by John Benteen
Then he called Eagle to him, mounted the stallion, used it to catch up O’Malley’s horse. He unlashed the bull hide bags, took out his own bow and quiver. He strung the bow, shrugged through the quiver strap. He had already gathered up all O’Malley’s guns and ammunition, the big man’s cavalry saber and sheath knife. He would need all the weapons he could get.
For a moment, he stared out across the prairie. Brackman was out there, bound for Julesburg, and once he reached the town, he would be almost impossible to get at. But it was three days’ ride to Julesburg, and Sundance did not intend to let him reach it.
He had other plans for Brackman, and not even the fact that two dozen soldiers rode with the man would keep him from carrying out those plans.
Sundance touched Eagle with his heels, and the big horse, fully restored in strength, took off at a long, ground-devouring lope.
Somewhere far away, a bull buffalo bellowed angrily like distant thunder. Closer at hand, coyotes yapped, and there was the occasional long, chilling howl of a lobo. The moon was just rising; the prairie was not yet flooded with its silver light.
Sundance had left Eagle far away; this was a job to be done on foot—or, rather, on his belly, for now he was crawling through the tall grass as silently as any snake. Naked except for loincloth and moccasins, he had left rifle and pistol with Eagle; for what he had to do, they would be only useless baggage. His blond hair had been plastered with mud from a buffalo wallow, and his face and body smeared with war paint, not only because he was out to kill, but because the stripes and circles made excellent camouflage.
Now, having crawled a long way, he halted. The wind had stopped blowing for the moment. He moved only when breeze riffled the prairie grass. His bow was cradled in his arm, a couple of arrows clutched in his hand. But there were not as many arrows in his quiver as there had been this morning when he had left the grove, after the death of O’Malley.
He had used four already. Late in the afternoon, worried about the sergeant’s failure to catch up, Brackman had sent a patrol of three men along the detachment’s back trail. Sundance had been following that trail like a hunting wolf, in no hurry, for what he had in mind could be done only in darkness. And he had seen the three men long before they saw him.
The three men were frightened; he could read that in their manner. The Seventh was new to the plains, full of the dregs of Eastern slums, and the trio were in a strange and hostile environment. How hostile, they did not know, until Sundance loosed the first arrow as, having reined in, the men puzzled over the strange pattern of hoof tracks he had made across the back trail.
Aware of their coming, he had done it deliberately, knowing that they would have to halt to figure out what that pattern meant. While they conferred nervously, they made good targets. The first arrow took one squarely between the shoulder blades, and even before his body had hit the ground, Sundance had unloosed three more. One missed; the other two struck home. As one soldier cursed and raised his gun, a shaft caught him in the throat; the other kicked his horse—and rode right into an arrow that knocked him from the saddle. His heel caught in the stirrup and his body bounced as his horse stampeded across the prairie.
And thus, in a minute, it was all over, in total silence. Sundance had scuttled from the clump of grass behind which he’d taken cover, finished off one who still clung to life with a knife. He managed to salvage one arrow; the one that had missed was lost, another had broken beneath a man’s weight, and a third was still fastened in the man whose horse was dragging him. Then Sundance had run back to Eagle, mounted, and rode on with three fewer arrows.
The breeze picked up, and Sundance began to crawl again. By nightfall, Brackman would be really worried: four men missing. He had picked his camping place carefully, on high ground that dominated the terrain, and he had allowed the men to build no fires. On the reverse slope of the ridge, the horses were picketed, still saddled, and he had put a strong guard around them.
There was a strong guard, too, on the rise of ground. From here, they could see anyone who approached on horseback for miles, even without moonlight. They could have spotted, too, the gleam of star shine on metal. Except for the sheathed knife he had taken from O’Malley, there was no metal on Sundance; even the arrowheads were stone. He had taken great precautions and he did not think they could spot him. But he could see them, four men ranged at intervals along the ridge, and there would be others in a circle around the camp. At this distance, three hundred yards, they would be tricky targets in the darkness; he wanted to get a hundred and fifty yards closer.
