by John Benteen
Sundance smiled. “That bed I slept on last night, look under the pillow.”
“Jim, I can’t take money from you.”
Sundance looked down at him. “John, that three hundred ain’t my money. It’s blood money. My blood. Indian blood. You’re entitled to it. I’ll see you, maybe, in a week or in a month. But thanks for everything and whatever you do, don’t sell your land and tell your friends not to sell theirs. They’re sittin’ on a fortune in oil.”
“I’ll tell ’em, Jim.” Sundance and John Canoe shook hands. Sundance swung up into the saddle, then, and shook hands with Billy Canoe as well.
“All right,” he said. “I’m bound for Abilene.’’
As he reined the horse around, John Canoe raised his hand. “Jim,” he called, “I’ll pray for you to the Little Red Men of the Thunder!”
Chapter Five
Abilene was dying. Once it had been the wildest hell-town of the West. But now track’s end had moved on, and Newton and Ellsworth had begun to steal its thunder. Still, there was plenty of life in the old girl yet, and the stock pens by the railroad, Sundance saw, were crammed with cattle. So many longhorns were coming north nowadays that it took three towns to handle them.
The compact little gelding moved smartly under him as he followed the glittering railroad tracks. When a switch engine came down the line, the horse laid back its ears and snorted, but it was obedient to Sundance’s strong hands on the reins and his strong legs. He made it trot alongside the locomotive until it was reassured that this monster meant no harm. Then he turned it again and rode on.
Cattle cars were lined up at the chutes from the pens and in the jammed corrals, men ran across the backs of cattle as loggers might scamper across a jam of logs. They punched and prodded and fought the wild longhorns into the cars, the cowpunchers who had given the name of their trade to cattlemen who had never even seen a railroad.
By one of the main loading chutes, a trail-boss in range clothes sat with a buyer. The buyer, in store clothes, mounted on a spotted gelding, made notations in a book. The trail boss had a string across his saddle cantle, and from time to time he made a knot in it.
Sundance knew better than to disturb them now. He waited until the car was full, and while another was being shunted into place rode up alongside.
Becoming aware of his presence, the two men turned and looked at him coldly. Sundance gave them a foolish grin and lifted his hand. “How,” he said.
“What the hell you want, Injun?” the Texas trail boss snapped.
“Me name-um Charlie. Me Mandan and Santee Sioux. Me wantum job.” Sundance kept his voice slow and guttural, the way most Indians coped with the English language, so totally unlike Indian dialects in grammar.
“Well, goddammit, I don’t hire no gut-eatin’ cowboys,” the trail boss said.
The cattle buyer touched his small, black mustache. “The Santee Sioux ain’t too bad, Josh. They been tame a long time.”
“A damn Injun’s a Injun where I come from. Like a greaser.”
Sundance gave no indication that he understood. He said, “Me look for boss man. Boss man named … ” He seemed to grope. “Boss man Jeffers.”
The buyer’s eyes lit. “Abel Jeffers?”
Sundance shrugged.
“Who told you to see Abel Jeffers?”
Sundance said, “Me scout for long-knives. Big chief long-knives, he named Custer, give me letter.” He pulled out a paper which he had written himself in a fine copperplate hand with perfect grammar in the military way, passed it to the buyer. It was, he knew, absolutely authentic. It said, only: “The bearer has rendered me excellent service as a scout and is now desirous of working for wages in the cattle business. He is steady, reliable, and does not drink, and his ability at handling horses and running buffalo makes me certain that he will be of great value to anyone dealing with longhorned cattle. He has a desire to learn this trade, and any consideration given to him will be appreciated by the undersigned. George Armstrong Custer, Lt. Col., USA, Commanding, Seventh Cavalry.”
Respect gleamed in the buyer’s eyes as he passed back the paper. “That’s pretty damned good, Injun.”
“You know Mr. Jeffers?”
“I know him, but I can tell you, he ain’t gonna hire no Injuns, either. But likely you’ll find him uptown in the Alamo Saloon. If I was you, though, I wouldn’t count on him givin’ me the time of day. And don’t try to sit down in there. They don’t sell no whiskey to Injuns or half-breeds.”
“Sure, man,” Sundance said, grinning vacantly. “Charlie no sit down. Muchum thanks.” He wheeled the horse.
