“And you mean Strawn actually stopped them from doing that awful thing to you?” There was both horror and incredulity in Delia Gannt’s voice.
Sundance looked at her over the rim of the coffee cup and across the fire. He had been without sleep a long time, now, and his fatigue was almost complete. It had taken him a full day and on into the night to reach the sheep camp in the hidden canyon. Now, having eaten ravenously, he gulped the coffee and felt a certain measure of vigor returning. “He didn’t do it because he’s tenderhearted,” he said harshly. “He did it because he’s losin’ his nerve.”
“Now that I don’t understand,” Andrew McCaig said.
“Because you’re not a professional,” Sundance said. “Especially not one like Strawn.” He searched for the words to clarify his meaning. “The old story about the pitcher that goes to the well too often. Strawn’s been there too often, and he feels the odds turnin’ on him, against him. His nerve’s breakin’ and he wanted some way to reassure himself. Takin’ me out in a straight-up gunfight would have done that for him. It would mean he was still top dog with a gun. That was important to him. It still is. I’ll put it another way, maybe you can understand it, Delia. Maybe a woman is a real beauty and men flock around her. But she starts to get some age on her and the younger competition comes along, and the men don’t flock so much anymore. But if she can take the best, most handsome man around, competition or no, then she don’t feel like she’s gettin’ old after all.”
Delia shook her head. “You gunfighters. You’re a strange breed.”
“If we weren’t all a little crazy, we wouldn’t be what we are,” Sundance said.
“But you don’t intend to show Strawn any mercy,” McCaig said.
“No. I aim to kill him. I aim to kill Barkalow, too. The only difference is, I care about how I kill Strawn.”
Delia shivered, not entirely because of the cold mountain air. “But then it was all wasted. Your trip into the Basin. You didn’t really learn anything—”
“I learned a lot,” Sundance said. “All I need to know.”
“Ye mean ye see a chance?” McCaig brightened.
“I see a chance,” said Sundance. “But I’m too tired to talk about it tonight. I’ve got to get some sleep. But first I want to speak to Easy Dreamer—alone.”
“I am here,” a voice said from beyond the firelight.
Sundance got to his feet, staggering with weariness. In the darkness, he spoke softly to Easy Dreamer and the big Navajo nodded. “As you say.”
“Thank you,” Sundance said. “Now I sleep.” And he spread his blankets near the fire, fell into them, head pillowed on his saddle, and almost instantly was totally unconscious.
He was like a wild animal; it did not take much rest to restore him. When daybreak woke him, he was refreshed, fully alert. After breakfast, he saddled Eagle. “I’m riding up creek for a swim,” he told Delia. And added softly: “Alone.”
Her face reddened. “All right,” she murmured. “If that’s the way you want it.”
“This time,” he said quietly and put the stallion into motion.
When he reached the pond, he slipped the stud’s bridle to let it graze, stripped himself completely, his weapons left on the bank with his clothes, and eased into the water, swimming a few powerful strokes, then anchoring one arm to the rock as before and floating, eyes closed, seemingly completely unwary, easing his bruised and aching body in the icy current. Once or twice, though, he shifted position slightly, gaze ranging the thick grove of pines on the left bank of the stream and the boulders piled there.
Then it happened: the muffled cry from the pines, the sound of a struggle. Naked, Sundance struck out for the left bank, moved sleekly as an otter through the rocks. In the shelter there, he called out: “Easy Dreamer?”
The Navajo’s voice was harsh, bitter, as it answered: “As you guessed. I have him.”
Sundance stood up, dripping water, moved on into the pines. “Over here,” the Navajo summoned him, and he turned, then halted.
McCaig’s face was pale, his hands high, as he stood there with Easy Dreamer’s Winchester trained squarely on his heart. His gray hair seemed to bristle, his eyes flashed. “What’s goin’ on here?” he snapped. “What in Old Scratch’s name do ye think the two of ye are about?”
Sundance squatted, stripped the Colt from the holster on the gunbelt Easy Dreamer had made the Scotsman drop. Then he picked up the tautly strung Navajo bow and the three finely made arrows with blunt flint heads—designed not to kill, only to stun. He looked at Easy Dreamer. “Well?”
