Sundance 16

by John Benteen

  “Well, we’re runnin’ out of daylight, and they’re as through as they’ll get. We’ve got to get back farther into the hills, to the main herd before night. Garvey and his men may already be there waiting for us. Sundance, you’ll ride with us, spend the night? There’s some medicine I think we ought to make together.”

  Sundance ran his eyes over the big, gaunt man. “Yeah,” he said after a moment. “Yeah, I think there is.” And as the Navajos gathered the remnants of the flock and drove them into the pines, he swung aboard the stallion. Jokers in the deck, all right; but they would have to wait.

  Because of the Navajo horror of their own dead, McCaig tied his horse behind the wagon and drove it himself. Delia Gannt stayed close to him, and Sundance, as self-appointed rear guard, dropped behind, watching their back trail alertly as they headed north and west. McCaig and the Indians knew the country, and they picked an adroit route that led them the easiest way through some of the roughest terrain in Arizona, working ever farther back into the broken country of the Mogollon plateau, which, for a long time until General George Crook had brought them in, had been the last fastness and hiding place of the Tonto Apaches. The plateau itself was good country for sheep or cattle, Sundance thought, but only as summer range. Up here the winters would be bitter, and livestock would not survive them—at least not as easily as in the grassy shelter of the vast basin below.

  It was well after sundown when first Sundance smelled the sheep—the odor of a great flock of them assaulting his nostrils like a stench. Along with it came, on the north wind, their flat bleating and baa-ing, mingled with the occasional barking of a dog. Then, in a jumbled country that was a mixture of barren rock and grazing land and stands of pinon, he spotted the winking campfires. The wagon lurched down a slope and presently they had reached the main sheep camp. In the darkness, bedded bands were like dirty blots of snow on the ground, the dogs keeping watch over them conscientiously. And, as they approached, they were challenged in Navajo by a band of six armed men. McCaig answered in the same language, telling them briefly what had happened. There were exclamations of dismay, and then they moved on into camp.

  McCaig unhitched the team, left the wagon with its two dead men well distant from the campfires. “In the mornin’,” he told Sundance, “maybe you’ll help me bury ’em. You know how the Diné hate to handle their own dead.” He used the term the Navajos used for their own tribe—like most others, they referred to themselves simply and succinctly as “the people.

  “Yeah,” Sundance said. “In the morning, I’ll help you.”

  As the word spread, Navajo herders, mostly tall, lean men with impassive faces, began to come in from the outlying reaches of the flock, which covered a wide area. Their head man seemed to be a giant of an Indian whose hair was streaked with gray, his body thick and powerful, without an ounce of fat on it. The name he used was Easy Dreamer, but of course that was only his public name, not his secret, warrior name, which always remained private. Sundance was impressed by him at once, and not least by the fact that he spoke fluent English. He was also better armed than the at least two dozen of his followers, with a new Colt .45 slung low on his right hip, its holster thonged down, and a hatchet like Sundance’s own on his left. Smoking a thin, black cigar, he listened impassively while McCaig told them all what had happened and then introduced Jim Sundance. Sundance had already felt those black eyes penetrating him; at the mention of his name, he thought that, in the firelight, something stirred briefly in them.

  When McCaig had finished, a kind of sigh went through the group of Indians. “Now,” the Scot added, “ye’d all best return to your flocks. Except you, Easy Dreamer. We have some medicine to make, and I’d like you with us.”

  The big Indian nodded. Then he turned to Sundance. “The others haven’t heard of you,” he said. “They are all young men and not many speak much English. But I learned good English and to read and write at Bosque Redondo. I’ve heard much about you, from the white men and also from the Apaches, who say you are the godson of Cochise. And I remember, too, that many years ago, before the Long Bad March from our homeland to Fort Sumter, your father came to trade among us for silver and blankets. You were very young then, but you were with him, and I remember how you outrode our young men in horse races. Sometimes I have wished that you would come to us and help us as the Apaches say you have tried to help them, and also the Comanche. But you never came.”

  “You were at peace,” Sundance said. “The others weren’t. I tried to help make a peace for them.” He spread his hands as McCaig and Delia Gannt watched. “But what I tried was too much for one man alone.”

