by Ralph Cotton
“Any fool who thinks four Mexican guards can handle the likes of us is asking for a bloodletting,” said Chase, swinging his ironmonger’s hammer back and forth calmly on his wrist.
“Hey! Malcolm!” said Alpine in a stiff tone. “Don’t talk while I’m talking. This is business here.”
“Excuse the hell out of me,” Chase said without ceasing to swing the thick hammer. “Next time I’ll raise my hand.”
Alpine just stared at him, knowing if anything went wrong here, he himself would be the first person Pridemore blamed. He started to say something more, but before he could, Fox Pridemore stepped forward, hearing what was going on and trying to sober up and take part in it.
“Want me and Oz to ready some horses, just in case things don’t go right?” he asked, working to control the thickness in his tongue.
“No,” said Alpine, “you two stay out of the way till you’re sober. Besides, there’s to be no riding away from this. Either this thing works or we all die right here.” He looked all around at the faces. “Any questions?” he asked.
The men stood silent until finally Chase raised a hand like a courteous schoolboy, the hammer still swinging calmly at his side.
Alpine just stared at him coldly.
“Can we get on with this?” Chase said in a bored tone. “I ain’t et yet.”
Damn it to hell!
Alpine seethed, but he kept his anger to himself and motioned the men away. As they moved away silently, like lingering apparitions in the grainy purple darkness, he took a position out of sight behind the livery barn. For the next few minutes he watched as the sliver of light on the eastern sky widened slowly above the earth. When the sun domed the jagged edge of the earth like a bald man peeping over a picket fence, he cupped both hands over his mouth and cawed out three times along the empty street.
Standing in the dead silence, Alpine heard not a single sound come from the two-man guard post at the wide gates to Iron Point. Neither did he hear any sound of a struggle come from the single guard post at the far end of town. Nor did any sound come from the Apache lookout post above a large boulder facing toward the hill line a mile behind the old fortress. The only sound he did hear was a sour and abrupt belch that Ozzie Cord let out, followed by Ozzie laughing and apologizing drunkenly.
“This son of a bitch,” Alpine growled, stomping off in the direction of the gurgling belch.
When he got to where Ozzie and Fox lay on the ground against the rear side of the livery barn, he saw Ozzie raise a bottle to his lips. Without hesitation he reached down and slapped the bottle away. It crashed and broke on the rocky ground.
“For two cents I’d blow your damn head off,” he growled, keeping his voice low. His cocked Colt jammed against Ozzie’s forehead.
“Don’t shoot, Dart!” Fox said to Alpine. “I’ll sober him up; I swear I will. I’m not drinking, see?” He spread his hands to show they were empty.
Alpine knew this was not the time to be firing a gun—not just yet. He eased his gun from against Ozzie’s head and uncocked it.
“See that you do, Fox,” Alpine said. He glared at Ozzie. “It’s a good thing Fox here had enough sense to sober up. He’s in charge of you until I say otherwise. Have you both got that?”
“I’ve got it,” Ozzie whined.
“I got it,” Fox said responsibly. “He’ll do no more drinking, I promise you.”
The two stared as Alpine walked away. Looking sidelong at Ozzie, Fox grinned and pulled a bottle of rye up from behind his back. He took a long swig and passed the bottle to him. The two muffled their laughter, hands over their mouths like naughty children.
Alpine walked on a few yards toward the sound of a hammer tacking nails into a board. When he got closer, the tacking stopped and Deacon Sickles looked over his shoulder at him.
“Am I starting too early?” Sickles asked in a hushed tone.
“No, you’re good,” said Alpine. “It’s time the town wakes up and sees what we’re doing here.” He looked around and saw two of his men walking in from different guard posts. “How long before you’re done and ready?” he asked Sickles.
“Another nail or two, I’m finished,” Sickles said, turning back to the board. “This ought to put the fear of God in them.”
“Damn right it will,” said Alpine. He raised his Colt again and wagged it back and forth. “All right, here we go.”
