by John Benteen
“You’re late,” MacLaurin said. He was alone in his office. “Where’ve you been? Right in the middle of our meeting, there was shooting somewhere out yonder—”
“Yeah,” Sundance said and told him what had happened to Crippled Hand. He did not tell him what Crippled Hand had said about the woman.
“Sonofabitch,” MacLaurin said. He looked tired and drawn. “Charlie Crip worked for me when I built this town. Lost those fingers in my sawmill ... He was a good man, Sundance, Indian or not. But they’ve all been good men. The sniper seems to pick the best. A quicker way of killing Bootstrap, I guess.”
“Yeah,” Sundance said. “Well, what about the deal?”
“The deal. Yeah,” MacLaurin said. Lamplight played over his lean, hard face. Somehow it made him look more impressive. A man, Sundance thought, who had followed a dream, and, following it, had built, from nothing, a town in the wilderness. Such men were of a different breed from the usual run. MacLaurin would not be a man to trifle with. “Yeah,” MacLaurin said again. “Well, you got your deal.”
Sundance waited.
“I had to fight like hell to ram it through. Wolf Hargitt showed up and did his best to balk it. He claimed he’d find the sniper for the reward alone. All he wanted was for us to give him Billy Mercer. He said those Big Fifty rounds meant for sure Billy was in with the sniper and he’d make Billy talk. There was some for it, but I blocked it. All Wolf wanted was to get hold of Billy, make him pay for killin’ Ferd Hargitt, Wolf’s brother. If Billy really knew somethin’ he’d die before he’d spill it to Wolf. So— Wolf went out of here white-hot mad, Sundance. Said he’d bring in the sniper himself, and you’d better not interfere with him. If you did, he’d kill you.”
“Well, folks have tried it,” Sundance said evenly. “I’m still here, and I aim to be, for a spell. All right. Where’s the signed contract and the five thousand?”
“Here.” MacLaurin opened his desk drawer, tossed a thick packet of bills to Sundance, followed by a copy of the contract, written in Sundance’s neat copperplate script taught him by his father at nights in a Cheyenne teepee. He scrutinized the signatures carefully, slipped it into his pocket, and the money followed.
“You want Mercer now?” MacLaurin asked.
“No,” Sundance said. “Keep him here— and safe—until tomorrow night. I aimed to head out with him tonight, but I’ve changed my mind. Tonight, I’ve got business in Bootstrap.”
“Suit yourself. But remember—you’ve only got two weeks. You don’t bring us the sniper all wrapped up nice and neat by then, we get the five thousand back, and the deal’s off.”
Sundance said, “You’ll have him, nice and neat. Much obliged, MacLaurin. I—” He broke off, whirling, as the door of the office slammed open.
“So,” Wolf Hargitt said, his bulk filling it as he stood there, right hand dangling by his gun. “I thought I’d find you here, Siwash.” He swayed a little, and Sundance realized he was drunk. “You figger you beat me out, huh? Beat me out of ten thousand I’da collected today, beat me out of payin’ off Billy Mercer for cuttin’ my brother down ... Well, you’re wrong, gut-eater. You ain’t beat me out of nothin’. Because I aim to fix your wagon right now.”
Sundance sucked in a long breath. “Do you now?”
“You damn right. You got two choices, Siwash. You light a shuck out of Bootstrap right now and don’t come back, or you meet me out yonder in the street.” His mouth curled. “I seen your fast draw today. It don’t scare me. I can beat it.”
Sundance said quietly, “Wolf, don’t push me. I’ve been shot at twice today and it makes me edgy.” Hargitt: he thought—an obstacle, one that would keep cropping up. He did not want a gunfight, but maybe it would come to that to clear this man from his path. He thought of Crippled Hand: he was in no mood to be patient with anyone who slowed him down or hampered him in finding the sniper.
“Well, I aim to make it three times,” Hargitt rasped. “You got the guts to meet me straight-up out yonder in the street?”
“Goddamn you,” Sundance said, “if you won’t settle for anything less than getting killed—”
“No!” MacLaurin roared. “Stand hitched, both of you!”
Hargitt’s head turned and Sundance swiveled. MacLaurin had moved quietly to the gun rack: now he held a sawed-off shotgun pointed to cover both Sundance and Hargitt.
“The two of you,” he snapped, “keep your hands away from iron. You hear me? First one reaches, I’ll blow him into rags.”
