by John Benteen
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Both the Indians and the U.S. Cavalry were being victimized. A lone crazed Cheyenne was on a personal warpath against both sides and neither brigades of bluecoats nor tribes of braves could end his reign of terror. They needed to pit one man against one crazed Indian.
That man was Sundance.
SUNDANCE 15: SILENT ENEMY
By John Benteen
First published by Leisure Books in 1977
Copyright © 1977, 2016 by John Benteen
First Snamswords Edition: November 2016
Names, characters and incidents in this book are fictional, and any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons living or dead is purely coincidental. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information or storage and retrieval system, without the written permission of the author, except where permitted by law.
This is a Piccadilly Publishing Book
Cover image © 2016 by Tony Masero
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Series Editor: Ben Bridges
Text © Piccadilly Publishing
Published by Arrangement with the Author Estate.
Prologue
Nearly a thousand Cheyenne lodges almost filled the valley of the Tongue. The great horse herd stretched for miles up and down the river. Now, in 1868, all ten bands of the Tsistsistas—the People, as the great tribe called itself—had gathered here for their most important ceremony of all, the Renewal of the Sacred Arrows. Jim Sundance could remember when it had been held every two years—but that had been before the West had begun to fill up with white men. Now, he told the blonde white woman who shared his lodge, this might be the last time the northern and southern divisions of the tribe ever massed like this.
“The Army,” he said. “It’ll never let us get together like this again. The railroad, all the forts they’re building, they’ll drive us, harass us, so we can’t mass together to make war—” He shook a head as blond as the woman’s, but while she was wholly white, his skin was the color of an old penny, his features the craggy ones of the typical Cheyenne warrior, with high cheekbones and a big blade of nose. His eyes, though, were a gray as un-Indian as his hair. He was a half-breed, his father a trader originally from England, his mother the daughter of a Cheyenne chief. He knew the white man’s ways, and in one niche of the teepee were white man’s weapons—a holstered Colt percussion revolver, a Henry rifle, stock saddle and bitted bridle for his Appaloosa stallion. At the moment, though, he wore the costume of a Dog Soldier of the people among whom he’d grown up—a crow-feather headdress, breechclout and moccasins.
The woman stood up. Sundance was in his late twenties; she was a few years younger, and lovely, in the quilled and beaded buckskin dress of a Cheyenne woman. Her name was Barbara Colfax, and she was from the East: a year before, she had been captured by Cheyennes, and her father, a powerful financier, had hired Sundance to bring her back. He had done that, but in the intervening time she had fallen in love with the wild, free Cheyenne way of life and had fled the dullness of New York to rejoin the Indians and share his lodge. Two Roads Woman, the Cheyennes called her, and welcomed her return, as they always welcomed Sundance, whose reputation among them as a warrior was towering.
“There shouldn’t be war,” she said. “Good heavens, all this space out here. There ought to be room enough for everybody, red and white … “
“There’ll be war,” a voice said harshly from behind them. “Plenty war. A big one.”
Jim Sundance whirled. His voice was cold when he said, “Do you always come into people’s lodges without asking permission first, Silent Enemy?”
The man who stood there, clad like Sundance save that he wore the headdress of the Shields, another warrior society, grinned. His hair, his eyes, were raven black, but his skin much lighter, despite the dark tan of years of living beneath the prairie sun. Not quite as tall as Sundance, he had broad, sloping shoulders, a barrel chest, powerful arms, and thick, muscular legs. He was a half-breed, too, and as if to emphasize the white man’s blood flowing in his veins, he wore a Navy Colt slung low from a belt around his waist. Standing there spraddle-legged, thumbs hooked in his belt, he grinned, showing yellowed, uneven teeth. His father’s strain showed in his features, a pug, almost flat nose, and a slightly recessive chin. “Sorry,” he said in English. “I heard you talkin’ all that horse manure. Had to put my two cents’ worth in. There’ll be a war, and the sooner it comes, the better. By God, I’m ready to start shootin’ blue-bellied soldiers again.” He spat into the campfire. “When the Council of Forty-four’s held, I hope it goes for war.”
