Sundance 13

by John Benteen

  “That we will do,” said Crazy Horse.

  When Sundance worshipped, it was as an Indian, not as a Christian. But he knew Warren and the troopers would have wanted it, so he planted crude wooden crosses above their graves. After they had retraced their way he did the same with the corpses of the Norman men. He retrieved, in the arroyo, his bow and arrows and his own weapons. Then, surrounded by warriors, he was taken to the main Oglala camp.

  They rode hard, did not pause for killing meat. Along the way, Crazy Horse peeled off braves as messengers to the other bands: the Hunkpapa, Brule, Sans Arc, Minniconjou, Two Kettle, and Black Moccasins, asking their main people to meet with the Oglalas in camp at the western end of the Black Hills.

  Two days later they reached the village near the headwaters of the Belle Fourche. The Black Hills, the Paha Sapa, timber-clad, sliced with lush valleys, rich with water, game and firewood, were a towering presence to the east. Sundance knew from experience what a paradise on earth they were for Indians who followed the buffalo. Here everything the High Plains lacked, the tribes found in abundance: cool clean water; fuel; roots, plants and berries of the highlands and the woods; and fully defensible camps, secure against surprise attack by white or red men. No wonder these great, shaggy mountains were sacred to the Sioux. Most of the year, the buffalo and their movements kept the horse Indians out on the treeless open. But the Black Hills offered shade in the hottest part of summer, to game and men alike, and shelter from the terrible winter blizzards from November till March. He himself knew and loved them as the Sioux did.

  And despite his impatience and sense of impending doom, something in him lifted when he saw the Oglala village. He was deeply moved with a sense of coming home, though these were not his people by blood. But they lived very much as the Cheyenne did, and they were the first tribe into which he had been adopted, and when he saw the rings of teepees down there in the river bottom, the vast horse herd spread out along the stream, smelled the smoke of many fires laden with the perfuming tang of sweetgrass, he knew that he was really where he belonged. Children ran and shouted at their games; women went about their work of tanning skins or gathering food; men held council, repaired their weapons, rested from the hard, debilitating, dangerous work of hunting and making war. There was order, happiness and freedom in this place, and for a little while Sundance forgot Steelman, Three-Stars, Andre, and all the other white men.

  Since Red Cloud, the great chief of the Oglala who had engineered the massive defeats of the United States Army at Fort Phil Kearney and other outposts, forcing the closing of the Bozeman Trail, had gone over to the white men, as the Sioux saw it, settling at the Red Cloud Agency in Nebraska, Crazy Horse was the leading chief of the Oglala. Nevertheless he could not act alone; old Red Cloud still had a voice in affairs, and so did half a dozen other major and minor chiefs in the band as well as medicine men. Anyhow, Sundance knew, Crazy Horse would make no decision without consulting with Sitting Bull, the great shaman of the Hunkpapa, the most respected of all the Sioux. And until Sitting Bull could get here—the Hunkpapa were camped on the Rosebud, Crazy Horse said—there was nothing to do but wait.

  Sundance resigned himself to that with Indian patience. As they filed into the center of the village and he caught all the old familiar sounds and smells, he decided to make the most of this time of waiting. Besides, he had business with Sam Dillon. The man might have some idea of where Steelman would take Duke Andre. If so, Sundance would get it out of him.

  Anyhow, he was received as an old friend and a celebrity by the Oglala, and for a little while, after he dismounted in the center of the village, he was embracing friends and declining invitations to sleep and eat in various lodges. Then Crazy Horse took his arm. “Your woman,” he said, “is over here.”

  “She’s not my woman,” Sundance answered instinctively.

  Crazy Horse grinned. “Maybe so, maybe not. Anyhow, that’s what I told everybody, to make sure she was safe. So this is your lodge—” He pointed to a teepee in the second rank behind the inner circle of the village, “and she’s in there. Like it or not, that’s where the two of you stay until we hold the council.” Sundance said, “And Dillon, the man in the white buckskins. Where is he?”

  “In that lodge over yonder. He’s sick, but he’s getting better. Don’t worry. He’s under guard all the time. Nobody will do anything to him until you give the word. He’s your meat.”

  “I’ll see him later,” Sundance said. Then he ducked into the teepee where Crazy Horse had told him he would find Ruth Norman.

  She was there, clad in a buckskin dress, leaning against a buffalo rib backrest. Her face was clean, her hair brushed until it glittered, and she would have been lovely if she had not looked so taut and strained. But when she saw Sundance, she sat upright and her dull eyes lit up. “You.”

