Blood Dance

by Joe R. Lansdale

  We were following along behind the others when we heard gunfire just over the bluff. That would be the direction Reno had taken.

  I saw Custer stand up on his stirrups and wave his hat frantically, signaling Reno, I presumed.

  And it was at that moment the major made his break.

  5

  It had been an idiot thing to do. I had lost awareness of Carson for only an instant, and in that instant he shot a trooper in the back of the head, and wheeled his horse to get away.

  His men did the same, cut down on the troops around the ammunition train and broke hard to the left. I took a slug in the thigh and it went through my horse’s side and dropped the animal dead as a rock.

  Dead Thing strung an arrow and put it dead center of Carson’s back. The major swayed to the right, but righted himself, rode hard bending over his mount.

  I hit the ground with the Winchester in my hand. When I looked up, one of Carson’s Crows was falling from his horse with an arrow in his left eye.

  The other Crow jerked up his Springfield and shot Dead Thing full in the chest, tore a hole in him the size of a derby hat. As my Crow brother toppled from his horse, I shot his assailant in the head—Hickok’s advice or not.

  When I got to my feet, I saw that the two white men who had been with Carson were dead on the ground, shot by troopers from the ammunition train.

  I looked around for Carson. He was weaving in the saddle, veering toward the east. He went over the bluff and out of sight.

  I got my Sharps out of my saddle boot, and with my Winchester in one hand and the Sharps in the other, I was ready for action.

  A trooper rode up and said, “What in hell goes on here?”

  Another trooper said, “Some men went berserk here and tried to kill this man and the Crow. They got the Indian.”

  I could see that the first trooper, who had some rank, wanted more of an explanation than that, but there wasn’t time. Down below there was a popping and snapping of gunfire. I guessed that was Reno.

  The trooper extended his hand and pulled me up behind him. We wheeled and rode down to the front of the ammunition train, but suddenly the trooper tossed back his head and tossed out of the saddle. Some Indian had picked him off at long range, probably with a Sharps. I had not even heard the shot.

  There wasn’t anything to do for him, he was as dead as Dead Thing. I spurred the horse and went over the bluff in the direction Carson had taken.

  On the other side of that bluff was a surprise. I didn’t see Carson, but I’ll tell you as straight as a Cheyenne arrow, I had never seen so many goddamned Indians in my entire life. There were literally a thousand or more.

  To the north, I could see Custer and his command, and I rode to catch up with them. I should have gone the other way.

  No sooner had I brought up their tail than Custer was whipping around. The Sioux were on us like bees on honey. To the sound of the retreat those troopers and I made for higher ground, a hill on the high, northern end of the bluffs.

  We were moving up toward the hill at a pretty good clip when suddenly a thousand warriors or more topped it and looked down on us. Carson was in front of them, riding like hell. I tossed the Winchester across my thighs and steadied the Sharps against my shoulder, picked him right out of the saddle. And that was all she wrote for the major.

  No one seemed to notice.

  Had the situation been different I might have found beauty in our position. Above were thousands of Sioux, and probably some Cheyenne. They seemed to set on that ridge for an eternity, but it was probably only moments. It was like some sort of colorful painting; the Indians with their feathers and paint, lances, arrows and rifles.

  One warrior rode up and down their immediate center waving a Winchester above his head. He wore only a breechcloth and a feather in his hair. I suspected this was Crazy Horse.

  He was chanting the Sioux war cry, “Hoka Hey, Hoka Hey,” and suddenly all those on the bluff and those behind Custer’s force picked it up. It was terrifying.

  And then the dying began.

  The rear attack had already dropped a number of troopers and their mounts, and with the union forces of those on the hill, Custer’s men and horses began to fall like hail.

  My horse was shot out from under me and I went down. Damned if that wasn’t getting to be a habit.

  Troopers who still had living horses were pulling them down and barricading themselves behind them. There were so many Sioux the air filled with dust from their activity and it was like fighting ghosts. They seemed to appear and disappear within the cloud of grit; step or ride into view for a moment to attack, then disappear back into the dirty swirl.

