Sundance 13: Blood on the Prairie

By John Benteen

Half English, half-Cheyenne Indian, Sundance was a half-breed who took on jobs no one else would handle, a killer who never missed. And he charged plenty for his services. But when his old friend George Crook asked Sundance to step into the most explosive situation of his career, as a personal favor, Sundance agreed. He was the only man alive who could keep the Sioux nation from going on the warpath—and Russia from going to war with America.
Sundance was the best ... but just maybe this time out the job was too much even for him!

• Language: English
• Publisher: Piccadilly
• Release date: Jun 30, 2016
• ISBN: 9781310783838

John Benteen

John Benteen was the pseudonym for Benjamin Leopold Haas born in Charlotte , North Carolina in 1926. In his entry for CONTEMPORARY AUTHORS, Ben told us he inherited his love of books from his German-born father, who would bid on hundreds of books at unclaimed freight auctions during the Depression. His imagination was also fired by the stories of the Civil War and Reconstruction told by his Grandmother, who had lived through both. “My father was a pioneer operator of motion picture theatres”, Ben wrote. “So I had free access to every theatre in Charlotte and saw countless films growing up, hooked on the lore of our own South and the Old West.” A family friend, a black man named Ike who lived in a cabin in the woods, took him hunting and taught him to love and respect the guns that were the tools of that trade. All of these influences – seeing the world like a story from a good book or movie, heartfelt tales of the Civil War and the West, a love of weapons – register strongly in Ben’s own books. Dreaming about being a writer, 18-year-old Ben sold a story to a Western pulp magazine. He dropped out of college to support his family. He was self-educated. And then he was drafted, and sent to the Philippines. Ben served as a Sergeant in the U.S. Army from 1945 to 1946. Returning home, Ben went to work, married a Southern belle named Douglas Thornton Taylor from Raleigh in 1950, lived in Charlotte and in Sumter in South Carolina , and then made Raleigh his home in 1959. Ben and his wife had three sons, Joel, Michael and John. Ben held various jobs until 1961, when he was working for a steel company. He had submitted a manuscript to Beacon Books, and an offer for more came just as he was laid off at the steel company. He became a full-time writer for the rest of his life. Ben wrote every day, every night. “I tried to write 5000 words or more everyday, scrupulous in maintaining authenticity”, Ben said. His son Joel later recalled, “My Mom learned to go to sleep to the sound of a typewriter”.

Book preview

The Home of Great Western Fiction!

Half English, half-Cheyenne Indian, Sundance was a half-breed who took on jobs no one else would handle, a killer who never missed. And he charged plenty for his services. But when his old friend George Crook asked Sundance to step into the most explosive situation of his career, as a personal favor, Sundance agreed. He was the only man alive who could keep the Sioux nation from going on the warpath—and Russia from going to war with America.

Sundance was the best … but just maybe this time out the job was too much even for him!

SUNDANCE 13: BLOOD ON THE PRAIRIE

By John Benteen

First published by Belmont Tower in 1976

Copyright © 1976, 2016 by Benjamin L. Haas

First Smashwords Edition: July 2016

Names, characters and incidents in this book are fictional, and any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons living or dead is purely coincidental. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information or storage and retrieval system, without the written permission of the author, except where permitted by law.

Cover image © 2016 by Tony Masero

Check out Tony’s work here

This is a Piccadilly Publishing Book * Series Editor: Ben Bridges

Text © Piccadilly Publishing

Published by Arrangement with the Author’s Estate.

Chapter One

In the clear air out here on the high plains, he saw Fort Laramie long before he reached it. Reining in the tall Appaloosa stallion, he stared for a moment at the parapets and the buildings showing above them, there on the plains near where the Laramie River met the Platte. He was a big man, wide-shouldered, narrow-hipped, torso clad in a fringed buckskin Cheyenne war shirt, long legs in denim pants and high Cheyenne moccasins, a slouch hat on his head, an eagle feather set in its crown. In his middle thirties, he had the face of a hawk, beaked nose, high cheekbones; and his skin was the color of a new penny. Indian at first glance, Cheyenne undoubtedly: but then there was the golden color of the long hair spilling down to his shoulders, and the hard gray of his eyes; and no full blood had ever had such hair or eyes. He was, in fact, a half-breed, his father English, his mother Cheyenne. His name was Sundance, and the Colt on his hip, the Bowie on the other one, the cased hatchet with the straight handle made for throwing looped around his saddle-horn, and the Winchester in the saddle scabbard were the tools of his trade, which was fighting.

