was setting and looked back over his shoulder . . . The rain hadn’t started yet, but it wasn’t far off . . . Thirty minutes ago he could see for eternity it seemed as the plains stretched out ahead of him, with only the distant horizon that seemed to just fade away in front of him, but now, with the black ominous clouds racing down towards him, he couldn’t see more than a quarter mile to the west . . .

Looking back behind, from where he had just ridden, he could make out a thin trail of dust lifting from the ground of trodden prairie from the posse that was giving pursuit . . . Being chased to be hung for a crime he had nothing to do with, this was another time in his life where he had been at the wrong place at the wrong time, a scenario that seemed to follow him around like a dark cloud overhead . . .

Another clap of lightening flashed that seemed to sizzle just over his head, causing the black horse to spook slightly, and the echoing boom of thunder, was as instant as the flash, and seemed to vibrate inside a man’s chest . . . Not far to the southwest of where he set his horse was a butte, which stood a good hundred feet up from the prairie floor . . . It was the only form of landscape for miles around, a place that seemed to have been shoved up from the ground in some ancient cataclysmic era . . .

Charlie Dodd had been through here before and he knew of the place, he knew there was a fresh spring that bubbled out on top of the butte, an unusual place for a spring he always thought, and it gurgled up through some rocks and gently disappeared back into the earth before it ran over the side of the butte, a true work of mother nature he always told himself . . . This was the high plains heading into the Dakota territories, not a rock or tree in sight other than this natural monument of dirt and rock, and there were a dozen or so of cottonwood trees scattered about that thrived on the fresh spring that kept the soil damp throughout the summer months . . .

He knew he could make a stand here and hold the posse off for some time, He had no desire to kill any of them, but he had no desire to die today either . . . Especially at the end of a rope, for a falsely accused crime . . .

He couldn’t make a run for it, the black horse had come up lame and he had pushed the mare harder than he should have, it wasn’t his horse, his own horse was still back at Dry Canyon Springs, he had stolen this horse after escaping a jail cell . . . Reckoning to himself that he could be hung for horse thieving if nothing else . . . He also figured that some one in that posse was responsible for wanting to see him dangling from a rope so quickly, more than likely to cover up for the crime he had been accused of, but what that person had done himself . . .

Charlie had been accused of shooting a woman, in a back alley behind the saloon, when in reality, he had heard a scuffle and a woman’s muffled cry for help, as he walked back into the alley to see what was going on . . . A man stood there holding a knife to her throat, a second man standing in front of the lady holding a rope and was in the process of gagging her with a bandana. She was kicking and he had just backhanded her causing a nasty split in her lip and blood trickled down the side of her face . . .

It was dark in the alleyway as it was well into the night hours, and the moon being a new moon and not giving off much light at all . . .

Charlie simply spoke up, What’s going on in here?

The man holding the rope quickly turned and pulled his gun, but he wasn’t fast enough, as Charlie had been expecting trouble of some sort and had his colt loose in the holster as he entered the alley . . . Charlie fired his gun hitting the man in the bicep of his right arm, but this man, losing control of his gun, causing it to go off, instantly the bullet caught the woman in the side shattering through her ribs . . . The man holding the knife, dropped her to the ground and ran out the back of the alley, and as Charlie bent over to check on the woman lying there bleeding through her white laced shirt, he was hit over the head from behind and knocked unconscious . . .

Waking up in a jail cell with talks of being hung by daylight . . . His head ached and blood had dried in his hair and matted it together where he couldn’t run his fingers through it . . . Setting up on the side of the cot, he asked the man watching over him what had happened . . .

Bill was the guards name and he was enjoying antagonizing his prisoner . . . He toiled with a rope making jokes about it being stretched around his neck . . . Charlie asked him if he could bring him a pitcher of water, a cup and a towel so he could clean the gash on the back of his head and to quench his thirst . . .

Bill scoffed at his request at first, but after some deliberation felt he had no fear of this man, he looked woozy and drugged, he figured he could work him over if he needed too . . . But he made Charlie move to the back corner and he pulled his revolver as he set the pitcher of water and a cup on the floor, then quickly stepped back out and locked the door . . .

Charlie Dodd slowly stepped over and poured a cup of the water and drank it slowly, then pouring some on the back of his head and worked into the dried blood with his hands . . . Hey Bill, could you hand me a hand towel so I won’t get a mess on this bunk?

