A leaden sky hung low over the horizon as Eagle, the big appaloosa, came down off the bluffs and loped across the flat toward the town, following the twin fingers of steel rails that glittered dully in the murky light. Alongside the railroad, a line of telegraph poles marched into the distance, the wire above singing in the bitter wind. The same wind roiled dust along North Platte’s main street as Sundance entered it. He slowed the horse, thinking that he would do well to remember what Crook had said.
At Fort Fetterman, they had shaken hands, in a silence strange between two such old friends. Crook’s weathered face had worn a kind of sadness, as Sundance turned away, swung up into Eagle’s saddle. “Jim,” the General said.
Sundance looked at him. “Yes, Three Stars.”
“North Platte. That’s a rough town, not a good place for a man in your mood.” He hesitated, looked embarrassed. “Watch your step,” he finished softly.
Sundance nodded, smiling faintly. “I will. Goodbye, General. I enjoyed the hunt.” Then he had swung Eagle, touched him with moccasined heels. The big horse had rocketed out of the fort, and as they passed through the gate, Sundance had turned in the saddle. Crook still stood before headquarters, one hand half-lifted in farewell.
Now Crook’s warning lingered in Sundance’s mind. North Platte was a hell-town, all right, crammed with railroad men, settlers, soldiers, buffalo hunters, and Indians—Pawnees who had long since thrown in their lot with the floodtide of whites against their bitter enemies, the Sioux and Cheyennes. Attired in cast-off white man’s garb and wrapped in blankets, they lounged between buildings, out of the wind, and followed Sundance with expressionless black eyes. They knew who he was, and because he was a friend of their enemies, he was their enemy, too. He would have to watch them. He turned up the collar of his wolfskin coat against the chill, then let his right hand ride close to his holstered six-gun as he headed for the post office at the center of town.
A long, low log building, it also served as a general store. Inside, a potbellied stove glowed, as bearded buffalo hunters in from the plains and more Pawnees swathed in blankets savored its warmth. Sundance halted just inside the door, sizing up that bunch. Then his eyes came to rest on one man among them who stood out like a sore thumb. The others were the usual ragtag and bobtail of any frontier town, but everything about the lean man in black clothes and horsehide jacket howled gunman.
He, too, was in his thirties, sitting in a chair somewhat apart from the others. His face was thin, almost bony, yet there was muscle aplenty beneath the wool pants and shirt, both the color of ravens’ wings. His hair, the lock of it escaping from beneath a black sombrero, was the color of hemp rope, his eyes a pale, cold blue. Those eyes flicked over Sundance briefly, then moved away. The man rolled a cigar across a curiously red and full-lipped mouth, then sat up straight. He hitched at the thonged-down Colt he wore and threw the cigar into the sandbox around the stove. Then he took out a fresh cigar and clamped it between his teeth.
While he lit it, Sundance went to the window. He gave his name. “I’m expecting a letter from the East.”
The clerk stared at him strangely. “What was that name again?”
“Sundance! Jim Sundance!”
“Oh, yeah. Jim Sundance.” The clerk repeated it loudly, then turned away. “Yeah, you got a letter here.” He came back to the window, passed a thick envelope through. Sundance took it, slipped it in a pocket. When he left the window, the man in black had lit the cigar, was tossing his match into the stove. Sundance was aware of those pale blue eyes on him as he went out.
He left Eagle at the hitch rack with full confidence that nobody would tamper with the gear on the one-man horse and live, and went on down the sidewalk until he reached a saloon. He pushed open the door sealed against the wind, entered a musty room smelling of spilled beer and liquor, stale smoke, and unwashed bodies. There were a few men at the bar, a poker game at a table in the rear. Sundance ordered a drink, took it with him to another table, where his back could be against the wall, sat down and opened the letter from his man in Washington.
Crook had been right. Sundance’s hired lobbyist was as good as they came, a reputable man of vast influence, and over a decade, Sundance had earned with his gun and sent on to him uncounted thousands of dollars. But it was in vain, all in vain.
I wish the news were better, but the fact of the matter is that all that can be done has been done and it is not enough. General Custer’s finding gold in the Black Hills has tipped the balance. So have his letters to the newspapers describing that part of Dakota as a kind of paradise. The truth is, Custer, through his irresponsibility and his desire to build his own reputation, has fallen out of favor with the Army and the War Department. He is desperately trying to stir up an Indian War in which he can regain lost prestige.
