by John Benteen
“Right,” Dillon said. “We’ll leave at daybreak and push fast as hell all the way.”
“And get this whole outfit wiped out,” Sundance said. “No. We don’t move an inch without scoutin’ on ahead and on the flanks from here on and pickin’ our way step by step, no matter how long it takes.”
“But—” Andre protested, and Dillon cut in. “Listen, Sundance. Injuns may scare you, but they don’t scare me.”
Sundance looked at him contemptuously. “It ain’t Indians that scare me, Dillon.”
“Then what have we to fear?” Andre put in.
Sundance stood up and gestured. “Eleven men just rode off yonder. Eleven of the toughest fightin’ men I’ve ever seen together in one bunch, and there isn’t a one of ’em, especially Steelman, who wouldn’t cut his own grandmother’s throat for a Mexican dollar. Money is what they like, your grace, and robbing and stealing is how they get it, and killing is their specialty.” Briefly he told Andre and Dillon what he knew about Steelman’s raiders.
“But I just paid them to leave the white buffalo alone, and what more would they want from us?” the Duke protested.
Sundance laughed shortly. “That’s why I told you that you were being foolish. Dillon bragged about how rich you were and so did you, and you showed ’em a roll of bills that would choke a horse. Do you think that three thousand’s gonna satisfy ’em when they can have everything this expedition’s got—all your money, and those silver plates and goblets you eat off of that they got a look at, and God only knows what else that may be in your gear? All you showed them, Duke, was that you’re an easy mark. They know exactly where we’re heading, and they can pick their ground and wait for us—and they’ve got us outnumbered. We make any forced march, strike out hell-bent the way you want to, and we’ll walk right into ’em like lambs into a pack of wolves.”
“I see. Captain Warren?”
“I agree. Steelman and his men are worse than any Indians. With Jim along we can negotiate with Indians, but you don’t deal with scoundrels like Clay Steelman and his Raiders. Besides ... ” Warren toyed with his vodka. “There’s something fishy going on, something I can’t put my finger on right now. But it warns me to be damn careful about every move we make.”
“I am accustomed to taking risks.”
“Sir,” Warren added, “no one doubts your courage. But may I respectfully point out that your life is not your own. As you know, delicate negotiations between your country and ours are under way. Any accident or harm to you might lead to war—and thousands on both sides could die. You said awhile ago that the white buffalo was not worth human life. I trust you meant it.”
“I did. But damn it all, I want that trophy. I want it worse than any other animal I have ever hunted,” the duke turned to Dillon. “Well, Six-gun Sam, what have you to say?”
“I say you hired me to get that buffalo for you,” Dillon snapped, “and I’ll get it. I ain’t afraid of Steelman or his men, or of nobody else.” He touched his gun. “Let the cowards stay behind if they ain’t got the guts to march on. Six-gun Sam Dillon will do it single-handed if it comes to that. Have I let you down so far?”
“No, but—” the Duke drained his glass, set it down decisively. “My decision is made. Captain Warren is right. It is not only my own life at stake. We will then proceed more cautiously. And, Mr. Sundance, if we may forget our earlier differences, I would be honored if you would accept promotion to the position of scout, subject to Six-gun Sam’s final decisions, of course. In any event, we will have no more trophies until I bring down that white bull, and you would be far more useful
reconnoitering. There will, of course, be a doubling of your pay.”
“Now, listen—” Dillon began, but Sundance cut him off.
“I accept,” he said.
“Good. Then I think we should all get some sleep now. We must make an early start tomorrow morning.”
“Right,” Warren said. “I’ll keep a guard posted around the camp all night long.” He arose and strode off. Sundance looked at Dillon. The man turned his face away.
“I’ll see you in the morning,” Sundance said, and went to his blankets. Rolling in, he cradled his rifle in his arm, and his weapons belt was within easy reach, draped on the horn of the saddle he used for a pillow. For a moment he looked up at the immense reach of sky, cloudless, brilliant with a million stars. Warren was right: something reeked, and he thought he knew what it was, but settling it could wait until tomorrow. Anyhow, at last, the Duke was showing common sense. Sundance closed his eyes and slept.
