Sundance 10

by John Benteen

  Jim Sundance, cresting a hill, had seen it all; and, despite a weariness that gripped him to the bone, he grinned as he hazed three more animals toward the level. After hunting buffalo, chousing a steer gone wild was simple. Walking Calf had been rough with the critter, yes; and it would cost poundage. But right now, that was beside the point. The point was to get five hundred solid beef animals together, herd broken, ready to drive across rough country in the dead of winter.

  And, Sundance thought, they were going to make it After nearly two weeks of man-killing work in brutal weather, the gather was almost finished. Down there on the flats, the black blotch that was the herd encompassed nearly five hundred animals already; one more day and they’d start driving.

  The cows he’d worked out of the hollow farther back in the hills went more easily, and Eagle, needing no help from Sundance, kept them headed in the right direction. That gave the half-breed time to look out across the rolling expanse of his range in the foothills of the Paha Sapa.

  This was the best winter range in all the Dakotas. On the high plains, even Angus and Galloways had a hard time weathering, much less the scrawny, thin-blooded Texas cattle that had formed the basis of so many Dakota herds. What that range cried out for really was buffalo again, beef animals with coats thick enough to turn the weather, with sense enough and hump enough to head into a blizzard and ride it out instead of drifting before it as cattle did until, exhausted, they froze. It was senseless, he had always thought, to wipe out animals that could produce a solid ton of meat to make room for ill-adapted beef critters who would not make half that much on the same graze.

  But here in the Paha Sapa there were ridges and timber to break the wind, and good graze close enough beneath the snow for cattle to paw it out. That was why there had always been game here in winter in the old days, so, with easy meat and plenty of firewood, the Black Hills had been the favorite and sacred wintering place of the Sioux—until Custer, on an unauthorized expedition, breaking treaty terms, had discovered gold and started a rush that had cost the Sioux their sacred lands and the brash officer his life.

  Now the whole area swarmed with miners, and Sundance could have sold every head of cattle down there at a towering profit in Deadwood and Rapid City. Profit, though, was a white man’s term; the Indians had neither conception nor word for it, and right now he felt wholly Indian ... He hazed the cattle down the slope, whooped them into the herd; and then he turned the Appaloosa and put it toward the four teepees that reared white cones on the flat, smoke curling upward toward the lowering sky. Checking Eagle before a tall lodge of heavy buffalo hide, patched where necessary with skins from his cattle, he swung down, ducked through the door.

  In here, it was warm. One thing about Indian cowhands: there was no need to run a chuck wagon or provide canvas tents. The teepees could be heated and cooking done in them and were the finest shelter for the country in winter; he did not see why white outfits did not use them. And Indians didn’t require biscuits or coffee, though they liked the latter. Give them meat, all the meat they could eat, and they were happy.

  Barbara, stirring a cauldron before the fire, her hair tousled, face smudged, smiled at him as he straightened up. He went to her, kissed her, and then, as he released her, he heard the hoof beats outside the lodge: his riders coming in. After the cowhands had turned their horses into the rope corral, they entered the teepee, filling it.

  Fifteen of them, and every one an Indian. Cheyenne, Sioux, Crow, Blackfoot, even a Pawnee or two, he had recruited them from every tribe. There was a purpose behind that, and cheap labor was not it; he paid them what white cowhands drew. They did not know it, but he was training them. The Government in Washington had learned by now that its plan for making dry-farmers out of Indians was not working; indeed, not even white men could be sure of a living every season farming on the Dakota plains. But men who had been raised on horseback and had hunted buffalo were natural cowmen. The tribes could make a living from beef, with some seed stock and some experience. Slowly, the government had come to realize that and was beginning to make provisions for each Agency to build its own herd. These men, when they’d served apprenticeship with him, could be key cowmen on their reservations.

  Right now, though, they were, like himself, hollow-eyed with weariness. Dressed in white man’s range garb, save for a beaded hatband here or a feather there or a buckskin shirt, but most of them with dark hair braided, they dropped wearily in a circle around the lodge. Fifteen years before, they would have been deadly enemies of one another, the Cheyennes and Sioux against the Crows, Blackfeet and Pawnees; now, in the intimacy of the cow camp and lacking hunting grounds to fight over any more, they were all just Indians. Most spoke English, and, of course, sign language bridged the gaps between their dialects ...

