by John Benteen
Immediately, his long legs opened a gap between himself and the wiry Pawnee horses. A chorus of gobbling shouts arose behind Sundance as the Indians gave chase. Sundance grinned tightly. Broken country was only a few miles away; cover, shelter. If he could make that, he could lose them. His head-start was good, they didn’t stand a chance of catching him. Likely, anyhow, they would not chase him far, because he was leading them right into the heart of the country of their dreaded enemies, the Dakotas.
Eagle’s hooves beat a drum roll on the prairie. Still the gap widened, and ahead, sanctuary was not far off. Another fifteen minutes of hard riding, and he could vanish in the breaks. He bent low in the saddle. Then Eagle fell.
Sundance never knew what caused it. A badger hole, maybe, or a stone that rolled from beneath a hoof. All he knew was that one minute he was riding hard; the next, he lay dazed on the ground, his rifle thrown from his grasp. Behind him, a triumphant shout went up.
Sundance shook his head, blinked, scrambled to his feet. Eagle had also arisen, snorting, trembling, and Sundance’s heart sank. The big horse held one forefoot high, curveted on three legs. A sprain or break, no telling now; but what was sure was that the chase was over. Sundance was on foot, and the Pawnees were coming hard.
Frantically, his eyes searched the ground. He found the rifle, but its barrel had plowed into the dirt, was clogged. Laughing and shrieking, the Pawnees came, never slowing, as he worked desperately to clear it, broke the plug of clay, fired a round to finish the job. As if that were a signal, the Pawnees opened fire, too, though they were still out of range.
Sundance looked around. There was no cover, absolutely none; this stretch of prairie was level and bare as a card table. His lips thinned. There was one chance, and one only; and he hated to take it. He went to Eagle, ran his hand down the cannon bone and fetlock. Eagle snorted, but Sundance relaxed a little. A bad sprain, yes, but not a break. Still, that made no difference. In a little while, Eagle would be dead.
There was no help for it. He spoke to the big horse, touched it beneath the knee with his rifle barrel. At that signal, Eagle gingerly lowered himself, lay down on his side. It was the same trick cavalry horses were taught: to make a barricade behind which their masters could shelter. Sundance dropped behind the horse’s body, touched the big sweaty neck again, grimly mastering his grief. The first bullets would kill the appaloosa.
But there was no time for grief, this was the time to fight and, if it came to that, die. He lined the Winchester. Now the Pawnees were just within extreme range, small, tricky targets. Sundance aimed carefully, selecting a brave on a roan horse in the forefront. Eagle was as motionless as a rock. Sundance pulled the trigger.
The bullet caught the Pawnee warrior and knocked him from the saddle. A shout went up, the other Indians sheered away. But not for long. They dropped lower on their horses, hooking one heel behind the withers, one arm around the neck. Now they were no targets at all, concealed by their mount’s bodies. Sundance waited as they came; again, when he judged they were just within bullet reach, he fired and fired once more. The first bullet dropped a running horse, and its rider went cartwheeling and lay still, maybe with a broken neck. The second missed, but the Pawnees swung wide again. Sundance levered in another shell, waited.
They began to shoot. But the distance was too great; their rounds fell short. Sundance returned the fire, trying to hold them at bay. But he knew it was only a matter of time. In a minute, they’d spread out, encircle him, and when they came in that time, it would all be over. There were still a dozen of them against him and he could not kill them all.
But he would take as many with him as he could. His Winchester was almost empty; frantically, he dug fresh cartridges from his belt. But, as his fire slackened, the Pawnees took courage. Still riding low, they came, full tilt, and this time they moved out to ring him in.
Sundance raised the Winchester again, selected a target, held on it—a warrior on a pinto, pounding straight toward him, shooting from beneath his horse’s neck. Lead whined over Sundance’s head; Eagle whinnied as a bullet raked his flank, but did not move. Sundance had the man full in his sights, and his finger tightened on the trigger.
But before his gun could fire, something happened. The rider on the pinto screamed, flung wide his arms, fell hard, rolled over and lay still. The horse veered off, stampeding. Sundance gaped. Then he heard the gunfire from his flank. He turned, and what he witnessed next was a miracle.
