by John Benteen
He shut the door and locked it. Now he knew why the gunfire had caused no alarm. Custer might have converted this place into a prison, but it had originally been an ammunition storage bunker, hundreds of yards from the main post and covered with earth.
Soundproof and isolated, it must have seemed an ideal dungeon for a prisoner to whom Custer wanted to give special treatment, one he wanted to keep clear of the guard details and officers who manned the regular guardhouse. Out of sight, out of mind; stick Sundance away in a hole like this and nobody would interfere in anything that was done to him.
Sundance chuckled, but it was not a pleasant sound. He went back to the cell, ate ravenously of the rations, but not enough to make himself sick. He found a knife on Fowler’s body and used it to cut his long, filthy matted hair short. He stuck the knife in his boot, robbed Fowler and Wilson of spare ammunition and an extra Colt, which went in his waistband. Then, feeling strength and confidence coming back, he shrugged into an overcoat either Fowler or Wilson had shucked in the tiny front room by the brazier. He turned up its collar, clamped Fowler’s hat down on his head, pulling its brim over his eyes. With Fowler’s carbine in hand, he left the bunker, turning to lock the door behind him.
Never had fresh air tasted so good. Jim Sundance drew in great draughts of it, tangy with a hint of spring, as he stood before the bunker, getting his bearings.
A quarter of a mile away, the buildings of the main post were dark blots on fresh snow, threads of smoke curling from their chimneys. The parade ground was deserted; only a few blue figures moved from one building to the other, leisurely. The activity of an Army post at this time of year was at rock bottom; only Crook, of all the generals, mounted winter campaigns or made his troops exert themselves in bad weather. Most men, Sundance guessed now, would be eating breakfast or else be at stables. At any rate, nothing lay between him and the main post, or for that matter, the gate of the stockade around the fort, where guards stood huddled against the wind.
Sundance grinned that wolf’s snarl again. With the rifle under his arm, he slogged across the open ground toward the main post. He did not hurry, only ambled, not at all concerned about being recognized. He knew what he wanted, what he intended to do. That was to get a horse. And God help anybody who tried to stop him.
Nobody did. Even as he walked, the wind freshened, sharpened. He struck fresh-shoveled paths and followed them, and twice he passed officers, who returned his salutes without even looking at him, reluctant to raise their faces to the wind and keeping their heads down.
He reached the corrals and stables. Here there were more soldiers going about their business, cursing the wind now which was raising swirls of snow from the earth and throwing it like dry sand against exposed flesh. He watched a pair of them fork hay into a big corral containing twenty, thirty extra mounts. Then he stiffened. Among all the bays and sorrels, he caught a glimpse of spotted roan. He dodged behind a building, waited.
Pitchforks in hand, the two soldiers left the haystack, retreated to the warmth of the stables where, as the wind increased, the others joined them. A big sergeant slogged across the area, yelling something, disappeared inside, and then there was no one at all between Sundance and the corral that held the appaloosa stallion. It had not caught his scent yet, masked as it was by the clothes of others.
Sundance looked around carefully one more time, then casually ambled to the corral. He gave a low whistle that was almost lost in the sound of wind. But suddenly there was an answering snort and whinny; shoving and nipping and kicking, the big stallion fought his way through the press of cavalry mounts.
He halted, raised his head; Sundance whistled again, and Eagle came to him joyfully.
Sundance took a moment to rub the topknot between the pricked-forward ears. The stallion was, he saw, well-kept and strong, but ungroomed. Likely nobody cared to get close enough to him to try to curry him. But he was too magnificent a horse not to keep. Probably some officer who fancied himself as a bronc twister intended to work him out and tame him come spring.
The stallion followed Sundance along the fence as the half-breed turned away. From inside the open door of the nearest stable, he heard the usual cursing and barking of orders that went with morning horse care. He edged in; all was confusion as troopers tried to curry horses frisky from cold and idleness, each tethered to a rope that reached all across the shed. Sundance paused; one horse was not being tended. A man on sick call, probably. He was not interested in the horse, but he wanted the bridle and McClellan saddle on the rack along the wall where the tack was kept. He slipped behind the horse, went to it, the carbine tucked under his arm, took the gear, and nobody paid the least attention. A sergeant was at the far end of the barn, raging at a recruit who’d just been kicked; others stood around him jeering, and the rest of the troopers had troubles of their own. Sundance left the stable, hand warming the cold bit. When he reached the bars, Eagle was waiting.
