The Scalp Hunters

by David Thompson

  Squatting next to the Arapaho who had done most of the talking, Venom inserted the tip a quarter inch from the hairline and carefully cut a straight line from brow to brow. “Smell that? This buck used bear fat to slick his hair.”

  “A lot of Injuns do,” Tibbet said.

  “Smelliest critters on God’s green earth,” declared Logan. He spat a wad of tobacco and picked at his armpit. “If it ain’t buffalo fat, it’s horse piss. How their women can stand to be near them is a wonder.”

  “I had me a squaw once,” Potter said. “An Otoe, she was. Scrawny little thing, but she kept herself clean. Well, except for the lice. But I don’t mind lice much. I’ve got some myself.”

  Venom wasn’t paying much attention to their prattle. He was engrossed in the scalping. He always did it a certain way. He started at the front and worked clear around, prying and peeling until he could lift the entire scalp just as easy as could be. Some scalp hunters did it in a rush and didn’t bother to take all the hair. Not him. He always took all of it.

  There was something else that Venom did. Something none of the others would do, ever. They were used to him doing it, but it still gave some of them queasy stomachs to watch, and they were men who did not get queasy easy.

  Venom cut around an ear and felt the edge of the knife scrape on the skull bone. That only happened when he pressed too hard. He eased up slightly, enough that the blade seemed to glide from the ear to the base of the neck and then around to the other side. As he cut, he licked his lips in anticipation.

  Potter did more fidgeting. “Can I ask you something, boss?”

  “So long as it won’t make me mad.” Venom didn’t like being distracted while he cut.

  “Why do you do it?”

  “What? Lift scalps? I told you about my pa, didn’t I? How those damn Creeks did him in? Ever since, I’ve made it my life’s work to kill as many redskins as I can before I get planted.”

  “No, not that.” Potter shifted again. “The other thing. Why do you do the other thing?”

  Venom cut around the other ear. He didn’t pull on the hair, as some did, not yet, anyway. Experience had taught him that he wasted a lot of blood that way.

  “I mean, it’s none of my business, I know,” Potter babbled on. “But me and some of the others have wanted to ask for a long time. You’ve never said, exactly.”

  “You should try it,” Venom said. “Then you’d understand.”

  Potter put a hand to his ample middle. “No sir. Not me. I don’t draw the line at much, but that there is one line I refuse to cross.”

  “You drink water, don’t you?”

  “Only when there’s nothing stronger.”

  “Milk, then? You drink milk?”

  Potter shrugged. “Now and then. I liked it more when I was a boy. My ma put it on my oatmeal and she’d slice up peaches and—”

  “Do I care what your damn mother did?” Venom interrupted. “We were talking about drinking. You’re partial to rye, as I recollect.”

  “What’s your point?”

  Glancing up, Venom wagged his knife, causing scarlet drops to spatter his boot. “My point, jackass, is that you drink what you like and I drink what I like. There’s your answer.”

  “But it’s not drinking you do. It’s more like—” Potter scrunched up his face. “It’s more like sucking.”

  “Drink or suck, it’s all the same.”

  “Begging your pardon, boss, but a drink is when it’s in a bottle or a glass. Not when it’s skin.”

  Logan said, “I’d as soon suck swamp water as what you do. How’d you ever get started, anyhow?”

  “It was back when I was hunting Apaches, before I formed my own company,” Venom explained. “Kirker and me and some others were in the desert, tracking Chiricahuas. Little did we guess at the time but the red bastards led us out there on purpose, thinking we’d die of thirst. And we damn near did. We ran out of water and separated to hunt for a tank or a spring, anything.” He chuckled at the memory. “Do you know what saved me?”

  No one hazarded a guess.

  “I’ll tell you. It was a Chiricahua buck. He’d hid behind a cactus and didn’t think I’d spotted him, but he made the mistake of blinking. I scalped him and it started to bleed, and the blood set me to thinking how thirsty I was, and the next thing I knew, I stuck a finger in my mouth and sucked the blood off.”

  “Injun blood,” said Calvert. He was typically the quietest of the bunch.

