by John Benteen
Then Walking Bear, his face a mask of scarlet, managed to get unsteadily to his feet. He still held his rifle, and his shield was on his arm. His whole lower jaw had been shot away, but, incredibly, he raised the gun and began to lurch forward; and Sundance knew that silently he must be singing his death song.
“Now,” Brackman said, a kind of joy in his voice. “Watch.”
The Henry roared again, and Barbara Colfax screamed.
Walking Bear’s body came on two steps more, but it had no head left, now. The Henry’s second round had exploded the warrior’s skull. It lurched forward, that thing that had been Sundance’s friend, as if not even death itself could stop it. Then it fell limply, and Brackman arose from behind the rock. “It’s a good gun,” he said, stroking the Henry’s receiver. “A damned good gun. I think I’ll keep it.”
Barbara buried her face against Sundance’s shoulder, crying convulsively. Sundance said nothing. Brackman came and stood above him. “They’ll go, now. Right?”
Sundance looked up at him. “They’ll go.”
Brackman grinned.
Sundance said, “Brackman, you’d better kill me. He was my friend. If you want to stay alive, you’d better kill me.”
“Don’t worry,” Brackman said. “That can be arranged. But I’m afraid the pleasure belongs to Sergeant O’Malley. He’ll have it by and by.”
At the base of the butte, three fires of buffalo chips burned. Soldiers sat clustered around two of them. O’Malley and Brackman faced Sundance and Barbara across the other one. Their hands were still tied, but they had been able to cram themselves with jerky and Army biscuit, and with the food, Sundance felt strength returning.
Barbara, though, was still dazed, in shock, from all that had happened. Face smudged with dirt and tears, hair a tousle, she ate mechanically, silently. On her cheek, the bruise from Brackman’s blow was a huge blotch of livid purple.
Brackman, through eating, took a bottle of whiskey from a saddlebag, pulled the cork with his teeth, drank long and deeply, passed it to O’Malley, who took a massive draught. Then Brackman reclaimed the bottle, got up and went to Barbara. “Here. Take a snort of this. It’ll put some fire in your belly.”
She turned her head away. Brackman seized her hair, wrenched her face around, forced the bottle between her teeth, poured whiskey down her throat. She gagged, had to swallow to keep from choking. Brackman laughed, stepped back, drank again. “When I talk to you,” he said, “you’d better answer. When I tell you to do something, you’d better do it, pronto.” He sat down again. “Never mind,” he said. “Once I get you back to Julesburg, it won’t take me long to break you. Before I get through with you, you’ll lick my boots.”
Barbara, coughing, managed to blurt, “You’ll never get away with it. Any of it.”
“I’ll get away with all of it,” Brackman said. His eyes glittered in the firelight. “Any man who can be scalped and live can get away with anything. Including taming a bitch like you.” He drank again. “All the way to Cimarron Springs, I wanted to get my hands on you, and you wouldn’t give me the time of day. I had plans for you even then, girl, and if the Cheyennes hadn’t hit us, you’d be crawling on your belly to me right now.”
He turned to Sundance. The whiskey was loosening his tongue. “And as for you, half-breed . . . You’d have been a whole lot better off if you’d listened to Irene Colfax. You coulda made fifteen thousand dollars for doin’ nothing.”
“So it was her,” Barbara whispered.
“Sure.” Brackman chuckled. “She came to me before the wagon train pulled out. We struck a bargain—in a lot of ways. She told me where the gold was, in return for making sure you never came back home again. I’d already figured you were too much woman to kill—breaking you would be more fun. Well, I had to put it off awhile. But I’ll do it now. The Cheyenne bucks have had their turn at you. But when I git through with you, you’ll forget all about them.”
O’Malley took the bottle, drank, passed it to Brackman. Brackman took another long swig, went on. “I’ll admit, I thought I was finished when the Cheyennes came. They hit us like a cyclone; a bullet knocked me out. When I come to, all my men was dead and I was scalped.” His face twisted. “It hurt. I reckon all my life it’ll hurt, every minute, that deerskin patch rubbin’ against the raw meat. But never mind. A piece of skin the size of a dollar, that ain’t much against a hundred thousand in gold.”
“You got it,” Sundance said.
