by John Benteen
He looked down the reverse side of the slope, to where Barbara Colfax lay sprawled in the sleep of utter exhaustion, Eagle desperately, greedily, cropping grama nearby. The stallion was crusted with lather, gaunt from two days of carrying double at top speed. Like Barbara, like Sundance himself, he was near the end of his strength.
For there had been no time to stop and rest, no time to eat or sleep. Every minute, every mile, was precious, vital, not the difference between life and death, but the difference between life and something worse than death, at least for Sundance. His eyes shuttled back to the dust cloud, coming on steadily. About fifteen warriors, he thought; and somewhere farther behind, coming more slowly, fifteen more. As soon as they had recovered from the confusion, they had mounted a determined pursuit. And they had come after Sundance like wolves after an antelope, following him in relays, one riding while the other rested. That was the sure way—the only way—to wear him down. If he had been riding any other horse, they would have already caught him. He eased himself back down the slope. If he had been a white man, he could, perhaps, have held them off: found cover, let them come within range of the Henry, deal them damage enough to make them fall back. But there was too much Cheyenne in him for that; he could not shoot at them.
Nor, he knew, getting to his feet and lurching down the slope, would they kill him when they caught him. No, what they would do would be worse than that. He reached the level ground, bent over Barbara, shook her savagely. “Wake up,” he rasped. “We’ve got to ride again!”
She sat up groggily. “No. No, I can’t. So tired—”
He wasted no time arguing. His whistle brought Eagle, moving stiffly, but obedient, standing motionless as Sundance tightened cinches, then hoisted Barbara’s nearly dead weight into the saddle, climbed up behind. And when Sundance touched him with his heels, the tired horse went first into a trot, then into a shambling, lurching gallop.
His jarring gait brought Barbara awake. She turned her head, looked at Sundance with blurred, questioning eyes.
“They’re gaining on us,” he said tautly. “We sacrificed too much time for resting. But no help for it, we had to have a little.”
She sagged back against him. “Sundance . . . please. Can’t we just give up? You said they wouldn’t kill us.”
“They won’t. They’ll give you a good beating with a rawhide rope to teach you a lesson. But if they take me—” He looked over his shoulder. “No, they won’t kill me; there’s no death penalty in the tribe. They’ll turn me over to one of the soldier societies. And they’ll work me over with fists and ropes and clubs until I’ll never ride again or be able to hold a gun, and then they’ll turn me loose. They’ll cripple me for life. I don’t aim to let that happen.” His voice rang with determination. “No. We got to ride this out.”
“But Eagle can’t go on much farther.”
“He’s got to. Got to make every mile he can. Listen, Barbara, it’s not hopeless. We’ve covered a hell of a lot of ground. We’re close enough to the railroad now to be in range of cavalry patrols. I never thought I’d be glad to see the Army to save me from my own people, but it’s our only chance.”
She stared hopelessly at the vast, empty expanse of plains ahead, broken only by an enormous, sprawling butte four or five miles to the right. “We’ll never make it. There’s nothing out there. There’s no chance.”
“There’s always a chance. As long as you’re alive, and I aim to stay alive.” He turned Eagle toward the butte. “Maybe we can make that high ground. Maybe I can drop their horses, discourage ’em for a while if we can fort up there. And if there’s cavalry around, maybe the sound of shooting’ll draw ’em to us. Now, be quiet and hang on.”
Barbara made a despairing sound and gripped the saddle horn. Sundance looked back again, then lashed Eagle with his quirt. The Cheyennes were cresting the rise they had just left. He could see them plainly, the gleam of sun on feathers and red, sweaty bodies, on rifle barrels and lance heads. And even as Eagle stretched himself, mustering the last of his strength, the Indians also lashed their horses, came on faster, now, at a hard, ground-devouring run. One of them moved out ahead of the others, bent low in the saddle, and Sundance recognized him: Walking Bear. Saw him gesture toward the butte, knew that his friend had read his mind. The band of Cheyennes changed direction, too; they were going to cut him off.
Sundance swallowed a curse. Now it was really going to be a race, and one he had faint chance of winning—their fresh horses against the staggering appaloosa. Yet the butte was their only hope and somehow Eagle must get them to it.
