by John Benteen
When he came up, the table came up with him—hard. It slammed into Shell with terrific force and sent him sprawling backward. In the same instant, Sundance drew, swinging toward the Pawnee. The Indian, dodging back from the table, had whipped out the knife, his arm was swung back for a throw. “No!” Shell yelled from the floor. “No, Red Bull!” But he was too late. The roar of the Colt was thunderous in the enclosed room. Its slug caught the Pawnee in the chest, picked him up and hurled him backward just as the thrown knife left his hand, went sailing wildly across the room. Sundance whirled toward the big man as Shell bellowed: “Bart! Take him!” But he was a fraction of a second too late. A huge hand clamped around his wrist, twisted with terrible strength. It was drop the gun or have a broken arm, and Sundance dropped it, but his left hand went to the hatchet.
He had no time to use it. Bart hit him on the jaw, and it was like being kicked by a shaved-tail Army mule. Lights exploded behind Sundance’s eyes as he slammed back against the wall, and the hatchet dropped. He shook his head, and his vision cleared just in time to see Bart lunging across the fallen table at him, great fist cocked for another blow.
Sundance kicked out automatically with a hard-soled moccasined foot, and he kicked low. Bart tried to dodge, was a fraction too late, let out a howl of pain. His aim ruined by the sudden agony, his fist grazed Sundance’s cheek. Then Sundance rebounded, his own left hand shot out, and he felt the flesh and cartilage of Bart’s nose crunch beneath his knuckles. Bart roared like a gut shot buffalo and fell back a little, but Sundance’s fighting style was that of a panther; he followed up, savagely, never hesitating. Bart seemed almost as big as the grizzly back on the Powder’s headwater creek, but there was a rage in Sundance that was beyond caution or counting odds. No matter that Bart was nearly six-feet six, close to two hundred fifty pounds of solid muscle. The thing was to attack, keep on attacking. Sundance’s fists chopped so fast they were blurs, left, right, left, right, the sounds of the blows sodden in the silent room. Bart never had a chance to regain balance, get his hands up to guard himself.
Sundance knew this was not a fight he could win with his fists; Bart was too much man. The hard bone under the hard flesh, the way Bart took the shock told him immediately that he could break his hands to jelly without bringing Bart down. And sooner or later Bart would get clear, land one more blow, and that would be the end of it. The time to finish this was now, while he had a chance. He hit Bart hard in the left eye with his right hand, and his other hand swooped down again for the hatchet and got it this time.
But that clock tick gave Bart time to recover. He got his hands up, poised, lunged in. Sundance gripped the hatchet handle, swung the weapon wide. As Bart came for him, he brought it home, blunt side forward. The flat steel slammed against Bart’s skull with a shock that jarred Sundance all through his body, and not even Bart’s massive head could absorb that blow just above the ear. Bart halted in mid-stride; his hands dropped and his eyes rolled back in his head. Then he sighed strangely and fell with an impact that shook the room. Sundance turned smoothly and without hesitation, the hatchet ready now to throw, and faced Austin Shell.
Shell had scrambled to his feet, stood there with hand close to his Colt. “Freeze!” Sundance rasped.
“You try to draw, I’ll sink this thing between your eyes.”
Shell’s blue eye’s glittered. Then he straightened up, letting out a long breath, and his hand lifted, empty. “No,” he said. “No, I won’t draw. Not this time.”
Sundance smiled faintly, though his jaw ached from Bart’s single hammer blow and his fists felt as if he’d been battering a stone wall. He stopped, retrieved his fallen Colt, never taking his eyes off of Shell. “Nor any other, if you’re smart,” he said.
“Oh, I can take you,” Shell said. “I’m sure of that. But I’m not gettin’ paid to kill you. That’s why I hollered at the Injun. Only next time it won’t be a matter of pay, maybe. Maybe it’ll be just for personal pleasure.”
“That’s up to you,” Sundance said. He eared back the six-gun hammer, shoved the hatchet in its sheath. “Right now, you get this carrion out of here. The Pawnee’s finished. That big hunk of gristle ought to live, but his head’ll ring a few days. You get ’em outa here and then you go see whoever sent you. You tell him what I said before. He wants to see me, he can come to me. I’ll be right here, with my back against the wall.”
