by John Benteen
“The white man is selling it everywhere now. All you want, very cheap. Nobody has ever asked less for such a bottle than he does.” Blowing Winds put the neck in his mouth, tilted back his head, drank long and deep. “Plenty firewater,” he said, wiping his lips with the back of his hand and passing the bottle to Loses Horses, who also gulped the stuff. “This we got at Whetstone Creek. They had brought a wagon and lots of white men with plenty guns down, to make sure we did not steal it all. But we wouldn’t have, because if we had, there would have been no more. Do you know what I paid for this bottle?” His mouth curled and he laughed. “Two coyote skins. Ever hear of buying a bottle like that for two mangy coyote skins?”
“That’s strange,” Sundance said.
“The white men are strange,” Blowing Winds said. “Some will shoot you like a coyote the minute they have you in range, others will sell you whiskey cheap. Believe me, if you want cheap whiskey, you must go to Whetstone Creek or the South Canadian and deal with Brackman.”
“Brackman,” Sundance said, going tense.
“That is his name,” Blowing Winds said and drank again, when Loses Horses passed the bottle back. The tall Kiowa’s eyes had begun to glitter now, wildly. His voice was thicker. “Brackman will sell you all the firewater you want for almost nothing.”
“I see. But too much of that stuff is bad,” Sundance said. “Me, when I drink it, I lose myself in it. When I am drunk, I would kill my best friend. I never know what I’m doing when I drink.”
“Who cares? Whiskey is big medicine.” Blowing Winds rolled the bottle between his hands. “When I was a young boy, I did my dreaming. I went out on the top of a mesa without food and water and stayed there for three days until I saw the North Wind in the shape of a buffalo come down out of the sky and pass over me. Three days it took me to earn my name, but in the firewater bottle there is dreaming of all kinds, and without waiting for the gods and without starving or thirsting. Fire water makes a shaman even of a warrior, makes everyone his own medicine man. I think it is big, big medicine.” And he drank again.
Then Two Wolves came back with the gear and blankets. He took the bottle from Blowing Winds’ hands, drank, snorted, gagged, passed it back, looked at Sundance and giggled strangely. “He’s the one, isn’t he?” Two Wolves said.
“Be quiet,” Blowing Winds snapped, anger in his voice. In that instant, Sundance understood, and he thrust the Henry forward and pulled the trigger. The slug caught Blowing Winds in the chest, jerked him out of his squat and threw him backwards. Sundance worked the lever, and whirled as Two Wolves leaped at him, and pulled the trigger again, but the Henry misfired, and Sundance rolled aside, toward his saddle. Two Wolves came down on him, and a knife gleamed in the firelight, and Sundance jerked his head aside as it sliced at him and its blade bit into his saddle. Then he brought his hand down hard on the back of Two Wolves’ neck and the brave went limp, but as Sundance slid from beneath his weight, he saw the chunky Loses Horses scoop up a Spencer carbine, aim it at him. Sundance rolled again, hand swooping to his hip, and as the Spencer barked, its slug kicked dust beside him. Then he thumbed back the hammer of the Navy Colt and fired at Loses Horses. The round, heavy ball caught the Kiowa under the chin, smashed upward through his head, and the man squawked and spun backward, dead.
That left Sees-the-Morning, who had snatched up his bow, arrow nocked. Sundance had no time to aim or shoot at him before the steel-pointed shaft left the bow; instead, he threw up the Colt instinctively to shield himself. The arrow hit the cylinder, and its force jerked the pistol from his hand. Sundance threw out his left arm, and it closed around the handle of the hatchet looped to the horn of the grounded saddle. In that instant, Sees-the-Morning jerked another arrow from his quiver and notched it to the bowstring.
In one smooth, continuous motion, Sundance rolled again and threw the ax. It flashed end-over-end at terrific speed, and the arrow from Sees-the-Morning’s bow thunked into a post oak as the hatchet blade sank into his skull. He fell backward across the fire, not even kicking, bow spilling from his hand. Sundance scrambled up; the Indian he had hit, Two Wolves, moaned and stirred as he caught his Colt again. With one moccasined foot, he kicked the corpse of Sees-the-Morning off the fire, whirled, and planted the muzzle of the Colt between Two Wolves’ eyes.