Usually he did not hire out his weapons cheaply; as the best in the business, he could afford to charge the most, but it was not money which had brought him all the way from Indian Territory to Wyoming. The letter from George Crook, who was the only serving general in the army who knew or gave a damn about Indians, had been enough for him. Crook—Three-Stars, the Indians called him—needed him, and that was all that mattered.

Now, the end of his long ride near, he touched the spotted stallion with his heels, and the big horse fell into a lope. It covered the remaining distance handily, and they had nearly reached the fort when gunfire, the deep cough of half a dozen rounds from a Colt revolver, shattered the silence of the afternoon.

Reining in the stud, whose name was Eagle, Sundance cocked his head. More shooting, from the lowlands outside the fort and to his right. His hand drifted to his pistol butt.

Then he heard the laughing and the whooping, and he relaxed. With no women and scant whiskey, soldiers out here passed their time as best they could, and shooting contests were a favorite sport. Still, his curiosity was aroused, and he turned the horse and rode toward the sound of guns.

Behind a rise, dismounting, he ground-reined Eagle. Cat-footed and crouched, he went up the hill and looked over the crest. Below, in the shallow valley of a dry creek, thirty or forty men, some in uniform and some civilians, had gathered, mostly on this bank, three or four on the far one. As Sundance watched, a man on the far bank hammered a small target, a playing card, perhaps, to the trunk of a cottonwood. Then, as the crowd on the near bank shifted, Sundance recognized a tall, lanky form, a man with a thin face and a spade beard; and he grinned. Three-Stars, General Crook, the man he’d come this far to see.

The grin faded, though, a frown replacing it at the sight of the two men flanking the lanky general. On his left was a big man in buckskins worked almost snow-white and dripping with fringe, emblazoned with bead-and-quill-work, and Sundance thought he had seen him somewhere before, but could not place him. The man on Crook’s right was even bigger, a giant, standing a good six and a half feet tall, with shoulders like a barn door and a chest like a barrel: and he wore a uniform of a kind Sundance had never before seen. A high fur hat made him look even taller, and his enormous torso was encased in a red tunic splashed with gold braid. Skintight white pants with a blue stripe down the sides ended in high, gleaming boots. A riding crop dangled from the wrist of one huge hand, and, absent-mindedly, he kept tapping it against his boot.

Now Crook spoke to the man in the gaudy buckskins. That one stepped forward, and his big frame slipped into a crouch that Sundance knew of old, the gunman’s stance, hand dangling by the low-slung holster on his hip. Then he drew, and Sundance whistled softly at the speed with which he did it. Six reports from the single-action Colt made one drawn-out roll of thunder, and the playing card across the creek, thirty yards away, was torn to bits.

The giant in red raised both hands, clapping excitedly. Crook nodded. So did Sundance. It was shooting, all right, damned good shooting. The man in buckskins was a real wizard, an artist with a Colt.

Curiosity rising higher in him, Sundance went back to Eagle, mounted, and put the stallion over the ridge. The crowd down there at the creek, hearing hoof beats, turned. Crook squinted: then, recognizing the tall form on the Nez Percé stud, raised his hand, waved, and as Sundance neared, strode toward him, like some gaunt, ungainly water bird.

At first glance, George Crook could have been mistaken for some down-on-his-luck and wandering mountain man. As usual, he wore a shabby linen duster over an assortment of odds and ends of uniform clothing, and his broad-brimmed hat was battered and weathered. The fact was that no man in the Army knew the West and its Indians better than he, and few out of it. He had served in every corner of it, had fought Apaches, Sioux, Cheyennes, and the northwestern tribes of Oregon and Washington. Remorseless in war, generous in victory, he would, Sundance had often thought, have made a fine Indian war chief himself.