The Alamo Saloon was a big building with glass doors, one of the fancier in Abilene, and Sundance hesitated at the entrance, a little ashamed of the strange embarrassment that filled him. His yellow hair and blue eyes had always bought him entrance to any place he wanted to go, but in this instant he knew how an ordinary full blood must feel when he had business in such a place. Angry with himself, he shoved open the door and entered.
Although Abilene was fading, there were still plenty of customers in the room, and automatically they looked to size up the newcomer. Sundance dropped his head, and, with shoulders slumped, moved with shuffling gait towards the bar. Immediately the barkeep came from behind it with a bungstarter in his hand. “All right, Injun. On your way—”
Sundance looked at him vacantly. He held out the paper. “Readum. Me lookin’ for Mr. Jeffers.”
The man glanced at the paper. He frowned, then jerked his head. “Wait over yonder in the corner.”
Sundance moved obediently aside, watching as the bartender went to a table against the far wall. It was occupied by four men, and, covertly, Sundance sized them up. He knew almost immediately which one was Jeffers. That could only be the big, florid man in the gray business suit. His hair was coal black, thinning; a diamond ring glittered on the third finger of his right hand; there was the beginning of a paunch beneath his vest. And yet, he radiated strength, physical strength, and a sure, confident power.
Another of the men sitting with him was cut from the same cloth, also dressed for business, tall, lean, middle-aged, with an indoor pallor. The other pair at the table were something very different indeed.
One was an absolute giant of a grizzled cattleman, vastly wide across the shoulders, deep in the chest, long in the leg, and perhaps fifty years of age, with graying cow horn mustaches hanging down around a tight mouth, emphasizing one of the harshest, craggiest, and most arrogant faces Sundance had ever seen. He wore a pearl-gray Stetson, from beneath which long graying-brown hair shagged down to the collar of a clean flannel shirt; a calfskin vest; leather chaps over levis, and big silver spurs on his bench-made boots. Everything was custom-made, expensive, including the carved-leather holster that sheathed an ivory-butted Colt.
The fourth man had a face like a skull. He, too, wore range clothes, he was tall, very thin and loose-jointed, with black eyes seeming to smolder in his narrow face, the nostrils of his short nose turned back and up like slits, his mouth thin, his teeth big, protruding. His big hands moved restlessly on the table in front of him, fingers curling and uncurling like snakes. He wore two guns, tied low, and Sundance recognized at once that they were the tools of his trade.
When the bartender appeared beside the table, none of the four looked up immediately, and he waited respectfully until they took notice of him. Then he spoke and handed Jeffers the paper. Jeffers read it, passed it to the others, who read it in turn, and, following the bartender’s gesture, they all turned and stared at Sundance. He gave them an idiotic smile, touched his hat, kept his eyes downcast. The four looked at each other and grinned. Then the big cattleman said, in a deep voice, “Well, I reckon that concludes our business anyhow, Jeffers. We’ll leave you to your Injun friend. Come on, Denham.”
He shoved back his chair, silver spurs jingling. The slender, pallid man in business clothes also stood up. “You’ll send a wire up to Cheyenne when you’ve had some word,” th
e cattleman added. “My people are mighty anxious.”
“I’ll let you know the minute I hear, Cavanaugh.” Jeffers stood up and shook hands with the two of them, and the skull-faced man also arose. Cavanaugh took his hand. “See you, Bisbee.”
“Yeah,” Bisbee said. “So long.” He had a high, thin, spluttering voice, as if his teeth got in the way. But from the way he stood and the way his guns hung, Sundance knew not to underrate him; this man was as dangerous as a rattler in skin-shedding time.
Cavanaugh looked at Sundance again and his mouth quirked under the mustaches, a twist of distaste. His massive weight, apparently without an ounce of fat, shook the room as he went to the door with the slender Denham following. When they had gone, Jeffers said something to Bisbee in a low voice. Then he jerked his head for Sundance to come over.
Sundance went, slowly and timidly, oozing humility. He halted by the table, not looking at either Jeffers or the skull-faced Bisbee directly. Jeffers said, “So, half-breed. You scouted for Custer, huh? And now you wanta learn the cattle business.”
“Yes, sir.” Sundance kept his head down.
Jeffers stared at the paper again. “You’re damn lucky you had this with you, or I’d have had you pitched outa here on your arse, comin’ in and interruptin’ an important conference with one of the biggest cattlemen in this country. It’s a good thing for you Autie Custer’s a damn close friend of mine. You with him up in Dakota?”
