by John Benteen
“I’d rather die than go,” Barbara rasped savagely.
Colfax sighed. “My dear ... ” Then he said, “Shell, if you will, don’t let Sundance interfere.”
Shell grinned. “He won’t, don’t worry.” Like a cat, he took two steps forward, hand close to gun butt. “Ease off, half-breed. The girl goes home with her old man. You try to stop her, you go to the happy hunting grounds.”
Before Sundance could answer, Custer moved. Quickly, gracefully, while Sundance’s attention was riveted on Shell, he stepped forward, seized Barbara Colfax, pulled her to him, jumped back. She screamed and kicked as Custer clamped his arms around her, held her against him like a shield, dragging her across the room. Colfax himself whirled, dived for cover behind the stove, and Sundance saw the pattern full and clear now, as Shell drew.
“Now, Sundance!” Shell snapped, gun coming up.
But the moment the Texan’s hand had moved, Sundance had gone into action. His own hand blurred down, and as Shell brought his gun in line, Sundance had Benteen’s Colt already leveled. He saw Shell’s eyes widen slightly in amazement at such speed, dismay at being beaten. Then Sundance pulled the trigger and felt the weapon buck hard in his palm.
The bullet went low, caught Shell in the belly, spun him around as if a giant hand had struck him. He screamed and fired into the floor and Sundance shot again, and that slug smashed through Shell’s rib cage and on into his vitals, and the Texan was slammed back against the hot stove. He slid to the floor, leaning against it, eyes wide open, jaw sagging, dead before his back touched the glowing metal, and suddenly, mingled with the powder smoke, there was the stink of burning cloth and flesh. Then Shell’s corpse fell sideways, and Sundance was whirling, but Custer had Barbara’s body clamped against himself in such a way that Sundance could not fire. Colfax howled something, and in the same instant, the door to the adjutant’s office crashed open, and a half dozen men in blue, troopers of the Seventh, poured into the room. “Take him!” Custer bellowed. “Take the bastard!”
Sundance whirled to confront them, gun up, a red mist of fury seething in his brain. But then the other jaw of the trap closed, for now more troopers burst in through the other door, the one the Colfaxes had come through, behind which they must have been waiting all along. Before he could fire, a dozen men were on him. Hands wrenched at his gun arm, and the Colt was jerked away.
Without even realizing that he did it, Sundance howled a Cheyenne war cry. They tried to pin him, but he lashed out with a foot, and a man screamed, fell back, and that gave him room to strike with his free left arm; he smashed it into a soldier’s face. At the same time, another cavalryman seized him around the waist, and yet another fell low behind him, grabbed one leg. Sundance kicked backwards, felt his heel smash a nose, and at the same time twisted. His free hand caught the fingers of the hands around his middle, jerked backward and he heard bone pop and a man yell. He swiveled, pivoted, on the fulcrum of his pinned right arm, to get a chance at the men who held it, but then a fist slammed into his jaw, rocking his face around. It was followed by another and another, and he felt his lips slice against his teeth; explosions went off inside his skull. Still he fought, even as more bodies piled on him in that instant, fought with hands and feet and teeth and butting head. But there were too many; under hundreds of pounds of muscular flesh, he was borne down. Finally, still twisting, gasping, bleeding, he was spread-eagled on the floor, and a gun in the hands of a husky sergeant was pointed at his head.
“Well done!” Custer chortled.
“Jim!” Barbara sobbed. “Jim—”
He twisted his head, looked at her through eyes dimmed by pain and blood. Her father had come out from behind the stove. Face doughy with fear, Colfax stepped wide around the pinioned Sundance as he went to his daughter, still locked in Custer’s iron grasp.
“General,” he said, “I thank you.”
“Part of my job, sir,” Custer said, grinning beneath his thick mustache. “To recover captives and deal with renegades like this one.”
“And what you have done won’t be forgotten, believe me,” Colfax said. “I’ll see that people in Washington hear about it.” Then his voice changed. “All right, my dear. It’s over. Now you’re to come home and forget this nightmare and live the life of a lady once again.”
Barbara stared into her father’s face. Sundance saw her lips peel back from white teeth in a snarl like that of a she-wolf. “I despise you,” she said, and then she spat full into his eyes.