And he has an ally. Someone has been pouring great sums of money into Congress in an attempt to procure authority for the Army to break the Indians once and for all. I have been unable to prove this person’s identity, but I have reason to believe it’s George Colfax, banker, financier, and a major force behind the Northern Pacific Railroad. Besides the matter of the railroad right of way, Colfax has personal reason to hate the Indians and want them broken, as you well know, since his daughter has deserted him and chosen to live with the Cheyennes ...
Sundance tossed off his drink, face going bleak. Colfax. He folded the letter, put it in a coat pocket. Yes, Colfax had reason enough to hate Indians ... and Sundance had given it to him. For a moment he had a quick vision of Two Roads Woman, Barbara Colfax: blond hair, blue eyes, a fine skin that not even the prairie sun could harm, a milk-white body beneath her buckskin dress, its curves ripe and full ... He felt a longing, a hunger; he had been apart from her too long.
Then a cold wind blew across him as somebody opened and closed the door. He heard the shuffle of feet, the jingle of spurs, looked up, and suddenly went tense. The men who had just come in were led by the man in black he had seen in the post office, and they were coming purposefully toward his table. Sundance’s right hand slid down, resting on his thigh close to the gun, and he shoved back the chair.
“You’re Sundance,” the man in black said, halting before him.
“That’s right.” Sundance’s gaze flickered over him and the two behind him. One was a Pawnee, gunless, but with a knife on his waist; the other was a bearded, shaggy-headed giant with great shoulders and thick arms encased in an old coat too tight for his massive frame. His nose was an oft-broken hulk, his face a square, red chunk of flint like flesh.
“I’m Shell, Austin Shell,” the black-clad man said. His voice was soft, Southern; Texas, Sundance guessed. “We been waitin’ for you.”
“Have you now?” Sundance asked softly.
Shell’s red-lipped mouth smiled faintly. “There’s a man here who wants to see you. He sent us to bring you to him.”
Sundance asked, “Who?”
“That you find out in due time. Come along.”
Sundance also smiled. “Just like that? With you three?”
“Nothing to be afraid of, you come easy. If you come easy, I said.”
“I’ll decide that,” Sundance said. “Let’s put it this way. I’m known in North Platte and I have enemies here. A wolf doesn’t let the trapper lead it by the nose into the steel, and I don’t lead easy, either; I’d rather wait and size up the bait. Tell you what, I like it here, with my back nice and covered by this wall. A man wants to see me, all he’s got to do is come.”
“No,” Shell said. “He doesn’t come to you. You go to him. Willingly, or we take you. Those are our orders. Me, I learned to follow orders in the Confederate army.” His hand dangled loosely by his gun.
“And you know what happened to the Confederate army,” Sundance said. “Tell him to come to me. I’ll see anybody wants to take the trouble.”
Shell’s eyes changed, as the big man stepped out to one side, the Pawnee to the other. “Listen—” he said; but that was when Sundance moved.
When he came up, the table came up with him—hard. It slammed into Shell with terrific force and sent him sprawling backward. In the same instant, Sundance drew, swinging toward the Pawnee. The Indian, dodging back from the table, had whipped out the knife, his arm was swung back for a throw. “No!” Shell yelled from the floor. “No, Red Bull!” But he was too late. The roar of the Colt was thunderous in the enclosed room. Its slug caught the Pawnee in the chest, picked him up and hurled him backward just as the thrown knife left his hand, went sailing wildly across the room. Sundance whirled toward the big man as Shell bellowed: “Bart! Take him!” But he was a fraction of a second too late. A huge hand clamped around his wrist, twisted with terrible strength. It was drop the gun or have a broken arm, and Sundance dropped it, but his left hand went to the hatchet.
He had no time to use it. Bart hit him on the jaw, and it was like being kicked by a shaved-tail Army mule. Lights exploded behind Sundance’s eyes as he slammed back against the wall, and the hatchet dropped. He shook his head, and his vision cleared just in time to see Bart lunging across the fallen table at him, great fist cocked for another blow.