Bill nonchalantly retrieved a small burlap looking rag and stepped to the iron bars to stick it through, letting it drop on the floor in the cell, but before he could withdraw his hand, Charlie had jumped from the edge of the cot and grabbed him by the wrist and pulled with all his strength, slamming Bills face into the iron bars of the cell, he had a grip on his right arm and the deputy couldn’t get to his revolver . . . Charlie shoved him back and pulled him hard and quick again, smashing his face into the bars even harder this time, then quickly reached through and grabbed Bills gun

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and forced him to unlock the door, blood was streaming from Bills nose and upper lip and there was a nasty looking cut just above his right eye, then Charlie made him set down on the cot and tied his hands behind his back with the same rope he had been threatened with, then gagged him with the burlap rag, then locked him inside the cell, and then instructed him that if he heard him yelling for help that he would be the first one he shot, not that he could make much noise with the burlap cloth tightly tied in his mouth . . . He was gussied up pretty good . . .

Charlie Dodd retrieved his own colt and holster from the office within and picked up his Henry rifle, and slipped out into the darkness of the night through the back door . . . His own horse, a good sorrel, was at the far end of town in the livery, and he could make out a few men down there loitering about, passing a bottle between them it seemed . . . At the end of the hitching rail, closest to him, in front of the saloon, stood a tall black mare, and the rider had just dismounted and had gone into the saloon, Charlie figured this would give him some time to be out and on his way before anyone missed this horse or knew he was gone . . .

Back out on the prairie, lightening flashed again and the thunder was simultaneous, rain started to pound down as the black clouds raced down upon him, pushing on with the black horse, limping every step, he made it to the butte, the only trail that a man and horse could climb up was on the backside, coaxing the black horse along they made it to the top . . . He quickly set about setting up a makeshift shelter and scrounged what wood he could find and covered it with the bedroll to keep it dry, then he built a fire, there was plenty of wood here from the cottonwoods, they were a scarred up gnarled looking bunch of trees, being the only ones anywhere about and the storms that passed through these high plains were usually quick and violent, leaving destruction in their wake . . .

This posse had started out with fifteen men, but had dwindled to no more than eight now, most of these men had families and homes back in town and had no flair or taste for this sort of thing and nearly half of them had returned . . . Charlie figured, between the weather and now him making a stand here and shooting back at them, that half of these would turn tail as well, but there had to be a couple of men in here at least that wanted to see him hanging from a rope, or better yet to be shot out here on the prairie with no chance of him talking, all to cover a crime they had committed, not just a crime, but the murder of a woman, Charlie smiled to himself though, thinking he did steal some fella’s horse back in town . . .

Looking back, out over the plains, he could see his pursuers making slow progress in the rain, but he figured they would be here in an hour or so . . . He walked over to the black horse and ran his hands up and down her front leg, No swelling girl, that’s a good sign, a little hot around your knee joint, let’s pack it down . . . He leads the mare over to the fresh spring and washes it clean with the cold clear water, then making a mud pack from the bottom of the spring; he uses his bandana and wraps it around the knee joint, refreshing it with the cold spring water every few minutes . . .

He builds his fire into a roaring blaze and checks his rifle and colt and moves a few logs and rocks closer to the edge making a barricade, leaving a few shooting holes . . .

The posse rides up within fifty feet of the butte, looking around from side to side as Charlie Dodd lowers the sights of his Henry rifle and fires a round, shattering off a rock, setting in between two of the riders causing rock fragments to splatter on a couple of the horses creating a chaos of jumping spooked horses.

A volley of bullets echoed across the valley floor as the men from the posse poured lead into the rocky edge of his barricade, Charlie just smiles to himself as nothing gets anywhere near his position as he rolled a good twenty feet from where he fired his shot . . . He had all the advantages here . . .

Charlie hollers down to the posse: You boys are chasing the wrong man you know . . .

A man hollers back up to the top of his holdout: That might be, come on down and let’s talk about it . . .

Talk with a rope you mean?

Shots rang out and bark flies off a log where Charlie was a minute ago . . .

Charlie peers through another gap in between two rocks and fires four more rounds into the dirt in front of three of the men, who quickly dive in behind some sage, scattering like rabbits . . . Charlie laughing to himself, as if they think that sagebrush would save their lives from a bullet . . . I don’t have any intentions to kill any of you boys, but if we’re going to keep this up, my intentions will change mighty quickly now . . .

He can hear them mumbling amongst themselves, about half of them are ready to light out and head back to town . . . One of them said: Heck fella’s, I didn’t even know who that woman was, if he hadn’t of taken Sam’s horse, I wouldn’t have been here in the first place . . .

