by John Benteen
Bisbee stared at Sundance’s Colt lined squarely on his chest, and he froze, his own gun half drawn. “What the hell?”
“Explanations later. Hands up, and step out of the saddle into this car.”
Bisbee blinked. “I’ll be damned if—”
“Your choice,” Sundance said. “I can kill you right there.” He lifted the gun barrel slightly and Bisbee stared into those cool eyes and something clicked in his brain then. “Wait,” he said. “Wait a damn minute. You ain’t— I mean, you’re—”
“Let’s say I ain’t Mandan Charlie. In this car, Bisbee.”
Slowly, the man raised his hands, a strange expression on the bony ugliness of his face. He kneed the horse closer, stepped from the saddle to the car door, pulling himself in by the slats as Sundance backed away a few paces. “Over in the corner,” Sundance said.
Bisbee stared at him, then obeyed. Sundance watched him closely. For the moment, the banging of the boxcars on the adjacent siding had ceased but the chuffing of the locomotive was louder. “Now,” Sundance said, “you take off those guns—”
At that moment a trainman yelled something. Suddenly the whole string of cattle cars was slammed backwards as a locomotive backed and coupled. Sundance went off balance, to one knee. Bisbee, back braced against the wall, drew then, with the same blinding speed he had used against the drunken cowboy the day before. His gun roared as the car lurched again, and the bullet snapped by Sundance’s ear at no more than an inch’s distance, and then Sundance’s own Colt was lined and he pulled the trigger.
The smash of lead into his chest seemed to pin Bisbee against the wall of the car. He hung there for a moment while the life went out of him and then he fell forward on his face into the cattle dung.
Sundance quickly reloaded the Colt to replace the used round. As the cars rolled down the track, he picked up the shovel. He knew they were only being shunted, would not go far. Carefully, methodically, he completely buried Bisbee’s body in cattle dung. By then the cars had halted, a quarter of a mile from where they had started, and he heard the locomotive pulling away. It went on about its work on an adjoining track.
Sundance leaned on the shovel and waited. He was pretty sure the shots had not been heard. He waited a long time, all through the morning and well into the afternoon. Once in a while a trainman passed, and when he did, Sundance nodded, said, “How,” and pretended to be working.
After a while, as Sundance had known he must, Abel Jeffers came.
Even before Sundance saw the driver of the buggy wheeling toward the string of cattle cars, he knew who it was, who it had to be. In his gray business suit, Jeffers came down the track in his rig, looking into each car as he passed it. Sundance’s Colt was holstered, he squatted by the door, his left hand out of sight inside. It could have been on the shovel lying partially hidden beside him, but actually it held John Canoe’s old shotgun. Hitting a man inside a buggy could be tricky with a Colt, but a double-barreled twelve could hardly miss. And just the sight of it made a powerful impression on a man.
Jeffers pulled up the rig as he saw Sundance hunkered there like something carved from wood. His florid face was pursed with impatience. “Hey, you, there, Charlie, whatever the hell your name is. Mr. Bisbee. You seeum Mr. Bisbee?”
“Me seeum,” Sundance said.
“Then where the devil is he?”
“Why,” Sundance said, pulling out the shotgun and aiming it, “you might say he’s plumb buried himself in the cattle business.” And then he snapped, “Don’t whip up that horse. Get out of that rig and climb up here and don’t try any tricks. You know damn well I can’t miss you with two loads of buck.”
Jeffers only stared, mouth gaping, red face paling. For a full ten seconds, he sat there thunderstruck. “Come on,” Sundance said.
For an instant, he thought he’d have to go down there and drag Jeffers out. Then, slowly, face gone paper white now, the man got out of the buggy.
“Up here in the cattle car,” Sundance ordered.
Jeffers looked into the bores of the shotgun and, as if he were in a daze, climbed the embankment. Sundance stepped back and watched as he struggled awkwardly into the car, finally making it on hands and knees, panting. “Stand up and move out of the door,” Sundance told him.