“You’ve seen how the white men make war,” Sundance said thinly. “So have I. And if there’s all-out war between the Indians and the long knives, you know who’ll lose. They’ve got the guns and men and the equipment, the railroad and the telegraph. Peace is what the People need, not war. We fought the Kiowas and Comanches for years, and then made peace with them, and now they’re our allies. Same with the Sioux. Why can’t we do it with the whites?” He shook his head. “An all-out war would mean the destruction of the Indians.”
The man called Silent Enemy spat again. “All I want’s a chance to shoot some blue-bellies,” he rasped. His dark eyes ran over Two Roads Woman’s body, lingering on the rounded breasts, the curved hips. “You built up quite a rep as a gunfighter among the whites, Sundance, same as you have as a Dog Soldier warrior here with the People. But sometimes you talk like an old woman.” Contemptuously, he turned, went out.
When he was gone, the tepee was silent for a moment. Then Barbara Colfax said: “Ugh. Who’s he?” She shuddered. “Did you see the way he looked at me? Something about him gives me the shivers.”
“I saw the way he looked at you,” Jim Sundance said thinly. “He looks that way at every good-lookin’ woman he sees. He’s bad medicine all the way, even though he’s probably the most educated half-breed in the whole tribe. His white man’s name is Cole Maxton. His father was the Bents’ right-hand man at their old fort on the Arkansas. Like the Bents themselves, like my father, he married into the Cheyenne tribe. Sent Cole off to an academy in the East—Missouri—before the war; he got four years of book learning in a white man’s school. When the war started, he joined the Confederate Army. When the South got whipped, he drifted west again. But he couldn’t stop picking fights among the whites. And believe me, for a half-breed, they aren’t hard to find, especially with so many Yankee sympathizers out here now. After all, the Confederates did try to get the Indians on their side, and Maxton made a lot of speeches, did a lot of organizin’ for ’em. But he failed; the Cheyennes stayed clear, minded their own business. That was on the advice of the Bents and even Maxton’s own father; the tribe respected all of them. Word got around about what Cole had been up to and he wasn’t exactly popular among the whites. I don’t know how many gunfights he was in before he finally decided to come back to his mother’s people. The truth is, he don’t give a damn about anything or anybody, white or red. All he’s interested in is himself. He likes fightin’, money, whiskey, and women.” Sundance shook his head. “He’s been back several months now, with the Southern bands. Me, I don’t think he’s gonna last any longer among the Cheyennes than he did among the whites. Meanwhile, if he comes near you, don’t have anything to do with him. He’s as dangerous as a rattlesnake.”
“Yes,” said Two Roads Woman. “That’s what he reminds me of—a rattlesnake.”
“But a rattlesnake gives warnin’ before it kills. He never does. That’s how he got his name—Silent Enemy. He’d as soon shoot a man in the back as any other way.” Outside, drum
s began to throb. Sundance said, “That’s the signal. It’s time to take the sacrifices now to the Sacred Arrows. You’ll have to stay inside the lodge. This is a ceremony only for the men.”
~*~
The four Sacred Arrows of the Cheyennes had been given to the prophet Mutsoyef, Sweet Medicine, by Maiyun, the personification of the Great Spirit in ancient times. They were the tribe’s big medicine, its luck, two insuring success in hunting, two success in warfare. It was a four-day ceremony and very complicated, but it also provided a chance for the entire tribe to assemble in one spot, a kind of haphazard census to be taken, and the tribal leaders, of whom there were forty-four, to sit in council and discuss matters of, importance to the whole nation. Afterwards, there would be a huge tribal buffalo hunt, or, as happened only very occasionally, the whole tribe would declare war against another nation that had offended it. Nicholas Sundance, as he had come to call himself, had been a man of education, a black-sheep member of the English nobility who had joined the Cheyennes in the old fur-trapping and trading days, and he had taught his son the white man’s way and the white man’s way of thinking. He had also taught Jim Sundance the white man’s arts of fighting, for the Englishman had been a soldier in his time, with Wellington at Waterloo as an officer. There was a part of Jim Sundance that viewed the ritual through white man’s eyes with a certain cynicism, but the Indian half of him took it as seriously as any full-blooded Cheyenne who had never seen a book or town. That was why he resented the half-sneer on the face of Cole Maxton, the man called Silent Enemy, as Maxton passed the pole on which the sacred arrows hung, bringing only a minimal sacrifice to the Medicine Arrows—a powder horn and a shot pouch with a few pistol balls. Standing apart, watching the other male members of the tribe file past the pole, seeking the blessing of the Arrows on themselves and families, he was not pleased when Maxton strode toward him, contempt for the whole affair written on his face.