It took him a long while. But hunting men was no trickier than hunting, say, a deer, and Sundance many times had made that sort of stalk, moving only while the animal fed, watching its flickering tail. When that tail stopped moving, a deer would raise its head and look around; and then the hunter froze. Once, on a dare from Walking Bear, Sundance had come close enough to a deer to leap on its back and cut its throat with a knife. He did not think he would have too much trouble with the kind of soldiers Custer’s cavalry boasted.
He made another hundred yards. Now the figures on the ridge were much closer. His mouth curled in contempt. An Indian would have kept guard on his belly, watching over the crest. These fools stood erect, skylining themselves, walking back and forth as if on some parade ground, sometimes gathering nervously in a cluster to reassure one another.
The wind stopped, then blew again. Another fifty yards, and now he could even hear their voices; they chattered constantly to one another. Then he froze; a new figure appeared, bent low. “You damn fools,” Brackman’s voice drifted to him, “shut up that talk and get your asses down behind that ridge. That’s no way to keep guard.” Then he disappeared.
The men followed his orders. They edged down behind the slope, but they did not lie down; they were too restless, too jittery. Their heads and shoulders were still revealed. Sundance, in range now, waited.
He waited for a very long time. Long enough for those men to be relieved and four more to come on duty. By then, Brackman would have turned in. The new men, as their predecessors had done at first, came all the way up to the ridge crest, began to talk.
Now, Sundance thought, the time was right. He waited until the four of them were strung out along the ridge, silhouettes against the sky.
Then he notched the first arrow and, rising to a sitting position in the tall grass, took careful aim at the soldier on the far right.
The faint whistling sound of the loosed shaft was very nearly inaudible. The soldier groaned softly as it caught him in the chest; then he sank to the ground and died.
Thirty yards away, another soldier whipped around. “Joe? Hey, Joe—” The words choked off as Sundance let go another arrow.
He had aimed for the heart, but there must have been something wrong with the feathering. The arrow went high, missed. The man heard its whistle, turned in confusion, raising his gun. The next shaft caught him squarely in the breast, and he dropped the weapon and died without a sound.
The other two had seen it. “Christ Almighty!” one exclaimed. It was the last utterance he ever made. Sundance had already loosed another arrow. The man fell backward in full view of his remaining comrade. That man cried out; suddenly he raised his carbine, began to spray the prairie. Bullets whistled far over Sundance’s head, for the soldier could see no target. Sundance let go another arrow from flat on his belly, and though it was a difficult position in which to shoot, the rifle fire ended suddenly, as the man toppled down the ridge with an arrow through his head.
Sundance turned, hastily began to wriggle away. He made about fifty yards to the left before men swarmed up the ridge. He heard Brackman cursing. “Goddammit, lay some fire down out there. Rake the place.”
Sundance stopped, plastered himself to earth, lay motionless as a rock. Bullets whined and snapped overhead or chugged into dirt around him, but most of the fire was concentrated on the area he had just left. Presently, it tapered off, at Brackman’s command.
Sundance heard Brackman’s snarl. “All right! I want everybody awake all night. Spread out, keep watch. It’s not a whole tribe, only one damned man. Sundance—he must have killed O’Malley somehow. But hell, there are still plenty of us. If you all look sharp and shoot at anything that moves out there, we’ll get the bastard!” He turned away. “And double the guard on the horses. He’ll try to stampede those.”
Sundance grinned, did not move, listened to Brackman raging around the camp. He could almost sympathize with the man. Experienced plainsman and Indian fighter himself, Brackman had to try to mobilize rank amateurs to his defense.
Sundance lay where he was until some of the confusion had died down. After a while, the camp was quiet, though he knew everyone was awake. He began to crawl again. It would take him a long time to get around to the far side where the horses were.
It did—two hours. Now the moon was high. He had to go slower for fear of making a target, being detected. He swung wide around the toe of the ridge, came up a small wash on its reverse side. Then he halted, freezing, hugging the bottom of the depression.