  Arrows came like rain and rattled around the defenders with devastating effect. I dropped a few Indians before the Winchester was hit by a stray bullet and made useless. I couldn’t even get it to cock. The impact of the bullet had really shook my hands up and it was all I could do to keep them from quivering.

  Somewhere along the line I had lost the Sharps—I believed it to be under the horse I had been riding—and was down to my revolver. I propped up good behind the dead animal and drew my handgun. I decided to save a shell for myself rather than let the Sioux take me.

  I picked off a Sioux who came out of the dust swirl on foot. Dropped another on horseback. And when next I looked around it was me, Custer and one trooper left. It had happened that fast. We got whittled down in less than twenty minutes.

  I never did see what happened to Tom Custer and didn’t know anyone else there. Later, I learned Custer had lost another brother, Boston, and a brother-in-law.

  The trooper who had been lying down behind his horse firing his Springfield suddenly stood up and jerked up his horse, too. The animal was bristling with arrows, but still alive. He stepped into the stirrups and was swinging astride when Custer yelled, “Hold it, trooper.”

  Like a fool the general stood up, and with one quick motion the trooper jammed his revolver against Custer’s temple and fired. That was all for General Custer.

  The soldier on the horse bolted the animal and rode straightaway into the dust storm of Sioux.

  This all takes a bit in the telling, but it happened in seconds, and there wasn’t a thing I could do about it. Besides, I was down to my last round, the bullet I thought had my own name on it, not that of some deserting soldier.

  I didn’t keep an eye on that trooper because, to say the least, my situation was tight and I had only a few seconds left to attend to my own killing.

  An Indian came galloping out of the dust toward me, a lance extended. He hung low off the horse, and I instinctively forgot the suicide business. I leapt up and straightaway into the animal.

  The lance passed over my left shoulder, ripping my shirt. I looped the horse’s neck with my right arm, losing my Colt in the process. I was half-running, half-bouncing along with the horse. Facing the warrior on the animal’s back I must have been a pretty funny sight hanging onto that horse’s neck, looking the wrong way, bounding along with that Sioux’s wild eyes staring me in the face.

  I reached up and caught the horse’s mane with my left hand and swung my body up and around, knocking the rider off into the bargain.

  The next moment I had mounted and was clinging to the horse’s mane, guiding it Indian style with my knees. I hunkered over its neck and rode through the grit, the cries and the painted bodies of the Sioux and the Cheyenne.

  For awhile there things looked promising.

  6

  The pure audacity of it—although it was mainly accident—allowed me to ride right through the Indian lines. They were strung out I pretty good and there was still plenty of dust to give me an edge.

  Not long after, I was in the clear, but then two Sioux lit out after me.

  The trooper who had killed Custer was out in front of me, not making good time. His mount was exhausted and bleeding. I had a fresh Indian horse.

  We were both heading for a patch of cottonwoods, and it looked to me like that t
rooper, tired as his horse was, was going to make a sure getaway.

  Then the trooper did a strange thing. He raised his revolver to his temple and shot himself just as he reached the trees. I’ll never figure that. I don’t believe the Sioux would have caught him. Maybe he was thinking about Custer, what he had done. I don’t know.

  His horse went out of sight in the trees.

  I looked back. The Indians were gaining on me. One had a Winchester, and he took a shot at me. Of course it hit my horse, and the animal went down to the sound of the Indians’ whoops and my cursing.

  I was running now, and the wood was just a few yards away. But my tired feet were no match for those fleet ponies. I had just reached the trees when one boot heel snapped off and I stumbled forward a few steps.

  Looking back I saw the Indians were right on me. I had been hit several times, but it wasn’t until that moment that I felt it. Turning to face them, I stooped. From my sock I drew the .41 short gun Hickok had given me.

