Sundance 13

by John Benteen

  Most especially, Andre was interested in Sundance’s explanation of the way the horse Indians lived. As Sundance told him what it was like to be a Cheyenne or Sioux, living a hard yet satisfying life in total freedom, Andre’s eyes glowed with interest. “I see. So they are not the absolute savages portrayed in books and plays. They are human beings.”

  “That’s the size of it,” Sundance said. “Of course every tribe’s different, and there are good ones and bad ones inside the tribe, but it’s the best way of life I’ve ever known. My father chose it, and so did most other white men who ever lived with the Indians for any length of time.”

  “I can see now how little Six-gun Sam knew about them, and how much you do,” Andre said. But he had one spot that was completely blind—the white buffalo.

  “Very well,” he said on the fourth day after Dillon’s desertion. He, Sundance and Vasili were riding slowly, warily, up a great swell of ground that blocked off the view ahead. “So their white buffalo is sacred. But that makes no difference. For there is only one true religion, Sundance, and it is wrong for them to worship it. It would be better for them if it were killed, and missionaries were sent among them. The white buffalo was not sent by God but by the Devil, to tempt them into heathen idolatry. When I am back in Russia I shall arrange for missionaries to come, bringing with them the proper icons of the Christ and Mary. And really, don’t you see, I will be doing them a favor by killing this false idol of theirs.”

  The half-breed did not answer. Instead he reined in abruptly, staring at the sky and at the pale smudge of smoke that stained it.

  Andre’s eyes followed his. “What is that?”

  “I don’t know. But we’re gonna find out. Tell Vasili to stay with the horses.”

  The Duke snapped orders in Russian and they dismounted. “Keep low,” Sundance said. Crouched, he and Andre scuttled up the ridge. Before they reached its crest, Sundance dropped flat, and the Russian followed suit. On their bellies they crawled the last few yards, and warily peered over.

  Below, the ground swooped smoothly down to a narrow creek bed in a valley. Across the stream, the character of the land changed abruptly. There rose a jumble of raw, grassless hills, wind-eroded, crossed and crisscrossed with gullies and dry washes, a stretch of badlands. And down the by the creek, the charred remains of what had once been a good-sized covered wagon smoldered, only one wheel intact among the burnt and still-burning boards. Nearby lay a dead horse, its belly prickling with arrows. And near the dead horse were two pale white blotches—the corpses of naked men, spread-eagled on the ground.

  “My God,” Andre whispered, and crossed himself. “Indians! They have been killed by Indians!”

  “Looks like it,” Sundance grated. “The goddamn fools. In the Reserve without permission. All right. Back to the horses.”

  “What? But we must—”

  “Shut up,” Sundance said. “We’ve got to get back to the outfit in a hurry. What, one, two hours? All this happened this morning. The war party may still be around. If they hit Warren and his men before I’m there to make some kind of peace with ’em, they’ll rub ’em out completely. Anyhow, there’s nothing we can do for those men down there. They were where they shouldn’t have been, and they’ve paid for it.” He began to wriggle back down the slope.

  Then he froze. The silence of the morning was shattered by a high-pitched scream of agony and terror.

  Andre made a sound in his throat. “A woman!” he rasped. “The Indians have her!” Sundance sucked in his breath. “Yeah, a woman. And they’ve got her, but Warren comes first—”

  “We’ve got to save her!” Andre exploded. “They won’t hurt her,” Sundance snapped. “I mean, they won’t torture her or kill her. They are having fun with her right now—”

  “You mean raping,” said Andre fiercely. “Yeah, but she’ll survive. We can help her later. Right now, Warren and his troopers are defenseless without me. Goddamit, Duke, come on.” He was on his feet, running toward the horses.

  Andre hesitated, then followed. Sundance swung up on Eagle, Andre on his thoroughbred. He snapped an order to Vasili, who was already mounted. Sundance reined the stud around, then pulled it up so hard it reared. The scream came again, thin and reedy, from the broken hills beyond the creek.

  “Andre!” Sundance yelled. “Come back!”

  But the Russian paid no heed. He and Vasili were spurring up the ridge, rifles up and at the ready.

  “Andre!” Sundance roared. But as the scream came again, the Duke and Vasili had already topped the hill and were out of sight, pounding downward toward the creek.