Sundance slipped the top two bars; Eagle leaped over. Sundance replaced them. The big horse took the bit eagerly, stood motionless while Sundance cinched on the McClellan. He did snort nervously when Sundance mounted not from the accustomed right but from the left. Then Sundance touched him with cavalry spurs, and Eagle rocketed across the fort toward the main gate like an arrow loosed from a bow. Nobody saw him go, save one officer standing on the porch of headquarters, who halted as he was about to descend the steps. Sundance caught a glimpse of a face startled at the spectacle of anyone’s riding the appaloosa stud. But instead of calling out or dodging back inside headquarters to give the alarm, the man shrugged, stepped off the porch, and slogged away in the opposite direction.
Then Sundance was at the gate. Guards posted on either side turned to confront him, faces muffled with scarves, hats pulled down over their eyes, collars turned up. Sundance pulled up Eagle. “Tom Custer,” he called out, from deep inside his own collar, “Told me to exercise this stud.”
“The hell he did! I didn’t even know anybody could ride that rattlesnake. Okay, show your pass.”
“Sure,” Sundance said. Then he jabbed Eagle hard, deep under the belly, with a spur.
Instantly, the big horse screamed and reared and pawed, startled by the unaccustomed cruelty. Then he broke in two, bucking savagely. Sundance rode straight up, raking him with spurs again. The guards dodged back in fear. “Goddammit!” one yelled, “the pass!” But Eagle had already bucked through the open gate, was plunging down the bluff. Both guards cursed and laughed. “Ride ’im, trooper!” one yelled. The other called, “If he don’t eat you alive, show that pass when you come back through!”
Sundance didn’t answer as the stallion bucked on. When they were below the bluff’s overhang, temporarily out of sight, Sundance quit using spurs, tightened rein, and immediately, the stallion settled down. Sundance swung him around, touched him with his toes, and spoke. Eagle went instantly in a dead run, racing toward the Missouri.
His rider twisted in the saddle, looking back at Fort Abe Lincoln, mouth set again in that wolf’s snarl. He had business in the East himself, urgent business. But later, if General George A. Custer came west of the Missouri again, he had better watch his hair.
Chapter Nine
The tall man in the black slouch hat, black frock coat and matching trousers got out of the hansom cab on Fifth Avenue and paid the driver. The cabbie took the money, which included a generous tip, and bobbed his head, eyes playing curiously over this unusual fare, a beak-nosed man with copper-penny skin and medium-length blond hair. Sundance smiled faintly. He was pretty sure the driver’s eyes did not spot the snub-nosed Colt in the shoulder holster beneath the full-cut coat. He wondered what the man would have said if he had known it was there.
Then the cab clopped and rattled off; Sundance turned, checked the house number again. Yes, this was it. Lightly, he went up the steps of the big brownstone not far from Central Park. But he stood there a moment, motionless, before he rang the bell.
Not until he was well away
from Fort Lincoln had he allowed himself to think of Barbara. Then it had hit him all at once, the outrage against and hatred for Colfax, and the need to have his woman back. It was, indeed, all he could think of as he rode south hard and fast, out of the Dakotas and across Nebraska to Omaha. Along the way, he took no chances, hiding out like a hunted animal. But there was no pursuit; he had expected none. The Custers were not in a position to reveal that they had kept a man penned up four months in solitary without a trial.
He had money in a bank at Omaha. There, finally, he deloused himself, threw away the Army overcoat and the buckskin gear, filth-encrusted, beneath the uniform he’d already discarded, and bought clean clothes and slept in a bed for the first time in nearly a year. But he did not linger to savor the comforts of civilization; he left Eagle at a reputable livery, paid in advance, leaving explicit instructions, and caught an eastbound train.
