Sundance 8

by John Benteen

  He broke off as there was the sound of another horse coming down the track. Sundance jerked his head around, saw Bisbee riding toward them. The man’s skeletal face frowned, and he reined in close to Hamilton.

  “Cowboy,” he said, “we’re payin’ this gut-eater good money to clean out these cars. Appreciate it if you didn’t interfere with his work.”

  “Well, hell, I just bummed a cigarette ...”

  “Okay. Now, ride on and let him get back to doin’ what he’s paid for.”

  Sonny Hamilton blinked and pulled his horse around so he was facing Bisbee. His expression had changed, all good humor gone from his face now. “Who the hell you think you are to tell me when I can ride and when I can’t, Big Ugly?”

  Bisbee straightened in the saddle. “What did you call me?”

  “I’ll swear,” Hamilton said thickly, “if you ain’t the ugliest man I ever seen. That face of yours. It looks like somethin’ they buried last year and dug up yesterday.”

  And suddenly Bisbee’s face looked exactly like that, the skin taut over its bony structure, his complexion greenish in the dying sun. His dark eyes, however, were alive and smoldering. Sundance held his breath, but this was not his fight.

  “Cowboy,” Bisbee said harshly, “I don’t let anybody bad mouth me like that.”

  “Why,” said Sonny Hamilton. “I ain’t just anybody—” And he made a reach for his gun, surprisingly fast in view of how drunk he was.

  But he never had a chance. Sundance was startled at Bisbee’s speed. Watching closely, he still never saw Bisbee draw, but suddenly a gun roared and powder smoke bloomed over Bisbee’s saddle horn and Sonny Hamilton cried out and nearly fell from the saddle, his shoulder smashed by Bisbee’s slug, and when the smoke cleared, a Colt glinted in Bisbee’s hand.

  “Christ,” Hamilton moaned, pulled up straight with his good hand, then bent over in agony, shirt sodden with blood.

  “I ought to of killed you,” Bisbee said, thin lips peeled back from big teeth. “I coulda done it, but I done killed too many here and Abilene’s closin’ down a little. Now, God damn your soul, ride!”

  Hamilton moaned, dug in spurs. The mustang galloped off, with its rider lurching in the saddle. Bisbee watched for a moment, Colt raised, and then with speed equal to his draw returned it to its holster. Sundance’s eyes narrowed. He had just seen a fine and thoroughly professional gunman at work: now, at least, he would not misjudge the man. Bisbee was as fast—and just as cold—as the rattler he had reminded Sundance of earlier.

  The skull faced man turned in the saddle. “Awright, Charlie. You get back to work. Another hour. And when you git through here, you come uptown to Mr. Jeffers’ office, near the Alamo. Jeffers Cattle Company, there’s a sign if you can read. The feller that was supposed to swamp it out didn’t show. Mr. Jeffers said you clean it, you can have your four bits, Savvy?”

  “Savvy!” Sundance gave him a delighted smile. “Me come, catchum four bits damn fast, you betcha.”

  “Right. Now git back on the end of that shovel.”

  Bisbee sat there a moment longer, until Sundance was at work again, and then he turned and rode away. Watching him go, Sundance felt a throb of excitement. This was luck: maybe the payoff for shoveling manure would come quicker than he’d dared hope. But in case it didn’t— He went back to work with energy, determined to cover his bets, to keep this job as long as he might need it.

  Chapter Six

  Jeffers’ office was a small, neatly painted frame building a few doors north of the Alamo Saloon. With his hat in hand, Sundance mounted the sidewalk and knocked on the glass panel of the door. The shade was up, and, inside, he saw a front office where two clerks were just preparing to leave, and, behind a rail, a single desk occupied by Jeffers. Bisbee was lounging in a chair nearby, and at Sundance’s knock he arose.

  “Here he is, boss. And don’t worry, I see he’s had sense enough to clean his boots.”

  “Good.” Jeffers hardly glanced at Sundance, arose, took his hat from a tree as the clerks went out and Sundance came to the rail. “When you’re through with him, meet me at the Alamo. We’ve got some things to talk about. I may have to send you down to Del Rio. We’re long overdue in hearin’ from my friend down there and Cavanaugh wants to know what the hell’s goin’ on.”

