by John Benteen
“Yes,” Sundance said. “Perfectly.” And then, in a quick motion, he got to his feet, pulling free of her embrace.
Her eyes changed, she groped, looking baffled, then sat up, staring at him. “You’ll do it, then. Make sure Barbara never comes back.”
“Get your clothes on, Irene,” Sundance said harshly.
She blinked. “What?”
“Get your clothes on. It’s dark and your husband’ll be worried.”
“Wait a minute.” She scrambled to her feet. “You didn’t say . . .”
“That’s right, I didn’t. All I said was that we understand each other. You understand that I signed a contract with your husband and I aim to keep it. And I understand that you’re good on those blankets. And that I feel damned sorry for George Colfax!”
“Why, you—” Irene’s eyes blazed; her hair danced as she shook her head furiously, and her face warped into ugliness with shock and anger. “Do you mean to say that you aren’t going to—”
“Take your offer? I just did, part of it. The part about the money I’m turning down.”
“Why . . .” She trembled with rage. “Why, you dirty half-breed bastard—!”
“Half-breed, yes. Bastard, no.” Sundance’s voice was edged, amused. “Don’t take on so, Mrs. Colfax. You got part of what you came for. I figured if I didn’t get it, Custer would, so why let it go to waste? That part of it was separate; the other part, the deal— No. If I can find the girl and bring her back, I will. I’ll keep my promise that I’ll never tell Colfax what you said, but from there on, you’re on your own.”
Irene stood there with clawed hands. For a moment, Sundance was sure she would leap at him.
“I wouldn’t,” he said softly.
She grated a curse. Then quickly, deftly, back turned, she put on her clothes. By the time she was finished, Sundance was wearing the denim pants. Her eyes met his, and he grinned. She spat something at him, whirled, and ran to the tethered pinto.
Sundance, putting more wood on the fire, heard the furious drum of its hooves as she lashed it back toward Ellsworth. Then, because today he’d had a fight, a bath, made five thousand dollars hard cash, smoked his pipe, and had a woman, he was hungry. He sliced a smoked buffalo tongue and ate with enjoyment.
Chapter Four
Except for the fact that he was blond, the man who rode southwest on the big appaloosa two days later could have been any Cheyenne brave. His tall, muscular, sweaty body glittered like something made of copper in the light of a merciless sun suspended in a sky of scalding blue; there were painted symbols on his chest and on his cheeks. Two eagle feathers dangled loosely from the thick yellow hair, which, twisted into braids on either side of his head, reached to his shoulders. Worn straight up, the feathers would have meant he went to war; down like that, they proclaimed to any Indian he might meet that Sundance came in peace.
The Cheyennes called June “the time when the horses get fat.” It was also the time of the fattening of the buffalo; the vast prairie was dotted with the grazing animals. Dun flecks, white-spotted, that mingled with them were antelope; and larks and prairie chickens took flight from the lush, flower-dotted grass ahead of Eagle’s pounding hooves. Deer and wild turkey were abundant in the creek bottoms and, so far, the land seemed empty of all but wildlife. But Sundance never relaxed his vigilance. Unconsciously, with the ease of long practice, he read and interpreted every sign; the movement of animals, flight of birds, the bending of grass in the wind. The big stallion, too, helped, filtering through nostrils and hearing keener than his rider’s news of everything around them. Peaceful as this country seemed, there were men in it, red and white alike, who shot first and asked questions later; and if you wanted to stay alive, you had better see them before they saw you.
Meanwhile, in Indian country now, he would be an Indian. If his calculations were right, two more days should see him up with Tall Calf’s band of Cheyennes. Maybe, he thought, he should have gone to Julesburg first, looked up Brackman, but the girl, Barbara Colfax, had priority over the gold. If she had been taken by Cheyennes—or any other tribe—Tall Calf’s people would know. He would try to find her first, and then he would see Brackman later.
Though he traveled as an Indian, his white man’s weapons were close at hand. The Henry rifle was balanced across the pommel of his saddle; Colt and Bowie rode on the belt around his waist. Unsheathed, a thong of rawhide looped the hatchet to the saddle horn, from which it could be snatched in a hurry. The shield was on his left arm; but the bow and arrows were still in the long pannier. For the moment, he had no use for them.
