Sundance 15

by John Benteen

  “Sure.” Sundance tried to shut the howling from his ears as he left the hospital. Leaning against the hitch rack where he had tied the horse, he rolled a cigarette. The howling went on and on. Lighting the smoke, he wondered if he really had the nerve to do what must be done after seeing that. If not, it would be the first time his courage had failed him. This was different, he told himself. The real Silent Enemy was not Cole Maxton. It was that germ or microbe or whatever in the veins of all those rabid animals out yonder, that was now lodged in the degenerating brain of Phelan. Then, he straightened up. All at once he was conscious that the dreadful wailing had stopped completely. Now there was only silence.

  Three minutes later, when he ground out the butt beneath the jackboot heel, there were footsteps on the porch of the hospital. Then Crook was there beside him, and though his bearing was still composed, his voice shook slightly. “Well, it’s finished.”

  “It came quickly,” Sundance said.

  “Yes. Come along to my office. The medical orderly will see to your horse.” They walked across the parade, Crook silent, as if deep in thought. Sundance said, “What did you use?”

  “What?”

  “The doctor couldn’t do it. But you’re not a doctor. What did you use?”

  Crook looked at him a moment, then said tersely: “Cyanide. The doctor prepared an injection. We just got in a shipment of both cyanide and strychnine. But strychnine takes too long to act, is too agonizing. Cyanide’s instantaneous.” His voice thickened. “Dammit, Jim, as far as anyone knows, I just went in to take a look at the boy, and he died while I was in there.”

  “Yeah,” said Sundance. “What about the other one? I heard two were bitten. This one was first. You’ve got another coming up?”

  “No,” Crook answered heavily. “When this one went into the last stages and the other man saw what it was like, he took his razor and slashed his throat.”

  “He was smart,” Sundance said. They walked the rest of the way to Crook’s office in silence.

  The General finished his drink and set it down. There had been another murder while Sundance was gone. This time, the killer had slipped into Fort McPherson itself, seized one of the perimeter guards in the middle of the night, and dragged him out on the prairie, well away from the post. “Knocked him out, of course,” Crook said bitterly. “Then cut out his tongue so he couldn’t yell, spread-eagled him, and went to work on him with a knife, all within rifle shot of this very office. What we found the next morning wasn’t pretty.”

  “And the sign?”

  “A couple of Cheyenne arrows in him. But otherwise, not a track or trace. I looked myself, and you know I wouldn’t miss anything.”

  Sundance nodded. Crook, an enthusiastic hunter, could read trail sign as well as any Indian ever born. “I’m at the end of my rope,” the General said suddenly, and all at once he looked old and worn. “Jim, I don’t know what’s next.”

  Sundance drained his glass and rose. “There’s only one thing that can be next. He’s out there somewhere, and likely not very far away. I’ve got to go after him and hunt him down. Just like a wolf or a bear …”

  Crook, shoulders slumped, shook his head. “No, Jim, I can’t allow it. Not right away. It’s far too dangerous. I don’t mean that I’m afraid he’ll get you. But the rabies epidemic is at its peak now. You can’t expose yourself to being bitten. You’ll have to wait until we’ve finished our poisoning program.”

  “Poisoning program?”

  “That’s what the cyanide and the strychnine’s for. We’ve got enough to put out poison bait for a radius of thirty miles around the post. Some we’ll put in meat, some we’ll put in grain. But we’re going to do our best to poison every animal out there. Taylor at North Platte’s got a supply, and he’ll do the same around the town. On top of which we’re burning all the grass and brush, wherever it’s high enough to hide an animal. We’ve talked it over with the people of the town and Ravenal’s got ’em all behind us. They’ll pitch in and help, too.” He raised his head, eyes sunken in his face. “I hate to do it, but there’s no alternative. We’ve got to exterminate every living thing that can carry the disease for as far as we can reach, either by gun, fire, or poison. That comes first, even before hunting down the killer—and we need you to help us. I’m competent to oversee the work around here, but Taylor’s a greenhorn when it comes to this kind of thing. I’d like for you to ride to North Platte and help him.”

  “It’s a dirty business,” said Sundance.

  “I know. It goes against all your Indian instincts—mass slaughter of game. But it has to be done, and in this case, it’s more humane. And maybe—” he looked at Sundance “—in the process, we’ll flush out the killer if he’s hiding out there.”

