Sundance 10

by John Benteen

  The Appaloosa was the third stallion of his breed to bear that name; his two predecessors had been Nez Percé horses, bred and born in the mountains of Idaho and Washington by Chief Joseph’s people. Now the Nez Percé had been defeated, too, in their attempt to escape to Canada—another feather in Miles’ cap. After that, they had been sent to Indian Territory, Oklahoma, where so many of them had died that, five years before, they had been shipped back finally—the remnant of them—to the Colville Reservation in Eastern Oregon. They no longer bred warhorses as they once had; but Sundance still did.

  Thunderbird: it was the emblem on his warrior’s shield and the name and brand of his ranch. Three more jobs with his gun after Geronimo’s surrender, and this time the money kept by himself, not sent to Washington ... He owed that much to Barbara, anyhow, he figured. She had waited for him so long, so damned long—So he had used the cash, nearly a hundred thousand, to buy fine range from the railroad in the foothills of the Paha Sapa, the Black Hills, stocking it not only with good Angus and Galloway cattle that could stand the northern winters, but with mountain-bred Appaloosas. And this stud, handpicked for his personal mount, had been trained in the old fashion. It was hunting horse and war horse, a one man animal; and if anything or anybody strange ventured near, it would let him know. It was as much watchdog as horse, and he could depend on its keen ears and nose, so long as the wind was right.

  But the wind was not always right. That was why, when he had eaten, he built up the fire again. Then he unrolled his blankets. There was a buffalo-hide sleeping bag, a Hudson’s Bay ten-point blanket, and a loose buffalo robe; if a blizzard hit, it would take all of them to keep a man from freezing out here. But as it was, the night was more like early April than late November, and he rolled the sleeping bag into a cylinder, spread the blanket over it, and took the buffalo robe with him when he crawled off into the brush. From his vantage point there, with the robe wrapped around him, the bulk of the sleeping bag, propped against the saddle he’d ordinarily use for a pillow, was a fair facsimile of a man rolled up in blankets, head pillowed on his kak, sound asleep.

  In the cedars, swathed in the robe, he waited. Two hours, he guessed; if nothing happened by then, he could go to sleep.

  One of them passed. During that interval, he did not move, and Eagle, the stallion, cropped grass placidly. The second one had just begun when Eagle snorted.

  Sundance, wholly awake, tensed. He knew the horse’s every trait, and he knew, too, that Eagle had one sort of signal for animals and another one for men, and he was glad that he had a round already levered into the Winchester. He held his breath, did not move a muscle. Beyond the fire, not far away, the cedars were a wall of blackness, the silence of the night profound and total.

  Then the dark exploded in a volley. Guns roared, and tongues of flame licked out, and the sleeping bag twitched under the impact of bullets. Sundance saw that in the last glow of dying embers, and still he did not move.

  As abruptly as it had begun, the gunfire ceased. Two Winchesters, firing maybe five rounds each; there would be plenty left in those rifles. Eagle whinnied, strained at his picket rope, and threshed the brush. Other than that, everything was suddenly absolutely still again. And Sundance had not yet twitched so much as a muscle.

  He had no way of telling how many minutes passed, but he guessed fifteen. Then they emerged from the brush, the two Minniconjou Sioux, swathed in blanket coats. They held their rifles poked forward tensely as they edged into the clearing, then dark silhouettes faintly outlined by the glowing coals.

  They looked at one another. Then both stepped across the fire, and suddenly each hit the blanket roll. Sundance’s mouth twisted; they were counting coup in the old style. He saw the rifle barrels rise and fall, and then he saw both of them look at each other with widened eyes. That was when he stood up.

  “My brothers,” he said in Minniconjou dialect, “I don’t want to have to kill you—”

  One of them instinctively clapped hand to mouth. The other whirled, bringing up his gun.

  Sundance shot him.

  In the silence, his rifle’s slap was thunderous. The Minniconjou caught the bullet in his chest, went rocking backwards. The second one dropped both hands to his gun, squeezed off a shot. It went wild as Sundance aimed in low, caught him in the belly with a slug. The man screamed, crumpled, dropped the Winchester. Hands clutched to gut, he fell beside the fire.