  “Wet is wet,” Venom retorted. “Just the little I sucked made me feel better so I smeared more on my finger and sucked that off.” He bent over the Arapaho and peeled off the scalp as he might peel an orange. Then, holding it up for them to see, he smacked his lips. “I reckon you know what I did next.”

  Potter turned away. “I can’t watch. It makes me sick to my stomach every single time.”

  “You damned weak sister.” Venom held the scalp in both hands so the blood-soaked skin side faced him. Then, slowly, methodically, he commenced to suck on the skin and to swallow with relish.

  “You couldn’t pay me to do that,” Tibbet remarked.

  “I’d die of thirst first,” the man they called Ryson said.

  Venom stopped sucking and grinned, his mouth and chin smeared bright scarlet. “Potter’s not the only weak sister. But that’s all right. It leaves more of the sauce for me.”

  “The sauce?” Tibbet repeated.

  “The blood, stupid.” Venom sucked, and beamed, his teeth gleaming bright red. “It’s too bad they don’t sell blood in bottles. I’d drink that before I’d drink whiskey.”

  “Don’t take this the wrong way, boss,” Potter said, “but you’re loco.”

  Nadine Venom laughed.

  Chapter Four

  Evelyn King froze every muscle in her body. One bite from the rattler and its deadly poison would course through her veins. Even if her friends sucked out the poison there was no guarantee she would live. She stared into the vertical slits of the angry serpent’s eyes, and a chill ran down her spine. It was poised to sink its fangs into her flesh.

  There was the twang of a bowstring. An arrow cored the rattler’s head and imbedded itself in the ground, pinning the rattlesnake to the earth, and the snake, although dead, went into a paroxysm of thrashing and coiling and rattling its tail.

  Evelyn swallowed and let out the breath she had been holding. Strong hands gripped her and pulled her to her feet. Her eyes met those of the archer and what she saw in them sent a different kind of tingle down her spine.

  Dega thought his heart would burst when the snake went to strike. He had notched a shaft and let fly almost before his brain realized what his body was doing. Half fearful Evelyn had already been bitten, he vaulted from his horse and helped her up. “You be all right?” he anxiously asked.

  “A little bruised, is all.” Evelyn’s arms were warm where he touched them. “Thank you for saving me. You’re awful quick with that bow.”

  “I worry—” Dega said, and stopped. His voice sounded husky and his throat was oddly tight. Letting go, he stepped back and slung his bow over his shoulder. “I glad you no hurt.”

  The others brought their mounts in close. Waku leaned down and put a hand on Evelyn’s shoulder.

  “Are you sure you are not hurt, Evelyn King?”

  “I’m fine. Really.”

  Teni had caught the mare before it could run off, and now she held out the reins. “Here you are,” she said in the Nansusequa tongue.

  “Thank you.” Evelyn felt slightly embarrassed. The mishap wasn’t her fault, but being unhorsed was always unsettling. She checked that her Hawken hadn’t been damaged in the fall, then climbed back on.

  Dega placed his foot on the snake just below the head and extracted his arrow. It took some doing. The barbed tip became caught in the skull and he used his knife to pry it free. Wiping the shaft clean on the grass, he slid the arrow into his quiver.

  Moving on, they stayed well shy of the prairie dog town. Twice
they spotted rattlers sunning themselves.

  It occurred to Evelyn that they should have brought the dead snake with them and chopped it up for supper. Not that she was all that partial to snake meat. She’d eaten it on occasion, but she much preferred venison or rabbit or squirrel. It wasn’t that snake meat had a bad taste. In fact, it was quite good. It was the notion of eating snake. Crawly things were her least favorite creatures in all creation.

  Toward the middle of the afternoon Dega brought his mount up next to the mare and rode at Evelyn’s side until he mustered the courage to ask, “You like me, Evelyn?”

  “I like you just fine,” Evelyn admitted. “You’re just about the best friend I’ve ever had.”

  “Friend.” Dega had hoped she might like him a little bit more. He didn’t have the white words to express what he wanted to say, and he was worried he might offend her if he didn’t do it right.