  “Me. Miss Norman, are you all right?”

  “Yes,” she said. “The Indians have not hurt me. They have been very kind to me. One who spoke English said that was because I am your woman.”

  “Only the way they see it,” Sundance said.

  “I have to take your word for that. Who are you anyway?”

  Sundance told her something about himself. She listened intently and said, “Yes. We heard about you at Fort Robinson. I remember Papa saying it was too bad we couldn’t find a man like you to guide us.”

  “Guide you,” Sundance said. “Didn’t your father know whites aren’t allowed in the Sioux lands?”

  “He knew it,” she said, “but he also thought he knew Indians. We thought we did. We’re from North Carolina, and we have lived among the Cherokees for a long time. You know, most of them were sent to Indian Territory when Andrew Jackson was President.”

  “The Trail of Tears,” Sundance said bitterly. “Soldiers marched the Indians all the way from Carolina to Oklahoma.”

  “Yes, and half of them died on the way, herded like cattle. But some broke loose, ran free, stayed in North Carolina—the Qualla band. Up in the Smoky Mountains. Papa was a schoolmaster there. He knew the Qualla Cherokees, they were our friends. So when times got so hard there and we couldn’t stand it, we came west to Indian Territory, among the other Cherokees. Lived there with them for a year, but we couldn’t make it and decided to move on. Papa thought there would be a great future in Wyoming Territory. He and Frank were sure they could deal with the Sioux like they had with the Cherokees—”

  “The Cherokees are woods Indians; the Sioux are horse Indians.”

  “We found that out too late. They made us turn around and go back. Well, we’d made a mistake, and Papa acknowledged that. He said we should try the Southern Cheyennes. But then, as we came back south ... ” She shuddered, her voice faltered. “It happened all at once. They weren’t Indians, they were white men. They rode up, surrounded us, were very friendly. And then ... oh, God, they just started to shoot. They killed Papa and Frank and grabbed me and ... and I guess you know the rest. I had to watch while ...while...”

  “Yeah,” Sundance said. “You don’t have to tell me. Well, your father and your brother have had a decent burial. And you’ll be all right now.”

  “I’m not afraid of Indians,” she said. “I’ve known Indians all my life. It’s white men who terrify me now.”

  “The white men who did that to your family will pay,” Sundance said. “Don’t worry. I’ll see to that.”

  “Yes,” she said. She looked at him in a different way, as if seeing him for the first time. “You saved me from those people. You have given my family decent burial. You’ve seen me safe here among the Sioux. I am deeply grateful to you.”

  Sundance said, “You owe me nothing.”

  “I owe you a great deal,” she said. “I will pay you somehow, one way or another.” Then she stood up. “This is your lodge,” she said. “I am your woman. That’s one way I can pay you. While you’re here, I can cook for you—and be your woman.”

  Sundance stared at her.

  “I mean that in every
way,” she said. “I can be your woman.”

  Sundance said, “Miss Norman—”

  “That is not my real name,” she said. “I have not been honest with you. My real name should be Ruth Odali, which means Ruth Mountain in Cherokee. My husband’s name was Odali. He was a full-blood Cherokee. The real reason we left Carolina was that I married an Indian. The white settlers were so enraged that they ... took him out and hanged him.”

  Sundance said, “I see.”

  “So ...” Her voice faltered. “I have lost everyone. Husband, father, brother. All three, not to Indians, but to white men. I’m glad to be away from the white men. I’m glad to be an Indian’s woman again.” She smiled. “Anyhow, you see ... ? I am not an unmarried white woman. I am an Indian’s widow. And I am glad to have a man again who is not white ...”

  Sundance stood up. “We’ll see,” he said. “Now I have other business to attend to.”

  “Go about it,” Ruth Odali said. “They have brought us meat. When you come back, your supper will be ready ... in your lodge.”

  There was a faint coolness on his spine as he walked across the center of the camp to the teepee where Dillon was held. Ruth Norman, Ruth Odali, was still in shock, and yet, maybe she had the same sense of coming home that he felt. She was a strange woman, but everything about this mission for Crook had been strange.

  Two warriors stood guard outside the lodge, but they let Sundance in without question. Dillon lay sprawled on a bed of buffalo robes, face flushed with fever. Naked to the waist, the wound made by Eagle’s teeth in his left shoulder was exposed, and it was gruesome. Great gouges of flesh had been torn loose by the horse’s teeth, and the skin around it was turning green.