“Don’t move!” he rasped in Kiowa. “If you move, you’re dead!”
The lids of the Kiowa’s eyes peeled back. Comprehension came into his gaze. He shuddered, looking up at Sundance. “Don’t shoot,” he whispered. “Please, don’t shoot.”
Sundance backed away, keeping the Colt lined. “The other three are dead,” he said harshly. “I want to know why all this happened. Brackman sent you, didn’t he?”
Two Wolves closed his eyes, then opened them again. “Yes,” he said.
“Tell me,” Sundance said. “Tell me what he said, what kind of bargain he made.”
Two Wolves stared into the bore of the Navy Colt, licked his lips. “We met Brackman and his men at Whetstone Creek, early yesterday. He had a wagon, a lot of men with guns. He gave us whiskey, told us that we must be on the lookout for a blond Cheyenne named Sundance. He said that if we could find you and bring him your scalp, we could have all the whiskey we could carry off on pack horses. For nothing. Only for your scalp.”
“I see,” Sundance whispered.
“Then we rode from there. We struck your trail. After a while, we got close enough to see you, an Indian with yellow hair. We knew you were the one we wanted. We stayed behind, followed you.”
“And all along intended to take my hair,” Sundance grated savagely.
“Yes,” Two Wolves said. “It was what Blowing Winds told us we must do.” He closed his eyes, began to sing; his death song. He had despaired.
Sundance said, “Shut off that noise.”
Two Wolves choked off the song, opened his eyes, stared at Sundance. “You will let me live?”
“I don’t want to kill you,” Sundance said. He looked around the fire at the three sprawled bodies. “There’s been killing enough.” He jerked his head. “Get up. If you behave yourself, you stay alive.”
“Then I will stay alive.” Two Wolves sat up, sweat glistening on his body. Suddenly his foot flashed out, kicked Sundance’s Colt, knocked the gun from Sundance’s hand. “Long enough to kill the half-white,” Two Wolves snarled, and his hand shot out and grabbed the knife, a Green River blade, with which he had attacked Sundance before, and which lay by the saddle, and then he was on his feet in a bound like a bounce of a rubber ball. He lunged at Sundance with the knife, and if Sundance had not twisted, would have gutted him. “Hahh!” Two Wolves snarled, and pivoted, but now Sundance had drawn his own Bowie. The blade, more than a foot long, overmatched that of Two Wolves by three inches.
Two Wolves stared at it, then dropped into a crouch. From the way he held his knife, the top of his wrist up, chin down over throat, and chest and head tilted back, Sundance saw that he had fought more than once with knives.
Sundance fell into the same posture. “You know,” he said, as they circled warily around the fire, “that I would have shared my meat with you.”
Two Wolves only spat into the embers.
“All right,” Sundance said and leaped across the fire. As he did so, Two Wolves thrust forward the Green River knife, double-edged, to impale him, but Sundance had expected that and caught it on the thicker, longer blade of the Bowie, twisted, and the Kiowa’s blade slid off. Two Wolves whirled away, but Sundance came in after him hard, savagely, like a wolf after blood, never hesitating; that was the way he fought; once committed, always on the offensive, always pressing. In the firelight, steel glittered and chimed on steel as Sundance thrust in and thrust in again, and Two Wolves parried with great skill. But the very ferocity of Sundance’s attack awed him, and he read his doom in Sundance’s eyes, and for a moment he faltered. Then, in one last burst of desperation, he came back like a cornered beast, like one of the animals that had given him hi
s name. Snarling, abandoning all caution, he threw himself forward, his blade a glittering, darting flicker, seeking Sundance’s life; and Sundance’s advance was halted. Expertly, he parried; and he had an advantage besides his longer blade; the Bowie had been made for this kind of fight and its guard protected his hand. The Green River knife lacked that, and then Sundance saw his chance. He slashed at the other knife, knocked down its blade with the enormous weight of the Bowie’s heavy steel, and then the Bowie’s cutting edge flicked over the smaller guard of the Green River knife and almost severed two of the Kiowa’s fingers. The man gasped and dropped his arm a little, and Sundance came in mercilessly with another stroke of the Bowie, thrust low into the belly and ripped upwards, and the Kiowa gave a strangled scream and lurched back, dropping his weapon. He clamped both hands to the terrible wound Sundance had made, and Sundance came after him. Two Wolves’ dulling eyes met his, waiting; and then Sundance’s blade slashed out toward the throat and put an end to it. It took very little time, after that, for Two Wolves to die.
