by John Benteen
“Kate,” he said. “Are you all right?”
She was on her feet now. “I’m fine. That wasn’t very smart of me, was it, Jim? You’d think I’d know better by now—”
“Never mind,” Sundance said. “Let’s finish our drink.”
“I think we’d better have it upstairs,” Kate said. “In my apartment. I’m a little shaky.”
“Why,” Sundance said, “sure. That suits me fine.”
His eyes shuttled to the bar. The bartender had produced a sawed-off shotgun and held it ready for any emergency. Kate said, “That’s right, Grover. You watch us. We’re going upstairs. And we don’t want to be disturbed. Not tonight, you understand?”
“Yes, ma’am, Miss Danton.”
Coolly, as if she were at a cotillion, Kate Danton turned then, and for a moment Sundance remembered the Palmer House and the way she had been six years before, as she said, “Well, Mr. Sundance. Will you join me?”
~*~
There was a sitting room, a bedroom, a kitchen and a bath with a big iron tub. Jim Sundance, sipping his second drink, soaked in the hot water Kate had had sent up, while she was busy in the kitchen. Even here, he kept his Colt within easy reach.
For more reasons than one, he was glad he had run into Kate. She had kindled that hunger in him, and he knew the same hunger was in her, but beyond that, there could be no better source of information. She was bound to know everything that went on in Del Rio. Those eight men had been cut from the same cloth as Calder; she would know them, too, and maybe who had hired them. Meanwhile, he held the questions in abeyance in his mind and savored his bath. He had been trained in the Cheyenne way to like being clean, and, as Indians did, bathed every time he got the opportunity. He wondered if white men knew how foul they sometimes smelled to Indians with their rank body odors and the bay rum and grease they sometimes used to disguise them.
When he was finished, he dried with a soft towel, slipped into a dressing gown Kate had laid out for him. He had no idea who its original owner had been, but it fitted him well. He buckled his gun belt on and went into the kitchen.
She had just put a huge plate of steak, eggs, and potatoes on the table and a cup of steaming coffee. Her eyes went to the gun. “Don’t you ever go without that thing?”
Sundance said, “You’ve been around long enough to know better than that.” He sat down at the table and began to eat. She sat opposite him with a cup of coffee.
“Jim,” she asked presently, “where have you been and what have you been doing since we last were together? I’ve heard all sorts of stories. Some of them are so wild—”
“I’ve been a lot of places,” Sundance said. “And I’ve done a lot of things.”
“Working for the Indians.”
“Mostly.”
“They say, too, you hire out your gun ... Not on the easy jobs. On the high-priced ones.”
“I do,” Sundance said. “There’s plenty of work for a man like me. I know all the tricks, Indian and white, and I guarantee results. For what I usually undertake to do, the price isn’t cheap.”
“What do you do with the money? Is what I’ve heard true? That you send it all back east? To Washington?”
Sundance sipped coffee and leaned back in his chair. “That’s where the real fight is, Kate.”
“I don’t understand.”
“In the Interior Department, the War Department, the Bureau of Indian Affairs. And most of all, in Congress. That’s where the decisions are made that really affect the Indians. Whether there’ll be peace or war. Whether the treaties will be kept, abrogated, or just plain ignored. A lot of people want Indian land, Kate—railroad people, bankers, miners. They’ve got money to spend, and they spend it buying Congressmen.”
“I see. So you buy Congressmen, too? On behalf of the Indians?”
“When I have to. I’ve got a lawyer working for them there, a good man, the best. He’s lost some battles, but he’s won some, too. He believes in what he’s doing, and he himself doesn’t charge too much, but his activities take a lot of financing. I only know one way to earn the money—with my gun.”
“I see. And so you go on fighting and fighting—for a lost cause.”
“It’s not lost yet. If I can save anything at all for them, it’s worth it; to me, anyhow.” He had cleaned his plate and now he rolled a cigarette. “But I’ve made some enemies, some powerful ones, rich ones. They’d love to see me out of the way.” He let her light the cigarette for him, and then he said, “That’s why I’m in Del Rio.”
“I don’t understand. There are no Indians here.”