The Navajo’s voice was flat, but there was emotion in his eyes. “It was as you said. Last night, while you slept, I watched. Once, in the middle of the night, McCaig arose, came to you, stood over you, his hand on his knife. I thought he would do it then, but he had better judgment. Instead, he turned away, went back to his blankets. But this morning, when you left to come here to swim, he mounted and rode, following you—and he had his bow and these stunning arrows with which we take small game alive. He can use a bow, of course, as well as any of us. You stripped, got in the pool. I watched him stalk you, draw an arrow pointed at your head while you floated. Just in time, then, I showed myself and pulled the Winchester on him.” Easy Dreamer spat, shook his head. “And we trusted him. That is a hard thing now to believe. I still do not understand.”
Sundance sucked in breath. “The first thing to understand is that he was going to slam me in the head with that arrow, knock me out. Then, of course, I’d have drowned in the river, with nothing to show what happened but a bruise on my head, as if it had hit a rock. Since he couldn’t get rid of me in the Basin—or rather since Strawn and Barkalow didn’t do it for him—he had to try it himself.”
“Mon,” McCaig rasped, “ye’re talking foolishness.”
“This ain’t foolishness,” Sundance said, brandishing the arrows. “You’ve been playing a double game all along, McCaig.” He shook his head. “I’ve heard of lawmen turnin’ rogue. You’re the first preacher I’ve run across that did, but I guess there are bad apples in every barrel. Easy Dreamer, watch him ’til I get dressed and mounted. Then we’ll take him back to camp and I think he’ll tell us all about it there.”
McCaig’s jaw snapped shut. “I’ll tell ye nothin’!” he muttered. “This is wild outlaw craziness!”
Sundance’s eyes met his, and McCaig’s face paled. “I think you’ll talk,” the half-breed said quietly. “Either Easy Dreamer or I can see to that.” Then he turned, plunged into the pool, swam across and donned his clothes, buckled on his weapons. He splashed Eagle across the creek. By then, Easy Dreamer was mounted and McCaig was on the big gray horse. Sundance pulled his own Colt and lined it. “All right,” he said. “Let’s ride in.”
~*~
“I don’t believe it,” Delia Gannt whispered. “It makes no sense. It makes no sense at all.”
The Indians had left the dogs to guard the flocks, and except for a few lookouts against Strawn and Barkalow had all come in. They stood in a silent, poker-faced circle around the unarmed McCaig, as Sundance, Easy Dreamer, and the girl confronted them.
“It makes a lot of sense,” Sundance said. “A fortune in sheep and grazing rights. Enough to turn a good man crooked.”
“But Andrew, of all people—”
“Especially him.” Sundance’s voice changed like iron on iron. “McCaig, you speak the truth now. I’d rather you do it on your own, but I’ll work you over if that’s what it takes.” He drew the Bowie, stroking its razor edge with his thumb. “And I’m half Cheyenne; you know I know how to do it.”
McCaig stared at the knife a moment. Then his shoulders slumped and a strange thing happened to his face: all the hardness went out of it, and suddenly it was only a shapeless mass of gray. “All right. I don’t know how you guessed, but—”
“I was suspicious from the first. You had it all locked up. Two thousand head of sheep in your name from the Navajos for maybe a penny a head. Grazing rights to all of Bloody Moon Basin for a song—provided you could take it back from Barkalow and Strawn. Once that was done, you could spit in all their eyes, the Navajos and Delia’s too. Legally everything would have been yours.”
“Yes,” McCaig said wearily. “Aye, that’s it.”
“Only you knew that when the Navajos found you’d cheated them, they’d have killed you. So you hired Garvey to come in and kill them first and help you take the Basin. Only you didn’t know anything about dealing with men like Garvey. It was a bad choice and you saw that right away and so you fought him alongside of us to save your own hide.”
McCaig nodded.
“But then Delia brought me into the game and you saw yourself losing control. You were afraid I’d make it work the way it was supposed to, afraid of what I’d do if you double-crossed her and the Indians. So ... while I was in Prescott, you made a deal with Barkalow and Strawn. Right?”