  Sundance nodded. That was a possibility. “You know the critters that are in the last stages of the sickness won’t eat, won’t take your poison.”

  “No. But we can wipe out everything they can infect, and then, when they themselves die off, maybe it will all be over. I don’t want an animal capable of carrying the disease left alive, within two days’ ride of either post.” He gestured. “We’ll work outward from the two posts in circles. Poison and burn a small area, and when we have that cleared, move on to another one, not too much at a time. That lessens the chances of anyone getting bitten. And really, there’s not much big game left in the area; hunting’s already cleared it out. But we’ve got to get the little stuff, the wolves, the foxes, coyotes and the like. What about it? Will you help Taylor and Ravenal at North Platte?”

  “If that’s what you want, Three Stars.”

  “It’s what I want; and I’m obliged. Now—” Crook raised a haunted face. “I’ve still got a lot of work to do. Write a report on the attitude of the Cheyennes to General Sheridan—and a letter to the parents of that poor, damned young soldier.”

  Chapter Five

  Under the open shed set aside for that purpose, Sundance, two days later, lectured Captain Taylor, his lieutenants, and his non-coms. Ravenal was also there. “It’s not as easy as it looks. You don’t just ram the poison in the bait with your bare hands and toss it out yonder. Some of the animals will take it, but not the smart old lobos and coyotes. You wouldn’t believe how some of them can detect the least trace of human scent, or even if cold steel, for that matter.” He held up his hands, encased in leather gauntlets. “These gloves like those yonder—” he gestured to a pile of them “—have been buried in the stable litter and then aired out to take most of the human scent away from ’em. I wore ’em while I made these knives made out of bone.” The instruments were crude but sharp, adequate for their purpose. “The gunny sacks to carry the poison in have had the same treatment. We’ll lead the old horses and cattle Mr. Ravenal’s donated out in the open, around the post and town and kill them there. Men wearing gloves will use the bone knives to cut ’em open and insert the strychnine I’ve worked into the balls of fat. Every carcass’ll draw a lot of wolves and coyotes—and buzzards and hawks and eagles, too, I’m afraid—so you’ll want to saturate the carcasses with poison. Be sure to get plenty up in the guts.”

  Ravenal cut in. “The same holds true, I reckon, for any big game we kill.”

  “That’s right. You jump an antelope, deer, buffalo, you shoot it, then poison it. The General’s orders are that everything has to go.” He turned to another pile of tallow balls on a rawhide sheet. “Each one of these has got a cyanide pellet in it. You’ll carry them in the gunny sacks and sprinkle them around between the carcasses. There should be a team making more right along—and they’ll have to use the gloves and the bone knives the same way.”

  He gestured to another work bench. “The meat’ll take care of the wolves, coyotes, skunks, kit foxes and maybe some of the badgers. This poisoned bran and oats mixed with strychnine is for the prairie dogs and rats and mice. They’ll gobble it up, and anything that eats them will get the same dose, too.”

  “That ought to take care of just about everything t
hat moves,” Taylor said.

  “No,” Sundance answered. “There are some critters out there that kill just for the joy of killing and eat nothing but what they’ve killed themselves. That’s mostly weasels and black-footed ferrets. The poisoning of the wolves and things is the first step. The second will be the burning. All the grass, all the brush in every draw or gully has to go. That’ll wipe out the ferrets and burn the carcasses of the poisoned animals so that any that already have the disease don’t pass it on when others eat ’em. Since it hasn’t rained in a long time and it ain’t likely to in the next week or so, everything ought to burn real easy.”

  Taylor sighed with regret. “An expensive business. There are some places out yonder horse high with fine tall grass. We’d planned to cut it for hay for winter.”

  “It can’t be helped,” Sundance said. “Anyhow, some of it’ll grow back before fall gets here. Lots of times a good burning helps the grass. Just make sure none of your men gets caught ahead of the fire. A real big prairie fire can move faster in the wind out here than a horse can run. There’ll have to be teams to be ready to set back fires, and other teams to shoot anything the fire flushes out.” He paused. “Everything that lives must die for thirty miles around. That’s more than the usual range of any wolves or coyotes, so if we can bring it off, maybe we can wipe out the epidemic. But each man’ll have to look sharp to make sure he or his pardners don’t get bitten—or bushwhacked by that crazy killer.”

