Sundance 6

by John Benteen

  “You own this place?” Sundance asked as they reached a back door.

  “More or less. Anyhow, I run it.” She unlocked the door and invited him to enter with a gesture.

  Sundance stepped in to a small living room that was feminine and civilized in its furnishings, in contrast to the rough, shabby saloon out front. There were ruffled curtains on the windows, china knick-knacks laid about, and even several shelves of books, good ones with the look of having been read over and over. The place smelled subtly of perfume. In one corner Sundance saw his weapon belts and hardware coiled and stored. He went to them at once.

  Jan Farnum closed and locked the door behind them, then turned to watch him cinch on his armament. Her mouth curled in a faint smile. “You’re like everybody else out here, aren’t you? Feel naked without your guns.”

  Sundance nodded. “Maybe by now you’ve noticed I’ve got a lot of enemies. Walking around slick’s a good way for a man in my business to commit suicide.”

  “Your business. And what is your business, Mr. Sundance?”

  He grinned. “Didn’t you hear Sieber? According to him, it’s being a renegade, stirring up Apaches to hit the warpath.”

  She went to a cabinet, took out a bottle and two glasses. “And is Sieber right?”

  Sundance took out the Colt, spun the cylinder, making sure it was fully loaded. “You don’t expect me to answer that.”

  “No. I do expect you could use a drink.”

  “You expect right.” She poured and handed him a glass and he tossed it off at a swallow, thrust it back at her. She poured again, then lifted her own and sipped it, looking at him appraisingly with those huge, green eyes. He only took a swallow this time, then sighed as the alcohol bit hard, relaxing his taut, battered body. “Miss Farnum, you’re a lifesaver in more ways than one.”

  “Call me Jan. I hate formalities … Jim.” Then she went on. “Another thing you could use is a bath. You’re a mess. Of course, if it’s any consolation, Sieber was in worse shape when they hauled him back to the reservation in a buckboard.” She pointed to another door. “My bedroom. There’s a tub in there and I gave orders to have it filled. Clean clothes on the bed, too. I bought some for you at the store. Pass those you’ve got on out and I’ll have them washed. After you’ve got yourself fixed up, we’ll talk.”

  Sundance set down his glass. “Yeah,” he said. “Yeah, I think we’ve got a lot to talk about.” Then he went into the bedroom.

  It was, like the front room of the suite, completely feminine. Thick log walls sealed out the noise of the saloon adjacent to it. There was a wide bed with a frilly counterpane, a dressing table with powders and perfumes, a big, claw-footed tub in an alcove with steam rising from the water inside. Sundance stripped off his clothes, went to the door, passed the filthy garments through, and Jan Farnum took them. He closed the door and carried his weapons to the tub, laid them down beside it where they could be reached in a hurry. Then he slid into the hot water and sighed as it closed over him and soothed his battered body. After a while, he began to lather himself with perfumed, store-bought soap. Then he sank back into the water again and shut his eyes, relaxing. He lay like that for several minutes before the sound of the opening door behind him brought him straight up, dripping, reaching for his gun. His hand was on its butt before Jan Farnum strode into his line of vision, carrying both glasses.

  Boldly, coolly, she came up to the tub and held out one of them. “You left your drink out there,” she said. “I thought you’d want it.”

  Sundance looked up into those green eyes, which met his directly and unwaveringly. Then he let go of the gun and took the glass. “Yeah,” he said. “Thanks.”

  Jan went to the bed, sat down on it, sipped whiskey. After a moment, she said: “Charlie Boggs told you what happened to his family.”

  “Yeah.”

  “So he’s got good reason to hate Apaches. All Indians. I knew how he felt and I was afraid for you.”

  Sundance nodded. “I can understand how the boy felt. I’ve known Geronimo for a long time. He’s not exactly one of nature’s noblemen. Even the other Chiricahuas don’t turn their backs on him if they can help it. But, in this particular case, it wasn’t the men who did it, it was the women. There must have been squaws with that war party. They’re always worse than the men about things like that.”

  Jan grimaced. “Women could do such a thing to a five year old child?”

  Sundance looked down at his glass. “They’ve seen such things done to theirs. Did you ever hear of the Camp Grant Massacre?”

