by John Benteen
She came erect, stumbled toward him as the bugle rang again, not far away. They were out there, somewhere—soldiers. Maybe not more than a hundred yards, two hundred, but invisible in the storm. Sundance’s numb hands were unbearably clumsy as he dragged the Winchester from its saddle scabbard, breaking it free of the bond of ice which sealed it there. He found himself praying crazily as he worked the lever. If the action of the gun were frozen solid, like his Colt, they were finished. But if he could get off a fusillade of shots as signal, there was a chance, a bare chance.
The oil within it gummed to jelly, the rifle’s action worked slowly, reluctantly. Again the bugle sounded beyond the bluff. There had to be a cavalry patrol out there, guiding on the blast. Sundance forced the lever closed, made sure the stiff hammer was at full cock, pointed the rifle high and pulled the trigger. No shot he had ever fired had ever been more vital, nor the kick of a gun more satisfying than when the carbine roared and jumped in his grip. He worked the lever again; it was easier this time, and he fired and fired once more, then paused. Three shots, the universal signal for help.
He waited a few heartbeats. The action, warmed by the first rounds, slid easily now. He fired three more times, running to the edge of the bluff, into the wind’s full blast, praying that the wind would not wholly whip away or erase the sound. He could see nothing in the white whirl out there, but he thought he heard the bugle blow again, closer at hand, as he let off another fusillade. Then, wildly, he pumped the lever and fired every round in the weapon, hosing them off into the sky. The hammer clicked down on empty and that was it, he had done all he could do except yell. Wildly, he began to yell, and Barbara joined in, screaming, but their voices had been turned to futile croaks by exhaustion. The wind howled and screamed and drowned them, and Sundance lowered the gun and stopped yelling and stood tensely, holding his breath.
An eternity passed: an eternity of roaring wind and driving snow and silence. Then, again, the bugle. This time, it was very close at hand, loud and clear. Sundance summoned all his strength. He cupped his hands to his mouth, screamed with every bit of breath within him: “Here! Over here!”
The bugle blared again. Then he saw them, the dark shapes in the swirling white. Formless, like the swirling figures of a nightmare, they drew closer, filed into the lee of the bluff, resolving themselves into a dozen men huddled in greatcoats and buffalo robes on horses that seemed carved out of ice. Sundance stepped back out of the wind, sagged against the wall of the bluff, pulling Barbara to him, encircling her with his arm, as the cavalry patrol halted and the bundled, robed figure in its lead awkwardly dismounted.
Head down, he staggered toward Sundance. Pale blue eyes under frosted brows peered out of wrappings, shuttling from him to the woman to the exhausted stallion. Above the wind’s roar, he caught words. “Fred Benteen, Captain, U.S.A., commanding H Troop, Seventh Cavalry ... hell, the two of you are damn’ near frozen ... ” He turned. “Sergeant Clayton! Bring me that bottle of brandy, on the double!” Then he swung back to Sundance. “All right,” he yelled above the wind. “Don’t worry! It’s ten miles to Fort Lincoln, but we’ll get you there all right!” And then he took the bottle the sergeant handed him, uncorked it and passed it to Barbara.
With trembling hands, she held it to her mouth, drank long and deeply, sighed, and slowly she stood erect again. She passed the bottle to Sundance. He took it, and never had he tasted anything better than the smooth warmth of the alcohol as it went down his throat and exploded in his belly, sending new life surging through his veins. Then, still holding the bottle, he turned to Eagle. The stallion stood head down. Sundance seized his upper lip, lifted, twisted. Eagle snorted, but lacked strength to resist as Sundance pried his mouth open, stuck the bottle neck between his teeth and poured brandy down his throat. Then Sundance pulled the bottle free, wiped off the neck, and drank again. Benteen stood gaping.
Sundance grinned and passed the bottle to Barbara, who also drank once more, draining it. “Thanks,” Sundance yelled above the wind. “I’ll buy you a case when we get to the fort!”
Suddenly, Benteen grinned too; although his mouth was almost invisible beneath its muffling, Sundance could see it in his eyes. “Never mind! That’s the post surgeon’s anyhow, and there’s more where that came from. All right, whoever you are. Get that tipsy stallion, and let’s get moving!”
