Overkill (Sundance #1)

by John Benteen

  The thunder of hooves awakened the sleeping soldiers. He heard men yelling; a few random shots were fired. But by then he was far away. He unsaddled the horses, kept only two, let the others go. He tethered the pair he had held, and then, once more on foot, he loped back to the camp.

  They had built an enormous, blazing fire. Men scurried around like ants, staring at the bodies in their blankets. Sundance grinned slightly, waited. He saw the soldiers cluster around Brackman, saw Brackman arguing, shaking his fist, cords standing out in his neck. Saw Brackman raise the Henry, threaten them with it. And saw them charge in, take the Henry from Brackman, and knock Brackman down. One of them kicked him. They left him sprawled by the fire, unconscious, and they ran to their horses. There was one horse for each of them, but when they had mounted and pounded off, terror-stricken, into the night, there was no horse for Brackman. Sundance had seen to that.

  Then they were gone. Sundance waited until dawn. Brackman came awake, scrambled to his feet. He looked all around, cursed. But not for long; he was tough, and he had been stranded on the prairie before. Sundance saw him pull the Colt from its holster, check its loads. Sundance grinned. His hand went to his own Colt—O’Malley’s, rather—on his hip. He had checked its loads, too, made sure they were perfect.

  Then, in the flooding, radiant light of dawn, he got to his feet, skylined on the rim of the bowl.

  “Brackman!” he yelled.

  Brackman, standing by the embers of the fire, whirled. Stared at the savage figure there above him—the naked man, body smeared with paint, hair caked with mud, holstered Colt on his hip. His eyes widened, then narrowed, and he lifted his own pistol, then realized that Sundance was out of range.

  “You did it, didn’t you?” he shouted.

  “I did it,” Sundance called back. “They’ve all gone off and left you.”

  “I don’t give a damn,” Brackman yelled. “Do you think I’m afraid of you?” He raised the Colt.

  “You’d better be,” Sundance said, “because I’m going to take you. And then I’m going to give you to the Cheyennes.”

  Brackman, a small figure in the bottom of the bowl, froze. “What?”

  “Give you to the Cheyennes,” Sundance called. “They’ve already got your scalp. The rest of you is overdue. You killed a man named Walking Bear, a Cheyenne Dog Soldier. You aimed to wipe out all the tribes with your poisoned whiskey. You’ve got a lot to account for, Brackman. And I need you alive to make sure accounts are settled.” Then he began to walk down the slope.

  Brackman watched him come. His lean, Satanic face split in a grin. “But you’re alone now.”

  “Yeah,” Sundance said. “I’m alone.”

  “Then it’s all right,” Brackman said. He raised the Colt, lined it. “I can take you. Come on.”

  Sundance drew his own gun. “I’m coming.” He felt a cold, savage joy. There were other ways he could have done this, but this was the best one. He thought of Walking Bear. Yes, the way to do it was to count coup on a still living enemy. It was the Cheyenne way, the way Walking Bear would have done it.

  Brackman steadied the gun on his other wrist, took dead aim. Sundance went on, and Brackman waited for him to come within range. It was only a matter of twenty yards, now; fifteen, ten, five—

  Brackman fired. A puff of smoke ballooned white and fluffy from his pistol. Sundance heard the zing of a ball past his head.

  Brackman was a good shot, but nobody was that good with a cap-and-ball Colt. Sundance kept on coming. Brackman took a step backward, fired again. And, because the range was extreme, missed once more.

  “All right,” he yelled. “Two rounds gone. But four left.” He laughed. “Come on, Sundance. I’ll save the others for a sure thing.”

  Sundance did not answer, only moved forward, inexorably, gun up.

  Suddenly he jerked up the gun. But instead of shooting, he stepped aside.

  The quick motion decoyed Brackman and the man fired again, and then, as Sundance dropped, shot once more, and neither ball came close, and still Sundance had not triggered off a single shot. He rolled, and Brackman’s next bullet missed him, too, and Brackman backed off, with one round left in the Colt. His nerve was shaken. He knew he could not afford to miss with this last shot. He put his left arm under his right to steady it and lined the gun on Sundance as Sundance sat up, well within easy range, now, and that was the target Sundance wanted: Brackman’s gun-arm, steady, immobile, and he brought down his own Colt and pulled the trigger; and Brackman screamed as the slug smashed his forearm and the gun dropped from his hand. He turned to run then, clutching his wounded arm, and Sundance lined the pistol and fired, and the slug caught Brackman in the leg; he stumbled and fell. When Sundance ran to him, Brackman had drawn a knife, had it upraised. He slashed at Sundance’s leg, but he was not good with his left hand and missed. Sundance slammed down the barrel of the Colt across his wrist, and Brackman howled as bone crunched, and dropped the knife.