  A white rancher would have talked immediately about the day’s work and what lay ahead. Sundance only sat cross-legged opposite them in silence, smoking a cigarette. Indians would not talk until they had eaten. But after Barbara had served the boiled beef and they’d wolfed it down, they eased, began to joke among themselves. Then Sundance looked at Sam Walking Calf, his foreman. “Walking Calf,” he said in Minniconjou dialect. “I make it that the gather’s finished. What’s your idea?”

  Sam Walking Calf had, ironically, come from Big Foot’s band on the Cheyenne River; three years with Thunderbird had made a first class cowman of him. “We’re ready any time you are.”

  Sundance nodded. “Good. Then tomorrow we start the drive.” With a stick, he sketched a map in the dirt around the fire. “We’ll take them east through Buffalo Gap, as far into the Badlands on the Pine Ridge Reservation as we can before we run into trouble. The minute we see soldiers, we stampede them and ride like hell. It’ll be up to the tribes to go out and hunt them, then.”

  Walking Calf grinned. “It would be fun to hunt them. Like hunting buffalo.”

  “That’s what I’m counting on. Then we come back here, make another gather, take it north...”

  “And this man Fain,” said Walking Calf. “Of whom you’ve told us. You don’t think he’ll try to stop us?”

  Sundance’s mouth thinned. “If he does, it’ll be the last thing he tries ...”

  Walking Calf laughed, so did the others. Then Walking Calf sobered. “You really think it’ll stop a war from beginning?”

  “I don’t know what it’ll do,” Sundance said. “All I know is that people are starving and that we must feed them.”

  Two Crossings, a Cheyenne from Lame Deer, stared into the fire. “It would be better,” he said, “if the dancing worked. It would be better if the old days came again and the buffalo came back.”

  “Hau,” a Blackfoot said, and two Pawnees nodded vigorously.

  For a moment the lodge was silent, as Sundance looked at Barbara. Then he turned to confront the Indians. “Do you think the Miracle will happen?”

  Slowly, Two Crossings shook his head. “No. No, I don’t think so. Wouldn’t it be wonderful, though, if it did?” His eyes kindled. “When I was a boy, I rode out with my father on a hunt. Then the northern herd was still of great size. Oh, I had my first look at it then, and it filled the whole valley, from wall to wall, a lake of great, shaggy, dark animals, and you could hear them bellow for miles and smell them, a different smell from cows ... It was ... ” He paused. “It was life flowing through that valley, life sent from Wakan Tonka, and I remember that my heart was full and I felt tall and strong, as if the life flowed through me, too ... And then we ran them. Augh! What a thrill, to run your first buffalo! Your horse pounding under you, the air full of dust and thunder, the sun hot on you, every nerve and muscle in your body alive ... Time seemed to stop. There was no time, only the excitement of the hunt, and then, afterwards, the good meat, the sweet prairie meat that there is nothing like, the hump ribs and the fleece fat and the boudins ... ” He was silent for a moment. “It is a good thing to bring meat to the People,” he said. “Even this way, wo-haws, cattle. But it would be a better th
ing to bring back the buffalo. I, for one, would gladly give my life to do that.”

  “In the spring,” a Pawnee said. “Only wait ’til spring. Wovoka has said it.”

  “Hau,” the Blackfoot said again, and the lodge was silent.

  Sundance stood up. “What happens in the spring happens. For now, we drive cattle. To your own lodges and sleep. By daylight tomorrow, we’re on the trail. Good night.”

  They arose, filed out. Sundance and Barbara were left alone. Sundance took out a packet, rolled two cigarettes, passed one to her, lit them both with an ember. They were not tobacco, but marijuana. It grew wild across the prairie, and Mexicans had taught him to smoke it. One cigarette before turning in relaxed him better than the whiskey which he had trouble handling, as most people of Indian blood did. Then Sundance said, “They believe, too, don’t they? I hadn’t realized that.”

  “No,” Barbara said. “They only hope. But everybody has to hope. When you come down to it, that’s what keeps all of us alive.”

  “Yes,” Sundance said. He put more wood on the fire. “And it’s a commodity in short supply among the tribes. Now. It’s time for us to turn in.”

  Barbara nodded, smiled, arose.