“Look at ’em,” Silent Enemy said. He took white man’s makings from the strap that held his breechclout. “Like a bunch of sheep. Bowin’ and scrapin’ before a handful of arrows anybody in the tribe could make.”
Sundance’s mouth thinned. “Methinks the half-breed doth protest too much.”
“Oh, so you’ve read Shakespeare, too. They rammed it down our throats at the Academy in Missouri. Now, suppose you tell me what you meant by that.”
“The People took you in when you had no place to go—because your mother was Cheyenne. Now you make fun of their most sacred customs.” Sundance looked at him. “Listen, Maxton, I know what you’re up against. Don’t forget, I’m a half-blood, too. But if you’re going to live with ’em, be one of them. It’s easier that way.”
Maxton’s lips curled. “I’m as much Cheyenne as you. You don’t believe it, I’ll go up against you with anything you say, bow and arrows, knife, hatchet. Nobody kills more buffalo on a hunt, nobody has taken more scalps in my whole band than me.”
“That ain’t the point. The point is, if you’re going to be accepted, you’ve got to accept. Not just the hunting and the making war, but all of it, all the customs. You don’t, sooner or later you’re gonna find yourself in bad trouble with the tribe, just as much trouble as you’re in with the white men. Then there won’t be anywhere you belong, nowhere for you ever to come home to.”
Maxton snapped a match, lit the cigarette he’d rolled. “I don’t need your advance. It’s a life I like—part of it; and a place to hide from a lot of Yankees that would like to nail my hide to the wall. And if I can swing it, a chance to get even with a lot of people.” Suddenly he was earnest. “Listen, Sundance, you’re a big man in the Dog Soldiers, I’m a big man in the Shields. The chiefs of our societies are part of the big council. If we put pressure on ’em, maybe we can get ’em to vote for all-out war against the whites. What about it? Why don’t you talk to Six Horses and I’ll talk to Bloody Mouth and …”
“No,” Sundance said.
“God damn it,” Maxton said, “there’s gonna be war anyhow and you know it.”
“Maybe. But I’m not going to push for it, as long as there’s a chance for peace.”
“Peace.” Silent Enemy spat into the dust.
Sundance faced him. “Maxton, you make me sick. You’re not thinking about the People. You don’t give a damn about the Cheyennes. All you want is to use ’em as a tool to settle some personal score of your own.”
Maxton stared at him a moment. “All right. So the white men threw me out. Even my own father wouldn’t put up with me. Told me to git and never come back, that he wanted no gunfighter in the family. I killed three men in Ellsworth, yeah, and …”
“I heard about it,” Sundance said thinly. “Two of ’em shot in the back. That’s why your father threw you out. You tried to rape the wife of one of ’em. They all three came after you and you ran, then doubled back and bushwhacked ’em.”
“You hear a lot.” A faint grin played across the other half-breed’s face. “All right, so I did. So they were Yankees and she was a high-nosed Yankee bitch, but I couldn’t fight the whole goddam bunch of ’em and I had to run somewhere.”
“So you ran to the Cheyennes. And they took you in and now you’re trying to use ’em to get even.” Sundance drew in a long breath. “Well, what you want and what you do is none of my affair, except I’ll tell you this. You’d better walk easy and mind your manners and the tribal customs. They won’t be a bit easier with you for layin’ a hand on another man’s woman than the whites. And a lot harder if you kill one of ’em. There’s a lot of things you can get away with in a white man’s town that won’t wash with the People.”