“No,” Sundance said. “All the same—” Then, matter-of-factly, he told her what had happened in Big Bend. She listened closely, eyes widening.
“Jim, you killed eight of them?”
“Well,” he smiled, “I didn’t want them to kill me. Anyhow, that was all I learned. That somebody here had hired Bascomb and his crew to bushwhack me. If there’s a price on my head, I want to know about it, how much and who put it there. I aim to find out about it in Del Rio. I hope you can help me.”
“I’ll do my best,” she said. “I know almost everything that happens here. I knew Bascomb, of course, Dan Bascomb, and his bunch. They were running wet cattle across the border like the others. But I don’t know who hired them to get you. But I’ll surely check every source I’ve got to find out.” She paused, looking at him with magnificent eyes in which something seemed to swirl and flare. “I didn’t come this far and look for you this long to have somebody kill you just when I’ve found you.”
“Kate—” Sundance began.
“Oh, I know,” she said almost wearily. “You can’t promise me anything. Maybe you’ve even got another woman. If you have, I don’t want to know about her. I just want to be with you and pretend it’s ... the Palmer House.” She looked at his plate. “Are you through?”
Sundance smiled at her. “I’m through.”
Kate stood up, smoothing the satin over her breasts. “I thought we might have your second drink in the bedroom.”
Jim Sundance arose. “Do you know,” he said, “I think that sounds like a good idea.”
~*~
Sated as he was with food and drink and the woman, Sundance, as always, slept lightly, the gunbelt with its Colt and Bowie coiled beneath the pillow. When something awakened him, he had no idea what it was. He lay for a moment in a half drowse, remembering, placing himself. Then it came back. Kate. Kate, her body surging beneath his, her mouth hungry on him, Kate, crying out the first time and the second ... His leg moved across the bed, and then he knew why he was awake. Kate was no longer there. Almost instinctively, then, his hand slid beneath the pillow and closed around the Colt’s grip. He did not move, but his eyes were half-slitted and gradually accustomed to the dimness of the room.
She was out of bed and moving around.
In the darkness, her naked body gleamed, easily visible. She was at the dresser, quietly opening a drawer. Sundance lay motionless, watching her carefully.
She turned from the dresser, and she had something in her hand, now, and she halted at the foot of the bed and the Colt made no whisper of sound as Sundance drew it from leather. Once his eyes were adjusted, he could see in the dark like a cat. The hammer coming back on the big .44 made a loud click.
“Kate,” he said harshly, “don’t move and don’t try it.”
The white body in the darkness went rigid. “Jim—”
“You’re covered,” he said. “If you don’t drop that Derringer, I’ll kill you.”
For a moment, she made no sound. Then, hopelessly, she said, “All right.” He heard the light thud as the little gun landed on the floor.
“Kick it under the bed.”
He heard it skid when she did that, and he sat up. “Now,” he said, “light the lamp there.”
“I should have remembered,” she said bitterly, “that you sleep like a goddamned cat.”
“You should have remembered that, ye
s,” Sundance said, gently. He heard a match strike and the lamp flared and she stood there naked before him, light playing on breasts and belly and loins and long, fine legs. She stood naked without shame, for she had stood naked like that before so many men ... Her red hair was down and tousled, her face slightly puffy with sleep, her mouth and throat and breasts showing faint bruises.
Sundance said, “You aimed to kill me.”
“Yes,” said Kate wearily. “I thought I would.”
He eased the hammer of the Colt down.
“Sit on the foot of the bed. Were you the one who hired Bascomb and his crew?”
“I did that, yes.”
“I began to wonder, just a little, when you stepped in front of Calder. A girl like you, who’s been around, should have known a lot better. You were giving him a chance at me, eh?”
“It was just something I did on impulse.”
“You hired Bascomb on impulse, too, I guess.” The earlier whiskey had long since worn off and he felt old and tired and, naked, he swung out of bed and went to a bottle on the table, still keeping the Colt centered on Kate Danton. He poured drinks into two glasses and handed her one. “I expect you need this.”
“God, do I,” she said, and tossed it off.