  Sundance watched her as, by firelight, she shed the clothes. The orange flicker played over ripe, rich breasts, smooth belly, curved hips, the golden triangle between her thighs. She went to the spread buffalo robes, lay down there. Her tongue moved across her lips. “Jim,” she said, and she held out her arms.

  Sundance grinned, took off his guns, stripped off his own garments. His muscular, scarred torso was like something of hammered bronze in the fire’s glow, a terrible puckered scar on each side of his chest. Those scars had been there since his fourteenth year, his first Sun Dance, when they had slit the skin, put ropes through, tied heavy buffalo skulls to the trailing end. He had danced until the dragging skulls had jerked the rawhide thongs through his flesh and freed him. Then he had been a full-grown Cheyenne.

  He went to Barbara, knowing that it would be a long while before he had this chance again. Later, while she slept exhausted on his arm, he lay awake beneath the robes and watched the firelight play on the dew cloth overhead. He had made it all sound so easy. But, he knew in the marrow of his bones, it would not be. It would be damned hard—and dangerous.

  ~*~

  The drum of hooves awakened Sundance—the night-hawk bringing in the saddle band well before the sun came up. By the time the morning mists peeled back, the men had eaten, their lodges had been struck and loaded on travois to be dragged by a pack string, and everything was in order for the move.

  With Barbara mounted by his side, Sundance sat the Appaloosa, watched the hands gallop back and forth along the flanks of the great dark snake of black that was the herd. The wind blew chill down the long valley, but it was at their back and that was good; they’d move easily and swiftly before it. Five hundred head, he thought, twenty-five thousand dollars’ worth of beef. And if it would stop an Indian war, it would be the best money he had ever spent.

  Beside him, Barbara said, excitement in her voice, “Jim. Time to move out?”

  He nodded.

  She leaned out of the saddle, put her hand behind his neck, pulled down his head. “Good luck,” she murmured. “And be careful. I’ll go back to the ranch now.” They kissed, long and hard; then she swung her gelding, and Sundance watched as she galloped off. When she’d disappeared over a rise, he turned his attention back to the herd. A surge of excitement went through him, of urgency; these cattle had to be pushed and pushed fast to make the reservation’s border before either weather or war broke over the jumbled hell that was the Badlands. He nudged Eagle with his heels, lifted rein, and the big stallion raced toward the herd,

  Sam Walking Calf already had the hands disposed for trail driving: drag, flank, swing and point he galloped out to meet Jim Sundance. “All ready!” he reported in Sioux.

  “Good!” Sundance jerked off his hat, rode to the herd’s point, pulled the stallion up on its hind legs, and as it reared, he swung the hat in a forward signal. His voice rang down the valley. “Hoka hey! Let’s go!”

  Then, like a black river, the herd began to flow. Reluctant cattle bawled and bellowed, a few of the quitters made one last try to break, were hazed in by pounding riders. Presently, the leaders picked up speed; the drag riders split the air with yelling, shrill tribal whoops, as they pushed the rear. The wind was like a knife, cold as steel, just as cutting. Sundance and Walking Calf rode up and down opposite sides of the herd, watched everything. Then, sure that all was in order, Sundance galloped back to the point. While morning mists swathed each wall in impenetrable white, the cattle surged on down the valley.

  And then, above the bellowing and the hoof-thunder, Sundance heard it.

  At first it was faint, like a bird-cry in the distance. Then it came again, closer; and all at once he pulled up the stallion.

  Walking Calf pounded up beside. “Jim! Did you hear that?” He pointed down the valley. “I’d swear it was—”

  “A bugle,” Sundance said thinly; and the words were hardly out of his mouth before the soldiers were there.

  ~*~

  They came from four directions at once, surrounding the herd. Even as he and Walking Calf stared straight ahead, blue-clad riders emerged from morning fog, a half dozen of them, guidon whipping in the wind. At the same time, a flank man yelled and pointed. Sundance jerked his head around. Another six soldiers galloped down the valley’s north wall.

  He swore, jerked Eagle to the south. Yet another half dozen were pounding out of the mist that shrouded the timber clad hill there. And then, upwind, toward the herd’s drag... Six more, coming fast.