  “What you did was good. Someday you will be able to look back and see how much you have done that doesn’t show right now. Anyhow, it’s good that you’ve come at last. Because—” he gestured to the wagon “—you can see that we’re not at peace now. We are at war. I hope you can help us.”

  “I don’t know. There’s a lot I don’t know yet about this situation.”

  “Which I’m now going to explain,” McCaig said. “What’s Delia told you?”

  Sundance summed it up, as they gathered around a fire and Easy Dreamer carved chunks of roasted venison for them. McCaig nodded. “Fair enough, as far as she got. As she said we met in Prescott and the deal we made was that I’d clear Barkalow out of Bloody Moon Basin in return for her leasing of the grazing rights to the tribe.”

  “The tribe can’t enter into any lease agreement without approval of the Bureau of Indian Affairs and the Army,” Sundance said, voicing what had been bothering him. “You know that.”

  “Of course I do. I know a lot of other things, too; that on the reservation the sheep are multiplying so that they’re turning what isn’t already desert into desert. And that’s got to be stopped. So I intend to stop it.”

  He gestured toward the scattered flock. “I’m a front man for the Indians, Sundance, neither more nor less. You see all those sheep? Legally, they’re my property. I bought them, band by band, for one dollar a flock from the Navajos. Then I secured permission for their former owners to hire on with me as herders and leave the reservation. When the lease agreement’s taken, it’ll be in my name; so will all the sheep. But actually the profits will go to the Indians themselves, just as if they owned the sheep. In other words, they’ve signed over everything to me, put their whole future into my hands. I do not intend to let them down.”

  Sundance said tonelessly, “No insult intended. But you could sure as hell do it if you took a notion to. You’ve got title to what—two thousand head of Indian sheep?—for almost nothing. You get rid of Barkalow, you’ll have a lease on the best range in this part of Arizona in your own name. You could—” he snapped his fingers “—freeze the Navajo out like that and there wouldn’t be a thing they could do.”

  “That’s absolutely right,” McCaig said promptly. “Everything depends on whether I’m honest or a crook. Easy Dreamer knows that, all of them do.”

  Easy Dreamer said promptly, “I’ve known Andrew McCaig for nearly fifteen years. All of us have. Never once has he betrayed our trust in him. We believe he will do what he says. Of course, if he doesn’t, we’ll kill him.”

  McCaig laughed. “You see? I don’t have much choice, do I?”

  “No,” Sundance answered, for he knew Easy Dreamer had meant exactly what he said. Navajos always did. “But there’re still things I don’t understand. You aim to go into the Basin and fight Barkalow and hired gunnies like Strawn with Navajos who haven’t been to war in fifteen years? They’d have no more chance than those two Strawn slaughtered on the rim. Anyhow, if you tried it, Barkalow would yell Indian attack and the Army would come in and the tribe would be in worse trouble than overgrazin’ the reservation could ever cause it.”

  “Of course, man, I know that. But you forget, I was once a minister, but I’m a Scot, too, and we Scots are born to fight, whether it’s against the devil or against Strawn and Barkalow. As far as I’m concerned, it’s an eye
for an eye and a tooth for a tooth. That’s why I’ve hired Coy Garvey and his men. Barkalow uses force, I’ll use force right back.”

  Sundance stared at him. “McCaig, you hired Coy Garvey and his outfit?”

  “Aye, the leader and seven men, and a rare sum it cost me. They’re due in tonight, I’d hoped they’d be here now. As soon as they show up, they go to work, and then there’ll be no more killing of defenseless men like those two on the rimrock. If Strawn and Barkalow want a range war, they shall have it!” His eyes glittered almost fanatically in the firelight. “Eight of the toughest hired gunfighters in the Southwest, and I myself—that makes nine. And once Garvey comes, we’ll smite Barkalow like God’s vengeance itself!” He put a hand on Sundance’s shoulder. “And now we come to the medicine I had to make with you. I want you to join us.”

  Sundance pushed the hand away. “No,” he rasped.

  McCaig frowned. “Why not? I know you come high. But whatever your price is, we’re prepared to pay it.”

  “We?” Sundance turned to Delia Gannt.

