by John Benteen
He saw something else, too. To the west, a few miles into the lava, he saw an upthrust butte that came to a peculiar crest like an ax-blade. Somewhere near there, Sundance thought, was the Cave of Ancient Pictures—and thousands of dollars in gold. He whirled Eagle, rode back around the lake toward Lost River. But that would have to wait awhile—until he got the Indians out of the lava and had taken them to the Nez Percé.
Despite the fact that it was October, the day had been a hot one, and Eagle was lathered as they neared the stream. Sundance slowed him to a walk to cool before letting him drink, then eased him in at the ford between the two deserted Indian villages. He walked among the collapsing, weather-ruined lodges of wood and earth as Eagle cropped grass by the river, and he thought of Captain Jack. It was necessary to fight down a savage anger at the memory of the hanging yesterday, so he walked back to the water’s edge and turned upstream, on foot, through the trees that edged it, finding release for tension in movement. He had covered perhaps a quarter of a mile, moving instinctively with absolute silence, before he came to a wall of brush that barred his path. He was about to turn back when he went suddenly rigid and his hand dropped to the butt of the Colt. Not far up Lost River, there was a splashing in the water. Maybe it was only a cow or a deer come to drink, but ... Sundance eased into the brush, bent low. Even though it clawed at him and he had to go over or under or around briared branches, he was as silent as before as he edged toward the riverbank. Then he had reached it, and he lay flat on his belly, parted the bushes, and looked out.
The woman, Susan Wade, was naked, bathing in the stream.
Sundance smiled, admiring briefly ripe breasts, tipped with pink, the smooth curve of her body, as she stood thigh-deep in a pool, splashing water on her torso. Then, honoring her privacy, he was about to slip back into the brush when something caught his eye and froze him.
He edged a little closer to the rim, looked at her harder. His mouth went thin.
She turned, almost facing him, winced slightly as she threw cold water on dark bruises along her ribs and on her breasts. Then she swung around, and there were bruises of the same kind on her back and buttocks. Sundance’s eyes narrowed. That woman had taken a beating from someone, a working over with fists.
He lay there watching, mouth a thin, grim line, as she finished her bath, climbed out on the bank, dried in the fading light with a rough towel. She donned underwear, then pulled a gingham dress over her head, sat down on the bank and began to comb her hair. She was very beautiful, Sundance thought, but that hadn’t stopped whoever had put those bruises on her. He had been careful not to mark her face.
Presently, she rose, went to a tethered horse—not much of an animal, mostly mustang—mounted it, adjusted her skirts around her thighs, and rode off in the dusk toward the ranch. Sundance lay where he was a moment longer, then slipped back through the brush to where Eagle grazed. He mounted, splashed across the stream, and followed the route the girl had taken.
When he reached the ranch, he unsaddled Eagle, turned the appaloosa into a corral and forked him a little hay, before he went into the house. His moccasined feet made no sound, and Susan, at the cook-stove in the back room, the kitchen, did not hear or become aware of him until he was standing in the doorway. Then she started, gasped, and turned, setting down the skillet in her hand. “Oh.” She eased a little. “Oh, it’s you, Jim. You frightened me.”
“Yeah,” Sundance said. “You’re pretty jumpy.”
She laughed shortly. “I guess I am. What with everything bearing down on us—”
“Where’s Glenn?”
“We’re out of meat. He rode out to see if he could shoot a deer.” She picked up a huge steak. “This is the last beef unless we kill another yearling, and we need every cow.”
Sundance nodded. The meat hissed as she dropped it in the pan. He watched her go about the making of sourdough biscuits. After a moment, he said: “Two thousand dollars by the fifteenth of next month. Glenn gonna make it?”
She bit her lip, kneading dough. “I ... don’t know.” Tossing her head, she threw a lock of hair back out of her eyes. Almost savagely, she attacked the dough. “I don’t ... see how. But maybe he’ll come up with something. He says he will. He says not to worry.”
She took her hands out of the pan. “Needs more water,” she muttered. She went to a bucket in the corner, picked it up, then winced. Involuntarily, her hand went to her side. “I’ll do that,” Sundance said. He was across the room in a stride, took the bucket from her, looking down into her eyes. “You seem to be a little sore.”