  “No,” she said.

  “That was fifteen years ago. The Arivaipa Apaches and some others came into Camp Grant and gave up. A Lieutenant Whitman put them to work. They were peaceable, even hired out to the ranchers as field hands. But then the whites in Tucson decided to wipe them out, and they put together an army of Papago Indians, Mexicans and drunken white men and took the Camp Grant Indians by surprise. They killed nearly a hundred and fifty of ’em, including women and children. The women were raped and hacked to pieces with knives, the kids brained on rocks or cut up the same way. On top of which, the Papagoes took about thirty of the kids prisoners and sold ’em into slavery in Mexico. Oh, the government tried the people who did it, but every one of ’em was acquitted. For that matter, you ever hear of Jim Johnson, the scalp hunter? He called a bunch of Indians together for a feast, and while they were eating he opened up on them with a cannon he’d hidden, killed two dozen of ’em. Or the Yavapai Rangers from Prescott who went Indian hunting and promised that every woman at their sendoff party would have an Apache scalp to make a wig out of. They hit an Apache camp by surprise and killed two dozen men, women and children. There used to be a man out here named Woolsey who’d give the Indians cornmeal mixed with strychnine. You think kids didn’t eat that, too; ever seen how somebody dies with a gutful of strychnine? Likely the Apaches haven’t forgot a man called Sugarfoot Jack, either. He was a hardcase and an Indian hater that they still talk about. Twenty years ago, they tell the story, he was in on a raid on an Apache rancheria ... a village. They shot down whole families, set the wikiups on fire … Sugarfoot found a live baby and threw it in the fire to watch it burn, they say.”

  “Oh, my God,” Jan whispered.

  Sundance went on, voice harsh, emotionless. “After that, he picked up another Apache kid, one that was scared and crying. Put it on his knee, played with it until it was laughing again. Then he pulled out his pistol and blew its brains out.”

  Jan Farnum, face pale, drained her glass.

  “So it works both ways,” Sundance went on bitterly. “Apache women are human, too. And the Apaches aren’t the only savages out here. It’s an endless circle—killing, revenge for killing, revenge for that. I’m not excusing what happened to Charlie Boggs’ sister. But how do you excuse what happened to all the little red children?”

  Jan swallowed hard. “I don’t want to talk about it,” she said. “I don’t want to hear any more about it.” She sat there, glass clasped between her hands, staring at Sundance. Then she got up, came over to the tub. She looked down at him, then reached for a towel, handed it to him. “Here,” she said.

  He took it, eyes meeting hers. Then he nodded and without shame or any false modesty stood up, stepped out, and began to towel himself. The woman did not turn her gaze from him. Neither of them spoke. Presently, Sundance threw the towel aside. Then he reached for her, and she came to him quickly. Her lips were parted, her green eyes swirling, as she pressed the soft roundness of her body against his hard nakedness and raised her face for his kiss.

  ~*~

  Later, much later, they lay together in the wide, soft bed with her warmth and smoothness tightly against him, her head cradled on his arm. Her eyes were closed, her breathing regular, but she was not asleep. Sundance ran his hand across the mounds of full breasts, and slowly her eyelids lifted and she smiled faintly, contentedly. “Jim,” she whispered. She moved closer to him. “Oh, I needed that
.” She put her arm around him.

  “I figured you did.” He brushed her lips with his. “You aren’t the only one.” Then he slipped loose from her, sat up. He found his tobacco where he’d put it on the table by the bed, rolled two cigarettes, passed her one. When he had lit them, he said, “But now I think it’s time we did some talking.”

  “I don’t want to talk. I just want to—”

  Sundance rolled out of bed, and she made a disappointed sound deep in her throat. Then she turned over, propped on an elbow, watched him slip into the clean flannel shirt, the new denims. After that, he cinched on his weapons belts. “Maybe you don’t want to, but I do. I need some answers. I don’t think I’m so damned pretty that that’s the only reason you got me out of jail.”

  “Why do you have to have reasons?”

  “Because when people do things for you without reasons, it’s like putting bait in a trap. I don’t like traps.”

  “What we just did together—” Jan stretched lazily. “Wouldn’t that be reason enough?”