The three Sioux warriors, headdresses gleaming in the sun, were three hundred yards away, having appeared seemingly from nowhere. Their horses stretched themselves at a dead run, and the braves rode straight up on them, disdaining to shelter behind their necks. Aiming and firing rifles as they came, the trio of them charged straight for the dozen Pawnee warriors.
The Pawnees saw them, broke their charge at Sundance, whirled, formed a loose rank across the prairie. Half of them dismounted, kneeled, took dead aim at the oncoming Sioux. There was no way they could miss. Even at that distance, Sundance saw the grins on their faces, then the white puffs of smoke from their rifles as they laid down a fusillade that should have knocked all three tightly grouped Dakotas from their horses.
Sundance swore softly, wonderingly. Because nothing happened. The Sioux rode right into that sleet of lead, and not a one of them was touched. Indeed, firing as they came, they knocked one Pawnee from the saddle; another, on the ground, pitched forward.
Sundance’s paralysis broke. He began to fire, too, now in position to take the Pawnees from the flank. He accounted for one more before the dismounted ones leaped back on their horses. Then, with the Sioux turning to follow them, the Pawnees rode hard, out of range of Sundance’s gun.
The three Dakota braves never faltered. As the Pawnees turned to meet them again, once more laying down that hail of lead, eight guns to three now, the Sioux rode full into their guns. Another Pawnee and yet another died. The Sioux, fearless, suicidal, kept on coming. The last half dozen of their enemy stared at them, then whirled their horses, nerve breaking in the face of that implacable charge. It was not possible for three men to ride through so much lead and live; it was supernatural, magic, sheer magic. And while the Pawnees could fight Dakotas, they could not fight magic.
They lashed their horses. The Sioux fired at them as they retreated, pounding after them like hawks after a flock of pigeons. Now the Pawnees were in full retreat, too panicky even to fire over their shoulders. And at last, one of the Sioux raised his hand. He and the other two skidded to a halt. They dismounted, knelt, crammed more rounds into their guns. Then, as the Pawnees raced across the shelterless prairie, coldly and precisely, the Dakotas began to pick them off. They fired first at the horses, brought those down. The riders who remained conscious sprang to their feet, raised their weapons despairingly. Sundance saw one Pawnee, a huge buck, better than six feet tall, wide in the shoulders, dare Sioux bullets to stand to full height, take careful aim at the three Dakotas at a range of a hundred yards. Sundance saw how he stood rock-steady, held his breath, squeezed off his round. Obviously he’d had instruction in marksmanship from the Army. And just as obviously, it was impossible for him to miss at that distance.
But he did. He missed, and then he fired again and missed that time, too, and Sundance saw the flash of teeth as his jaw dropped in amazement. He threw down his gun, turned to run; a Sioux shot him in the back.
Then the battle was almost over. Only one Pawnee remained, and he, too, was on foot now, beside his dead horse. Faintly, Sundance could hear his death song as he stood, gun up, watching the Dakotas as they mounted, rode toward him, rifles lined. Sundance saw him fire once, miss. It must have been his last round.
He stood motionless, defiant, as the Sioux came up around him. He ducked as they lashed out with rifle barrels, counting coup on him, touching a live enemy, the greatest coup of all. Then, one brave, tall and strong, body glistening in the sun and painted with jagged yellow lightning streaks, put the muzzle of his rifle b
etween the Pawnee’s eyes. The Pawnee stood like something carved from stone. The Sioux pulled the trigger.
And that was all of it. Out there for hundreds of yards around, the prairie was littered with the corpses of men and horses. Sundance shook his head in disbelief, still not able to comprehend what he had seen. It was as if three avenging spirits had wrought all that destruction.
Then the Sioux turned their horses and loped toward him, rifles up. He spoke to Eagle, and the lame stallion scrambled awkwardly to its feet. Sundance laid down his rifle and stood beside the horse, holding his hand up, palm out in the sign of peace. As the Indians approached, he saw that they were Dog Soldiers of the Hunkpapa.
