THE SUNDANCE SERIES by John Benteen
The eponymous character, Jim Sundance, is a half-white, half-Cheyenne adventurer. When we first meet him he's in his 30's, already a man who has roamed and fought across the length and breadth of the U.S., moving between the worlds of the white man and the Indian. The timeframe for the book is sometime a few months after the Battle of Washita River, putting the book most likely in the late spring or early summer of 1869.
Sundance is your typical Benteen hero: tall, broad-shouldered, with a slim waist and a lean, powerful build. He has the complexion and features of a Cheyenne Indian, but his hair is a bright golden blond, a gift from his English father. Sundance received his name - his Indian name - after participating in the Sun Dance ritual, The description given of Sundance's experience is one of the more extreme, although it's got nothing on the movie
A Man Called Horse, which has a really graphic Sun Dance ritual scene. I've actually attended a Sioux Sun Dance, and even back in the 90's, there was some ritual body piercing going on, although very rare.
On top of his unusual heritage, Sundance carries an unusual arsenal. In typical Benteen fashion, his main character is very deliberately armed with an assortment of weapons from both cultures. Sundance carries a Navy Colt and a Henry repeating rifle, as well as a Bowie knife with a fourteen-inch blade and a hand guard for knife-fighting. In addition, he carries a steel-bladed tomahawk, as well as a Cheyenne dog soldier's war shield and a bow, along with a quiver of thirty flint-headed arrows. Benteen goes to great length to note that Sundance prefers flint tips to steel, claiming that they deliver a more grievous wound, and that with the bow Sundance could kill a man at four hundred yards, or put an arrow through a buffalo. Over the course of the novel Sundance puts every weapon in his arsenal to use, another Benteen trait, and it is interesting to see how Sundance typically uses the white man's weapons for "every day carry", but when he really means business, he tends to favor his more traditional arsenal.Overall, this is an excellent western series. Sundance is a fascinating character, a mix of some standard Western themes with Benteen's own unique style laid over. The action is fast and violent, the level of detail extraordinary.
© Jack Badelaire