Colfax let out a long breath. “Very well,” he said heavily. “Obviously you’ll need some taming. I’ll see that you get it. General, if you’ll have her escorted under close guard to my private car in Bismarck, I’ll see that the train leaves immediately for the East.” He turned to look down at Sundance. “And this one ... I trust you’ll deal with him appropriately.”
“For the murder of Shell and a list of other crimes as long as your arm,” Custer said. “Don’t worry, Mr. Colfax. This man’s used up all his luck.” Then his face went hard. “Take him to the powder house.”
The pressure on Sundance was eased a little. Hands hustled him to his feet. The moment he regained them, he tried to fight again, savagely jerking to free himself, consumed now by fury, not caring what happened to him, wanting only to get his hands on Custer. But, of course, it was useless. The officer snapped an order. The big sergeant raised his carbine. Then, before Sundance could dodge, the barrel came slashing down.
The last thing he heard before the world exploded was Barbara’s despairing scream.
Chapter Eight
The cell into which Sundance was thrown was less than seven feet square, without windows, perpetually dark. Neither was it heated, and when he awakened with splitting skull, he was near freezing. As consciousness returned, he groped in blackness, found a pile of buffalo robes in one corner, a stinking slop bucket nearby. These were the only furnishings, Sundance crawled into the robes, which seethed with lice, for warmth.
He was, he knew, in “The Hole,” the place reserved in every Army guardhouse for incorrigibles in solitary confinement. Likely he would stay here until Custer would have him taken out, charged with Austin Shell’s murder, tried by a drumhead court, and executed. Custer could do it; he had the power here at Fort Lincoln. Even if he couldn’t legally, he would do it anyway. He was accustomed to do as he pleased, without regard for consequences.
Well, Sundance thought grimly, when the time came, he would not go quietly. His hatred for Custer and for Colfax was like a flame within him, warming him despite the bitter cold. When he was taken out of here, Custer had better have him in the heaviest shackles his blacksmiths could devise—and even then, somehow, in some way, he would have his vengeance on the Colonel.
The first day passed. At nightfall, a guard shoved in a pan of bread and tainted beef and a can of water, passing them through a wicket in the solid, steel-strapped oaken door. The next morning, another meal was shoved through in like fashion. Meanwhile, Sundance had gone over every inch of the cell and had found it as close to escape-proof as such a structure could be. The logs of the walls were keyed, tongue in groove, the dirt floor hard-packed and frozen hard as concrete. There was no way out; he would have to wait until they led him out for trial for the chance to make a break.
Another day passed, and he tried to estimate how long that would be. Surely within a week—
Well, he would be ready. Despite the cold, he exercised endlessly, keeping his muscles toned. When the time came, he would need every ounce of strength, every bit of coordination at his command. Besides, it helped to keep from freezing.
He was in the place ten days before realization dawned on him. Maybe they would take him out and try him, but not soon. No. Custer would break him first. Or try to.
The fury in Sundance grew. Of course. Custer did not dare bring him out to public trial yet, not with enemies of Custer like Benteen on hand to hear and relay any accusations Sundance might make. So the General would leave him h
ere—for how long? Weeks? Months? An involuntary shiver went down Sundance’s spine. Already, after only a few days, he felt himself becoming curiously dislocated mentally. The cold, the hunger, the silence and solitude, the utter idleness ... . For an active outdoor man to be sealed up like this was shattering. And that was what Custer depended on, that a month, two months, three in here would reduce Sundance to a gibbering, babbling blank-minded idiot, unable even to speak coherently. For a moment, Sundance almost went into panic. But with iron self-control, he got hold of himself.
No, he swore grimly. He would not give Custer or Colfax that satisfaction. Somehow he would survive, endure, and when the time came that he had a chance, he’d take it.
But that vow was easier to make than carry out. In the bitter wind, huddled under the lousy buffalo robes to keep from freezing, with nothing to do but think; by the end of the third week, there were moments of hallucination. Times when he thought he heard voices: His mother’s, father’s, and those of others long dead. Once, he was sure Barbara was in the cell with him; another time, it seemed as if Tail Calf sat on one side of him smoking, his old friend Sitting Bull of the Hunkpapa on the other. It took a massive effort of will to bring himself back to sanity, make those illusory figures vanish.