  “Well, I ain’t been south in a long time,” Bisbee said. “Okay, Injun. Yonder’s the broom closet. You sweep and mop the floor and clean out the spittoons real good and I’ll be back in an hour to check on you. You do a good job, you git your four bits.”

  “Me do good job, you damn well betcha,” Sundance said, with his vacant grin.

  At the door, Jeffers halted. “And tell him not to touch any of the papers on these desks.”

  “Don’t worry,” Bisbee said. “He can’t read. You heard that, Injun?”

  “Me hear.”

  “Well, git on the bit, then.” Jeffers left, and Bisbee stood there a moment more with thumbs hooked in gun belts as Sundance got out broom and mop. Then Bisbee followed, closing the door behind him.

  Sundance swept industriously by lamplight for a full ten minutes, until he was sure Bisbee or Jeffers would not come back for something forgotten. Then, in two pantherish strides, he was at Jeffers’ desk, which was piled high with papers. Eyes flicking from time to time to the windows, holding the broom in one hand to explain his presence to any passerby, he carefully, covertly thumbed through the stacks of invoices, bills of lading, and correspondence. But he found nothing.

  The drawers were next, and he grinned tightly when he discovered that they were not locked. Whatever valuables there were must be in the big safe in the corner. But maybe Jeffers did not count what he sought as that much of a valuable.

  Two drawers, three, and then he found it, in the center drawer, a big brown envelope with the scrawled words on its cover: WYOMING DEAL. Sundance unwrapped the twine that closed it, fished out the first paper among many, glanced at it, saw that it was a copy of a letter. Addressed to Lance Cavanaugh, Cheyenne, Wyoming, the first line of the first paragraph seemed to leap out at him. Have just returned from Del Rio Texas and have procured services to accomplish what we discussed … Sundance read no more, but rifled hastily through the packet. He saw names, brands, amounts …

  He resealed the envelope, stuffed it in a trash basket. This he carried out the back door. There a barrel held waste paper and the sludge from spittoons. Sundance dumped the contents of the basket, envelope and all, into the barrel, covering the envelope with rubbish.

  So, he thought, returning to the office, making sure no sign of his rifling of Jeffers’ desk remained. So he had been right. The trail led from Jeffers to Cavanaugh and probably a lot of other people. The hundred thousand on his head had not come from one man, in all likelihood. Bits and pieces of it had been subscribed by a lot of people. Well, later he would read the file at his leisure, but for now—

  ~*~

  He did a good job on the office, and the spittoons gleamed when Bisbee returned. The tall, skull faced gunman looked around, keen eyes raking over the desks, then nodded his approval. “Okay, Injun. You done good. Here’s your four bits.” He flipped a half dollar to Sundance, who caught it nimbly. “Now, go have your spree, while I lock up. But you be at them cattle cars come seven in the morning, you understand?”

  “Me savvy,” Sundance said. “Thanks.” He grinned at the half dollar, pocketed it, and shambled out, mounting his horse. As he rode away, Bisbee was locking the office door. Sundance watched and saw that when he was through Bisbee went back to the Alamo. Once he had disappeared through the glass doors, Sundance turned the Cherokee horse down an alley.

  There was nothing unusual about an Indian poking around in a garbage barrel, and even if someone had noticed him behind Jeffers’ office, it would have excited no comment. He retrieved the envelope, slid it under his coat, mounted, and rode at a walk out of town.

  Once clear, he galloped for a while, circling cow outfit after cow outfit, tra
veling a long way until he found a lonesome place to camp in the willows by a little stream. Even its waters were polluted by the droppings of the vast herds upstream, but he dug a hole in a sandbar close to the bank and the water welling up in it was clear and sweet. He built a small fire, put on a pot of coffee, and while he chewed jerky from his saddlebags went through the contents of the envelope.

  It took him a long time to read everything it contained. When he had finished, even he was shaken.

  Drinking coffee, he read parts of it again. Finally, when he put everything away for good, his face was grim.

  The names: the names were all there.

