Sundance 13

by John Benteen

  “Of course,” the Duke said promptly.

  “So?” Dillon turned to Sundance, triumph on his face, gloating in his eyes. He could not imagine a man of the half-breed’s pride accepting such conditions.

  Sundance drew in breath. He saw the pleading in Crook’s glance, and thought about the Sioux up there in their reserve and what would happen to them if Dillon’s ineptness triggered off a war. After a moment’s pause, he nodded. “Suits me just fine,” he said evenly.

  Dillon looked dismayed. Then, slowly, he grinned. “Okay, so be it. Now, your first job’s to see to the pack mules. Go over to the stables, make sure they’re all well shod and curried, clean as a whistle. This here’s a royal huntin’ expedition, not a bunch of dirty Injuns changin’ campground. Every mule better be in top shape and gear and harness polished ’til it shines. I’ll expect a full report by nightfall and we’ll have inspection in the mornin’—and if everything ain’t tip-top, it’s your hide! Understand?”

  “I understand,” Sundance said.

  “You understand, sir,” Dillon snapped. “From now on, you’ll address me, the chief scout, as sir.”

  Crook made a sound in his throat. After a long moment, Jim Sundance said, “Yes, sir.”

  “Good,” said Dillon. “Now you’re dismissed. Get on with your work while the Grand Duke and I have a drink with General Crook.”

  Chapter Three

  Two days later, with great ceremony, post band playing, honor guard ranged by the gate, the hunting expedition of Grand Duke Andre Romanov, first cousin to the Czar of all the Russias, filed out of Fort Laramie, Wyoming Territory. At its head rode the Duke himself, clad in a broad-brimmed hat, resplendent buckskins Dillon had procured for him, with a long-barreled Winchester .45-70, its receiver beautifully engraved, its stock ornately carved, a presentation piece from President Grant, across his saddle bow. He had refused to ride a gelding, and his horse was a fine stallion, one-third mustang, two-thirds thoroughbred, a present from the Territorial Government of Wyoming, thoroughly plains-wise and trained for buffalo hunting. In holsters on his hips were two silver-inlaid Colt .45 revolvers, which Sam Dillon had presented himself. And, stirrup to stirrup, Dillon rode beside him, gaudy in his fringe-dripping buckskins and slouch hat, a pair of Colts identical to the Duke’s own at his waist, a single-shot Sharps .50 caliber rifle across his saddle.

  Flanking the Duke on the right was his manservant, Vasili, a Cossack from the Don River, with a towering fur cap on his head, red jacket, baggy pants and boots, a pistol of some foreign make, a Winchester rifle, a short sword, and a bandolier of cartridges looped across his chest. Nearly as huge as his master, he had a great russet beard and, Sundance thought, more nearly resembled a bear than a man.

  On Dillon’s left rode Captain Warren, erect in his military uniform. Behind them, a private of cavalry managed a band of half a dozen spare saddle horses. Behind that strung out the pack train, twelve mules, each carrying a burden of nearly three hundred pounds, thanks to the special pack rigs invented by George Crook. Two more cavalry privates managed the pack train. And at the tail end of that long string of animals, loaded with astonishing gear: tents, cots, feather-beds, and things Sundance had never before seen carried into the wilderness, two more men brought up the rear. One was Shurka, the Grand Duke’s chef; the other, occupying approximately the same rank on the expedition, was Jim Sundance.

  It was, as far as he was concerned, a good place for the time being. For the first two or three days it was unlikely that there would be any trouble. For the moment they were headed northwest, roughly toward the Big Horn Mountains. Not until they turned back eastward, pointed toward the Black Hills, was there likely to be any trouble. For the next few days, Sundance would indulge his intense curiosity, watching how the great Six-gun Sam Dillon, gambler and back shooter, would manage to live up to his reputation as a plainsman. It could not be long, Sundance thought, before Dillon put his foot in the bucket, revealing himself as the fraud he really was.

  Ten miles from the fort they nooned, and Sundance watched, amazed, as Shurka and Vasili set up a folding table and chairs. Andre, Dillon and Captain Warren lunched on cold sliced ham, preserves and caviar, and washed it down with champagne. Sundance shared soldier’s rations with the troopers.

  After the meal, Andre drained another glass of wine and belched loudly. “Ah,” he said, looking around, “what a magnificent country! Much like our own Russian steppes. A fine land! Now, gentlemen, I think I will have a nap.”

