Sundance 5

by John Benteen

  Sundance put out his hand. Colfax took it.

  “Tell her that I loved her, in my own way,” the man said. “I really did. But there’s nothing left here; no need for her ever to come back again, ever. Tell her ... goodbye for me, Sundance.”

  “I’ll do that, Colfax,” Sundance said. He turned and went down the stairs.

  “And for God’s sake,” Colfax cried out from the landing, “take care of her!” He stood there watching, leaning weakly against the newel post, as Sundance went out.

  April was dwindling into May when Sundance reached Omaha: Green-up time, the winter-bitten prairie coming to life again, the town seething with activity. Sundance wasted no time; he knew as well as if she had left him a map what route Barbara had taken. Bismarck; that would have been her first destination, to seek him or some news of him. He picked up the stallion, sleek and feisty from the rest and grain, and booked passage for them both on a riverboat up the Missouri. Eagle had traveled by Missouri steamer before; along with other livestock, he rode on the stern deck, hobbled and tethered.

  The shallow-draft craft was tiny compared to the Mississippi River floating palaces, and it was jammed to the gunwales with immigrants, gamblers, soldiers, and frontiersmen. Sundance crowded into the little saloon, found a place at the bar, nursed a drink. He was startled when someone tapped his shoulder, and he turned to confront a hawk-faced man with a divided beard. “Jim,” said General George Crook.

  “Well, damn,” Sundance blurted; and they shook hands.

  Crook jerked his head. “I’ve got a table over yonder. Come and talk to me.”

  Sundance took his glass. When they were seated, Crook poured himself a drink. He looked at Sundance narrowly. “What’s been happening to you? I heard some rumors about trouble at Fort Lincoln.”

  “I had trouble, all right.” Sundance told him tersely what had occurred. Crook’s face darkened.

  “That bastard,” he said softly. “If I had only known ... ” His voice trailed off. “You saw Colfax, then?”

  “And it’s no go,” Sundance said. “They picked him clean in the market. He’s a dying man. He wields no more influence.”

  “Then that settles it, once and for all. This is going to be the big summer. I’m bound up North for a conference now with Sheridan, Sherman, and some others.” He looked down at the table. “I’m sorry, Jim.”

  “You can’t help it,” Sundance said. “I guess nobody can help it now.”

  “No. More Indians leave the agencies every day. Sitting Bull is calling ’em out. By June, there’ll be thousands of Sioux and Cheyennes in the unceded lands.”

  “If they’re let alone,” Sundance said, “likely they’ll make their spring and summer and fall hunts, then drift into the agencies come winter.”

  “They won’t be let alone.” Crook sipped his drink. “I can’t tell you what’s going to happen. You understand why. But the ball’s rolling. Even Custer will be in on it.”

  Sundance straightened. “I thought he was hung up in the East.”

  “He’s pulling every string he can. Chances are he’ll be given back command of his regiment. Not to operate on his own, but under General Terry, subject to Terry’s orders. One last opportunity to redeem himself. If he proves himself responsible, obeys orders, he might have a future in the Army after all.”

  Sundance’s mouth twisted. “If Custer comes into Indian country, he’s got no future, Three-Stars. None.”

  “And you?”

  Sundance was silent for a moment. Then he said, “I’ve got to find Barbara—and the Cheyennes. And if anybody hits the Cheyennes while she’s with them, I’m going to do everything I can to save her. Everything, you understand?”

  Crook nodded slowly. “I understand. Still ... when we talked before—”

  “I won’t fight you,” Sundance said. “Not if you don’t hit us. I promised I would not look at you across a rifle sight or make you look at me. But like I said—”

  “It’s the Sioux I want,” Crook said. Then he shook his head. “Forget it. What happens happens. Is there anything I can do for you at Bismarck?”

  “Yes,” Sundance said. “Two things. Inquire at Fort Lincoln about Barbara. And they took some gear from me there. My saddle, bow, arrows, shield, some other things that are important to me. If they’re still around and you can get them back ... I’ll wait for you in Bismarck.”