  Dillon looked up at Sundance with dazed eyes that nevertheless registered both recognition and hatred. “You,” he whispered.

  “Yeah.”

  “All right,” Dillon said. “I guess you’re gonna cut my throat.”

  “No,” Sundance said. “Something that’ll hurt worse than that. Because I need you alive. I want to know where Steelman aimed to take Andre. What kind of hide-out, where. You’re bound to know that.”

  “I wouldn’t tell you, half-breed.”

  Sundance said, “I think different. You ain’t on the stage now. This is a Sioux lodge, and these are real Indians, and I’m not gonna push you now. You’re full of fever from that infected wound and you can’t think straight. First thing’s to cure you. Then we’ll talk.” In Sioux, he called instructions to the guards out front.

  Dillon’s eyes widened. “What are you gonna do?”

  “Kill the infection in that wound,” Sundance said. “Cauterize it.” Firewood lay piled in one corner of the teepee. He went to the pile, whittled off with his Bowie a stick three inches long, one inch through. “That ought to do it.”

  A Sioux warrior entered, carrying a large powder horn made from the horn of a big bull buffalo. Sundance took it. “Lie back, Dillon,” he said. “Bite on this.”

  “No,” Dillon rasped.

  “I said—” Sundance pushed the knife-point into Dillon’s belly. When Dillon opened his mouth to yell, Sundance rammed in the chunk of wood. More orders in Sioux, and a brawny fighting man held Dillon’s shoulders down. Dillon stared up with white-rimmed eyes.

  Then his jaws clamped down on the wooden plug as Sundance jabbed home with the knife. Deftly, ruthlessly, he pried away the infected flesh around the wound in the front of Dillon’s shoulder. Dillon groaned, teeth biting deeply into the wooden plug.

  Sundance took the powder horn, pulled its stopper, then filled the gaping hole in Dillon’s shoulder with black powder. “All right, Dillon,” he said. “Here it comes.”

  He struck a match and dropped it.

  The powder flared in a bright burst of flame. Dillon made a strangled sound and almost bit the wood in two. The flame died, and only stinking wisps of smoke curled up.

  “That takes care of this side,” Sundance said. “Roll him over,” he told the Indian.

  Dillon whimpered as he was turned on his chest. Again, with the Bowie, Sundance debrided the wound, cutting away all infected flesh. Again he poured the hole full of black powder. And again he dropped a match, and once more a bright flame leaped from Dillon’s shoulder, then faded and died, and the teepee was rank with the smell of burning flesh.

  Dillon whimpered. Sundance said, “That will do it. Now ask Four Tall Trees to come here.”

  Four Tall Trees was a medicine man. He knew at once what was needed, and the ointment he smeared on Dillon’s wounds would keep blowflies and buffalo gnats away, rank and pungent as it was with herbs and ashes of burnt wood. “We’ll talk later, Dillon, when you’re healed.” And he strode out.

  Crazy Horse was holding council with the other leaders. The other members of the band knew something important was up and that it concerned Jim Sundance. Nobody came near him as he crossed the inner circle of the camp, walked through a row of teepees and entered what had been designated as his lodge.

  It was filled with the savory smell of roasting hump ribs, and the fire hissed as fleece fat dripped into it. Ruth Odali turned the ribs, and looked up at him as he came in. “Another half-hour,” she said. “Then they’ll be done. Sit down here and let me make you comfortable.”

  Sundance dropped down against a rib backrest draped with buffalo robes. “Sundance,” Ruth said, and she dropped to her knees and pulled off his moccasins. She set them aside. Then she raised the hem of his buckskin shirt, lifted it over his shoulders. When he was naked to the waist, she stared at his bronze torso. “So many scars,” she whispered.

  “I have done a lot of fighting,” said Sundance. He knew now what would happen, and he was ready for it, hoping for it. This was his lodge and she was his woman, and they both knew it. All the stupid flummery between man and woman that the whites so much enjoyed did not hold here; they were two Indians together, though she was Cherokee and he Cheyenne.

  “Now,” Ruth whispered. “Again I have my lodge, my man.” And she lifted the buckskin dress the Sioux had given her and peeled it from her. Then she stood naked before Sundance, body ivory white, breasts round and tipped with pink, belly gently curved, loins swooping to a smooth, yellow-fleeced juncture. She dropped to her knees on the buffalo robes. “Jim,” she whispered. “Jim Sundance.” Her mouth met his.