Jeffers did, hands high. “I don’t understand this,” he wheezed. “But if you’re out to rob me, my wallet’s in the inside coat pocket. You can have this diamond ring, too. And my watch. Only, for God’s sake—” He was looking into Sundance’s hawk like face, and his voice trailed off. After a moment, he said weakly, “You ain’t a Mandan ...”
“No,” Sundance said, smiling thinly. “Only half Cheyenne.”
“Oh, my God,” Jeffers said, and, as if his knees had failed him, leaned slumping against the latticed wall of the car. “Oh, my God, to think I could have been that big a fool.”
“You were a bigger one to leave a certain envelope in an unlocked drawer.”
As comprehension of that seeped into Jeffers, he swallowed convulsively. “You—” He let out a long breath. “Last night, when you swamped out the office ...”
“I took it and read it all,” Sundance said. “Now, I’ll tell you a few things. What you’ll hear from Kate Danton is this. She sent eight men against me, and I killed them all. I got your name from her, but she’s still alive. That’s more than I can say you’ll be unless you answer some questions.”
Jeffers licked his lips. “I’ll tell you anything I can. This wasn’t my idea, it was Cavanaugh’s. He moved up to Wyoming from Texas two years ago to git into position when the Indians were taken care of, but the Army didn’t move fast enough for him, you see—”
“I know all that,” Sundance said, “So he wrote a lot of letters, did a lot of organizing … ”
“That’s right. And others have moved in, to join him, and we, not just here in Abilene but all along the line, we’ve already sold fifty thousand head to be trailed or shipped up there and another twenty thousand more due to go before the end of fall ... He and the other ranchers were gonna hold ’em over the winter to get ’em used to the climate, then shove ’em all up the Powder River in the biggest cattle drive anybody ever saw. It’ll be just like a flood, a ... an avalanche. Nothin’ can stand before that many longhorns and Texas riders. Before anybody knows what’s happened, there’ll be a cattle business north of the Platte, not just a few shirttail ranchers, but a business so big the whole country will have a stake in it. Then, when the Indians fight back, the Army’ll have to move and take care of ’em once for all... That’ll open up all Wyoming and Montana and it’ll generate the biggest beef boom in the history of this country. There ain’t enough cattle in the Southwest to stock all those ranges and feed the country, too. Cow prices will shoot sky high and—”
“And everybody on the inside’ll get rich while the poor hungry bastards in the east see the price of beef go out of reach. They pay for that and they pay for the Army opening up the range; they pay, the Indians pay, and you and Cavanaugh and the rest reap the profits.”
“About like that,” Jeffers said weakly.
“Where does the Army stand in this?”
“I don’t know. That’s Cavanaugh’s business. He don’t give out no more information than he can help. He just says he’s sure they’ll move.”
“Some outfit called the S & S Concern put up ten thousand dollars of the money on my head. What’s the S & S Concern?”
“I don’t know that, either. I know it’s a damn big company Cavanaugh’s been dealin’ with, one with inside connections back East and in Washington. But he won’t tell anybody what company it really is.”
Sundance shifted the muzzles of the double barrel a little. “You’d better not lie to me, Jeffers.”
“So help me, Sundance, I’m not lying. I don’t know who or what the S & S Concern is. There ain’t but one man that knows that, and that’s Lance Cavanaugh.”
Sundance stared at him a moment, guessed he told the tr
uth. “All right,” he said. “I guess that’s information I’ll have to get from Cavanaugh.”
“From Cavanaugh?” Jeffers blinked, then laughed nervously. “You’ll never git near Lance Cavanaugh.”
“And why?”
“Hell, Sundance, I just told you.” Jeffers was talking quickly now, wanting to be helpful, buying his life with words. He had to raise his voice. On the other track, parallel with this, the switch engine was banging cars again. “There’s fifty thousand cattle massed south of the Platte waiting to move, five or six big outfits, and they all got plenty of riders, and those riders are fightin’ men, too; it’s an army of Texas gunmen. And Cavanaugh sits right in the center, and he don’t take no chances. He’s got his own gunslingers, and he’s a fast man with an iron himself, he used to be a Texas Ranger and then he was in Hood’s Cavalry, and he’s hard as nails. He knows every trick in the book. You go up against him, you might as well turn that shotgun on yourself. It’ll be quicker and easier.”
