by John Benteen
“Devil take it, I hate to leave. Sundance, if I come back next year, will you take me to live among the Cheyennes and the Sioux?”
“Gladly, if there is no war.”
“Crazy Horse said—”
“What the Sioux want and the Wasichu want are two different things,” Sundance said grimly.
“I’m afraid that’s so,” Crook said thinly. “There’s talk of sending an exploratory expedition under Custer into the Black Hills next year. I’m trying to block it, but—anyhow, at least you have the white buffalo skin you came for, your grace.”
“Yes,” Andre said, casting a-proud glance at the wrapped hide on the pile of baggage on the platform. “Thank you, Sundance.”
“It was my pleasure,” Sundance said.
“Remember, you are always welcome in St. Petersburg. I—” Andre broke off. “Sundance,” he said softly.
“What?” The train whistle pealed again.
“Over there, across the street. Between those two buildings. Do you see that man there?”
Sundance’s eyes shuttled in the direction of Andre’s pointing finger. But the man had disappeared from view, dodging behind another log building. Sundance caught only a slight motion.
“He was looking down the track when the whistle blew. He must also be waiting for the train.”
Andre’s voice was low. “Sundance, it was Steelman.”
“Sundance!” Crook’s voice rang like a bugle. But the half-breed was already off the platform. He leaped across the tracks, ran toward the alley between the buildings.
“Sundance!” Crook yelled again, but Sundance had dodged into the alley, was running down it. He reached the rear of the buildings, and he was just in time to catch a flash of a man dodging behind one and running toward the railroad track. Sundance darted back the way he’d come. Then he was out on the street beside the track, and the train was coming in, and there was a man running behind the observation car, circling, to get on even before the string had stopped.
Sundance ran. He dodged behind the car, and his voice rang out flat and clear above the chuffing and the clanging and the whistling of the train. “Clay Steelman!”
Steelman, halfway up the step, turned, dropped back into the dirt beside the tracks. He had disguised himself in frock coat and black hat, but there was no disguising that hard, cruel face. “You,” he rasped.
“Jim!” Andre yelled, but Sundance jerked his head impatiently.
“Stay out of this,” he called, without taking his eyes from Steelman. Then he said, “So the Sioux didn’t kill you after all.”
“No,” Steelman said. “The three fools with me, but they held them off while I cut out. And I’m cutting out again—” His face twisted. “God damn you, Sundance! You beat me out of the biggest score I ever laid my hands on!” And suddenly his hand shot down, reaching for his gun.
He was fast, so fast that he made Dillon look slow and clumsy. But Sundance had seen his eyes change, and, warned, his own hand whipped down. Steelman’s gun was up and out and lined, but before its hammer fell, Sundance’s Colt jolted against his palm.
Its roar was almost drowned by the puffing of the train.
Its heavy slug caught Steelman in the chest and knocked him off his feet. Steelman’s shot ricocheted off the side of the observation car. Then Steelman was on his back in the cinders beside the track. He tried to raise his gun again, but it spilled from his hand. Blood poured from his open mouth as Sundance ran forward, Colt ready for a second shot.
There was no need for it. Steelman’s life was fading fast as he stared up at Sundance.
“My biggest score,” he said; and then he died.
Sundance straightened up. God knows how Steelman had made it through the Sioux to Medicine Bow, but at least Warren, the troopers, Shurka, Vasili, and Ruth Norman’s people were avenged. Then Crook and the Grand Duke were beside him.
“He’s dead,” Andre whispered.
“Yes,” said Sundance.
And then the whistle blew. “Andre,” Sundance said, “the train’s pulling out.”
“Sundance—” Andre put out his hand.
They shook. Sundance was startled when Andre kissed him on both cheeks. The Russian swung up on the observation platform. “You are always welcome in St. Petersburg!” he cried. Then the train chugged out of Medicine Bow.
Sundance and Crook stood there watching until Andre was only a tiny waving figure on the platform in the distance. Presently the train was gone. Crook summoned the two troopers who’d handled the baggage. “Dispose of this,” he said, indicating the body of Clay Steelman. Then he took Sundance’s arm. “Jim,” he said, “I think we’d better have a drink.”
Chapter Ten
The September wind blew cold across the Paha Sapa, mourning in the pines that clad the humped mountains. Winter was coming early this year to the Dakota lands of the Sioux nation. But here in this sheltered valley where the big village of the Oglala had been set up, the worst of the cold winds were tempered. It was a good time of year: plenty of meat already in the lodges, plenty of time left for hunting before the snows came, and peace, at least temporarily, across the land.
And it was snug here in this lodge. Sundance, leaning against a reed backrest, smoked a cigarette and looked across the fire at Ruth Odali, or Ruth Norman. “You’ve been treated well?” he asked.
