by John Benteen
The Appaloosa horses bred by Chief Joseph’s Nez Perce Indians were the finest anywhere. That’s why the Army wanted to get its hands on the herd—so it could breed up top-quality remounts and ride the Indians down even easier. To do it, they hired a sadistic horse-trader named Luke Drury.
There was just one problem. Jim Sundance had no intention of letting Drury or the Army get their hands on the Appaloosas. Instead he planned to sell them to an English aristocrat and have them taken out of the country.
But Drury played rough … up to and including cold-blooded murder. So now it became a race against time. Hunted every step of the way, Sundance, and the beautiful Lady Bucknell, had to get the horses to the relative safety of Mormon country, and then get them shipped out to England. But they were going to fight on their hands … one that could only end in wholesale slaughter …
THE WILD STALLIONS
SUNDANCE 7
By John Benteen
First published by Leisure Books in 1973
Copyright © 1973, 2015 by Benjamin L. Haas
First Smashwords Edition: June 2015
Names, characters and incidents in this book are fictional, and any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons living or dead is purely coincidental. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information or storage and retrieval system, without the written permission of the author, except where permitted by law.
Cover image © 2015 by Tony Masero
This is a Piccadilly Publishing Book *~*Text © Piccadilly Publishing
Series Editor: Ben Bridges
Published by Arrangement with the Author’s Estate.
Chapter One
He came into Deadwood from the west, a big man on a tall Appaloosa stallion, horse and rider alike marked by hard traveling. Because he knew that he was one of the most hated and most feared men on this side of the Mississippi, and, likely, in certain places on the other side of it as well—Chicago, Washington, New York—Sundance rode with caution, his eyes missing nothing as he came down the gulch that almost swallowed the booming town, his left hand on the stallion’s reins and his right never very far from the butt of the Colt on his thigh. He was not an outlaw, there was no price, officially, that he knew of, on his head, but he knew that now, in the summer of 1878, a great many people wanted him dead. Some were red, most were white; he could never tell when they would make a try at him. He could have hidden, he could have traveled with the stealth of a wolf, but that was not his way. He was not ashamed of anything he had done, and he rode proudly wherever he went, his whole bearing a challenge. He was, after all, a fighting man by trade, and anybody who took him on had better be prepared to pay the price.
A letter had brought him to Deadwood, one too important to ignore, but he hated the sight of the ugly, swarming town. Not much over five years before, the Black Hills of Dakota had been the sacred lands of the Sioux Nation, their revered Paha Sapa. Then Custer had found gold here and had broadcast his finding to the world to build his own reputation, and the whites had swarmed in irresistibly. Now Custer was dead at Little Big Horn, but that was scant consolation. The Sioux, and their allies, the Cheyennes, were broken. Crazy Horse was dead, Dull Knife had surrendered, Sitting Bull was five hundred miles deep in Canada with a remnant of the Hunkpapa, and white men scurried over the Black Hills like ants over the carcass of some magnificent dead animal. Sundance, who was half Cheyenne and half white, with a foot in both the worlds and never wholly at home in either, was revolted by the scars of mining and logging on what had once been a fine wilderness, with great riches for those who knew properly how to harvest them. The Sioux had harvested those riches for hundreds of years and had never changed the land; the whites had been here for four years and already had nearly ruined it.
Eyes turned to follow him as the stallion’s hoofs made sucking noises in the deep mud of Main Street. His big shoulders bulked beneath a buckskin shirt worked with beads and porcupine quills in the Northern Cheyenne way, richly fringed. Narrow hips and long legs were encased in denim pants; his feet in Cheyenne moccasins. The .45 Colt and the Winchester carbine in the saddle scabbard were of the latest models. But what really drew startled gazes was his face.