Sundance digested this information. He smiled coolly. “That’s my worry, Jeffers. Yours is, what do I do with you now? The minute I turn you loose, you’ll be on your way to send Cavanaugh a telegram in Cheyenne, warnin’ him I’m still alive and out to get him. So that presents me with a problem.”
Jeffers licked his lips, and his face was the color of putty. “Sundance, you wouldn’t kill me in cold blood ...”
“Eight gunmen that you indirectly hired tried to do it to me,” Sundance said. “I don’t see where you’re due any special consideration. All the same, you’re pretty small potatoes. No, I’m not gonna kill you, Jeffers. But I’m sure as hell gonna send you on a train ride.”
“Send me on—”
“I’ve been watchin’ those cars on the other track. They’re loadin’ buffalo hides to ship back East. Well, you’re goin’ along with ’em. I’m gonna tie you good and gag you and load you in a car of hides. If you’re lucky, they’ll find you before they git to Omaha or Chicago or wherever they’re bound.”
Jeffers’ lips moved soundlessly, and then words finally came. “Sundance, you wouldn’t— That’s five, ten days. Tied up, gagged, I’ll die of thirst, starvation … ”
“Maybe you can get loose before then,” Sundance said. “Maybe you’ll be lucky. Anyhow, you’ll have a chance. That’s more than you aimed to give me, settin’ a price on my head that’ll put every gunman in the West after me without my knowin’ it.”
“They ain’t after you yet,” Jeffers said desperately. “Kate Danton was to try first, her men to git you when you came back from Mexico. The word hasn’t gone out all over yet.”
“Another reason for me to shut you up,” Sundance said coolly. “The longer you’re quiet, the safer I’ll ride. All right, Jeffers—” He stepped forward with the shotgun raised, ready to bring its barrels down on Jeffers’ head.
He had not expected Jeffers, after all his effort to climb into the car, to move so fast. But fear made Jeffers like a streak. He jumped sideways, fell backwards through the door of the cattle car, shrieking with fear like a hurt rabbit. He landed on his back, and before Sundance could line the shotgun, he had recovered, scrambled up the fill, was underneath the car. Sundance cursed, dropped the shotgun, drew his Colt, leaped out. He landed like a cat, whirled and crouched just in time to see Jeffers scramble to his feet on the other side of the string of cars.
Sundance went after him, crawling under the car between the wheel trucks, emerging on the other side in time to see Jeffers running toward a string of boxcars full of buffalo hides on the other track, five yards away. Up the line, a switch engine whistled. Sundance aimed the Colt.
He was too late. Like a hare heading for its burrow, Jeffers dived beneath a boxcar. Sundance took two fast steps after him, then halted cold, just in time.
He saw it happen, but there was nothing he could do. Jeffers in his business suit was a gray blob on hands and knees beneath the boxcar as the switch engine hit the string. The cars rolled back with sudden, savage force.
Sundance heard above the clang of iron and the panting of the locomotive a high, thin scream cut off short. The cars rolled a hundred feet down the line, then halted, started forward as Sundance stood motionless. The string rolled with increasing swiftness as the engine pulled it toward the main track. Sundance holstered his Colt, for which there was no longer any need, and simply waited until the last car passed. Then he turned away, a little sickly.
He had, in his time, seen many men die, but never a death like this. The great iron wheels had passed directly over Jeffers’ waist, and they had simply cut his body cleanly in two. One segment of it lay spilling down the far embankment, the other, mostly his legs, lay motionless on the red track.
“Christ,” Sundance said, and he turned away, spitting thin, green bile.
Well, he thought, that took care of Jeffers and this part of it was over. What remained now was Cavanaugh and the S & S Concern. And there was no time to lose. Sooner or later, Cavanaugh would hear from Kate Danton that Sundance was still alive, and then the big reward would be publicly posted, and he could not fight every gunman in the West.
Sundance carefully climbed back through the cattle car, not under it. Far down the line, now, the switch engine gave its mournful hoot, like a requiem, again. Sundance jumped out of the other side of the car, with the shotgun, went quickly to where he had tied his horse, and rode.
