Scalpers

by Ralph Cotton

“Next man who shoots a hole in my tent, I’ll turn him into pig food!” she shouted.

  The music stopped; so did the hooting and cheering. Fox and Ozzie watched tensely from their end of the bar. Darton Alpine looked up at the holes in the tent ceiling, then back at Bertha, seeing a determined look on her face.

  “We’re letting off steam here,” he said. “There’s no call for breaking ugly on us.”

  Bertha gestured a nod at the silent accordion player, at the gaming tables, along the bar at the women, at the bottles of rye.

  “You’ve got music, whiskey, gambling and whores,” she said bluntly. “If that won’t do it for you, get the hell out of my tent.”

  The men stood silent and tense a moment longer. Then Alpine broke the silence with what started as a deep chuckle and built into a laugh. The other men joined in.

  “You fellows heard the lady,” he said. “No more shooting the ceiling.” As he spoke he looked up at the hard wind whipping across the fluttering canvas overhead. “Although I have to say, I don’t see what harm it would do now.”

  “Don’t even think about it,” Bertha warned. “I’m collecting a dollar for each and every hole up there.” She looked around. “Who’s the ramrod of this bunch?”

  “That would be Bigfoot Pridemore, ma’am,” Alpine said with a flat grin. “He is not a man who tolerates frivolous spending.”

  The woman looked a little surprised. The shotguns stayed cocked and ready.

  “Turner Pridemore?” she said. “The man who ran the trading post out on the desert rim?”

  “One and the same,” said Alpine.

  “I’ve met Bigfoot,” Bertha said. “Where is he?”

  “He’s collecting bounty money right now,” said Alpine. “Soon as he’s finished he’ll be right here drinking with the rest of us.”

  “I’ll collect for the bullet holes when he gets here,” Bertha said, lowering the shotguns a little.

  “If I were you I’d walk easy around Bigfoot. He’s got his killing bark on,” Alpine said. “We all do after all the fine head slicing we done out there.” He looked all around and raised his voice. “I could tell you stories that would make your skin crawl, the stuff we saw, the stuff we took part in.”

  Listening to Alpine, some of the drinkers drew closer to better hear what he might have to tell them about his trade.

  Seeing that the drinkers and the women were all interested in hearing the scalp hunter tell them about fighting Apache, Bertha eased her shotguns down some more and stepped back, having made her point about not shooting holes in the ceiling. She had backed almost to the door when Diamond Jim Ruby, a short, thin man with a thick black beard rushed in through the front fly with a shotgun of his own.

  “I heard the shooting, and come running,” he said, catching his breath.

  “Step back, Jim,” Bertha said. “I’ve got them settled down.” She looked him up and down, seeing his clothes twisted and hastily attended. “Why’s your table closed?” She nodded toward a faro table near the rear of the tent. “We can’t make any money if you’re going to be off pounding Little Millie every time she raises a leg.”

  “Don’t start accusing me,” Jim said in a harsh tone. “I shut down long enough to go eat. I heard from the sergeant that these scalpers were in town.” He lowered his voice. “Word has it, they’re going to be flush with bounty money most any minute, soon as their leader settles up with Captain Penza.”

  Bertha gave a grin.

  “I know,” she said. “Guess who their leader is?”

  Diamond Jim just looked at her.

  “Turner Pridemore,” she said quietly, the two of them watching the drinking and storytelling going on at the bar.

  “Bigfoot . . . ,” said Diamond Jim. “Then I suspect what I heard was right about him losing his trading post to the Apache.”

  “I don’t care who he lost it to, or how,” Bertha said. “Get your table open. I’m rounding up some more whores. We’re not letting these birds out of hand until we’ve got all that bounty money.”

  “I’m with you, Bertha,” said Jim. “Thank the devil for Injun hair.” He lowered his shotgun and walked away toward his faro table as Darton Alpine continued his tale at the crowded bar. At the far end of the bar, the two young scalpers, Fox and Ozzie, stood drinking, watching the spectacle going on around them.

  “S’pose your pa will get us a big chunk of money?” Ozzie asked, his words taking on a whiskey slur.

