Sundance 3

by John Benteen

  Sundance slid back down the hill, fighting an impulse that racked him, the mad desire to charge straight for that gun and kill the men who served it and turn it against the rest. But that was suicide. Even for a hundred men, it would be suicide.

  Running back to his horses, he mounted in a flying leap. He rode hard and in a wide circle, and this time came up from the west. He wanted to see Horne’s layout, see how they used the gun and where they kept it and with what force they defended it. An hour’s ride, then another’s stalk put him on high ground, a massive butte, so that it was all spread out before him. Field glasses or a telescope would have been useful, but his eyes were keen.

  Fully fifty wagons entered the valley from the north, ringed themselves in a circle. Riders went out, posted along the valley walls, sentries on guard for Indians. On the valley floor, the skinners were like maggots, swarming over the carcasses, the great mountain of black and brown slowly turning to red. Overhead the vultures were already gathering, and Sundance saw movement in the brush all across the plains: catching the scent of death, wolves and coyotes drifted through the sage and grass, a great, gathering army of them.

  But it was the Gatling gun that Sundance watched. He saw, now that the smoke had cleared, how it was brought up to even higher ground, where it could dominate the valley and the wagon train. It lumbered along behind the mule that pulled it, and riders followed in its wake, and Sundance, even at that distance, recognized two of them. One, in a red shirt, had his arm in a sling; the other, beside him, was stockier, older, and built like a grizzly. Horne and his son Leroy. When the Gatling gun was in place, Leroy Horne dismounted, gave orders until it was positioned to suit him. A new stick of ammunition was seated in its breech, boxes of ammo stacked beside it. Then Leroy, left-handed, lined the gun, turned the crank protruding from its breech, slashed a couple of experimental bursts across the plains, westward. He gave orders; four men turned the weapon’s trail. Before they finished, they had checked its field of fire to all points of the compass.

  Sundance cursed softly. Horne and Leroy knew their business. From where the gun was placed, it could, within seconds, lash out in any direction, protecting the valley and the wagons from attack. Meanwhile, men had begun to dig rifle pits around it, along the ridge. Horne was taking no chances, none at all. He was protecting the gun against sneak attack with a strong force of dug-in guards.

  Sundance turned, eased down the butte. He ran to where he had left his horses, in a draw. When he reached it, he stopped short, and his rifle came up. Then he let out a long breath, lowered the gun as he recognized the riders who sat their mounts there. “Crazy Horse,” he said quietly. “Gall.”

  The two chiefs were at the head of a band of half a dozen Dog Soldiers. Their faces were set, eyes glittering. “Hau-kola,” said Crazy Horse in a toneless voice. “Did you see Yellow Hair and the Army?”

  “I saw him.” Sundance swung up on the tired bay. “He has been ordered to chase Horne out. But he will delay and do nothing.”

  The chiefs were silent. Then Sundance understood. “You have seen it?”

  Crazy Horse nodded grimly. “We watched all morning. We saw them drive the buffalo, we saw the gun begin its magic.” He shook his head. “I have never seen so much killing. You were right, it is everything you said.”

  “It is good you told us what it was like,” Gall added. “Otherwise, not knowing, we would have led a war party and charged straight in. And ended like the buffalo, dead in a heap before we knew what hit us.”

  Sundance nodded. “Today was the first day?”

  “Of the killing. Our scouts spotted the wagons two days ago; we have been watching them ever since. Sometimes they have seen us, but they were not afraid. Now I understand why.” Crazy Horse rubbed his face. Then he pulled his horse around. “I think now we ride back to camp. We’ve got to make much talk. Fears-No-Lightning has had his scouts out, too. They will have seen the gun, and unless we hurry and somehow take it in the right way, he and his people will charge it and—” He made a sweeping gesture.

  “He must be ordered not to,” Sundance snapped.

  Gall made a sound in his throat. “We can no longer give him orders. Three days ago, he decided to leave our camp and set up one of his own.” The blocky chief’s voice was bitter as he added: “And half our people followed him.”

  Sundance did not answer for a moment. He thought of Lame Bear and Single Moon, and the fight in the Badlands. Then he nodded slowly.

  “All right,” he said. “I think it’s time that I dealt with Fears-No-Lightning. He comes first.”