Sundance said, “Now. Suppose you tell me. Did you put the price on my head? Your ten thousand? Or whatever? Did you hate me that much?”
“I hated you,” Kate said thickly. “I hated you and loved you both. Damn you, if you had never existed, do you know where I would be now? Or ... if you had just taken me with you. Don’t you understand? I would have lived in one of those Indian tents with you. I would have been your squaw. I would have chopped your wood and brought your water and cooked your meals and borne your children. But you just went off and left me.”
Sundance said, “I was a lot younger and so were you. But you haven’t answered my question.”
“No,” Kate said. “I didn’t put up the ten thousand. I only passed it on.”
“From who?”
She did not answer.
“Kate,” Sundance said gently.
She turned on him. “Damn you,” she said savagely, “if you had just slept a minute longer. Then I would have been even with you. For all those years, for everything I lost on your account, for everything I suffered—”
“Who gave you the ten thousand to hire Bascomb with? Kate, you’d better tell me.”
She sucked in a long breath. “I’ll fry in hell first. Jim, it was so good tonight. And yet … I knew you would leave me again, for those damned Indians of yours. And I would rather see you dead than have you leave me again ...” She raised her head. “Yes, I took his ten thousand and made a deal with Bascomb.”
“Whose ten thousand?”
“I won’t tell you. He still wants you. As long as you don’t know who he is, he might get you. Right now, that’s all I want, since I failed myself.” She put her head in her hands.
Sundance stood there looking at her for a moment. Then he said, still gently, “Kate, I’ve got to know. You don’t understand. There’s still so much work I’ve got to do. The lives of hundreds of thousands of people, men, women, children, depend on what I do. I’ve stayed clear of the law very carefully. But if somebody rich and powerful enough to make me an outlaw in all but name exists, I’ve got to know who that somebody is and deal with him. Not out of fear for my own hide. But because I know how much will go undone if I die.”
“Go to hell,” Kate said hoarsely, face still in her hands.
Sundance went to the bed, slipped his hand beneath the pillow. When he straightened up, he said, “Kate, look at me.”
She raised her head, and her eyes widened as she saw the Bowie with the foot long blade in his hand.
“Kate, you’re to tell me the name of the man you dealt with.”
“I said you can go to hell. Kill me, if you’ve got the guts.”
Sundance said, “You know I won’t kill you. But I’ll do worse than that if you don’t tell me. I’ve got to know; my life depends on it, and I don’t give a damn about that, but too many lives depend on mine.”
Kate stared at the great blade, uplifted, gleaming in the lantern light.
Sundance said, “I won’t kill you, Kate. But you saw what I did to Calder tonight. He’ll never fast-draw a gun again. I want that name or— Do you get my drift?”
She licked her lips. “You wouldn’t.”
“You just tried to shoot me while I slept.”
“Jim—”
“Two or three times forward, two or three times back. You’ll live, but no man will ever look at you again. You won’t even be able to bear looking at yourself in the mirror.”
“Jim, you don’t mean it.”
“You tried to kill me, twice. I mean it,” he said, and his eyes glittered in the lamplight. “Kate, you’ve got about five seconds ...” He thrust out the blade and it was very near her face.
Her eyes were fixed on it.
“Jim—”
“About two seconds left.”
“Jim, for God’s sake, wait! I’ll tell you what you want to know!” She fell back across the bed. Sundance did not lower the knife.
“Go ahead,” he said.
“All right.” She covered her face with her hands. “He was a man I knew in Abilene. That was his robe you wore tonight. He came down here from Kansas and looked me up and said he needed men to do a job. My cut was two thousand, but I would have done it for nothing when I heard it was to be you. I hired Bascomb and the others, paid them five thousand down, another five due when they brought in your scalp ... !”
“My scalp?”
“That blond hair with enough red skin attached ... There can’t be but one scalp like that! That was what he wanted! Bascomb was to bring it to me and I was to deliver it to him!”
“And who is he?”
She did not answer.
Sundance laid the knifepoint on her belly, just below the navel. “Kate—”
“His name is Abel Jeffers!”
“What does he do in Abilene?”
“He’s a cattle buyer!”