While he rode, part of his mind chewed over what he knew of the fate of Barbara Colfax and the gold, not only from what the girl’s father had told him, but from his reading of Tod Brackman’s letter and the report of the commandant at Fort Union. It all seemed straightforward enough, and plausible; and yet something about it did not quite ring true to Sundance.
He could envision the wagon train with which Barbara had embarked to Santa Fe. Such outfits were big, made up of seasoned bullwhackers who were expert fighting men banded together for safety and who never let down their guard. There would have been twenty, maybe thirty, such teamsters with the train, plus Tod Brackman and his ten gunmen hired by Colfax. A total force, then, of thirty, forty, well-armed whites. That was not the kind of force Indians attacked lightly nowadays; not even a hundred Cheyenne warriors would want to tangle with such an outfit, knowing that all white men were now armed with repeating rifles and having had proof that they could use them. It was baffling; such a force would have had to be stupendously careless to be wiped out like that, or else must have faced many hundreds of red attackers. He did not see how so many seasoned bullwhackers could have been caught like tenderfeet, especially with Brackman along. Tod Brackman was a Texan, had been among the Rangers who had fought the Comanches, had guided many trains along the Santa Fe Trail. He knew his business, was not the kind to be caught cold by Indians of any tribe.
And yet the report from the commandant at Fort Union had backed up Brackman’s letter to Colfax. The soldiers had found the train, teamsters and Brackman’s men riddled with arrows and bullets; every white man scalped. There was no sign of the girl; the oxen had been slaughtered and the horses and mules taken; the train looted of everything useful to hostiles. All was as Brackman, who had been found wandering thirty miles away on foot, had claimed. Brackman himself had lost his hair while still alive and had been near death when the cavalry came across him. But he was tough, had recuperated quickly at Fort Union, then gone on north to Colorado.
It all tied together, and yet— And yet, Sundance thought, something about it stank. He wanted to find Tall Calf and talk to him. At this time of year, the Southern Cheyennes would be hunting buffalo, especially since Hancock and Custer had burned their lodges and their beds and vast quantities of hides would be needed to replace them. The main southern herd of buffalo at this season was southwest of the Arkansas and south of the Santa Fe Trail; and that was where Sundance was bound—an area swarming with Indians and into which it was not wise to ride dressed as a white man.
Eagle’s long strides ate up miles tirelessly. Toward twilight, Sundance found a swale from the bottom of which a spring bubbled in a grove of scrubby post oaks; and there he made his camp.
He read the sign around the spring carefully. Animals of all sorts had come to drink, and there were a few old tracks of unshod horses, but no recent trace of humans. This particular stretch of country should be fairly empty of both white and red; the whites north of here, the Indians south. Still, he took no chances. He did not camp by the water, but on the heights above it, where he could watch the spring.
And he needed meat. There were buffalo for the taking, and plenty of antelope. He could not possibly use a whole buffalo, hated to kill one for tongue or hump ribs alone and leave the rest to spoil. Antelope were a different matter. He could get two meals from a saddle of pronghorn before it spoiled, so less meat would be wa
sted on the buzzards. When he had watered Eagle, he sheathed the Henry, opened the pannier that contained the bow and arrows, slung the quiver over his shoulder, strung the bow, and set off on foot up a rise beyond the spring.
Before he left the grove, he cut an oak pole ten feet long. From his bedroll, he had taken a white shirt which he had not worn since his last visit to New Orleans. Now he tied a sleeve of the shirt to the pole. Just before he reached the crest of the rise, he dropped to his belly, wormed forward, bow in one hand, the long stick with its white banner in the other.
At the top of the rise, he peered through tall grass. Beyond, on the level flats, fifteen or twenty buffalo were dark dots five hundred yards away. Mingled with them were a like number of those dun spots that were antelope. Well out of bow range and, for that matter, out of any but a lucky shot with a rifle.
Sundance wriggled forward, down the front slope. Then, without getting to his feet, he rammed the end of the pole in the ground. Immediately the breeze caught the shirt and whipped it like a flag.