~*~
As always, his sleep was light, like that of a wild animal, with alertness just beneath the surface. And when suddenly he came out of his blankets, he had no idea what had awakened him, but he knew at once that something was wrong. In an instant he was on his feet, rifle ready, holding his breath, ears straining, eyes sweeping the camp and the vast range beyond. Everything seemed to be in order, and at first he heard only the murmur of the nearby river, the snoring of Warren in a nearby bedroll. Coyotes were yapping in the distance. Then the sound came again, the deep, violent snort of a horse disturbed, suspicious—Eagle, the big Appaloosa, tethered to a wagon wheel not far away. Eagle snorted once more, stamped, then was silent, and Sundance frowned. Then the wind changed slightly and he caught another sound, the drumming of the hoof beats of a running horse, receding into the distance. It faded out. Then, from the edge of camp, there came a muffled groan.
Sundance cursed silently, and ran toward the sound with no more noise than a cat would make. It came again, and now he saw its origin—the trooper Warren had posted on guard. The man was on his hands and knees, shaking his head dazedly. Sundance dropped beside him. “Casey! What happened?”
“Damned if I know.” Groggily, the trooper got to his feet with Sundance’s help. “Sam Dillon ... come to inspect the guard, he says. Then he butt strokes me with his rifle and ... that’s all I know. Jesus, my head.”
“Dillon!” Sundance whirled. Dillon always slept beneath the grub wagon, but now the space under it was empty, bedroll and saddle both gone. Sundance’s mouth thinned. He glanced at the stars: about three hours after midnight. Well, there was nothing to be done except alert the camp. But now he understood it, understood it all, as he went to rouse Captain Warren from his blankets.
“Pulled out?” the Duke said, blinking groggily. In silk pajamas, hair and beard tousled, he was a strange sight there in the middle of the prairie. “You mean deserted?”
“Exactly.”
“But why? Six-gun Sam, my friend, my guide—I do not understand.” He snapped an order in Russian. “Vasili will bring some coffee. Now, why should Six-gun Sam desert us?”
Sundance said, “He went to meet his friends, Steelman’s Raiders.”
“Steelman’s—”
“Yeah. It all makes sense now. I was wondering and so was Captain Warren, and both of us should have been suspicious sooner. Maybe I would have guessed tonight if that fight with Curdy hadn’t rattled my brain. Dillon’s in with Steelman’s Raiders. He has been all along.”
The Duke dropped heavily into his chair. “That I cannot believe.”
“It all adds up. When we left the fort we should have headed for the Black Hills right away. There was plenty of time to shake down the outfit before we got there. Instead we turned off northwest, and my guess is that Dillon had planned a rendezvous in advance with Steelman here and didn’t want to miss it.”
Vasili brought the coffee. Sundance drank, went on. “He was settin’ you up for Steelman all along. The minute he spotted you in New York, he figured you for an easy mark. You were a foreigner, knew nothin’ about this country out here, had no way of knowin’ he wasn’t what he said he was—a scout the equal of Bill Cody or Hickok. Fact is, out here he was nothin’ but a tinhorn gambler and back shooter, but nobody dared to tell you that. Anyhow, he had you fooled so completely, you wouldn’t have believed it.”
Andre shook his head. “I refus
e to think that—but go on.”
“I don’t know how he heard about the white buffalo, from Steelman or the Pawnees, but that was bait to get you out here. He must have had it figured out in advance, and got hold of Steelman somewhere along the line. I reckon he talked you into bringing a hell of a lot of cash with you.”
“Money? I have over twenty-five thousand dollars in paper and gold there in the wagon. Six-gun Sam said we might have to give some of it to the Indians, and besides, I am always accustomed to having much money with me.”
“Is it still there?”
The Duke spoke to Vasili, then nodded. “Yes. Vasili sleeps on it at night, in the wagon.”
