by John Benteen
Before him stood Colonel James Forsyth, white-bearded and craggy-faced, commander of the Seventh. He looked at Sundance with hostile eyes. And before Sundance could speak, he barked an order. “Disarm that man!”
Sundance froze. There was no chance for him to make a move, not even any opportunity to protest. For he was covered cold by the muzzles of four Colts. One of them was suddenly in the hand of Cochrane. But the two that were centered on his belly were held by Joe Bob Hoffman, and the fourth one was steady as a rock in the grip of Martin Fain.
~*~
Taken by surprise, it was a second before Jim Sundance spoke. “Fain. Hoffman. What’re you doing here?”
Hoffman’s face was scarred, and a white blob of bandage still covered his nose, or what was left of it. His eyes were lambent, that insanity no longer half-hidden, but blazing in full view now. Fain’s leathery face was set and hard, his blue eyes cold. And it was he who answered.
“Joe Bob and me were at Pine Ridge when the Colonel got the message. We rode out to see the show.” He smiled faintly, beneath his white mustache. “Right now, we’re lending the Army a hand. Slow and easy, Sundance, unbuckle all that hardware.”
Sundance’s eyes shuttled to Forsyth. “Colonel, what the hell’s the meaning of this! You’ve got no right to disarm me, much less let these two—”
“That’ll be enough, Sundance!” Forsyth’s voice crackled. “Drop those weapons; that’s an order.” He paused. “Every Indian in this camp will be disarmed shortly. And you’re to be no exception.”
Sundance said tautly, “I’m an American citizen—”
Forsyth jerked his head impatiently. “I don’t care what you are! Do you know what regiment this is—the Seventh Cavalry! The Seventh of Little Big Horn! And it’s known, now, Sundance, well-established, that you were there and what side you fought on. If you fought for the Cheyennes then, you might fight for the Sioux now. You’ll be disarmed until I choose otherwise, and now I’ll thank you to turn over your weapons to Lieutenant Cochrane.”
But now Sundance felt that chill prickling on his neck again. “Wait a minute. You’re gonna try to disarm Big Foot’s Minniconjou?”
“Not try, going to! There’s a hotbed of Hunkpapa refugees in this camp and the whole bunch was headed for the Badlands. But now we’re going to take them to Pine Ridge, and before we do that, we’re going through this camp with a fine-toothed comb.”
“Don’t be a fool!” Sundance said. “They’ll fight before they give up their guns!”
“That’s their problem,” Forsyth answered. “They’re surrounded with Hotchkiss cannons zeroed in on them. If they want to fight, let ’em.” His voice rasped. “Damn it, this regiment’s got a score to settle with the Sioux. And with you too, Mr. Jim Sundance! Now, disarm yourself, sir!”
Sundance looked at Hoffman. The hammers of both guns were eared back and Hoffman’s fingers tense on the triggers. “Go ahead, Sundance,” Hoffman whispered. “Give me a chance. This face of mine ... Just, please, give me a chance—”
Sundance’s mouth twisted. Knowing that, in that instant, he was less than an ounce of pressure away from sudden death, he slowly lowered his left hand, uncinched the weapons belt, handed it to Cochrane, Cochrane laughed softly.
“All right,” Sundance said. “There are my guns. But I have some things to say, Forsyth. The first is that I demand to be allowed to send a messenger to Pine Ridge with a telegram for General Miles. The second is, Colonel, to warn you now that Miles doesn’t want any mass killing, any battles. And to make sure you know that if you try to disarm Big Foot’s people, you’ll have one.”
“You may send a message when all of us return to Pine Ridge,” Forsyth snapped. “And not before. As to a battle, if there is one, it’ll be the Sioux who die and not the Seventh ...”
“You think not?” Sundance said. “You’ll kill each other, the way your troops are disposed. You think your Hotchkiss shells can tell red from blue when they start falling?”
“Don’t tell me how to dispose my troops!” Forsyth roared.
Sundance sucked in a long breath. Fain said, “Colonel, I suggest you put this man in irons.”
Sundance said, “If he does, hell won’t be hot enough to hold him. I’ll tell you that right now.”
Forsyth bit his mustache. Sundance went on quietly: “All right. I’m clean of weapons. I have fifteen Indians out there who’ve also been disarmed. Since we’re all Indians together, and since we have no guns, I request permission that we be allowed to join the Minniconjou. If we are, I’ll give you my word that personally I’ll do all I can to prevent any killing.”