“Aye.” McCaig rubbed his face. “I managed to get away while the Navajos pushed the sheep down into this canyon. I met Strawn and Barkalow at the edge of the rim, and we came to an agreement. Once you were out of the way, I’d sign over the grazing rights lease I had from Delia to Barkalow. There were signs his fake titles wouldn’t stand up in court, and the agreement would be double protection for him. The agreement’s drawn so it’s thoroughly negotiable and transferable. He was going to pay me five thousand dollars for it. Then I was to bring the sheep down into the Basin as if we were gonna fight to take it over. Only I’d have everything set up so that Strawn and his men would wipe out the Navajos. After which I’d do just what Garvey planned to do. Push the sheep on into Mexico and sell ’em there. That way, Barkalow didn’t have to worry about having the sheep move in on him, he had double protection in his right to graze the Basin, and I finally made some money. Finally. After all these years of work and sacrifice for the Navajo ... it was more than I could take. I’d poured every nickel I’d ever made into their cause ... and got nowhere. And suddenly I realized that I was no longer young, that old age was on my heels like a wolf. And what happens to a man with no family and no money when he gets old and feeble? He’s left to die like a dog, starve in the gutter. Even the Indians—” He raised his head, looked at the circle of red faces staring at him. “They claim to love me, trust me. And yet there’s a part of their lives I never could get into, was shut out of because of the color of my skin. After I had worked and slaved for them. And the bitterness grew in me and I thought it was time I got something back from them ...”
Easy Dreamer stared. “As you grew old, you would always have been welcome in my hogan.”
“And maybe I didn’t want to spend my old age in a Navajo hogan with its fleas and lice, out in the burning desert.” McCaig’s voice faltered. “When a man gets old, he dreams of where he came from, and it’s there he wants to go to die. This deal would have given me enough to get back to Scotland, the highlands that I love and never should have left ... Ah, God. Never mind.” He raised his head. “I suppose you’ve figured it out about the mirror,” he said to Sundance.
“That was the final tip-off. Nobody but you and me and Easy Dreamer knew which trail I was gonna use down and back up the rim. When Strawn was waitin’ for me with an ambush set up perfect, I knew somebody had sold me out, and a mirror, heliograph, Morse code, was the only way. You flashed a message down into the valley. It had to have been you. Nobody else could have done it.”
Sundance paused. “So when it didn’t work, they didn’t get rid of me for you, you knew you had to do it yourself. I asked Easy Dreamer to stand guard last night while I slept, and he says you almost did it then. But that would have been too open, you wanted to make it look like an accident. So he and I gave you another chance when I took that swim this morning. That blunt arrow would have knocked me out, I’d have drowned, it would have looked like an accident. Only Easy Dreamer was on your trail the whole time. He knew, too, that it had to be you who signaled Strawn, saw that right away.”
“Oh, Jim,” Delia whispered. “This is so hard to believe. Andrew. How could you? And what about me?”
“You were to be turned over to Barkalow and Strawn,” McCaig said dully. “Then it was their affair.”
“They’d have killed you, likely,” Sundance said. “That would have ended the challenge to their claim on the Basin all around.”
Tears ran down Delia’s cheeks as she turned away.
Sundance stood silently as Easy Dreamer explained all that had been said to the other Navajos. McCaig sat wearily, a wrecked, ruined man, by the ashes of the campfire, shoulders slumped. When they had absorbed it, there were angry mutterings among themselves.
Delia turned. “What do they want to do with him?”
“A lot of things,” Sundance said. “None of them pretty.”
“I won’t let them. Not even after all this. He was a good man once. He tackled an impossible job and frustration drove him crazy.”
Sundance nodded. “That’s as good a way of putting it as any. All right, McCaig. I’m with her. You get out of this with a whole skin as long as you cooperate.”
“Cooperate?” A faint flush of hope added color to the Scot’s face.
“First, you transfer your title to all the sheep to Delia. Then you give her back that grazing lease. From now on, she’ll act for the Navajos the way you were supposed to. You’ll turn over to her all the work permits and releases for them to be off the reservation, too. After that, you mount that gray horse of yours and where you go is of no concern to any of us. Except that if you mix in this again or ever let me or any Navajo catch sight of you, you’re a dead man. And not dead the easy way.” The knife spun in the air, and he caught it by the haft. “Sabe?”
“I understand,” McCaig said, arising shakily. He stared at the ground. “As it is, you’re giving me better than I deserve.”