“Treated wonderfully. I haven’t been this happy since before ... since before I left the Cherokees.” She smiled, firelight glinting on brushed blonde hair, her body ripe and full in the soft-worked fringed and beaded doeskins she wore. “Several young men have tied their horses and played their flutes outside this lodge. That means, I understand, that they want to marry me.”
“But you have not responded?”
“No,” she said. “I was waiting. Crazy Horse said you were coming back.”
Sundance arose. “Ruth,” he said, “there’s something you’ve got to know. I already have a woman. A white woman, like you, and like you, one who knows and loves the Indians. A few years ago she was captured by the Cheyennes. I helped her get away. But she had come to like the way they lived so much, that she wanted to go back.”
“And she’s there now?” Ruth’s face was tense. “Waiting for you with the Cheyennes?”
“No, she’s in Washington, doing what she can there for the Indians. Her name is Barbara Colfax. The Cheyennes named her Two-Roads-Woman.”
“Because, like me,” Ruth said, “she follows two roads?”
“Yes,” Sundance said. “The Indian and the white.”
“But you can have more than one woman,” said Ruth presently. “The Sioux and the Cheyenne don’t mind.” Her face brightened. “You could have two women in your lodge. Besides, if she’s in Washington and you’re out here—”
“She’ll be coming back,” Sundance said. “We’re wintering together with the Cheyennes.”
“Oh,” Ruth said, and her face fell.
“You had to know,” Sundance said. “And if there is one of these young men you like—”
“Not yet,” said Ruth. “I haven’t made up my mind as yet. Jim—”
“I’m sorry,” he said.
She looked at him a moment. Then she accepted. “All right,” she said. “I understand. But I am not leaving the Indians. I’ll stay with them no matter what happens. And maybe I will take one of their young men.”
“I hope you do,” said Sundance.
“But for now,” she said, “you’re back among the Oglala. They accept you as their brother once again. And you will stay here for how long?”
“A week,” Sundance said. “Then I ride on to the Cheyennes. I only came to deliver those presents from the Duke, and to make sure you were all right.”
“A week. Well, that’s not much time. But it is better than no time at all.” Ruth came toward him. “For that long, anyhow, you’ll stay in this lodge?”
“Yes,” Sundance said. “Then you must know. It’s over.”
“All ri
ght. Then, after you are gone, there is a young man named Loping Wolf—”
“I know him. He’s damned good.”
“But not until you’re gone,” she whispered. “Until then I’m your woman.”
Sundance looked down at her. He thought of Barbara Colfax, but it would be two months before he saw her again, and anyhow she knew and understood, accepted the customs of the tribes, so there was no conflict there. “All right,” he said, and though, after that, the wind snapped the smoke-flaps of the teepee they did not hear it.
The day before he left, Sundance sat Eagle on the slope of a high hill, with Crazy Horse on a paint pony beside him. “There,” the war chief said. “There he is, the black bull that killed the white one.”
Sundance looked down into the valley. The herd numbered perhaps two hundred, spread out, grazing. Among all those brown blots, the great black humped presence on the edge stood out like a smudge on paper. It shook its horns and pawed the earth, throwing dirt up over its shaggy hump.
“The greatest bull anyone has ever seen,” Crazy Horse said. “And it killed our medicine.” His voice was sad.
That bull, Sundance thought, had prevented war. But still there was something eerie about it, its sheer size, mindless ferocity. Yes, he thought. It was white man’s medicine, all right, big enough to kill or batter down anything in its way. Then he tensed. “Crazy Horse! Look!” He pointed.
Crazy Horse stared. Then he clapped his hand to his mouth in surprise. “But where did it come from? No one has seen it!”
“It must have been dropped this summer. Maybe it looked like any other then. But with winter coming on, its fur is changing.”
“It is a miracle!” Crazy Horse exclaimed. He leaned forward, staring at the small calf, almost pure white, in the center of the herd down there, suckling at its mother. “The medicine of the Sioux has come back!”
“Maybe,” said Sundance.
“No maybe! And look at its shoulders! It’s a bull!” Crazy Horse clapped Sundance’s arm with his hand. “A big bull for its age. And who knows—when it’s full grown, it may drive the black bull out!”
Sundance felt a prickling on his spine. “Maybe,” he said again.
“I must send word to Sitting Bull and the Hunkpapa, and all the other bands! Our medicine has come back! We will watch it, tend it, and when it is strong we can make war again!”
“Crazy Horse!” Sundance called.
But the chief had already wheeled his horse, was racing up the hill.
Sundance watched him go. Holding Eagle checked, he looked down into the valley. No, he thought. No, the white bull would never have the chance to grow. The black bull would rub it out long before it had its strength. The Sioux medicine would never come back.
But there was no way of telling Crazy Horse. Sundance shook his head, and then, head bent against the cold, whistling wind, he followed the Oglala Sioux up the hill into the pines.
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