  Dillon arose, and came, a little unsteady with champagne, to Sundance. “All right, Sundance. Get that fly out of the wagon and pitch it for His Excellency. He’s gotta have some shade.”

  “Yes, sir,” said Sundance tonelessly.

  Dillon grinned. “Git a move on.” He turned away.

  Sundance pitched the canvas shelter while Vasili set up a cot, complete with satin-covered feather mattress, and soon the Duke was stretched out, snoring. Dillon busied himself with the rest of a bottle of champagne, and Warren, looking disgusted, came over to squat beside Sundance in the shade of a wagon.

  “General Crook’s told me everything,” he said quietly. “Look, I’ll back you up any way I can. And believe me, as far as I’m concerned, when it comes to hunting, Dillon is on his own. I’m not going to give him any help. That’s not my job.”

  “Thanks for the kind words,” said Sundance. “Don’t worry about me.”

  “Well, it’s just a damn shame. I know your reputation. You’re the man should be runnin’ this outfit. I didn’t come out here to get me and my men killed with a dunderhead like Dillon. Any time you see him about to get us in a real tight spot, you come to me and I’ll step in. I hope it won’t come to that, but if it’s a real emergency I can put the son of a bitch under arrest. And won’t hesitate to do it, if it’ll save lives.”

  Sundance nodded. Warren was the kind of cavalry officer he respected, competent and tough. “We’ll get along,” he said.

  Leisurely, the pack train moved across the high plains, still angling away from the Black Hills. The Duke, of course, did not know the difference, but Sundance and Warren wondered, and when Warren asked, Dillon had an explanation that made sense. “He said we needed some easy travelin’ for the outfit to get shaken down and the Duke to get used to life out here before we hit real Indian country.”

  “I didn’t give him credit for that much brains,” Sundance said. He was still thoughtful; it was as if Dillon were heading for some rendezvous.

  Meanwhile, the Duke was in his glory. Once well away from the fort they began to see game in profusion: antelope, buffalo, and the coyotes and big gray lobos that preyed on them. It quickly became obvious that Dillon knew almost nothing about hunting, but not even his ineptness could keep Andre from scoring. The Duke was a fine rider and a crack shot, absolutely without fear.

  Which last, Sundance thought, was what might be his undoing. Out here a man had to have a decent respect for danger if he wanted to live to a ripe old age with his hair on. Riding like a madman, glorying in the risks he took, the Duke brought down head after head of game. Sundance, under Dillon’s orders, skinned out the kills, preserved the heads for mounting, storing the trophies in the wagon. It was hard, greasy, dirty work, but he handled it deftly and uncomplainingly. Meanwhile, in his spare time, he scouted, but he found no fresh Indian sign. At this time of year, they would be hunting further north. And soon the Sioux would be gathering for their annual Sun Dance in the Black Hills.

  On the fourth night out, they camped on the North Fork of the Platte, with good grass and the shelter of some cottonwoods. As usual, the Duke, Warren and Dillon were sitting around the table before the immense tent with a red carpet for a floor, in which Andre slept, and tonight they were drinking a clear liquid called vodka. The chef, Shurka, was as usual working the miracle of preparing a full-course dinner over a long, glowing fire of buffalo chips. Even in the wilderness, Andre dined in a manner worthy of a nobleman. Sundance had just bathed in
the river and dressed after spreading a fine buffalo hide with a tanning mixture of wood ashes and the brains and liver of the animal made into a paste; and was buckling on his gun when he caught the conversation drifting from the table.

  “Yes, we have had a good start,” the Duke rumbled. “But remember, Six-gun Sam, I’m impatient for the three big trophies you promised me—a grizzly bear, the white buffalo, and an Indian.”

  Sundance whirled, staring. Dillon chuckled. “Don’t worry, Duke, you’ll—” He broke off as Sundance, in two short strides, was at the table, anger like a cold flame within him.

  “All right,” Sundance rasped. “I think, we’d better get some things straight right now.”

  Startled, the Duke looked up. “I beg your pardon, Mr. Sundance,” he said coldly. “I do not believe you were included in this conversation.”

  “I am now. I just heard what you said about a grizzly, a white buffalo and an Indian. Where’d you get the idea Indians are game like animals? If you’re joking, it’s a damned bad joke!”

