Sundance 5

by John Benteen

  Sundance heard the shrill, ululating Cheyenne war cry break from his own throat. He wanted that man in buckskin; wanted him for more crimes than he could count. Wanted him for his part in ruining all Sundance’s hopes and dreams of white and Indian living in peace, wanted him to pay the score of four months spent in stinking solitary, wanted him because Custer had earned death twice over. He lashed Eagle again and, at the head of a thousand Indian warriors, splashed into the Little Big Horn.

  But now, even as the Sioux and Cheyennes crossed the stream, the troopers of the Seventh Cavalry had recovered from their confusion. They spread out, firing as they fell back up the steep hills and bluffs. Lead whined like a swarm of angry bees all around Sundance; near him a Cheyenne warrior screamed and pitched from his pony, the lower half of his face shot away. Sundance’s mouth twisted; then he fell forward on Eagle’s neck, hooking a heel around the saddle horn. He crossed the river that way, made the bluffs, shielded by Eagle, firing beneath the horse’s jaw with his Winchester as he went.

  All the same, it was not a light thing to face, that cruel, disciplined fire laid down by the retreating soldiers. At first, as they went in good order up the slopes, it was a solid wall of lead they threw out to shield their flight. But now, from the south, came the shrieking of more war cries, a savage wail from a thousand more throats. The Indians who had dealt with Reno had pushed him back across the river, then turned to strike the other column. On both sides of the stream, they pounded northward. And as they came, they sent a barrage of rifle fire and arrows ahead of them.

  Horses went down and Indians fell as the troopers fought back. Above the mouth of Medicine Tail Creek, where Custer had attempted his crossing, Eagle splashed to dry ground, flanks working like bellows as he pumped his long legs up the hill. All around Sundance, Indians were shrieking and shooting. Ahead, a scattered line of blue thinned out rapidly. Sundance paid no attention to it; all his determination and his hatred were focused on one man and one man only—and that one was whipping his mount savagely, making for the highest peak of ground above the rider. A knot of troopers rode with him, twisting to fire.

  Sundance worked the lever of his Winchester one-handed, kept the rifle hosing lead as Eagle climbed the ridge. Once he saw a bay horse fall from one of his slugs, shifted aim, and as its rider scrambled to his feet, was about to drop him when an ax hurtled through the air and split the soldier’s skull. Sundance shifted Eagle with the pressure of his heel, rode on, the appaloosa laboring up the steep slope.

  Then Eagle seemed to run into a brick wall. He reared, screamed, pitched Sundance free. Sundance hit hard, rolled, came up in time to see the stallion fall, kicking convulsively, belly shot. Sundance swallowed hard. He had raised Eagle from a foal, for almost fifteen years they had been inseparable. He would rather have taken a bullet himself.

  Eagle was in agony, kicking, screaming. Sundance whipped out his Colt, ran forward, thumbed back the hammer. There was an instant when, the muzzle of the gun touching the big horse’s skull just below and between the ears, he looked straight into Eagle’s eye. In that second, Eagle’s threshing stopped.

  Sundance pulled the trigger, and that was the end of it.

  Cursing, crying, he ran up the hill. He was insane with rage and grief, and even as he fired the pistol, he dug out more cartridges. A trooper reared from behind an outcrop of ground, lined his rifle. Sundance pulled the trigger of the Colt and the man fell back, and Sundance lined another shot at a second cavalryman who appeared like a jack-in-the-box from the same hiding place. The hammer fell on an empty round. Sundance cursed and threw himself aside as the soldier shot at him. He heard the rip of the bullet past his ear; then he rolled into a fold of ground, catching a glimpse of the man going down with three arrows in his breast before he could pull the trigger again.

  Sundance’s hands shook as he crammed fresh rounds into the Colt. Then, with lead whining all around him, he was on his feet. A big bay cavalry horse, riderless, thundered past; he lunged, caught trailing reins, jerked the mount around. In the saddle without touching stirrup, he fought the horse into submission, put it up the hill.

  Up there, at the very crest, he saw the guidon of the Seventh Cavalry flapping in the gentle breeze against a sky of scalding blue. Beside it, hatless, knelt a man with short yellow hair and a big mustache, his face almost obscured by several weeks’ auburn beard, buckskin jacket discarded, blue cavalry shirt and suspenders plastered to his muscular torso. Methodically, with iron courage, he fired first one round from his right hand gun, then another from his left hand gun, into the horde of Indians charging up the hill, across the blue-clad bodies that littered the field. Beside him, his brother Tom, a little younger, almost a duplicate of him, was also pumping lead down the ridge from two Colts, in the opposite direction, covering George Custer’s flank.

  Sundance bared his teeth in a wolf’s snarl. He lashed the cavalry horse with the reins. It scrabbled up the hill, panting. Custer turned, saw it coming, saw what appeared to be an Indian on it, and very coolly he got to his feet and lined the right hand Colt and pulled the trigger.