  Then it was over. Brackman was unarmed, at Sundance’s mercy. He stared up at Sundance with the eyes of a trapped animal. “All right,” he rasped. “Go ahead, kill me. For God’s sake, kill me.”

  “No,” Sundance said. “I told you. I’m taking you to the Cheyennes.”

  Brackman’s lips moved soundlessly. He had been on the plains long enough to know fully what that meant. When Sundance leaned forward and tapped him with the gun barrel, counting coup, Brackman rolled over and began to sob.

  Chapter Nine

  “Five thousand more for your daughter. And you’ll get your hundred thousand dollars back when Brackman’s dance hall in Julesburg and his railroad land are sold. Plus the cash he had on hand. It’ll add up to a hundred thousand, easy; and after the Army court of inquiry heard Barbara’s testimony, you’ve got first claim. You’ve got your daughter back, and you won’t lose a penny of the money.”

  George Colfax looked at Sundance from across the table in the private car parked on the siding at Ellsworth. “You’ll get the five thousand now. You’ll get the other twenty thousand when the matter of Brackman’s estate is settled. After all, they just brought in the body—” His face twisted in disgust. “It was hard to identify, after what those savages had done to it.” He rubbed his face. “If they hadn’t left his head, at least the top of it, intact, nobody would have known who or what he was.”

  “They already had his scalp,” Sundance said. “They didn’t need to scalp him twice. Anyhow, it was positive identification.”

  “And utter savagery.”

  Sundance looked at him. “Didn’t your daughter tell you what he had planned for her? Not to mention what he was cooking up for the tribes?” His voice softened. “Or don’t you call that utter savagery, Mr. Colfax?”

  Colfax looked away. Then he fished in a drawer, brought out a canvas bag. “There’s the other five thousand. But what about the expense money- ?”

  “It’ll be spent to quiet the Cheyennes,” Sundance said. “I’ll give you an accounting later. But I had to promise Tall Calf a lot of horses—and Walking Bear’s family even more.”

  “I don’t understand this,” Colfax said. “I don’t understand this at all. But—”

  “Father,” Barbara Colfax said quietly. She wore a white lawn dress now, and her face was scrubbed and her hair was glistening with cleanliness She was very beautiful. “Father, I want you to pay Sundance the other twenty thousand now. You’ll get your money; there’s no need for him to have to wait.”

  “Barbara, it may take months.”

  “It won’t. I’ve signed all sorts of statements; it’s clear that Brackman took your gold.”

  “Well, one thing isn’t clear. How he found out it was even there.”

  Suddenly there was silence in the car. Sundance’s eyes went to Irene Colfax, sitting near her husband. Her face was pale, her eyes blazed, her lips were a thin, tense line as she stared at Barbara.

  Then Barbara said, “Maybe, in an unguarded moment, I told him.”

 
; Colfax blinked. “You?”

  “I might have.” Barbara looked at Irene, who had sagged back in her chair. “I might have talked too much ... If I did, I’m sorry.” She went on, briskly. “Anyhow, I want Sundance to have the cash now.”

  “When I get the money from Brackman’s estate.”

  “Now,” Barbara said harshly. “Or you won’t get any money from Brackman’s estate. It all depends on my testimony. You pay Sundance, or I’ll change it.”

  Colfax stared at her. “I don’t know what’s got into you.”

  “Neither do I,” Barbara said. “But I’ve been a long way and a lot of things have happened to me, and I want you to give Sundance the money now. I’m sure Irene will agree with me, won’t you, darling?” She looked at her stepmother. “It’s so much easier, if there aren’t any . . . complications.”

  Irene’s eyes moved away. “I think Barbara’s right, George,” she muttered. “Pay him all his money now.” She leaned forward, stroked his arm. “Please,” she whispered.

  Colfax, rigid for a moment, softened. “Well,” he grunted, “it’s against my better judgment, but if both of you insist. I’ve got it all tied up, anyhow, copper-riveted and legal, so—Sundance, wait here.” He arose, went through the velvet curtains.