Shell was silent for a moment. Then he nodded slowly. “I’ll do that,” he said. “You wait here. I reckon he’ll be along directly. I’ll tell him, anyhow. But don’t forget, Sundance. I aim to take you one of these days.” He backed toward the door, face pale, but with anger, for there was no fear in his bearing.
Sundance smiled coolly. “Your privilege,” he said. And he kept the gun on Shell until the man went out.
After that, he took a table in a different part of the room, though still with his back to the wall. He switched tables because he knew Shell had that seat spotted, and Shell was a professional killer of a breed that would not hesitate to put a rifle barrel up against the wall there and pull the trigger and hope the slug would penetrate the boards and still have power left to kill. He laid the six-gun before him on the table and kept one hand on it, and ordered another drink.
There was law in North Platte, but not of a quality to make an issue of the killing of a Pawnee nor a fist-fight in a saloon. It never appeared, not even when the manager of the place, looking at Sundance warily, had the Indian’s corpse dragged out, and then the inert body of the man called Bart. The place settled back to a semblance of normality, although Sundance was the object of curious, frightened eyes, and his table was given a wide berth. He had the second drink and no more, but sat there for better than an hour, watching the door as intently as a panther waiting for a deer.
It was late afternoon when Shell came back.
Sundance sat up straight, hand clamping on the gun.
He eased as Shell raised his hand in a gesture of peace. Shell walked forward, and another man came into the bar behind him. Sundance looked at him, and even though it had been a long time since he had seen him, he muttered a curse of instant recognition under his breath and almost forgot Shell entirely in the shock of surprise.
“Colfax!” he said.
The man, beefy, red-faced, was pushing sixty, but his thick form still radiated authority as he stood there just inside the door, clad in a beaver skin greatcoat over a dark suit. He stared at Sundance a moment, face set and grim, and then strode forward on short, thick legs, Shell keeping pace at his side. He halted before Sundance’s table. “Sundance,” he said harshly.
Sundance did not stand up or put out his hand.
“So you’re the one. Maybe I should have guessed, the way you sent those three after me—”
“Not to kill you, not even to hurt you. I wanted to see you.”
Sundance’s mouth quirked. “You got a funny way of sending out invitations.”
“I thought I had to. I didn’t think you’d talk to me otherwise.”
“If you’d asked first, it would have saved that Pawnee’s life and saved that thing called Bart one hell of a headache. All right, Colfax, sit down. But call off your hired gun, you hear? He goes outside. I don’t talk to anybody when I have to keep watching somebody else’s holster.”
Colfax hesitated. “I usually keep a bodyguard.”
“I’ll be your bodyguard. You’ve got nothing to fear from me. If anybody else is on your tail, I’ll see to you.”
Slowly, George Colfax nodded. “Very well. Shell, you heard him. Outside.”
Shell’s eyes narrowed. “I don’t like being chased out like a damn’ dog that’s messed the floor.”
“I said out!” Colfax rapped.
Shell looked at Sundance, and his blue eyes were lambent. He licked his red lips. “Okay. But ... unfinished business. Remember that, Sundance. We’ve got some.”
“It comes later,” Sundance said.
Shell turned away. As Colfax s
at down, Sundance watched the gunman until he had disappeared through the front door. When it had closed behind him, Sundance turned to the businessman. Colfax’s hair was almost white, and his red face, Sundance saw, was crisscrossed with tiny blue veins: too much soft living and heavy drinking. Colfax signaled to the bar, and when the waiter came said, “I want bourbon. The best in the house. Bring the bottle.” As the man went off, Colfax leaned forward across the table. “All right,” he said. “Now we can talk.”
“How did you know I was in North Platte?” Sundance asked.
“You’d be surprised how much I know about you,” Colfax said, with a sour smile. “After all, you stole my daughter from me.”
“I didn’t steal her. She didn’t want to live with you.”
Colfax started to snap something, then thought better of it. He leaned back in his chair, looking a little weary. In a quieter voice, he said, “A long time ago, I hired you for a job. To rescue Barbara from the Cheyennes and get back a hundred thousand in gold that had been stolen from me. And I paid you a hell of a lot of money to do it.”
