Sundance 8

by John Benteen

  Cavanaugh kicked at Sundance, knocked him sprawling. He kicked again, but Sundance rolled, and his hand slid through the papers spilled from the desk. It closed on something hard and sharp, a letter-opener. He rolled again and came up, and when Cavanaugh saw the blade in his hand like a dagger, he backed away. Sundance laughed and threw the letter-opener with the gun. He wanted to do this with his fists. Mouth puffed, face cut, ribs bruised, he still felt no pain, only a ferocious hatred and the knowledge that he must take Cavanaugh alive and keep him that way for a while. Fists up, he came in and Cavanaugh was backed into a corner. Showing no fear, the Texan squared himself, brought up his own fists. Sundance took one blow, two, and came in inexorably. Now he had Cavanaugh crowded and he hit the man in the face once, twice, and Cavanaugh groaned and pounded him in the ribs, but Sundance only hit Cavanaugh again, and now Cavanaugh’s face was a bloody mask, nose smashed, eyes closing, and Sundance hit him once more and then another time. Cavanaugh made a whistling sound as bone in his jaw yielded. Then he was crumpling. Sundance stepped back, cocked a fist. But now Lance Cavanaugh, Cavanaugh the proud, rich Texan, was on his knees, looking up at Sundance through pouring scarlet. Beneath sodden mustaches his mouth moved. “Don’t,” he said thickly. “No more. I’m beat.”

  Gasping for breath, Sundance only whirled away, seized the Colt, spun. Cavanaugh had not moved, but at that instant, a face appeared at the barred window. Sundance raised the gun, fired, and it disappeared in a wash of red. He ducked, sprang to the window, closed the massive inside shutter that matched the door, and whirled. Cavanaugh was getting shakily to his feet.

  “All right,” Sundance rasped. “They can’t help you now. We’re shut up in here just like your money. You know who I am?”

  “I ... know ...” There was no pride left in Cavanaugh now. “I … For God’s sake, Sundance ...” Now he was just a bloody old man, head bowed, legs trembling. “Please don’t—”

  “The S & S Concern,” Sundance snapped. “What is it, who is it? Tell me, Cavanaugh! Tell me, now!”

  “I—” Cavanaugh’s mouth opened and shut, blood dribbling from his torn tongue.

  There was a pounding at the door, at the shutters. But Sundance remained cool. “If you don’t tell me, I’m gonna start shootin’ you to pieces. You got ten seconds, Cavanaugh.”

  The beaten man blinked dazedly. “You’ll never git ... out of here ... alive …” he husked.

  “My worry. The S & S Concern—”

  “For God’s sake. All right.” Cavanaugh sagged against the wall, sucked in breath. Then, thickly, he said two names.

  Jim Sundance stared, shocked, appalled, and, for a moment disbelieving. “Them? They put up ten thousand of the money on my head?”

  “They did it,” Cavanaugh said. “It was their idea in the first place. They said you had to go before the rest would work—”

  “All right,” Sundance said bitterly. “I should have guessed, I reckon. Well— Open the safe, Cavanaugh.”

  “Sundance—”

  “Open it. I’m due a reward, Cavanaugh. I’ve taken some of it already off of dead men. I figure I still got ninety thousand comin’. Likely there’s that much in there. I want it, I got a use for it. And I want your papers. All of ’em, about the S & S Concern.”

  “If I give those to you … I’m finished.”

  “And where you think you’ll be if you don’t?”

  “Sundance ...” Cavanaugh was stiffening now. “We can bargain. I’ll pay you a hundred thousand and give you safe conduct outa here—”

  “You’re damned right you will,” Sundance grinned, through blood. “Open it, Cavanaugh.” He jerked the gun. “Two seconds left.”

  “Yes,” Cavanaugh breathed. He seemed to crumple, dropped to his knees before it, spun the dial with one hand, mopping blood from his eyes with the other. The door swung wide, Cavanaugh reached inside. Then he rolled, and when he landed on his back, there was a snub-nosed Colt in his hand.