* * *
Pridemore and half of his men lay strewn along a rock ledge overlooking the trail where they had spotted the patrol riding back toward Iron Point. The other half of the scalpers lay in wait along the trail below, every third one with a bow and a quiver of arrows beside him. Overhead the scalding noon sun beat down, casting a harsh wavering whiteness over the rock desert badlands. Beside Pridemore, Early Doss looked up at the burning sky, then looked down and batted his eyes against the sun’s glare.
“By now, I expect Alpine and his lot has Iron Point under their thumbs,” Doss said to Pridemore.
“They better have,” Pridemore said. “We get back there, I best see every gold coin and peso stuffed into a bag, ready to carry off.” He allowed himself a tight grin, staring down at the rocky hill trail. He looked on his other side at Bertha Buttons, who lay shielded from the sun beneath a ragged serape. Under the serape her dress hung torn and soiled. Her left shoe was missing, her hair tangled and dusty from the trail.
“How you holding up, Big Darling?” Pridemore asked. He reached a hand over and brushed her hair from her eyes. Her rouge had been smeared from her cheek to her chin.
“Better . . . than I expected, Bigfoot,” she said, careful not to say anything that might upset the mercenary leader. “I—I worry about my saloon, my girls. I really should be there—”
“Now, now. . . .” Pridemore cut her off with a finger up against her parched lips. “You don’t need to be there. You just think you do. I left orders for my men to take care of things.”
“I know you did, and I’m grateful,” said Bertha. “The truth is, this desert is roasting me alive. It’s been a long while since I’ve trekked outside Iron Point.” She looked all along the row of men for a canteen. “Could I get some water?”
Pridemore reached his hand over and patted her rouge-smeared cheek.
“Soon you can, but not just now,” he said. “I believe we’ve got to toughen you up some. If you’re going to be my gal—my partner so to speak—you’ll need to get by for long stretches like this without water, food and whatnot.” He drew his hand away. “My last gal never got the hang of it, bless her heart. She fried like bacon before the desert finally et her innards.” He rubbed the back on her hand as if stroking the head of a pet cat. “That poor sweet darling . . . ,” he murmured. An Apache bow lay on the rock beside him.
Fried like bacon . . . ? The desert ate her innards . . . ?
Bertha just stared at him for a moment. She looked off along the row of filthy buckskins, of a grisly assortment of human hair and bone ornamentation. Then back at Pridemore. They were insane, every single bloody last one of them. She’d never met a scalp hunter who wasn’t.
Turner Pridemore had never been known as a madman before. Was this madness something that joining these mercenaries had brought out in him? Was this what scalp hunting did to a man? She didn’t know; she didn’t care, she concluded to herself. All she knew was that she had to find a way to stay alive until she could either get away or scratch out a safer place herself.
“You’re right about food and water,” she said, forcing a thin smile in spite of her parched lips. “I’ve always said, it takes more than food and water to sustain a gal.”
“So true,” Pridemore said. “And whatever sustenance a gal like you needs, I will bring it and lay it at your feet. You’ll never flee another hanging posse, Texas or otherwise, so long as you’re with me.”
“Here they come now, Bigfoot,” Early Dos
s said on Pridemore’s other side.
Pridemore affectionately tapped the tip of his finger on Bertha’s nose and grinned at her.
“I want you to keep quiet here for a minute, Big Darling,” he said. “We’re fixing to kill us a bunch of Mexican soldiers.”
“Captain Penza’s patrol?” Bertha asked, seeing the soldiers follow their guidon into sight. The scout had fallen back closer to the men, riding about ten yards ahead of them.
“Right you are,” said Pridemore, “the very son of a bitch who paid me to kill you and Jim Ruby. He believed with you two out of the way he could slip somebody of his own in to run the saloon.”
Bertha thought about it.
“So, now, with Jim Ruby out of the way, you figure killing Penza will make you and me partners?” She leveled her gaze. “You realize I have a Mexican official I pay every month.”
