Sundance 7

by John Benteen

  Sundance did so, aided by Leroy’s rough boot in his painful flank. With his face against the dirt floor, he lay still while Leroy checked the ropes around his wrist and his ankles, which were also bound. Like Chet, the man was a professional, and when he was through, there was no slack left at all in the bonds. They were, Sundance realized, of hemp, which, unlike rawhide, did not stretch with changes in the moisture content of the air. That was bad; but, as if reading Sundance’s mind, Leroy said: “I learned a long time ago never to tie a man up with rawhide, not in a damp place like this. You know how I learned that, Sundance?”

  When Sundance didn’t answer, he went on.

  “The hard way, Injun. I used to scout for wagon trains. One day a bunch of Blackfeet caught me cold, while I was waterin’ my horse. I thought they’d kill me right off, but they didn’t. You know what they did? They tied me up against a tree so I couldn’t move, layin’ on my side. Then they caught a rattlesnake and tied that with a rawhide thong, too, right in front of my face. They rode off and left me with that snake tied up just short enough so he couldn’t hit me when he struck. But they knowed about rawhide, and that when evenin’ dew come on that snake’s thong would stretch. They figured that come mornin’ he’d have slack enough to hit me right between the eyes. That was a long night, Sundance. That snake come at me again and again, closer every time. It was pure damn luck that some people from the wagon train found me before that piggin’ string stretched another eighth of an inch, or I’d be rottin’ in the ground right now.” He straightened up. “I tell you this for two reasons. One, to let you know you don’t have a prayer of gittin’ out of those ropes. The other is to make damn sure you know how bad I hate Injuns and why. I aim to watch you, I aim to watch you hard and all the time, and if you move bad at all, I’ll hurt you so much you can’t stand it. Right?”

  Sundance didn’t answer. He rolled over on his back, and, hurting from the punishment he had taken, watched the firelight play on the rafters and shingled roof overhead. Leroy said, “Chet, you go ahead and catch some shut-eye. I’ll watch this half-breed bastard and the Limey slut.”

  Chet, bearded, lanky, yawned and stretched. “Fair enough.” He went to a rickety bunk in one corner, threw himself down on its hard boards. Presently his rhythmic snoring was audible in the room.

  Leroy sat there with gun in hand, watching Sundance. “Break,” he said quietly. “Just break. Oh, God, I hope you try to. I’ll hurt you so bad …”

  Break, Sundance thought bitterly. There was no chance of that. Not the way he was bound and watched. His fear was not for himself; he knew that he still had days and weeks to live. But Doris Bucknell— Obviously, they had already brutalized her, violated her, and as soon as they were clear of Deadwood, in a place where her body never would be found ...

  An hour passed as he lay on the dirt floor and Leroy never slackened his watchful guard. It was one of the longest ones Jim Sundance had ever lived through. Memories surged unbidden through his mind: the old Cheyenne rulership of the high prairies, his parents lying dead on the buffalo grass north of Bent’s Fort, one of the Pawnees finally screaming when he avenged their murder: and other, more recent ones. He remembered Little Big Horn and Custer’s startled face as Jim Sundance’s bullet struck home, destroying the man who had killed the Cheyennes on the Washita, who had opened the Black Hills of the Sioux to settlement to enlarge his own image, who had been the worst enemy the Indians ever had ... And Crook. He remembered George Crook, too, the only General of the Army who, as it turned out, an Indian could trust. Crook had been like a father to Jim Sundance and had told him how politics worked in Washington. Crook had found the lawyer for him and had worked in the Indians’ behalf. Crook had known Indians, understood them, was, in something essential within him, an Indian himself. But Crook was far away now, and isolated; there was not much room in the Army now for a General who liked Indians.

  So much had changed so fast in so few years. When Sundance’s father, who had borne another name, had come west from England, the black sheep of his family, paid to stay away, the Indians had trusted white men. Sundance’s father had loved their clean, hard, honorable way of life. When, the first white man allowed to do that, he had participated in the most sacred ceremony of the plains tribes, the Sun Dance, he had given up his own name and taken Sundance instead. Jim Sundance had also participated in the ceremony. Now there were scars on his chest where the skin had been slit to run ropes through. At the end of those ropes had trailed heavy buffalo skulls, and the young Jim Sundance had danced and danced until the weight of them ripped his flesh and the ropes fell loose. After that, he had been initiated into the Dog Soldiers …

  Less than twenty years, he thought bitterly. And so much of what he had attempted had ended in failure. And now …

  He tensed.

