Sundance 15

by John Benteen

  Sundance grinned. Maxton was impatient, eager to see what damage the dog had wrought. In a few minutes, he emerged again, and this time he was followed by Fitz and Maynard. All three men were fully dressed and armed, each carrying a rifle. In addition, Silent Enemy had a bow slung over his shoulder, along with a quiver half full of arrows, an ax in his left hand.

  Fitz rubbed his face. “Goddammit, what about some coffee first?”

  “The coffee can wait till later. Come on, let’s take a look at our friend down by the creek. He ought to be a real pretty sight by now.”

  “Hell, you go. We’ll fix some breakfast,” Maynard muttered.

  Silent Enemy’s voice rang with command. “You’ll come with me, both of you. It’ll take three of us to handle that yeller-haired bastard. First thing we got to do is gag him so he can’t bite none of us. Then I aim to do just what I said—break his arms and legs. After that, we’ll lug him up here and put him in that pen where I kept that dawg. Once that’s done, you can have your damn breakfast and haul your freight on back to North Platte and tell Ravenal he can quit sweatin’. Only be sure to make a wide swing so nothin’ points to this place. Now, come along.”

  Peering through a crack in the boulders, Sundance saw Maynard and Fitz look at one another, and in their faces he read their fear of Silent Enemy. He could understand that easily; sane men always feared one as crazed as Maxton, never able to predict what he might do.

  “Well, hell,” Fitz mumbled. “All right.” He went to the horses, unhitched Sundance’s gelding. “We’ll load ’im on this. I don’t aim to tote the bastard.”

  “Just hurry up,” Maxton said. “This is somethin’ I’ve waited a long time for.”

  ~*~

  Crouched low on the wash’s rim, Sundance saw them move off, Maxton in the lead, Maynard shambling after, Fitz following with the led horse. After the juniper closed behind them when they’d entered the thicket, Sundance gave them five more minutes. As all sound of their passage faded, he came down the wall of the wash as silent as a panther. There was no time to waste: fifteen minutes’ walk would see them to the cottonwood where Maxton expected to find Sundance slashed by the mad dog—and when they found not only no bound body, but no sign of either ropes or dog, both of which Sundance had hidden in the brush, there would-be a few minutes for reaction. But Silent Enemy would know—understand that if Sundance had somehow freed himself, the dugout would be the place he’d head to find his weapons. And they’d be coming back on the double, ready for combat.

  He shoved aside the curtain, entered the unexpectedly large room hewn out of the wash’s bank and shored with timber. His mouth twisted in disgust: it smelled like a boar’s nest or a badger’s den—apparently Silent Enemy had long since abandoned Cheyenne rules of cleanliness. The bedrolls of Fitz and Maynard were still spread on the earthen floor; a buffalo robe bed with a wooden backrest was in one corner.

  In the other was Sundance’s bow, quiver, rifle, weapons belt. Darting to them, he snatched them up, then made a sound in his throat of bafflement and disappointment. The Colt was gone from its holster; likely Fitz had taken it. He turned to the rifle, picked it up, worked the lever. Empty. His saddlebags were there, and he fumbled in them for spare ammunition, but there was none. They had picked him clean of anything that would shoot. Still there was the bow and the quiver ... but when he lifted the latter, it was totally empty, and he knew where his arrows had gone: into the quiver Silent Enemy carried, to supplement his own diminishing supply. Without them, the bow was as useless as the empty rifle. All that remained was the Bowie in its sheath, the hatchet made for throwing. Quickly he cinched those on.

  His jackboots lay in one corner. He drew them on, and then began his search. Frantically he turned the filthy place upside down looking for .44-40 slugs for the Winchester, and finding none. Finally, feeling time breathing down his neck, he straightened up. The knife and hatchet—they were all he had.

  Better than nothing, he thought, and seized a moment to think. The terrain unreeled in his mind as if he were looking at a map, and he put himself in Maxton’s shoes. Knowing he was here, but without weapons save the knife and hand-axe, they’d come back in a hurry. Still, Silent Enemy would not underestimate him. They’d not return bunched up, or in plain view. In Maxton’s place, he’d send the white men up on the wash’s rims, one on either side, and he himself would come up the center of the draw, through the juniper thicket. It was not likely that either Maynard or Fitz would consent to take that assignment, working through the brush, knowing an armed Cheyenne warrior might lurk in wait.