But the hatred saved him. It gave shape and purpose to his days. It kept him exercising; it forced him to devise practical ways to exercise his mind and hands, find things to concentrate on. He counted every log in every wall each day; he rearranged the robes carefully every hour. He went carefully, methodically, through every Indian ritual that he knew, every chant and prayer; and he rehashed in his mind, too, every book he had ever read, trying to remember passages verbatim, forcing himself to recall plot and character. He was careful to think almost not at all of Barbara, not to remember her or any other woman; such memories were maddening for a man locked up alone. He plucked wool off the robes, plaited it into tiny strings, then, of the strings, wove little patches of woolen cloth.
And days passed, time crawled by on leaden feet. Each morning, each evening, the pans of food and water were shoved through; twice a week, the door opened enough to allow him to pass the slop bucket through, under the muzzles of many guns. No one spoke at such times; in order not to lose the power of coherent speech, he talked aloud to himself for long stretches at a time.
And he kept a calendar. Each day, he rolled up a little ball of wool from the buffalo robes and put it in a corner, just after his breakfast was delivered. Thus, he kept track of time; and he had one hundred twenty of those little balls neatly piled up before his chance finally came.
He made the chance himself when he understood at last that he might be here six months, a year. He’d had the plan for a long time, but only now was it feasible, logical, to put it in operation. In preparation for its execution, he exercised with particular diligence for three days, four, to limber up his muscles. It was a long risk, the odds against him were nearly hopeless; it was a last resort. But the time had come for last resorts.
That night, when his food was passed to him, he ate only half of it, though his body, constantly ravenous, clamored for the rest. It took all his willpower to stay away from the plate until morning.
The wicket opened; according to the usual pattern, another pan of food and water was slid in. Sundance shoved the last one, with its half-eaten meal, out.
He ate a third of breakfast. The rest, throughout all that endless day, he managed to ignore. When nightfall came, he traded it for supper.
Now he was truly starving. But he did not touch the supper tray at all. He left it close to the wicket, where it could be seen when breakfast was pushed through.
Breakfast came. Sundance did not move from beneath his robes to receive it. His head roared and he was dizzy with hunger, but he held his breath and listened as the pan was scraped across the floor.
Then he heard a mutter of surprise. “Hell, he ain’t ate what we gave him last night. You reckon I better take a look?”
Another voice said, “You stay out of there. He’s just sullen like a penned-up animal. He’ll eat when he gits hungry enough.”
The wicket closed. Sundance did not move.
That day, he did not talk to himself aloud or go near the food. It stayed where it had been put, where the guard could see it when supper was thrust in.
Tomorrow, Sundance thought desperately. Tomorrow morning. They’ve got to— If they don’t, I’ll be too weak ...
The night was agony. His stomach growled with starvation, and the knowledge that food was in reach only sharpened the pangs. All he had to do was reach out, take it.
He did not. Instead, he slept fitfully, managing though to wake himself well before breakfast. He lay quietly in the robes, waiting, flexing arms and legs, fists and feet. Then he heard the clatter of the wicket, the little door at floor line in the larger one, opening, and one food pan colliding with the other.
“Hell,” a voice said. “He ain’t touched that one, either. Four meals now, he ain’t et, and not a sound outa him for twenty-four hours. Wilson, what you figger’s wrong?”
“I don’t know and I don’t care. You know our orders, Fowler. Nobody goes in there with him.”
“Well, suppose he’s sick, dead? What we do, jest let him lay there and rot?”
There was a pause. Then Wilson said, “Listen. The General hisself gave those orders, said that man was to stay shut up there until he got back from furlough in the East to try him. All right, that wasn’t supposed to be but two months. Now he’s been gone three, they say he may stay longer. All the same, those orders ain’t been changed.”
“Major Reno might change ’em, now he’s in command.”
