by John Benteen
Issuing classic fiction from Yesterday and Today!
They called him Sundance. A big man with the bronzed face of a Cheyenne and a mane of yellow hair. He had ranged from Canada to Mexico, from the Mississippi to the Shining Mountains and west to the Pacific. He could take any man apart with rifle, pistol, knife—or Indian-style with bow, arrows, lance and tomahawk. He was a professional fighting man and no job was too tough if the price was right. So when a rich banker met his price of $10,000 to rescue his daughter from the Cheyenne—Sundance bought it. He didn’t know that before it was over he would have to take on a gang of vicious renegades, part of Custer’s Seventh Cavalry and a hot-blooded eastern woman.
OVERKILL
SUNDANCE 1
By John Benteen
Copyright © 1972 by John Benteen
Published by Piccadilly Publishing at Smashwords: May 2013
Names, characters and incidents in this book are fictional, and any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons living or dead is purely coincidental.
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Cover image © 2013 by Tony Masero
This is a Piccadilly Publishing Book
Published by Arrangement with the Author’s Estate.
Chapter One
He rode down into the valley of the Smoky Hill at a high lope, a big man on a tall appaloosa stallion. He wore a battered sombrero that had endured a lot of weather, a red neckerchief, a buckskin shirt, fringed and colorful with beadwork across the chest and down the arms, brown denim pants, and moccasins. The slanting sun glinted dully on the yellowed ivory butt of a Colt Navy revolver on his hip, gleamed from the brass cartridges in the belt around his waist, loads for the Henry rifle under his knee in a saddle scabbard. He sat the horse like an Indian, wholly one with its every movement. He called himself Jim Sundance, and he had come a long way to Ellsworth.
Six months before the town had not existed. Now, nourished by the steel artery of the railroad tracks stretching along the valley, it boomed. Protected by Fort Harker on the heights above the river, it was a huddle of twelve or fifteen buildings, some of logs, some rough lumber, and most of them saloons and gambling halls. Other houses were under construction, scattered around the outskirts were tents, and the single street swarmed with soldiers, railroad men, track workers and settlers. As Sundance threaded the big horse through the crowd, they looked at him curiously. Even in a place like this, a man of his size, with the coppery, hawk-like features of an Indian, stood out. Especially when, in contrast to a face almost typically Cheyenne, hair the color of new wheat tumbled curling down to the shoulders of the buckskin shirt.
Sundance returned their gaze with black eyes which were trained to miss nothing; continual alertness was part of his stock in trade. Especially, he was aware of the women—settler’s wives, officers’ dependents, and the harpies who flocked to such places like maggots to a carcass, working the bars and brothels. When they looked at him, there was more than curiosity on their faces, and they let their glances linger for an extra moment. Sundance’s thin lips curled slightly. It had been a long time since he’d had a woman, and a longer one since he’d had a white woman. That was something he would see to before he rode out of Ellsworth.
Now that he was off the plains, he could allow himself a drink or two. He picked out the largest bar, swung the spotted stallion to the hitch-rack, dismounted lithely. He looped the reins around the crossbar, loosened the cinch of the big Mexican saddle, hitched at the pistol belt, adjusted the holster, which had been made in Santa Fe by an expert Mexican craftsman. In weapons, he would settle for nothing but the best. The Bowie on the same belt behind the pistol had a fourteen-inch blade and a special hilt and guard for fighting; and he had traveled all the way to New Orleans to get exactly the knife he wanted.
The appaloosa bore a bulky load. In addition to the bedroll behind the saddle, two large bags of buffalo hide, one long and cylindrical, the other round, were strapped across its rump. Sundance checked their fastenings, was satisfied. He did not even bother to pull the Henry from the scabbard and take it with him; nobody was going to steal anything off Eagle. Trained both for buffalo running and war, the appaloosa was a one-man horse. Sundance patted it on the neck, then went up the steps into the bar.