  Chapter Seven

  During his absence, the Sioux had moved east of the Black Hills and camped on a tributary of the White River. After four hours’ fast riding from where he had run into Gall and Crazy Horse, Sundance’s face twisted into a frown as they topped a ridge guarded by Dog Soldiers and he saw below not one big village, but two smaller ones of almost equal size on either bank of the stream.

  Crazy Horse gestured to the left. “Fears-No-Lightning. He has a lot of the Oglalas and Hunkpapas and almost all of the Minneconjou and Sans Arcs.”

  “I don’t care how many he has,” Sundance said.

  Something in his tone made Crazy Horse look at him narrowly. “Listen, this is a delicate situation. You know that we can’t stop people from following whomever they choose. They’re free to choose their own chiefs. Fears-No-Lightning has been preaching among them ever since you left, and they’ve flocked to him. And they believe in him. His death could easily start a war between these two camps right now. We’d be fighting each other instead of Horne.”

  “Don’t worry about that,” Sundance said. “I’m not going to start any war. But Fears-No-Lightning and I have something to settle between us.” And he told Crazy Horse and Gall for the first time about the fight with Lame Bear and Single Moon.

  The Oglala chief’s face saddened, but Gall’s twisted into fury. He spat. “Paugh! Those men were two of our best! And now they are dead, thanks to his”— He gestured —“madness. Only two, but there will be many more.” He turned to Sundance. “You must forgive the Hunkpapa for what happened. Single Moon and Lame Bear were not themselves. They were infected with that false shaman’s insanity.”

  “I know that,” Sundance said. “Let me eat and rest awhile. Then I’m going to call on Fears-No-Lightning. But I promise you, there will be no fighting. Not tonight. Not unless he starts it.”

  “If he does, then we’re behind you. When you’re ready to see him, we’ll go with you.” Crazy Horse lifted rein.

  They rode down into the village on the right. Already, there had been some hunting, and meat was drying on wooden racks. Somewhere a drum tapped rhythmically and somebody sang; children laughed at the antics of a heyoka, a Contrary, who had dreamed of thunder and who, to propitiate the lightning, had vowed to do everything by opposites. Now he was walking backwards through the camp—on his hands.

  Sundance entered Crazy Horse’s lodge, where the chief’s two wives were cooking the evening meal. The teepee was spacious, and beneath its inner lining its poles were cluttered with the family’s gear: Crazy Horse’s weapons and medicine bundle, and the household goods. The chief’s best buffalo horse was tethered outside to a tent stake as was the custom, lest he be lost in a raid on the herd by Crows, Pawnees, Piegans or the Army.

  Sundance dropped onto spread buffalo robes, leaned against a reed backrest, accepted gratefully the pot of stewed dog passed to him by Crazy Horse’s younger wife. With a spoon made of mountain sheep horn, he ate hungrily. But before the bowl was half empty, he paused, listening.

  The day had been a brutally hot one, and Crazy Horse’s women had rolled up the side of the teepee to windward for coolness. But now there was no wind; the afternoon was still and sultry, and the sound of drums, big and little, came clearly from across the stream, mingled with the voices of many men, raised in a war song.

  Crazy Horse, across the fire, sat up straight, sleeved sweat from his
face. Before he could speak, Sitting Bull slipped between the lodge poles, where the cover was up, followed by Gall, Red Cloud and Rain-in-the-Face.

  “Do you hear?” Sitting Bull’s face was grave. “In Fears-No-Lightning’s camp, they dance. Tomorrow, they say, they go to war against the buffalo hunters and the Gatling gun.”

  “You talked with him?”

  Sitting Bull nodded. “His men have seen the gun in action, too, and told him of it. When I tried to persuade him to wait, he only laughed and called me an old woman and ordered me out of his camp. He told everyone my medicine was dead, that I was finished.”

  The war chant was louder; they were dancing, working themselves into a frenzy. One voice rose above all the rest, in a shrill, minor keening. “Listen to me God of Lightning. Hear your son, born of your fury. We will give you the scalps of many white men as a present. Hear me, Father Lightning! Hear me and answer!”

  “More of his trickery,” Sitting Bull said fiercely. “There’s going to be a storm tonight, any fool can tell that. But he’s convincing them that it’s really an answer to his praying.”