  “Joking?” The big Russian blinked. “Why should I be joking? Have I not seen it on the stage in New York? Your Buffalo Bill and Six-gun Sam showing how they kill Indians by the hundreds? And I have seen it in actuality, too, Mr. Sundance. On the train west I saw it happen. We passed great herds of buffalo, and there were sportsmen on the train who shot them from the windows as we went by. And twice Indians rode close, and the same hunters—Americans, your countrymen—blew them from their saddles and then laughed and had a drink all round. So if they may do it, why not I? Six-gun Sam tells me that out here they are vermin, like wolves and foxes, to be shot on sight. Indeed, your great General Sheridan has said, I believe, that the only good Indian is a dead one.”

  Fury flamed higher in Sundance, but not really at Andre. Those bastards shooting buffalo and Indians from the train—a brutal occurrence, all too common. And those damned cheap plays and dime novels, and Sheridan with his big mouth, and all the land grabbers who indeed would like nothing better than to see the’ tribes wiped out like wolves and foxes—somehow Sundance reined in his temper.

  “You’ve been misinformed, your grace,” he said thinly. “And misinterpreted what you’ve seen. And I’m making one thing clear to you right now. If we have a fight with Indians and you have to kill in self-defense, that’s one thing. But if you or anybody else on this expedition shoots an Indian in cold blood, he’ll have me to deal with.”

  Andre’s half-lidded eyes opened wide. “Deal with you?” His face, red from drink, turned even redder. “That is insolence, Mr. Sundance.” He came up out of his chair, towering over the half-breed, swaying slightly. “Now let me make one thing clear. I am a grand duke of Imperial Russia. Serfs and peasants do not threaten members of the House of Romanov!”

  “You’re not in Russia, now,” Sundance rasped.

  “You are wrong, sir. This is my expedition and I command, and where a Romanov commands is always Russia. You need a lesson, sir, and a strong one. Here is how we deal with such as you—” Then, with amazing speed, he raised his riding crop and swung it hard, straight at Sundance’s face.

  Sundance’s hands moved up, his reaction instantaneous. Before the whip slashed home he caught it, twisted hard, and its wooden core snapped in two. Behind him, he heard Warren yell, “Dillon! No!” He stepped back quickly as Andre stared amazed at the broken whip, and then his gun was in his hand.

  But it was not needed. Warren, Colt drawn, covered Sam Dillon. “I’m speaking for General Crook!” he snapped. “There’ll be no gunplay in this camp, not by anybody! You got that, Dillon, Sundance? The man that shoots, I’ll arrest him and take him to the fort in irons!”

  Dillon, hand dangling by his hip, let out his breath. “I got it,” he said after a moment.

  “All right. Sundance, put up your gun.”

  “Yes,” said Sundance, and did so.

  The Grand Duke tossed the broken whip away, and clubbed one big fist. “Mr. Sundance, I still have to deal with you. I will not permit—”

  The yell from one of Warren’s troopers at the remuda chopped off the sentence. “Riders’ comin’! A dozen of ’em, from the west!”

  Warren holstered his gun. Sundance whirled, the Duke forgotten. Across the stream, a dust cloud boiled, the men who made it nearly invisible in the glare of the setting sun.

  Sundance strode to a wagon, went up the wheel. Shading his eyes, he squinted westward. Then he snapped at Warren, who was looking up at him. “Alert your men. They’re white, but they’re a damned tough-looking bunch.” They were nearer now, and he could make out the glint of evening light on rifle barrels, bandoliers of cartridges, and a kind of warning bell rang in his head. During the Civil War, he’d ridden with guerrillas along the Kansas-Missouri border, and the way these men were coming now, disciplined and orderly, at a gallop, reminded him of a well-trained, tautly-led guerrilla band.

  He dropped down off the wagon, picked up his own Winchester from near the fire, and checked it as Warren and his men took up weapons. The Duke, his anger forgotten, watched curiously as the soldiers assembled. “If they are white men, why such precautions, Captain Warren?”

  “The whites out here can be worse than Sioux sometimes,” Warren answered tersely. “There are plenty who’d kill you for your pocket watch, much less all this other gear, and there are more of them than there are of us. It might be a good idea if you and Vasili and Dillon got your rifles, too. A show of force won’t hurt, whoever they are.”

  “Listen,” Dillon began. “I give the orders here.”