  For a moment, he thought that he had lost his senses. Maybe he had been hurt too much. He lay very still.

  Under his back, it happened again. The ground seemed to move, the hard packed dirt floor of the cabin vibrating silently. He focused all his faculties; and then he understood. Not completely, but this much: that there was a hollow or an opening of some sort under where he lay and somebody was in it, a tunnel like a mine shaft. And whoever was there was working steadily to come up beneath him, but in utter silence.

  Sundance lay rigid. Under his body, the floor seemed to shift and work; yet, there was no sound. He looked at Leroy. The man was watching him with malevolent intensity, only hoping that he would dare to break.

  Jim Sundance turned his head. Slumping against her bonds in the corner, Doris Bucknell had fallen into fitful sleep.

  Sundance said, “Leroy.”

  “Yeah.” The man leaned forward eagerly, gun lined.

  “Her. The English woman. How was it?”

  Under his back, there was more subterranean activity. He had no idea what it meant, but it must mean something, and Leroy’s attention had to be diverted.

  “How was it?” Leroy said. He grinned. “Sundance, you ought to know.”

  “I don’t.” Sundance grinned lewdly. “You came in too early.”

  “Well, I’ll tell you how it was,” Leroy said. He turned, looked toward the girl. Beneath Sundance something fell away. He felt cool air on his bound wrists. “It was too damned quick, that’s how it was.” He looked at the slumbering girl. “Of course, right now I got her all to myself.”

  “Leroy,” Sundance said, “you’d be a swine to—”

  “Yeah. It would bother you, wouldn’t it?” Leroy stared at the woman, then arose and went to her. “You’d have to lay there and watch …”

  Sundance only knew this: that there was a hole now under his body. A gap in the dirt floor. Cool air, as if from a tunnel, blew on his wrists. Then somebody touched a bound hand reassuringly, and in caution. He did not move.

  “Yeah, you could watch,” Leroy said. He cupped Doris Bucknell’s chin, raised her head, and she came awake with a start, looking at him with fear.

  “But first,” Leroy said, “I’ll wake up Chet. Because you got to be watched, Sundance. You got to be watched every minute.” He walked across the cabin, bent over the bunk. “Hey, Chet. I got an idea …”

  The hand stroked Sundance’s through the opening beneath his body. Then he felt the knife blade begin to cut his ropes. One by one, they parted.

  “Chet, damn it,” Leroy said.

  Sundance lay like a block of wood. The ropes around his wrists fell away. He flexed his hands. “Chet, wake up—”

  Blood stung, as circulation returned. Then Sundance sucked in a breath.

  His hands were pulled down through the hole in the floor under his body. Something was crammed into the right one; the butt of a Colt revolver. Sundance’s fingers curled around grip, trigger, hammer.

  “Chet—” Leroy shook the man roughly. Chet rolled over, grunted.

  “Damn it,” he said.

  Sundance did not dare come up yet. He had to have better circulation in his hands.
He flexed fingers, twisted wrists. Chet sat up. “What is it, Leroy?”

  “Your turn to take watch. I got some business with this woman.”

  Doris Bucknell, awake now, sucked in a breath of terror. “Please,” she said, voice trembling, tousled hair hanging over her face.

  “You beg, lady,” Leroy said. “It pleasures me to hear you beg. Chet, watch that half-breed. I intend to make her beg some more.” He turned away from the bunk, went to Doris Bucknell, as Chet, blinking, sat up. “Lady,” he said, hooking his hand in her tattered bodice. “Lady, this time you’re all mine.” He turned his back to Sundance, staring down at Doris’ breasts. Chet rolled off the bunk.

  Sundance came up with the gun. He swung on Chet first. He felt the Colt jump in his hand as he pulled the trigger. Chet looked totally astonished and fell back, as a bullet ploughed through his heart. Leroy whirled, eyes widening, hand flashing down to holster.