“I—” Her gaze shuttled away. Then she said, “Yes. Yes, I am, a little. The other day I was saddling my horse. He crowded me up against the corral rails. I thought for a minute he had broken my ribs. I’m still sore from that.”
“It must have left a lot of bruises.” Sundance set the bucket on the table, handed her a dipper.
Her face turned pink. “Yes,” she said. “Yes, it did. All up and down here.” She ran her hand from breast to hip. Then she laughed, a little weakly. “But nothing like what the Hell, Yes! people did to you.”
Sundance nodded. Yes, he thought, that could explain it. An accident like that could leave a lot of bruises. He decided to accept it, anyhow. Certainly, judging from the way she and Glenn Wade looked at each other, her husband had not put them there. Sundance felt a certain relief. He liked Wade, and owed him his life. But he did not like men who beat their women.
When she was through with the bucket, he moved it off the table for her. “How long have you and Glenn been married?”
“Two years, now. I met him in Sacramento. My father was a mine superintendent. He ... got killed in a cave-in. My mother was sick, and I was supporting her. Then she died, too. It was about that time that I met Glenn. He’d tried his luck at mining, too, but got nowhere. When we got married, I sold my mother’s house and we used that money to come here, buy land from Don Roane, try ranching.” She hesitated. “I’m afraid we haven’t had much more luck at that. Glenn works hard, but nothing seems to turn out right. Partly, I guess, it was the Modoc War. That had everything turned upside down here for a long time, and it created a lot of ill-feeling against us. We were about the only people who got along with the Modocs.”
She began to pat the biscuits into shape. “People were afraid of them. And maybe with reason. They got pretty arrogant after a while, maybe because they thought, after all, this was their land. They’d walk into a ranch house without knocking, demand to be fed, or graze their stock on the ranchers’ land without paying; or demand that they be given supplies. Mostly, that was Hooker Jim’s people. Captain Jack kept his under better control.”
“Right,” Sundance said. “Most people didn’t realize that there were three bands—Jack’s, Hooker Jim’s, and the one from over at Hot Creek. In fact, the one from Hot Creek was trying to get to the reservation, out of the line of fire, and a bunch of drunken loudmouths like that outfit over at Hell, Yes! spread the word they were gonna be massacred. So they hightailed it for the lava beds instead, and joined up with Jack.”
Susan nodded, sliding the pan of biscuits in the oven. “Yes. After the fight in the villages, when the Army and the ranchers opened fire on the Modocs, the Indians ran for the lava beds. Over east of here, Hooker Jim and his bunch killed a lot of settlers on the way—thirteen men, I understand; they didn’t bother the women and children. On the other hand, Jack’s band just told every white person they met to get out of the way, that there was going to be trouble, and they didn’t harm anyone. In fact, Scar-faced Charley himself, Jack’s second in command, stayed here with me to make sure the Modocs didn’t harm me; he waited till the last second to head for the lava. But all that killing— Well, that fanned the fires of hatred against the Modocs, naturally. And since we were their friends, it made us hated, too. Injun-lovers, they called us. And ... when you’re trying to scrape out a living on almost nothing, it can make a lot of difference as to whether you succeed or fail—wha
t your neighbors think of you, I mean. Ours hate us and that just makes it that much harder.”
“Wade doesn’t seem to mind.”
She was silent for a moment. Then she said, “He will not compromise his principles. Not for anybody. He’s stubborn, hardheaded. Like these last Modocs in the lava. I . . .” She turned. “Maybe I shouldn’t have, but I told him this was a chance to win back some of the respect of our neighbors. To tell people that the Indians were there, and let the authorities deal with them, and to ... to clear ourselves of this cloud hanging over us. I don’t like having people think my husband is a rustler, even if I know it isn’t true. But he wouldn’t do it. He said it was his duty to figure out some way to save those Indians, that he owed it to Captain Jack.” Looking at Sundance, her mouth trembled. She said suddenly: “I’m so glad you’re here. I hope you can get those Modocs out of this country. And when they’re gone, we can tell everybody the truth and start trying to find a way to live with our neighbors again.”
