The cell into which Sundance was thrown was less than seven feet square, without windows, perpetually dark. Neither was it heated, and when he awakened with splitting skull, he was near freezing. As consciousness returned, he groped in blackness, found a pile of buffalo robes in one corner, a stinking slop bucket nearby. These were the only furnishings, Sundance crawled into the robes, which seethed with lice, for warmth.
He was, he knew, in “The Hole,” the place reserved in every Army guardhouse for incorrigibles in solitary confinement. Likely he would stay here until Custer would have him taken out, charged with Austin Shell’s murder, tried by a drumhead court, and executed. Custer could do it; he had the power here at Fort Lincoln. Even if he couldn’t legally, he would do it anyway. He was accustomed to do as he pleased, without regard for consequences.
Well, Sundance thought grimly, when the time came, he would not go quietly. His hatred for Custer and for Colfax was like a flame within him, warming him despite the bitter cold. When he was taken out of here, Custer had better have him in the heaviest shackles his blacksmiths could devise—and even then, somehow, in some way, he would have his vengeance on the Colonel.
The first day passed. At nightfall, a guard shoved in a pan of bread and tainted beef and a can of water, passing them through a wicket in the solid, steel-strapped oaken door. The next morning, another meal was shoved through in like fashion. Meanwhile, Sundance had gone over every inch of the cell and had found it as close to escape-proof as such a structure could be. The logs of the walls were keyed, tongue in groove, the dirt floor hard-packed and frozen hard as concrete. There was no way out; he would have to wait until they led him out for trial for the chance to make a break.
Another day passed, and he tried to estimate how long that would be. Surely within a week—
Well, he would be ready. Despite the cold, he exercised endlessly, keeping his muscles toned. When the time came, he would need every ounce of strength, every bit of coordination at his command. Besides, it helped to keep from freezing.
He was in the place ten days before realization dawned on him. Maybe they would take him out and try him, but not soon. No. Custer would break him first. Or try to.
The fury in Sundance grew. Of course. Custer did not dare bring him out to public trial yet, not with enemies of Custer like Benteen on hand to hear and relay any accusations Sundance might make. So the General would leave him here—for how long? Weeks? Months? An involuntary shiver went down Sundance’s spine. Already, after only a few days, he felt himself becoming curiously dislocated mentally. The cold, the hunger, the silence and solitude, the utter idleness ... . For an active outdoor man to be sealed up like this was shattering. And that was what Custer depended on, that a month, two months, three in here would reduce Sundance to a gibbering, babbling blank-minded idiot, unable even to speak coherently. For a moment, Sundance almost went into panic. But with iron self-control, he got hold of himself.
No, he swore grimly. He would not give Custer or Colfax that satisfaction. Somehow he would survive, endure, and when the time came that he had a chance, he’d take it.
But that vow was easier to make than carry out. In the bitter wind, huddled under the lousy buffalo robes to keep from freezing, with nothing to do but think; by the end of the third week, there were moments of hallucination. Times when he thought he heard voices: His mother’s, father’s, and those of others long dead. Once, he was sure Barbara was in the cell with him; another time, it seemed as if Tail Calf sat on one side of him smoking, his old friend Sitting Bull of the Hunkpapa on the other. It took a massive effort of will to bring himself back to sanity, make those illusory figures vanish.
But the hatred saved him. It gave shape and purpose to his days. It kept him exercising; it forced him to devise practical ways to exercise his mind and hands, find things to concentrate on. He counted every log in every wall each day; he rearranged the robes carefully every hour. He went carefully, methodically, through every Indian ritual that he knew, every chant and prayer; and he rehashed in his mind, too, every book he had ever read, trying to remember passages verbatim, forcing himself to recall plot and character. He was careful to think almost not at all of Barbara, not to remember her or any other woman; such memories were maddening for a man locked up alone. He plucked wool off the robes, plaited it into tiny strings, then, of the strings, wove little patches of woolen cloth.
And days passed, time crawled by on leaden feet. Each morning, each evening, the pans of food and water were shoved through; twice a week, the door opened enough to allow him to pass the slop bucket through, under the muzzles of many guns. No one spoke at such times; in order not to lose the power of coherent speech, he talked aloud to himself for long stretches at a time.
And he kept a calendar. Each day, he rolled up a little ball of wool from the buffalo robes and put it in a corner, just after his breakfast was delivered. Thus, he kept track of time; and he had one hundred twenty of those little balls neatly piled up before his chance finally came.