Chapter Seven
Slowly, reluctantly, Jim Sundance awakened from deathlike sleep. As he opened his eyes, a hand shook him vigorously. “Sundance. Hey, Sundance.”
The face above him was seamed and weathered, blue eyes glinting with good humor beneath abundant hair once brown, now going silver gray. “Benteen,” the Captain said. “That’s me; remember? Wake up, there, fellow. General Custer wants to see you.”
Slowly, painfully, Sundance shoved himself erect, and now it came back to him, a series of disjointed impressions. The ten-mile ride through the blizzard back to the fort, his belly full of warming brandy, a fresh, strong horse beneath him, Barbara, wrapped in additional robes, riding alongside. Even with the alcohol, it had been an ordeal; he had a vague recollection of the stockade of the fort looming high above them in total darkness; another bugle blowing somewhere; then warmth, blessed warmth, and hot food. After that had come the pain, as frozen hands and feet and cheeks thawed out. Fortunately, fatigue and brandy had blunted most of it, as the post surgeon worked tirelessly over him. Now, as sleep peeled away, he was alert again. He looked around at the small, neat room.
“You bunked in with me,” Benteen said. “The lady stayed with Mrs. Custer. She’s all right, no more the worse for wear than you—no fingers or toes lost, saints be praised. Your stallion’s okay, too, except he’s giving the geldings a hard time, rules the roost in the stables already. Now, on your feet, man. The General is a waspish sort, doesn’t like to be kept waiting. Especially by you; I understand the two of you’ve had run-ins before.”
“We have.” Sundance swung out of bed.
Benteen ran thoughtful eyes over the scarred, muscular form. “Judgin’ from the looks of those wounds you’ve taken, a lot of people have had run-ins with you. Hardcase, eh? Anybody that dared to travel through that blizzard must be a damned hard case. Thought for a while there we wouldn’t make it back either. Had no business being out in the first place, but Custer insisted we make that patrol.” He walked to the window, drew back a curtain. Sundance saw a blue sky, high sun, deep snow glistening on the parade ground beyond. “Have a hunch he hoped I’d freeze out there, then he wouldn’t have me to worry about.” Benteen turned, grinning. “He and I have had our run-ins, too. He hates my guts.”
Sundance saw his buckskins and his wolfskin jacket lying on a chair; he began to dress. “Custer and me, we’ve got different theories about soldiering,” Benteen went on. “He goes for the headlines, I like to get the job done and done right. Well, no matter. Be rid of him for a while, soon. He’s going east on furlough. Maybe he won’t—”
Sundance cut in sharply. “Where’re my guns?”
“You’ll have to ask the General. He ... ‘appropriated’ your weapons, sort of.” Benteen went to a stove in the corner, poured a cup of coffee from a pot there. “Here, drink this.”
Sundance took it. “Dammit, Captain, he’s got no right to take my weapons.”
“Sure enough, he hasn’t,” Benteen said. “But then, Custer’s always made his own rules.”
He poured a cup of coffee for himself, talking as he did so. “Like on the Washita, when we hit the Cheyennes there. One rule he made was not to go help Major Joel Elliott when the Indians cut him off from our main body. So the Cheyennes slaughtered Elliott and his detachment while Custer was having a great time shooting their horse herd. I wrote a letter about that to the eastern papers. When it came out, he threatened to horsewhip me. I invited him to go right ahead, if he wanted to risk a bullet, and he crawfished. Since then, he’s been out to get me any way he can. He has so many rackets going—forces his junior officers to lose
money they can’t afford at high-stakes poker, collects kickbacks from the sutlers—plus his nasty little habit of shooting unarmed deserters, or spread-eaglin’ ’em out on the prairie.” Benteen sipped his coffee, looking at Sundance over the cup’s rim with keen blue eyes.
Then he set the cup aside, suddenly, decisively. “You think I’m talkin’ an awful lot to a stranger, don’t you?”
Sundance did not answer; there was a strange significance in Benteen’s voice.
“But,” the Captain went on, “I happen to know who you are, now, Sundance. I’ve heard of you from Crook. You’re a good man, Crook says. And I respect Crook and his judgment.”
Sundance, fully clad, drank the coffee.