  “My pa is the best deal-maker this side of hell, Oz,” Fox said, his words also sounding tinted with rye. “Ask anybody. My pa’s the best at every damn thing.”

  Ozzie heard the slightest sound of contempt in his friend’s words.

  “You don’t sound very happy about it,” he said, pouring the two of them a fresh shot glass of whiskey. “Why’s that?”

  “Never mind ‘why’s that?’” said Fox, gripping the shot glass in his fist. “It’s my business.”

  Ozzie gave him a look.

  “Sure, it’s your business, pal,” he said. “But I just told you all about me killing the sheriff in Mesa Grande. Now you don’t trust me enough to tell me about why you’ve got a mad-on at your pa?”

  “A mad-on. . . .” Fox chuckled and turned to face Ozzie. “Naw, I don’t have a mad-on at him.” He knew Ozzie was lying about killing the sheriff, but he saw his point. Oz had just told him about killing a lawman. It was only fair that he should reciprocate in kind. “Sometimes it’s hard as hell living up to what he expects of me.” He raised the glass, drank half of it and held the glass close to his lips.

  Beside him, Ozzie drank and nodded and listened.

  “All my life I had to work twice as hard, do my chores and my brother Lucas’ too . . . him being simpleminded,” Fox said. “I had to look out for him, keep him from straying away.” He paused, recalling how he, his brother and Ozzie had fought the Apache, and how his brother had died in the battle. “No matter how well I looked out for him, he’s still dead anyway.”

  “That wasn’t your fault, Fox,” said Ozzie. “I was there. The heathen Apache—Quetos and his Wolf Hearts killed poor Lucas. I figure that’s good enough reason for you to want to kill all them sons a’ bitches, far as I’m concerned.”

  “Yeah, I reckon so,” Fox said, staring down at the whiskey near his lips, brooding. “I’ll tell you the truth. I’m not glad my brother’s dead, but I am glad he’s not around anymore.” He tossed back the rest of the whiskey in his shot glass and set the glass down hard atop the bar. “There, I said it,” he concluded.

  “You sure enough did,” Ozzie said, giving Fox a drunken grin, knowing his friend had just settled something that had been weighing heavily on his mind. “I say we ought to celebrate . . . get us a couple of gals of our own!” He gestured toward the women playing up to the scalpers along the bar. One scalper had sat a woman atop the bar and buried his bearded face between her breasts.

  “Celebrate what?” Fox said. “My brother being killed before my eyes?”

  Ozzie stopped grinning.

  “No, I didn’t mean it like that,” Ozzie said. “I mean celebrate you being your own man now—wearing your own skins and bones.” He gestured at Fox’s shirt with its hair-and-bone breastwork. “With your pa heading this expedition, I can see you being in charge someday yourself.”

  “I don’t want to be in charge of scalping Apache,” said Fox. “I don’t want nothing I have to take over from my pa.”

  “I would if I was you,” Ozzie said. “Not everybody gets a business like this handed to them.”

  “My pa will run balls-out wild while there’s a contract with the Mexes,” said Fox. “But scalp hunting like this ain’t going to last long. What do we hunt for bounty when it’s over?”

  Ozzie thought about it. “I was on my way to being an assassin until that Ranger killed Uncle Erskine. You and me could do
that, you know, partner up?”

  “Assassins, naw,” Fox said. “Maybe when called upon I’d do it. But the big money is robbing. It always has been.”

  “You mean partner up and rob places, stagecoaches, stores and the like?” Ozzie asked.

  Fox thought about it.

  “Yeah, Oz, I’d partner with you, outlawing,” he said. “We could rob us a couple of places, see how it goes.” He gave Ozzie a level gaze.

  “Whoo-ee!” said Ozzie. Getting excited. “Hell yes, let’s do it! When do you want to start?”

  “Soon,” said Fox, looking away, staring at the girl with the bearded scalper’s face between her breasts. “First, let’s get us some gals, like you said. This is my day for doing things I never got to do, breaking loose on my own, so to speak.” He held out his glass and Ozzie Cord filled it. They drank their shot glasses empty in one deep swig.