It was a Cheyenne’s countenance, with prominent cheekbones, great nose like an eagle’s beak, wide mouth, strong chin, and skin the color of weathered copper. But, in startling contrast, the hair that spilled from beneath his battered sombrero to the collar of the buckskin shirt was a silky yellow the color of fresh-minted gold, and his eyes were a cold, rain-cloud colored blue-gray. Most halfbreeds had black eyes, some had red hair; Sundance was a one in ten-thousand genetic mixture, and the effect was striking. It generated cautious appraisal in the eyes of the white men on the plank sidewalks, and something else in the eyes of the white women, who were mostly whores of varying status and price. It would be a while yet before decent women came to Deadwood in any number. Those that were here now knew a man when they saw one.
Scarred, timber-clad hills loomed on either side, and the town clung to their flanks almost desperately. The mud was better than two feet deep in the street, for water sluiced down into the gulch as if it were a gutter, and there was always plenty of rain in the Black Hills, even when the rest of Dakota parched. The mud didn’t seem to dismay anybody; it took strong oxen and big mules to haul freight up and down the steep grades through the muck, and teamsters cursed and cracked their whips, riding or slogging alongside, their outfits jamming the narrow way. There were horsemen, too, and miners on foot, crossing at points where timbers had been thrown down in the mud, spouting colorful profanity when they bogged down. There were, as well, all the scavengers who came to prey on any gold strike: gamblers, prostitutes, gunmen; and mingled with them were a great many Chinese, in baggy clothes, their saffron skins and dangling pigtails setting them apart. Sundance had never seen so many in any other Western town this side of San Francisco. Brought in to build railroads as cheap labor, they had flocked to Dakota at the news of gold. Surveying the crowd as the Appaloosa stallion, Eagle, moved along, Sundance never forgot for a moment that this was where his old friend Hickok had died two years before, shot from behind. If he had needed any warning, that would have been enough … Then, suddenly, in the very heart of town, he drew rein, hard. If he had not, the stallion would have walked right over the man.
It was a Chinese, baggy pants tucked into big rubber boots. He had left the sidewalk, started across the street through the muck, bogged down, tripped, fallen. Covered with mud, he got to his feet again and tried to pull a boot loose from the sucking swamp that passed for a street. If he had been of normal size, he would have had less trouble, but, elderly—Sundance guessed at least sixty—and wraith-slim and not much taller than a twelve-year-old American child, he was mired fast. Sundance was about to turn Eagle toward him and offer him a stirrup for leverage when he saw the bull team.
It was a hitch of four oxen coming up the street, pulling a high-sided freight wagon loaded with lumber. Beside it slogged a giant of a man, not tall, but enormously broad, a black bearded teamster in red shirt, canvas pants, and jackboots rising above his knees. He was wielding a nine-foot drover’s whip on his oxen, flicking bits of fur and skin with every snap. The bogged-down Chinaman was directly in his path.
When the teamster saw him, he spouted deep-voiced profanity. “Git th’ livin’ hell outa the way, you yella bastard!” he finished, and his whip flicked out and made a sound like a pistol shot. The old Chinese stared at him, tried desperately to move, and fell down again.
The teamster, seeing that, laughed, showing greenish teeth in the depths of his beard. “Awright, damn your yellow
hide! You won’t move, I’ll walk right over your Chink carcass! Yahh, Buck!” The whip spurred the lead oxen into faster motion. The wagon creaked and rumbled, and it was not ten feet from the helplessly trapped old man, who, once again on his feet, fought desperately to get loose from the mud.
Sundance’s mouth thinned.
There was no doubt about it. The teamster intended to drive his oxen directly over the old man, let their splayed hoofs bear him down, let the wheels of the heavy wagon grind him into the mud. Sundance saw the glitter in the teamster’s eyes, his wide, expectant grin. He saw, too, the panic on the withered, lined face of the old Chinese. Another minute and doom would be upon the man.
Sundance touched Eagle with his heels.
The big stallion plunged forward through the mud. Sundance turned him, planted the stud’s curiously spotted body like a wall between the advancing oxen and the bogged old man. Instinctively, confronted by that barrier, the team halted.
The teamster’s face twisted. “Hey, there, you, you goddam Injun! Git the hell outa my road!”
“In a minute,” Sundance said. Then, to the Chinese: “Take my stirrup.”