  “Someone you care for a great deal. Someone who means the world to you.”

  “I know what friend be.”

  Evelyn wondered why he sounded upset. “Why did you ask? Did you think I don’t like you?”

  “Oh. No. I know you like,” Dega assured her. She had misunderstood. Added proof that he must be careful what he said and particularly how he said it. “I like you much, too.”

  “Did you have friends like me back in your village?” Evelyn asked without thinking, and regretted it when his face mirrored sadness.

  “Many friends, yes.”

  Evelyn knew she should let it drop, but she wanted to know. “Female friends?”

  Dega was thinking of the massacre, of the many relatives and friends he lost. “Many females, yes.”

  “Oh.” Evelyn didn’t like the sound of that. She wondered if maybe there had been a special girl, but she was afraid to ask.

  Up ahead, Tihikanima looked back at them and then turned to her husband. “Will you like her as a daughter-in-law?”

  In the distance were specks that might be large animals, and Waku was intent on learning if they were buffalo. “What are you talking about?”

  “Dega and Evelyn. When they are husband and wife, she will be part of our family.”

  Waku tore his gaze from the specks to thoughtfully regard his wife. “Do you truly believe it will come to that?”

  “Do you have eyes? She has touched our son’s heart. You have only to look at his face when he looks at her.”

  Adopting a casual air, Waku gazed about them, making it a point to gaze behind them, as well. “I see no difference than when he looks at you or me.”

  Tihi indulged in an exaggerated sigh. “That is because you are a man. You are not sensitive to feelings, as women are.”

  “I am as sensitive as you.” Waku was mildly offended. He took great pains to be the best husband and father he could be.

  “Do you want her as your son’s wife?”

  “Why do you ask such a thing? Now, of all times?”

  “The others will not hear us if we talk quietly.”

  “That is not what I meant.” Waku would rather talk about it in the privacy of their lodge than out here on the prairie when he was trying to find buffalo.

  “It will not be long, I tell you, before he decides to court her. Given how she feels about him, we have important decisions to make.”

  Resigned to the inevitable, Waku asked, “How do you know how she feels? Has she told you?”

  “She does not need to. Do you think she came with us because she likes to butcher buffalo? No, she came to be with Dega. Have you not noticed that she spends every moment in his company? She cares for him, Waku. He cares for her. Are you ready to lose him?”

  “If they marry, we do not lose a son. We gain a daughter,” Waku said.

  “Must I explain everything?” Tihi let out another sigh. “What is the Nansusequa custom when a young man and a young woman bind hearts?”

  “The woman comes to live in the lodge of the man and his parents,” Waku answered.

  “What is the white custom?”

  “Eh?”

  “Blue Water Woman is a Flathead, is she not? She took Shakespeare McNair as her man and lives in his lodge.”

  “Yes. So?”

  “Winona is a Shoshone. She took Nate King for a husband. Do they live in a lodge with her people or do they live in Nate’s lodge far from the Shoshones?”

  “They live in his lodge, but—”

  “Zachary King has married a white woman, Louisa. Do they live in the same lodge as Nate and Winona or do they have a lodge of their own?”

  “They have their own lodge.” Waku saw what she was getting at, and it troubled him.

  “What makes you think Evelyn will be different? What makes you think she will come live with us? I suspect she will want to do as her parents and her brother and live in a lodge of her own.”

  Waku had looked forward to one day having his grown children and their families share his lodge. That had been the Nansusequa way since there were Nansusequa. It was why they built their lodges so large. Two or three or sometimes four generations all lived in the same dwelling, all devoted to one another, the old imparting their wisdom to the young, the young looking after the old when the old could no longer look after themselves.

  Tihi had gone on. “I have something else for you to think about. We are the last of our kind. None of the other tribes live as we did. When our daughters grow of age and take husbands, they will probably go live with their men. We will be alone with no one to look after us.”

  Deep sorrow came over Waku. It was bad enough to be the last of the Nansusequa. To think that when he and his wife died, the Nansusequa way of life died with them—forever—was a sadness that surpassed all others.