  Sundance aimed and fired instinctively. Cavanaugh screamed as the bullet smashed his forearm and the pistol dropped. “You don’t git off that easy,” Sundance grated, and he picked up the gun. “You tough old bastard, you. No, not that easy … ” As Cavanaugh rolled over, moaning, Sundance went to the safe. He let out a breath of satisfaction. Money, in big bills, stacks of it. And files: right there on top, one marked S & S Concern.

  There were folded money bags in the bottom of the safe. Sundance crammed in the file, wads of currency. When they were full, he latched two together, slung them over his shoulder and arose. Outside, the turmoil had taken on a different note. All around the fort, now, men were shouting, yelling, and he heard the thud of horses’ hooves. Inside Jim Sundance something unknotted. They had kept their word …

  “Boss!” Chess’s voice roared outside the door frantically. “Boss, there’s a range fire, a hell of a fire—Boss, damn it! All hell is breakin’ loose!”

  Cavanaugh raised his head, blinked. Sundance grinned. “He’s right, Cavanaugh. All the range from the south bank of Lodgepole on is burnin’ now. Good dry, rich grass. Grazed down, yeah, but plenty of fuel to keep it going. That ain’t the main thing, though. The main thing is the stampedes, you understand, Cavanaugh? It’s a chain, the fire starts the first herd to runnin’, it breaks into another, spooks ’em ... Pretty soon, there’s gonna be the damndest mess you’ve ever seen, all the way from here to the Platte. All those cattle you’ve brought in here runnin’ like hell...” He grabbed the rancher by the collar, jerked. “On your feet. We’re gonna wait a while until that draws off most of the men in this fort. Then you’re gonna escort me out of here, and the first man that snaps a cap at me, you die. You understand that?”

  Cavanaugh mumbled something. He leaned against the wall. Sundance waited patiently. The turmoil outside heightened. Most of the men within the fort were cowboys with responsibility to the herds, those of Cavanaugh and of other brands. There would be guards left, yes, but at least not an army of them. And out there in the night there would be fire, stampede, confusion, enough to give him an even chance at getting away.

  Now the tumult faded. Most of the riders must have gone. Sundance collared Cavanaugh and jammed the pistol in his back. “Unbar the door.”

  Tensely, he waited as it swung open. Outside lamps were lit in the front room, and in their light Chess and Farley stood, with guns up. “Boss—” Chess began and broke off, as he saw Cavanaugh’s battered face and the battered Indian behind him with the gun.

  “Don’t shoot,” Cavanaugh husked. “He’ll kill me if you do. Let ... let us through.”

  “Boss—”

  “You heard the man,” Sundance said. “I want two horses out there and the gates open. Lead the horses outside the gates and hold ’em there. We’ll come on foot.”

  Chess opened his mouth to protest, but Cavanaugh gasped, “Do what he says! Both of you!” He swallowed hard. “This here’s—”

  “Don’t say that name!” Sundance rasped. Cavanaugh bit off the words. “Move,” he said weakly. “Dammit, you two move … ”

  They paused only a moment longer. Then Chess said, “Hell. There ain’t no option, Farley. Let’s go.”

  They backed out. Sundance prodded Cavanaugh on, and they passed through the front door. On the porch, they halted, even Sundance awed.

  To the north the sky was a blaze of orange light as far as he could see. They had fired the range all right, fired the grass, the knots of timber, all of it. The wind was from the north, and the fire was moving fast, and there was a sound like thunder out there which would be thousands of running cattle, a wild bawling and bellowing, as the jammed herds ran ahead of fire. Horses whinnied, men shouted, and guns went off as riders tried to turn and slow the herds. All at once there was a crash, the stockade trembled, as a panic-stricken bunch of cattle collided with it, sheered off. The gates across the yard were open, in the firelight Chess and Farley stood holding two wild-eyed nervous horses.

  Sundance looked at the gua
rd towers. There were men in them, but that was a chance he had to take. “Move, Cavanaugh,” he said.

  That trip across the yard to the gates was one of the longest journeys he had ever made, but the men in the tower only stared and held their fire. At the gates, Chess and Farley stood tensely, guns holstered, holding the nervous horses. Beyond, on the open range, Sundance saw longhorns running in the hectic glow of firelight. It was like hell out there, an inferno of flame and stampeding cattle.

  “Drop your gun belts,” he told Chess and Farley.