Brackman had sensed it would make a good approach. He had posted a guard at its head. The man squatted, staring down the wash, rifle ready, occasionally twisting his head to look over his shoulders as if fearful something might come up behind him. Beyond, Sundance could see the picketed horses. Restless from the shooting and the smell of blood on the night wind, they stamped and snorted. That was good; their sound would mask any he might make.
He waited. The soldier lit a pipe, smoked it. Time crawled by. Now it was after midnight, then it was closer to one. The soldier stood up sometimes, squatted again, yawned, stretched, once slapped his own cheek, as if to keep himself awake. Sundance, during that whole time, moved not a muscle.
The soldier moved a little way down the wash. He looked all around, saw nothing, although Sundance lay concealed not a hundred yards away. Then, with one more furtive glance toward the camp itself, he sat down, leaned against the bank of the narrow draw.
Sundance waited until his head had sagged, and he could hear the rhythmic sound of gentle snoring. Then Sundance moved.
He came up the wash on his belly, crawling swiftly. Within minutes, he was not more than five feet from the sleeping soldier, who, gun cradled across his lap, head slumped, leaned against the bank. Sundance had no arrow drawn, nor did he need any. He reversed the bow in his hand, so that its taut-stretched string was toward the guard. Then, soundlessly, he made a short rush, raised the bow, slipped it down over the guard’s head, clamped the string down with both hands and gave the weapon a twist. The cord bit into the guard’s neck, then doubled around it like a tourniquet. Sundance twisted the bow again. The man came up, clawing at the string, but the loop around his throat, drawing tighter, choked off all sound. His legs kicked out, the sound of the struggle masked by the stamping of the horses. Then his hands fell from his throat, and his body went limp. Sundance kept pressure applied a full minute more, then untwisted the bow. The string had stretched, and that was bad, but it would cost him only a few pounds of pressure on an arrow, and tomorrow he could shorten it.
He crawled across the dead guard’s body. At the head of the wash, he halted. Other guards paced back and forth behind the ranks of horses. He counted three of them.
Sundance took four arrows from his quiver.
Two of the guards dropped without a sound; the third yelled when the shaft caught him low. Sundance did not shoot the fourth arrow; he was already running down the wash. Long before the others had come in answer to their comrade’s alarm, Sundance was in the tall grass again, flat on his belly.
He had done enough for tonight. He lay there for a while, and they began to search all around him. Once, a man came within ten yards of him, but did not see him in the darkness. Another hour passed; they quieted down again; that is, they huddled together in a knot, guns up, banded like sheep. Nobody would go out on the perimeter again, no matter how much Brackman raged.
By three o’clock, Sundance was back where he had left Eagle. He mounted up, rode miles ahead and to the west. Then he halted the big horse, spread his blankets in a hollow under a sand hill, and slept.
Five hours later, he awakened and mounted again. He rode hard to get ahead of the column. He found a rise of ground, hunkered down behind it with the Spencer carbine he’d taken from O’Malley in his hands. Again he waited, motionless, ignoring the buffalo gnats that swarmed over him and bit his naked flesh.
Presently he saw them, a strung-out blotch of blue on the dun flat below. The men rode slumped, weary, in their saddles. Barbara’s yellow hair made a bright blot in their midst; and Brackman was beside her. Sundance saw him snap orders, send the flankers farther out on either side. Sundance waited.
He calculated the range to the last yard. He wanted them just within reach of the Spencer. He wished he had a buffalo gun or his own Henry. But the Spencer would have to do. He held high to allow for the distance. He fired three rounds. A flanker on either side toppled from the saddle; the third shot was low, killed a horse, sent a man sprawling. Sundance waited not a second, but slid down the ridge and ran for Eagle, mounted without touching stirrup, and rode hard.
Julesburg was not far away and there might be other patrols out. Tonight, he thought, he would have to stake everything on a final throw of the dice.