Chapter Seven
For three days the Cherokee horse carried him northwest toward the Platte, and it was good to be out of the cattle stink, away from the choking railroad smoke. In the first creek unpolluted by cow manure, Sundance washed himself and his clothes and renewed the blacking in his hair. John Canoe’s shotgun was tied behind the cantle of his saddle; he had caught up Bisbee’s horse and robbed it of its Winchester and saddle scabbard before circling wide down the tracks and getting out of Abilene. A rifle was needed on these high plains, for there were Pawnees out here, allies of the white man, and one tribe that would lift Sundance’s hair on sight, do Cavanaugh’s work for him without Cavanaugh ever knowing it.
Coming out of a coulee at midday, miles north of the Kansas line, he smelled it, a rankness harsh in his nostrils after the clean air. He scouted, and he found a big trail herd moving north, out of Ellsworth, probably, or Wichita. Normally its three thousand cattle might have required twenty riders: he counted thirty, and all were fighting men. Cavanaugh was importing professional killers as well as range stock.
Sundance rode wide of the herd, but he knew there would be more behind it, a river of longhorns flowing to the corners of three territories, Wyoming, Nebraska, Colorado. There, along the railroad, they would form a mighty pool until the signal was given, the dam of restraint broken, and they flooded out into the country of the Indians.
He pushed John Canoe’s horse with greater urgency, and by twilight that evening re-read the contents of the letters envelope. It seemed to him that the whole conspiracy was built on two vital cornerstones: one was Lance Cavanaugh, the other the mysterious S & S Concern. They were the force behind it all; maybe, just maybe, if he could eliminate both of them, everything would collapse.
It had to be that way, or otherwise he was faced with an impossible task. There were a lot of names on Cavanaugh’s list. He could not go down the roster one by one, killing each man in turn.
So he would concentrate on Cavanaugh and the S & S Concern, and somehow he would have to learn from Cavanaugh—before Cavanaugh died—what that was.
And yet, he wondered, would even the destruction of those cornerstones do it? Maybe it was too late. The cattle were there, a force in being, like an avalanche about to slide. Maybe nothing he could do would stop them; maybe, sooner or later, it was inevitable that they break out into the Indian lands and there be war, and maybe no one man on earth could prevent that.
All he knew was that he had to try.
~*~
The plume of smoke, thick and fat, moved from east to west along the green valley of the
Platte, a train roaring over the lines of the Pacific Railroad, and Sundance knew that he was not far from Oglalla, Nebraska, one of the two gateways into Wyoming.
He would have known that anyhow by the cattle, the vast herds grazing all along the valley, where, a year before, buffalo had roamed. The longhorns were closely guarded against any possible Indian attack by a lot of Texans, an army of them, and Sundance let none of them see him. He emerged from cover only when he reached Oglalla.
Except that it was in a greener, prettier setting, it could have been one of the Kansas trail towns. It had the same sordid cluster of bars and brothels along Front Street. Sundance slumped in his saddle, pulled his hat over his eyes; his whole bearing listless, sleepy, he once again was Mandan Charlie.
Lance Cavanaugh would be well known here, and Sundance intended to gather as much information as possible about him. He could not question white men, but there would be half-breeds and Indians here; there always were in such a place, people suspended between two worlds to be close to a source of whiskey, bartering their wild freedom—and often their women—for the next jug of firewater. White men spoke in their presence as if they did not exist, but they heard, understood, and remembered. They had to, in order to survive.
He had no trouble finding them; on a mud-flat in the willows by the river there was a kind of shanty town stuffed with them, a ghastly litter of shacks made from discarded lumber, tattered teepees, and brush wikiups, the whole area strewn with rubbish and prowled by naked, spindly children and starving, ferocious looking dogs who were themselves eaten from time to time. Sundance’s stomach clenched. If he lost his fight, someday all the proud tribes would come to this.
There were Sioux here now, and Cheyennes, a few Blackfeet and Crows, some stray Kaws up from Kansas, degraded Pawnees, even a Delaware or two from Indian Territory. All the tribes were represented by full, half and quarter bloods, all living in an armistice imposed by poverty and necessity.