“Sawee,” the man gasped, and Sundance felt his weight against the leather.
The teamster stared, the lash of his whip lying extended on the muddy surface of the street. “Well, hell’s fahr,” he said, and the lash, as he flicked his wrist, coiled back, struck forward like an angry snake.
Eagle, the stallion, grunted as its tip chopped skin and flesh from his rump, but, at pressure on the reins, he stood fast, blocking the oxen.
Then the teamster’s jaw sagged.
There had been no apparent motion, but now Sundance’s Colt was in his hand, lined on the second button of the bullwhacker’s shirt, and the half-breed’s face was like a mask of hammered copper. The teamster, looking up at it, knew he was as close to death as he would ever come until his judgment day; and he froze.
The Chinese was on his feet now, leaning against Eagle’s flank. The incident had caught the attention of people on the sidewalks, and they were watching. Sundance said, earing back the hammer of the gun, “You. Bring me that bullwhip.” His voice was very quiet.
“Bring it here. And if you try to use it again, I’ll not kill you. I’ll just cripple you for life.”
The man looked up at Sundance, and what he saw in those raincloud eyes leached the color from beneath his skin. He hesitated for one second more, then slogged forward.
“Pass it up butt first,” Sundance said.
He looked down into a flat, vicious, stupid face. The face of a man who thought that his color gave him the right of life or death over everyone else whose skin was of any darker or different hue. Sundance felt a bitter, searing surge of hatred. Custer had been like that, handsome and well educated as he was. He fought back the impulse to pull the trigger of the Colt. Anyhow, he knew a way to hurt the man much worse.
He took the whip. “Turn around,” he said.
“Why—”
“I said turn around.” Sundance jerked the muzzle of the Colt.
For a second longer, the teamster stared, then he turned.
“Bend over,” said Sundance, transferring the revolver to his left hand, taking the whip stock in his right. He let the black, braided, nine-foot lash trail out on the mud. “Stand, Eagle,” he murmured, and the horse was like a rock beneath him. The teamster stood motionless. “Damn you,” Sundance grated, “I said, bend over!”
“I—Damn it, no!”
Sundance fired the gun. Its report was thunderous; the slug ripped between the teamster’s legs, dangerously close to the crotch, splatted into mud. “I said, bend over!” Sundance roared.
The teamster looked into his eyes and slowly turned. Then he bent.
“Farther!” Sundance snapped.
Reluctantly, the bullwhacker hunkered lower, beefy buttocks bulging his canvas pants as he presented his rump to Sundance. Sundance grinned coldly; his right hand moved. He had learned long ago to make a drover’s whip sing; and the long, black lash was like a living thing as it slashed back, then forward.
The teamster howled as its tip chopped fabric from his pants, meat from his right buttock. He jerked erect. Sundance yelled, “Down!”
Face working, the man looked over his shoulder into the muzzle of the Colt. Then he bent again and once more the whip came forward, and he yelled as it chopped his other buttock. Little stains of red appeared on opposite sides of the seat of his pants, and it would be a week, Sundance thought with grim satisfaction, before he sat down comfortably again.
Onlookers ranged on the sidewalks jeered and shouted with laughter. The teamster made a blubbering noise.
“All right,” Sundance said. “Straighten up and turn around.”
When the man obeyed, face pale, hands tenderly touching his rump, Sundance holstered the gun and with a swift motion drew the foot long Bowie that rode in a beaded sheath behind it on his hip. The blade, razor-sharp, flashed, and the severed lash of the whip fell into the mud like the body of a snake. Sundance tossed the handle after it.
“Next time,” he said harshly, “you think before you try to run down a man, any man. And you think even harder before you use one of those on a man’s horse. Now, listen to me. You stay clear of me while I’m in Deadwood. You bother me again, I’ll most likely kill you.”