“Ron—” Hargitt began.
“Shut up,” MacLaurin rasped. “There’ll be no shootout between the two of you, you hear? Wolf, Sundance has been hired by the town under a signed contract, to nab the sniper. He’s the best chance we’ve got and I’ll not risk him in some stupid gunfight. You, too. I figure you’re the next best chance. I don’t want him gunning you down, either. I’d rather have both of you after that damned killer than just one ...” He sucked in a hoarse breath. “You want to settle something, you use your fists, but there’ll be no guns.”
“Fists?” Wolf’s lip curled. “You know damned well this gut-eatin’ half-blood ain’t got the nerve to come up against me knuckle and skull. He knows I’d bash his brains out.”
Sundance said, “MacLaurin, I’ll shuck my guns if you’ll make sure Wolf shucks his. Then you watch it, out yonder in the street. No hide-outs, no knives. Nothing but fists.”
Wolf’s little eyes flared. “You mean that, Siwash? You wanta come against me that way?”
“Wolf,” Sundance said, “the way I feel right now, you couldn’t make me any happier if you gave me a pair of copper-toed boots and a painted pony.”
“Well, I be damned,” Wolf said. “I ain’t killed me a red nigger in a long time. Now I got my chance. All right, Ron. I’m shedding my guns. You make sure he sheds his.”
“You two aim to do this?” MacLaurin asked tautly.
“You see that it’s fair and square,” Sundance said, and he unlatched his weapon belt. Wolf was unbuckling his crossed gun belts.
“I’ll take all those,” MacLaurin said, and, keeping the shotgun trained with one hand, he put out the other. They draped the belts on his outstretched arm, and, warily, never letting either shotgun or gaze waver, he draped them on pegs.
“All right,” he said tiredly. “Out on the street, you two fighting cocks.”
“Yeah,” Wolf said, and he backed off the sidewalk and Sundance followed.
Chapter Four
Black dark, now, yielding utter safety from the sniper. The only light in the main street of Bootstrap was that spilling from the windows of the Bootstrap Bar and another saloon. Wolf planted himself in the middle of what illumination there was and sucked in a breath that made his barrel chest swell. He was fully as tall as Sundance, thirty pounds heavier, probably, and not much of that would be fat. His huge fists, Sundance knew, would pack sledgehammer force. But when Wolf walked, it was heavily, flat-footed. He was built for enormous hammering power, but he would, Sundance guessed, lack speed. Sundance himself had been trained from earliest Cheyenne childhood games to be fast as a striking snake, a springing cougar. If he had any edge at all, it would be that.
MacLaurin halted on the sidewalk, feet wide-planted, shotgun leveled. “All right. You two can go at it any time. I don’t care how bad you beat one another, but I’ll shoot the man that tries to kill the other.”
Sundance tossed the hat aside, faced Wolf, both of them now in the square of light that was like a boxing ring. Some loafers on the porch of the Bootstrap Bar saw what was happening, spread the word. People began to drift into the street.
For a moment, both big men stood poised. Sundance rolled his tongue inside his mouth like a horse worrying a bit. Then MacLaurin yelled, “Cut loose your wolves!”
Hargitt stood planted, waiting for Sundance to come to him, ready to fight defensively, wait his opportunity to get in one, two, more, decisive hammer blows. Sundance hesitated a second longer, then, instead o
f darting in, coolly put his hands on his hips, walked toward Hargitt. Hargitt’s eyes widened in surprise. Then, stopping just outside of Hargitt’s reach, Sundance used the mouthful of saliva he’d gathered to spit right into them.
A kind of sigh went up from the encircling crowd. Hargitt’s jaw dropped, as Sundance backed away. “That’s for callin’ me Siwash and gut-eater,” Sundance said, grinning.
Hargitt’s big hand scrubbed the spit from his face. Even in the uncertain light, Sundance saw how red Wolf’s countenance flamed. “Why you copper-colored sumbitch!”
Hargitt roared, and then, fists clubbed, he was coming after Sundance, exactly as the half-breed had hoped.
And now the fight was starting on his terms, for Hargitt’s attack was clumsy, off balance, and Sundance darted in like an enraged hornet, hands up, found a hole in Hargitt’s guard, slammed the big man’s head around with a smashing right. Hargitt half whirled under the blow’s force and Sundance’s left jabbed him in a belly taut and muscular beneath a thin overlay of flab. Hargitt grunted and Sundance hit him again, between the eyes this time. He felt his fist ache with the impact, the blow’s shock threw even him off-balance for an instant.