Meanwhile, he had heard the news. Word had been sent out to the Sioux and Cheyennes to come in from the Sioux Reserve and the unceded lands to the agencies. They had disregarded it; in fact more Indians had left the reservations and agencies to join them. Surely a big Indian war was in the making. Reading that, Sundance had spat disgustedly. Likely half of the messengers with those orders had never got through, considering what kind of winter it had been. And white men were fools to think that the tribes would risk their women and children in the kind of blizzard he and Barbara had barely survived. What it boiled down to was that the whites wanted war—George Colfax wanted war—and now they had their pretext.
The war, in fact, had already begun. George Crook, he read, had sent a column out in early March under an officer named Reynolds. They had struck a Cheyenne camp, but the Cheyennes had recovered from surprise, fought back savagely, given Reynolds a bloody nose and chased him back to Fetterman in disgrace. Well, Sundance thought grimly, Crook had warned him—he had an oath to keep. One defeat would not stop him.
But it was not Crook the newspapers clamored for. What they wanted was Custer, the famous Boy General. Custer was in Washington, mixed up in politics; he had earned the enmity of President Grant, and there was talk that he would never go West again. That enraged the papers. Custer was good, colorful copy, and super-hospitable to reporters and correspondents. They wanted to see Custer whip the Indians come spring and summer; and in interviews, he had promised to do it, if the authorities would only give him free rein.
Now, New York; and it was early April. As Sundance stood on the steps of the brownstone mansion, he felt a clench of fear. Barbara was inside—and it had been five months since Colfax had brought her East. Suppose her father had been right all along? Suppose that after nearly half a year of wearing fine clothes, enjoying luxury, being courted by sleek, wealthy young men, she had at last chosen the White Man’s Road? Suppose, when he confronted her again, she wanted nothing at all to do with him.
No! he thought. No, she wouldn’t be like that. He licked his lips, loosened the snub-nosed Colt in its holster, then rang the bell.
It seemed an eternity before the door swung open. A butler in dress clothes stood there, raking Sundance with a cold glance. He said something haughty and indistinguishable.
Sundance grinned wolfishly and pushed past the man into a magnificent foyer hung with tapestries and adorned with statues. “I beg your pardon!” The butler clawed at him, but Sundance pushed the door shut.
“Colfax,” he said harshly. “Where is he?”
“The master is not well.” The butler’s face was pale as he met Sundance’s lambent eyes.
“And your mistress, Miss Colfax—?”
The man’s eyes widened. “Miss Colfax? Why she—”
Before he could finish, a door opened at the head of the stairs. Colfax’s voice, oddly altered, said, “Higgins? Who the devil is that?”
“Sir, I don’t—”
But Sundance had pushed him aside, was bounding up the stairs like a panther. “Colfax!”
On the second floor landing, the man stood there, frozen, staring. As Sundance confronted him, Colfax blinked. “I don’t believe—” And then Sundance’s hand moved, and Colfax saw the pistol in it, trained on him. “Oh,” he said thickly. “Oh, God, no.”
“That’s right. Jim Sundance.” He raked his eyes over Colfax. The man seemed shrunken, a quilted satin dressing gown hanging on a body that had lost much bulk in heavy folds. Colfax’s face was mottled, red and white, with purplish tinges in the cheeks. “I’ve come for her, Colfax,” Sundance rasped. “Where is she?”
“Sundance, for God’s sake—” Colfax’s voice trembled, and it was weak and reedy. Then he regained a measure of control. “Please, don’t harm me. Barbara—” He licked his lips. “She’s not here.”
“Where is she?”
“I—” Then Colfax gestured to the door from which he had just emerged. “Come into my office.”
Sundance glanced at the door. “Any tricks, Colfax, you’re a dead man.”
“I ... assure you, there will be no tricks. And I’m a dead man anyhow. Come in here, Sundance.”
Sundance nodded, motioned with the gun barrel for Colfax to lead the way, then followed the man into a dim room furnished heavily with massive sofa, books, a huge desk. Sundance went to the tall window, gun still trained on Colfax, pulled open the velvet drapes. As he did so, Colfax blinked and dropped to the sofa.
“Barbara,” Sundance repeated. “All right, Colfax. Where’s she gone?”