  Crazy Horse said harshly: “Sundance, there’s no help for it. He’s got to be killed. Tonight, before he rides out tomorrow, and his people—our people—are slaughtered like the buffalo. It’s better if you do it, being no Sioux. But if you won’t, then I’ll take it on myself.” He reached up, took down his rifle. “But first, I’ll check this carefully and make sure there’ll be no misfire.”

  The others grunted in approval. Sundance looked at them: their faces were hard and set—judges passing sentence.

  “Put up your gun, Crazy Horse,” Sundance said. His eyes ranged around the lodge. Slowly, the knowledge of what he would try to do coming to him, knowing that it might mean his own death and accepting that, he put aside the bowl of dog stew. Then he gestured. “That lance hanging beside you. I want that.”

  Crazy Horse twisted, eyes widening in surprise. “That was my grandfather’s. It is very valuable to me, but it has no special magic.” He took it from its lashing, a long, stone point set on a seven-foot shaft from which ancient eagle feathers dangled.

  “Maybe, maybe not. Anyhow, I need it.”

  “You’ll kill him with this?” Then comprehension came into Crazy Horse’s face. “Guns misfire, arrows miss. But this, driven home by a strong hand—Very well.” He examined the big flint head; ran his thumb along its razor-keen edges. “But these wrappings are old. Finish your meal while I renew them. Wife, bring me some bull-shoulder sinew.”

  Across the river, the drums kept pounding; the sound of singing voices changed; otherwise, the afternoon was deathly still. The chiefs looked at one another, frowning, and Gall fanned himself with an eagle’s wing. “Sundance,” he said, “he knows you’re back. And he knows Lame Bear and Single Moon aren’t; and he knows, too, what that means. He knows it will prove his medicine false. He won’t even let you get close enough to use that. He can’t let you live any more than we can let him live. When you tell what happened to those two, who were supposed to be immortal—”

  “He won’t believe me,” Sundance said. “He’ll think they missed me somehow and that I’m lying. Whatever else he is, he’s no faker. He believes in himself just as much as anybody who follows him.”

  “When will you act?”

  Crazy Horse passed the lance across the fire. Sundance took it, tested its point. “Now,” he said and got to his feet.

  When he emerged from the teepee, he no longer wore gun, knife, or axe. The great, colorful Cheyenne war bonnet had replaced his sombrero, and he was naked save for breechclout, moccasins, and a dogskin rope wrapped around his waist and tied. The Cheyenne Dog Soldier emblem was painted on his chest, and he carried the lance in one hand, his bow in the other, while stone-pointed arrows clacked and rustled in the panther skin quiver on his back.

  He stood before Crazy Horse’s teepee for a moment, head raised, sniffing the air like a wolf. The drumming and dancing had not abated across the creek. Not a breath of breeze stirred anywhere, and the air was like a thick, wet blanket. On the edge of camp, a dog howled; and the horse herd farther out was restless. Somewhere in the distance, a bull buffalo bawled hoarsely, the sound dying to a sobbing moan, then bawled again. Sundance turned to scan the horizon. Now, at about five in the afternoon, there would be hours of daylight yet. To the west, a mile away, a high, flat-topped butte stood out darkly against the red glare of the lowering sun.

  “You go now to his camp?” Crazy Horse asked softly.

  “Yes,” said Sundance.

  “We’ll come with you.”

  “Then leave your weapons behind. All of you.”

  Gall protested, but Sitting Bull nodded. “I think that is a good idea.”

  Then Sundance said: “Hoka-hey. Let’s go.” He swung up on the bay, the others mounted, and they splashed across the creek.

  It was not fear, though he knew the danger he was going into, so much as sadness that possessed him as their horses scrambled up the far bank. The chance he had made up his mind to take was a long one, maybe the longest ever, and before this day was ended, he might be dead or maimed. But that bore less on him than the regret he felt. Usually, in Sioux or Cheyenne camps, madmen were sacred. But when they turned rogue, they had to be exterminated, just as a dog with hydrophobia, no matter how faithful and good it had been before it caught the sickness. Still, perhaps what was going to happen to Fears-No-Lightning was not the man’s fault any more than his madness was.