  At a range of about ten feet, with a Winchester leveled at me, I shot the Sioux right between the eyes. A head shot with Hickok’s gun. That was sort of ironic, although I didn’t really stop to consider it at the time.

  The other Sioux’s head exploded, and he seemed to turn around and ride backwards on his horse for a moment, then he flapped off the animal and bit the dust.

  I turned weakly to look at my rescuer.

  It was Liver-Eatin’ Johnston and his Spencer rifle.

  Chapter Nine

  1

  “Hello, Red Spot,” Liver-Eatin’ Johnston said with a grin. “What say we take us a ride?”

  “I’d say that was a mighty good idea.”

  Wobbling a bit, I followed Johnston into the trees where his horse was tied. He got on and pulled me up behind him.

  “Thought I heard a little gunfire,” he said.

  “A little?”

  “Yep, and what happens but my old friend Red Spot comes a-ridin’ out of a cloud of dust with a couple of them red divvels on his tail.”

  “You know what happened down there?”

  “Reckon some fool bunch of cavalry got themselves killed.”

  “Custer,” I said.

  “No joshin’?”

  “No joshing.”

  “Boy, I think you ought to forget you was in on this.”

  “Forget!”

  “The army will call you a coward. The country will call you a coward. It’ll dog your days until you die. Besides, it don’t matter anyway, now. They’re dead. And the Sioux, well, them poor bastards have jest sang their death song, even though they don’t know it yet.”

  “I reckon you’re right,” I said.

  2

  I rode double with Johnston all the way back to the Black Hills. Somewhere along the way I said, “Why didn’t you kill me, Johnston? I thought you hated me.”

  We were making camp and Johnston was making those biscuits of his.

  “I thought I did, too. Thought I’d kill you if I ever saw ya again, Red Spot.”

  “So?”

  “When I saw you ride out in front of them Dakotah braves… well, reckon I felt a kin for ya, that’s all. That’s what I got to say on the matter. Won’t say any more, ’cept that there ain’t no grudge between us from this end.”

  “Nor this one.”

  “You ever find that fella that shot you up, killed your friend?”

  “I did.” And I told him the whole story since we had parted.

  “Been a mite busy, boy. Tell me, how does that revenge feel?”

  I sat for a moment and thought on it.

  “Not all that good,” I said. “Bucklaw is still dead. I did what I had to, and I take pride in that, but not in the actual killing. It just sort of leaves me…well, it’s like finishing a job, but not feeling satisfied.”

  Johnston grunted. “Don’t feel like the only pine on a tall mountain, Red Spot. I know how you feel, believe me, I know.”

  · · ·

  It was a long, slow journey back to Deadwood while Johnston and I renewed our friendship and my wounds healed. Traveling as we did, talking, enjoying the country, it was over a month after the Little Big Horn fight that we arrived in Deadwood. It was August the third, the day of Wild Bill’s funeral, and I saw another friend stretched out before they put him down. It was quite a gala event for Deadwood.

  The little weasel I had met when I first entered the gulch, Jack McCall, had shot Bill from behind for some reason never disclosed. Bill was playing cards, and they say he had that hand again, the one he longed for, aces and eights. It hadn’t been so lucky this time. I had known him briefly, but I would miss him.

  Roy and I went back to mining, and as Liver-Eatin’ Johnston predicted, the Little Big Horn was the death song of the Sioux and their sacred lands. The white man took over.

  Me, I still dreamed of Bob Bucklaw some nights. But his face was no longer a bloody memory; the droplets no longer danced on my upturned face. I see him differently now. A smiling, laughing man with a happy-go-lucky shine to his eyes, and I can still hear him telling how smart and handsome he was.

  For me, finally, the blood dance had ended.