  Sundance whirled toward him, knowing he was not yet dead. Then the Appaloosa stallion cut loose with a screaming whinny. At the same instant, Sundance heard the rustle of brush behind him and began to turn.

  He was too late. Two more Minniconjou hit him from behind, knocking him forward across the wounded Indian who howled in pain. One seized his Winchester as both piled on him, wrenched it from his hand. At the same time, he felt his Colt jerked from holster.

  He bucked, twisted, with every ounce of strength, and the dying man beneath him cried out once more. Muscles like iron bands developed over four hard decades raised his body, despite the double weight of the two warriors clinging to him like panthers. A knife blade slashed down, chopping the wolf skin jacket, buckskin, the flesh beneath, but it was a glancing blow. Instead, the Bowie sank into the back of the Minniconjou with a terrible chopping sound, and the wounded man let out one last cry, the most unearthly howl Sundance had ever heard come from a human throat. For one clock tick that awful sound and the knowledge that they had killed their own man froze his two attackers, and he used that instant. He got loose one arm, brought it back, locked it around a Minniconjou’s neck, and, with more power than even he’d known he possessed, he managed a flying mare while on his knees. The Indian rolled forward across his shoulders and head and hit the dust, and then the knife blade slid across Sundance’s belly as the other thrust again; but it missed and tangled in the coat; and Sundance pulled free and now he was on his feet. Even as he jumped back into darkness, both hands were flashing down toward his weapons belt. His Colt was gone, but the Bowie and the hatchet were still there. As he drew them, the two Minniconjou scrambled to their feet, panting, faced him. One held the knife with which he’d twice tried murder, the other was reaching for a holstered pistol on his hip.

  He was the one to take out first, and Sundance threw the hatchet. Hurtling end over end through the air, it was a blur in the dying firelight. There was a sound like the breaking of an overripe gourd. The man with the gun lacked even time to scream, as, head cleft, he vanished into the darkness.

  That left one Sioux, and he drew back, facing Sundance across the embers, eyes shining in the light, teeth white between drawn-back, snarling lips. He crouched, the knife out before him. “Half-white,” he hissed. “Cheyenne old woman...”

  Sundance fell into a similar crouch, the Bowie’s foot-long steel glinting as he and the Minniconjou circled around the fire. “I had no quarrel with you,” Sundance husked. “Why did you follow me?”

  “Because Yellow Bird says you must die. Kicking Bear says it also. If you do not die, you may stop the Miracle. You are too much white, but too much Indian, too.”

  “So he sent four of you—Two in front, two who circled.” Sundance tensed, as the Minniconjou edged closer to the fire. “And took me from behind ... And now three are dead. But no need for you to die—” He shook his head. “I do not want to stop the Miracle, I promise you. I only want to stop the starving and the killing—”

  The Minniconjou’s face was lean, almost skull-like. Sundance, himself well-fed on good beef, knew why two warriors taking him from behind still had not been able to bear him down; they were weak from hunger. A kind of grief filled him, and a rage directed not at the Sioux, but at all those white faces, like peeled potatoes, around that conference table earlier today: the stupid and the frightened, the indifferent, arrogant and corrupt ... It all came back to them, to men like Fain and Hoffman ... They were the ones who, really, were responsible for the dead men in the clearing, the death awaiting either himself or this half-crazed, und
ernourished, desperate man across the fire. It was, in that instant, waiting for the Minniconjou to come at him, that Sundance made up his mind.

  If he lived, he would have had to execute four Sioux. Countless more, as well, would die one way or the other before the winter ended. Someone must pay, someone ... And he knew now who it would be. No matter what it cost him, he would, before spring came, be the executioner of Fain and Hoffman ...

  Then the Indian charged.

  It was a fantastic leap he made, light frame flying high over the embers, war whoop breaking hoarsely from his throat, as he hurled himself at Sundance. There was no time to dodge, Sundance met the charge head-on, his own blade flicking out to lock and fend the Minniconjou’s knife. Steel clanged on steel, slid off, and Sundance, knowing there was no help for it now, leaned forward, using all his superior strength and energy, twisting the Minniconjou’s Bowie to one side and thrusting with his own.