He lashed the horse again, kicked it hard, and Eagle, startled at such treatment, snorted and found from deep within himself some last, small reserve of strength. He stretched low, and the cadence of his hoof beats quickened, and the wind rushed in Sundance’s face and Barbara’s hair streamed around it. The big horse was running normally now, and Sundance’s heart quickened. The space between the stallion and the pursuing Cheyenne mustangs was widening again. Maybe—
Eagle was finished. The butte loomed before them, not more than a mile away, tantalizingly close, when the horse grunted strangely. Then it lurched, almost fell to its knees, recovered. It tried to run, but the best it could do was muster a loose, rickety trot.
“Sundance—” Barbara cried.
He could hear the shouts of triumph now, the gobbling whoops as the Cheyennes saw what had happened. Sundance pulled Eagle to a walk, drew the Henry. The Indians swung toward them. Soon they’d be within rifle range. At least he could drop some horses, slow them down. Maybe, he thought, even make them kill him. That would be better than spending the rest of his life a hopeless cripple—and if they took him alive, they’d see to that.
“All right, Barbara,” he said wearily. “I’m gonna drop off here and try to slow ’em down. Ride for the butte, yonder; maybe you can get away while they concentrate on me. Maybe—” He broke off. Blinked his eyes, then rubbed them with one hand. “Damn,” he said. “I must be at the end of my rope. I thought I heard—”
“Sundance,” Barbara breathed, put her hand on his wrist. “Sundance, listen!”
Then he held his breath. And then it came again, faintly, drifting across the prairie—the sweet, brassy notes of a bugle blowing the signal to fight as skirmishers.
It was no fatigue-born hallucination, either; behind him, the Cheyennes heard it, too. Walking Bear jerked up his pony; the line of Indians skidded to a halt. From behind the butte, the bugle sounded once again.
“Soldiers!” Sundance husked. It had taken him an instant to comprehend the miracle. Then he snapped, “Hang on!” and lashed Eagle with the quirt. The appaloosa went back into its shambling, worn-out trot.
The Cheyennes had recovered from their surprise.
They kicked their horses, came on at a dead run. As they did so, gunfire crackled from behind the butte, and from its top. Two dozen rifles, Sundance guessed; and he saw slugs kick up dirt fifty or a hundred yards short of the Cheyenne ranks, laying down a barrier of lead. When that happened, Walking Bear swerved off to the side and the others followed.
That was all the slack they needed, Sundance and Barbara. Now the butte towered over them, shadowed them. As Eagle lurched around a massive, outthrust of earth, Sundance summoned all his strength to bellow: “Hold your fire! We’re coming in!”
Then Eagle stumbled around the corner, and the soldiers were there, a strong patrol of cavalry, fanned out, dismounted, rifles ready if the Cheyennes again came within range. Sundance let out a gusty breath of relief, and Barbara sagged against him. Eagle stood trembling, head down, flanks working like bellows.
Stiffly, Sundance slid to the ground. He caught Barbara as she almost fell into his arms. Holding her up, he walked toward the line of soldiers. A weather-beaten corporal with a mangy beard looked at him curiously.
“Where’s your commanding officer?” Sundance asked.
The corporal grinned, jerked his head.
Sundance and Ba
rbara turned. At that moment, two men came around the corner of the butte. Both of them stopped, stared at Sundance, and then the craggy face of the one in uniform broke into a wolfish grin. “Well, sure, and lookahere,” O’Malley, the big sergeant, said. “The birds have flown right into our hands.”
“Yeah,” said the other one, and he stepped forward, tall and lean, in black sombrero, greasy buckskin shirt, California pants and high black boots. A shag of coal-black hair fell to his shoulders, and his nose, above a black mustache, was thin and crooked. He looked at them with eyes like creek-washed agates, green and cold. Then he took off the hat, bowed slightly. Sundance stared at the circle, the size of a silver dollar, in the center of his head, where a piece of fawn skin had been stitched to the flesh itself. The man had once been scalped, and Sundance knew him now, even before Barbara blurted his name in terror: “Brackman!”
Brackman chuckled softly, replaced the hat. “Well, Miss Colfax, we meet again. Must say, you don’t seem happy to see me.” Then his face went hard; he tilted up the muzzle of the Spencer carbine he carried. “So you’re Jim Sundance,” he said. “Shuck that gun belt. Slow and easy. Now.”