He made the chance himself when he understood at last that he might be here six months, a year. He’d had the plan for a long time, but only now was it feasible, logical, to put it in operation. In preparation for its execution, he exercised with particular diligence for three days, four, to limber up his muscles. It was a long risk, the odds against him were nearly hopeless; it was a last resort. But the time had come for last resorts.
That night, when his food was passed to him, he ate only half of it, though his body, constantly ravenous, clamored for the rest. It took all his willpower to stay away from the plate until morning.
The wicket opened; according to the usual pattern, another pan of food and water was slid in. Sundance shoved the last one, with its half-eaten meal, out.
He ate a third of breakfast. The rest, throughout all that endless day, he managed to ignore. When nightfall came, he traded it for supper.
Now he was truly starving. But he did not touch the supper tray at all. He left it close to the wicket, where it could be seen when breakfast was pushed through.
Breakfast came. Sundance did not move from beneath his robes to receive it. His head roared and he was dizzy with hunger, but he held his breath and listened as the pan was scraped across the floor.
Then he heard a mutter of surprise. “Hell, he ain’t ate what we gave him last night. You reckon I better take a look?”
Another voice said, “You stay out of there. He’s just sullen like a penned-up animal. He’ll eat when he gits hungry enough.”
The wicket closed. Sundance did not move.
That day, he did not talk to himself aloud or go near the food. It stayed where it had been put, where the guard could see it when supper was thrust in.
Tomorrow, Sundance thought desperately. Tomorrow morning. They’ve got to— If they don’t, I’ll be too weak ...
The night was agony. His stomach growled with starvation, and the knowledge that food was in reach only sharpened the pangs. All he had to do was reach out, take it.
He did not. Instead, he slept fitfully, managing though to wake himself well before breakfast. He lay quietly in the robes, waiting, flexing arms and legs, fists and feet. Then he heard the clatter of the wicket, the little door at floor line in the larger one, opening, and one food pan colliding with the other.
“Hell,” a voice said. “He ain’t touched that one, either. Four meals now, he ain’t et, and not a sound outa him for twenty-four hours. Wilson, what you figger’s wrong?”
“I don’t know and I don’t care. You know our orders, Fowler. Nobody goes in there with him.”
“Well, suppose he’s sick, dead? What we do, jest let him lay there and rot?”
There was a pause. Then Wilson said, “Listen. The General hisself gave those orders, said that man was to stay shut up there until he got back from furlough in the East to try him. All right, that wasn’t supposed to be but two months. Now he’s been gone three, they say he may stay longer. All the same, those orders ain’t been changed.”
“Major Reno might change ’em, now he’s in command.”
“Reno won’t do nothin’ to go against Custer, not with Tom Custer still here to report to his brother. The thing about it is, Fowler, we’re caught in the middle. If we disobey the General, we git our arses in a sling—”
“And suppose he’s dead in there? We’re liable to git our arses in a sling anyhow. You know damn’ good and well if Captain Benteen ever found out—”
“Benteen ain’t here, and he ain’t gonna find out. Why do you think Custer sent him off on detached duty ’til spring? Listen, Fowler, the General’s got an awful mad on against this bird. If he was to come back from the East and find out he’d got loose somehow—”
“If he comes back and finds we let ’im die, so he can’t have his fun with him, we’re in worse trouble than anything.”
Another silence. Then Wilson said, “Maybe you’re right. It won’t do no harm to look. Lemme light a lantern. Then you keep me covered.”
Sundance held his breath. With both hands, he gathered slack of the buffalo robe that covered him. Then, with only his head visible, he lay back, half closed his eyes, peeled his lips back so that his teeth showed. It was a passable imitation, he hoped, of a man dead or near to death. He lay rigidly as a key turned in the lock. It took all his self-control to keep from crying out with joy at the first light he had seen in four months.
The one called Wilson entered, holding a lantern high in his left hand, a Colt in his right. Just inside the door, he halted. “Jesus,” he said, “looks like he’s in bad shape, all right. Keep me covered, Fowler. Lord, this place stinks.” He made a retching sound.
Still, Sundance did not move a muscle. He was aware of Wilson coming near him, standing over him, the gun pointed down at him. Wilson, he saw, was a lanky sergeant, with close-set, pale blue eyes, a lantern jaw, and a cruel slash of mouth.
“Awright,” Wilson rasped. “You fakin’ or not?” Then, without warning, he kicked the pile of robes hard with his big booted foot.
