Sundance 20

by Peter McCurtin

  It was a small cantina, dark and smelly, and the bar was nothing but a wide plank held up by two barrels. A few Mexicans were drinking or shaking dice for drinks. The noise of the gamblers stopped and the owner went behind the bar displaying the gold teeth in the front of his mouth.

  ‘You wish a drink?’ he asked Sundance in Spanish.

  ‘A bottle of mescal,’ Sundance said. ‘Do you sell beer?’

  Behind him he heard the troopers coming in. He got ready for them.

  ‘Oh yes, we sell beer, very good beer, Mexican beer,’ the cantina owner said. ‘How many bottles to you want?’

  ‘Six,’ Sundance said, knowing that the four troopers had something to do with the killing of the two Bannerman gunmen earlier in the day. He didn’t think he’d be able to walk away from this.

  They didn’t give him a chance to try. They came up close, two on either side of him. One of them spoke English and he pointed to the bottles the cantina owner was putting on the bar. ‘Hey, Indio,’ he said, ‘you buyin’ all that good stuff there. You don’ wanna be a peeg. How’s about we help you drink all that good stuff there?’

  ‘No, soldado,’ Sundance said, ‘that’s all for me.’ Saying yes instead of no wouldn’t have made any difference.

  The trooper laughed and the others joined in. ‘Hey listen, Indio, you gonna get sick you drink all that good stuff by yourself. I think we do you a favor and drink some of that good stuff for you. Wha’ you think of that?’

  Sundance said, ‘I still think no.’

  ‘Ah, you just jokin’,’ the Mexican laughed, and started to reach for the bottle of mescal.

  It was time to show them how it felt to be looking into the muzzle of a Colt .44, but even before his hand moved a voice spoke from the door. It was a Mexican voice, but this man’s English was better. ‘Three guns are pointing at you. You will be dead before your hand touches your gun. You don’t believe, you can look.’

  It was no bluff. Two military policemen stood in the doorway with army Winchesters raised to their shoulders, pointing them at his head. The man who spoke was a military police lieutenant with a pistol in his hand. It was cocked and ready to fire.

  ‘Now the soldados will take your knife and gun,’ the lieutenant said.

  One of the military police came forward with a pair of manacles in his hand. ‘Hold out your hands,’ the lieutenant said. ‘Do it now.’

  Sundance didn’t like the metallic sound of the manacles clicking open. All his life he had ranged the west and Mexico a free man, and the Indian half of him hated confinement of any kind. Even waiting for Crook in the hotel room went against his nature. Maybe he ought to choose death now while he still had a chance to die like a man. Mexican jails were as bad as any in the world. The thought of lying on a dirt floor, eating slop, waiting to be beaten, gave him a cold feeling in his head.

  ‘What do you think you’re doing?’ he asked the lieutenant, who was a young man with light skin and a bushy blond mustache that made him look more like an Englishman than a Mexican.

  The lieutenant was satisfied with himself, pleased with his power. Sundance knew he wasn’t doing this on his own authority. Bigger men were behind this. The lieutenant was the kind who liked to please men bigger than he was.

  ‘What do you think I’m doing?’ he sneered. ‘I’m placing you under arrest for menacing Mexican citizens, Mexican soldiers, with a firearm.’

  The trooper who spoke English now said in Spanish, ‘That’s right, sir. When we came in we wished him a polite good evening. He became angry and called us unwashed pigs. I think he is drunk or has been drinking, sir.’

  He snapped to attention and saluted. Not to be outdone, one of the other troopers joined in with, ‘Estaba borracho hasta no mas. He was as drunk as could be.’

  The lieutenant said there would be no more talk. Sundance was going to the guardhouse at the military post. ‘Charges—serious charges—have been made against you,’ he said pompously, ‘and you must answer them.’

  As the manacles clicked around his wrists, Sundance asked, ‘When will that be?’

  The officer puffed up his bony chest as far as he could. ‘That is not for me to say, nor for you to ask. You are a prisoner of the Army of the Republic of Mexico. You will be tried fairly, that I can promise you.’