After the clean, fresh air of the high prairie, the bar stank like a bear’s den: a big room with a counter on one side, tables, a gambling layout in the back, and a crowd of unwashed bodies. Sundance edged through the mob as gently and politely as possible, never seeking unnecessary trouble. It was something he could usually find enough of anyhow in the normal course of events, without scraping up any extra. He made it to the bar, found a vacant space, waited patiently for the bartender, staring into the mirror.
The face that reflected back at him from beneath the weather-stained hat was a hard one, marked by thirty years of ranging from the Canadian border into Mexico, from the Mississippi to the Shining Mountains and west to the Pacific. The forehead was high, the eyes large, wide-set, black as onyx, with fans of wrinkles at their corners, the nose a big, straight blade. His cheekbones were sharp and prominent; mouth wide, not entirely humorless, but thin; chin strong. His skin was only a little lighter than the color of an old penny. Against the background of the yellow hair, it was an arresting face, one that excited women and made wise men cautious. It had been six months since he’d seen himself in a real mirror, and he assessed what that period of time had done to him. Nothing much, he decided, except for the scar along his right cheek, made by a Crow arrow.
The bartender came; Sundance ordered whiskey. The man, short and potbellied, froze, staring at the Indian face. Sundance had anticipated this. He tipped back the hat, emphasizing the blond hair. The man frowned, looking puzzled, then decided that the hair’s color outweighed that of the skin. Or maybe it was something in Sundance’s eyes. Anyhow, he served the whiskey without protest, and Sundance paid with a gold eagle.
Other people were crowding to the bar, and he did not like the smell of them. At least, he thought, Cheyennes washed every day when they were close to water; there was a whole river of it outside, and the white men shoving at him hadn’t bathed in months. Sipping the drink, he stepped clear. Then he heard his name called, saw the man at the table in the corner waving at him, beckoning. Sundance grinned, edged through the crowd.
“Jim! Damn, ole hoss, how the hell you doin’?” Wild Bill Hickok got to his feet, as tall as Sundance, a little older, his blue-gray eyes glittering with delight as he rammed out his hand. Like Sundance, he wore a buckskin shirt, greasy with long use. On his hips were two Dragoon Colts. A half-empty bottle sat before him on the table and he was, Sundance saw, a little drunk—which, for James Butler Hickok, was not unusual.
“Fine, Bill; you?” They shook hands vigorously and Sundance took the chair to which Hickok motioned him. Hickok, as he sat down, snorted with a force that fluttered his mustaches.
“Not worth a damn,” he said. “Been runnin’ my tail off scoutin’ for the Army. But it don’t do no good. These greenhorn soldiers out here couldn’t find their butts with both hands.” He leaned back in his chair. “I guess you know what’s happened.”
“I’ve been up on the Yellowstone,” Sundance said. “I heard some talk, but—”
Hickok snorted again. “Most durn fool mess I ever been mixed up in. Railroad’s
been movin’ along, stagecoach lines branchin’ out, settlers comin’ in, and the Government couldn’t figger out why the Injuns been raisin’ hell when they supposedly made peace years ago. Of course, all these folks pourin’ into country the Cheyennes and Kiowas and Comanches was promised for themselves forever—”
Sundance’s lips thinned. “I know all that.”
“Yeah. Well, anyhow, the Army decided it was time to teach the Injuns a lesson. Got up a big force here under command of a knot head name of Winfield Scott Hancock. Put a colonel in charge of the cavalry that ain’t got sense enough to tell a prairie dog from a bull buffalo, marched about three thousand men, infantry, horse soldiers, even cannons, down into Cheyenne country to make peace with the Injuns.” He laughed harshly. “That’s what they called it a ‘peace’ expedition.”
Hickok drank again. “Injuns was camped down on the Pawnee Fork. Only trouble was, they remembered Sand Creek. You know, when Black Kettle made peace, and then Chivington’s Colorado Cavalry hit his bunch in a surprise attack, damn near wiped ’em all out, and old Black Kettle wavin’ the American flag to show ’em he was a good Injun.”
“I know all about Sand Creek, too. Chivington’s men killed a lot of women and children. One of ’em was my aunt.”