  Excerpt

  If you enjoyed Blood Dance, you might want to pick up some other Lansdale ebooks, like his zombie western, Dead in the West, or the hardboiled modern crime novel, Waltz of Shadows. Both are available wherever fine ebooks are sold. Here’s how Waltz begins:

  Waltz of Shadows

  All the blood and disaster began on a Saturday morning when I thought everything was going just right. It was late October in East Texas, and from my recliner I could see out the tall glass that makes up two of our living room walls, and it was beautiful outside. A little cool looking, leaves gone gold and red and brown and starting to fall. Clouds white as angel’s panties could be glimpsed through the tops of the tall pines and oaks that made up most of our two acres. A cat squirrel jumped from one oak limb to another, then leaped out of sight. I felt like I was in a Disney movie.

  Then I got the call.

  I heard the phone ring, and was about to answer, assuming it would be some minor problems at one of the videos stores I own, when Beverly started downstairs.

  I could see her through the stair railing. She was wearing her shorty white bathrobe and flip-flops and had a white towel wrapped around her head from having just washed her hair. Her legs were fairly pale since she didn’t go in much for the sun, and they were lightly freckled, the way redheads sometimes are, but they were long and smooth and muscled and I never tired of looking at them.

  She was carrying the upstairs cordless phone, talking and looking at me over the railing and motioning me over, which meant she wanted me to rescue her and talk to whoever it was.

  I put the paper down and got out of the chair and met her at the bottom of the stairs.

  Our black German shepherd, Wylie, got up like it was part of his job, came over and sniffed my crotch, then went after Beverly, who popped him on the head with her hand. He went back to his spot and laid down with a groan. Crotch sniffing was hard work for a dog, but it was his duty, even if no one liked it.

  “Well,” she said into the phone, “let me let you talk to him.”

  She handed me the phone and shook her head.

  Upstairs I heard the kids yell again about something on a cartoon show they were watching, and I put the phone to my ear and stood at the foot of the stairs and watched Beverly climb back up, enjoying the way her bottom moved beneath her bathrobe. Twenty years of marriage hadn’t changed that for me.

  “Hello,” I said.

  “This is Bill,” said the voice. I knew then why Beverly had wanted off the phone and why she had the sour face when she gave it to me.

  “Hey, how you been?” I tried to sound as happy as possible.

  “Not so good.”

  He always said that. He’d go six months and I wouldn’t hear from him, then something went rancid, first person he called was Uncle Hank.

  But h
e’s my brother’s boy, so what you gonna do? It’s not like he’s got anyone else. My brother, Rick, got killed in an auto accident when Bill was seven, and when Bill was a teenager his mother remarried and Bill didn’t get along at all with her new husband, then his mother got some kind of weird disease you read about in the back of medical books, and died.

  Bill was in many ways like his father. Always certain he was merely a day short of the big success, though you couldn’t seem to put your finger on what it was he was doing to acquire it. And, like my brother, he had a passion for women that sent his judgment and sense of decency packing.

  On top of all that, he was a bullshitter and had no more true ambition than a frog.

  I hated to get it started, but I said: “Tell me about it.”

  Silence hung in the air for a time.

  I sat down on the bottom step of the stairs and waited. Wylie got up again and ambled over, nodded his head in the direction of my crotch, but it was just a feint, to keep me honest. He laid down at my feet.

  Bill said, “I got to talk to you in private. I don’t want to do it over the phone. I need to see you. Can I come over? I’ll have to take a taxi, but I think I can swing it. We can have a couple of drinks in the study.”

  I thought about that one. I wasn’t in the mood to get Beverly stirred up. Telling her Bill was coming over was like telling her I was going to stack and store a wheelbarrow load of fresh pig manure in the house.

  “I don’t think so,” I said.

  “Beverly doesn’t like me, right?”

  “I didn’t say that.”

  “Don’t have to. She talks to me like I’m a bill collector.”

  “You two just don’t click.”

  “We don’t click all right.”

  “Look, what she’s got against you is ten thousand dollars you haven’t paid back. Ten thousand you don’t plan to pay back. Some of us work, Bill. Come over with the ten thousand in your hand, Beverly’ll meet you at the door in her panties playing a bass drum.”