  The blade, razor keen, sliced through the worn and tattered blanket coat, whatever garments were under it, hit the breastbone, slid off and went between two ribs and into the heart. It was quick and maybe even almost painless. The Sioux raised his hand, preparing for another thrust, and then he dropped the knife and fell back. Sundance’s blade was locked between the ribs, and Sundance let go the hilt. The Indian’s legs buckled oddly, and he crumpled wordlessly to the ground, landing in an obscene, unwieldy heap; there was a stink as his bowels voided in death, and it was over. Sundance stepped back two paces. In the darkness beyond the fire, Eagle still tugged at his picket rope, whinnying. Otherwise, there was only silence.

  Sundance turned away, legs shaky. He went to the clearing’s edge, braced himself against a cedar tree, and then, rackingly, he vomited. Revulsion, reaction, grief and fury: these made his stomach empty itself and keep on jerking long after it was empty. He leaned against the tree for a long time before he recovered and went about what he had to do. He lined up the bodies of the Sioux and then he prayed for them, on his knees, arms uplifted to Wakan Tonka, chanting and singing to send them on their way to the Shadow Land. Above the rush of the nearby river, his voice rose and fell in the harsh dissonance, the wailing minor notes, of the death song.

  Chapter Six

  Thunderbird.

  Halting Eagle on a ridge crest, Sundance looked down at what he had built.

  The home ranch lay cradled in the foothills of the mountains the Sioux called Paha Sapa, shielded from harsh winter by the rise of ground and heavy timber. The house and all the outbuildings were of logs, square-hewn, carefully mortised and chinked, solid and weathertight. The corrals were plentiful and spacious; in them Appaloosas, shaggy with winter hair, were protected from the wind. Across the long valley behind the house, big haystacks contained tons of rich dried grass to see cattle through the winter. It was a place of order, solidity, prosperity; Sundance and his wife had worked hard to make it that.

  Then he touched the stallion with his heels and sent it rocketing down the slope, a shrill Cheyenne war whoop giving warning of his coming. Even before he pounded into the ranch yard, she had heard the cry and the house’s door was open and she was there.

  Sundance pulled the stallion to a sliding halt, left the saddle in a single graceful motion. “Two Roads Woman!”

  “Jim!” She ran to meet him, and he caught her, held her tightly. He kissed her long and hard, and she returned the kiss fervently, then broke away, laughing. “Come inside, we’ll freeze out here!”

  Sundance looped Eagle’s reins on the rack, followed her through the door into the big living room. It was furnished with solid, comfortable things, resplendent with the Indian gear hanging all around the wall: Cheyenne war bonnet, the one Sundance had earned as a warrior and a Dog Soldier in his youth; his Thunderbird shield; a lance, coup stick, quivers of arrows, and some remarkable drawings and paintings of Indians by a young artist named Russell, whom he’d met in Montana and bought them from. A big fire blazed in a stone fireplace, a grizzly’s hide was spread on the floor before the hearth.

  Two Roads Woman, Barbara Sundance, went to a table. “You must be freezing. A drink?”

  “One.” Sundance watched her. She was almost a decade younger than himself, body trim from riding, yet full breasted and curved-hipped and wholly feminine, her movements graceful. Her hair was blonde as his own, her eyes blue, her lips full and red; and time had done no damage to the beauty of her face, save for a few faint lines at the corners of her eyes. She wore a leather riding skirt and a buckskin Cheyenne shirt, beaded and fringed like his own. She was the only woman he had ever met who was as much at home in a Cheyenne lodge as in a Washington drawing room.

  That had been another world, he thought, the one in which the young daughter of the New York millionaire had been taken by Cheyennes en route to Santa Fe. He’d been hired by George Colfax, Barbara’s father, to bring her back, and he had done that, fulfilled the bargain, collected his enormous fee. But she had been captured by the Cheyennes in more ways than one; adopted into the tribe, she had learned to love their way of life, and he had helped her return to the band on their hunting grounds above the Yellowstone. Ever since, she had been his woman, had given him all she could, asking only his love in return. He was glad now that part of it was over, the wandering, the gun fighting, and that they could be together like this, married in the white man’s way as well as the Cheyenne way, working together to build Thunderbird into something that could be passed with pride down to the son or daughter not yet born. He stripped off his gauntlets, touched her face as she brought him a glass, raised one of her own.