Hickok nodded. “Well, the Injuns was afraid of another Sand Creek. They was willin’ to talk, but they begged Hancock not to bring his soldiers too close to camp. They were afeerd for their women and children. But Hancock wouldn’t listen; not even after me and Major Wynkoop, the Cheyenne agent, tried to explain. He surrounded the camp, pointed his goddam cannons at it, and then figgered the Cheyennes would talk peace. Well, the braves had got their women and children out ahead of the soldiers, and then when the cavalry and the artillery started to surround ‘em, they fogged out themselves. Left their whole village and all their goods behind. So Hancock sends his pretty-boy cavalry commander after ‘em, and in the meantime orders his men to burn the village.”
“So that’s how it happened,” Sundance said coldly. He drank deeply.
“Three hundred lodges, with all their robes and belongin’s. Oh, man, them bluebellies had theirselves a time in there. They stole ever’thing wasn’t tied down, set fire to the rest, and—” There was something haunted in Hickok’s eyes as he raised his head, seemingly staring into space. “They found a white girl in the camp the Injuns had taken. She wasn’t ten years old yet. And a bunch of them damned soldiers—they ganged up on her. You know?” Beneath his mustache, his mouth was a disgusted line. “Then they told the General it was the Injuns done it.” He poured himself another drink. “They hurt her so bad, she died last week, up yonder at the fort.”
“Christ,” Sundance said.
“I woulda killed the bastards myself,” Hickok grated, “but I was out with that feather-headed colonel and his horse soldiers. Hancock sent ’em after the Cheyennes. We didn’t get within smellin’ distance—the Injuns took their horse herd with ‘em, and they could change every few miles, and those knucklehead yeller-laigs didn’t even have a change of mounts.”
He spread his hands. “Anyhow, that tore it, burnin’ that village when they was supposed to be talkin’ peace. Ever’ Cheyenne in the southern bands, plus the Kiowas, Arapahoes, Comanches, Sioux—they’re on the warpath for good and all, now. From here on in, there’ll be hell to pay and no pitch hot, all along the Platte, the Republican, the Arkansas . . .”
Sundance nodded. “It’s already broken out up north.”
“I know. Those forts they built along the Bozeman Trail, up to the Montana gold diggin’s. Nothin’ in the treaty with the Sioux and the Northern Cheyennes about that; I understand the tribes up yonder are determined to burn down everything along the trail.”
“That’s the size of it,” Sundance said.
Hickok looked at him a little blurrily. “But you still got that purty yeller hair of yours.”
Then he drank again. “Well, that’s one advantage of bein’ half Injun and half white. No matter where you are, you’re always among your own people.”
“Yeah,” Sundance said. “Only—” He broke off as a loud, high-pitched voice rang out through the room.
“Attention! Attention, everybody in this place! All members of the Seventh Cavalry report to your organizations at once!”
Slowly, Jim Sundance turned in his chair. The Army officer who stood spraddle-legged just inside the door, hands on hips, was of more than medium height, well built. Hair as yellow as Sundance’s cascaded down to his shoulders. Bulging blue eyes swept the room; above a yellow mustache, his nose was a freckled beak. Jackbooted and with not one but two revolvers on his hips, he wore the insignia of a lieutenant colonel on his shoulder straps. “I repeat,” he bellowed, “all Seventh Cavalry personnel, clear this room immediately.” His eyes lit on Hickok, and he strode forward. As he did so, Sundance’s eyes went from him to the sergeant at his heels.
Obviously Irish, the man was massive, like something built out of brick. A good six and a half feet tall, his shoulders were nearly half that wide, it seemed, and his torso appeared about to burst his tunic with the rippling of its muscles. On such a giant body, his head was absurdly small, almost freakishly so, his eyes blue beads beneath heavy overhangs of jutting bone.
Hickok made a sound in his throat. “There he is,” he muttered. “Youngest major-general in the history of the United States Cavalry, and he never lets you fergit it for one minute.”
Now the colonel had reached their table. His eyes met Hickok’s. “That means you, Hickok,” he snapped.