“Yessir, betcha, he say tell you hello.”
“Yeah, we played a lot of cards together when he was stationed down here in Kansas. He was a lousy poker player.” He handed Sundance the paper. “Damn it, look at me when I talk to you.”
Sundance did. Jeffers glanced at him, then away, then raised his head again. “What the hell, a blue-eyed Injun?” He looked at Bisbee, then back at Sundance. Then he grinned. “Yeah, that paper said you were a Mandan. There’s a lotta blue-eyed Mandans. For a minute, I thought you might be somebody else, but— Bisbee, you don’t reckon—?”
“No,” Bisbee said. “I seen him once, in San Antonio. He don’t look no more like this one than a wolf looks like a fierce dog.”
Sundance only looked puzzled. “Me git job?” he asked in apparent incomprehension.
Jeffers laughed softly. “Yeah, you git job. Start at the bottom of the cattle business. You clean out cattle cars down by the yards, every day but Sunday, four dollars a week. Damn railroads send the cars back filthy, we got to clean ’em ourselves before we can load again, and you can’t git nobody in Abilene for that kind of work no more. You can start to work right away. There’s a string in down there now.” He jerked his head. “Take him down to the yards, Bisbee, and put a shovel in his hand.”
Bisbee looked disgusted. “All right. Come on, Mandan Charlie or whatever the hell your name is.” He laughed splutteringly. “After tonight, they’ll call you Cowshit Charlie.”
Jeffers arose, too. “I’ll be in my office if you want me,” he said. “Drop in about four anyhow. I’ll have some telegrams for you to put on the wire to the others.”
“Yeah, sure,” Bisbee said, and he jerked his head at Sundance to follow and went out.
~*~
The cattle cars were on a siding near the yards, a long string of them. When Sundance and Bisbee had dismounted near them, Bisbee went to a tool shed, unlocked it, and took out a flat-bladed, long handled shovel, which he passed to Sundance. The smell of cow manure was, to Sundance’s nostrils, used as they were to the clean air of the open, almost overpowering, but Bisbee appeared not to notice. “Okay, Charlie, you start at the front car and you don’t stop until the back one’s clean. Just throw it out on the ground, people are used to walkin’ in it around Abilene. And you do a good job, damn your red hide, or you don’t git paid come Saddy night.”
“I do good job, you betcha,” Sundance said. “But maybe you gimme four bits now, huh? Me catchum eat.”
Bisbee gave that spluttering laugh. “You catchum eat like hell. We don’t advance no money. But don’t worry. After an hour’s work, you won’t have no appetite no how.” He grinned mockingly at Sundance, then strode to his horse and mounted up. “I’ll be back to check on you before quittin’ time.”
Sundance watched him ride away and, after he was gone, rolled a cigarette and smoked it thoughtfully, standing upwind of the cattle cars. He thought about the two men, Cavanaugh and Denham, in the saloon with Jeffers. Likely, it was just a cattle deal: it would be too much to expect to walk into the middle of the other, cold. And yet, he had a powerful curiosity about the giant cattleman who apparently headquartered in Cheyenne. That city, after all, was, since the coming of the railroad, the gateway to the northern ranges, Wyoming and Montana. Cattle could be driven overland, or they could be purchased here at the Kansas shipping points, loaded on cars, and shunted back and forth, eventually to reach the north. Once the Indians were neutralized, those ranges could fill up in a hurry, and the men on the ground there would make tremendous fortunes. Apparently Cavanaugh was on the ground …
Anyhow, Sundance thought, grinding out the butt and climbing into the cattle car, he had to play a waiting game. He dared not tip his hand or be forced into killing Jeffers until he had milked the man of all the information he possessed. It was obvious that Jeffers was the middleman in the plot against him, and likely he knew who the higher ups were—all of them. With that kind of money on his head, Sundance had no time to follow up the chain of conspiracy link by link. He wanted to know who was at the top, so he could go there straight away.
So he would be Mandan Charlie for a while, yet, and he would take whatever Bisbee and Jeffers dealt out to him like a broken-spirited mongrel full blood from two declining tribes, and only after he had learned all it was possible to know would he think about settling scores …
He shoveled hard, industriously, gradually becoming accustomed to the smell. The afternoon was well along, the sun going down, when, as he started on the third car, the drunken cowboy appeared.