  They obeyed, one-handed. “Now,” Sundance said, swinging lithely into the saddle of one horse, keeping Cavanaugh under the muzzle of his Colt, “mount up.”

  Cavanaugh did so, stiffly. Sundance crowded up, took his horse’s reins with his left hand. “Tell ’em to go in and close the gates.”

  Cavanaugh’s orders were lost in the noise, the turmoil. Sundance did not even wait to see if they were followed. Suddenly he kicked his horse and lashed Cavanaugh’s with rein ends, and both animals broke into a gallop. “Hyaaaaaaaiiieee!” he yelled, Cheyenne war-whoop rising above the racket. Then, leading Cavanaugh’s horse, he rode straight into the hell of flame and running cattle.

  ~*~

  To that hidden place north of the Platte and west of Fort Laramie they came, one by one or in weary, smoke-smudged little groups of two or three; some coughed with tuberculosis, and several had got hold of whiskey and were drunk. But most of them rode tall, straight in their saddles, like the warriors they once had been and had again proved themselves to be tonight. The hills ringed them in, the wind blew fresh and cool from the northern ranges as they dismounted in the first gray light of dawn.

  Horse Running was grinning broadly and Tall Tree’s eyes shone with a strange light as they faced Sundance. “Good! It worked! You got clear!”

  “Thanks to you,” Sundance said. “It was beautiful work you did.”

  “We only followed your orders. We wore no feathers, gave no war whoops, moved in stealth, shot only in self-defense, rode only shod horses, and as soon as the range was burning, rode out. But it was a beautiful sight to see, all those wohaws and white men running … ” Then Tall Tree’s eyes shuttled to the man with the battered face and bandaged arm and hobbled ankles sitting by the fire. “Cavanaugh!” he gasped. “You took him alive!”

  Sundance nodded. All the men from Oglalla were in now, and they crowded around, and Cavanaugh raised his head, eyes staring, as a soft, yet terrible murmur, like the first rasp of wind before a storm, went through the gathering. “And what will you do with him?” Horse Running asked softly.

  Sundance hesitated. “That’s for you to say,” he answered finally.

  “Sundance—” Cavanaugh levered himself to his feet. His voice shook. “For God’s sake, man, you’re half white, anyhow. You wouldn’t leave me to these ... these wolves.” His licked his battered lips. “Don’t you know what they’ll do to me?”

  “No,” Sundance said. “But I know what you’ve done to them. You’ve hanged their friends and relatives just for riding on their range, or let men like Rockford shoot them to pieces. And I know what else you aimed to do, Cavanaugh. Sand Creek, the Washita, I know how the Army handles Indians. I’ve seen the dead women and the little children, Cavanaugh. I’ve seen babies shot apart by rifle fire or burned in teepees or frozen because their homes were destroyed in the dead of winter. I’ve seen what’s happened to captured women when white soldiers who’ve been penned up for months without any women of their own got hold of ’em. That’s what a full-scale Army campaign against the tribes is like, Cavanaugh, that’s what you wanted, worked so damned hard to get.” He paused. “It’s not a thing that pleasures me. But if a man plays for big stakes like you played for, he’s got to be prepared to lose and take big consequences. These men are your consequences, Cavanaugh. They’re entitled to their own justice in their own way.”

  “Sundance,” Cavanaugh said and sat down heavily and stared at the dawn with despairing eyes. Again that wolfish murmur went through the crowd, but Sundance’s voice rode above it, harsh and clear. “Hear me, warriors!”

  There was silence.

  Sundance said, “My way lies east, where I have important business. I must ride. I leave Cavanaugh to you. But this I ask. Whatever happens, whatever you decide to do, no one must ever see this man again, dead or alive. Do you understand? It must be as if the earth had swallowed him or the wind had lifted him to the stars.”

  “If it is important, we’ll guarantee that,” Horse Running said.

  “It is.” Sundance paused. “I must go now. But you— When this affair is finished, what will you do?”

  Horse Running shrugged. “I know who I am again—a warrior of the Arapaho. I’m heading north to join my people. Tall Tree says he goes again to the Cheyennes. Others—” he swept out his hand “—also seize the chance to go home again in pride. You’ve given us that much, anyhow, Sundance. Pride enough to return to our own with our heads up.” Then he looked at a couple of men lying on the ground nearby, whiskey bottles in their hands, one snoring, the other making gargling sounds. “Some will go back to Oglalla. Some are dead inside already and nothing can be done for them. But the rest of us say our thanks.”