From a ridge, he watched the column; now it moved at a gallop, almost in flight. The soldiers were terrified; their only thought was to reach safety as fast as possible. But no matter how hard they rode, they would still have to spend one more night on the prairie. And when the time came to camp, they would be as Sundance wanted them—exhausted.
Darkness again. They had camped in a kind of bowl, rimmed in by humps of rising ground. The men did not even try to post a guard; they huddled together once more around a fire they built despite Brackman’s furious protest. Sundance could hear, from his hiding place on the west side of the camp, Brackman cursing them.
They ignored him.
Sundance grinned. He waited.
Time passed. Brackman alone prowled the perimeter, Sundance’s Henry in his hands. Once he halted. “Sundance!” he bellowed. “Goddamn you, I know you’re out there! I warn you now, if you try anything tonight, I’ll kill the girl! I will, you hear?”
Sundance did not answer. He had expected this.
Last night, the men had got no sleep. All day, they had ridden hard, in terror. Sundance watched the stars wheel across the sky, then looked down at the camp. One by one, he saw the men give up, unable to stay awake. One by one, while Brackman raged, they crawled into their blankets, slept like dead men. By morning, some of them would be. Sundance drew the knife he had taken from O’Malley. He ran his thumb along its edge. He had spent an hour honing it to razor-keenness on the whetstone from his parfleche.
By one, every soldier in camp was stretched out, snoring. Barbara lay sprawled in blankets by the embers of the fire. Only Brackman was awake. Sundance saw him rub tobacco in his eyes, an old plainsman’s trick for fighting sleep.
But not even Brackman could endure forever. After a while, his head drooped. He jerked it up a time or two, stood up, looked around, sat down again. Sundance did not lose patience. Finally Brackman’s head sagged limply. Then he fell over on his side, gun cradled in his arm. Another twenty minutes passed. The embers of the fire died. Sundance arose; crouched low, armed only with the knife, he scuttled down the slope into the hollow.
He cut the throats of four men who lay in their blankets, and with his hand clamped over their mouths, none of them made sound enough to rouse his fellows. Even Brackman did not stir, though there were muffled gurglings. Then, like a shadow, Sundance ran to Barbara, clamped his hand over her mouth, shook her awake.
She sat up, staring at him wide-eyed, then relaxed. Brackman stirred, rolled over. Sundance froze, hand still sealing Barbara’s mouth. Brackman began to snore. Sundance threw the girl over his shoulder; he did not dare let her run fo
r fear she’d stumble and give the alarm. Soundless as the wind, he carried her out of camp.
At a safe distance, he put her down. They ran together until they reached the spot where Eagle waited. Only then did she break the silence. “Sundance—” She sagged against him. “Oh, Jim—”
He held her for a moment. “It’s all right.” He stroked her hair. “It’s all right, now. Listen, can you ride?”
“Yes.”
“Take Eagle. Head in that direction; you’ll be in Julesburg by noon tomorrow. There’ll be no Indians between here and there; you may run into the cavalry. Anyhow, you should make it all right. Go to Fort Sedgwick, they’ll get in touch with your father at Ellsworth.”
“And you?”
Sundance grinned. It was not a pleasant grin; it was the snarl of a hunting animal. “I’ve got business with Brackman,” he said. “It may take a few days. I’ll meet you at Ellsworth.”
She stared at him. Then she said, “Yes. You’re sure you’ll be there?”
“I’ll be there,” Sundance said. He hesitated. “Barbara, I’m sorry about Walking Bear. It was my fault.”
She turned her face away. “It couldn’t be helped. Just ... be sure to come to Ellsworth.”
“Yes,” Sundance said, and he put her up on Eagle and slapped the stallion on the rump. He watched the big horse carry her into darkness; then, tireless as a lobo, he loped back across the plains to Brackman’s camp.
Everyone still slept. Sundance moved in quietly on the horse herd. He counted the number of horses carefully, balancing them against how many people were left alive. He cut picket ropes, mounted a big chestnut, gathered the lead ropes of the other horses in his hand. He kicked the chestnut hard, sent it pounding out of camp with the led horses galloping behind.