“Then,” Benteen said, “like I was telling you, there was the matter of Custer sending me out on that patrol. Lucky for you he did, but all the same, I don’t like a man, my CO. or not, sending me and my troopers out into needless risk just because he’s got a hate on against me and hasn’t got the nerve to call me to my face. So I’m going to take a liberty, Sundance. I’m going to warn you; when you see Custer, watch your step. There’s something mighty curious going on here, and he’s in the middle of it, and it concerns you. So be careful.”
“I want my—”
“Guns. Like I said, Custer has ’em. Still, as you pointed out yourself, there’s no reason you shouldn’t be armed while on the post; not a single regulation against it.” Benteen went to a cabinet, fished inside. Something landed on the bed beside Sundance. “As a matter of fact, I just happen to have an extra Colt, holster and belt—personal property, not the Army’s. In about two minutes, I’m going out of here and about my rounds. So there wouldn’t, of course, be any way I would know whether or not you put on my spare gun before you went to Post Headquarters. Would there?” He grinned and went to the door. Then he was dead serious. “I don’t like to see anybody crowded into a corner by a blowhard and unable to defend himself. I keep remembering the time he threatened to horsewhip me—and if I hadn’t packed an iron, he’d have done it.” Going out, he closed the door behind him.
Sundance stood there thoughtfully for a moment. Mingled with relief at Benteen’s news that Barbara was all right was a pang of apprehension. He knew what was going on that Benteen counted strange. Custer had heard from George Colfax, was trying in some way to turn the fact that Sundance and Barbara were here at Fort Lincoln to his own account. A man like Colfax could be a powerful ally for Custer, whose prestige slipped more and more every year, as his irresponsibility and hair-trigger temper cost him the respect of each new commander under whom he served.
Sundance picked up Benteen’s Colt, whipped it from the scabbard, checked it, found it meticulously kept and fully loaded. He buckled on the cartridge belt, then slipped on the wolfskin jacket and left Benteen’s quarters.
Paths had been shoveled across the parade; the air was biting cold, but windless. Sundance wondered how long he had slept: one day, two? The fort was on the bluffs; in the distance, eastward, he could see a vague blot against the white that would be the town of Bismarck. From behind it, a plume of smoke rose high, like a signal against the blue. A locomotive; that meant the track was plowed and trains could get through.
Post headquarters was a big building tightly constructed of logs. Sundance entered to confront the Regimental adjutant behind a desk. “I’m Sundance. Colonel Custer wanted to see me.”
The adjutant—a sign on his desk gave his name as Cooke—ran his eyes over the man in the wolfskin jacket. His gaze halted when it came to the holstered Colt. “Yes, he’s expecting you. But you can’t go in there armed.”
“The hell I can’t,” Sundance said easily.
“Now, just a minute—” Cooke began.
Sundance said, “You want this gun, Cooke, you try to take it. Which door is Custer’s, that one? Fine.” Then, coolly, he strode past the man, opened the door and went in.
Lieutenant Colonel George Armstrong Custer had been the youngest General in the Civil War, but now; in his late thirties, his image as boy wonder was sadly tarnished. Irresponsibility and headstrong egotism had cost him the respect of every officer he had served under since coming West. He was still a fine figure of a man, though, as in buckskin shirt, uniform pants, and gleaming black jackboots, he arose from behind his desk, yellow hair falling to his shoulders, auburn mustache luxuriant beneath his beak of a nose. “Sundance,” he said. He came around the desk, was about to put out his hand when he saw the pistol. “Where did you get that?” he asked harshly.
Sundance grinned faintly. “Let’s say I borrowed it, since somebody took my own weapons.”
“I’ll not have you here armed.”
“I didn’t ask to come. Give me back my weapons, my horse, my woman, and I’ll ride on to Bismarck and much obliged for your hospitality.”
“Maybe. In due time.” The two men looked at one another. Then Custer went back around behind his desk. “Sundance,” he said softly, “we’ve locked horns before. Once, years ago at Ellsworth, another time, more recently, in the Black Hills. Don’t push your luck. I have no liking for renegades.”
“Life’s too short to worry about what you like or don’t like. And it’s your own luck you’d better be concerned about, General.”