  “We cannot blame our children,” Tihi said.

  “We can’t?”

  “What else are they to do? With all our people slain they must look for mates elsewhere.”

  Waku’s mood turned bitter. Usually he tried not to think of the fate of their people; it depressed him too much. So long as he focused on his family and what he could do to make their lives happier, he kept the sadness at bay.

  Shaking himself, Waku straightened. Time enough later to ponder the future, he told himself. At the moment he was after buffalo. The stick figures had disappeared while he was talking to Tihi. He continued in that direction, hoping that whatever they were they hadn’t gone far.

  The vastness of the prairie staggered him.

  All his life, Waku lived in the deep woods. The forest nurtured him. Its bounty enabled his people to thrive. It was everything; sanctuary, provider, mother. He’d never imagined a world with no forest, never conceived there was a sea of grass to rival the sea of trees.

  Waku liked the mountains more than the plain. The mountains had their meadows and glades and clearings, but in many respects the high timber reminded him of the woods he had forsaken when he and his family fled.

  “Waku?” Tihi said.

  “I do not care to hear any more about Dega and Evelyn.”

  Tihi pointed. “What are those?”

  Squinting against the glare of the afternoon sun, Waku spied more stick figures. These were to the north and moving south. They were moving fast and if they kept on would pass within a few arrow flights in front of them.

  “Men on horses.”

  Waku had come to the same conclusion. Two riders, racing across the prairie as if their lives depended on it. He drew rein. “Everyone look there!” he shouted, in both Nansusequa and English.

  Evelyn was debating the best way to ask Dega if there had ever been a girl he was particularly fond of. Twisting, she rose in the stirrups. “Warriors! I can’t tell the tribe yet.”

  “They in hurry,” Dega said.

  Too much of a hurry, Evelyn thought. The pair were riding like the wind—or as if they were being pursued. She didn’t see anyone else. “We should talk to them.”

  “Is that wise?” Waku asked. “Maybe they are our enemies.”

  “If t
here’s a war party hereabouts, we need to find out.” Evelyn checked that her Hawken and her pistols were loaded.

  “One man is bent over,” Waku mentioned.

  Evelyn had noticed that, too. It looked as though he was hurt. The other warrior stayed at his side and reached out to him from time to time.

  The pair changed direction, reining to the southeast, away from Waku and his family.

  “They have seen us.”

  “Come on,” Evelyn urged. The mare had been held to a walk for so long that she was eager to let herself go.

  “Wait!” Waku cried. He was worried that if anything happened to her, Nate King would blame him. Slapping his legs against his mount, he hastened after her. He had little chance of catching up. She had been riding since she was old enough to sit a horse; he’d only learned to ride recently.

  “Evelyn!” Dega shouted, and gave chase. Her impulsive nature bothered him. She was constantly taking him by surprise.

  Evelyn paid them no mind. She wasn’t near enough to the two warriors to be in any danger. The wind whipping her hair, she urged the mare to go faster.

  The warrior who appeared to be hurt caught sight of her and yelled to the other one.

  Waving her rifle, Evelyn yelled at the top of her lungs, “Friend! I’m a friend!” She did the same in Shoshone and in Crow.

  The pair were flying. If they understood her, they gave no indication.

  Evelyn knew she should stop, but she kept going. Call it stubbornness. Call it curiosity. She wanted to talk to them, by sign language if no other way. She was aware of Dega thundering behind her and the rest of the family strung out after him.

  The warrior who was bent over his horse seemed to be clinging on for dear life. The other warrior swiveled at the hips and raised both arms as if in supplication.

  Puzzled, Evelyn waved. She realized the second warrior was holding something.

  “Stop!” Dega frantically yelled.

  Evelyn never had liked being told what to do.

  “You must stop!”

  A sharp retort was on the tip of Evelyn’s tongue, but it died as it hit her exactly was the second warrior was doing. She glanced skyward and her skin crawled at the sight of a glittering shaft arcing out of the sky toward her.