  “Not in this case,” Warren snapped. “Get your long gun.”

  “Hell,” said Dillon, “I don’t need no rifle. When they find out who’s in charge, there won’t be no trouble. People out here know my reputation. You let me do the talkin’.”

  “Of course,” said the Grand Duke.

  Now the men neared the far bank of the stream, coming fast, fanning out. Their apparent leader, Sundance saw, was a tall, shag haired, dark-bearded man, muscular and raw-boned, in red flannel shirt, black slouch hat, and shotgun chaps, a bandolier of rifle cartridges slung across his chest. His tall black horse splashed without slowing across the shallow stream, and the other riders followed. Then, lifting hand in a signal to halt, he reined in, and his men followed suit, rifles cradled in their arms. Sundance stood loosely, ready for anything. Every man of that bunch had the mark of the gunman on him.

  “Hello the camp!” the man in the red shirt called.

  Dillon stepped forward. “Howdy! Who’re you gents? My name’s Sam Dillon, and I’m ramrod of this outfit.”

  “Dillon?” There was surprise in the leader’s voice. “You the one they call Six-gun Sam?”

  “I am that gentleman.”

  “I’m proud to meet a man of your reputation,” the leader said. “My name’s Steelman, Clay Steelman.”

  Sundance tensed. The name touched a chord in his memory. Then, hand tightening on his Winchester, he had it. Steelman’s Raiders. The brush country of Texas in the tumult following the Civil War, when bandit gangs of ex-Confederate soldiers battened on the chaos of defeat, raiding, burning, stealing, killing. And of them all, Steelman’s Raiders had been the worst. Eventually Texans and the Union Army of occupation had joined forces to drive them out. Word was that they had drifted down to Mexico, and nothing had been heard of them for the past five years. Now here Steelman was again, leading a group of hard cases in Wyoming Territory.

  Sundance stepped closer to Warren. “Captain—”

  “I know,” Warren whispered. “I was in the Seventh Cavalry in Texas then.”

  “Well, Six-gun Sam,” Clay Steelman said, “mind if we share grass and water with your outfit tonight?”

  Dillon, obviously flattered by the recognition of his name, said, “Glad to have you. Light and rest. There’s room for all.”

  Warren looked at Sundance and shrugged, and Sundance nodded. There was, after all, no way they could keep Steelman’s outfit fr
om camping anywhere it chose to. But neither he nor the captain, Sundance knew, would sleep tonight. They would both be keeping their eyes on Steelman and his men.

  “Obliged.” Steelman swung down and came forward, and the contrast between him and Dillon was pathetic, like a lobo wolf confronting a mongrel dog. Dillon was a fake, Steelman the real article, tough as a boot, hard as a nail. Yet apparently Steelman was deceived by Dillon’s appearance; there was respect in his manner as he put out his hand. “What Outfit is this anyhow?”

  “The huntin’ party of his grace, Grand Duke Andre Romanov of Russia, and I’m chief scout and guide.”

  “Grand Duke—?” Steelman looked around and caught sight of the big Russian.

  Andre stepped forward. “Mr. Steelman, sir, I am the Grand Duke Andre. Delighted to meet you.” He put out a big hand and Steelman took it. “I trust you and your party will be our dinner guests tonight. I am a stranger to your country and interested in meeting every type of Westerner. Our camp is yours.”

  “Is that a fact? Mighty generous of you.” Steelman’s eyes swept the area. “Some layout. Sure we’ll eat with you. Curdy!”

  A tall, slender man in his late twenties swung down off his mount and came forward. He had a short tawny beard, moved with a springy, pantherish grace, and his eyes were like a panther’s too, slightly slanted, strangely yellowing. Dressed in greasy buckskin shirt, California pants, and high black mule-ear boots, he wore a single Colt, but Sundance did not miss the haft of a Bowie knife protruding from a built-in scabbard in the right boot. Judging from the handle’s size, the blade would be at least twelve inches, and, Sundance guessed from the way Curdy moved, its owner knew how to use it, preferred it to a gun. When you had been around as much as Sundance, you could almost smell a cold-steel man.

  “Yeah, boss,” Curdy said. He had a high, thin, rasping voice.

  “Have the boys light and unsaddle, picket not hobble, we’ll spend the night here. And tell ’em to watch their step. I don’t want any trouble with a man like Sam Dillon.”