Custer’s eyes narrowed. “Is that a threat?”
“No. Statement of fact. You aren’t popular with the tribes, General. I hear you’re going East. While you’re there, maybe you’d better wangle an assignment somewhere else. They’ve got a particular grudge against you and that’s going to make it risky for you ever to go west of the Missouri again.”
Custer’s snort fluttered his mustache. “With two hundred Seventh Cavalry troopers at my back, I’d march through hell itself. You don’t scare me, Sundance; your day, the Indian’s day is done. But I won’t debate that with you. I asked you here for a special purpose.” He turned away, went to another door, flung it open. “You may come in now, Miss Colfax, Mr. Colfax.”
“Jim!” Barbara’s voice rang out as she ran into the room. Her face was still blistered across the cheeks from the ordeal of the cold, but, with pale hair combed and glistening, her ripe body encased in a green silk dress hugging every curve, she was a sight to make Sundance catch his breath. “Jim!” She came to him, threw her arms about him. “They wouldn’t let me see you.”
He held her tightly with his left arm. “Who wouldn’t?” Then he nodded, pushed her away gently and stepped aside. “I understand. Hello, Colfax. Shell.”
“Sundance.” Barbara’s father came into the room, wearing the beaver skin coat, suit and tie. Behind him trailed Austin Shell, the Texas gunman. Shell, Sundance saw, had not been disarmed; he wore his Colt. Sundance felt a little prickling of shorthair on the nape of his neck. All at once, he felt like blessing Fred Benteen for the use of the revolver.
“I see you’re on time, Colfax,” Sundance said. “So are we. The bargain is you get forty-eight hours with Barbara. In return, you—”
“I’m well aware what the bargain was,” Colfax said.
Sundance stiffened. “Was?”
“Certain circumstances have, ah, changed.” Colfax smiled faintly.
“The hell they have,” Sundance said.
Colfax edged away from Shell, who moved forward a pace. “Yes,” Colfax said, “I’m afraid they have. It seems the Army has gone ahead and moved, Sundance. Messengers have been sent out to all the tribes. Either they report to the agencies and go on reservations by January thirty-first of next year, or they’re considered hostile and subject to being attacked without warning.”
Sundance fought down the hot fury that surged up in him. “Why, you bastard! You were gonna block that—”
“Unfortunately, I couldn’t—”
“The hell you couldn’t!” Sundance roared. He flung out his left arm in a wide gesture. “The end of January? Worst time of the worst winter in years? How do you expect them to come in in midwinter with women, children, through blizzards like that one your dau
ghter almost died in to come here because you promised—” His voice dropped. “They can’t make it in by then, Colfax, and you know it.”
“Then the more unfortunate for them,” Colfax said, smiling. “They’ll have to take the consequences.”
Barbara whirled on him. “So,” she hissed. “You lied. Sundance warned me that you’d lie. But I thought ... at least I hoped, wanted to believe, that my own father would keep his word.”
“My dear, years of living with savages have warped your judgment,” Colfax said smoothly. “That’s why it’s so important for you to go home with me.”
Barbara tensed, staring. “Go home?” she whispered. “To New York?” Her lip curled. “That’s not my home. Tall Calf’s camp is my home.”
Custer smiled. “Captives frequently respond like this, Mr. Colfax. The shock of being rescued—”
Barbara whirled on him. “Captive? I’m no captive!” She drew herself up. “I am Two Roads Woman! I’m a member of The People.”
“You’re a distraught girl whose place is in New York, among civilized human beings,” Colfax said flatly. “And that’s where I intend to take you.”
“No!” Barbara’s eyes flared. Suddenly she moved across the room to stand by Sundance. “No, I’m not going anywhere with you.” Her voice broke. “I risked my life, risked Jim’s, hoping that you would— And the whole time, you never meant it. All you wanted was to get your hands on me. I won’t go with you! I won’t!”
“Miss Colfax,” Custer said, “I’m afraid you have no choice in the matter. My standing orders are to recover white captives from the Indians whenever possible. You fall into that category and must be returned to your rightful home and family.”
Sundance let out a long breath. “No,” he said quietly. “No. If Barbara doesn’t want to go, she doesn’t go.”