“Goddammit, Colonel,” Fain snapped, “you don’t believe this renegade—”
But Forsyth was deep in thought, and Sundance knew what he was thinking: Miles, Sheridan, Sherman, all of Forsyth’s superiors. Sundance knew them, maybe even had influence with them. Forsyth was wondering now if Fain hadn’t egged him on too far. And looking for a way to copper his bets.
Then Forsyth nodded. “Permission granted. As long as you and your men have no arms to bear against the United States. As long as you yourself promise to keep the peace.”
“You have my promise.”
“Very well. Cochrane, escort Sundance and his men to the Minniconjou camp. Then report to your company immediately. The disarmament operation is due to commence in thirty minutes.”
“Yes, sir!” Cochrane saluted, and, holding Sundance’s weapons in one hand, jerked his Colt. “You! Come on!”
“Sundance!” Hoffman’s voice rang out. He had holstered his guns now, stood with thumbs hooked in belt. His speech was strangely thick and nasal now that his nose was ruined. “Go ahead, go join your gut-eatin’ red nigger friends. But ... let me tell you something. Me and you—we’re not through with each other yet!”
Sundance looked at him levelly. “No,” he said, “I never figured that we were.” And then, coolly, he turned his back on Hoffman and on Martin Fain.
~*~
The interior of the lodge of Big Foot, the Minniconjou chief, smelled of wood smoke and grease and unwashed bodies and of the strange, musty odor of an old man gravely ill. Big Foot lay on a pallet of ancient, moth-eaten buffalo robes, his breathing hoarse, rasping. It was cold in the teepee, for the troops had appropriated every stick of wood, every chip of buffalo dung, for their own fires, and only a few embers glowed within the circle of stones.
Sundance and Walking Calf squatted by the old man’s bed. Across it, Big Foot’s woman, eyes dull with hopelessness and grief, sat cross-legged on the ground. Between her and the chief, Yellow Bird, the medicine man, Ghost Shirt pulled over fox furs and buckskin, slowly straightened up, a tortoise-shell rattle dangling from his hand. His lean face daubed with paint, he looked at Sundance with unreadable eyes. “Nothing can be done,” he said hoarsely. “Not yet. For Wakan Tonka is angry. He is displeased with the Minniconjou. And he shows this through the white man’s sickness ...”
“If we could get him to Pine Ridge, where Eastman could have a look at him,” Sundance said, “maybe—”
He broke off. Big Foot, breath a bubbling gasp deep in his chest, hoisted himself on his pallet. Looking from Sundance to Yellow Bird, he managed to speak, despite the effects of the pneumonia which had him in its grasp. “Why is Wakan Tonka displeased with me?”
“Because,” Yellow Bird said. “Wakan Tonka has told Wovoka that he will send a new world and make the Indians the people of it. He will cover the old earth with new, burying all the whites, and the new land will be covered with grass and running water and trees and buffalo and ponies ... All this he has said is coming. But first we must show we are worthy of it; and this we have not done. The Hunkpapa have killed white men. The Oglala and Brulés prepare for killing white men. But the Minniconjou have not fought ... Like old women, now, they wait for the white soldiers to come and take their guns. And Big Foot says to let them do this and will not give the word to fight.”
Big Foot, lined face shru
nken, blinked wearily. He wore no Ghost Shirt, only a white man’s tattered coat over a greasy shirt of buckskin. “Then if I must die, I die. But why should others die to save me? Five hundred white men out there—and we have a hundred warriors ...”
“More now,” Walking Calf said sharply. “Since we have come.”
Big Foot made a gesture, weakly. “A few more grains of sand to soak up an all-day rain?” He managed a smile. “Brother, it is good to have you back, but no. I will ask my people not to fight.” He paused, breathing hard. “My bed,” he said. “Carry my bed into the middle of the village, where all can see and hear me and I can speak to all...”
“No!” Yellow Bird said. “No! That would not be good.”
Big Foot looked at Sundance. “Please—”
“Walking Calf,” Sundance said. “Give me a hand.”