“Reno won’t do nothin’ to go against Custer, not with Tom Custer still here to report to his brother. The thing about it is, Fowler, we’re caught in the middle. If we disobey the General, we git our arses in a sling—”
“And suppose he’s dead in there? We’re liable to git our arses in a sling anyhow. You know damn’ good and well if Captain Benteen ever found out—”
“Benteen ain’t here, and he ain’t gonna find out. Why do you think Custer sent him off on detached duty ’til spring? Listen, Fowler, the General’s got an awful mad on against this bird. If he was to come back from the East and find out he’d got loose somehow—”
“If he comes back and finds we let ’im die, so he can’t have his fun with him, we’re in worse trouble than anything.”
Another silence. Then Wilson said, “Maybe you’re right. It won’t do no harm to look. Lemme light a lantern. Then you keep me covered.”
Sundance held his breath. With both hands, he gathered slack of the buffalo robe that covered him. Then, with only his head visible, he lay back, half closed his eyes, peeled his lips back so that his teeth showed. It was a passable imitation, he hoped, of a man dead or near to death. He lay rigidly as a key turned in the lock. It took all his self-control to keep from crying out with joy at the first light he had seen in four months.
The one called Wilson entered, holding a lantern high in his left hand, a Colt in his right. Just inside the door, he halted. “Jesus,” he said, “looks like he’s in bad shape, all right. Keep me covered, Fowler. Lord, this place stinks.” He made a retching sound.
Still, Sundance did not move a muscle. He was aware of Wilson coming near him, standing over him, the gun pointed down at him. Wilson, he saw, was a lanky sergeant, with close-set, pale blue eyes, a lantern jaw, and a cruel slash of mouth.
“Awright,” Wilson rasped. “You fakin’ or not?” Then, without warning, he kicked the pile of robes hard with his big booted foot.
Somehow, Sundance managed not to gasp or stir. “Hell,” Wilson rasped, “I think he is croaked. Lemme see.” He set down the lantern, squatted by it, cautiously reached out to peel away the top robe of the bedding.
Sundance acted then. He came up out of the bed with all the wiry strength remaining in him, and when he came, the robe came, too, flopping through the ai
r. It fell across the lantern and blotted out its light and half-entangled Wilson, as Sundance hit the man like a panther, seized his Colt. Wilson let out a squawk. “Fowler, shoot—!”
“Can’t! Can’t see!” Then the other man was in the room as Sundance and Wilson wrestled on the floor, tangled in the bedding. As Sundance had hoped, Fowler had to hold his fire, unable to tell friend from foe in the sudden dark.
That gave Sundance the crucial pair of seconds he needed. He got his hand entangled in Wilson’s hair. He jerked the man’s head up, slammed it down again against the frozen earth. Wilson’s body went slack, as Wilson sighed. Sundance snatched the Colt from his hand, in the same motion, rolled. At that instant, Fowler pulled the trigger. The bullet, going wild, chunked into the log wall and Sundance came up and lined the revolver on the muzzle flash and fired.
Fowler screamed; there was the thud of a body hitting earth.
Panting, Sundance was on his feet. Uncovering the lantern for an instant, he slammed the door. Fowler lay sprawled, either unconscious or dead, the front of his blouse covered with scarlet. Sundance turned back to Wilson. Recovering consciousness, the man tried to rise. Sundance slugged him with the pistol barrel, and he fell back.
Then Sundance stripped him. It took an endless two minutes to discard his own clothes, get into the sergeant’s. Fortunately, the boots were big, too big, and slid on easily. But that was one of the longest intervals of his life. For all he knew, there might be other guards not a dozen feet away, and surely the sound of gunshots would bring them.
But then he was fully dressed and nothing had happened, no alarm been given. He snatched up Fowler’s carbine, tucked it under his arm. Then he edged to the door, swung it open, peered out.
The doorway led into a tiny room that was a duplicate of his cell, log walled and windowless, save that it contained a chair and charcoal heater. In its front wall, only a pace away, there was yet another door. Sundance tried it, but it was locked. He whirled back to the cell and found Fowler’s key ring. When a key had turned in the lock, Sundance cracked the door, then drew back, blinking at the unaccustomed glare of daylight on snow. But his mouth curled in a tight grin, exactly like a wolf’s snarl.