  Sundance fired twice more. The first bullet caught Leroy in the belly and knocked him back against the wall. Leroy screamed. The second blew his head apart, and the scream ended instantaneously. His mutilated body slumped to the floor.

  The room was rank with powder smoke. Doris Bucknell made a strangled sound in her throat. Sundance rolled, came up again, and now the floor where he had lain seemed to have caved in. There was a big hole there, and in it a saffron, pigtailed head popped up. Then a lean body in loose pajamas boiled out, and two more came behind, with hatchets in hand, poised.

  The three Chinese dragged Sundance to his feet. A hatchet’s blade severed the ropes around his ankles. Sundance stared as the men ran to Doris Bucknell, chopped her bonds. One Chinese lifted her to her feet, dragged her across the room. Another pointed to the gaping hole in the dirt floor. “Down,” he said.

  Sundance slid through the hole, keeping the gun ready. He landed in a dark tunnel, lit only by a coal oil lamp held by another Chinaman crouching there. Behind him, Doris Bucknell landed lithely. The Chinese with the lamp said, “Come,” and gestured.

  When he turned, Sundance saw a long, low, timbered tunnel, not unlike a mine shaft, stretching away before him. He took Doris Bucknell’s arm and they ran behind the Chinaman. For a little while, Sundance had his bearings. Then he lost them completely. The tunnel ran and swooped and curved and doubled, and other tunnels intersected it, and all Sundance could do was follow the light.

  Beside him, at a turn, Doris stumbled, brought up panting. Tunnels, like the working of a gopher’s home or a prairie dog town, went in every direction. “Jim,” she gasped. “I—”

  “I don’t understand either. All I know is that we’ve got to go.” He clasped the Colt tightly, helped her to follow the Chinese with the lamp.

  Another hundred yards straight down a shaft; then, suddenly, there was space and light. They emerged into a timbered, underground room, ten yards across, thirty long. On one flank was an altar, and on it were wicker baskets filled with human bones. The air was heavy with the smell of incense and a sweeter smell: Sundance recognized it: Opium.

  In the center of the room, there was a low table, and woven reed mats around it. The man with the lamp blew out his light as he went to it, for torches on the wall shed illumination enough. Then, from behind the table, another figure reared itself, and a voice said, in perfect English, “Welcome, Mr. Sundance. Our poor house is yours.”

  Jim Sundance stood stiffly, looking at the man, while Doris leaned wearily against him. “You,” said Sundance.

  In the rich robes he wore, red with gold and black embroidery, the Chinese whom Sundance had saved from the bullwhacker that morning no longer looked small and wispy. He was imposing, almost majestic. “Yes,” he said. “It is I. I had not expected to be able to repay the favor so soon.” He gestured to the mats before the table. “Please sit down. I know you are very tired and have been through much. Here, believe me, you are completely safe. The whole force of the On Leong guarantees that.”

  “The On Leong.”

  “You are familiar with it?”

  “It’s a tong,” Sundance said. “A Chinese fighting society.”

  “Yes.” The old man smiled. “Like your Cheyenne Dog Soldiers. Now, please. There will be hot tea and food and whiskey if you want it.”

  “I want it,” Sundance said, sinking to a mat, Doris dropping beside him and leaning against him. The old man clapped his hands. From each wall, where they had been concealed in niches, other Chinese appeared. The old man said something in a high, musical dialect. Two bowed, burly, and, Sundance noted, carrying hatchets in loops at their waists. They went out. The others squatted. The old man sank behind the table and leaned his elbows on it, folding his hands together.

  “My name is Tsu Chao,” he said. “It would be easier if you called me Mr. Tsu. I know you have many questions and I shall try to explain as briefly as possible. Of course, you understand that there are many people from the Celestial Empire in Deadwood.”

  “Yes,” Sundance said. “A lot of Chinamen.”

  “Indeed.” Mr. Tsu stroked his gray chin whiskers. “Thousands of my countrymen have been brought in to build your railroads and work your mines. Many of them came to the Black Hills when gold was discovered. Unfortunately, problems of language and custom have separated us from the Americans. We have built our own town here on lower Main Street. Even so, we had no peace. The white men seem to hate everyone with skin of a different color, as I think you have good reason to know. So we went underground. When we built our temples above ground, they were desecrated and destroyed. When those of us who have the opium habit indulged, they were arrested. The Chinese have been abused and wronged everywhere in Deadwood. So, we constructed a city of our own beneath the town.”