Maxton dropped the cigarette, ground it out with his moccasin. “Don’t you worry about me. I can take care of myself. I thought maybe you were the one man that would go along with me, push for war, hit ’em before they hit us. But you’re so chicken-livered I don’t see how you can call yourself white or Cheyenne either.”
Sundance tensed, then relaxed. “Maxton, I’m not armed.” He shook his head. “Besides, I kill you, you kill me, either one of us would be whipped and then banished from the tribe. I happen to like being a Cheyenne, and I wouldn’t lose the privilege over fightin’ somebody like you.”
“Like I said. Chicken-livered.” Their eyes met. Then Maxton turned, walked away, vanishing among the concentric circles of tipis that made up the camp. Sundance watched him go, fighting down the white-hot anger that blazed within him. Then, forgetting Maxton, he turned to watch the rest of the ceremony, lost himself in its ritual—until, ten minutes later, somewhere close at hand, the woman screamed. And then, its roar thunderous in the sudden silence, a gun went off.
~*~
Sundance whirled, running toward the sound. Behind him came half a dozen of the Dog Soldiers, whose responsibility it was this day to act as camp police, maintaining order and respect during the ceremony. The scream came again, a high-pitched wail of grief and terror. “That lodge!” Sundance pointed toward a tipi to the right. Even as they wheeled, a man dodged out of its door, straightened up, mouth twisted in a snarl. Sundance and the other Indians stopped short. For it was Maxton, Silent Enemy, and in his hand he held his Colt, smoke still curling from the muzzle. Within the lodge the screaming went on and on.
Maxton straightened up, gun aimed. “Stand back!” he yelled. “All of you—stand back! There’s five more balls in this and I won’t miss with a single one!” Beneath its tan, his face was pale. “You, Sundance! You come at me, and by God, you’ll be the first to go!” he snapped in English. “I’ve already had to kill one man. Five more won’t make no difference!”
“You killed—”
“Elk Horn. I’ve had my eye on that woman of his for a long time. I figured while all the men were at the ceremony was my chance. How’d I know the sonofabitch would walk in just as I was—?”
“You killed Elk Horn? A member of your Own band, your own warrior society?” A chill walked down Sundance’s spine that had nothing to do with the menac
e of the Colt, steady in Maxton’s hand.
“He ain’t the first. Now stand hitched.” Maxton repeated the order in Cheyenne, edging toward a warhorse tied to a tipi peg.
“Easy,” Sundance told the other Dog Soldiers, who were gaping, taken by surprise at this flagrant, unexpected—indeed unprecedented—violation of the sacred ceremony. “He means it. There’s no point in anybody else getting hurt—yet.” Then he said quietly, in Cheyenne, to Maxton, “Silent Enemy, throw away that gun. You know you’re going to have to take your medicine. And it won’t do you any good to run. There’s over fifteen hundred warriors in this camp and the minute you light out they’ll all be after you. There’s no escape.”
“No,” said Maxton. His hand was on the horse’s bridle. “You think I’ll let myself be beaten—”
Hands raised slightly, Sundance took a step forward. “You’ll let yourself be beaten. If you do it now, it will only be by the Dog Soldiers. If you try to run, it’ll be by every man in the tribe. There won’t be much left of you then.”
“I’ll take my chances,” Maxton said, but now uncertainty trembled slightly in his voice.
Sundance took another step. “You don’t have any chances. You know the penalty for he’ joxones—murder—as well as I do. First you’re beaten, then you’re exiled—and you’ll never be a Cheyenne again. All you’ve got to do is figure out whether you want to stay and come out of the beating alive—or run, and take it from so many men that there won’t be anything left of you but a crippled mush that may never walk or even crawl again, let alone ride.” He took one more pace forward. “You give me that gun, you’ve got a chance not to be a ruined and crippled thing that no man or woman will ever look at without being sick. Otherwise—”
Maxton straightened up, a cornered look on his face. “Sundance, damn it, I had no woman of my own. And my mouth watered every time I looked at her, but she wouldn’t give me a glance. You can understand—” He shook his head. “I didn’t know she’d yell, and I didn’t know he was so close, he’d walk in on us—”