  * * *

  It was well after dark when Turner Pridemore walked into the Mockingbird tent. Outside, a wind-driven rain lashed sideways against the small fortress town of Iron Point as if in vengeance. As Pridemore took off his hat and slung water from it, he walked across the muddy sawdust floor, and the mercenaries along the bar settled their revelry and turned toward him.

  “Make room for Bigfoot, men,” Darton Alpine said, shoving the drinkers away. The men watched Pridemore expectantly. He stood at the bar and took a hefty leather pouch full of gold coins from inside his coat and held it out at arm’s length over the bar.

  “There you are, men,” Pridemore said. “That’s how many heathen Apache we sent to hell with their noggins docked.” He dropped the pouch. The gold coins jingled; the men cheered. Diamond Jim Ruby behind the faro table and Bertha Buttons behind the bar both looked relieved, having been running a tab for the whiskey, beer and women until Turner Pridemore arrived.

  “Are we going to tally out right now, Bigfoot?” a drunken scalper named Doyle Baines asked.

  “No,” said Pridemore, “you’re all too drunk to be handling money tonight. I won’t see my men cheated.” He had a second pouch of coins that he’d collected for himself, overpayment from the captain for agreeing to kill Bertha and Diamond Jim.

  One of the newer scalpers, Bert Lacy, called out drunkenly, “But I want mine now. This puta and me are getting hitched!” A young woman naked from the waist up leaned against him bleary-eyed.

  Pridemore looked Lacy up and down.

  “Somebody take Bert out back and cut his throat good and deep,” he said.

  Dead silence fell in, but only for a moment. Three men reached for Bert Lacy, one already drawing a big knife from his boot. But Pridemore stopped them.

  “Jesus, men, I was only joshing!” he shouted.

  “So was I,” Lacy said in his slurred voice, jerking his buckskin sleeve away from the men. “I ain’t getting hitched!” He raised a boot to the puta’s rump and shoved her away roughly. “She smells like a wet chicken.”

  The men stepped back, hooted and cheered; the woman scrambled away. Diamond Jim and Bertha Buttons shared a guarded look from across the large tent. These were dangerous men, their eyes warned each other, as if there had ever been any doubt.

  “All right, then, we tally up in the morning,” Pridemore said. He snatched up the gold pouch and looked at Bertha Buttons across the bar. “Ma’am, I remember you from Tejas. Is it all right with you and your parrot over there if we settle accounts come morning?”

  Parrot over there? This son of a bitch, Diamond Jim fumed in silence.

  Bertha tossed the matter aside with the wave of a hand.

  “Why, hell yes,” she said, knowing it would do her no good to say otherwise. “I remember you too, Bigfoot,” she added in a half-flirting voice. “Anytime you pay is fine by me—my parrot too.” She grinned and tossed her curly red hair in Jim Ruby’s direction. The men laughed.

  “Then keep setting us up,” said Pridemore, slapping a hand down on the bar top. As he spoke, the young woman Bert Lacy had kicked away sidled up to him and ran her arm around his waist. Looking down at her, he saw the suggestion in her dark eyes. But then he sniffed the air above her head and drew away.

  “Not now, little darling. You’ve made too many friends,” he said. “Find yourself some lye soap and scrub everywhere you can reach—come see me later.” He gave her a nudge away from him and looked all around the lantern-lit darkness. Outside, rain blew hard sounding like nails thrown against the side of the tent. “Anybody seen my boy, Fox?”

  “I seen him,” said a veteran scalper, Emilio Siebaugh. “He left here with the idiot, Ozzie. They had whores under their arms.”

  “And bottles of rye in their hands,” a scalper named Early Doss put in. Doss was another scalper who’d been with Erskine Cord when Pridemore took over the bounty contract, after hearing the Ranger had shot Cord dead.

  Pridemore nodded and looked around at his drunken scalpers. They were a hardened and dangerous crew, as were all mercenaries he’d ever met. Now that he’d collected the bounty on the Apache scalps, he knew that once these men had their money in hand, they might very well start drifting away, back across the desert floor. He didn’t want to let that happen. He needed to keep them busy, keep them banded together. He looked back at Early Doss.

  “Give Fox and the idiot time enough to get their beans baked, then go find them. We’ve got business in the morning that requires clear heads and steady hands.” He grinned slyly.