  ‘I asked you when, Lieutenant.’

  ‘Get him out of here,’ the lieutenant ordered the two military police.

  They put him in a cage wagon, one used to transport military prisoners. They took him four miles out to the fort, an old adobe structure that had probably been built fifty years before. The two guards climbed up on the seat, while the officer rode ahead on a fine Arabian. As the horses picked up speed under the brutal lashing of the driver, Sundance had to hold onto the bars to keep from being thrown back and forth. Looking out at the darkened Sonora countryside, he felt the wild rage of a captured animal.

  Lights from the fort stabbed through the darkness and the challenge of a sentry rang out. The challenge was answered and the massive nail-studded wooden gates swung open. On both sides of the gate were guard towers with the sinister snouts of Gatling guns protruding from the firing apertures. It was an old fort but looked secure, and Sundance wondered if he would ever see George Crook again. There was no way to tell.

  Cavalry mounts stirred restlessly as the cage wagon passed the corrals on the way to the guardhouse, a low, squat stone building with a heavy iron door and no windows. The smell of horse piss was thick in the air, and Sundance knew he would be smelling nothing else for a while. Inside the guardhouse the smells might be worse.

  A private with a rifle leaned against the wall. He straightened up when he saw the lieutenant. ‘Guard him well,’ the officer said before he spurred his horse away. ‘If this man escapes you will spend your life in a place worse than this.’

  So far there had been no pushing or kicking. When the rusty door was open he was allowed to go in by himself. But they didn’t take off the manacles. The door clanged shut and the key turned in the lock. It was a sound that chilled Sundance to the bone, and he cursed himself for not having killed as many of them as he could before they shot him down.

  At first he stood in total darkness except for the slivers of light coming through the three air holes high in the door. He listened for the breathing of other prisoners. There was no sound. He moved cautiously around the four walls of the guardhouse, then he crossed it from one side to the other. He was alone.

  Outside he heard the night sounds of the fort, the subdued voices of men and the nervous pawing of the horses. As time wore on even the horses were quiet. There was no way to tell what time it was now. All he could do was try to rely on the Indian sense of the moving earth. He sat down with his back against the stone wall, his manacled hands in front of him, and waited for morning.

  In a little while he slept. A white man might have stayed awake and thought about what would happen to him when the sun came up, but Sundance, a complete professional, knew that was useless. So he slept. It was a light sleep—the sleep of a man who would be alert in a split second if danger came near, the sleep of a man whose mind knew which noises to ignore.

  At dawn he awoke to the sounds of the fort stirring back to life. A bugler blew his brassy notes, a drum rolled and there was shouting on the parade ground. Doors banged as the men turned out for morning roll call. Cavalry horses neighed in the corral close to the guardhouse. To Sundance it was the same as any army post he had ever been in, except this one was Mexican and he was a prisoner.

  The air holes in the iron door were set too high to allow him to look out. He didn’t try; he sat and waited. Anyway, he was still alive and not shot dead while trying to escape. That was still something to think about. If they hadn’t done it last night, they might not do it at all. Of course, Colonel Almirante had given the order for his arrest, and the idea for that had come from Lucas Bannerman. He wondered if they would go through with the mockery of a military court. If they did try and convict
him, what would be his punishment? The firing squad? Ten years in the silver mines to the south? Or just expulsion from the country? Sundance wished he had a drink of water.

  He got it a few hours later when the door crashed open and a private came in watched by the guard outside. Without a word he shoved a tin plate of refried beans and a mug of water at Sundance. The door closed again.

  Sundance sat on the floor and ate the beans as best he could with his hands manacled. The beans were cold, but there was plenty of fire in them. He drank the water slowly. He didn’t finish all of it because another day might pass before he got another drink.

  It was past noon when the door opened again and Sundance saw them bringing a prisoner past the corrals. The man looked like an American. He had been beaten. Blood was on his face and on his shirt. He stumbled in front of the guards. When he fell one of the Mexicans kicked him in the side. Then both guards dragged him to his feet and pushed him ahead.