  “Yes. I put up the money for Garvey and his men. Andrew has always been so selfless, he’s given everything he’s ever made to the Navajos. And money’s not the question. Getting revenge for Tom’s death, punishing Barkalow, that’s what I want.” Her eyes narrowed. “Is something wrong with Garvey?”

  Sundance drew in a long breath. “You two shouldn’t even be allowed out on the street by yourselves. For God’s sake, don’t you know Garvey’s reputation?”

  “He’s a hard man, but hard men are called for now,” McCaig snapped.

  Sundance turned away, spat into the fire.

  “Mr. Sundance—Jim.” Delia’s voice was anxious. “What’s wrong?”

  “You’ve had a run-in with Garvey?” McCaig asked.

  Sundance turned. “I’ve had a lot of run-ins with him. All you’ve done is made Garvey a present of two thousand sheep.”

  “Now, wait a minute—”

  “No, you wait!” Sundance’s temper flared. “The least you could have done was check his reputation! Sure, he hires out his gun, his men. And they’re all tough as boot-leather! But Garvey’s word ain’t worth a handful of spit! He’ll hire on with somebody, size up the situation, and if he sees more money to be made in a double-cross, sell out whoever hired him in a second! He’s got no loyalty to anything but a dollar or a peso, and you can’t trust him as far as I could throw Easy Dreamer here with one hand!” The anger ebbing from him, he said tiredly, “How much did you pay him?”

  “One thousand dollars in Prescott. Another two after the Basin’s cleaned out. He agreed to that and promised to meet us here.”

  Sundance laughed harshly. “Three thousand dollars split among eight men? Garvey wouldn’t even dirty up his gun barrel for that kind of money!”

  “But he agreed! Then why—?”

  “Because—” Sundance gestured. “These sheep. What would two thousand sheep be worth in Mexico?”

  In the firelight, McCaig blinked. “I don’t know. They’re all prime, I saw to that. Surely on one of the big ranchos they’d bring twelve, fifteen dollars a head ... ”

  Again Sundance’s laugh was a rasp. “Garvey would be glad to settle for eight, ten, which he’d have no trouble gettin’—after he struck a deal with Barkalow, of course, to bring in a little extra cash. You promised him three thousand to wipe out Barkalow. He’d likely ask Barkalow a thousand over that to lay off, with clear passage across the Basin guaranteed. Then he’d hire some Mexicans, push the sheep across the border, sell ’em in Sonora and collect another sixteen or twenty thousand dollars. Come out of it all with a hell of a lot more than you could pay him, either way.”

  “But, man, that makes no sense. What about me, Delia, the Navajos?”

  “You’d all be dead,” Sundance said. “If Garvey comes in tonight, by tomorrow night you’ll all be finished. Except maybe Delia. Garvey might take her along. He has an eye for good-lookin’ women.”

  “You can’t mean that,” Delia whispered.

  “I mean every word of it,” Sundance said. “I know Coy Garvey and how he operates. When you struck your deal with him, the first thing he saw was that you were makin’ him a present of two thousand sheep. Up here in the hills where he’d have a free hand, could make sure there was nobody left alive to know what happened, and the total cost to him a box of cartridges for each man.”

  McCaig’s face seemed to sag. “I can’t believe it,” he whispered. “I can’t believe he’d do a thing like that.”

  Before Sundance could answer, an owl hooted in the distance. Easy Dreamer, the big Navajo, stiffened. Again, closer, another owl hoot sounded.

  Easy Dreamer’s voice was thin and hard. “Well, we’ll soon have a chance to see. That’s the signal—riders coming from the north. It must be Garvey and his men.”

  “If you’re right, Sundance,” McCaig said thickly, “then what are we to do? Easy Dreamer—?” He turned. But there was no sign of the big Navajo. He seemed simply to have vanished into the night.

  McCaig blinked. “Now where is he? Sundance, what—”

  Jim Sundance smiled tightly, hawk nosed face glinting copper-colored in the light of the campfire. “Suppose you let me handle Garvey,” he said. “Delia, get in the wagon.”

  “But—”

  “Do what I said!” he snapped, smile vanished. “And McCaig, make sure your rifle’s where you can reach it. Now, let’s build this fire up as big as we can make it. When Garvey comes, we’ll need all the light we can get.” And, before he reached for the piled wood nearby, he loosened his Colt in its holster.