Sundance backed up, regained the cover of the ridge crest twenty yards away. Then, patient as a lizard, he settled down to wait. Taking two arrows from the quiver, he nocked one on the bow string, laid the bow and arrow beside him with the other arrow close at hand.
He had heard whites talk about the way lazy Indians abused their women, giving them the heavy work while the men enjoyed themselves hunting and making war. Sundance’s mouth twisted. People who talked that way had no idea how strenuous, dangerous and tedious a brave’s work was. For an Indian, it was a full-time job to keep meat in the lodge, and a damned hard one, too. By the time he had fed his family and contributed to the old men, women and children of the camp who had no one to hunt for them, he had neither time nor energy left to gather firewood, pitch lodges or tan skins; and that was not even counting war, the necessity to protect his own people from the raids of other tribes, and to fight those tribes for the hunting grounds which meant the difference between full bellies and starvation. When a warrior rested, he had earned his rest and took it only so he could go forth to hunt and fight again. Becoming expert at both occupations, for that matter, took more effort, study, and application than the ordinary white man’s college education. Now Sundance waited, knowing that it might be a long time before this particular trick paid off.
Finally, though, the white shirt flapping in the wind caught the attention of the antelope. The creatures had this failing: they were curious, could resist no novelty that came to their attention. The buffalo paid no notice to the flapping shirt, but the antelope now had raised their heads and were staring at it.
Then, warily, they edged toward the billowing whiteness. Sundance watched them, but he also watched the horizon all around to make sure the shirt did not attract more than antelope. There was, however, no sign of danger.
Now five or six of the pronghorns trotted forward delicately, hesitated, heads raised high, grazed briefly, then stared again at the irresistible lure of the shirt. More joined them. The sun edged down as they advanced foot by foot and yard by yard, cautious, spooky, yet fascinated by that strange flapping whiteness.
Sundance did not stir. He might have been made of stone as the antelope came toward him, a few yards at a time.
After an hour, they were three hundred feet away: an old buck, a couple of young ones, some does, one or two fawns. Still Sundance did not move. The wind blew toward him, but he would not have worried if it hadn’t. Antelope, unlike deer, had excellent vision, but they paid for it with a poor sense of smell. That was what, along with their curiosity, made them so vulnerable to such a trick.
He let another half hour drift by. Now the oldest, biggest buck was not more than ten yards from the post, snorting, prancing, yet almost hypnotized by the flapping shirt. He was only thirty yards from Sundance himself; but Sundance wanted one of the fat young yearling does, small and without a fawn. They would follow the buck.
The buck came up, sniffed at the post. He then pranced around it, something almost triumphant in his bearing, like a warrior who had just counted coup and proved his courage. Reassured, the rest of the pronghorns moved in closer. Sundance’s hand eased out, got the bow and arrow, tested the seating of the notch on the string.
He had waited an hour and a half for this shot. It had to be good if he were to eat tonight. He scanned the group of pronghorns, picked out his victim. Then, moving slowly, he took the bow in hand and drew it, exerting more than eighty pounds of pull until his thumb was resting on his cheekbone. He aimed the arrow, as a young doe turned sideways toward him, and then he loosed it,
It whistled in the evening stillness and he heard the thank it made as it struck home behind the doe’s left foreleg. The antelope leaped high; Sundance had already scooped up the second arrow, had it nocked and the bow pulled. As the doe ran a few paces, he fired that one, too; and the second arrow sheathed itself in flesh up to the feathers alongside the first one, and the animal fell, kicked, then was dead. The other antelope took flight, racing off across the plains at fantastic speed.
Sundance grinned. He looked all around to make sure that no one was on the horizon. Then he slid over the crest and, when he was no longer skylined, stood erect. He ran to the dead doe, drew the Bowie, and cut her throat to bleed her. Carefully, he worked the precious arrows loose from flesh. Then he slung the carcass over his back and ran down into the grove. In the oaks, he gutted and butchered the creature and, before darkness fell, had cooked his supper.
After he had eaten, he smoked his pipe, relaxed, and was well content. In the last glimmer of light, he stirred himself to take one more look around, saw nothing, and unrolled his bed. Beyond the grove, Eagle cropped grass and would stand watch.