  The door was locked and Sundance had company. He didn’t say anything, just listened to the man’s heavy breathing in the almost total darkness. When the man spoke his voice was hoarse and desperate.

  ‘Are you Sundance?’ he asked. ‘I heard they got you too.’

  ‘Got me for what?’ Sundance countered.

  ‘For the same thing I’ve been doing.’

  ‘What would that be?’

  ‘Trying to get information on Bannerman and the slavers.’

  ‘What slavers? I came down here to hunt tigers in the Sierra Madre.’

  The other man said in the same hoarse whisper, ‘You don’t have to be careful with me. We’re on the same side. Colonel Wingard sent me down here from San Diego. Decker is my name. I’m a first lieutenant in United States Army. You’re working for General Crook, aren’t you?’ Sundance let the other man talk on. ‘Everybody in Las Piedras knows you’re a friend of his. I think Bannerman did some checking on you the first day you showed up. Then you got that telegraph message from the general. No way to keep things secret in a town this small. What do you think they’ll do to us? Don’t you have anything to say?’

  Sundance said, ‘They beat you pretty good.’

  ‘The bastards had me chained to a ring in a wall for two days. Jesus God! I hurt all over. Listen, Sundance, there’s a chance we can still get out of this if we work together. Maybe we can make a break for it next time they open the door. It’s better than waiting to be beaten again You still aren’t saying anything.’

  ‘And you’re saying too much. How do you know I’m not with them?’

  ‘Then you know what I’m talking about?’

  ‘I know what you’re saying. You say you were sent here to track down slavers and you got caught. One more time, how do you know I’m not with them?’

  ‘Because you’re a friend of General Crook, because you’re in here. The best reason—you killed two of Bannerman’s top guns. You killed them before they could kill that Mexican lawyer. He was with you when it happened.’

  ‘You know everything, don’t you, Decker?’

  ‘That’s my business. I’ve done this work before.’

  ‘But this time you got caught. How did that happen? What have you been doing since you arrived in Sonora? What were you supposed to be?’

  ‘A mining engineer. I’m not an engineer, but my father was. I know how to talk the language. I brought along all the equipment to make it look good. As an engineer I could move around without too many questions. But I don’t think it was anything I did. I think somebody in San Diego sent them word who I was. It had to be somebody close to Colonel Wingard. Not many people knew I was being sent down here. I think you were betrayed too.’

  Sundance said, ‘I thought I was in here because I killed those two Bannerman killers.’

  Decker didn’t answer immediately. ‘You still don’t trust me?’ he said at last. ‘You’re General Crook’s friend, you must know plenty about the army. Ask me any question you want to ask. Go ahead.’

  ‘What do they call Crook in the army?’

  ‘Old George.’

  ‘What do the Indians call him?’

  ‘Three Stars.’

  ‘What kind of gun does he carry on a campaign?’

  ‘A shotgun.’

  ‘What else do you know about him?’

  ‘Plenty, just about anything you’d want to know. Before he goes into the field, he gets out his old canvas coat and plaits his beard in two places so it won’t get tangled in brush. He smokes cigars morning to night and never uses dirty words. He sleeps on the ground and eats what the men eat.’

  ‘How do you know so much?’

  ‘Damn it, you are suspicious. Because I served with him on the North Platte.’

  That was one of the Indian campaigns during which Sundance had not been with Crook.

  ‘Makes sense,’ he said. ‘Just tell me one more thing and maybe we’ll talk. What’s the name of Crook’s wife?’

  Decker answered promptly, a little too promptly. ‘Mary Dailey,’ he said. He realized he had made a slip and tried to cover it. ‘I know her name is Mary. She’s Irish—Dailey or maybe it’s Haley. Something Irish like that. That all you want to know?’

  ‘Yes,’ Sundance answered. ‘Now why don’t you run back to Bannerman and Colonel Almirante and tell them it didn’t work. I’m down here to hunt tigers and that’s all.’

  ‘What the hell’s the matter with you? I told you everything you wanted to know.’

  ‘You shouldn’t have told me Mrs. Crook’s name. I don’t know five people who could tell her name. How would a first lieutenant know it?’