  With no more than he had, he could not stand against Fitz’s six-guns in the open, or Maynard’s rifle. So he would have to take the brush as well. Maxton, then, would have to be his first target, and from him he could get the weapons to face the others—if he could surprise a member of the Shield Society and kill him with a knife or hatchet.

  Not damned likely, Sundance thought. One hell of a long chance. But the only one he had, and they’d be coming soon. Quickly, he dodged into the juniper, no longer careful of his sign—but he was walking backward as he went, keeping the pressure on his heels, giving the impression of a man creeping forward rather than to the rear. It would confuse Maxton only for a moment, but maybe that moment would be enough …

  Deep in the juniper, Sundance sought a covert, found an especially thick clump of the scrubby cedar to the right of the comparatively worn trail Maxton used once he was inside the brush. Hard against the wash’s wall, where he could watch that trail through a screen of greenery, he hunkered down, knife in his right hand, hatchet in his left. Looking upward, he checked his concealment from above, lest somebody on the wash’s rim spot him and give the alarm. He nodded with satisfaction: an overhang precluded that. He sank deep into the brush, blending with it, until to any white man’s eyes he would have been wholly invisible. But Cole Maxton was not any white man. He was Cheyenne bred, and adept enough to take on the best warriors the People had. And when he came, he’d be wholly alert and totally without sound.

  All right, Sundance thought. Cheyenne against Cheyenne, Dog Soldier against Shield. Far enough. He scooped up a double handful of dust, rubbed it into his yellow hair to dull its golden sheen. Then he waited.

  Fifteen minutes passed, twenty. In all that time Sundance, with knife in one hand, hatchet in the other, was as motionless as a statue. Presently, above him, on the wash’s rim, he heard a faint tick of sound—the click of a metal spur against rock. That would be Fitz or Maynard stalking that side, surely not the moccasin-clad half-breed. So he had been right; the white men were taking the rims, the open ground, and leaving Maxton to deal with whatever danger lay in the brush. Sundance watched the horse trail through the juniper, but, more closely, he watched the brush on this and the far side of it. He did not think Maxton would come directly up the center of the trail, make himself that easy a target.

  Five more minutes slid by. Then Sundance tensed, held his breath. From the juniper thicket across the horse track and down it toward the creek bottom, not fifty feet from where he crouched, a small bird took flight, spiraling down the wash. A black-throated sparrow, and something had frightened it—something in the thicket down there. Yet the juniper did not move. There was no visual evidence, nor any sound of passage through it. But the bird had been enough. Sundance now knew where Maxton was.

  The question was, had Maxton spotted him? If so, he was finished. At that range, Maxton could lace his hiding place with slugs, tear him to pieces. He knew that this very instant Maxton would be scanning every inch of brush on each side of the trail. His body tautened in every muscle, bracing itself for a possible fusillade.

  None came. Minutes passed. Then, almost directly opposite Sundance, across the track, there was the faintest movement of the brush, though no sound at all. It could have been the wind, but down here, there was no wind. For a moment it ceased. Sundance held his breath, did not stir. Maxton was scanning, he knew, the very place where he lay hid
den.

  A full, excruciating minute ticked by. Then again came that faint movement in the brush. Maxton had passed on by. Sundance waited, gave him ten feet more, fifteen. And now, he thought, the time had come. Suddenly he was on his feet, running hard, diving across the horse track, knife and hatchet ready, plunging headlong into the juniper.

  Coming from behind, he took Maxton by surprise. The man was on hands and knees, Colt in one hand, knife in the other. As he heard brush crash behind him, he turned, gun hand coming up. It caught, for a fraction of a second, on a cedar limb; that fraction was enough. As his eyes widened, his mouth dropped open, Sundance was on him, the hatchet chopping down.

  But this man, despite his crippled body, was as quick in every reflex as a wolf. He did not fire the gun; its barrel blocked the descending hatchet blade. His other hand, even though off balance, lashed out with the knife and its steel caught the ten-inch length of Sundance’s Bowie. For an instant, with weapons locked together, they were face to face there in the brush, and then Maxton’s surprised expression turned to one of savagery and he rolled over on his back, bringing up a blocking knee, and let the gun slide free, its muzzle pointed straight at Sundance’s face. Maxton pulled the trigger.