Sundance kicked out automatically with a hard-soled moccasined foot, and he kicked low. Bart tried to dodge, was a fraction too late, let out a howl of pain. His aim ruined by the sudden agony, his fist grazed Sundance’s cheek. Then Sundance rebounded, his own left hand shot out, and he felt the flesh and cartilage of Bart’s nose crunch beneath his knuckles. Bart roared like a gut shot buffalo and fell back a little, but Sundance’s fighting style was that of a panther; he followed up, savagely, never hesitating. Bart seemed almost as big as the grizzly back on the Powder’s headwater creek, but there was a rage in Sundance that was beyond caution or counting odds. No matter that Bart was nearly six-feet six, close to two hundred fifty pounds of solid muscle. The thing was to attack, keep on attacking. Sundance’s fists chopped so fast they were blurs, left, right, left, right, the sounds of the blows sodden in the silent room. Bart never had a chance to regain balance, get his hands up to guard himself.
Sundance knew this was not a fight he could win with his fists; Bart was too much man. The hard bone under the hard flesh, the way Bart took the shock told him immediately that he could break his hands to jelly without bringing Bart down. And sooner or later Bart would get clear, land one more blow, and that would be the end of it. The time to finish this was now, while he had a chance. He hit Bart hard in the left eye with his right hand, and his other hand swooped down again for the hatchet and got it this time.
But that clock tick gave Bart time to recover. He got his hands up, poised, lunged in. Sundance gripped the hatchet handle, swung the weapon wide. As Bart came for him, he brought it home, blunt side forward. The flat steel slammed against Bart’s skull with a shock that jarred Sundance all through his body, and not even Bart’s massive head could absorb that blow just above the ear. Bart halted in mid-stride; his hands dropped and his eyes rolled back in his head. Then he sighed strangely and fell with an impact that shook the room. Sundance turned smoothly and without hesitation, the hatchet ready now to throw, and faced Austin Shell.
Shell had scrambled to his feet, stood there with hand close to his Colt. “Freeze!” Sundance rasped.
“You try to draw, I’ll sink this thing between your eyes.”
Shell’s blue eye’s glittered. Then he straightened up, letting out a long breath, and his hand lifted, empty. “No,” he said. “No, I won’t draw. Not this time.”
Sundance smiled faintly, though his jaw ached from Bart’s single hammer blow and his fists felt as if he’d been battering a stone wall. He stopped, retrieved his fallen Colt, never taking his eyes off of Shell. “Nor any other, if you’re smart,” he said.
“Oh, I can take you,” Shell said. “I’m sure of that. But I’m not gettin’ paid to kill you. That’s why I hollered at the Injun. Only next time it won’t be a matter of pay, maybe. Maybe it’ll be just for personal pleasure.”
“That’s up to you,” Sundance said. He eared back the six-gun hammer, shoved the hatchet in its sheath. “Right now, you get this carrion out of here. The Pawnee’s finished. That big hunk of gristle ought to live, but his head’ll ring a few days. You get ’em outa here and then you go see whoever sent you. You tell him what I said before. He wants to see me, he can come to me. I’ll be right here, with my back against the wall.”
Shell was silent for a moment. Then he nodded slowly. “I’ll do that,” he said. “You wait here. I reckon he’ll be along directly. I’ll tell him, anyhow. But don’t forget, Sundance. I aim to take you one of these days.” He backed toward the door, face pale, but with anger, for there was no fear in his bearing.
Sundance smiled coolly. “Your privilege,” he said. And he kept the gun on Shell until the man went out.
After that, he took a table in a different part of the room, though still with his back to the wall. He switched tables because he knew Shell had that seat spotted, and Shell was a professional killer of a breed that would not hesitate to put a rifle barrel up against the wall there and pull the trigger and hope the slug would penetrate the boards and still have power left to kill. He laid the six-gun before him on the table and kept one hand on it, and ordered another drink.
There was law in North Platte, but not of a quality to make an issue of the killing of a Pawnee nor a fist-fight in a saloon. It never appeared, not even when the manager of the place, looking at Sundance warily, had the Indian’s corpse dragged out, and then the inert body of the man called Bart. The place settled back to a semblance of normality, although Sundance was the object of curious, frightened eyes, and his table was given a wide berth. He had the second drink and no more, but sat there for better than an hour, watching the door as intently as a panther waiting for a deer.
It was late afternoon when Shell came back.
Sundance sat up straight, hand clamping on the gun.
He eased as Shell raised his hand in a gesture of peace. Shell walked forward, and another man came into the bar behind him. Sundance looked at him, and even though it had been a long time since he had seen him, he muttered a curse of instant recognition under his breath and almost forgot Shell entirely in the shock of surprise.
“Colfax!” he said.