“And got what you paid for. I brought Barbara back to you, and you got the money back. Not my fault if Barbara didn’t want to go back to New York with you and that new, young stepmother of hers you married.”
“Irene. Yes. Well, she’s gone. We were divorced three years ago. She got what she was after, a big settlement. And, now—” Colfax hesitated. His voice was almost plaintive when he said, “Now, I’m alone. Barbara was my only child. And she ran away with you, back to the Indians, and ... and I have no one left. No one.”
For a moment, Sundance almost felt compassion for the man. Then he remembered that Colfax had brought himself to this pass. His daughter had left him because, devoted only to making money, he had never really been a father to her. In New York, she had been a virtual prisoner, given everything Colfax’s fortune could buy except the right to be a person. In the Cheyenne camp, closely knit as one big family, she had found the warmth and freedom and self-fulfillment that she had longed for. But there was no way to explain anything like that to Colfax. So all Sundance said was, “I’m sorry.”
The waiter brought the bourbon and two glasses. Colfax poured both full, passed one to Sundance. It had been a long time since his last drink and he accepted it, sipped it. Colfax tossed off his own, poured another, drank that, too, and poured a third. Then he sighed.
“Well,” he said, “I don’t like being alone. I found out from your man in Washington that you were due to pick up mail sooner or later here at North Platte. I immediately had my private car attached to the next train, and when I got here hired Shell and his friends to keep on the lookout for you, bring you to me when you came. Sundance,” he said, his voice quivering slightly, “I haven’t seen my daughter in years. I haven’t heard from her in months.”
“She wrote you last time we were in a city. She hasn’t exactly been close to a mailbox since.”
“I know ... But, now ... I’m getting older. And ... I want to see her again. Sundance. And that’s why I had to get in touch with you.” Colfax tossed off his third drink. “Sundance, what’s your price to bring her to me?”
Chapter Four
For a full fifteen seconds, Jim Sundance looked at the older man across the table. Then he said, “Sorry, Colfax. No deal.”
Colfax’s face darkened. “Dammit, I’m entitled to see my own daughter. Who are you to tell me—?”
“She’s my woman,” Sundance said.
Colfax’s mouth thinned. “You’re married, then?”
“No, not in white man’s style. Not even in the Cheyenne way, in the sense that I have paid Tall Calf a marriage price for her or any words have been spoken over us. But she lives in Tall Calf’s lodge, as his daughter, and when I go back to the Cheyennes, she’s waiting for me.”
“And in the meantime,” Colfax rasped, “I suppose she’s free to lie up with any buck Indian she takes a fancy to! Since you didn’t even have the decency to—”
Sundance’s pistol was still on the table; and his hand tightened on it. “Be quiet, Colfax,” he said softly. “Keep your foul mouth shut.”
Colfax stared at the gun, then at Sundance, his face red, mottled.
“I’m gone a lot,” Sundance said. His mouth twisted. “People like you keep trying to grab what the Indians have, and it keeps me moving to try to stop you. In an Indian camp, a woman needs a man to see to her. Tall Calf does that, as her father—a hell of a better father than you ever were.”
Still watching Colfax, he finished his drink. ‘That way, she’s free, you understand? If she ever decides she’s tired of waiting for me and wants another man, she can take him. And if she decides she wants to leave the Cheyennes and come back East, she’s free to do that, too. Meanwhile, our arrangement works; the Cheyennes don’t see anything wrong with it and neither do we. Not perfect, maybe, not the way we’d like it to be, but the best we can do right now.”
Colfax shook his head uncomprehendingly. “All right. If she’s free, why won’t you bring her to me?”
“Because we’re not fools. Listen, Colfax, there have been times when she’s longed to see you, but the risk’s too great, and she’s always decided against it. We both know damn’ well that the minute you get your hands on her, you’ll never let her go again. She’s something that used to belong to you and that you lost. And you don’t like losing things that were your property. Well, she doesn’t want to be your property. She wants to be a free woman in her own right.”