  Ravenal nodded. “It all sounds practical enough to me. We start today?”

  “We start today,” Sundance said. “But just in a circle for a mile around the town and post. Tomorrow, we’ll move out a few miles farther, the next day a few more miles, and so on, clearing as we go.”

  “Right. Well, today I won’t ride, with you. I’ll set up fire protection for the town and post. We wouldn’t want the burning later on to endanger either. But when you move farther out, I’d like to ride with you, Sundance.”

  “Sure,” Sundance replied.

  “Captain Taylor.” Trim in a lightweight suit of gray, Ravenal gave a half-salute, left the shed, went to his horse. By it, Fitz and Maynard waited, the face of the first expressionless, the latter glowering at Sundance.

  The half-breed watched as all three mounted and galloped out of the post toward the adjoining town. Then he turned to Taylor. “Well, let’s get to work,” he said.

  ~*~

  The first day was fairly simple. Rickety old horses and culled beef animals were led a mile out of the post and killed at strategic locations. Sundance demonstrated the poisoning of the carcasses and troopers quickly learned the technique. The balls of tallow, containing cyanide capsules which would bring instant death the moment they were broken, were also scattered, as was the poisoned grain. That night, sharing Taylor’s quarters, Sundance could hear the snarling and howling of animals fighting over meat. When daylight came, he and Taylor led a team out to see the results.

  They were both impressive, and to Sundance, at least, somewhat sickening. In all, the poison had claimed over twenty coyotes and wolves and stray dogs from the town that had gone wild and been missed in the extermination program. Here and there, black dots against the dun grass were dead skunks and a nearby prairie dog town was littered with the carcasses of the rodents. Overhead, vultures gathered.

  “Hell, I never guessed there were that many animals this close in!” Taylor exclaimed.

  “Except when they go mad, they make sure they see you first,” Sundance said. He shook his head. “What a rotten waste, though.”

  Taylor looked at him in surprise. “You Indians don’t consider wolves and coyotes game?”

  “The fur,” Sundance said. “In the winter it would be prime. Now, though, it’s thin and useless.” He shrugged. “But anyway, it would be too dangerous to skin ’em. No telling which ones were in the early stages of the disease. Still, where I grew up, we never wasted anything.”

  While armed soldiers watched, others, gloved, gathered up the carcasses and burned them. Once a coyote loped from the brush and, showing no fear of man, stood with tongue lolling, watching. A dozen bullets simultaneously ripped it apart, and it was thrown on the cleansing fire. After that, they began the burning of the prairie and the brush in draws and gullies.

  That was even worse. All sorts of small creatures burst from their coverts at the approach of flames—kit foxes, ferrets, rats. Some were already on fire, some ahead of the flickering red death unharmed. The soldiers, strategically stationed, used them for target practice. It took the whole day to burn the one-mile circle around the town and then put out the flames.

  The next day at sunrise Marsh Ravenal was at the post by reveille, flanked by Maynard and the gunman Fitz. Today he wore range clothes, boots and chaps and bull hide jacket, and an old slouch hat of Confederate gray. Riding with Taylor and Sundance, he himself shot the battered old animals which he had donated as bait. This time they were laid out in a circle four miles distant from the first one, and he watched with interest the poisoning technique. “Now I feel like we’re making progress,” he said. “I’ll guarantee to supply as many critters as you can use.”

  “We’re obliged, Mr. Ravenal,” Taylor said, reining up on a flat and removing his hat to mop his sweating forehead. Then he stiffened in his saddle. “Look out there.”

  They followed his pointing hand. On the short-grass plain not five hundred yards distant, a scatter of antelope watched the riders with the curiosity of their kind. “Well, I’ll be damned,” Ravenal said. “Pronghorns. Don’t see many around anymore.” He grinned. “First chance for target practice I’ve had in a long time.” Drawing a long-barreled Winchester from its saddle scabbard, he swung down, handing Fitz the horse’s reins. “Gentlemen,” he said, “I’ll show you how they taught us to shoot in the Confederate army.”

  Sundance opened his mouth to protest, then closed it again. Like everything else, the half-dozen pronghorns had to go. With narrowed eyes, he watched as Ravenal took an offhand stance, aimed and fired. A doe antelope leaped and fell.