  Sundance cursed. He touched rein; Eagle pivoted on his hindquarters. Then the big Appaloosa was pounding after the two Russians, who were riding straight into a Sioux war party, and who didn’t stand a chance if they met it before Sundance caught up with them.

  Eagle gave all he had, running flat out, cresting the ridge, swooping down into the valley. But Vasili and Andre were far ahead as once more the woman screamed. Sundance saw their horses jump the creek bed, vanish up an arroyo in the badlands, the Russians spurring them like madmen. And, of course, with mindless but heart-stirring gallantry, riding straight toward certain death.

  Not only for themselves, Sundance thought, lashing Eagle with his rein’s end. But for a lot of people: Indians and whites, Americans and Russians alike. If the Sioux killed Andre, that meant two wars: one against the Indians, one against the Russians. Eagle launched himself across the stream, and rocketed up the arroyo after Andre.

  Its walls loomed over Sundance, rising to thirty feet on either side. Ahead, close at hand now, the woman screamed again. “Oh, no! Please, help—!” The words were drowned in the sudden thunder of guns.

  Sundance cursed, shouted in Sioux: “Lakotas! Don’t shoot! It’s I—Sundance! We come as friends! We—” Eagle hurtled around a sharp bend in the arroyo, and then, as he saw what lay ahead, Sundance tried to check him and turn, but he was too late. Here the deep wash widened, then dead-ended against a towering wall. A perfect trap, and Sundance was in it, and then it closed behind him as a gun roared from the rim of the arroyo above and to the rear, and then another. “Sundance!” a man yelled in English. “Stand fast and drop that rifle, or you’re dead!”

  Sundance knew that voice—Sam Dillon.

  Eagle sat down on his haunches. Sundance slacked rein, lowered his rifle. His eyes raked the edge of the walls of the arroyo, where a half dozen men covered him with rifles. Then they came back to the wash’s floor, where two horses and one man lay dead. The horses were the Russians’ mounts, the man was Vasili, sprawled face up, part of his head blown away. Andre, nearby, was on his hands and knees, dazed. And Clay Steelman held a six-gun’s muzzle hard against the base of his skull. Five other man were ranged around the arroyo floor, and all had their rifles trained on Sundance. Under nearly a dozen guns, he knew he had no chance. So he threw away his own Winchester and slowly raised his hands high above his head. He understood now. They had him, and there was no help for it.

  Steelman, standing over Andre, looked at Sundance and grinned. “Well,” he said, “you fell for it. Shuck your weapons, Sundance.”

  Sundance sat motionless.

  Steelman said, “You’ve got ten seconds to shuck your weapons, or you’re dead.”

  Sundance moved then, shrugging off the bow and quiver. He unbuckled his gun belt and the knife came with it, and he dropped it on the ground. Then he loosed the hatchet from his saddle horn and let it fall. “I’m clean,” he said. Then he saw the woman.

  She lay sprawled, half naked, face down on the floor of the wash. Hair as yellow as his own fanned across the sand. The only sign that she still lived was the movement of her torso as she sucked in breath and let it out. Her feet were bare: near them, the coals of a small fire smoldered. Sundance made a sound in his throat.

  “Dismount,” said Steelman.

  Sundance did.

  Softly, Steelman called, “All right, Sam. You and the o
thers come down now.” Then he tapped Andre’s head lightly with the gun barrel. “You. On your feet.”

  Groggily, Andre arose, looking around. He saw the sprawled body of Vasili, and a bearlike growl burst from him. He whirled on Steelman. “You—!”

  “Easy,” Steelman said. “I don’t want to kill you, but I will if I have to.”

  Andre stared at the six-gun. “I am the Grand Duke Andre of—”

  “Yeah, I know. That’s the whole point. Up against the wall over there, hands high. Sundance, you beside him, but not too close. March, how’s the girl?”

  “Passed out, boss,” a man near her answered.

  “Well, we don’t need her any more, anyhow,” Steelman said. “All right,” he went on briskly, “there’s no time to waste. That damn captain and his troopers still have to be taken care of. Hell, there ain’t but four of them. March, bring the rope.”

  March was tall and clean-shaven, with eyes like two chilled buckshot. “Sundance first,” Steelman said. “Hands behind his back.” March jerked Sundance around, thrust his wrists together and made a few deft loops, pulling taut a professional knot. “Takes care of him,” he said, and cut the rope.