  “Yeah? What’s that, Bigfoot?” Siebaugh asked.

  Pridemore looked around again, this time noting that there were only three drinkers in the tent who were not members of his group. He drew a long, heavy Walker Colt that he called Ol’ Dan Webster from his waist and aimed it at the three. “You plugs beat a path out of here. Nobody likes having you near their whiskey.”

  Two of the men gave him a stunned look, but offered no argument. They turned away from their half-finished shots and beers and hurried out of the tent into the driving rain. But the third man, an older man with a tangled unruly beard, only stood staring back at Pridemore.

  “Are you wanting to die, or just one of them fools who likes getting real close to it before backing away?” Pridemore thumbed back the Walker’s hammer and pointed the gun at the man’s head.

  “Hadn’t gave it no thought,” the man said quietly, calmly. “I’m looking for work—thought we might palaver about it some.”

  Pridemore began feeling the weight of the heavy outstretched Colt right away. But he kept it leveled.

  “Hear that, men?” said Pridemore. “He wants to palaver with me about a job.”

  Siebaugh stepped forward, looking the stranger up and down, scrutinizing him closely.

  “Bigfoot, I know this old man,” he said. “He’s Deacon Sickles, from Alabama. He cut scalps when most of us were still swinging from a teat.”

  Pridemore let the Walker down, tiring from its weight.

  “Are you, now . . . ?” he said to the old man. “I’ve heard of you too. I heard you not only cut scalp, you’re known to take face and all.”

  “I have done that some,” the old man said. “It’s mostly a novelty item . . . for foreign dignitaries and the like.”

  “And you’re seeking employment?” said Pridemore. He laid the Walker on the bar, leaving it cocked. Bertha and Diamond Jim watched closely.

  “Indeed I am,” said Sickles.

  Pridemore raised a finger and smiled at the old scalper.

  “Give us just a minute here, Deacon Sickles,” he said. “I’m sure we’ve got room for a man like you.” He picked the Walker up and let it hang in his hand as he turned away from the bar. He looked back at Sickles over his shoulder as he crossed the muddy floor. “Face and all, huh?”

  “That is correct, Mr. Pridemore,” Sickles said.

  “Just call me Bigfoot,” Pridemore said pleasantly. “Everybody does.” He stopped
at the faro table, grabbed Diamond Jim by his face, raised the Walker and shot him through the heart. Blood splattered around the fresh bullet hole in the side of the tent. Rain blew in immediately.

  Behind the bar, Bertha Buttons started to reach down for her shotguns.

  “Huh-uh, Bertha,” said Pridemore, swinging around and pointing the smoking Walker at her. “Penza wants me to kill you both. But I’d sooner you be in this world than out of it.” He gave her a stiff grin.

  “So—so would I,” she said in a shaky voice. She withdrew her hand slowly from under the bar top. Pridemore looked around at his men, who stood staring curiously. He shrugged.

  “A man would be a fool to kill a big strapping redhead like this one,” he said. He gestured Bertha from behind the bar. “Come around here, Big Darling. Let’s get a better look at you.” As Bertha eased around the bar toward him, he said to the others, “Have fun while you can, men. Tomorrow we’ve got all kinds of work ahead of us.”

  Chapter 5

  In the early-morning light the Ranger had caught sight of trail dust drifting across the flatlands on the far horizon, where sandy bottom slopes reached upward into rocky hill lines. When he drew his dun and the cart beside him to a halt, Ria Cerero reined the barb down on his other side and searched the distant flatlands with him. The young woman sat on her board perch on the front edge of the cart and watched them both quietly.

  “What is it?” Ria asked Sam.

  “Trail dust,” Sam said without turning to her, “less than an hour out.”

  “How do you know it is trail dust?” the woman asked.

  “It’s just something you know after a while,” Sam said, still scouring the distance as he drew a battered telescope from inside his bedroll behind his saddle. He extended the field lens, raised it to his right eye and searched for the drift of dust again, not finding it. He went on to explain as he searched, “There’s not enough wind to pull dust. . . . If it was the wind causing it, it would be a lot wider.” He paused, then added, “Anyway, dust doesn’t stir up and drift without a reason.”