  Taylor whistled. “Some shooting.”

  Ravenal paid him no attention as the gun roared again, and a buck, its hind leg shattered, wheeled, limped off in a lurching run. Again the Winchester cracked and a doe about to take flight fell, belly shot, then scrambled up and tried to flee. Ravenal swung his gun, and Sundance watched his face. It was set in a strange, ugly grin, lips peeled back from white, even teeth.

  “Wait,” Sundance began. “The range—You’re wounding—”

  But Ravenal fired again and again, missed once, but shattered the shoulder of another doe. The last animal went rocketing out of range as he pumped two more slugs at it.

  “Hell,” Ravenal cursed, and began to reload the rifle. “Well, it wasn’t too bad, considerin’ the distance.” He swung up into the saddle, eyes glowing; and Sundance knew that he had enjoyed the wanton killing.

  Expecting Ravenal to ride out to finish off the wounded animals which, crippled as they were, could not go far, he was startled when the man reined his horse around. “Well, let’s get on with it.”

  “Get on with it? First we’ve got to finish those wounded antelope.”

  Ravenal looked at Sundance in surprise. “What for? They’ve got to die anyway. What difference does it make whether today or tomorrow?”

  “An extra day’s suffering,” Sundance said, voice harsh.

  “Since when did Injuns get so tender-hearted?” Ravenal shrugged. “Why waste the time? We’ll catch ’em when we burn tomorrow.”

  Not answering, Sundance yanked his rifle from its scabbard, spurred his horse. Galloping across the flat, he gained on the gut-shot doe, dropped her with a single bullet. The buck’s white rump was like a flare as, three-legged, it tried to outdistance the horse. Even crippled, it was fast, but he gained on it enough to finish it with another shot. Then he looked around for the doe with the broken foreleg. Smashed shoulder and all, she was limping awkwardly across the prairie sever
al hundred yards away, and even as he watched she vanished, with the instinct of the wounded animal, into a hiding place, a narrow, winding draw that split the table-land, its depths clogged with a thick growth of scraggly juniper.

  Sundance grunted an oath, turned the horse to follow her. “Jim!” he heard Taylor shout from far away, but he did not slow. He didn’t want to ride into that draw, had no idea what animals, rabid or not, were hiding in that thick cover, but it had been bred into his bones since earliest remembrance—when you wounded something, you kept after it until you killed it. Not to do so was the worst sort of bad medicine. Besides, the doe could not go far in that heavy brush.

  Reaching the narrow cut, gun up, he rode down into it at a walk, the juniper brush ranking at his thighs. Then he caught a flash of white: the doe’s rump. She was hobbling around a bend not far ahead, her strength nearly gone. Sundance cursed again and followed her, slowly, warily.

  He turned the bend, and there the draw opened up, its walls still brushy, but its floor bare and sandy. The doe had finally collapsed, and was kneeling, shoulder streaming blood. Sundance swept the brush along each wall with his eyes, saw nothing to alarm him, lined the rifle, fired. Heart split by his bullet, the antelope rolled over on its side, killed instantly. Sundance reined in, thumbing rounds from his cartridge belt, reloading the rifle—and that was when he saw it, plain in the sand on the bottom of the draw: a single footprint, the outline of a Cheyenne moccasin. And it was not more than an hour old.

  Pulses pounding, Sundance swept the brush along the draw once more with his eyes, more carefully now. He saw nothing, nor did he expect to. Edging the horse forward, he searched for more sign, raising his head every few seconds to look around. But he found nothing, not a trace, except for that one print. It was enough, though, to fill him with a glow of anticipation better than any drink, a kind of satisfaction. So—he was still here, and he had used this draw as a hiding place this morning to watch the movement of the troops. Likely he had then retreated, taking time to erase his trail, overlooking this single footprint. All the hunting instinct in him aroused in a way that none of the wanton slaughter of animals had done it, he grinned, lips peeling back in something like a wolf’s snarl. Then men were shouting from the draw’s head: Taylor and Ravenal. Sundance turned the horse, galloped back along the cut up to the open flat. Taylor’s face was pale with relief as he emerged. “Jim you ... you idiot! Riding into a place like that alone!”