  Four

  The fire blazed high. Another owl hoot; then they heard it; the drumming sound of many riders coming. Sundance jerked his head and, following his example, McCaig moved out of the range of the light. But slowly the riders emerged from darkness, headed for the fire, and Sundance counted them as they came. Ten of them, and, counting Garvey, McCaig had hired only eight.

  Coy Garvey, though, as always, was in the lead. Reining down, spreading out, they came into the firelight, and Sundance had a good look at him. He had not changed much since their last run-in in Tascosa. Still a big, high-riding, handsome man in his early thirties, with a face like something chiseled out of sun baked adobe, his eyes small, black, under bushy brows. He wore a flannel shirt, shotgun chaps over Levis, a bandolier of cartridges looped across his big torso. His hair, spilling from beneath a black slouch hat, was long and tangled. There was a Colt on each hip, and his rifle was in his hand.

  The men behind him, Sundance saw, were cut from the same cloth. Some of them he knew—Ear-cutter Jack, who had killed at least thirty men and taken an ear from each victim, dried it, and strung it on a necklace he wore draped around his neck. His florid face was nearly buried in a shag of hair and beard. And there was the one they called the Weasel—tall, unbelievably slim, almost chinless, his eyes a strange red-glinting hue and as blood-thirsty as his namesake. Chico Lopez, the artist with the knife; Garth, the powder-man, who could take a can of Hercules, or this new-fangled dynamite, and open any safe anybody had ever built. Sundance’s mouth twisted. And these and others of their kind were the bunch McCaig, in his innocence, thought would stay loyal to him for a thousand dollars front money ... And ten of them where only eight were promised. Sundance knew what that meant. Fighting men threw nothing in for free. They would take the sheep, all right, and Garvey had brought the two extra to shorten the odds against the Navajos.

  Now, horse halted, Garvey called out, deep voiced: “McCaig?”

  “I’m here.” The Scotsman stepped into the firelight. “Welcome, Garvey. You’re right on time.”

  “Always am.” Garvey grinned, swung down, moving a little awkwardly with saddle-stiffness. “Satisfaction guaranteed, all the time.” He seemed relaxed, at ease. Figuring, Sundance knew, not to make a move until he had sized up the entire lay-out, lulled McCaig’s wariness, that of the Navajos. When he wanted to, Garvey could charm a coon do
wn out of a tree. Sundance’s belly tightened. Ten against one, unless—

  Garvey looked around. “You’ve got a mess of sheep. Lot of Indians, too. They keep their heads up. Passed us along with all those owl-hoots. Anyhow, we’re here and ready to start fighting tomorrow.” Then he saw the figure in the darkness beyond the fire, and the rifle tilted down and forward.

  “Who’s that?”

  Wordlessly, Jim Sundance stepped into the firelight.

  All the good humor went out of Garvey’s face. Recognition was instant. “You,” he rasped.

  “Yeah,” Sundance said. “It’s me.”

  “What the hell you doing here?”

  “I’ve been dickering with him,” McCaig said. “He might come to work for us.”

  “The hell he will.” Garvey’s face contorted, and the ugliness in his voice was undisguised. “I don’t mind workin’ with the Navvies. But this goddam renegade half-breed is another case. I’ve known him too long. Hell, do you know he’s fought with the Injuns against our own Army? They say he was at Little Big Horn—on the Injun side.”

  “They say a lot of things about me.” Sundance’s voice was even. “A lot about you, too. Garvey, I’ve got something to tell you. The deal’s off.”

  Garvey sucked in breath that made his chest swell beneath the bandolier. “The hell it is ... ”

  “You’ve got your thousand to pay you for coming. Now, turn around and ride out.”

  Never taking his eyes off Sundance, Garvey said, “McCaig. What is this? Since when does he speak for you?”

  “Since now,” Sundance said. He moved forward another pace, hand dangling loosely near the Colt.

  “Jim—” McCaig began uncertainly.

  “Shut up,” Sundance said. “Garvey, turn around and ride out, you and all your men.”

  “The hell you yell. We’ve come a long way.”

  “And with two extra men. Big-hearted Coy Garvey. Ten for the price of eight.”