Any normal human should have gone down then and there; instead, Wolf Hargitt shook his head, whirled, flailed out with a roundhouse right. More by chance than aim it slammed into Sundance, sent him reeling back. Wolf bawled like a wounded grizzly, charged in blindly; before Sundance had recovered, Wolf hit him twice, right, left, belly and chest.
In his time Sundance had been horse kicked, but this was worse. Those two sledgehammer blows picked him up, knocked him back. What kept him from sprawling in the dirt was the hitch rack outside the Bootstrap Bar. His back slammed against its rail, and then Wolf was charging at him, and Sundance was wide open and two more blows like those would finish him. Gasping for breath, he gathered his wiry body; his outflung hands seized the rail. As Wolf rushed in, Sundance rocked back, pivoting on the hitch rack, brought up both feet, knees folded, then uncocked them, kicking out.
They caught Wolf in the belly, hard, rocked him back across the street. Sundance shook his head, came off the rack, charged. Wolf tried to brace to meet him; Sundance went in low. Wolf’s right swung over his head as he slammed a left into Hargitt’s gut, just above the belt buckle. Wolf gasped, doubled, and Sundance came up between his outflung arms and chopped him on the jaw. Wolf’s teeth clicked, and Sundance rocked back to give him room to fall; instead, Wolf chopped out with a right, and Sundance’s head was rocked around. Grunting like a killer horse that had thrown its man, as tough and savage, Hargitt, seemingly indestructible, slammed a left against Sundance’s breastbone. Sundance reeled back across the street, and Wolf came after him, and now Sundance knew this had to be ended and ended fast, and there was one way and only one to drop a man like Wolf. He kept on backing until he had balance again, and then Wolf was already on him and Sundance flung his own arms wide, opening himself completely to Hargitt’s fists. Then Wolf was on him, but in the split second before his blows landed, Sundance brought in both clubbed hands simultaneously. His big fists caught Hargitt’s head between them like a nut in a cracker, and Sundance had put all the strength of arms and shoulders into that double blow, smashing into both Wolf’s temples simultaneously.
He felt the flesh of Hargitt’s ears crush beneath his knuckles, the soft bone of Hargitt’s skull in that region yield and jar. Hargitt’s blows only touched him, lightly as a feather, and Sundance stepped back and waited as blood came suddenly from Wolf’s nostrils.
It was over. No man could withstand that dual concussion. Wolf’s eyes were blank, glazed. His legs seemed to dissolve, and he crumpled into the dust, a grotesque heap. Again, an ordinary man would have been dead, but Hargitt’s rasping breathing proved that he lived.
Sundance backed away, each hand an agony from battering Wolf’s stonewall head and carcass, his body aching from the blows he’d taken, his jaw starting to swell. He himself was only semi-conscious, and he barely heard the awed exclamation, “Goddlemighty!” that rose from the otherwise hushed crowd.
Caution, though, was as instinctive in him as in a desert lobo. He spotted MacLaurin in his dancing vision, moved unsteadily toward the mayor. His voice was a rasping gasp. “I’ll have my gun, now.”
MacLaurin looked at him with awe. “It’s in the office. Kelly—” he spoke to someone near him Sundance did not see, “— git it. The belt with the Colt and Bowie on it … ”
Sundance stood there, sheltered by MacLaurin’s shotgun if Wolf had friends in the crowd, his big chest heaving as he sucked in breath. Gradually his vision cleared. Then, from behind him, a voice said softly, “Sundance. Here’s your gun.”
It was a woman’s voice. Sundance turned.
She stood there holding out his weapons belt. She was tall, and the dark red hair piled high on her head made her look taller. Light spilling across the street fell on a face with features as cleanly chiseled as those on a cameo, on pale, ivory skin that was powdered, on wide, full lips painted a vivid red. Her eyes were hazel, almost the color of campfire smoke and with something swirling in them. He saw the shadowy cleft between full breasts above a ruffled bodice, a red satin skirt clinging to her sleek body like a second skin, ending at the ankles.
“Your gun,” she said.
Sundance took the belt, strapped it on. The woman smiled. “Congratulations. My name is Kelly Lacey.” Dangling crystal earbobs shimmered in the light. “You’ve done me a favor. I’ve been waiting for somebody to hammer that big oaf down.”