“Who hired him to contact you?”
“Jim—”
“Who hired him?” Sundance roared.
“I don’t know,” she sobbed. “He wouldn’t tell me. Only that it was somebody big with lots of money. Prepared to spend a hundred thousand if that’s what it took to bring you down!”
Sundance said, incredulously, “A hundred thousand?”
“That’s what he said,” Kate husked. “His rake-off was five.”
“That’s seventeen thousand somebody has laid out already.” Sundance pulled the knife away. “You’ve got the other five around here?”
She did not even move. “In the dresser.”
Sundance went to it, as she lay sprawled naked on the bed. He opened the drawer, fished beneath lace and silk, drew out packets of greenbacks.
“Yes,” he said, the word a sibilant gust.
“Take it,” she said. “Just take it and go, please.”
“I aim to,” Sundance said. “But first I’ve got to tie you up and gag you.”
“I don’t care. I don’t care what you do.”
Sundance pulled stockings from the drawer. They worked well, and in a moment her hands and feet were tied. He wadded a stocking and held another ready as he looked down into her eyes. His hand shook slightly.
“Kate,” he said quietly, “I’m sorry.”
She met his gaze directly. “So am I,” she said harshly. “Now I’ll never know whether or not I would have pulled that trigger. I hope he gets you, Jim, I really hope he does. You and your damned Indians—”
Then Sundance rammed in the gag.
She writhed helplessly on the bed as he dressed, put on his weapons belt, gathered up his gear, and went to the window.
“Goodbye, Kate,” he said. “I wish it had worked out better for both of us.” Then he was gone, down the wall like a fly, dropping the last twenty
feet to the alley and landing lightly. As he ran through the darkened town toward the livery where she had had a man take Eagle, he felt no triumph despite the five thousand dollars in his pocket. He only felt ashamed and dirty.
Chapter Four
When, ten days later, Sundance halted the stallion on a height of ground, a river of cattle flowed across the prairie below him.
The trail herd could be heard—and smelled—from a long way off, three thousand head of steers pointed north, bound for Abilene. And this was only one of many. Another of equal size was twenty miles ahead, and yet another, not much smaller, a day’s journey behind. It was as if a great chain of longhorns stretched from Texas to Kansas. Sundance’s mouth thinned. Not all those cattle would go to the slaughterhouses of the East. Many were being bought to stock ranges in Nebraska, Wyoming, Montana—Indian country. As the ranchers moved in, the Indians fought back. The ranchers yelled for the Army, and the soldiers came and there was war, on the claim that the tribes had broken their treaties of peace.
That herd down there, Sundance knew, represented a fortune to its owners. Easily, as the market now was, they could clear a hundred thousand dollars on it. The northern ranchers were tired of letting Texas reap such profits, they wanted in. And the stakes they played for in crowding out the Indians amounted to many millions. Again, he wondered if it were cattle money on his head. He had come hard and fast from Del Rio, pushing the stallion, yet taking time to cover his tracks, knowing that when Kate got free, she would send men after him and also send the word on ahead that Jim Sundance was alive and on the loose. So he had traveled like a hunted wolf, sometimes doubling back, riding in the water when he found a stream, keeping off the skyline, avoiding all contact with humans. He knew where he stood, now. If the word was around that somebody would pay a hundred thousand for his scalp, he was the most hunted man in the West, fair game for any ambitious fellow with a gun. He was, in fact, a walking gold strike. Let the word spread: get Sundance and get rich! Cowpunchers would leave their thirty a month and found to look for him, unsuccessful miners their disappointing claims. Professional gunmen would oil their Colts and Winchesters and private detectives, bounty hunters, gamblers down on their luck, even big-dreaming ranch and farm kids with rabbit rifles—all would have their eyes peeled for Jim Sundance. From now on, he could trust no one whose skin was not red. Even old friends might be tempted; among white men, a hundred thousand in gold could cancel out a lot of friendship. He could not even walk into a store to buy a sack of tobacco ... He was out of tobacco now, but red willow bark or marijuana would have to do until he reached the Cherokee country and could get in touch with John Canoe.