Somehow, Sundance managed not to gasp or stir. “Hell,” Wilson rasped, “I think he is croaked. Lemme see.” He set down the lantern, squatted by it, cautiously reached out to peel away the top robe of the bedding.
Sundance acted then. He came up out of the bed with all the wiry strength remaining in him, and when he came, the robe came, too, flopping through the air. It fell across the lantern and blotted out its light and half-entangled Wilson, as Sundance hit the man like a panther, seized his Colt. Wilson let out a squawk. “Fowler, shoot—!”
“Can’t! Can’t see!” Then the other man was in the room as Sundance and Wilson wrestled on the floor, tangled in the bedding. As Sundance had hoped, Fowler had to hold his fire, unable to tell friend from foe in the sudden dark.
That gave Sundance the crucial pair of seconds he needed. He got his hand entangled in Wilson’s hair. He jerked the man’s head up, slammed it down again against the frozen earth. Wilson’s body went slack, as Wilson sighed. Sundance snatched the Colt from his hand, in the same motion, rolled. At that instant, Fowler pulled the trigger. The bullet, going wild, chunked into the log wall and Sundance came up and lined the revolver on the muzzle flash and fired.
Fowler screamed; there was the thud of a body hitting earth.
Panting, Sundance was on his feet. Uncovering the lantern for an instant, he slammed the door. Fowler lay sprawled, either unconscious or dead, the front of his blouse covered with scarlet. Sundance turned back to Wilson. Recovering consciousness, the man tried to rise. Sundance slugged him with the pistol barrel, and he fell back.
Then Sundance stripped him. It took an endless two minutes to discard his own clothes, get into the sergeant’s. Fortunately, the boots were big, too big, and slid on easily. But that was one of the longest intervals of his life. For all he knew, there might be other guards not a dozen feet away, and surely the sound of gunshots would bring them.
But then he was fully dressed and nothing had happened, no alarm been given. He snatched up Fowler’s carbine, tucked it under his arm. Then he edged to the door, swung it open, peered out.
The doorway led into a tiny room that was a duplicate of his cell, log walled and windowless, save that it contained a chair and charcoal heater. In its front wall, only a pace away, there was yet another door. Sundance tried it, but it was locked. He whirled back to the cell and found Fowler’s key ring. When a key had turned in the lock, Sundance cracked the door, then drew back, blinking at the unaccustomed glare of daylight on snow. But his mouth curled in a tight grin, exactly like a wolf’s snarl.
He shut the door and locked it. Now he knew why the gunfire had caused no alarm. Custer might have converted this place into a prison, but it had originally been an ammunition storage bunker, hundreds of yards from the main post and covered with earth.
Soundproof and isolated, it must have seemed an ideal dungeon for a prisoner to whom Custer wanted to give special treatment, one he wanted to keep clear of the guard details and officers who manned the regular guardhouse. Out of sight, out of mind; stick Sundance away in a hole like this and nobody would interfere in anything that was done to him.
Sundance chuckled, but it was not a pleasant sound. He went back to the cell, ate ravenously of the rations, but not enough to make himself sick. He found a knife on Fowler’s body and used it to cut his long, filthy matted hair short. He stuck the knife in his boot, robbed Fowler and Wilson of spare ammunition and an extra Colt, which went in his waistband. Then, feeling strength and confidence coming back, he shrugged into an overcoat either Fowler or Wilson had shucked in the tiny front room by the brazier. He turned up its collar, clamped Fowler’s hat down on his head, pulling its brim over his eyes. With Fowler’s carbine in hand, he left the bunker, turning to lock the door behind him.
Never had fresh air tasted so good. Jim Sundance drew in great draughts of it, tangy with a hint of spring, as he stood before the bunker, getting his bearings.
A quarter of a mile away, the buildings of the main post were dark blots on fresh snow, threads of smoke curling from their chimneys. The parade ground was deserted; only a few blue figures moved from one building to the other, leisurely. The activity of an Army post at this time of year was at rock bottom; only Crook, of all the generals, mounted winter campaigns or made his troops exert themselves in bad weather. Most men, Sundance guessed now, would be eating breakfast or else be at stables. At any rate, nothing lay between him and the main post, or for that matter, the gate of the stockade around the fort, where guards stood huddled against the wind.
Sundance grinned that wolf’s snarl again. With the rifle under his arm, he slogged across the open ground toward the main post. He did not hurry, only ambled, not at all concerned about being recognized. He knew what he wanted, what he intended to do. That was to get a horse. And God help anybody who tried to stop him.