  The good humor faded from Sundance’s eyes. “Don’t play games with me. I don’t like games, that kind.”

  She swung out of bed, reached for her clothes and began to dress. “I’ve got to see how things are out front. Make yourself at home. But after what Sieber said about you, it wouldn’t be smart to go out on the street. Just rest, relax ... And maybe by tonight you’ll have some of your reasons.”

  Chapter Five

  Three hours later, Jan Farnum had still not returned: A Mexican girl had brought back his buckskin shirt, and Sundance slipped it over the store-bought one the girl had provided. Outside, it was dark and the nights at that altitude were cold in spring; the extra shirt felt good.

  Tonight, she had said, he would have his reasons. That was, for the moment, enough for him. Meanwhile, he knew he needed rest—so he took it, with the patience of a great cat that has hunted and knows he must hunt again, using every nerve and muscle. In the front room he shoved a chair into a corner where he could watch the windows and doors, allowed himself one more drink of Jan’s bourbon, took a volume of Shakespeare from the shelf, and enjoyed the rare treat of leisure in which to read. But he had his gun hitched forward so that, even sitting, he could draw it swiftly if he had to.

  And when the outside door swung open suddenly, his hand went to its butt.

  Two men stood in the doorway. “Ease off,” the one in the lead said quickly and came into the room. The other followed a pace behind.

  Sundance slowly got to his feet, hand dangling close to the Colt. The man in front smiled, came a few steps closer. “You’re Sundance,” he said. “My name’s Gil Tanner.”

  He was about Sundance’s age, tall, well-built, not so wide as Sundance in the shoulders, but with a look of rawhide toughness. His face was striking, its features heavy but cleanly chiseled, handsome; and there was power and authority in the set of the wide mouth below the strong nose, intelligence in the gray eyes that raked over Sundance. He wore clothes for riding, but they were new and expensive: a Stetson that would have cost an ordinary cowhand’s wages for a month; a fine, unstained and unscarred bullhide jacket; California pants and bench-made boots. The holstered Colt on his hip had an ivory grip and Sundance could see engraving on its back-strap. The hand he put out for Sundance to shake was hard, but it was not work-roughened.

  Sundance took it, very briefly. “Tanner. I don’t know you.”

  “You will,” Tanner said and grinned, showing good white teeth. Then he turned. “Meet Bob Tribolet.”

  Sundance tensed. Tribolet—the man who’d sold whiskey to Geronimo. He did not come forward, but only lounged against the wall, lean and somehow snakelike in his aspect, with a long neck and a head that moved constantly, restlessly, on it. He had snake’s eyes, too, small and beady, and a receding chin heightened the viperish impression. He wore dirty range clothes, and his thumbs were hooked in two crisscrossed gun belts, their Colts set butt-forward for a cross-draw. “Sundance,” he grunted, rolling a wooden match across his mouth between snaggled teeth.

  “Shut the door, Bob,” Tanner said. He went to the table and found a glass and poured a drink, obviously at home here. “Long ride from Tucson, and we didn’t let the grass grow under us.” He tossed it off, sighed, wiped his mouth. Then he said, “I came here to powwow with you.”

  “Did you now?”

  “Yeah. First, I want to ask you some questions.”

  “Maybe you’ve got a reason why I should answer ’em.”

  Tanner’s grin widened. “I have. Wasn’t for me, you’d still be in jail. Jan Farnum got you out on my account. It was my money that went your bail.” He gestured carelessly. “I own this place—among other things.”

  “I see,” Sundance said, interested.

  “So I figure you owe me the favor of a little palaver. And I rode hard a lot of miles to talk to you.”

  Sundance was ready to allow himself another drink. He poured it. “Then maybe I’ll talk. To you. But it might be a good idea if it was just you and me.”

  “Likely. Bob,” Tanner said promptly, “you can leave us now. Go out front and soak up some booze; you’ve earned it.”

  Tribolet answered in a hoarse, rough voice, as if he smoked too much. “Gil, it might be better if I stayed.”

  Tanner’s grin vanished. “You do what I say. I can look after myself.”

  Tribolet shrugged. He spat out the match, went out the door.