Sundance nodded. “I’ll do my best.”
“Thank you,” she whispered, looking at him strangely. Something in her eyes bothered him, maybe the depth of the distress they contained. He saw that there was despair in her he had not sensed until now, when she dropped her cheerful, courageous front. Then she put on her mask again. “I’m sure it will work out all right now,” she said, and turned away and flipped the steak over in the frying pan.
“One more thing,” Sundance said. “Roane. Where does he stand in all this?”
Susan went rigid. Then, suddenly, there was a loud pop and she let out a little cry, jumped back, seized her wrist. “Oh,” she said. “That darned grease!”
Sundance went to her, took her hand. There was a small burn on the back of her wrist. “Come here,” he said, led her to the bucket, plunged her hand into it. They knelt there beside it, Sundance holding her arm.
Susan looked at him. “I ought to put butter on it,” she said almost timidly.
“Cold water’s better. Indian remedy. No blister that way.” Again their eyes met. This time Sundance saw something else in hers. It was not despair, and it was not gratitude. She looked at him directly, and for an instant there was unmasked hunger, wanting in her eyes, a sudden, swirling passion. Under his gaze, she turned pink, then looked away, as if knowing she had been discovered. She pulled her arm from his grasp, stood up. “It’s all right, now,” she said. “It doesn’t hurt anymore. Thank you. I’ll get on with supper, now.”
“Yes,” Sundance said. She went to the stove, back turned to him. He stood up, looked at her. The kitchen was very silent for a moment. In that instant, while they were completely alone in the house, he had the certain knowledge that if he went to her now and took her in his arms and kissed her, she would respond. It was a knowledge that disturbed him in more ways than one.
Then there were hoof beats outside. Susan let out a long breath, whether of relief or disappointment, Sundance could not say. “That’s Glenn.”
“Yes,” Sundance said. He went out. In the yard, Wade swung down off the mule. The carcass of a spike-buck was slung behind his saddle. “Well,” he grinned at Sundance, “one stroke of luck, anyhow. Didn’t ride two miles before he broke cover, and the first shot brought him down. We’ll eat for a couple of days, anyhow.”
Sundance nodded and pulled his knife. “Good. I’ll skin and butcher him. You want to save the hide and tan it, don’t you?”
“I don’t know how.”
“I’ll show you. Nothing to it. Take the brains, mix ‘em with wood ashes, spread the skin with ‘em, roll it up and bury it until the hair slips. Then break the hide fibers over a board or stretched rope and you’ve got the finest buckskin.”
“Okay, you see to it.” Glenn went inside, and Sundance deftly skinned the buck, glad to have something to do to take his mind off that look in Susan Wade’s eyes—and the recollection of the loveliness of her naked body in the river.
There was, he thought, a lot more to this situation here on Lost River than met the eye.
Chapter Five
The west side of Tule Lake was rimmed with steep bluffs. Sundance swung east in a wide arc around the shoreline where the country was less broken, riding through a morning as clear and bright and fresh as if the world had just been created. As he neared the lava beds, he began to see cattle—and they were different animals from the scrubby stock on Glenn Wade’s range. Branded Lazy R, they showed good blood, were heavy, well filled-out. Valuable animals, all right, and he could see why Roane begrudged the loss of thirty of them; that was a financial blow of considerable significance.
He halted on a rise to let Eagle blow. He squatted there, smoking a cigarette, scanning the country. Then he tensed, stood up, went to Eagle and tightened the cinches. He swung into the saddle, drew the Winchester, and laid it across the pommel. From the southeast, a rider galloped toward him, and Sundance had already recognized the wide-shouldered, blocky form sitting the saddle straight up: Roane. He eased Eagle forward at a walk. Roane had seen him, was headed straight for him, coming fast.
They came together in a swale, Sundance riding down one slope, Roane cantering down the other. Then the big man pulled up his bay. He kept both hands on the reins, high-lifted, but his eyes, on Sundance, were hard as rock.