  The bullet chopped Sundance’s cheek, and he felt a warm gush of blood. Custer, seeing that he’d missed, brought down the left hand gun. He fired again. The horse fell. Sundance was already leaping free; he landed on his feet as the animal hit the ground. Custer thrust both guns, hammers cocked, out before him, as Sundance, not twenty yards away, ran toward him. Then he froze. Something flickered in his eyes; for the first time, he saw the yellow hair of the Indian who charged at him.

  “Sundance!” he cried out in recognition. “You Goddamned renegade!” Then his mouth twisted. “I’ll take you with me, anyhow!”

  He pulled both triggers. At that instant, his brother Tom screamed, lurched backwards, fell against him. Both of Custer’s shots went wild. Slammed by his brother’s weight, Custer lurched sideways, fell to one knee. Then he was coming up, teeth gleaming white beneath his mustache. Undaunted, he raised his right hand Colt.

  But he was too late. Sundance halted. He took careful aim with his own revolver. As Custer’s gun lined down, Sundance pulled the trigger.

  The slug caught Custer in the chest, knocked him backward. He landed sprawling, arms outflung, guns spilling from his hands. Sundance ran to him, stood poised above him, Colt pointing downward.

  The front of Custer’s shirt was quickly turning red. He stared at Sundance with a strange ferocity. There was no fear in his eyes. His tongue came out and licked his lips. His voice, a strange, eerie croak, was audible even above the din of battle. “Sundance,” he whispered, “for God’s sake. If you’re half white, don’t let them take me alive.”

  Sundance looked down at him. “No,” he said. “No, I won’t. I don’t wish even you that.” Then he lined the gun between Custer’s eyes and pulled the trigger.

  After that, he turned away. From the south, rifle fire still came in a steady roar; Reno must be holed up on a butte down there, probably Benteen had come to his aid. But up here on the high ground above the Little Big Horn, an eerie silence had suddenly fallen.

  Sundance looked down the ridge. It swarmed with Indians. Only a few blue-clad figures were left alive. Sundance watched with numb horror as, one after another, the troopers killed themselves rather than be captured. He did not blame them. Then the slopes were silent, a slaughterhouse, littered by two hundred blue-clad corpses, a third that many Indians, and countless dead horses.

  Suddenly a horse clattered to a halt beside him. “Sundance!” He turned to see Huston spring down, face lit with glee, a bugle in his hand. Huston stared at the corpse of Custer. “You did it,” Huston chortled. “By the ole Harry, you did it! Only—why didn’t you leave the damned bluebelly alive for the women to play with?”

  “Shut up,” Sundance said. He felt strangely weary, empty. “Whatever else he was, he was a damned good fighting man.” Then, with all hatred drained out of him, he walked unsteadily down the slope, toward the camp. Below him lay the sprawled bod
y of Eagle. Laughing, chanting, knives in hand, the women were already coming up the hill to deal with the bodies of the enemy, or any of the wounded left alive.

  For a moment, he felt a terrible fear. But, no . Barbara was not among them. A gusty sigh of relief escaped him. He walked faster, and the jubilant Sioux and Cheyennes milling around him paid him no attention. Meanwhile, up the river, the sporadic firing went on; the rest of the regiment was besieged on the bluffs. But they were well dug in; he did not think they would be pried out before more soldiers came with cannons and Gatling guns.

  Behind him, on the very height of the ridge, the brazen, slow notes of a bugle split the afternoon air. Beside the fallen guidon of the Seventh Cavalry, over the body of George Armstrong Custer, Frank Huston was blowing taps. The clean, sweet sound of the bugle wound on and on, and Sundance walked faster, out of the killing zone now, nearing the river. When he struck the ford, he broke into, a run; behind him, there was only silence.

  Chapter Eleven

  The vast Indian camp that night was filled with the sounds of both dancing and mourning; meanwhile, Reno’s detachment, joined by Benteen’s, was besieged on the bluff above the river. There were plenty of Indians to take turns keeping them pinned down; occasionally the tribesmen would make a charge; always the cavalry repelled them with steady, disciplined fire. This was an action Sundance took no part in; nor did any Indian criticize him for that. He had, after all, counted a grand coup, killed the chieftain of the soldiers. He had nothing more to prove.

  In the teepee, Barbara, face pale, stirred the fire. Its flames lit her features with a red, flickering light. She looked at Sundance. “What happens now?” she asked.

  Feeling drained, empty, he shook his head. Then he got wearily to his feet, took his quiver from the wall, his bow, slid them into his pannier. He cased the shield, which had been on his arm as he had ridden in pursuit of Custer, the magic of which had not failed him.

  “What are you doing?” Barbara asked.

  “Packing. You get busy, too.”

  She looked at him inquiringly, wordlessly.

  “Dammit,” Sundance said harshly, “it’s over, don’t you understand? All of it. In a day, maybe more, maybe less, the rest of them will be here—the other troops with Gatling guns and cannons. And after that, more and more.” He turned, gestured. “Custer didn’t lose out there; he won. He wanted two things: to go down in history and to see the Indians wiped out. Well, he’ll get both of them, now. No, he was the winner; we were the losers.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “After this,” Sundance said, “they won’t rest. When the word gets around, the Army will throw in everything they have. They won’t rest until every Plains Indian is rounded up and on the reservation. And when they get there, they’ll live hard. This is the end of it—the end of the unceded lands and of the Sioux reserve. This time next year, all this country will swarm with soldiers; behind them will come the buffalo hunters, the ranchers, the settlers, the miners.”