  Sam Walking Calf made a sound in his throat “Goddam!” he swore in English, “I don’t know what this is, but—” His hand flashed to his rifle, jerked it from its scabbard. “If they try to stop our drive...”

  “Hold it!” Sundance’s hand shot out, knocked down the barrel. “Put that thing up. I’ll have no shooting until I find out what this is. Put that thing up, tell the men nobody is to fire a shot unless I do, you understand?” He stared into Walking Calf’s glittering eyes. “Nobody!”

  Reluctantly, Walking Calf sheathed the gun. “All right,” he answered grudgingly, “I’ll tell them.” Wheeling his horse, he galloped toward the herd. Sundance rode to meet the men pounding down the valley under the flapping guidon of command.

  As he neared them, the contingent’s leader signaled and they fanned out, slowing down and encircling him. Then the small man in the uniform of an officer and the big one with the sergeant’s chevrons trotted forward. Sundance reined in, staring. When they came up, he said, harshly, “Lieutenant Cochrane. What’s the meaning of this? You’re trespassing on my range.”

  Tom Cochrane, the young lieutenant, smiled, but with no humor on that smooth, round face; and Sundance saw again that strange hostility in his eyes. “I’m here under orders of General Miles, Sundance. And maybe I’d best warn you now, there’s a Gatling gun up yonder in that timber on the ridge, positioned so it can sweep this valley.”

  For a moment, Jim Sundance sat rigidly. Then rage flamed within him. “A Gatling gun?” he roared. “What gives you the right to set that up and threaten me on my own land?”

  “Just a precaution. I’ve seen enough of you now to know how hard to handle you can be.” Then his smile went away. “Your Indians, Sundance—All those men out there. I’m here to round them up and take them with me. They’re all to be escorted back to Pine Ridge.”

  “Escorted back—” Sundance slammed the big horse forward, then jerked it up short, and now he was face to face with Cochrane. “The hell you say! I’ve got a cattle drive to make.”

  “Yeah,” Cochrane said smoothly, but he was tense and his hand rested on the flap of his Colt’s holster. “I know. Too bad. You’ll have to hire white cowhands to make it.”

  “I don’t have time for that.” Sundance had his temper under control n
ow. “And it’s important that I make this drive. Miles knows how important—”

  “I wouldn’t know about that,” Cochrane answered. “Far as I know, only Fain has the right to drive cattle on the reservation.”

  “I’m not driving cattle on the reservation. But Miles and I talked. If, before Sitting Bull makes his move—”

  Cochrane laughed softly, and something glinted in his eyes that seemed to freeze Sundance in the saddle. “Sitting Bull,” Cochrane said contemptuously. “Sitting Bull has made his move. Into the grave, Sundance. He’s dead and buried.”

  There was a moment when shock and grief drove everything else from Sundance’s mind. “Tatanka Yotanka,” he whispered. Suddenly he seemed to see the proud old man, with his hawk’s face and penetrating eyes and slow, majestic manner, a giant among his people. He let out a long, shuddering breath. “Dead—”

  “That’s right. He resisted arrest. Word got out that he was going to move into the Badlands, take command of the hostiles. McLaughlin at Standing Rock sent forty Indian police down to his village on the Grand River. They took the old bastard at daybreak, caught him still asleep in his cabin, marched him out. He went peaceably at first, but his people came up, surrounded the policemen, taunted him for surrendering. Then he changed his mind, said he wouldn’t go. Right then, an adopted son of his, way I hear, opened fire, shot the lieutenant of police. The sergeant killed Sitting Bull at the same time. Then all hell broke out. The policemen forted up in Sitting Bull’s cabin and the Hunkpapa surrounded them ... If the Army hadn’t been waiting to back ’em up ... But it moved in, chased the Sioux away. Now they’ve scattered. Hunkpapa have fled all over South Dakota to spread their poison among the tribes. Indians are on the move all over ... Big Foot, especially, with a big bunch of Minniconjou. They say the Hunkpapa have joined him, and likely he’s heading for the Badlands with war on his mind. Anyhow, the Army’s lost track of him, don’t know where he is ...” Cochrane broke off. “Miles has issued strict orders. Every Indian off the reservation or on is to report in to the agencies immediately. Any who don’t are going to be considered hostile and take the consequences.” He grinned slyly. “That includes your cowhands.”