  Then Sundance put that out of his mind. What must be done must be done. He swung the bay and rode into the camp, the chiefs trailing behind.

  In the great circle formed by the rows of lodges, a hundred men or more were dancing, dressed and painted for war. The dance was a slow one to the beating of drums that seemed to imitate exactly the rhythm of the heart, and the chanting of war songs was high and stirring. Around and around in a circle, they shuffled solemnly, occasionally a war whoop bursting from some painted warrior; and they were striking and impressive in all their finery: war bonnets and buffalo horn headdresses behind which feathers and beaded buckskins streamed; they waved bows and lances and coup sticks and rifles as they stomped around the fire; rattles made of turtle shells with the bones still in them kept time, and bells jingled on their legs and heels, and now the drums were quickening and the pace of the dance increased; suddenly, as a circle of women and children stood watching wide-eyed, the rhythm doubled; and all at once the men went into a frenzy, in the fast war dance of the Sioux, leaping and whirling and twisting and bending; and then Sundance saw Fears-No-Lightning. He was not dancing at all. He sat his gray horse regally, a little way apart, in full war dress, rifle across the mount’s withers, steel-headed lance upthrust, Pawnee scalps and feathers dangling from it, bow slung across his shoulder, quiver full of iron-headed arrows behind his back. His eyes were distant, unseeing, as if he looked at some private vision of his own. Sundance rode closer to the circle, with the chiefs behind him, and Fears-No-Lightning saw him. Immediately the eyes came alive, glittering with that familiar madness. Fears-No-Lightning spoke harshly to the drummers; the beating stopped. With the cessation of their pounding, the war dance slowed, then ceased, and the chanting and yelling faded. A hundred armed Sioux turned to stare at Sundance, with Gall, Red Cloud, Crazy Horse and Sitting Bull behind him. Others moved in from elsewhere in the village, those dancers for whom there was no room in the circle now, or who had other business. The center of Fears-No-Lightning’s village was very quiet. In that instant, as silence fell, a gust of wind came suddenly, and with astonishing chill, making the smoke-flaps on the lodges beat like wings despite the poles that braced them, bending the village’s hundred smokes down. It came and went, roiling dust; then the air was humid and still again.

  “Fears-No-Lightning!” Sundance called.

  Eyes glittering, Fears-No-Lightning kneed his horse. The crowd of dancers made a lane for him as he rode forward. If he felt any surprise at the sight of
Sundance, he did not betray it.

  He rode up until their horses were almost nose to nose. He did not speak.

  Sundance’s voice was loud. “Hear me, people of the Dakota! Hear me, Fears-No-Lightning. Your magic is dead. It is finished! One week ago, in the Badlands, two men with your yellow stripes tried to kill me. I killed them instead, Lame Bear and Single Moon! They are dead and buried in the Badlands. They thought your lightning magic would protect them. But it did not. With my knife, I killed them!”

  Fears-No-Lightning’s face did not change. “Your tongue is false.”

  “Then bring forth Lame Bear and Single Moon. Bring them forth if they are not dead!”

  “They are not dead because they cannot die. I have sent them on a mission. They have not returned. But they are not dead. The voices in my head would have said so if they were.”

  “The mission you sent them on was to kill me so I could not reach the Army. They will never return. I did not want to kill them, but I had to do it.” He paused, turned his head, looked at the crowd that slowly gathered round. Another gust of cold wind blew through camp, more strongly now, and the evening light that fell upon them was greenish. Dust rose and swirled into Sundance’s face, but he did not even blink his eyes. “Hear me, you people. Fears-No-Lightning’s magic is ended. He can no longer protect you with it.”

  Fears-No-Lightning’s eyes blazed. “You lie!” he shouted. “The magic I possess is stronger than ever, the voices in my head tell me that! Tomorrow we will prove it when we ride against the white man’s magic gun!”

  “Tomorrow many men will die because your magic failed!” Sundance shouted back.

  The next gust of wind was stronger; cold as the breath of death, it hit the camp, and a lodge, poorly staked, collapsed and went flapping along the ground. Then the wind died. On its heels, from far away, came a slow, low rumble: thunder. Sundance smiled faintly. “Your father speaks!” he shouted.