“Well, there’s that, plus the silver plate you eat off, those jewels you wear—” he indicated two enormous rings, one diamond, one ruby, on the Duke’s hand “—not to mention all the horses and guns and gear of this outfit. Plenty to make it worth Steelman’s while.”
The coffee seemed to have cleared Andre’s head. “I think I am beginning to see,” he growled.
“So Steelman made the rendezvous tonight,” Sundance said. “But he’s too old and wise a wolf to get into anything just on Dillon’s say-so. He had to get the lay of the land first, see what he was up against, and if it was worth his while. Well, when you bribed him to lay off that white bull, he saw it was worth his while, all right.”
“And he might have made his move then and there,” Warren cut in, “if you hadn’t been along, Jim. But he hadn’t figured on a man like you being in the outfit. If Curdy had taken you last night, Steelman would have gone ahead and attacked. But you made a difference in the odds he didn’t like. So he took the three thousand and decided to wait awhile. And he’s out there now, ahead of us somewhere, and when we move, we might run into an ambush ’most any time.”
“That’s the size of it,” said Sundance.
“But why, then, did Dillon desert? Why didn’t he stay and play his game and lead us into a trap?”
“Because he’s a coward,” Warren said. “He lost his guts. He knew Sundance and I smelled something going on. I got suspicious when Steelman bragged about what a great scout Dillon was. Anybody who’s been around as much as Steelman knows Dillon isn’t a patch on a real scout’s behind. That was all for your benefit, to give you confidence in Dillon—and that meant Steelman and Dillon must have been in cahoots. Anyhow, he knew Sundance and I suspected, and that by tomorrow we’d have everything figured out and the game would be up for him. So he slugged the guard and pulled stakes in the night. Anyhow, he had to tell Steelman two things Steelman had to know: that his end of things was falling through and you wouldn’t do exactly what he said any longer, and that we suspected Steelman and would be on the scout for any ambush. That, and to save his own hide.”
“So,” said the Duke. He slumped back in his chair. Almost absently, he reached for the vodka bottle Vasili had set beside him, and drank straight from it. Then he slammed it ferociously down on the table. Standing up, he said, “This changes nothing!”
“It changes a lot!” Sundance snapped. “Why? There is still a white buffalo in the Black Hills, nyet?”
“Maybe there is, maybe there isn’t,” Sundance said. “It may be dead by now, or it may have drifted off.”
“Don’t lie to me, Mr. Sundance. You are talking to Grand Duke Andre Romanov of Imperial Russia. Is there or is there not a white buffalo in the Black Hills?”
“Even if there were, your grace,” Warren began, “it would not be wise—”
“Then there is one,” Andre said triumphantly. “Dillon did not lie about that, anyhow.”
“All right. Yeah, there is one,” Sundance said.
“Then I shall kill it.”
“The Sioux will never let you.”
“Spare me your arguments, sir. I have heard them all from General Crook. My mind is made up, and once I have made up my mind, I do not change it. I have come far and invested much in that white animal, and I shall have it even if Vasili and I must proceed alone to find and kill it.”
“You can’t go without a guide,” said Sundance flatly.
“That, sir, is your opinion. I am a Romanov and a soldier, and Vasili is a Cossack, and while we may not know the plains of America, we know the plains of Russia very well. And fighting is also something we know well.” He laughed. “We have our own savage tribes in Russia, Mr. Sundance. Some are related, I think, to your Indians. They live in tents and fight on horseback, and they are the equal of your Sioux any day, and I have lived among them and fought against them. And I fought the English cavalry in the Crimea—I am not a novice, Mr. Sundance. I am first cousin to the Czar, and it is not only my own honor at stake, but that of the Czar himself and of Russia. I came here to get that white buffalo and everyone knows it. If I fail they will laugh at me, and when they laugh at me, they laugh at the Czar and at Russia, and that would be intolerable! As I said, nothing is changed! Except I am more determined now than ever to have that trophy!”
He faced the captain. “Sir, your orders are to accompany me to the Black Hills or wherever I choose to go. That Dillon has deserted us does not change them. I shall continue to expect your help, and if you deny it, I shall report your conduct to the American government and the Imperial government. As for you, Mr. Sundance, I cannot compel you to accompany us and help us. I should be pleased if you would, and I would reward you handsomely. But whether you come or not, Captain Warren and his men and I shall go on.”