Then Eagle snorted, whinnied.
The sound knifed through the detachment of marijuana in Sundance’s brain. He came up smoothly, silently, dragging the Henry from its scabbard on the saddle he had been about to use for a pillow. Overhead, the night was full now, the sky salted with an immensity of stars, like white sand flung against black velvet. Sundance edged through the trees, saw the four riders filing down to the spring. They were almost naked, and feathers stood erect in their hair.
Four Indians—Kiowa warriors. Sundance relaxed a little. He knew the Kiowa, had lived among them and spoke their language; and now they were firmly allied with the Cheyennes. There should be no particular trouble with them.
They knew he was here, of course; they would have heard Eagle’s whinny and their own horses would have given alarm. Sundance called out softly, still not loosening his grip on the Henry, “My brothers? Kiowas? It is I, here. Sundance of the Is-sio-me-tan-iu band of the Cheyennes. I have meat. Come and eat.”
Below, in the hollow, the Indians reined around, silhouetted. From his vantage point in the upper grove, he could have knocked all four from their saddles with the Henry before they located him. He would have done that if he had been a white man. But they had ridden in unafraid; and now one of them, staring toward him through the darkness, made a sign of peace.
“Come up,” Sundance said in Kiowa. “Do not be afraid. Come and eat.”
“You are Cheyenne?”
“Yes. I told you. Sundance.”
“Then good. We come. We are hungry and we will eat with you.” The four Kiowas kicked their horses and loped up the slope toward the edge of the grove where Sundance was camped. He stood aside, in shadows, the Henry ready, until they had come close. The one in the lead was tall and bony, armed with a bow and a Navy Colt on his hip. Behind him was a chunky man with a Spencer repeating carbine. A big, wide-shouldered brave followed with a bow and drawn arrow held loosely in his hand and behind rode a short, thin one with a single-shot Sharps .50 caliber.
They halted their painted horses before the fire, and Sundance, rifle cradled in his arm, made the sign of peace, and stepped out into the embers’ glow. “Hello,” he said.
The four Indians stared at him. The tall one in the lead blinked. “What is thi
s? You have yellow hair.”
“My father was white. My mother was Smiling Woman of the Northern Cheyennes. I am Cheyenne.” He gestured to the antelope carcass hanging from a tree. “I have meat. Help yourself.”
They looked at him a moment more. Then the tall one nodded. “Yes. I have heard of you. Thanks, we will eat with you, yellow-haired Cheyenne.” He swung down, snapped an order to one of them to take the horses and picket them. The man with the Sharps gathered up the ropes of the mustangs’ jaw bridles and led them off.
Sundance, with the Henry still cradled in his arms, squatted before the fire, threw on more wood. It flamed high. In the light, he and the tall Kiowa looked at one another. “How are you called?” Sundance asked.
“I am Blowing Winds. Here”—the chunky one—”is Loses Horses. This is Sees-the-Morning, and the one with our mounts is Two Wolves.” Blowing Wind squatted. “For a Cheyenne, you speak good Kiowa.”
“I have lived among you. Santanta is a friend of mine.”
“Santanta is a great chief,” Blowing Winds said. “He has killed a lot of white men.” And his black eyes raked over Sundance’s yellow hair. “There are many of them left,” he said.
“Yes,” Sundance said. “Help yourself to antelope. Make yourself comfortable. Then let us talk and tell each other news.”
Blowing Winds spoke to the blocky Loses Horses, who arose, went to the dangling carcass and began to carve from it. Meanwhile, Blowing Winds dug into a parfleche bag he had taken from his mount. What he brought out was a quart of whiskey.
Sundance looked at it, as the firelight struck gleams from glass. “Firewater.”
Blowing Winds nodded, smiling faintly. “Yes. We’ve got plenty.” He pulled the cork with his teeth, passed it across the fire. “Drink. We eat with you, so you must drink with us.”
Sundance hesitated, then accepted the bottle. “Surely.” He took a small swallow of the terrible whiskey, passed back the bottle. It was not the alcohol, however, that sent messengers of excitement along his nerves; it was a growing sense of danger. He said, “Strong whiskey. Where did you get it?”