Sundance licked dry lips. “Have you now?” He wondered if his brain were still addled from the beating, if he were seeing things. This was not the type of woman he would expect in a God-forsaken Nevada desert town. “Who did you say you were?”
“Kelly Lacey. I run the upstairs at the Bootstrap Bar.” Those smoky eyes were bold as they met his. “Sundance—that’s your name, right?—you’ve taken a good beating yourself. You’re gonna need some arnica, a shot of booze, maybe a soft bed to sleep in tonight, right?”
Sundance did not answer, his eyes raking over her, head clearing now. Something half remembered echoed in his mind: the voice of Crippled Hand. A woman ... find the woman ... But, of course, this was not the kind of woman who would roam the desert, supply the Big Fifty Sniper in the Skulls. This was the madam of a brothel.
And, he realized, she would know everything, all the innermost secrets, of everyone in Bootstrap and for miles around.
Slowly he nodded. “If that’s an invitation,” he said, “I’ll take you up on it.”
Kelly Lacey smiled. “Smart man,” she said. Her hand closed around his arm. “Now?”
“Now,” Sundance said. “Lead the way.”
“Why,” she said, “it’s not far. It’s right across the street.”
~*~
The room was large, frilly in its furnishings, fragrant with the perfume of a woman’s habitation. Sundance, naked, lay face down on the soft four-poster bed, as the slender, expert hands of the woman named Kelly Lacey kneaded the soreness from his muscles.
“Scars,” she said. “My God, you’ve got scars all over you. I know bullet wounds when I see them. Knife cuts, arrow wounds. What a life you must have led.”
“Yeah,” Sundance said. He closed his eyes, as those expert hands ranged his muscular frame, remembering. “Yeah, some life.” And there, in the room and on the bed, of this desert-town brothel mistress, memories ran quickly through his mind.
White man and Indian, he’d learned the ways of both, growing up among the Northern Cheyennes, being tutored by his English remittance-man father and his Cheyenne mother’s family. Scars, she’d said. Plenty of them, but the two most significant those ugly ones on his chest. A young Cheyenne warrior’s manhood rite—the skin and flesh of each breast slit, threaded with rawhide ropes. Then, at the annual great festival of the Sundance, the dancing, endless dancing, to the point of exhaustion, dragging heavy buffalo skulls trailing from
those ropes. The dancing went on and on until the flesh finally split, the ropes came free: and then you were a warrior.
He’d not only been a warrior, but a Dog Soldier, a member of the elite Cheyenne fighting society, in those long ago days before the Civil War when the Cheyennes and the Sioux ruled the Northern plains. It had been a fine life, a wild, free life, that for him had ended one bleak fall day miles north of Bent’s old fort on the Arkansas.
He’d accompanied his Cheyenne mother and white father there for the annual trading festival, when Nick Sundance usually sold the furs he’d taken in, replenished his supply of trade goods. Very young, very hot-blooded then, he’d lingered for the horse-racing, hell-raising, dancing and games while his parents headed north, back to the tribal encampment, with their wagon load of trade goods. Two days later, following their trail, he’d found their bodies on the prairie, and he had read the sign as easily as a white man could read a book. Three Indians, three white men, had intercepted the Sundances along the way, killed his father, raped his mother, killed her, too, taken the money and the trade goods. And Sundance remembered then the three drunken trappers and whiskey-sodden Pawnees who’d come in to Bent’s together and left together …
He’d struck their trail, but they had divvied up the loot and split up, every man for himself. That made no difference to Jim Sundance: for now he had only one mission in life and plenty of time. One by one he tracked them down; and when they died, it was neither quickly nor easily. At year’s end, six scalps dangled from his war shield: the last scalps he had ever taken. He’d killed men since then, but he no longer lifted hair …
By then the Civil War was raging, and he found himself in the middle of the bitter guerilla struggles on the Kansas-Missouri border. Still a little bit mad with killer lust, he joined the guerilla war, fighting on either side for the sheer satisfaction of fighting. That was where he honed his speed with a short gun to a fine edge, really found himself as a fighting man. He could, when he came back to his senses after that orgy of combat, have gone sour, like his friends the James brothers, but the flood of white migration West was rising, and he found a larger cause. No Indian knew the white man as well as Jim Sundance; no white man knew the Indian as he did. He’d desperately wanted the two races to share the West, learn from each other, live in peace together.