“Hell, yes, I got it. The Injuns didn’t know about the false bottoms in those trunks. The gold was still there when I come to. I cached it and struck out for help. The Army found me, patched me up, and then I went back and got it. Took it to Julesburg.”
He leaned back, the bottle cradled between his hands. “Now I got some capital. You know? Brought up on a dirt farm in Illinois, come out here to seek my fortune, never found it. Nothin’ but trappin’ beaver in ice water up to my ass, fightin’ Injuns. But now, a hundred thousand dollars! I got me a dance hall in Julesburg, it’s already paid for itself. And I got somethin’ else, too, Sundance. I got land!”
He took another swig of liquor. “The government gives the railroad every other section along its track. The railroad sells it off to anybody’ll develop it, to git settlers out here. Right now, they sell it dirt cheap, on account of the Injuns. But the time will come when that land will go up in price seven times, eight. That’s the time when there ain’t no more Injuns! And then I make my killin’!”
“That time’s a long way off,” Sundance said.
Brackman laughed. “Not as long as you think.”
“Meaning?”
“Meaning,” Brackman said, his face like stone, “that I ain’t waitin’ for the Army to wipe out the Injuns. I’m gonna do it myself.”
Sundance said, “Are you? All single-handed?”
“You’re damn right,” Brackman said.
O’Malley cut in thickly, “Tod, you’re shootin’ off your mouth too much.”
Brackman whirled on him. “You’re finishin’ off Sundance tomorrow?”
“Yeah, but—”
“Then what difference does it make? He’s the one man out here that can understand what I aim to do, the one man I want to see react when he hears it. I can learn a lot just from the way he looks.” Brackman turned to Sundance.
“About twenty years ago,” he said, “cholera wiped out half the Cheyenne tribe. You remember? The immigrants brought it with ’em and the Injuns couldn’t stand it, and they died like flies.”
Sundance stared at him. “I remember,” he said tonelessly.
“That,” Brackman said, “and smallpox, and tuberculosis. They got no defense against it. None. Like firewater. Booze. They can’t handle that, either; nothin’ in their systems to allow for it. Well, Sundance, you put the booze and the cholera and smallpox and all the rest together—”
Sundance understood now. His body turned cold. “Brackman—”
“That’s right, Sundance; you got the picture. I been just about givin’ whiskey away, all over the country south of the Platte. Dishin’ it out by the barrel and the case. Any way an Injun wants it, anything he’s got to sell for it, that’s okay with me.”
“Tod,” O’Malley said.
“Shut ap. I want him to hear this.” Brackman leaned forward, teeth bared, eyes shining in the firelight. “So I got their confidence, Sundance. The Kiowas, the Comanches, the Arapaho, the Paiutes, the Apaches, all except the Cheyennes, and I’ll get them, too. All the redskins that range the southern plains. I get ’em hooked good, like fish, on cheap booze. And then you know what happens?”
He straightened up. “I’ll throw in a blanket here and a blanket there that’s been wrapped around somebody with smallpox. And cholera and T.B.—I got a doctor in Julesburg, a damned drunk, treating the bottles now. And then it’ll spread, you see? An Injun gets an infected blanket or buys an infected bottle, and it goes like wildfire.”
He sprang to his feet, began to pace ar
ound the fire like some great cat. “That’ll kill ’em faster than the Army ever can. And the hearts-and-flowers people back in Washington can’t say a word about it.” He struck his chest. “You see, Sundance? Single-handed, I can wipe out half, three-quarters of the plains tribes. Then the Army won’t have any trouble with the rest. A year, two at the most, and the land I’m buying will be worth eight, ten times what it costs now. And I’ll be a millionaire!” He struck his thigh with one big hand. “Before I get through, they’ll pay for this scalp a million times over! Nobody, when the chips are down, will ever have killed more Indians than Tod Brackman!”
Sundance only stared at him.
Brackman laughed. “It’ll work. I can see in your face, it’ll work.”
Then he sat down. “But you won’t be around to see it. You see, Sundance, it’s all been figured out. Nobody stands in the way but you and her. I’ll take care of her; she goes to Julesburg with me, and when I git through with her, she won’t even remember what her real name is, much less anything else. And you . . . you’re O’Malley’s meat.”
“You can’t wipe me out in front of a whole Army patrol,” Sundance said.