  Barbara swallowed hard. “Are you trying to say that ... that we have to leave the Cheyennes?”

  “What else is there? They’ll run, yes, but they’ll be hunted down. Maybe for a little while some will find safety in Canada, but not even there for long. It’ll be one fight after another, no peace at all, only running and fighting.”

  “I’m prepared for that. The People are my people.” She stood erect, proudly. “And yours.”

  “Yes. But we can’t help them if we’re in Canada or being hunted like coyotes before hounds. Now is when any bit of leverage we can exert in Washington will count double—to get the best terms possible for them when they’re beaten, to save what we can of their lands in the form of reservations.” He picked up his Winchester, checked the action, made sure it was fully loaded, rammed it into his saddle scabbard.

  Then he stood there like something carved from stone.

  “Then where will we go?” Barbara whispered.

  Sundance looked at her. “You’re going to Washington.”

  “But, Jim, I—”

  “Yes. You’re going there. And you’re going to live as a white woman and you’re going to tell the Indian’s side of it. As a white woman who’s lived with the Cheyennes for years, you’ll be a celebrity; all the newspapers will want to hear your story; people in government will listen to you. It’s what you’ve got to do; the only thing you can do. My lawyer there will get you all the proper introductions.”

  Barbara was silent for a moment. Then she nodded. “All right,” she said. “And you—?” She hesitated. “You’re not coming with me?”

  “No. It’s going to take money, lots of money.” He touched the Colt on his hip. “I’ve got to earn some. First, I’m going to the Nez Percé, to get another horse of the same stock and strain as Eagle. Then I’m bound for Texas. They say there’s fighting there now, lots of it. Over range rights, water rights. That kind of fighting pays off big. I’ll send you some money. And then, I’m coming back here, to scout for the Army against the Indians.”

  Barbara’s mouth dropped open. “You’re—what?”

  He gestured. “What else can I do? They’ll have to come in or be killed. Maybe I can persuade them to come in. At the very least, I’ll build prestige and influence, so that when I need to speak, intervene in their behalf, I’ll be listened to.”

  “You mean you’ll help hunt down your own people.”

  “Only to save their lives and make the best deal for them I can.”

  Barbara stood there a moment. Then she said, wearily: “Yes. Yes, I guess that’s the only way.”

  “There’s no other,” Sundance said.

  “Then I’ll pack.” Suddenly her immobility broke, and she went to work with almost savage vigor; but tears were running down her cheeks.

  At that moment, Tall Calf slipped through the teepee entry. He straightened up, then stared. “What—? Where do you go?”

  “Away. Two Roads Woman to the East, the white man’s road. And I ... somewhere.”

  “But we have just won a great victory—” Then he broke off. “You do not think so.”

  Sundance did not answer.

  “The treaty gave us our lands. We defended them according to the treaty.”

  “There is no more treaty,” Sundance said. “There is only war.” Then he went to Tall Calf, seized his arm. “My father, you should have your people get ready to move, too. In a day or two, more troops will come with weapons you cannot fight. Then you must run.”

  “Run where?”

  “I don’t know,” Sundance said.

  Tall Calf stared at him a moment. Then he nodded. “I think it is well. I mean, that you and my daughter leave. Both of you—you walk two roads. From now on, for us, until we win or lose or die, there can be only one. Do you go tonight?”

  Sundance nodded.

  “Then I give you my word for this. So that you can move freely among the whites, no whisper of your being here, no whisper of what you did today or who you killed will ever be spoken. Otherwise, they would call you traitor and hang you.” He swallowed hard. “But ... you will not stay away. Someday, when it is all over, you will come back? To us, to The People, to the Cheyennes?”

  “We’ll come back,” Barbara said huskily.

  Tall Calf went to her. He was getting old, Sundance saw; his shoulders were stooped, his gait stiff. He put his arm about her, held her for a moment, and she clung to him. Then he stepped away, went out of the teepee.

  Sundance and Barbara went to the door. Barbara held Sundance’s hand tightly as they watched the old warrior walk slowly across the camp. Then Barbara sighed. “We’ll leave the lodge. Everything else will be packed by the time you bring the horses.”

  Sundance nodded and went out into darkness to get them. As he strode through the camp, Huston’s bugle sounded again, once more the call of Taps. Then there was a rebel yell, Huston’s triumphant shout. “That’s for Custer!”

  Sundance walked on, knowing that Huston
was wrong, that it was for a lot of people and a way of life. He caught the horses and brought them back, and by midnight he and Barbara were riding east, the sound of combat and of Huston’s bugle fading in the night behind them.

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  By John Benteen

  SUNDANCE

  1. Overkill

  2. Dead Man’s Canyon

  3: Dakota Territory

  4. Death in the Lava

  CUTLER

  1. The Wolf Pack

  2. The Gun Hawks

  FARGO

  1. Fargo

  2. Panama Gold

  3. Alaska Steel

  4: Apache Raiders

  5: Masscre River

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