  He gestured. “These tunnels run up and down the gulch. There are entries and exits here and there in unexpected places, so, if there were mass persecution of our people, there would always be a place to hide. We have our joss houses, temples, and our whole civilization here. Above ground, we are despised common laborers; below it, we are ourselves.”

  A burly Chinese came with tea and whiskey. Sundance poured a shot of the whiskey into a cup of tea, handed it to Doris, and she drank it greedily. He took a drink straight from the bottle, then picked up a cup of tea to sip it. Strong, it refreshed him marvelously.

  Mr. Tsu himself sipped a cup of tea. “Up there,” he pointed, “they call me Uncle Billygoat.” He stroked his gray chin whiskers. “Up there I am only what they call a swamper in the Deadwood House, the hotel. Down here, however, I am a man of power. You understand, Sundance, that we must look after our own. The two societies, rivals, to be sure, the Hip Sings and the On Leongs, have, nevertheless, joined forces in Deadwood to protect our people, and I am leader of the combined tongs. Perhaps that is because I speak the best English of any Chinese in Deadwood, though they shall never know that up above. Be that as it may, when you helped me out of difficulty this morning, I marked you well. We always repay our obligations, you know. Then tonight, there was trouble—but who would pay attention to old Uncle Billygoat, emptying the spittoons and garbage?”

  He smiled. “We have a good information-gathering network. I know about you, about Drury, about the horses. None of that concerns me, except that I have a debt, my very life, to repay. So ... they took you from the hotel to a cabin on lower Main. They had no idea that we had an entrance through the floor of that deserted cabin, which was abandoned long ago. Boards, and then the dirt laid over it. It was not difficult to come to you from beneath and give you the gun you used so expertly. Now the boards are replaced, the floor brushed down, no trace of your exit there. Here, for so long as you want to stay, you are completely safe.”

  Sundance was silent for a moment, absorbing all this. When he had it locked in his mind, he nodded. “Now I am in your debt, Mr. Tsu.”

  “Not at all. We are only even.”

  “All the same,” Sundance said, “we’ve got to get out of here.”

  “No one will ever find you.”

>   “That doesn’t matter. I have things to do.”

  “Ah, yes,” said Mr. Tsu. “The horses. The Indian horses.”

  “That’s right,” Sundance said.

  Mr. Tsu folded his hands. “Then tell me what you require.”

  Sundance reached for the bottle, took his second drink of whiskey. He thought about Drury and red rage rose within him, but Drury could wait. The main thing was to get the horses and drive them to the railroad. “I need my Appaloosa stallion,” he said, “and I need a good horse for Lady Bucknell. I need the gear on my horse, the two big saddlebags. I need my rifle, and I think we ought to have an extra one for Lady Bucknell, and some extra blankets. I need ammunition for a Colt and a Winchester, both .44 caliber. Is all that too much to ask?”

  Mr. Tsu smiled. “I think it is very little. You shall have it. There is only one problem. That is your stallion. We have seen how he has fought everyone who came near him. He is in the livery and it will be hard for strangers, men with our distinctive smell at that, to take him out. How shall we manage that?”

  Sundance pulled off his hat, shrugged off his buckskin shirt. The torso thus revealed was coppery, rippling with muscle, scarred with old wounds. “Put this shirt over his head. He’ll go anywhere with you then. Mr. Tsu, we want to be out of Deadwood and on our way before first light. Can you manage that?”

  “I think it will be no problem,” Mr. Tsu said. “We would kill Drury for you if we could, but we understand that he had connections with your Army. That makes it very risky for us.”

  Sundance said, “Leave Drury to me. Only get me an outfit together.”

  Mr. Tsu shoved the bottle toward him. “Never fear, Mr. Sundance,” he said. “It shall be done.” Then he gestured toward a darkened tunnel entrance. “But now, I think you and the lady must rest.”

  Chapter Five

  All around them, land and sky seemed endless. They had come down out of the Black Hills and were now working their way northwest across the limitless prairie of eastern Montana. As a hump of ground loomed before them, absolutely treeless, furred only with dun grass, Sundance reined in Eagle.