Sundance did not move. His eyes shuttled from Brackman to O’Malley. “What the hell is this all about?”
O’Malley’s face still wore that wolfish grin. He dragged his Colt, thumbed back the hammer. “Do what the man says, Sundance. You’re under arrest by the United States Army. You resist, you’re dead before you hit the ground.”
He meant it. Sundance’s hand went cautiously to his belt buckle, unlatched it. The knife and pistol dropped. O’Malley scooped them up, quickly, deftly. “That’s better,” he said. “Now, Brackman, tie ’em up, both of ’em.”
“Just a minute!” Barbara snapped. “Sergeant, Brackman, you’d better tell us what this is all about. Otherwise, I’ll see that you account to my father—”
“That’ll be kinda hard to do, since you ain’t likely to see him again,” Brackman sneered. He laid aside his rifle, dug rawhide thongs from the pocket of his buckskin shirt. “You first, Sundance. Hold out your hands.”
Sundance did not move. O’Malley made a sound in his throat. “All right,” he said, and then he was stepping forward. Sundance saw the pistol upraised to club. Slowly, he held out his hands.
“That’s better,” Brackman said. Quickly and expertly, he knotted the cords around Sundance’s wrists, tested them. “That’ll hold you. Miss Colfax?” He turned to Barbara.
She stood rigidly. “You go to hell, Brackman,” she whispered.
Brackman grinned. “Might as well start now, takin’ the starch out of you.” Then his hand shot out; with the back of it he dealt Barbara a blow that knocked her head around, sent her sprawling against the base of the bluff. Dazed, she lay there, and Brackman lashed her wrists together. “Guard ‘em, O’Malley,” he said then. “I’ll handle the Injuns.” He pushed Sundance down beside Barbara. Weary, unsteady with fatigue, Sundance landed heavily.
O’Malley squatted before the two of them and trained his Colt. “Well, now, me pretty pigeons. Let’s have no funny business. Sure, and Sean O’Malley has the twitchiest trigger finger in the Seventh Cavalry, as ye’ll both find out, do ye try to cut a caper.” Sundance read hatred and a desire to kill in a face still scarred from their fight and did not answer. Instead, he looked past O’Malley to where the Indians were drawn up in line of battle out on the prairie, far beyond rifle range. There were more of them now, and he knew that the second band had joined the first. Even at that distance, he could recognize the thick-chested figure of Tall Calf on a sorrel horse, conferring with Walking Bear on a roan.
Then the Cheyennes fanned out. Sun glinted on their headdresses, their painted, naked bodies, their spotted horses, on the barrels of rifles and the heads of lances. Brackman said quietly, “They’re gonna come. You men hold your fire until they’re in range. Then give ’em hell.”
Sundance held his breath. He saw Walking Bear raise his rifle, wave a signal. Then the warrior bent low in his saddle, put his horse into a dead run.
Barbara, coming out of her daze, whispered, “Oh, no,” as the Indians charged.
“Easy,” Sundance whispered. “This is only a test.”
The Cheyennes came on, riding hard, and in the taut silence, the drum of all those hoof beats on hard-packed prairie was like sullen thunder. Then the high-pitched gobble of their war whoops rose shrilly above the bass of the sound of running horses, as the warriors rode straight for the butte in a widespread line. Fifty yards, forty, thirty, and in a moment more they’d be in range of the Spencer carbines. The soldiers were kneeling, aiming; Brackman called, “You, up there on top. Look sharp!” Men atop the butte yelled back acknowledgement.
Barbara, in an agony of fear—for Walking Bear and Tall Calf, Sundance knew—groaned softly. “Fire!” Brackman yelled; and two dozen repeating rifles began to crackle.
At exactly the same instant, Walking Bear, in the lead, pulled up his mount so hard it reared and pawed. Behind him, the whole line skittered to a sliding halt, dust boiling. Sundance smiled grimly. The Cheyennes were experienced fighting men; they knew the range of the Spencer carbines as well as any soldier. By a few yards, every bullet fell short.
Brackman laughed softly. “Smart Injuns. They know we got the ground, the cover, the fire power. They ain’t about to come at us all the way.”