Jim! Crook’s face lit as Sundance swung down off the Appaloosa.

Three-Stars. Sundance jerked his head toward the crowd on the wash’s bank. What’s going on?

Crook’s grin faded as they shook hands. You got here just in time. Six-gun Sam Dillon’s showing off for the Grand Duke of Russia.

What? Sundance stared.

That’s right. The man in the red coat. He’s a Russian nobleman, and he’s here on a hunting trip as guest of the United States government. He’s also one hell of a problem, and that’s why I sent for you. I appreciate your coming, Jim. I need you need you badly.

What for? Sundance looked at the giant in the red coat, the man in buckskins, who was cramming fresh shells into his gun.

No time to explain just now. Crook’s voice was low. But now you’re here, I want you in this shooting match. And it’s vital that you win. Do you know Sam Dillon?

Something clicked in Sundance’s mind. Yeah. Yeah, I know him. Had a run-in with him at Fort Harker a couple of years ago. A tinhorn gambler and back shooter from Kansas.

That’s what he used to be, Crook said grimly. Right now he’s a lot more than that. I’ll explain later. But just now I’m going to set up a contest between the two of you, and you’ve got to be at least as good as he is, better if possible. It’s important you not let him outshoot you. And don’t underestimate him. He may be a tinhorn, but he’s a genius with a handgun.

Three-Stars—

Come on, Crook said, and took Sundance’s arm and pulled him toward the creek. As they neared its bank, the man in white buckskins came forward. He wore his auburn hair long, falling to his shoulders, and he had great cowhorn mustaches the same color. His face was curiously soft, though, and only lightly tanned, and his brown eyes met Sundance’s, flared with recollection and remembered anger, then shifted. Dillon had changed his clothes, Sundance thought, and had let his hair and mustache grow, but this was the same man, all right. And true enough, he’d had the reputation down in Kansas of being a crack shot. Had notches on his gun, too, but Sundance had never heard of any of them being earned in a fair, straight-up gunfight.

There was a lot of difference between being able to use a gun and having the guts to be a gunfighter, and Dillon liked the edge of the sudden shot from behind or beneath a table. Anyhow, the one time he and Sundance had tangled, Dillon had never had a chance to use a gun.

Truth to tell, Sundance had only a hazy memory of the incident at Fort Harker. His half-measure of Indian blood made it hard for him to handle whiskey. Two drinks were his usual limit; any more than that and he was likely to get mean. That day at Harker, he had come in tired and bitter from a long trip across the buffalo range, where hide hunters were slaughtering bison by the thousands and leaving everything to rot except the skins and tongues. Full of pent-up fury, Sundance had overshot his limit, had half a bottle in him by the time, heading for where he had left the stallion, he saw Dillon and a Tonkawa woman at the edge of the fort’s parade ground. They were arguing over a bundle of laundry she had evidently washed for him, and her words were audible in the silence of the hot afternoon. Three times now you no pay. I need money, food for my children. I wait, wait, still you no pay—

You’ll git your money when I’m damned good and ready, you stinkin’ squaw! Dillon had snapped. In gambler’s black and brocaded vest, then, he had turned on his heel, the package of clothes beneath his arm. The woman halted indecisively, then followed, plucking at his sleeve. Meester Dillon, you promise—

Goddamit, take your filthy hands off me! Dillon spun, and Sundance heard the sharp pop his open hand made, slamming against her face. The woman landed on her back in the dust—and Sundance moved.

Dillon never even knew what hit him. Sundance was behind him in two long, silent strides. One hand seized the collar of Dillon’s claw hammer coat, the other his belt. Big as Dillon was, Sundance, in drunken rage, lifted him with ease, raising him high, then slamming him down with stunning force against the hard-packed, hoof-trampled parade ground.

Gold eagles dropped from Dillon’s pocket, rolled through the dust. As Dillon lay dazed, Sundance scooped up a pair and tossed them to the woman. Here. That enough?

She looked at him in awe. Plenty.

Then go, Sundance said.

But— Then her eyes widened. Look out! she yelled.

Sundance whirled. Dillon, on his knees, was clawing for his six-gun. Sundance’s own hand