This time O’Malley laughed. “Sure, and this is no ordinary patrol. This is a patrol of the Seventh Cavalry, run by the most hard luck General ever lived, and nothing but a group of deserting bastards. And the men here are handpicked, scared spitless of Sean O’Malley or in his debt. The very dregs of the cup, Sundance; a patrol I put together for the special purpose of findin’ you and the girl.”
“I hired four Kiowas to find you and kill you,” Brackman cut in. “You turned the tables on ‘em, rubbed them out instead. Okay, the bleeding hearts back in Washington are very damned upset about white men killing Indians without cause. You’re under arrest for the murder of four innocent Kiowas. And tomorrow, when the time’s right, you’ll try to escape. And then Sergeant O’Malley will be forced to kill you. You see?”
Sundance flexed his bound wrists. “I see you’re crazy, Brackman. Maybe that scalping addled your wits; maybe the beating I gave O’Malley shook him up. But you’ve got two dozen soldiers here. You think they’ll keep quiet? When they tell their CO.?”
“Custer?” Brackman chuckled. “What makes you think they’d tell him? The whole Seventh Cavalry hates his guts. And even if they did, I’d see to it he didn’t believe ’em. He’s in my pocket, Sundance. The sonofabitch is the worst poker player in the world. He’s three thousand dollars in debt to me right now, and he can’t pay up. I could get him cashiered tomorrow for that, and he knows it. No, no. Don’t depend on the Army to bail you out.”
His eyes shuttled from Sundance to Barbara. “Tomorrow we strike out for Julesburg. We’ll pass the place where you killed the Kiowas—we’ve found their bodies. Sergeant O’Malley will take you there to get a deposition on the spot. You’ll try to run for it, and—” He snapped his fingers. “The rest of the patrol goes on toward Fort Sedgwick at Julesburg with me. But when we’re safe from Injuns, O’Malley takes them back to Fort Harker. The girl and I go into Julesburg after dark, alone, and she goes upstairs in my place there. And then I have her all to myself; and when I get through . . . Well, I’ve said that. Anyhow, you see, Sundance? All fits together so damned neat. Nothing left out. Everything locked up. And you got any fancy Cheyenne prayers to say, you better say ’em tonight. Because tomorrow’s your buryin’ day.”
Chapter Eight
Brackman had judged right; by morning, the Cheyennes were gone.
Sundance and Barbara were hustled out of sleep, their hands still tied. Brackman smiled sardonically as he watched them drink coffee, wolf biscuits. “Enjoy your meal, Sundance. Last you’ll ever have. We ought to hit that grove before noon where we found the Kiowas. Then there’ll be five bodies there.” He whirled, strode through the camp. “All right, dammit, mount up!”
By an hour after dawn, the column pulled out. Sundance, on Eagle, rode beside Barbara, with Brackman on one flank, O’Malley on the other. They had stripped the stallion of every weapon; the bull hide bags, containing bow and arrows and shield and all the other things, were lashed now behind O’Malley’s McClellan saddle.
Sundance was like some great hunting cat; the night’s sleep and the food had restored him. Bound as he was, he rode straight up, eyes shuttling back and forth, always alert. No man could live forever, but he aimed to live as long as he could, and the way to do that was to stay awake, always look for the long chance. But, he had to admit, long chances seemed now pretty few and far between. Crazy or not, Brackman and O’Malley had all bets coppered; and what was worse, Sundance could find no flaw in Brackman’s plan. It would work. Once you started disease rampaging through the Indians, they would die like flies.
He shifted restlessly in the saddle. The barrel of O’Malley’s rifle prodded him in the ribs. “Stand fast, bucko. It ain’t far now. Jist down the creek. Then you and me, we’ll peel off.”
There was nothing Sundance could do.
They were in familiar terrain now. O’Malley was right; ahead and to the left the grove in which Sundance had killed the Kiowas was dark against the bright sky. The sergeant spurred forward, ahead of the column, signaled it to halt.
“All right, you spalpeens. I have business in yonder woods. I’m taking the prisoner over there to the scene of his crime. The rest of ye ride on to Julesburg with Mr. Brackman, and ye obey his orders, understand? I’ll catch up with ye later.”
Brackman laughed. “Save me his stallion, O’Malley.” And a kind of jeer went up from the troop. There was not a one of them who did not know what would happen up there.
Barbara Colfax turned to Sundance. “Jim . . .”