Sundance looked up at the giant towering over him, saw the injured pride and fierce determination in that hard-bitten face. He made one more attempt. “You said the white buffalo was not worth the death of men.”
“That was before,” said Andre fiercely. “When it was only the matter of a trophy. Now it is a matter of my honor—and of Russia’s honor; and Russia’s honor is worth any quantity of lives.”
Disgust rose in Sundance. He looked at Warren and read in the captain’s face a resignation that meant he had no choice. Warren had to go on, no matter what. And without Sundance to deal with Indians, not only Warren but the Duke would die. Besides, he had given Crook his promise to do all he could.
“I’ll go on one condition,” Sundance said. “That from now on I’m chief scout, and that when I give orders they are obeyed.”
“Captain Warren will take your orders,” Andre said.
“You will take my orders,” Sundance answered.
“I—?”
“Otherwise I won’t be responsible for you or anything that happens.”
“I take no man’s orders! I am—”
“I know who you are,” said Sundance. He turned away, striding toward his bedroll.
“Mr. Sundance, how dare you! Where are you going?”
“Back to Laramie,” Sundance said, and began to roll his bed.
“You ... I ... ” The Duke was silent for a moment. Sundance made a neat roll of the blankets. Picking up his saddle, he started toward the tethered stallion.
“All right!” Andre roared. “Very well then! I agree! I will take your orders! You are in complete charge of this expedition! But I shall expect the white buffalo, or … or there will be war between the United States and Russia!”
Sundance stood rigid for a moment. Then he put down the saddle and turned. “I promise this,” he said. “I’ll take you to the Black Hills and put you within easy rifle shot of the white buffalo. The rest is up to you.”
“Agreed!” the Duke roared.
“Then we’re in business,” Sundance said. “Warren, might as well build up the fires and cook some breakfast. Come daylight, we’ll be moving out.”
Chapter Five
They swung northeast, circling the Rattlesnake Hills. Behind and to their left, the Big Horn Mountains were a humped magnificence against the sky, still touched with snow on the highest peaks. Sundance chose their route carefully, avoiding any terrain offering the possibility of ambush. They traveled at a snail’s pace, because he rode ahead, reading signs, reconnoitering
, and took no chances. And now, in addition to his guns, he carried other weapons.
Two buffalo hide parfleches, panniers, were always lashed behind Eagle’s saddle. One, disc-shaped, held the war shield that had been Sundance’s in his days as a Cheyenne Dog Soldier. The other, longer and cylindrical, contained a short, powerful bow of juniper, tipped with buffalo horn and strung with durable cord made from sinews taken from along a buffalo’s spine and dried and plaited. There was also a quiver made of panther skin, the tail still attached, and it held better than two dozen Cheyenne war arrows with barbed flint heads. For years, Indians had preferred iron arrow points, but Sundance stuck to the stone ones: they had more shocking power, making a more brutal wound, and once in, were harder to dislodge. That counted, in his trade, for much, an edge he needed; and when he could not buy the right points from some old Indian, he made them himself. Now the quiver was slung across his shoulder, along with the unstrung bow.
Andre had been fascinated. “But you have a repeating rifle. Why bother with such a primitive weapon?”
“A bow makes no noise, no smoke,” said Sundance, “and at night, no muzzle flash. Sometimes that’s important. And up to three hundred yards, I can do anything with a bow that I can do with a Winchester.” And when Andre doubted, he had flushed a sage hen, then killed it on the rise with a single arrow.
Andre was impressed, and as Sundance sometimes allowed him and Vasili to ride with him on his scouting, the Duke’s impatience lessened. He was fascinated by the frontier lore of which Sundance was master, and his quick mind soaked up knowledge like a sponge. He himself and Vasili too, as it proved, were already adept at tracking and trailing; it was only that they did not know the tracks and habits of American animals. They too were plainsmen, but from a different kind of plains.