“Sundance,” he said.
“Morning, Roane.”
“You’re on my range.” Roane crowded his horse a little closer. His eyes flickered to the Winchester laid across the saddle before Sundance. “Trespassing.”
“Sorry. I didn’t see any sign, fence or deadline.”
“I never laid one down ... until now. There’ll be men out later today to post signs. I sat up late last night writing them. You know what they read?”
“No,” Sundance said.
“This: Strangers on this land will be shot on sight.”
“Strong medicine,” Sundance murmured.
“Damned right. I’ve lost two men in two days. I’m tired of horsin’ around. From now on, I mean business. You want to know why, I’ll show you.”
Roane’s gaze was hostile, but straightforward. Sundance nodded. “Show me.”
The rancher wheeled his horse. “Come along.” He displayed no fear of Sundance’s rifle as he loped ahead. Sundance touched Eagle with moccasined heels, caught up easily.
They rode in silence for a quarter of a mile, and now they were very near the edge of the lava. To their right, there was a sudden, black upthrust of barren rock, frozen in swirling, rugged patterns, tufted here and there with brush where dust had collected in its seams to give growth a foothold.
Roane reined in, pointed at the ground. “There,” he said harshly. “Read that sign.”
Sundance ground hitched Eagle, swung down, knelt. It was plain to see: flies and other insects buzzed or crawled over earth that had been soaked with blood. From a sagebrush clump, Sundance picked a few blood-soaked hairs. He stood up. “Somebody butchered a beef-critter there last night.”
“You’re damn right!” Roane snapped, face twisted with anger. “And I got a pretty good idea who it was. I’m on good terms with every other man in this valley, and there ain’t a one I don’t trust except the fellow you’ve thrown in with. Me, I figure he’s stealin’ my beef and butcherin’ it and haulin’ it over to Hell, Yes! or someplace to sell for eatin’ money! And if I ever get the proof of it, God help him! And anybody that’s mixed up with him.”
Sundance mounted Eagle. “That include Susan Wade?” he asked thinly.
Roane went rigid. “What the hell you mean by that crack?”
“You’re damned anxious to pin this rustlin’ on Wade. Why, Roane? You want your land back? Or is it somethin’ else Wade’s got you want?”
Roane sat there with face turning mottled red. His lips worked. Sundance saw the effort with which he regained control. When Roane spoke, it was with surprising quietness. “Sundance,” he said, “you killed one of my men yesterday. I don’t fault you for that, like I said. In your pl
ace, I’d have done the same thing, if Coulter had braced me like that. So it’s no black mark against you. I’ve heard about what happened at Hell, Yes! and I can understand you feelin’ like you’ve got a debt to pay Wade, so I’m not, right now, takin’ it hard against you that you’ve thrown in with him. But, lemme tell you this. The man that says I’d sink low enough to frame somebody because I want his wife ... That man is askin’ for anything he gets. And he’ll get plenty, I’ll swear to that! What I think of Susan Wade and what she thinks of me is our business, nobody else’s. So you’ll do two things right now. You’ll apologize, and you’ll get off my land!”
Sundance looked at him steadily. Then he nodded. “Consider the apology made—unless something happens to make me think different. I was going by what I’d heard—”
“Sometimes a man hears a pack of lies.”
“Sometimes. Anyhow, I’ve withdrawn what I said. And, as for getting off your land . . .” He gestured. “You own the lava beds?”
“No. Nobody owns the lava beds.”
“Then that’s the shortest way off. So long, Roane.” Sundance swung Eagle and galloped toward the west. He did not look over his shoulder, though he knew Roane seethed with anger and was armed. Whatever else Roane was, Sundance guessed, he was not a back-shooter. Ahead, the ground convulsed in an awesome chaos of cuts and ridges, seams and gullies. Sundance rode down into a seam, its walls of jagged black rock, its floor, on which Eagle’s iron shod hooves slipped badly, of the same material. He reined in, dismounted. On foot, he went back up the slope, Winchester in hand, looked out at the plain beyond. A swirl of dust marked Roane’s passage; he had turned his horse and was pounding back the way he had come.