Sundance stood above him, holding the bloody knife, shaking with reaction. He felt no triumph, only grief and disgust and a deep, fierce rage, directed not at the Kiowas who lay dead around the campfire, but at the man who had given them whiskey and urged them to find and kill him. Brackman, the man who was afraid of Sundance, had something to hide. And, Sundance thought, he could not even have known that Sundance was looking for the girl and the gold unless he’d been tipped off.
Sundance cursed softly and wiped the knife blade on the dead Kiowa’s leggings. Only one person could have done that—one person who desperately did not want the girl found and brought back. Communications were good along the railroad; a message by telegraph to end of track and then to Julesburg by stage could have reached Brackman before Sundance’s journey had even started. Given Brackman time to recruit the Kiowas to track him down . . .
So there was more to this than met the eye, far more than even he had guessed so far. Well, he would deal with Brackman. He would deal with Irene Colfax, too. But first he had to find the Cheyennes and see if he could locate the girl.
He turned away from Two Wolves’ body. First, he retrieved the hatchet, cleaned its blade, looped it back around the saddle horn. Next, he jacked the misfired round from the Henry, put a new one in its place. Found the Colt where it had fallen, got the sand and dust out of it and recharged its fired cylinder. When his weapons were back in order, he gathered up those of the Kiowas. Quickly, he laid each one on the body of its owner, piled their saddles beside them, along with blankets and all their other personal possessions, which they would need in the Shadow Land. Over them he sang a brief song in a minor, wailing key: a Cheyenne death song. Then he set their tethered ponies free. After that, he gathered up his own gear, saddled Eagle quickly, and rode hard through darkness a long way to a new campsite, lest the sound of gunfire bring others to the old.
Only then, well hidden in high grass with Eagle standing guard, did he sleep, pistol close at hand. Brackman, he thought bitterly, as he slid into unconsciousness. Yes; he had much to settle with the man.
Chapter Five
He heard the Cheyennes long before he saw them. Heard, rather, a distant sound like far-off thunder and, swinging down off Eagle for a moment, thought he could even feel a vibration in the earth. He smiled, mounted the big horse again—from the right, Indian style—and sent it galloping up a sand hill. It went eagerly, for it, too, recognized that sound and the scent the wind brought it; when they topped the rise, Sundance had trouble to rein the stallion in and hold it while he looked down at the majestic scene below.
Gently rolling, the land stretched away seemingly to infinity and it was alive, swarming, seething, with buffalo. The main herd of the Arkansas—or an enormous segment of it—was stampeding southward. And along the edges of that great dark river of thousands of running bison, dozens of Indian horses and their coppery naked riders were racing spots of brightness. Sundance could hear their whooping and the sound of gunfire, and saw the white puffs of powder smoke as the Cheyennes made their great spring buffalo hunt.
Eagle fidgeted as Sundance sheathed the Henry. He had plenty of rifle cartridges, but once spent, they were gone. Arrows he could retrieve. Quickly he withdrew the bow and quiver, strung the weapon, hitched the case of arrows over his shoulder. Leaning forward, he unlatched Eagle’s bridle, slipped the bit, stuffed the bridle in the bag from which the bow had come. He threw back his head, let out a shrill, gobbling scream, and then Eagle, like an arrow, shot down the slope.
Running buffalo—there was nothing like it, no thrill its equal, not even war. That vast, rank, shaggy wall of pounding animals, sharp of horn and big of hoof and powerful of body was an awesome spectacle, one to set the heart pounding, the blood racing. When you hunted buffalo, every second was fraught with danger. If your horse stepped at full speed in a badger hole or failed to see a charging bull in time, or if the rider could not keep his seat by balance and grip alone through all the necessary twists and turns— Any misjudgment by man or animal, Sundance knew, could mean death by trampling or goring. It was the kind of hunting that used every ounce of a man’s strength and every bit of courage he could muster, and Sundance, like any Indian, loved it.