  He felt the desire, the need, hot and carnal, in her. His hands came up, caressed her breasts. He felt their tips spring to life beneath his palms, and he squeezed their fullness and she moaned. Her tongue was a hot, darting creature with a life of its own.

  “Jim,” she moaned, wrenching her mouth away, and clawed at the denim pants.

  Then they were together on the softness of the buffalo robes. This was something both had done without for a long time, and all the backlogged, pent-up desire found fulfillment. Sundance hammered himself into her and she received him and screamed with pleasure. After what she had been through this was a closeness she needed. Her legs clamped him, her nails dug into his back. Over the fire, the beef broiled to a turn, then charred, then turned into ash, and no one cared.

  Chapter Seven

  Dillon was better next day, his fever gone, the wounds made by Eagle’s teeth already beginning to heal. Sundance stood over him, eyes hard. “Well, you’ll live,” he said. “For a while.”

  Dillon’s face went pale. “Sundance—” He licked his lips. “For God’s sake, I’m helpless. You’re not gonna kill me?”

  It was hot here inside the teepee; a couple of flies buzzed droningly. “I was helpless, too, upside down on that wheel,” Sundance said. “But ... all right. Maybe you got a chance to save your life. Where did Steelman aim to take the Duke and hide him out?”

  “I ... Sundance, I don’t know.”

  Sundance sighed. “Well, then, my friend, I’m sorry for you. I guess the old women here in camp will have a lot of fun with you. If you’re lucky, if won’t take you more than twenty-four hours to die.”

  Sam Dillon hitc
hed up on his good arm, eyes wide. “You mean torture—? You wouldn’t let ’em do that to me. I’m a white man.”

  “That’s the whole point,” said Sundance, grinning coldly. “Well anyhow, you made things simple for me. You see, you’re my captive. It’s up to me to decide what to do with you. Now, if you had known somethin’ that was true and useful to me, I’d have had some reason to show a little mercy. But since you know nothin’, I might as well turn you over to the Sioux. I need all their good will I can get, and there’s nothing makes the old women happier than gettin’ their hands on a captive they can skin alive or slice up into little bits. That’s the way they handle enemies, and anybody that came up here tryin’ to kill that white buffalo is about the worst enemy they can imagine.”

  “Sundance—”

  “They got all sorts of little tricks. Might cut you open, haul out your bowels, nail ’em to a post and make you run around and around the post. Or cut your eyelids off and stake you out face up in the sun and let it bake your eyeballs ... just for starters, of course. Or ... ”

  “Stop it!” Dillon rasped. “God, man, stop it!”

  “Looks like by tomorrow you’ll be well enough to last a long time, give ’em some real sport. And don’t try to get away, Dillon. You’re surrounded by about seven hundred Oglala and you ain’t got a chance. Well I reckon I’ll let ’em start on you come sunrise. That way, maybe they’ll be wound up with you come midnight.” He turned away.

  “Sundance!” It was a strangled scream. “Wait—!”

  Sundance turned.

  Dillon was sitting up. Voice and body were both trembling. “Sundance, for God’s sake! Suppose I do know where Steelman took Andre? Suppose I tell you? What then?”

  “Then,” Sundance said, “you might live to get back to Fort Laramie and be turned over to General Crook.”

  “All right, I’ll talk, I’ll tell you everything, only in the name of heaven don’t—”

  “Get on with it,” Sundance said.

  “Okay. The minute I first met the Duke, I knew I was on to somethin’ big. Clay Steelman and I’d worked a couple of deals together down in Kansas. I knew he was back in the States now after they run him out of Mexico, and I sent a fistful of telegrams and letters to ever’ place he might be. Sure enough, when we got to Omaha and laid over, he was there. I got a chance to talk to him on the sly and we worked it all out. I was to con the Duke into bringin’ along a whole scad of cash. We was to meet on the North Fork of the Platte and Steelman would size up the situation. He didn’t like it a damn bit when he saw you was with us, and he gave Curdy the high sign to take you out, only you took out Curdy instead. So instead of hittin’ the outfit right away, Clay decided to wait until it was strung out. I knew you and Warren were about to git on to me, and I didn’t want the same thing Curdy got, so I hauled my freight that night and caught up with Clay. And honest to God, Sundance, I didn’t know he aimed to kidnap the Duke. That was his own idea.”