  Muzzle flame seared Sundance’s cheek as he rolled his head aside. The bullet gashed the skin along his jaw. But the hatchet was now free, and he brought it chopping down and felt the muscles and the tendons in Maxton’s right arm give beneath it, and the Colt sagged and dropped. Maxton snarled something and ripped his knife blade loose from lock and jabbed it hard at Sundance’s belly. Sundance parried, catching the knife again, holding Maxton’s blade with all his strength. For one split second they stared into each other’s eyes, the two half-breeds, and Maxton kicked out with that knee he had between them.

  But too late. The hatchet, upraised, came down again, and Maxton made a sound as it sank into his chest, keen blade slashing through flesh and ribs. His eyes glazed with shock, though the wound was not fatal; the strength of the hand holding his knife faded suddenly. He made a sound in his throat. “Damn you, Sundance,” he whispered, but Sundance had the Bowie free now, and it went in under Maxton’s ribs, past his ineffectual guard.

  “Oh!” Maxton gasped. “Oh!” He sprawled flat on his back, grip relaxing on the knife. Yet there was life in him still. “You—” he breathed, the words thick with bubbling in his chest, blood oozing from his mouth. “Only a goddam Dog Soldier could’ve—”

  He never spoke another word. Sundance’s Bowie flashed again, and this time it cut the throat of Silent Enemy swiftly and cleanly, and that part of it at least was over. Sundance rolled free, panting, slid the knife in sheath, seized the Colt in his right hand, the bloody hatchet still in his left. There were still two men, both armed, up there on the banks of the arroyo.

  Hastily, Sundance backed away from the corpse, making no sound as he slithered through the juniper. “Maxton?” That was Maynard’s voice from the right, above. “Maxton? What—?” And suddenly, receiving no answer, Maynard unleashed a fusillade of rifle fire. Slugs laced the brush where Sundance had been only a moment before. Maxton’s body jerked as they plowed into it. Then Sundance was scrambling up the arroyo wall, through the juniper.

  His head and shoulders broke free of brush, cleared the rim, just as Maynard’s rifle clicked on empty after that panic-stricken volley. Fully erect, a fine target, the lanky giant stood there, scrabbling for more bullets to ram into the gun. Sundance transferred the hatchet to his right hand, threw it.

  Almost leisurely the blade turned over and over as it hurled through the air. The sound it made burying itself in Maynard’s head was a solid, gruesome chunk! With all the strength of Sundance’s arm behind the throw, the hand-axe split skull, ripped brain. Maynard stood erect an instant more, then sagged, collapsed, as if all his limbs had turned to water. He landed with head and shoulders slanting over the wash’s rim. Slowly his whole long body slid downward into the brush.

  Sundance dropped back into the juniper. Fitz was up there somewhere on the other rim. Then, above, Sundance heard the sound of running feet, and after that the rolling, sliding, of rocks and dirt. He heard Fitz hit the bottom of the draw somewhere near the dugout, keeping on running. Sundance’s mouth twisted. Fitz had seen enough, had enough. He was heading for the horses.

  The half-breed broke from the brush, ran down the horse track, Maxton’s Colt in hand, cocked and ready.

  He crashed from the juniper into the open just in time to see Fitz untying a sorrel gelding. “Fitz!” Sundance yelled.

  The gunman whirled, stared, and then, seeing the half-breed in plain view, his hands flashed down to holstered Colts. Sundance was startled by his speed, and Fitz’s right hand gun was free of leather, coming up, when Sundance pulled the trigger.

  Fitz’s own gun fired, bullet whanging off into space, as the slug caught him just below the breast bone. He staggered back against the horse and when it snorted, sidled, dropped into a sitting position in the dust. He tried to raise his gun again, but it seemed too heavy for him, as if it weighed a hundred pounds. Sundance fired another shot, and Fitz sprawled backwards, motionless beneath the hoofs of the terrified horse.

  For a long moment, Sundance stood there panting with reaction, his face aching from the powder burn and bullet-rip, muscles unwinding from the tenseness of their exertions in the past long hours. Then, a little unsteadily, he entered the dugout, searched until he found food and coffee. Making a fire, he ate and drank, and then, almost back to normal, went in search of his own horse and weapons, and, most importantly of all, the quiver of arrows belonging to Silent Enemy.