Two of them stopped some distance out, guns trained on him. The third, the big man with the lightning streaks painted on chest and flanks, walked his mount forward. Sundance said, “Hau.” And, in Hunkpapa dialect went on: “My name is Sundance, and Sitting Bull of the Hunkpapa is my Sioux godfather. I come to find the Dakotas with important news to be told at council. You have saved my life. You have my thanks.”
The man with the lightning streaks reined in, stared at him a moment. Then he nodded. “Sundance. I have heard of you from Sitting Bull and Gall, from Crazy Horse and Red Cloud. Yes. Yes, you must be the one, with your Indian skin and your white man’s hair.” He smiled strangely, swung down, strode forward. “I am Fears-No-Lightning. It is lucky for you that we heard the gunfire. And that it was I who led the others, with my strong medicine.”
They shook hands. “Your medicine is strong, all right,” Sundance said. He frowned. “All that firing and you’re not even wounded?”
Fears-No-Lightning had a great, rough-featured face, like something chopped from red cedar heart-wood with a dull axe. His torso and arms rippled with muscle. But it was his eyes that caught and held Sundance’s gaze. Deep-set, black, there was a glittering in them that was almost awesome in its intensity. Sundance sucked in a long breath; he had seen that look before: a kind of insanity. He had seen it in the eyes of warriors who had danced so long that they were in a mindless frenzy, and he had seen it in the eyes of white men, ministers usually, when they preached their sermons: it was a kind of mad religious fervor. “Of course I am not wounded,” Fears-No-Lightning said. “No bullet can touch me or those who ride with me. You see, I am a man who cannot be killed.”
Chapter Four
Sundance stared at Fears-No-Lightning blankly.
The Indian smiled. “Lame Bear. Single Moon. Come here.”
The other two rode up, dismounted. Like Fears-No-Lightning, they were in their late twenties, lean and powerful. Sundance raked his eyes over them. There was not a bullet scratch on them or—his eyes ranged beyond—on their horses.
He let out a long breath of incredulity.
“Tell him,” Fears-No-Lightning said. “This is Sundance, of whom we have heard. He comes to give news to us in council. Tell him who is the greatest warrior of the Dakotas and who has the strongest medicine.”
“There is no other like Fears-No-Lightning,” the one called Lame Bear said, “and never has been. We rode through a thousand Pawnee bullets. But his magic saved us from them.”
“He is the greatest warrior of the Sioux,” Single Moon added simply. “He is the one come to save us from the Long Knives.” He gestured. “As he saved you from the Pawnees.”
Fears-No-Lightning nodded. “That is the way it is. Soon I will lead the Sioux, all the Sioux, against the soldiers. When that happens, no Sioux will die; my magic will save them all. We will wipe out the soldiers as we wiped out the Pawnees. We’ll take back our lands, all of them. When it is time.”
“Yes,” said Sundance quietly. “Yes, if your magic’s strong enough.” He shook his head slightly. The man was a fanatic, crazy, obviously. But Sundance could not get out of his mind the image of the three of them charging full tilt at four times their number of enemies. Before he could speak again, Fears-No-Lightning turned briskly to the others. “Now, we have work to do, scalps to take.”
The other two grinned, whooped, sprang on their horses, whirled and rode away, drawing knives. Fears-No-Lightning said to Sundance, “You are entitled to scalps, too. You killed how many? Three?”
“I don’t take scalps,” Sundance said. “Besides, my horse is lame, and I want to get to council as soon as possible.”
“I’ll get you a Pawnee horse and you can lead the appaloosa. We’ll ride into the Paha Sapa as soon as we’re through here. The Hunkpapa are there and the Oglala and soon the Brulés will come, and all the other bands. I have called them together myself. Wait here.” He mounted, rode off. Sundance watched him go.
“Well, I’ll be damned,” he said quietly in English. “I’ll just be damned.”
The self-confidence, even arrogance, in Fears-No-Lightning’s bearing was total. And it was obvious that the other two believed in him and worshipped him. Sundance frowned. He had been prepared to deal with Sitting Bull and Gall and Red Cloud and Crazy Horse and all the other chiefs; but Fears-No-Lightning seemed to consider himself the greatest chief of all.