The whole earth shook with the herd’s pounding hooves. The world was nothing now but dust and a vast river of plunging high-humped backs and shaggy heads with gleaming back-tipped horns; an endless flow of buffalo, a flood, as if a dam had broken and let loose a torrent of the animals. As Eagle came alongside the herd, Indians on its flanks spotted Sundance through swirling dust, recognized the warrior with the yellow hair, waved lances and shouted greetings lost in the mighty hoof-thunder. Then there was nothing but the hunt, Eagle racing to keep up with the stampeding animals. Sundance put arrow to his bow, searched that roiling torrent for a victim, chose a fat young cow on its edge, and put the stallion after her. Eagle overtook her, came alongside, and Sundance drew the bow, let slip the shaft, saw it bury itself behind her foreleg, knew the shot would kill her. He nocked another arrow, and ahead saw a big, young bull, better eating at this season than even the cows. Eagle saw it at the same instant, sensed it was the one his rider wanted, swerved toward it, came up level with it, and Sundance let go another arrow. It went in to the feathers, but this time in the paunch, and the bull’s roar of pain and fury was audible even above the bellowing of the herd; without warning, the animal pivoted, wheeled right across Eagle’s path. Sundance gripped with his knees as the horse reared and whirled, sheering off, and the bull lunged by, its charge missing by only inches. But, even wounded, the buffalo was fast on its feet. It checked and spun around and came again, head down, horns aimed at Eagle’s belly. Once more the horse whirled, almost as if dancing, and as the bull rushed by, it hooked hard to the right with a sharp black saber of a horn. Again it missed, this time by even less, and plunged on past and turned and came again. But now Sundance had another arrow on the bowstring. The bull came more slowly, now, eyes wide open, weakening but determined. Eagle danced sideways to give Sundance a flank shot, and as the animal stumbled by, Sundance drove another arrow deep into it. This one slanted in behind the foreleg, but still the buffalo would not quit. It stumbled, changed course, stood a moment, head down, tongue lolling, and then it made a final rush, tossing those deadly black horns.
This time Eagle began to dodge and another running buffalo sideswiped him and threw him off balance as it passed, and Sundance almost went over his neck. The horse fell to his knees, and the buffalo came at him like some immense, inexorable machine. Sundance clawed for another arrow, but there was no time; now, as Eagle scrambled to all fours, the bull was almost on him; an instant more and its impact would knock horse and rider alike squarely into the stampeding herd. Eagle tried to brace himself for the shock.
It came, but with diminished force. As the buffalo slammed against the stallion, the shaggy creature’s legs buckled, its big head dropped. Eagle staggered, recovered, and then the bu
ll was on the ground, kicking convulsively. Eagle, shaken but unharmed, snorted, recovered, knew that it was finished, and soared over the buffalo in a mighty leap and resumed the chase.
That was how it went throughout the day—hard riding, danger, killing. Sundance saw at least one warrior engulfed, horse and all, by that great sea of animals, heard the pony’s scream as it went under; then man and animal were gone. He saw another rider leap from a mustang whose belly had been ripped, the entrails pouring out, saw the man send a merciful shot into the pony’s head and leap up behind a second warrior who bent from horseback to give him an arm without ever slowing. There would, Sundance thought grimly, be meat in all the lodges tonight, but there would be mourning in some of them, too.
He himself killed and killed again throughout the long afternoon, halting Eagle only long enough to blow, then rejoining the mad hunt. Presently, though, it ended, as the sun sank low; the horses were exhausted and there was meat enough. Sundance reined in Eagle, went back to help finish off the wounded buffalo in the herd’s wake and to reclaim what arrows he could find.
The vast expanse of the flat was stippled with the shaggy mounds of dead bison; as Sundance rode across it, naked, dust-powdered young men on lathered horses joined him, warriors he had grown up with. They called his name, shook his hands, and one fell in with him when the others scattered, a tall, handsome man of his own age and an officer of the Dog Soldiers. This was Walking Bear, whom he had known since childhood.
“Brother,” the Cheyenne grinned, “it’s good to see you again. A fine hunt, eh? Plenty meat tonight. Where’ve you been, old yellow hair? What brings you back after all these moons? Hungry for good hump meat, eh?”