Colfax was breathing hard. He poured himself another drink. “I wouldn’t—”
“The hell you wouldn’t. You’d do anything to get what you want, regardless of who it hurts. Why do you think she left you in the first place? You’re rich, and there are a lot of Austin Shells for hire. I couldn’t fight them all to keep you from taking her. So she stays where she is—unless she decides herself that she wants to come back to you for good.”
For a moment, Sundance thought Colfax was going to spring up, try to fight him. The man’s face was beet-colored, and he clenched his fists. Then, quite suddenly, he changed, easing, relaxing. He spread his hands flat on the table. Slowly, he smiled. “Sundance,” he said, “you’re no businessman. You didn’t even wait to hear my proposition before you turned me down.”
“There’s nothing you could offer me—”
Colfax’s smile widened. “You think not? It’s always been my observation that every man has his price. I don’t think you’re any exception.” Then his smile went away. “I want to see my daughter again. I want to talk to her and try to persuade her to come back to me. Yes, I want to take her away from you, if I can. But not by force. What good would that do me? She would only run away again. I don’t think I’d have to use force, anyway. By now, she must be tired of that life she’s leading—a squaw’s life. She must be yearning for what I can give her. Luxury, ease, fine clothes, anything she wants that money can buy. I’d be a fool to use force with all the rest of that going for me.” He toyed with his glass. “All I want is the opportunity to talk to her, father-to-daughter. Now that you understand that, do you want to hear my offer?” His smile came back. “Because, you see, I know what your price is.”
“Oh, you do, eh?” Sundance murmured. “All right. What is it?”
“A high one,” Colfax said silkily, almost casually. “But one I’m prepared to pay to get a chance to persuade my daughter to come back. What I’m offering you, Sundance, is the Cheyenne hunting grounds.”
Sundance sat up straight. “The what?” He stared at Colfax incredulously.
“The Cheyenne hunting grounds.” Colfax gestured. “They lie between the Black Hills and the Big Horn Mountains ... Montana. The unceded lands. That’s what I’m prepared to pay for Barbara, Sundance.”
Suddenly his voice was crisp. “You’ve got a man in Washington, you’re thoroughly informed. You know as well as I do that the Army’s about to take over responsibility for clearing Dakota and eastern Montan
a of Indians. And you know, too, that when they try it, there’s going to be a war, a hell of a war, and I don’t want my daughter in the middle of it. All right. I can’t do anything about Dakota; the gold hunters are already there. Dakota’s down the drain. But if you and I could come to terms, I could save the unceded lands for the Cheyennes and the Sioux both.”
“Go on,” Sundance said.
Something kindled in Colfax’s eyes. “Got you hooked, eh? But you think it’s a lot for one man to deliver. Well, I can deliver it.” He reached in his pocket, took out a cigar. It lay in the palm of his outstretched hand. “Like this. If I say the word, the Cheyennes can go on living. Or ... ” He closed his hand slowly, and when he opened it again, the cigar was a crumpled mess. Sundance stared at it. Colfax smiled, held it a second, then tossed it aside. “The railroad,” he said.
“I think I’m beginning to understand,” Sundance murmured.
“I thought you would. The pressure on the unceded land coming from the Northern Pacific. For every penny you’ve sent to Washington, they’ve spent ten dollars.”
“And you’re the Northern Pacific,” Sundance said.
“No,” said Colfax. “I’m only the money-man, the key figure in a combine to provide the financing. The railroad’s stalled at Bismarck now for lack of cash. It wants to go on through the Indian lands along the route that was surveyed in ’73, but it can’t until it gets the money. And I ... I control the money. It’s in my power to say whether the railroad moves on or stalls where it is.”
He leaned forward. “The whole combine depends on me, Sundance. If I pull out, it collapses.” His eyes glittered. “You bring Barbara to talk to me at Bismarck and I’ll pull out. Simple as that, and at least for several years, the pressure’s off the Cheyenne lands. But if she doesn’t show up in Bismarck in sixty days, I’ll give the go-ahead. And then the Cheyenne lands go—and so do the Cheyennes.”
Now his grin was confident. “It’s your decision, Sundance. You’re a big talker about protecting Indians. Let’s see if it’s more than talk.”