Nobody did. Even as he walked, the wind freshened, sharpened. He struck fresh-shoveled paths and followed them, and twice he passed officers, who returned his salutes without even looking at him, reluctant to raise their faces to the wind and keeping their heads down.
He reached the corrals and stables. Here there were more soldiers going about their business, cursing the wind now which was raising swirls of snow from the earth and throwing it like dry sand against exposed flesh. He watched a pair of them fork hay into a big corral containing twenty, thirty extra mounts. Then he stiffened. Among all the bays and sorrels, he caught a glimpse of spotted roan. He dodged behind a building, waited.
Pitchforks in hand, the two soldiers left the haystack, retreated to the warmth of the stables where, as the wind increased, the others joined them. A big sergeant slogged across the area, yelling something, disappeared inside, and then there was no one at all between Sundance and the corral that held the appaloosa stallion. It had not caught his scent yet, masked as it was by the clothes of others.
Sundance looked around carefully one more time, then casually ambled to the corral. He gave a low whistle that was almost lost in the sound of wind. But suddenly there was an answering snort and whinny; shoving and nipping and kicking, the big stallion fought his way through the press of cavalry mounts.
He halted, raised his head; Sundance whistled again, and Eagle came to him joyfully.
Sundance took a moment to rub the topknot between the pricked-forward ears. The stallion was, he saw, well-kept and strong, but ungroomed. Likely nobody cared to get close enough to him to try to curry him. But he was too magnificent a horse not to keep. Probably some officer who fancied himself as a bronc twister intended to work him out and tame him come spring.
The stallion followed Sundance along the fence as the half-breed turned away. From inside the open door of the nearest stable, he heard the usual cursing and barking of orders that went with morning horse care. He edged in; all was confusion as troopers tried to curry horses frisky from cold and idleness, each tethered to a rope that reached all across the shed. Sundance paused; one horse was not being tended. A man on sick call, probably. He was not interested in the horse, but he wanted the bridle and McClellan saddle on the rack along the wall where the tack was kept. He slipped behind the horse, went to it, the carbine tucked under his arm, took the gear, and nobody paid the least attention. A sergeant was at the far end of the barn, raging at a recruit who’d just been kicked; others stood around him jeering, and the rest of the troopers had troubles of their own. Sundance left the stable, hand warming the cold bit. When he reached the bars, Eagle was waiting.
Sundance slipped the top two bars; Eagle leaped over. Sundance replaced them. The big horse took the bit eagerly, stood motionless while Sundance cinched on the McClellan. He did snort nervously when Sundance mounted not from the accustomed right but from the left. Then Sundance touched him with cavalry spurs, and Eagle rocketed across the fort toward the main gate like an arrow loosed from a bow. Nobody saw him go, save one officer standing on the porch of headquarters, who halted as he was about to descend the steps. Sundance caught a glimpse of a face startled at the spectacle of anyone’s riding the appaloosa stud. But instead of calling out or dodging back inside headquarters to give the alarm, the man shrugged, stepped off the porch, and slogged away in the opposite direction.
Then Sundance was at the gate. Guards posted on either side turned to confront him, faces muffled with scarves, hats pulled down over their eyes, collars turned up. Sundance pulled up Eagle. “Tom Custer,” he called out, from deep inside his own collar, “Told me to exercise this stud.”
“The hell he did! I didn’t even know anybody could ride that rattlesnake. Okay, show your pass.”
“Sure,” Sundance said. Then he jabbed Eagle hard, deep under the belly, with a spur.
Instantly, the big horse screamed and reared and pawed, startled by the unaccustomed cruelty. Then he broke in two, bucking savagely. Sundance rode straight up, raking him with spurs again. The guards dodged back in fear. “Goddammit!” one yelled, “the pass!” But Eagle had already bucked through the open gate, was plunging down the bluff. Both guards cursed and laughed. “Ride ’im, trooper!” one yelled. The other called, “If he don’t eat you alive, show that pass when you come back through!”
Sundance didn’t answer as the stallion bucked on. When they were below the bluff’s overhang, temporarily out of sight, Sundance quit using spurs, tightened rein, and immediately, the stallion settled down. Sundance swung him around, touched him with his toes, and spoke. Eagle went instantly in a dead run, racing toward the Missouri.
His rider twisted in the saddle, looking back at Fort Abe Lincoln, mouth set again in that wolf’s snarl. He had business in the East himself, urgent business. But later, if General George A. Custer came west of the Missouri again, he had better watch his hair.