  ~*~

  As he had expected, he found Maxton’s bow and quiver, his own arrows mingled with the others, and Maxton’s rifle cached at the mouth of the draw. Long gun and bow had been too cumbrous for the stalk Silent Enemy had made through the brush. The horse was tied in the creek bottom, near the cottonwood to which Sundance had been lashed.

  After that, there was a lot to do. First he piled brush over the corpse of the rabid dog, incinerated it so that it would not spread the disease to this side of the divide through scavengers. Then he led the horse into the brush, from which he dragged what remained of Silent Enemy.

  Sundance stood looking down at the maimed body with a curious mixture of satisfaction and regret. Once Silent Enemy had been a good warrior. If he had only followed the Cheyenne code, the Cheyenne laws, he could still have been one—a powerful fighting man the People badly needed. But the strain had been too much for him, the tension of being neither quite one thing nor the other—neither white nor Indian. It was a tension Sundance himself lived with every moment of his life, and one which he understood. It took a peculiar kind of strength to bear it, and Silent Enemy had lacked that, and so it had driven him as mad as the dog Sundance had just burned.

  Though his mouth was dry, Sundance spat into the brush. Then he loaded the bloody corpse on the horse and led it to the dugout. On the way, he found Maynard’s body, retrieved and cleaned his hatchet.

  Presently he had all his weapons assembled, his Colt taken from Fitz’s waistband. He dragged the bodies of Maynard and Fitz into the dugout and pegged the bull hide curtain tightly shut against predators. A detail from the Fort could retrieve or bury them. At last, with Silent Enemy’s body lashed across another horse, he mounted the Army gelding and struck out on the long trip to McPherson.

  It was not over yet. Ravenal was still alive.

  Chapter Nine

  It was nearing midnight of the following day when a goggle-eyed sentry, staring at the corpse on the led horse, admitted Jim Sundance to Fort McPherson. Swaying with weariness, the half-breed rode directly to the guard house, and slumped down in its office, savoring a cup of steaming coffee, while the lieutenant who was Officer of the Guard went to awaken the General. Meanwhile, under his direction, two troopers dragged the body and the gear off the horse and laid them out on the floor.

  Ten minutes later, Crook, fully clad, as
alert as if he’d not just been awakened from sound sleep, was there, Captain John Bourke trailing him. Closing the guardhouse door behind him, he stared at the body on the floor. “Jim—?”

  “It’s him,” Sundance said. He gestured, “There are the arrows—his arrows. You can check ’em against the ones taken from the bodies. And I found a Springfield regular issue Army rifle in his stuff—he used it on the Cheyennes. It’s Maxton, all right. Silent Enemy.”

  “But why—?”

  Sundance told him, and as the General listened, his thin face seemed to turn to stone, his eyes to flecks of it. Beneath his beard, his jaw set itself. Presently, when the half-breed had finished, he turned away, knocking a fist against a tabletop in the greatest display of anger he ever allowed himself. “Marsh Ravenal!” he rasped. “And wanting to start an Indian war!” He whirled. “Even worse—giving that lovely wife of his to that ... that animal to rape and torture and kill! Well, by thunder, I’ll take care of Mr. Ravenal! I’ll send a detail now to put him under arrest and I’ll—”

  “No, you won’t,” Sundance said quietly. “You’ll just wire Taylor to keep an eye on him, make sure he doesn’t leave North Platte.” Wearily, he stood up. “If you arrest him now, out of hand, don’t you know what’ll happen?”

  Crook stared at him a moment; then his shoulders slumped; he nodded. “Yes. You’re right, of course. He can always deny that Fitz and Maynard were acting on his orders, much less this madman. And it will only be your word against his—”

  “And I’m a half-breed,” Sundance said. “Whereas Ravenal’s a respected businessman.”

  “With connections,” Crook said bitterly, “all the way to Sheridan and maybe up to Sherman, maybe even to the President. Oh, he’s kept his fences well-mended, no doubt of that.”

  “So nobody would believe me,” Sundance said. “Ravenal would wiggle out, claim Fitz and Maynard betrayed him. Or that he’d fired them and they’d joined forces with Silent Enemy to get revenge.”