Walking Calf hesitated. Then he nodded. “I will do it,” he said; and he and Sundance took the pallet by opposite ends. The woman followed as they carried it out into the chill light of day and put it down in the center of the circle Sioux always made of teepees. Big Foot had wasted so he weighed almost nothing.
The woman put a backrest behind him. “There,” she said, and touched his forehead. He smiled up at her, held her hand. Then he husked, “Call them together. Please. That I may speak to them—”
“Yes,” Sundance said. He straightened up, turned, and then he halted, for already it was too late. There was not an Indian save for Big Foot, Yellow Bird, Walking Calf, the woman and himself visible in the camp. But a ring of blue had formed around the village, with carbines leveled. Farther to the east, a mounted troop was ready for instant action. On the knoll above, somebody barked a command, and Sundance looked to see the cannoneers manning their four Hotchkiss guns.
For a long, taut moment, absolute silence hung over the Dakota plains. Then Colonel Forsyth stalked across the village, trailed by a detail of soldiers, including Cochrane. Hoffman and Fain brought up the rear.
At that instant, as if by magic, the Indians appeared. Men only, one by one, they emerged from their lodges and strode forward, faces blank, unreadable.
Forsyth halted before Big Foot’s bed, and now it was his group of soldiers that was encircled by Minniconjou men. Sundance saw Hoffman’s eyes flickering over the Indians; then they came to rest on him and Hoffman grinned and dropped both hands to gun butts.
More Indians crowded forward; now they were a solid, strangely silent mass. Forsyth said, “Sundance. You can be of service. Tell Big Foot to have his people bring out their weapons and stack them in front of his lodge. If they do that, there will be no trouble. We want guns, knives, tomahawks, everything.”
Sundance straightened up. His eyes met Forsyth’s, went to Major Whitside’s, to Godfrey’s, Cochrane’s. And what he saw in all of them and in the eager, grinning faces of Fain and Hoffman, chilled his blood. Because they all stood there tautly, like race horses at the starting line, eager for combat, hoping for it, secure in the knowledge of overwhelming force.
And he spat on the ground. “Kill your own God damned snakes,” he said in English and turned away.
Big Foot hoisted himself on his elbows, gasping his words. “I understand what you want,” he managed in English, and then he spoke in Minniconjou. “Bring the things they ask for,” he gasped, and he sank back.
Sundance stood there, back to the whole tableau. He realized suddenly that he was shivering, and not with cold. Because something was going to happen here on this winter morning, something crucial, and not only to the Indians but to him. All his life, he saw now, he had walked a tightrope stretched between two worlds. When it had pleased him to be white, he had been a white man, and when it had pleased him to be red, he had been an Indian. But now he could no longer dodge decision. In a few minutes, something was going to happen, and then at last he would find out what he really was.
And meanwhile, there was nothing he could do, nothing he would do. He stepped further aside. Again his eyes searched that ring of blue around the camp. Then he stiffened. Beyond it, Blake stood at the head of a bunch of led horses—and among them was Eagle, his own Appaloosa. And though the boot was empty of its saddle-gun, nobody had tampered with the panniers behind the cantle. Suddenly his heart began to beat more quickly.
Then there was a stirring in the crowd of Minniconjou, and he turned to see the men reluctantly dispersing, making for their lodges. Forsyth stroked his beard, let out a gusty breath. “Excellent. They’ve decided to obey. Whitside, you’re in charge; I’ll retire, mount, take overall command.” He strode off.
Yellow Bird lingered as the other Minniconjou vanished into their teepees. “Walking Calf. Come with me—”
“Yes,” Walking Calf said. He looked at Sundance, then he and Yellow Bird melted into the crowd. And then, after a moment more, the circle in the camp’s center was clear of Indians; there were only the soldiers, Sundance, the old, sick chief and his woman—and Martin Fain and Joe Bob Hoffman.
“Sundance,” Fain said. “I want to talk to you. Me and Joe Bob.” He jerked his head.
Sundance stepped farther from the knot of soldiers. He stood tensely, facing the two Texans. “Talk.”
Fain’s lined old face was like dried, warped saddle leather. “Sundance,” he said, “do you know somethin’? You can still get out of this. All you got to do is give me your word that you won’t contact Miles, won’t ever mess around with the beef contracts here, you say that, I can arrange it. You get your weapons back, and then you ride out clear of all this. Anything personal between you and Joe Bob, you can settle later.”