Wild Bill grinned. “Not any more, it don’t,” he said. “You go check with the commandant up at the fort. I turned in my resignation yesterday. I’ve had my bait of wet-nursing horse cavalry through Injun country—especially when I’m hired fer what I know, and the man I’m supposed to tell it to won’t listen.”
The colonel stared at him, and his mouth worked beneath his mustache. “You signed on for three months—”
“Which was up yesterday. I counted ’em careful.” Hickok smiled. “There’s easier ways to make a livin.”
Sundance sat quietly, sipping his drink, trying not to smile either at the colonel’s flushed face or at the idea of anybody trying to force Hickok to do something he didn’t want to. But the grin broke forth anyhow, and the soldier saw it. Fierce blue eyes turned to Sundance. “Who’re you?”
Hickok chuckled softly. “Maybe I’d better introduce you two. Colonel George Armstrong Custer, commandin’ Seventh Cavalry, meet Jim Sundance.”
Sundance set down his glass, shoved back his chair, ready to rise. But Custer stared at him strangely and he froze. “Sundance?” The Colonel’s eyes narrowed. “Jim Sundance. I’ve heard that name . . .” Then suddenly, abruptly, his gauntleted hand swept out, knocked Sundance’s glass off the table. “God damn it, Hickok,” he roared, “you know it’s against Army regulations to sell whiskey to Indians or half-breeds!” He turned on Sundance. “All right, you. Get out of here!”
Sundance did not answer immediately. Instead, he bent, picked up the glass from the floor with his left hand. Hickok’s grin had broadened now, and he shoved the bottle forward.
Sundance took it, eyes locked with Custer. “Colonel,” he said quietly, “I didn’t finish my drink. I’m going to pour another one. And maybe another after that. Why don’t you run along and play soldier?”
Custer’s face turned pale and the freckles on it stood out, bright red. His mouth opened and closed.
“Why, you insolent bastard—” And then his right hand moved downward toward his holster.
And stopped before it touched the flap. Sundance held the glass in his left hand; his right, on the table before him, had not appeared to move. But suddenly it held the Navy Colt, the gun’s hammer eared back and its muzzle trained on Custer’s belly. “Colonel,” Sundance said quite evenly and conversationally, “if you touch that pistol, I’ll kill you.”
“He means it, Custer,” Hickok said with amusement. “I�
��ll guarantee you that.”
Custer stood there frozen, looking from Sundance’s gun to Sundance’s face, and he understood, finally, that Sundance did, indeed mean it. He let out a long breath that fluttered his mustache and took his hand away from the holster.
“Now,” Sundance said. “It may be against the rules for them to serve the Indian half of me whiskey. But the white half of me’s damned dry, and anybody who tries to stop it from drinking is gonna get hurt. You’d better make that clear to everybody in your command.”
Custer stared at him a moment longer, the color slowly coming back into his face. “Sundance,” he said, “you can’t fight the whole United States Army.”
“Probably not,” Sundance said. “But under the circumstances, that won’t do you much good.” He jerked the gun muzzle. “All your soldiers have gone, Colonel. Maybe you’d better see to ‘em.”
Behind Custer, the sergeant growled like a bear. “Listen, half-breed—”
“Be quiet, O’Malley.” Sundance had to grant Custer this much; there was no fear in him. He was in possession of himself again now. “All right, Mr. Sundance,” he said coolly. “You hold the upper hand now. I’ll follow your suggestion; I must see to my command. But don’t think this matter is forgotten. I’m sure we shall have business with one another later.” He turned to Hickok. “And as for you— You won’t reconsider? I need you.”
“You don’t need anybody,” Hickok said coldly. “No. Life’s too short to ride with you again.”
Custer looked from Wild Bill to Sundance, nodded, and said quietly, “Very well. Come along, O’Malley.” He turned, walked almost unconcernedly away. The sergeant, slanting a glance of hatred at Sundance, reluctantly followed. Sundance kept them covered with the pistol until they had traversed the now-silent room and disappeared through the door. Then, easily, smoothly, and almost as fast as he had drawn it, he holstered the Colt.
Hickok said, admiringly, “Goddam, Sundance, you’re fast with that. I hope neither one of us ever comes up again’ the other.”