  “You see,” Tanner said after he’d gone, “my men are loyal to a fault. That’s because I pay ’em so well.” He sloshed more whiskey in his glass, sat down on the table’s edge, swinging a booted foot. “All right, Sundance, I’ll get straight to the point. I’ve heard of you—everybody in Arizona has. But what I heard didn’t square with what Sieber was spouting. About you bein’ a renegade who’d stir up the Indians. Way I had it, you worked your butt off trying to make peace.”

  “Once I did,” Sundance said.

  “Another thing I heard. That you and General Crook were thick as thieves. You used to ride with him and Sieber.”

  “A long time ago,” Sundance said. “When things were different.”

  “Different, how?”

  Sundance said, “You’re askin’ me questions I’m not gonna answer. Not until I know a hell of a lot more about you than I do now.”

  Once more Tanner grinned. He reached inside the jacket, and what he brought out was a thick packet of green bills. His thumb riffled them. “Five thousand dollars,” he said. “In a little while, it might be yours; And maybe more to come. That loosen your tongue any?”

  “It might. Money is something I’m damned interested in.”

  “Who ain’t? I’ve got a lot of it myself, and I always want more.” He tucked the cash away again. “Came to Arizona fifteen years ago, just an ordinary bullwhacker, dead broke. But hit here durin’ an Injun scare when no freight was moving. Saw an opportunity, took it. Hired every gunslinger I could find for a piece of the action, rented some wagons, guaranteed delivery. Charged high prices, but I kept my promise. We got hit by Indians, hit over and over, until they learned that tacklin’ Tanner wagons was like bitin’ into a hornet’s nest. Then they let us alone.”

  He sipped his drink. “Made a pile of money in those early days, plowed it all back, like a crapshooter lettin’ his winnin’s ride. It paid off; now I’m into everything. Own a stage line or two, a freight company, a piece of Zeckendorf’s big store in Tucson, some mines up here, a ranch, a saloon or two like this one. Money’s no problem, Sundance. Might be, you go along with me, some of it’ll rub off on you.”

  Sundance looked at him a moment, then nodded. “All right,” he said. “Ask your questions.”

  “How come Sieber spread that stuff about you? How come he wanted to roust you out of Globe? Out of Arizona?”

  “Because he’s scared of me,” Sundance said. “So’s Crook. So’s every other son of a bitch in the United States Army.”

  “It didn’t used
to be that way.”

  “I wasn’t smart back then. I’m considerably smarter now. Since the War ended, I’ve poured a fortune into Washington—a fortune I earned the hard way, with my guns. And I’ve gotten screwed every time I turned around. It’s all gone, Tanner, and nothing to show for it. Didn’t do me any good, didn’t do the Indians any good, didn’t do nobody but the lawyers and the goddamned politicians who were on the take any good.”

  “You’re a bitter man.”

  “I’m a Cheyenne Indian. One time, I thought I was a white man, too. That was when I thought I could be proud of being white. I ain’t proud any more. The only thing I’m proud of now is that once I was a Cheyenne Dog Soldier.”

  “I see.” Tanner drained his glass. “That does explain some things. You ever hear of a man called Frank Huston?”

  “Maybe,” Sundance said warily.

  “He’s a packer now for General Miles. Huston’s a funny man, with a funny history. They say he was a Confederate soldier. When the Yankees took Richmond, some Yankee soldiers raped and killed his mother. Huston decided to keep on fightin’ Yankees. The only people that were doin’ that were the Injuns. So, they say, he went to live among the Sioux. There’s some talk that Huston was at Little Big Horn. And I’ve heard rumors that Custer himself was killed by an Indian who had yellow hair— Huston drinks a little, you see, and when he drinks his mouth runs.” Tanner rolled his glass between his hand. “A Cheyenne Dog Soldier with yellow hair. Not many of those, are there?”

  Sundance did not answer. Instead, he said, “Custer was a bastard. They’re all bastards from where I stand. Sheridan, with his crack about the only good Indian bein’ a dead Indian. Sherman, saying there’d be no peace until all the Indians were exterminated; men, women and children. And Crook— he’s the worst of all of ’em. That’s because he can do what the others only talk about. He’s the only one that really knows how to fight Indians—and, damn me, I taught him half of what he knows!”