Swaying in his saddle, he walked his horse down the spur track, a nearly empty bottle clutched in one hand. He was young, not over twenty-one or twenty-two, with the mark of Texas all over him, a rider who had come up the trail with a herd, had his fling, and was now in the misery of the fag-end of his binge. Likely he was dead broke. Sundance almost hit him with a shovelful of cow manure before he saw him. The wad of dung flew past the young cowpuncher’s head, missing him by not more than a foot.
The wiry mustang the man rode snorted, and the puncher reined him around, staring at Sundance with red veined eyes, under which there were dark half-moons. “Hey,” he said thickly. “You, Injun, what the hell you think you doin’? Watch where you throw that stuff.”
“Sorry. Me no seeum you.”
The cowboy drank. “Well, you damn well better start seein’. You’d hit me with that stuff, I’d a donated you about two ounces of lead, absolutely free.” He swallowed, grimaced, fumbled at his shirt, cursed in disappointment. “Tabak. You got any tabak, savvy?”
“Mebbe,” Sundance said.
“Trade you a drink for the makin’s, okay?”
Sundance’s face brightened and he took out a tobacco sack and papers. The puncher rode alongside the door of the cattle car and pulled up. He passed Sundance the bottle and Sundance gave him the tobacco. Sundance took a drink: the whiskey was foul, as bad as the stuff bootleggers sold on the Reservations. He passed back the bottle, and the cowboy lit his cigarette, handed him the tobacco.
“Thass a good job you got,” he said thickly, bitterly. “You on the right end of this business. You got to deal with cows, that way beats trailin’ their butts a thousand miles for thirty a month and havin’ the damned buzzards at trail’s end pick you clean in twenty-four hours. Keep on shovelin’ and hang on to your money, Injun.”
“Um,” Sundance grunted.
The puncher drained the bottle, threw it away, staring at it sourly as it bounced along the roadbed. “And that,” he said, “is the end of
that. Now all I got to do is figure out how to stay alive until next month when Cavanaugh’s herd leaves for Wyomin’.”
“Cavanaugh,” Sundance said. “What Cavanaugh?” He squatted at the edge of the floor, guessing the cowboy was in the mood to talk.
“Lord God, where you been you never heard of Lance Cavanaugh? Used to be one of the biggest ranchers in Texas, then sold out a coupla years ago and went north. Now he’s got a big ranch north of Cheyenne, drives herds straight through from Kansas to Wyomin’. Sells ’em in Colorado. Makes twice the money on a longhorn trailed north as us pore bastards do on one brought up from the Nueces and sold here. ’Course, he takes twice the risk, too. That’s all Cheyenne and Sioux and Blackfoot country up there ... Don’t make no difference to Lance Cavanaugh. If it was Hell, he’d drive through it jest the same. What he wants, he takes, and God help anybody gits in his way.” He rubbed his hand across his sweating face. “He’s got a drive leavin’ out of here next month. I done signed on. Lord God, now I wish I’d gone back to Texas, though. May still do that. My mama told me, she told me: Sonny ... Thass what they allus called me, Sonny— She said, Sonny Hamilton, you be a lot better off if you stay away from them cattle and go work with your Uncle Fred on that cotton plantation up near Beaumont … Wish now I’d listened to her.”
Sundance said, “This Cavanaugh. He plenty rich white man, huh?”
“He got more money than a coyote got fleas. And one of these days, if the talk’s right, he’ll have a pot more of it. When they git Powder River opened up as cattle range, all that land east of the Big Horns ...”
“Powder River,” Sundance said. “That Injun country under treaty.”
“Thass the redskins’ tough luck, ole buddy. That end of Wyomin’ and Colorado is jest throbbin’ with big ranchers waitin’ to pour in there. Cavanaugh ain’t the only one ... much money as he and the others got, the Injuns don’t stand a chance. And what about these cattle dealers in the railroad towns all along the line. Don’t you think they’re in the pot to stay, too? When Wyomin’ and Montana open up, they’ll make more money than they ever dreamed of. They’ll sell the herds that go to fill all that country up there ...” Sonny Hamilton spat thickly. “Again’ all the pressure they can put on the Army, them Injuns ain’t got a prayer. They’d better be learnin’ a white man’s trade, the way you are.” He grinned crookedly, and Sundance found himself liking the young man. “I mean—”