As if in confirmation, the Cheyennes fell back. Again Walking Bear and Tall Calf conferred. They seemed to be arguing ferociously. Presently, Tall Calf wheeled away, signaled. Most of the Indians fell in behind him as he galloped away from the butte, disappeared over a rise of ground. Only Walking Bear and five or six warriors were left behind. They shook their fists at the other departing warriors, then whirled their horses, charged in again.
But, as they had before, they stopped just outside of carbine range. Sundance could hear and understand the taunts they shrieked at the soldiers, and even one who knew no Cheyenne could read their contemptuous gestures. O’Malley, on his feet now, said: “Brackman, the others have hightailed it for home. Let’s mount up and go after those bastards. We can wipe ’em out easy!”
Brackman laughed. “Don’t be a Goddamn fool, O’Malley. That’s what they want you to do. Those others didn’t go home; that was all a show for our benefit. They’re waitin’ somewhere out there, ready to hit anybody idjit enough to take the bait and go after that little bunch. No. We sit tight. They know they can’t really hit us here without bein’ damned near wiped out, now that they’ve tested how much fire we can lay down. We camp here tonight, keep a strong guard, and come mornin’ they’ll have really hauled their freight. They ain’t got a chance against us as long as we don’t play into their hands, and they know it.”
Sundance nodded to himself. Give Brackman this: He knew Indians, and how they thought and fought.
All that hot afternoon, he and Barbara sat without food and water in the glare of the merciless sun; and over and over again Walking Bear and his handful of warriors demonstrated before the butte. Time after time, they rushed in daringly, turned just at extreme carbine range, shouted insults and challenges. Brackman and O’Malley did not even let the soldiers waste ammunition on them. Soon, Sundance thought, the Indians would give up. They wanted Barbara and him, wanted them badly, but not badly enough to take the kind of casualties they’d have to on a direct charge; besides, this incident had interrupted the hunting of the buffalo. Right now they were needed for that, to fill their lodges with skins and meat. Pity for Walking Bear filled him, along with a sadness that even now his old friend was cursing him. If he himself should live, it would take a lot of doing to square himself again with the Cheyennes. But he was pretty sure that Brackman and O’Malley had no intention of letting him live.
He stopped thinking as Walking Bear and the little band of warriors came in again. He tensed; there was something different about the charge this time. Walking Bear was desperate; time was running out. There was insanity in the way th
e brave came on, not slowing as he reached the limit of rifle range.
Behind him, the other warriors pulled up, realizing they could be reached by carbine fire. But Walking Bear only leaned low over his horse’s neck, lashed the animal with his quirt, aimed his rifle one-handed. Sundance caught his breath. The brave intended to charge right in. Crazy with grief and rage and jealousy, he was suicidal.
Sundance’s eyes went to Brackman. “I think it’s. time to teach that red bastard a lesson,” Brackman said. He strode to Eagle, still worn out, picketed by the bluff. The big horse, exhausted, sidled, but did not fight, as Brackman pulled Sundance’s Henry from the scabbard.
Then Walking Bear was closer, and still coming hard. “Hold your fire!” Brackman shouted. He lay down behind a rock, jacked in a round, rested the Henry, aimed it. Sundance was on his feet.
“Walking Bear!” he screamed in Cheyenne. “Go back! You hear, go back!”
O’Malley whirled, lashed out with a huge fist. Sundance sprawled back against the bluff. “Shut your mouth,” O’Malley snarled, and then, through a haze of pain, there was nothing Sundance could do but watch.
There was an endless moment in which the world seemed to hold its breath, the only sounds the drumming of the hooves of Walking Bear’s roan, the shrill gobble of the Cheyenne’s war whoop. With one leg hooked around his pony’s neck, he was a tiny target, his rifle pointed under the pony’s jaw. Four hundred yards, three hundred, and still he came on. Brackman lay motionless behind the rock.
Then the Henry roared.
It was a magnificent, a superb shot. The bullet passed beneath the pony’s jaw, and the patch of Walking Bear’s face visible there seemed to dissolve. The horse came on, full tilt, but it was riderless now, as Walking Bear’s body whirled off it, landing sprawled in the dirt. The brave lay there for a moment, then tried to rise, shoving himself to hands and knees, face dripping blood. Sundance heard the snick of the Henry’s lever, Brackman’s soft chuckle. The roan veered off, giving Brackman a clear field of fire.