  “To your return. What happened at Pine Ridge?”

  “A lot.” He told her everything, and as she listened, her face clouded.

  “Awful,” she said at last, turning to stare into the fire. “Just awful.” She paused. “Will there be a real war, a general uprising?”

  “Everything hangs on Sitting Bull and Cody. If Bill can get Tatanka Yotanka away from the Standing Rock Reservation and back East, there may be scattered fighting, but nothing serious. But all the Ghost Dancers want Sitting Bull to assume leadership. If he stays and does that and calls for war, there’ll be a bigger war, more bloodshed, than anyone out here has ever seen before. And the tribes don’t have a chance of winning. Even worse, if Sitting Bull’s arrested, clapped into prison ... Or if he’s killed... executed ... I tried to make McLaughlin, the Standing Rock agent see—” He drained the glass. “But Cody’s a good man. Maybe he can pull the fuse out of the bomb ...”

  Barbara stood rigidly. “You haven’t heard, then?”

  “Heard what?” Sundance lowered the glass. “Sam Walking Calf went to Rapid City, brought back the news. Cody never even saw Tatanka Yotanka. He started for Sitting Bull’s village on the Grand with a wagon load of presents—They say, the night before, all the officers at Fort Yates tried to drink him under the table so he couldn’t make it, but he drank them down instead, you know Bill Cody .. . and set out early the next day. But McLaughlin had wired the President. And President Harrison countermanded Miles’ authority for Cody to deal with Sitting Bull. Cody had to turn back, and now he’s headed East again. Now, if Sitting Bull’s brought in, either the soldiers or the Indian Police at Standing Rock will have to do it...”

  ~*~

  Jim Sundance stood motionless for a second. Then, slowly, harshly, he said, “Damn them. Damn them all to hell!” And he flung his glass savagely into the fireplace. “The Army or McLaughlin’s police can’t take the Bull without a fight! And that’s the spark that’ll blow up their powder keg. And now they’ll get their wish, all those bastards who want a war—the newspapers and the Army, and men like Fain—” He slammed a fist into his thigh. Then he strode toward the door.

  “Jim. Where’re you going?”

  “To call our riders in. I’ve got to talk to them. Come tomorrow, we’ve got to start a winter roundup and do it fast to beat the snow. If we can get five hundred head pushed to the Pine Ridge badlands and turned loose there before
everything blows up, hunting down that beef may divert the tribes until the snow’s too bad for fighting! I’m gonna put five hundred on to Pine Ridge, and another bunch at Rosebud, and then, if the weather holds, drive some more to Standing Rock and Cheyenne River! Fain’s contracts or not, I’m gonna feed the Sioux and the Cheyennes and hope that full bellies will stop all hell from breaking loose—I’ll shove every head we’ve got on the Reservations if it comes to that! Clean out Thunderbird! We don’t owe anybody a cent and we can restock on credit next year!”

  Barbara stared at him. For only a second fear touched her face at the knowledge that he was risking everything they’d built up. Then she smiled, squared her shoulders. “Yes, that’s the way to do it.” Then she went to a hanger, got down a fine coat made of lynx skin. “You’re dead beat. Warm yourself, have another drink, there’s coffee and stew on the stove. The hands are in the bunkhouse. I’ll tell them you want to see them.” And before Sundance could answer, she’d gone out.

  ~*~

  Mostly Angus, with only a touch of longhorn, the steer burst from the juniper thicket like a bomb exploding. With the wind at its back, it curled its tail, streaked down the slope. Behind it, a Sioux war whoop split the air, and then Sam Walking Calf was after it, the jaw bridle of his mount clenched in his teeth, coiled rope in both hands as he shook out a loop. The black steer swerved, tried to break back for the cover of another thicket, but Walking Calf’s paint pony turned on a dime, and his rope was already in the air. Its rawhide loop settled around the animal’s neck, his horse dropped back on its haunches as Walking Calf made his dally, and a thousand pounds of beef left its feet and came down crashing. Walking Calf let out that war cry again and put his horse forward, giving the steer slack to rise. When it was on its feet, shaken, dazed, it led easily toward the flat below.