  For a little while, the room was very quiet. Irene and Barbara looked at one another. Barbara said, “You know? There’s only one thing I want to see come out of this, I want my father to have a very good wife. An excellent wife. You understand, Irene? Because, if he doesn’t, the things I could tell him.”

  Irene said thickly, “Excuse me.” She arose, went out, passing through the curtains.

  Then Sundance and Barbara were alone in the cubicle at the end of the car.

  Barbara said, quietly: “You remember? You made me a promise.”

  Sundance said, “Are you sure you want to go back? Walking Bear’s dead.”

  “You’re not,” she said.

  They looked at one another. Then Barbara said, “If I go to New York, I’ll never see you again. But if I’m with the Cheyennes, well, you always come back to the Cheyennes.”

  “Yes,” Sundance said, oddly stirred. “I always go back to the Cheyennes.”

  Barbara laced her fingers together. “And you’ve seen them, Father and Irene. They . . . deserve each other. Sundance, please . . . That’s why I wanted to make sure you got all the money right away. Because ...”

  “Because what?”

  “I’m homesick,” she whispered. “Homesick for Tall Calf’s lodge. I don’t want to be Barbara Colfax. I want to be Two Roads Woman again; and I know which road I want, now. So long as you’ll travel it, too.”

  Sundance said nothing.

  She touched his hand. “Two Roads,” she said. “We both travel them. If you get the money this afternoon . . . can it be tonight?”

  Sundance laid his other hand on top of hers. “If you want it that way, Two Roads Woman.”

  “I want it that way,” she said, and then withdrew her hand as her father came out. “Midnight,” she whispered, as George Colfax set down the canvas bags.

  “All right, Sundance. There’s your damned money. Take it and get out. I’m not a man who likes to be pressured.”

  Sundance took the bags and stood up. “If you’ll give me your copy of the contract, I’ll sign it paid in full.”

  Colfax whipped it from the drawer, and Sundance scrawled across it. Then Colfax laughed. “Hell, I’ll make more than a hundred thousand dollars. I’ll take payment in land Brackman bought. It’ll double in value in a few years, when the blasted Indians are all wiped out. I’m planning to throw a lot of weight behind getting them smashed, Sundance. Spend a lot of money in Washington.”

  “Maybe you’ll have to wait awhile,” Sundance said. “I’ve been in touch with General Sherman. There’s going to be another big peace conference at Medicine Lodge Creek, where all the Indians make winter camp, this fall. Maybe it won’t be that easy.”

  Colfax laughed again. “I don’t give a damn what Sherman promises; the Indians have got to go, and I’ve got the leverage to see that they do. Let him promise them the moon; they’ll get nothing.” He shoved the contract into the drawer. “And I’m through with you, Sundance. On your way.”

  “Yes,” Sundance said. “I’m going, Mr. Colfax. Give my regards to your wife.” And he went out.

  Barbara Colfax had arranged to have Eagle sent from Julesburg to Ellsworth, and the stallion had been quartered in the livery there. Sundance bought another horse, a big grulla, very fast. He mentally deducted it from George Colfax’s expense money.

  He did the same with the supplies and presents he purchased. He had one drink in a bar with Hickok while he waited. “Custer’s in trouble,” Hickok told him. “There’s talk he might be sent back East for screwin’ up.”

  “He’ll live a lot longer if he is,” Sundance said. Then he shoved back his chair. “See you, Bill.”

  “Jim, watch your hair.” Hickok poured another drink.

  Sundance went out to the hitch rack, untied Eagle and the other horse. He mounted the appaloosa and rode down across the tracks and along the siding. The train panted quietly to itself in the darkness.

  Then he had reached the private car. Its windows were dark.

  Sundance sat Eagle patiently and waited until the back door of the car opened. A figure appeared on the platform, came down the steps. It wore a buckskin dress.

  “Sundance?” she whispered.

  “I’m here, Two Roads Woman,” he answered.

  “Good,” she said, and swung easily aboard the other horse. Then she said, “Let’s go.”

  “Yes,” Sundance said, and he turned the stallion. Then, through darkness, he and Two Roads Woman rode south, hard and fast.

  Sundance will return in

  DEAD MAN’S CANYON

  The next book in the series

  Coming Soon!

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