He looked down at her. “Go with him. Play it his way. I made some promises to you. I’ll try to keep them.”
“Jim,” she said, “that’s not the point.”
“What’s the point?”
“I—” She broke off. “I’ll tell you later. If we meet again.”
“Enough lallygaggin’!” O’Malley rapped, and he jabbed Sundance with the rifle once more. “Into the timber, me bucko!”
There was no help for it. Sundance kneed Eagle around. He rode for the timber, with O’Malley close behind, rifle trained, while the column veered northwest.
Eagle had fully recovered from his ordeal; he crested the rise easily. Then they were in the woods above the spring. In the clearing, Sundance saw the bodies of the four Kiowas, dragged from beneath their blankets by the wolves and coyotes. There was not much left of them. The soldiers had stolen their guns and knives and taken their bows and most of the arrows for souvenirs. A few shafts lay scattered about among the varmint-eaten bodies, nothing else.
“Pull up,” O’Malley rapped, training his carbine on Sundance.
Sundance jerked Eagle to a halt. He could have put the big stallion in a charge by the pressure of his knees, but O’Malley would only shoot the horse.
“Now, off yer mount,” O’Malley said.
Sundance obediently swung down. Eagle cantered off a way, halted, ears pricked.
Still mounted, O’Malley thrust down his carbine at Sundance’s face, grinning. His eyes shuttled from Sundance to the remnant of the Kiowa bodies. “Now,” he said, “ye have come to the end of the line, boy.” With astonishing grace for so big a man, he swung down, never taking the gun off Sundance. “Ye caught me on a bad day at Fort Harker. But it’s a bad day fer ye now, and I aim to show ye how it feels. Ye’re gonna die, all right. But not by no bullet. Sean O’Malley is gonna kill ye with his hands. And ye won’t, by no means, be the first.” He thrust the carbine through the scabbard ring on the saddle and whacked the horse on the rump.
Sundance backed away, stepping over the remnants of a Kiowa corpse. “You ain’t got the guts to take these wrappings off my hands.”
“No. It ain’t a matter of guts. A matter of pleasure.” O’Malley clubbed his enormous fists. “The pure pleasure of beatin’ ye to death at me leisure.” He charged in, and Sunda
nce tried to dodge, but that great hand caught him and picked him up and threw him across the corpse of another Kiowa, and his head rang and he felt blood trickle from his mouth.
But O’Malley never slowed, leaped at him, raised a booted foot and kicked. Sundance curled in agony as ribs gave, not quite breaking, under that brutal toe. He rolled again, right across the body of another Indian, or what was left of it. Curled himself into a ball, to withstand the next kick. And then his bound hands closed on it.
O’Malley came after him, laughing, drew back his right foot.
Sundance rolled, summoned all his strength and agility, bounded to his feet. As O’Malley’s foot lashed out, he dodged, then threw himself forward, putting all his two hundred pounds behind that lunge, with the single Kiowa arrow he had grasped held straight out.
O’Malley, off balance from the kick, had no time to dodge. His eyes widened as he saw the sharp steel arrowhead aimed at his belly. Then Sundance rammed it home.
O’Malley screamed, lashed out with both fists, but it was too late. Sundance leaned on the cherry wood shaft and felt the point come out O’Malley’s back, grating on his spine.
O’Malley gagged, fell backward. That jerked the arrow back through him; the barbed head lodged in his entrails. He landed on his back, his weight pulling the shaft from Sundance’s hands. Clutching the part of it that protruded, he rolled, legs drawing up, then kicking out convulsively. “Mary,” he whickered, “Mother of God!”
It took him a long time to die. Sundance, having rolled across three rotting bodies, stank of death himself and did nothing to hasten O’Malley’s, only scooped the Colt from the sergeant’s belt and held it ready.
After a while, O’Malley was still. Sundance pushed the arrow all the way through his body, went back to the Kiowa’s grinning corpse, and carefully laid the arrow beside it. As he did so, his hand crept to his chest, touching the otter-skin pouch there, his medicine bag, in which the sacred symbols of his childhood dreaming were carried. It was his luck, and it had not failed him. He looked down at what was left of the Kiowas; the soldiers had looted them of nearly everything. If it had not been for Brackman’s whiskey, they would have been his friends, not his victims. In death, they had saved him. He said, quietly, “Thank you, brothers.”