  “No, I say mine to you. I went into Cavanaugh’s fort not knowing whether I’d ever come out again. I had to take whatever chance came along. But none of the chances would have been any good without you.” Suddenly he swung up into the saddle. “I’ve got to ride. Good hunting to you all! Maybe I’ll see you in the Fall up north for the last buffalo run!” He could find no other words, pulled the horse around, kicked it almost savagely. It thundered into the night as, behind him, Cavanaugh’s voice cried his name one last time, despairingly, and then was cut off short.

  Chapter Nine

  In his suite at the Palmer House in Chicago, the tall half-breed dressed in suit and tie, the gun shoulder-holstered beneath his coat, faced the two men in uniform.

  One was short and swarthy, running to plumpness; the other, leaner, with a hard, hickory-wood face and a tuft of beard, towered over the short one. The faces of both were dour, and neither would meet Sundance’s eyes.

  Sundance’s voice was bitter, scathing. “The S & S Concern,” he said, lashing them with the words. “I should have guessed. Lieutenant General Philip H. Sheridan, commander of the Division of the Missouri. And General William Tecumseh Sherman, General of the Army of the United States.” His mouth curled. “Sheridan and Sherman, S & S. And using ten thousand dollars of Army funds to put a reward on the head of a United States citizen with no charges of any kind against him.”

  Sheridan, the short one, fingered his dark mustaches. “Sundance, you can’t talk to us like that. We agreed to meet you here, General Sherman came all the way from Washington. But not to—”

  “Shut up,” Sundance snapped. “Do you hear me? Shut up!” His eyes raked over them. “For God’s sake, when I thought it was justified, I scouted for you two and for your Army. I advised you on Indian affairs—not that much of it was ever taken, but you asked my opinion and I gave it. I risked my life on your orders more than once when there were rogue Indians about to break the peace and you asked me to make sure they didn’t. And then you connive with Cavanaugh and the other ranchers to put a price on my head big enough to turn the hand of everybody in the West against me. When you did that, you ordered my execution, hell, my murder—”

  “Sundance, you don’t understand—” Sherman began in his scratchy voice.

  “I understand this. I thought you were my friends. And you betrayed me. But I should have known. You said it, didn’t you, Sheridan? The only good Indian’s a dead Indian ...”

  “I was misquoted!” the little cavalry general blurted.

  “Well, you’re not misquoted in these papers.” Sundance strode to a table, slapped a pile of documents. “These, gentlemen, are copies—I trust you read them all in the time I gave you. The originals are in the hands of someone in Washington who has
orders to release them if I’m not in touch with him every month one way or the other, for at least the next year. Well, have you read them?”

  “We’ve read them,” the lean Sherman said almost wearily. He took out a big black cigar and lit it while Sundance waited. “And—all right. You’ve got us cold. Those documents would ruin Sheridan, me, and every rancher mentioned in ’em as subscribing to that reward. But the idea didn’t come from us, Sundance. It came ... from higher up.”

  “I know where it came from,” Sundance said. “It came from Cavanaugh through the Indian Ring to the corrupt men around President Grant and got bucked down to you. That makes no difference. You didn’t fight it, you went along with it, because you don’t want peace, you want war. Without war, you can’t get your appropriations and get your pet officers promoted. War’s your business, and when business is bad you try to make it better. It’s good business for your suppliers and contractors, too. It ain’t much business for the poor bastards that take an arrow or a rifle ball in the gut, but it’s fine for generals.”

  He paused. “All right. These prove that you and Grant’s administration intended to break the treaties and start a war in cold blood and wipe out all the Indians. If I release ’em to the press, there’ll be a public howl you can’t handle, and you know what will happen? You’ll be the scapegoats. Grant and his people will blame it all on you, and you’ll be kicked out in a hurry, maybe even court-martialed. There are enough decent people in this country to make sure of that. The treaties were represented to them as triumphs of fairness. These papers show what you really meant to do all along.”