The man, beefy, red-faced, was pushing sixty, but his thick form still radiated authority as he stood there just inside the door, clad in a beaver skin greatcoat over a dark suit. He stared at Sundance a moment, face set and grim, and then strode forward on short, thick legs, Shell keeping pace at his side. He halted before Sundance’s table. “Sundance,” he said harshly.
Sundance did not stand up or put out his hand.
“So you’re the one. Maybe I should have guessed, the way you sent those three after me—”
“Not to kill you, not even to hurt you. I wanted to see you.”
Sundance’s mouth quirked. “You got a funny way of sending out invitations.”
“I thought I had to. I didn’t think you’d talk to me otherwise.”
“If you’d asked first, it would have saved that Pawnee’s life and saved that thing called Bart one hell of a headache. All right, Colfax, sit down. But call off your hired gun, you hear? He goes outside. I don’t talk to anybody when I have to keep watching somebody else’s holster.”
Colfax hesitated. “I usually keep a bodyguard.”
“I’ll be your bodyguard. You’ve got nothing to fear from me. If anybody else is on your tail, I’ll see to you.”
Slowly, George Colfax nodded. “Very well. Shell, you heard him. Outside.”
Shell’s eyes narrowed. “I don’t like being chased out like a damn’ dog that’s messed the floor.”
“I said out!” Colfax rapped.
Shell looked at Sundance, and his blue eyes were lambent. He licked his red lips. “Okay. But ... unfinished business. Remember that, Sundance. We’ve got some.”
“It comes later,” Sundance said.
Shell turned away. As Colfax sat down, Sundance watched the gunman until he had disappeared through the front door. When it had closed behind him, Sundance turned to the businessman. Colfax’s hair was almost white, and his red face, Sundance saw, was crisscrossed with tiny blue veins: too much soft living and heavy drinking. Colfax signaled to the bar, and when the waiter came said, “I want bourbon. The best in the house. Bring the bottle.” As the man went off, Colfax leaned forward across the table. “All right,” he said. “Now we can talk.”
“How did you know I was in North Platte?” Sundance asked.
“You’d be surprised how much I know about you,” Colfax said, with a sour smile. “After all, you stole my daughter from me.”
“I didn’t steal her. She didn’t want to live with you.”
Colfax started to snap something, then thought better of it. He leaned back in his chair, looking a little weary. In a quieter voice, he said, “A long time ago, I hired you for a job. To rescue Barbara from the Cheyennes and get back a hundred thousand in gold that had been stolen from me. And I paid you a hell of a lot of money to do it.”
“And got what you paid for. I brought Barbara back to you, and you got the money back. Not my fault if Barbara didn’t want to go back to New York with you and that new, young stepmother of hers you married.”
“Irene. Yes. Well, she’s gone. We were divorced three years ago. She got what she was after, a big settlement. And, now—” Colfax hesitated. His voice was almost plaintive when he said, “Now, I’m alone. Barbara was my only child. And she ran away with you, back to the Indians, and ... and I have no one left. No one.”
For a moment, Sundance almost felt compassion for the man. Then he remembered that Colfax had brought himself to this pass. His daughter had left him because, devoted only to making money, he had never really been a father to her. In New York, she had been a virtual prisoner, given everything Colfax’s fortune could buy except the right to be a person. In the Cheyenne camp, closely knit as one big family, she had found the warmth and freedom and self-fulfillment that she had longed for. But there was no way to explain anything like that to Colfax. So all Sundance said was, “I’m sorry.”
The waiter brought the bourbon and two glasses. Colfax poured both full, passed one to Sundance. It had been a long time since his last drink and he accepted it, sipped it. Colfax tossed off his own, poured another, drank that, too, and poured a third. Then he sighed.
“Well,” he said, “I don’t like being alone. I found out from your man in Washington that you were due to pick up mail sooner or later here at North Platte. I immediately had my private car attached to the next train, and when I got here hired Shell and his friends to keep on the lookout for you, bring you to me when you came. Sundance,” he said, his voice quivering slightly, “I haven’t seen my daughter in years. I haven’t heard from her in months.”
“She wrote you last time we were in a city. She hasn’t exactly been close to a mailbox since.”
“I know ... But, now ... I’m getting older. And ... I want to see her again. Sundance. And that’s why I had to get in touch with you.” Colfax tossed off his third drink. “Sundance, what’s your price to bring her to me?”