It was quickly done. McCaig produced all the documents, rolled his bed, mounted the big gray horse and disappeared into the timber. Delia watched him go, and there was a catch in her voice as she said, “I can’t help it. I feel so sorry for him. In his time, he has worked hard for the Navajos, and he has done a lot of good.”
“Why do you think they let him live?” Sundance asked. “Or I did, after he tried to kill me?”
After a moment’s silence, Easy Dreamer said, “But now where do we stand? What about our sheep? What about the Basin?”
Sundance squatted, picked up a stick. “All’s going to be the way it was before. We’re going to take back the Basin.”
“We?” Easy Dreamer’s eyes glittered.
“You. You, me, your people. You said your knife was thirsty. Well, it will have its chance to drink. But I must warn you now. Men will die, and not all will be white.”
“On the reservation, red men die every day. And their women and their children. What’s your plan?”
Sundance sketched a map of the Basin in the dust with the stick. “You see here the river, and the bluffs. The bluffs can be defended. They are like a fort, and they divide the Basin in half. You and I and twelve good men will go into the Basin in the darkness. We’ll form a screen around the foot of this one trail where the sheep can be brought down. What men are left and the dogs must bring down the sheep. At night.”
Easy Dreamer’s eyes widened. “A tall order for so few men. I mean bringing down so many sheep and all in darkness. But, yes, we can do it. And once we have the sheep in the Basin, then what?”
Sundance grinned. “Then we’ll really have to fight. We’ll turn the sheep loose to shift for themselves, let the dogs watch them. Every man of us will occupy those bluffs like white men in a fort.”
“And?”
“And they’ll come,” Sundance said. “If we can get the sheep into the Basin and Barkalow wakes up next morning to find them there, he won’t waste any time. He and Strawn and all their men. But we’ll have the high ground and we’ll hurt them. And they’ll come again, and we’ll hurt them some more. And they’ll come again until either one side or the other is too weak to fight any more. We’ve got to make damned sure it’s not our side. Then, once they’re weak enough, we go on the offensive. We cross the river and chase them out of the rest of the Basin. And—” he drew in breath “—then it’s Delia Gannt’s again and your sheep graze there and you have the profit of them.”
“And Barkalow and Strawn?”
Sundance’s eyes were cold. “They both owe me a debt. I’ll collect it.”
Easy Dreamer was silent for a moment, then clapped Sundance on the shoulder. “It’s a good plan. We’ll make it work!”
“And what about me?” Delia Gannt asked.
“You stay up here on the rim, where it’s safe.”
“I’ll be damned if I will!” she flared. “I can use a gun and you’ll need every gun you can get. It’s Barkalow and Straw who owe me—for my husband’s death. Besides ...” Her breasts swelled beneath her blouse. “Remember, the town’s still named Ganntsville. There are people there who came there because Tom brought them in, and they remember and respect him. And hate Barkalow for the heavy hand he’s laid on them. I know them and you don’t. When they hear I’ve come back—and if you can kill Strawn, who’s terrified them—there are plenty of them who’ll rise against Barkalow and take my side. Anyhow, it’s my land and I’ll fight for it and die for it if it comes to that, like Tom did.”
Sundance looked down at her and she eyed him back defiantly. He grinned. “You’re a lot of woman.”
“You’ve got no idea yet how much!”
“Well, we’ll see. Maybe—” He broke off.
It came from far away, drifting through the pines, echoing in the hills, the sound of a single gunshot. Sundance stiffened. “Easy Dreamer. Take three men, go scout that.”
“Yes.” Already the Indian was running for his horse, calling to others even as he mounted. Sundance waited for another shot, but there was none.
Delia said, aghast: “My God. Do you think—?”
Sundance said, “We can only wait and see.”
They didn’t have long to wait. Within a half hour, Easy Dreamer and his men returned, leading the gray horse. Slung across its saddle head down was the body of Andrew McCaig.
Easy Dreamer’s face was grave. “He did not ride far. Then he shot himself. One bullet through the head.”
“Oh, the poor man,” Delia breathed, and tears streamed down her cheeks.
“In our own way, we grieve, too,” said Easy Dreamer.
Sundance said, “I reckon there’s a Bible in his things. We’ll give him a Christian burial.” He paused, looking at the slung corpse, then turned away. “Maybe it was the only way he could go back to Scotland,” he said.