  “Yes,” Crook said. “That’s the least I can do for you, I reckon,” He stood up. “I’m retiring to my cabin. Probably it’s just as well if we don’t talk to each other anymore. Not until this summer’s over.” He put out his hand. “Except in Bismarck. You wait at the hotel; I’ll find you there.”

  “Yes,” Sundance said. They shook hands and Crook went out. Sundance watched him go, and

  then he had another drink. After that he went out on deck, stood at the rail, and watched the bank slide

  by as the little steamer churned upstream.

  Four days later, Crook came to his hotel room, laden with bull hide panniers. “It’s all there,” he said, dropping them on Sundance’s bed. “Tom Custer had saved them for his brother to add to his trophy collection. I pulled rank on him and Reno and took them.”

  “Thanks. And Barbara?”

  “You were right. She showed up at Lincoln, looking for you. She raised all sorts of unshirted hell with Reno and everybody. God, what a spitfire! But when she found that you were gone, she just disappeared.”

  “Then I know where to find her,” Sundance said.

  “Of course,” Crook said. “Good luck.”

  “I can’t wish you the same, except personally.”

  The two men looked at one another a moment. Then Crook smiled and clapped Sundance’s arm. “I know,” he said. “But an oath’s an oath. Someday a long time from now, when it’s all over and done with, we’ll get together again, and see what the two of us can work out, salvage for the Indians. Goodbye, Jim.”

  “Goodbye,” Sundance said. After that, he discarded the town clothes he wore, dressed in newly-purchased frontier gear, including a buckskin shirt. That night, wasting no time, he rode west. Somewhere east of the Big Horn Mountains, he was bound to find Tall Calf and the Cheyennes.

  He rode slowly, cautiously, keeping always to cover, using every bit of leverage the terrain gave him for concealment. Right now, every foot of country west of the Missouri was dangerous. The Indians would know by now that something was afoot; rumors would have been circulating around the agencies, and the Sioux and Cheyennes who’d left would have heard. Far more Indians understood English and could even read and write than the white men ever guessed; in addition, there were half-breeds like himself and other whites who had chosen the Indian road. Take Frank Huston, for instance, the young ex-Confederate whose hatred for American soldiers was so great that he had joined the Sioux deliberately to fight them. He could take the rumors and with his military knowledge put them all together and see what would happen. It would not be surprising if Huston did not supply Sitting Bull, the great medicine man, with much of the prophetic insight the shaman claimed came to him in dreams.

  So the Sioux would be stirred up like hornets; and though Sundance was well-known and honored among them, there were still plenty among the thousands of them who had never heard of him and who, if he met them out here, might take his scalp first and ask questions afterwards. On top of that, he had Crows and Pawnees to worry about. Allied with the Army, they would be scouting the territory intensively, and as a Cheyenne Dog Soldier in his youth, he had fought them hard and was hated by them. But worst of all was the danger of running into a cavalry patrol or one of the vigilante self-defense bands of miners who had swarmed into Dakota country and the Black Hills. Not until he was west of the Paha Sapa, in the unceded lands, could he even begin to relax.

  So, though everything in him cried out for haste, he took his time. He only hoped that Barbara had got through all those dangers safely. This was no country for a woman traveling alone; but maybe, si
nce she’d made her journey earlier in the year, she’d had a better chance.

  Sundance hit the Yellowstone, swung south of its right bank. The country was in full flower of spring, fragrant with new growth. It was hard to believe that before the leaves fell again, many men, red and white alike, would leave their bones in this lovely valley. Again, he felt a familiar bitterness. In such a huge, rich country, there was no reason, save only greed, that two races could not live together.

  He pushed on, still riding cautiously, and reached the tongue. Then he found the Indians.

  He saw them before they saw him. Nooning in a hollow of a creek that fed the river, he was brought alert by Eagle. The big horse, cropping grass, suddenly raised its head, nostrils flaring, ears tipped forward. Then Eagle nickered softly.

  Sundance sprang up, ran to the stallion, clamped a hand over its muzzle. He led the horse back into a grove of cottonwoods, left it there, then scouted. Like a coyote, he ran forward to a rise above the river, taking advantage of every clump of cover, rifle held low lest any gleam from its barrel betray him. He reached a ridge crest, threw himself down, peeped over. Then he relaxed. Below him, stretched out like a great snake along the valley, was a band of Cheyennes on the move.