Sundance looked at Fain and then he grinned, and it was more like a wolf’s snarl, the way his lips peeled away from his teeth. “Too late, Fain. What you should have done if you wanted to buy me off was furnish honest beef.” Then his mouth was a long, thin line. “Now,” he said, “it’s my turn to tell you something.” He flung out one arm. “It’s you and all like you that have brought us to this pass. And I’ll tell you and Hoffman this right now. The first Indian who dies today, your death warrant’s sealed. That I promise you. Both of you.”
Hoffman stepped forward. “Sundance—”
“Go ahead,” Sundance whispered. “You got the guts? Burn me down in front of five hundred soldiers?”
“Joe Bob, damn it—” Fain moved between them. Then he said, “All right, Sundance. I’ve killed a lot of goddam Injuns. I may kill some more today. Joe Bob and me are watching you, and you got no guns, and if there’s shootin’, one half-breed won’t make no difference.”
Then Cochrane’s voice rose shrilly. “Well, they’re bringing out their guns.”
Twenty Indians sifted into the center of the camp. Sundance looked them over, as they deposited weapons before Big Foot’s lodge, one by one laying down an old musket without a lock, a Winchester with a bent barrel, a haftless, broken-pointed knife, an antique pistol minus a cylinder ... “Goddammit,” Cochrane snapped. “Look there, Major. That’s not their weapons, that’s their junk!”
Sundance grinned faintly, though he still felt cold all over. Because he knew now what that meant. It meant that the Minniconjou would not surrender; they would fight.
Whitside snapped the orders. “Godfrey, take your company; Cochrane, your platoon. Enough of this farce. Search those lodges, turn ’em inside out. Bring out every weapon you can find.”
Cochrane’s eyes flared. “Yes, sir! Men, you heard that! Into those damn tents, and shake ’em down!”
And now, thought Sundance, it would come. He watched the soldiers, grinning, making obscene jokes, plunge into the lodges. From one behind him came a woman’s scream; a young Indian girl ran through the door, a soldier right behind her. She ducked, dodged, but the corporal shot out a long arm, seized her neck with his hand, jerked her back. He clamped her against his body, plunged his other hand down inside her bosom, and Sundance saw his fingers close over one breast. He jerked out the hand, as she kicked and struggled, shoved it up her skirt. She screame
d again and tried to break free, and he hit her with his fist and she fell in a heap. He stared down at her, laughed, then jumped back inside the lodge.
All around the circle, bedding, ripped and slashed, was thrown out of teepees, cooking pots and baskets, as the soldiers plowed through the homes of Sioux like so many terriers after rats. A shrill, outraged cry of women went up from within. Sundance, exercising all his will, stood fast; there was nothing he could do. Big Foot raised himself on his pallet. “Wait—” he croaked. “I say, wait—”
A teepee shook, went over, in a jumble of hides and poles. A burly sergeant emerged, brandishing a rifle and a knife. “I got these!” he cried.
Whitside snapped to the men remaining with him, “Lock and load, ready to fire. Anything may happen—” Another lodge went down. A young woman with a suckling child clutched to her breast rolled out of it. A soldier whooped and followed. “Baby, you hidin’ anything that’ll go off under there?” He pinned her down, rammed his hand straight up between her legs. The child screamed. Sundance started to break, but Hoffman’s voice rasped: “Stand fast!” and when Sundance looked around, he was staring into Hoffman’s guns, and so he had to watch, unmoving, the village’s rape as the soldiers went through it like a pack of maddened wolves.
But then the place was suddenly full of Minniconjou men. They surged back into the center of camp, blankets clutched tightly to them. Sundance saw Sam Walking Calf running toward the edge of camp, unnoticed, and five or six more of Thunderbird’s riders with him. Yellow Bird ran up beside Big Foot’s pallet. “My chief, I say—” He broke off as Cochrane appeared. He and a private were struggling with a warrior who kept his arms clamped over the blanket wrapped around him.
Big Foot shoved himself up. “What’s happening? I say, what’s happening?”
“Goddamn you,” Cochrane snapped, round face streaming sweat. “Get him, Emory.” The private pulled away the blanket. Underneath it, the Indian had a Winchester clutched to his body. Cochrane reached for it, seized it by the barrel, jerked ...