  The names of cattlemen, of ranchers from Texas to Wyoming, men who had made fortunes in the longhorn boom after 1866. The names of buyers, too, wealthy dealers from the Kansas towns all along the track. A web of names and a web of wealth spreading across the entire West from the Rio to the Yellowstone, a syndicate, a company, formed by those rich men who hungered for even greater riches.

  And what they wanted, what they were after, was everything the Cheyenne and the Sioux Indians—and, for that matter, all the other tribes—had, west of the Black Hills and east of the Rocky Mountains. The great buffalo ranges, the traditional hunting grounds of the Plains Indians—these were to be turned into grazing land for cattle, no matter what it cost or how many lives it claimed, and the whole vast windfall was to be paid for not only by the Indians but by the white taxpayers of the entire United States.

  The letters in the file were vivid in Sundance’s mind, and so was the whole enormous, ugly scheme. Most of those letters were signed by Lance Cavanaugh, who was obviously its leader, originator, foremost promoter, the brains behind it. Cavanaugh had crisscrossed the West in person and by mail, recruiting the cream of the cattle barons and the dealers. And the rewards he promised for their participation were staggering, in the tens and maybe hundreds of millions.

  The words of one of those letters rang again in Sundance’s mind. “We are talking about doubling the size of the American cattle ranges. Right now, Montana and Wyoming Territories, the best rangeland any of us have ever seen, are going completely to waste, left to Blanket Indians and Buffalo. Ever since Red Cloud burned Fort Phil Kearney and closed the Bozeman Trail, the ‘tarnal redskins’ as they are called with good reason have ruled like little dictators over the country north of the Platte. The Powder River Range alone, which they hold, is worth millions. How much longer will we stand idly by and watch the Indians thumb their noses at us while the buffalo devour the good grama and blue-joint that would feed our herds?

  “But, you say, what about the Treaties? Well, I say, to hell with the Treaties! And I say if we move swiftly and decisively, those Treaties won’t amount to a hill of beans! What I think we should do is this, and I can assure you of the full backing of what I can only refer to in writing as the S & S Concern. They are behind it one hundred per cent and are prepared to underwrite some of the cost and take the necessary action when the time is ripe.

  “Anyhow, if we move and move fast and hard with a hundred thousand head at the very minimum and the necessary fighting men, all the rest will follow in due course. We ram a hundred thousand up Powder River—to be sure the Indians will make war on us. It will be a big war, too, no penny-ante dust-up. And once it starts, the country won’t stand idly by and let the Indians win. The Army will be forced to move with all its strength, and the stage set for a final battle... No matter how much the Indian Lovers in Washington protest, the matter will be out of their hands …”

  Jim Sundance arose and began restlessly to pace around the fire. And there it was: Cavanaugh and all the other cattle interests, busy even now stockpiling the small tag end of southern Wyoming range they held with Texas longhorns. By the thousands they would cram cattle south of the Platte, with tough gun-wise Texas cowhands to herd them, fighting men as well as cowpunchers. Then, when the time was ripe, the whole vast herd would move into the Powder River country, the Indians would fight back on an enormous scale, and the Army would be forced by public opinion to go in and eradicate them once and for all. Probably, Sundance guessed, next spring, when the cattle would be in place for the big push, the grass was up, and the Army could march and fight.

  He went back to the envelope and his mouth twisted as he sought and found another letter, squatting on his haunches, rereading it by flickering light.

  “The S & S Concern has made the following urgent recommendation. It believes our tactics can be successful provided the Indians can be fought and beaten in detail. But if they unite against us, they may be too strong even for the Army. There are maybe twenty thousand warriors in that country, if the Crows and Blackfeet join in, and if they come together under one command they will far outnumber any force of soldiers that can be sent against them.