“I understand,” said Pridemore. “He won’t even have to know. Who knows? Someday he might even die himself.”
Bertha stared at him in feigned admiration. “I always heard you’re a real daisy of a businessman. Now I see why folks think it.”
Pridemore grinned and tapped his forehead.
“I’ve got tricks the world has yet to see,” he said. He scooted back from the edge, his hand on Bertha’s shoulder ushering her along with him. He carried a bow loaded with an arrow in it in his other hand. “We take him alive, you can saw his ears off before we kill him . . . if you’ve a mind to, that is.”
Bertha stared down at the soldiers riding into sight.
“That pig would’ve had me killed,” she said. Turning to Pridemore, she added, “You mean I can do anything I feel like to him before he dies?”
“Have yourself a good time with him, my word on it,” Pridemore said with a shrug.
“I could do that,” Bertha said under her breath. “I could do that in spades.”
Pridemore watched her face flush with vengeance at the possibilities at hand. “Power is a wonderful thing, ain’t it, Big Darling?”
“Wonderful and then some,” Bertha said, staring at the captain from high above him. “Bigfoot,” she offered, feeling less afraid, more protected than she’d felt in a long time. “I can see where you and I might make a nice place for ourselves.”
Chapter 7
Captain Penza’s patrol straightened out around the turn in the trail and rode between two high-reaching hills towering on either side of them. From behind the cover of rock and from atop cliff overhangs, Pridemore’s men took all the time they needed. As the scout dropped farther back, searching the upper hill lines halfheartedly, the scalpers homed their rifle sights on the unsuspecting soldiers.
The well-coordinated ambush erupted so fast and furious that the soldiers hardly knew what hit them. As the first hard-pounding volley of fire exploded on either side, the mercenaries squalled and shouted among the rocks like wild Indians.
“Apache! Take cover!” the sergeant bellowed, yanking his horse around as bullets sliced through the air around him. Soldiers fell from their horses, many never getting their guns raised. Their rearing horses fell too. The captain’s horse reared and twisted wildly midair and came down, turning back onto the trail alongside the sergeant. But before their animals could get the move completed, a bullet from Pridemore’s rifle knocked the captain’s horse off its hooves. Two bullets hit the sergeant at once and slung him from his saddle in a wide spray of blood. As the captain hurried to the cover of rock, Pridemore took close aim and sent a bullet slicing through the back of his leg. The captain fell forward and crawled away quickly.
In seconds the soldiers were bunched up in the trail, a third of them already down, dead or dying. The fighting wounded threw themselves from their horses and ran to what cover they could take among rocks at the low edge of the trail. A few lay in the trail in the shelter of downed horses. Rifle fire butchered the animals where they lay. Arrows flew in from the hillsides; Pridemore’s men yelped like coyotes. They shouted war cries they had learned from their many Indian battles.
Seeing the fight was rapidly drawing to a close, Pridemore fired three arrows down into the dead horses below, then tossed the bow out onto the rocks. Return fire from the ambushed soldiers was sporadic and waning. Looking down, Pridemore saw soldiers on foot bounding away over rock and brush along the high hillside.
“Another terrible attack by the heathen savages,” he said, rising into a crouch, pulling the woman up beside him. “Keep your head down, Big Darling. One of these bullets is apt to find you whether they’re seeking you or not.”
“Careful, Bigfoot,” said Early Doss, still firing at the soldiers in retreat among the rocks. “They might yet get collected and fight back.”
“Naw, little chance,” said Pridemore. “These boys are so scared of Apache they see them when they look down the jake.” He gave a dark little laugh, then added, “Get finished up here; then search the hillside. You see any soldier’s hair long enough to look Apache, take it. Bullets cost money—we got to make something out of all this.”
He gave a tug on Bertha’s hand, pulling her along, the two of them moving crouched among the cover of rock. Looking down at the soldiers and horses lying dead with arrows in them, Bertha gave a faint smile.