“I … I don’t know. I brought her back here from Fort Lincoln, both under guard and under sedation. I—” He broke off, rubbed his face. Then he drew in a long breath, began again. “I tried to re-establish her in her old life. I gave her everything she could possibly want. For a while ... I thought I had succeeded. She settled down, seemed happy, content, even ... flirtatious with the beaus who came around. Finally, I withdrew my guards. Then—” He shook his head. “Then, one night, she simply disappeared.”
“Disappeared?”
“Vanished.” Colfax let out a gusty breath, “I had New York turned upside down, fearing foul play. But it wasn’t that. She . .. ran away, Sundance...”
Sundance stared down at him. “Ran where?”
“I don’t know. Except ... ”
“Yes.” He understood, and a strange joy suddenly filled Jim Sundance. “Yes. Of course. That’s where she went. Back to the Cheyennes!”
Colfax dropped his head. His gesture was almost listless. “Probably,” he said.
Sundance looked at the shrunken man on the sofa and almost felt a touch of pity. Then something hit him with the force of a mule’s kick. “Colfax! Now, you’ll have to call it off!”
Colfax blinked. “Call what off?”
“Your Indian war. God dammit, man, don’t you understand? Your daughter’s gone back to the tribes! And if you send the Army against them, she’ll be in the middle! Have you ever seen an Indian camp that the soldiers have hit? They spare nobody, nothing, not women, children. Have you ever seen what a bunch of troopers can do to an Indian girl before they kill her? Do you know what they’ll do to Barbara if they catch her? In the heat of battle, you think her blond hair or the name Colfax’ll stop ’em?”
“Sundance, believe me—”
“So call it off, Colfax! You had the power to start it; now you’ve got the power to stop it! If you give a damn about your daughter, use every ounce of influence—”
Colfax’s voice was a strange croak. “That’s just it, Sundance. I don’t have any influence—”
“You what?”
“You heard me.” Colfax’s voice was weary. “Money is influence; and I don’t have any money left. They got me, Sundance; they got me in the stock market, Gould, Harriman, Tweed, and all the others. Belknap was my man in Washington, Secretary of War, but they got him, too, and now he’s under indictment. They broke me, and I am not a well man, Sundance. When they cleaned me out, my heart couldn’t stand the strain. I had an attack. Now, I’m finished. This house will go and everything in it and ..
. and I’ll go, too. It’s just a matter of time, maybe tomorrow, maybe next week, maybe a month. But the doctors say it’s coming, another one; and I won’t survive it.”
“Well, I’ll be damned,” Sundance whispered, lowering the gun. The truth of Colfax’s words was written on his shrunken, mottled face.
“So I can’t stop it now,” the man went on, in a ghastly voice. “Believe me, I would if I could. For Barbara’s sake. I don’t want her caught up in such a thing. But— It’s out of my hands and in others, now. Yes, there will be a war. They’re planning the campaign in Chicago now, Sheridan and Sherman.” His mouth twisted. “I’ve had one letter from Custer after another, imploring me to use my influence. He accused the President’s brother of corruption in some insane, ill-advised testimony before a Congressional committee. Grant won’t give him command, won’t give him the time of day. Custer can’t get in on the action. They say Terry will command in his stead now. But I can’t help him.” His laugh was hollow. “It’s a joke on Custer, isn’t it? He backed the wrong horse. Me.”
“Yeah,” Sundance said. “It’s a joke on Custer, all right.” Then, slowly, he reholstered the gun. “All right, Colfax,” he said, and he turned away.
“Sundance, please—” Colfax rose unsteadily.
“Yeah?”
Colfax licked his lips. “You’ll see to Barbara? You’ll look after her?”
“Yes,” Sundance said. “As best I can. Nobody can promise anything now. If I can find her, I’ll protect her.”
“Thank you,” Colfax said softly. He followed Sundance out of the room, halted at the head of the stairs. “I don’t suppose,” he said almost timidly, “you’d shake hands with me. But if you would ... I was wrong, Sundance. It’s only when the vultures eat on you that you know what it felt like for others when you yourself were the vulture.”