  “Now the Rooshian,” Steelman said.

  “I protest—!” Andre began. Steelman reached up and slashed him across the mouth with the barrel of his Colt. Smashed lips bleeding, Andre subsided, glowering. But he made a deep, dangerous rumbling in his chest as March carefully and tightly lashed his thick wrists.

  “Reckon you’d better tie the girl too,” Steelman said.

  The sprawled body did not even move as March bound her wrists. Steelman grunted with satisfaction. “All right! Dillon!”

  Then he was coming forward, in his flamboyant white buckskins, Colt in his hand and something flaring in his eyes as they raked over Sundance. “I’m here, Clay.”

  “Like I promised, Sundance is your meat. I don’t care how you settle with him, but I want him dead before we get back. Understand?”

  Dillon chuckled throatily. “Well don’t hurry. It may take him a while to die.”

  “We’ll be back in three hours,” Steelman said. “That oughta be time enough to take care of those soldiers and clean out the wagons and drive the stock. You have everything taken care of, and be ready to go in three hours. I’ll leave you Oakes to side you.” He designated a short, bowlegged gunman whose hair had turned gray. As Oakes came forward, his movements were a trifle offbeat, a bit slow, and Sundance guessed that age had caught up with him, and maybe rheumatism, too.

  “Well, Sundance,” Steelman said, “I’ll leave ol’ Six-gun Sam here to explain the deal to you before you die. He’s a good man with his mouth, anyhow. All right, Rooshian, mount up.” Another pair of gunmen brought up horses, and Steelman prodded Andre into the saddle with his six-gun. March lashed the Duke’s ankles by a rope beneath the horse’s barrel, and Steelman chuckled. The other men swung into their saddles, their leader snapped a command, and with Andre guarded among them they clattered down the arroyo. Sundance and the sprawled girl were left alone with Oakes and Sam Dillon.

  Sundance was still backed against the arroyo wall, hands tied. Eagle, the big stud, stood ground-reined, restless, a few yards away. At a word from its master, the stallion would have charged, but that would only have meant its death; a marksman like Dillon could not have missed at such short range. Now, facing Sundance, Dillon, cocked Colt in hand, grinned. With the half-breed helpless, his eyes were no longer shifty, but able to meet Sundance’s directly.

  “Well you fell for it, didn’t you?” His voice was rich with gloating. “You were the big dog who knew all about the Injuns, but me and Clay just flat outsmarted you. Set a trap and you run right in it. But we only figured on getting you. Thought the Duke would be back with the wagons. Now we picked him off and rubbed out Vasili and Warren and his troopers’ll be easy meat. Steelman’ll fill ’em full of arrows, just like he did them fool settlers. Then we got the outfit, the horses, all that cash and silver Andre was carryin’—and best of all we got Andre. Way we figure it, he oughta be worth about a quarter of a million.”

  Sundance stared. “A quarter of a—”

  “Your trouble, half-breed, is that you don’t think big enough. I didn’t either, first off. I got in touch with Clay after I fell in with Andre, because I seen a chance to make a score—ten, fifteen, twenty thousand dollars. But it was Clay figured out that if we captured ol’ Andre, the government would easy pay a quarter of a million to get him back. After all, I’ve heard him brag about what a kingpin he is over yonder. The Czar’s cousin, all that bull. If the U.S.A. lets anything happen to him, Russia will just about cloud up and rain all over her. So, President Grant oughta be damn glad to ante up a quarter of a million to ransom His Excellency. And now, we got him.”

  His eyes went cold and hard. “And I got you, too, half-breed. I’ll—”

  “Sam,” the man named Oakes said, “this woman’s wakin’ up.”

  “Good,” Dillon said. “Git her on her feet. Soon as she’s awake we’ll ride. Stake ’em both out there by that, wagon and work ’em over for a spell. I want to hear this bastard holler. I owe him a big debt from back at Fort Harker, and he told me always to pay my debts, especially to an Injun.” His hand lashed out; the gunsight raked a gash in Sundance’s cheek. “Thought I’d forgot, did you? Well Sam Dillon never fergits! I’m gonna work you over out there till you’ll be glad to die! And then we’ll put some more of those Sioux-style arrows Clay got from the Pawnees in you and her, and let the Sioux take the blame. And we’ll be long gone with the Duke. Now—” He turned as Oakes dragged the woman to her feet.