  There was no sight on earth more colorful. Ahead and on the flanks, painted Dog Soldiers, plumed with crow-feather headdresses, scouted and kept guard. The main body was immense, scores more warriors, old men, women, children, all spread out in long train, travois behind the horses hauling lodge skins and camp gear. Behind came the enormous horse herd, guarded by more Dog Soldiers and chivied along by boys too young for warfare. The camp dogs trotted alongside, and babies rode in baskets slung across the withers of their mothers’ horses. Feathers, buckskin, bronzed bodies glittering with paint; sun gleaming on rifle barrels and lance heads, on warbonnets and coup sticks, and on the plume of dust rising and drifting behind: at the sight of all this, Sundance was stirred profoundly with a sense of having come home. Then he stiffened, shading eyes with a hand. Yes. Yes, the warbonneted man riding at the column’s head ... that was Tall Calf! He sucked in a breath, searched the column more closely with his gaze.

  Then he saw her. Amidst all that panoply, color, glitter, gleam, her hair stood out like hammered gold as the sunlight touched her. On a paint pony, beside Magpie Wing on a sorrel, her body clad again in buckskins, she rode in the center of the column. Sundance whispered something, lay still for another full ten seconds. Then he sprang up, something singing within him, and raced back down the hill to where he had left Eagle.

  His nostrils full of the familiar home scent of Indians, the big horse was impatient. When Sundance sprang on him without touching stirrup, he leaped forward like a launched rocket. Then he pounded down the valley of the stream, toward the Tongue, where Sundance would intersect the Cheyenne’s route of march. They reached that juncture, and Sundance swung the horse hard south. He galloped out into the valley of the Tongue, and the Dog Soldiers saw him, rode toward him with rifles aimed. Sundance raised his own gun high, in the sign for peace.

  Then they recognized him, tried to halt him, greet him, but he disregarded them. He rode through them toward the column, and as he pounded up the valley, a cry sounded. A paint pony broke loose from the Cheyenne band and with its golden-haired rider lashing it, braids and buckskin fringe streaming out behind, raced toward him. Eagle’s long legs devoured the ground between.

  Then he could see her face. Her eyes were wide, her cheeks wet with tears, her mouth working. He pulled up Eagle hard just as the stallion came alongside the pinto. “Sundance!” she cried. “Oh, Jim, Jim, you’ve come back!”

  Sundance did not answer, only reached out, swept her off the spotted horse and held her to him, dropping Eagle’s rein. They still clung together as Tall Calf pulled up his mount alongside the stallion; like the gentleman he was, the Indian waited until the long kiss was over before he even tried to say hello.

  Presently, though, he stuck out his hand. “Sundance, my son,” he said. “Welcome back to The People. Three-Stars moves against us with a column from Fort Fetterman. You are here just in time for the fight. Even now, we ride to join the Sioux, and when we link our forces with theirs, I do not think the one called Crook will have a chance against us.”

  Chapter Ten

  That night, alone in the lodge which Tall Calf had turned over to them completely, Sundance and Barbara Colfax—Two Roads Woman—lay on buffalo robes, and his hands caressed the smooth, soft curves of her body as, outside, the drumming and the singing went on interminably. They were in the midst of the greatest encampment of the plains tribes ever assembled, for here, in the valley of the Rosebud, Sioux and Cheyennes had come together. It was not an Indian village, it was a city, inhabited by twelve, fifteen thousand red people, able to muster a full three thousand trained warriors. They had come upon it just before nightfall, too late for the great Sun Dance that had been going on for the past few days—the final preparation for war, the ultimate sacrifice to the Great Spirit who must stand with them now, if all. were not to be lost. Sitting Bull, it was said, as an act of piety and sacrifice, had inflicted over a hundred cuts on his own body in an effort to become more holy than ever, and to invoke all the power of the Sun, The Old Man, Giver of Life. Crazy Horse was here, too, and Rain-in-the-Face and Pisi—Gall—and all the other great war chiefs. So, also, the leaders of the Cheyennes: Tall Calf and Two Moons and Lame White Man; and even now they made medicine out there in the dark.