Damn Larry, the woman’s name was Mary Flann, now does that make it better, the man up there shot her, ain’t that good enough reason for a hanging . . .

Charlie’s ears perked up as he heard the name of Mary Flann, he knew a woman from years back by that name, a girl he had grown up with back in Boston Harbor as a boy . . . She went by Anna then, but her full name was Mary Anna Flann, surely it was not the same, it had been a lot of years since he remembered the days of that time in his life . . .

The storm had nearly blown out, it was summer and these storms often were more noise than rain, and they whipped in with a violent furry and left just as quickly . . .

Charlie continued working with the cold compress he had wrapped on his horses leg, and occasionally picking up her foot and flexing the joint, rubbing it in an upward direction all the time, working the stagnant blood back up her leg . . . It would be dark soon and he figured that would be when they make a move for him, there was no way they could sneak around behind him without being exposed to being shot in the daylight hours, he would occasionally peer over his barricade and fire a round or two just to keep them honest . . .

He gathered up more wood for his fire, with a few big logs to throw on later, the sun was near the western horizon leaving clear skies in its wake of the day, casting reddish hues of light against a backdrop of sage, the earth smelled refreshed from the brief afternoon rain and it was a bit cooler as well . . . A sage grouse had flown on top of the butte earlier and Charlie had managed to hit it with a long stick and had skewered it over his fire and had ate his fill, tossing the bones over the edge down to the posse, infuriating a couple of them as they had not eaten all day it appeared . . . They had ridden out in haste and none of them had brought any supplies along with them . . . They were down here half cold and wet and starved, and he was up there with a nice fire going, eating grouse!

One of them had stood up and emptied his revolver into Charlie’s fortress just out of sheer anger . . . Charlie wanting to keep them at bay for a little longer, edged his rifle through an opening and put a bullet through the toe of the man’s boot, then hollered down to him: That could have just as easily been through the top of your hat . . .

Charlie could hear more arguing among them, and then a few minutes later, two more of them rode out . . . Only six left, and he knew these men weren’t about to leave now, they had pushed it this far, and they intended to see him stretched from a rope or shot right here and now, and that would be the easiest for them as then there would be no questions asked, it would have been a justice done . . .

Darkness had settled in, and he knew they would be trying to get around behind the butte and make their way up the trail, some one would get shot that was sure . . . Charlie stuck his rifle through and fired three quick rounds catching them nearly sleeping, splattering sand on two of them, he then throws on three of the big logs on the fire, that would keep it burning bright for hours to come, then he takes two rounds from his belt and places them at the edge of his fire on top of a rock and piles plenty of dry wood around them, figuring that when the dry fodder catches and gets the bullets hot enough they would go off, leading them to believe he was still there, Charlie Dodd then leads the black horse back off the backside of the butte and heads due south, straight towards the river . . .

He had rode for a good hour at an easy pace as he nurtures the sore leg of the black horse, he nears the river when he hears a round go off and then the other, then another volley from the ground, he smiles as he knows his trick has worked and had bought himself more time . . . He reached the riverbank and looks both directions, west leads just that, west and farther away from Dry Canyon Springs, back east leads back to town, and he does have a good horse there . . .

He enters the rivers edge heading upstream, to the west, keeping the horse in knee deep water, the cold water will be good on the sore leg, but also makes for hard tracking, it’s a muddy river bottom, and in minutes, the rushing water fills his tracks back in with mud, but he wants to leave just enough tracks to lead them heading west . . . He rides upstream in and out of the water occasionally to be sure of leaving enough sign a blind man could follow, he rides maybe a quarter mile or so until he reaches a rocky portion where the current is a little swifter and the water shallow, he crosses to the south edge of the river and turns his horse back east, towards town, keeping him in deeper water to hide any sign of hoof prints, then he gets to a spot lined with brush and washed up debris, that will be inconspicuous of leaving tracks and he points the black horse up the bank and the horse climbs out . . . Charlie steps from the saddle and tosses some more loose dirt and debris over what tracks they made getting out. Then they ride straight away from the river, then turning back east, heading straight back towards Dry Canyon Springs . . .

It was well past midnight when the posse had worked their way around the butte, his fire had died down and they hadn’t heard any movement for some time, they had figured he had fallen asleep, as they knew he hadn’t slept in a couple of days . . . They made their way up the thin trail in the dark of the night, sneaking and slipping around like a fox after