  Decker drew in his breath, and for a moment it was the only sound in the darkness. Then he let it out. ‘You lousy halfbreed savage,’ he said before he struggled to his feet and banged on the door of the guardhouse.

  ‘Open up. Send for Lieutenant Novela,’ he said in Spanish.

  Squatting on his heels against the wall, Sundance smiled to himself. After they let Decker out it was silent again except for the sounds of the fort. He drank a little of the water and waited. The day dragged on. They didn’t bring him any more water, any more food. He wondered what they would try next. Maybe nothing—just a bullet. Decker’s performance had been pretty good. Maybe he had been a junior officer at one time. A man like that would be useful to Lucas Bannerman. It was possible that Decker, or whatever his name was, had something to do with the crooked officers on the American side of the border.

  Many hours later he woke up and heard them coming for him. It was the middle of the night.

  Four

  ‘Come out, Sundance,’ Lieutenant Novela ordered. It was cold. The Mexican who looked like an Englishman was wearing a cape. Two military policemen were with him, both carrying rifles but not pointing them. Well, I’ll know in a minute, Sundance thought with the fatalism of his Indian nature. He knew there would come a time when there would never be another sunrise for him. The way he lived, his death would be violent. It had to happen and maybe this was it. But it was good, if only for a while, to breath in clean air, to look up at the stars.

  ‘What’s it going to be?’ he asked the priggish lieutenant.

  Novela didn’t answer. ‘Remove the manacles,’ he told one of the guards in Spanish.

  Sundance rubbed his wrists and walked where Novela was pointing. Even the moonlight was hard on his eyes after the darkness of the cell.

  They crossed the parade ground, going toward a big white house set apart from the officers’ quarters. Colonel Almirante was up late, Sundance thought. Lights were bright in the ground floor of the big house, and three horses were tethered out in front. When they got closer, Sundance saw they were not army stock. After posting the guards on both sides of the door, Novela told Sundance to go in.

  Novela knocked and a tall, thin American who looked like a gunman opened it. Sundance went in and the lieutenant tried to follow.

  ‘Not you,’ the gunman said in a soft Cajun voice. ‘Just Sitting Bull here.’ He reached out and sn
atched Sundance’s hat from his head. ‘Down the hall, Geronimo, and mind your manners.’

  At the end of the red-tiled hallway, an archway opened into a long, low, brightly-lit room with a fire burning in a wide stone fireplace. It was a rich, comfortable room even for a Mexican Army colonel. Most of the polished tile floor was covered by a Persian carpet, and on the walls were paintings of castles and waterfalls. The furniture was dark, solid and heavy. In front of the crackling fire two men sat in deep chairs. One was a Mexican Army colonel, the other a civilian. Over the fireplace hung a large portrait of the colonel. The man who painted it had been kind to the colonel, had given him a firm chin and trimmed away much of the fat.

  ‘Go outside and wait,’ the civilian told two gunmen who were standing at the other end of the room. The Cajun stayed without being told. He kept staring at Sundance as though measuring him for a coffin.

  ‘Come here, Señor Sundance,’ Colonel Almirante said in perfect English. ‘You may sit in that chair. This is General Lucas Bannerman who has taken an interest in your case.’

  Bannerman said, ‘Please, Colonel, don’t call me ‘General.’ The war’s over. Mister will do.’

  Bannerman was about fifty, but a very hard-bodied fifty. His dark hair had long streaks of white in it. He still looked like what he had been – a Louisiana planter, a man used to giving orders and having them obeyed instantly. What he didn’t look like was a man who had worked Union prisoners to death for his own profit. Someone who didn’t know the true story would have thought him hard but fair, a square-dealing businessman. When the Civil War broke out he had been commissioned as captain of a volunteer company. Within a few months he had risen to brigadier general. He had been very popular with his men, it was said.

  Sundance sat down and waited for them to get started. Colonel Almirante talked first because, after all, he was military commandant of the province. Short and fat, resplendent in a tailored blue uniform, he tried to be more impressive than he looked by talking loudly and deliberately, as if everything he said had great meaning.