He came back soon with a Pawnee horse, and Sundance mounted. Leading the limping stallion, he rode with the Sioux as they deftly scalped and then horribly mutilated the dead Pawnees. He watched this impassively, understanding that more than raw savagery was involved. The mutilation of the bodies was a warning to all the enemies of the Sioux not to attack them. It did not hurt the dead, and the brutality of it, serving notice on the living, might save Sioux lives.
Then they were done. Fears-No-Lightning and his companions fell in beside Sundance. The yellow-painted warrior gestured. “Now,” he said, “we ride for the Paha Sapa.”
They rode all that afternoon. Eagle’s lameness slowed them down, but nevertheless they made the White and crossed it, and reached the broken country beyond before the sun went down. Ahead, Sundance saw the broken purple mass against the sky that was the Black Hills, the Paha Sapa. It would be tomorrow before they reached the mountains.
Meanwhile, Fears-No-Lightning rode ahead of the rest, sitting his horse straight, never speaking. He seemed to be in deep, mystical communion with himself. Lame Bear and Single Moon looked at him with awe and admiration. “A year ago,” Lame Bear said, “he was like yourself and me. Only an ordinary man. Then the lightning blessed him.”
“What do you mean?” Sundance asked.
“I saw it from afar, myself,” Lame Bear said. “There were six of us riding out to war against the Crows. Fears-No-Lightning—they called him Black Horse then—was among them, a man whose luck had been bad in war. He had not counted many coups, and sometimes things happened to him so unlucky that he was made a joke of. He was one of those people who cannot do anything right.,,
“Go on,” Sundance said.
“We came back across the open prairie after a good trip. Everyone had taken scalps and stolen horses except Black Horse. They joked at him and made fun of him. Then my own horse went lame and I fell behind. Otherwise, I would have died with the others.”
His voice was hushed. “But I saw it, with my own eyes I saw it. The storm came up from nowhere, great black clouds that filled the sky completely and galloped toward us faster than the fastest horse can run. The wind blew strong and cold and then—” he shuddered. “Then the lightning came.”
Sundance nodded. A line storm. They could be terrible on the open plains. He had endured many of them himself, pounded by hail, lashed by wind, lying flat on the prairie while lightning crashed around him like artillery fire. When that happened, when those mighty explosions, great sheets of flame, were all around you, even the bravest man felt fear. For there was nothing one could do, no way to fight back.
“Never have I seen anything like it,” Lame Bear whispered. “The lightning marched across the prairie toward us, streak of fire after streak of fire, and the thunder was enough to drive you mad with fright. There was no escape; even the buffalo ran before it like a prairie fire, crazy, with fire dancing on their horn tips. A big
herd ran past, paying us no attention; and though the light had vanished, their horns glowed like embers of a campfire.”
“Go on,” said Sundance.
“I jumped off my horse, lay flat. I was in a hollow. The others, ahead of me, were on higher ground when it happened. My horse stampeded; there was a terrific sound as if the world exploded. Then he lay dead, charred and smoking, on the ground.”
He swallowed hard. “After that, it was a bad, bad dream. Fire everywhere, and crash after crash, and yet no rain, no ice. I could taste it in my mouth, feel it playing on my body, watch it dance along the ground. And up ahead, the other five—”
“What happened to them?”
“They were on a ridge. They dismounted. They lay flat, like I did. But ... it did not save them. The lightning hit the ridge. The whole crest seemed to explode. When it went away for a moment, there were bodies everywhere—like my horse’s. Burnt.”
Lame Bear rubbed his face. “And then,” he whispered, “one of those bodies got to its feet. One of those dead men.” He pointed at the rider ahead of them. “Black Horse. I saw it and did not believe it. But he stood up. I saw smoke coming from his hair, fire playing over his body, but he was not harmed, he was not burnt. He stood tall, and still the lightning came, crashing all around him. And he held up his arms to it, high above his head, and all around him the lightning hit and crashed and the dead bodies of the others smoked, and yet he was not touched. He stood like that for a long, long time, it seemed to me forever. Unafraid. Defying the lightning to strike him. But the lightning seemed afraid to.”