“My, my, Bigfoot,” she said, “you manage to play every angle, don’t you?”
“I do indeed,” Pridemore said. “If I felt like doing it, I could convince the capitán that my mercenaries showed up just in time to chase away the Apache and save him and what few men he’s got left.” He chuckled as they moved down toward the trail.
Bertha giggled and ran her hand back over her tangled hair, straightening it as best she could.
“What they don’t know,” Pridemore said, “is that the Wolf Hearts and the rest of the Mescaleros have moved on out of here. We whupped them bad. They’ve rode south to lie up and lick their wounds. No telling when they’ll be back.”
They stopped for a moment while three scalpers ran in behind a stand of rock and finished off three soldiers.
“Will you go after them?” Bertha asked.
“Naw, we’ll wait, get them when they come back this way. When the Mescaleros move out, the Lipans get a little bolder, start thieving horses and goats here and there.” He shrugged. “They’re Apache too—hair pays the same.”
Bertha shook her head.
“I’m impressed,” she said as they walked out on the trail, the firing all but over. Farther along the rock hillside, halfway up, a voice cried out in terror. Bertha winced.
Pridemore grinned.
“There’s a man I’m betting should have seen a barber before riding out here,” he said.
On the trail, scalpers gathered on either side of Pridemore and walked forward slowly with him, keeping quiet as they approached a place where the soldier’s heavy gunfire had resounded earlier. Half circling the spot, Pridemore raised a hand, holding the men back as he grinned listening toward the rocks. Then he turned the grin to Bertha.
“Capitán Penza? Are you in there?” he called out. They all listened for a silent moment. After a tense pause the wounded captain replied.
“Yes—yes, I am here,” he said, sounding stunned at hearing the words of a white man. “Who . . . is out there?”
“Hell, it’s me, Bigfoot, and my mercenaries, Captain,” Pridemore called out. “Lucky we came by. We just run off two dozen heathen Apache before they made dinner out of yas.”
“Pridemore, thank God it’s you!” the captain called out, almost sobbing with gratitude. He stood up from behind a waist-high rock, his bloody hands clasped together as if in prayer.
Pridemore turned to Bertha and grinned.
“See? What’d I tell you?” he said just above a whisper. “This world is mine.”
Around Pridemore his mercenaries laughed at the easily duped captain.
Captain Penza looked confused.<
br />
“What is funny, Bigfoot?” he said. “Many of my men are dead. Why do your men laugh?”
“Hell, they’re all crazy, Capitán,” said Pridemore. “I should have told you.”
“Sí, loco,” Penza said indignantly. He looked at Bertha Buttons, her clothes ripped and hanging, one large breast almost completely bare. “What is she doing here?”
Pridemore reached around and pulled Bertha forward, prisoner-style, and held her forward roughly for the captain to see.
“I lured her out here, Capitán,” Pridemore said causally. “I figured you might want to see me cut her throat—no extra charge for watching, of course.”
Bertha gave Pridemore a look of terror as he raised a big knife from his boot well. She tried to jerk away from him, but he held fast.
“I did not want to,” said Penza, recovering quickly from the ruse Indian attack. “But since you brought her . . .” He looked back and forth, the scalpers having settled down from laughing, serious now. “What about Jim Ruby?”
“Next place you’ll see Diamond Jim is in hell, Capitán,” Pridemore said. “Watch close now.” As Bertha tried to pull away, he tightened his grip on her and laid the edge of the big knife blade across her throat. Penza clenched his teeth; a dark gleam of satisfaction came to his eyes, a faint smile.
“Ziiii-iip,” Pridemore hissed through his teeth, running the dull edge of the knife across her flesh so quickly that Bertha gasped out loud and threw her hands up around her throat.
For an instant Penza’s faint smile widened, his eyes gleamed sharper. Then his eyes turned confused as he saw no blood either ooze or spew from between Bertha’s clutching fingers.
Even the mercenaries looked a little bewildered by Pridemore’s actions.