  Barbara stirred lazily, ivory white body in contrast to the darkness of the buffalo robe, firelight playing over the curves of breasts, belly, hips and thighs. “It was easy, really,” she murmured. “I pretended to be satisfied in New York, and I asked him for money, lots of money. And saved it all. Then I went to a dance one night with a very stupid young man, the son of one of father’s business partners. No trick at all to give him the slip. I had already stowed a suitcase at the railroad station. Before sunrise, I was on a westbound train. Once, his people almost got me—he guessed, of course, and telegraphed ahead—but I dodged them. Finally I got to Bismarck—”

  “I heard how you raised hell at Lincoln.”

  “But then found out that you were gone. I got riding clothes, good horses, struck out west. I was in luck; I hadn’t traveled a hundred miles past Lincoln when I came on a hunting party from Tall Calf’s band. They brought me to him, where he was camped in the Big Horn Mountains. After that, all I could do was wait for you.” She smiled. “I knew that sooner or later you would come.” Then her face went grave. “I suppose I should be sorry about father. But somehow I can’t be. I’m only glad. Now the last tie is cut. Now I can be easy with my real father—Tall Calf. There is no chance of my ever having to go back again.”

  Sundance lay silent. “With Crook coming up the Rosebud, probably others coming from different directions, you may wish you were back before long.”

  “No,” she said savagely. “Never! I’ll take my chances here.” Her fingers dug into his arms. “Sundance. Tomorrow they go to fight General Crook. Please don’t go with them! I’ve only just found you again. I couldn’t bear it if—”

  “No,” he said. “No, I’m not going with them into battle. Not this time, not against Three-Stars. I’ve explained that to them. I made Crook a promise. This is one fight I’ll stay out of.”

  “Thank God,” Barbara whispered, and she held him tightly, rubbed her body against his. “Then, let’s take what time we have.”

  “Yes,” Sundance said, and his mouth found hers.

  But he watched them ride out the next morning. A thousand of them, Sioux and Cheyennes, with Crazy Horse in overall command. It was a magnificent sight: warriors seemed to pass by endlessly. Despite his vow never to fight against George Crook—a promise which the Indians readily understood and did not hold against him—he itched to join them. Instead, he did his part by serving with those Dog Soldiers left to guard the camp. By now, save for his blond hair, he was indistinguishable from the res
t of them. He wore the warbonnet he had earned long before, as a youth, a resplendent creation of eagle feathers, each counting for a victory over a Cheyenne enemy; his face and naked chest were painted with the marks of clan and society; except for breechclout and moccasins, the rest of his body was bare. He wore, however, his six-gun, knife, and hatchet, carried his carbine in his saddle scabbard. His bow was across his saddle, strung and ready, the quiver full of arrows slung over his shoulder.

  It felt good to be wholly Indian again; nevertheless, a tension gripped him which was shared by the whole enormous camp. Soon the battle would have been fought and the first messengers would be drifting back. Then they would know whether it was over before it started, this war, whether Crook had whipped them or they had defeated him. They would know, too, how many empty lodges there would be, and how much mourning, grieving. And Sundance felt an additional fear which the Indians did not share. Crook was his friend; he loved the man. Suppose Crook died in this battle?

  Time stretched endlessly. The sun went down behind the divide that separated the Rosebud from the nearby Greasy Grass—the Little Big Horn, the white men called it—toward the west. Sundance’s shift was taken over by another Cheyenne; he tethered Eagle outside the lodge, found Barbara waiting for him, supper ready. “Any news?” she asked tensely.

  “None so far.” They ate. They went to bed, made love. Afterwards, she slept, but Sundance roused, took his weapons, went out and prowled the camp, unable to sleep.

  Long before midnight, they heard the thunder. It came not from the sky, but from the distant prairie. He recognized it at once as the sound of many running horses—thousands of them. And then he heard the voices, whooping, singing, full of elation. He stood up, stared at the skyline, as Crazy Horse and his soldiers pounded down the valley, and suddenly he knew: the Indians were victorious; Crook had lost!

  Sundance ran for Eagle, leaped on the stallion, and galloped to meet the returning warriors.