  Sundance looked at her. Face scratched and smudged with dirt, eyes huge and haunted, dull with shock, she was nevertheless a beauty, or had been before disaster struck. Blonde hair, dark violet eyes, smooth tanned skin, full red lips, a slender yet voluptuous body in a gingham dress, she could not have been much over twenty-two or twenty-three. She walked gingerly, on tiptoes: they had burned her feet, Sundance knew, to make her scream.

  “We been watchin’ you all along, Sundance,” Dillon said, “Waitin’ for our chance. Then we seen these movers headed south out of the Sioux Reserve, right across your trail. Didn’t waste any time: we jumped ’em, burned that wagon, figured it would draw you. And when you heard her scream, you’d come chargin’ in jest like I used to do in that stage play in New York—only it was the Duke that come, and that was even better. You, girl. Up against the bank there. What’s your name?”

  “Norman,” she whispered tonelessly. “Ruth Norman.”

  “Well, you’re a purty thing, Ruth Norman. But business before pleasure. A shame to waste a piece like you, but hell, with my cut from the Duke’s ransom money, I can buy a hundred just as good.”

  “Dillon,” Sundance said, “you’re a goddamn fool. You won’t get any cut of ransom money, or any other kind.”

  Dillon whirled, eyes glinting. “What? What’s that you said?”

  Sundance’s mouth twisted. “You don’t think Steelman’s comin’ back for you, do you? Why should he? He’s got the Duke. When he wipes out Warren and the troopers, he’ll have all the cash and goods. Why cut with you? He and the others’ll just keep on goin’, and you’ll never see ’em again.”

  Dillon’s face paled. “Sundance, you’re fulla—Steelman wouldn’t double-cross me like that. Why, I set this whole thing up.”

  “Look at the man he left to help you.” Sundance jerked his head. “Oakes. All stove up. The one he can do without the easiest. Nope. You do his dirty work, rub me out, and while you’re at it he’ll be widening the distance between him and you. You’ve been had, Dillon. You, too, Oakes. And had good.”

  Again Dillon’s gun-barrel described an arc. Sundance’s head rocked with the force of the blow. “You keep your mouth shut, half-breed! I know what I’m doin’. Now on that stud, and no tricks. You know how I can shoot, and you’re a lot bigger target than a dime!”

  There was nothing f
or it: Sundance spoke a calming word to Eagle. Oakes gave him a shove and he swung into the saddle. Then, hands groping over her body, Oakes swung the girl up onto another horse. Dillon kept his gun trained until Oakes was mounted and had the drop, then swung up. “Oakes, you go first, scout ahead. I’ll watch these two.”

  “Right.” Oakes spurred his horse and moved down the arroyo. Under Dillon’s gun, the girl and then Jim Sundance followed, Dillon bringing up the rear.

  As their horses filed down the arroyo, Sundance had a chance to think. Steelman’s plan would work all right. The government would pay any sum to get the Grand Duke back. Damn it, if Andre had only followed orders instead of charging in—and yet Sundance could not blame the man. He had responded as any man should have, to the cry of a woman in distress. Well it did not matter now. The fat was in the fire. Sundance was caught, and caught cold. With anybody else holding that gun behind him there might have been the barest chance. But Dillon was right. He would not miss.

  Well, Sundance thought, maybe this was how it ended. But by God, it hurt to die at the hands of a man like Sam Dillon. After all the real curly wolves he’d dealt with and survived, to be rubbed out by a tinhorn fake—

  Then he tensed. From far away, there came a popping sound, like the crackling of dry sticks in a fire. Dillon laughed. “There goes Warren and them troopers.”

  The firing flared, then tapered off, and finally ceased. Sundance cursed softly. There could only have been one outcome to that battle. Something else, he thought, something else that if I get out of this, Steelman and Dillon will have to pay for.

  Then they had reached the mouth of the arroyo. Oakes rode out cautiously, returning soon. “Coast’s clear, Sam.”

  “Good, let’s git it over with and hurry to catch up with Clay.” Oakes lashed the girl’s horse, and Dillon whipped up Eagle. They cantered out of the Arroyo and into the open, crossed the creek. Dillon forced them straight to the still smoldering, wagon. When the girl, Ruth Norman, saw the spread-eagled bodies on the ground, she screamed.