  “Fortunately, they hate each other almost as much as they hate us. The Crows fight the Cheyennes and the Sioux fight the Blackfeet, etc., etc. The S & S Concern says it knows of only one man who could overcome their distrust of each other and lead them as a united fighting force. His name is Jim Sundance, and before we can move, he must be eliminated. The S & S Concern is insistent upon this before joining with us in our enterprise. It suggests putting a reward on Sundance’s head large enough to make good and sure that someone delivers his scalp to us by next Spring. In fact, the S & S Concern has subscribed ten thousand dollars of its own funds to such a reward, and suggests that the total go as high as a hundred thousand if that is what it takes. I am in complete agreement, as this man Sundance is the greatest danger to all our plans, and if it takes a hundred thousand, that’s chicken feed compared to the payoff. I’ll subscribe ten thousand on my own and am asking all others to guarantee at least five. Once we get Sundance, S & S Concern assures us the coast is clear … ”

  Then followed a description and biography of Jim Sundance. It was clear and accurate, and, reading it, Sundance knew that it had been furnished by someone well acquainted personally with him. Kate Danton? It didn’t matter: what did was that if it were widely circulated, anybody could recognize him, any stranger pick him off... He spat into the fire and pushed the letter back into the envelope. Cavanaugh was a thorough planner and a good letter writer. Like an experienced general, he laid out grand strategy, detailed tactics, overlooked nothing. And, Sundance knew, the scheme as he had outlined it would work.

  What Cavanaugh and the mysterious advisers he called “the S & S Concern” didn’t know was that they were wasting their money. There was a possibility, Sundance thought, of uniting the Sioux and Cheyennes and Arapahos, but the Crows and Blackfeet would never join with their hated enemies, even against a threat like this. Probably the Shoshones on Wind River would stay neutral, too. No, it was impossible for Sundance or any single man to block such an invasion by uniting the tribes against it. As Cavanaugh hoped, they would inevitably be beaten tribe by tribe, whipped in detail. But before that happened, a lot of people would die, red and white, men, women, children ...

  Sundance stood up, and the firelight shone on features like something cast from bronze. His eyes, in that red background, were like chips of ice. But there was another way of stopping this invasion.

  Cavanaugh and the mysterious S & S Concern were the brains and driving force behind the whole scheme.

  So, Sundance thought, drawing in a long breath, it was very simple when you came down to it.

  Whatever the S & S Concern might be—and he would find out somehow—maybe it was beyond his reach.

  But Lance Cavanaugh was not.

  And Lance Cavanaugh, in due time, had to die.

  ~*~

  Usually Sundance put the day from him completely and slept like an animal at night, unworried, though alert and ready to come awake and into action at the slightest alarm. But tonight he hardly slept at all. As he lay in his blankets with John Canoe’s old shotgun cradled in his arm and his pistol within easy reach, he felt the hatred growing in him— hatred of Cavanaugh and the S & S Concern, hatred of every m
an whose name was on that roster. The men who not only wanted to steal two entire territories from their rightful owners, but to kill them like so many cattle in a Chicago slaughterhouse, using the United States Army as its executioner. That they wanted him dead too hardly counted at all in the hatred: a lot of people had wanted him dead, but he was still alive.

  He lay there, nursing the hatred and making his plans. When morning came, he packed his gear and rode back to Abilene, and by full light he was below the cattle pens, in one of the cars on the lonely siding far from town. This time, he did not go to work, but he leaned on the shovel, waited, the horse tethered nearby and John Canoe’s caplock shotgun leaning against a wall inside, close to the door. He was fully alert, watching with the relaxed, ready patience of a big hunting cat, his Colt belted around his waist and its holster tied down now, his jacket rolled up behind the horse’s saddle, so it would not interfere.

  Presently he saw Bisbee.

  The skull faced man came riding down the track, a sour look on his countenance, as if he had caroused too late and had a hangover. On another siding, a locomotive puffed and snorted, shunting cars, making a loud racket. That was good, Sundance thought.

  As Bisbee approached, Sundance dug the shovel deep into crusted dung and straw, wrenched off a bladeful. Bisbee reined in before the opened door, tipped back his hat, glaring at Sundance. “Well, Injun, I see you did show up. What the hell you waitin’ for, damn your red hide! Git on that shovel.’’

  “You damn betcha,” Sundance said, and he threw the dung straight in Bisbee’s face. Almost brick hard, it hit Bisbee squarely and rocked him in the saddle. He cursed in rage, instinctively reaching for his right hand gun, pawing at his eyes with his left. “Hold it,” Sundance snapped. “Touch it and you’re dead.”