He meant it and the teamster understood that. Face pale, he turned wordlessly away. Sundance lifted Eagle’s reins and the Appaloosa walked across the street, the Chinese still holding to the stirrup. Plastered with mud from head to foot, he gained the sidewalk, and Sundance looked down into a seamed, withered yellow face stringy with long gray wisps of mustache and chin whiskers. The man began to speak rapidly in Chinese. Sundance shrugged. “No sawee. But it’s all right. Only, next time be more careful.” He turned the stallion and rode away, leaving the man there on the walk. Across the way, people still laughed at the teamster, who shouted profanely at his oxen and lashed them with the end of his severed whip. Sundance’s mouth thinned. It had not been smart to draw more attention to himself in such a way, but the teamster represented a breed of man he hated, a kind of white all too common out here. Anyone in their estimation with a different-colored skin was less than human. To him, crunching the Chinaman beneath his wagon wheels would have been no more significant than running over a stray dog. The hell of it was, Sundance thought, that in a mining camp like this, he would have taken no more punishment for it, either, than if the old man had been an animal. For that matter, he could have killed an Indian—or a half-breed—in the same way, with no more penalty. The only good Indian’s a dead Indian. That applied to half bloods, too.
Sundance spat into the mud. He had meant to go straight to the hotel to find Bucknell, but now he wanted a drink. There were plenty of saloons in Deadwood, and it was just a matter of turning the stallion to the nearest hitch rack.
There he swung down and checked the whip-wound on the big horse’s rump. It was minor, for the whip had been deflected by one of the two big buffalo-hide parfleches, panniers of strange shape, slung behind the cantle. The stallion, trained for running buffalo and for war, had taken far worse in its time. Sundance patted the thick neck, then went into the saloon, Carl Mann’s Number Ten. He had not been here in 1876, but vaguely he remembered hearing that this was where his old friend Hickok had got it in the back of the head from Jack McCall. That was something Sundance could not understand; he himself always sat with his back to the wall in such a place. Hickok must have grown careless as he got older.
In the saloon, which was large, of rough lumber, with mounted game heads and Indian trappings— shields and bows and spears, hunting trophies of a different sort—on the wall, Sundance first surveyed the crowd, making sure that no one here was a known enemy. Even this early, there were plenty of customers, but he saw no one he knew, except for a withered crone of a woman in buckskin shirt, sombrero, black skirt, high boots, and with a gun belted around her waist. She hunched over
a schooner of beer at a table in a corner, and did not look up, and Sundance let her be. He had no desire to listen to Calamity Jane Canary’s drunken rantings.
Satisfied, he went to the bar and ordered two shots of whiskey. He drank the first at a gulp and carried the second with him to a table where the logs of the saloon would shield his back. There he sipped it, barely moistening his lips. Two drinks at a time was his limit. Something in him, his heritage from his Cheyenne mother, could not tolerate much alcohol. The third drink would make him roaring drunk, the fourth would turn him into a mindless, fighting animal, so, always, he was careful.
While he toyed with the glass, he thought about the errand that had brought him here. There would be no profit in it for him, but that was all right. He had just wound up a gun job in California, and even after sending most of the proceeds off to Washington, he still had a thousand dollars, which would hold him for a while. The important thing was that, if everything fell right, he might make as much as thirty or forty thousand dollars for the Nez Percés under Chief Joseph down in Kansas, crammed on to the Quapaw reserve with the Modocs, under the guns of Fort Leavenworth; and never had an Indian tribe needed that kind of money more. For them it meant the difference between life and death ... Well, by God, he thought, he would squeeze the last, top dollar out of Bucknell. The man was rich, he could well afford to pay. After all, for him this was just a kind of amusement; for Joseph and the Nez Percé, it meant survival.
He was halfway through the second drink when a sixth sense made him lift his head. Or, possibly, it was the sound of the saloon doors closing. Anyhow, he knew at once that he was the one sought by the man who stood there just inside the room.
~*~
Then he was spotted and the man came forward, and as he did so, Sundance eased his Colt around higher on his thigh and sat up straight. During the half minute it took the man to reach him, Sundance had plenty of time to look him over, and he did not particularly like what he saw. Then the man was towering over him. “You’re Sundance,” he said, his voice deep.
