Scalpers

by Ralph Cotton

Bertha swooned a little in relief; she started to sink to her knees, but Pridemore caught her, steadied her.

  “Easy, now, Big Darling,” he said. “I thought you’d know it was all in jest.” He let her rest against him. “I wouldn’t hurt you. We’ve still got to consummate and whatnot.” He grinned at her, then looked back at the captain, who’d begun to see this as a madman’s ugly game.

  “See, Capitán Penza,” Pridemore said. “I told her you paid me to kill her, but I didn’t want her to take my word for it.” He looked at Bertha and handed her the knife by its handle.

  “You double-crossed me. . . .” Penza slumped, knowing that only death awaited him.

  “Well, yeah, sort of,” said Pridemore. “Look at her and then look at yourself. I couldn’t kill this big strapping beauty.” He squeezed Bertha. “And I do maintain a rigid rule against giving refunds.”

  Bertha straightened and looked at the knife in her hand. She gave the captain a cold, bitter stare.

  “Thanks, Bigfoot,” she said, gripping the knife tightly. Three of the scalpers moved in fast and held the captain by his outstretched arms.

  “Capitán Penza, Bertha’s going to cut a few odds and ends off you. I told her she could, if she had a mind to”—he watched the seething woman stalk forward—“and now it appears she certainly does have a mind to.”

  * * *

  Behind the livery barn, Ozzie and Fox plunged their heads down into the cool water of a horse trough and held them there for a moment. When they rose and slung their wet hair, Fox wiped his face with his hand and looked around and batted his red-rimmed eyes. “No more whiskey for me, Oz,” he said. “I don’t remember much of last night or this morning, but what little I do ain’t good.”

  Beside him Ozzie took a drink from their last bottle of whiskey and handed the bottle toward him.

  “What’d I just tell you?” Fox said with hangover testiness to his voice. “I’m not getting drunk all over again.”

  Ozzie shrugged and stood the half-full bottle on a short hitch post.

  “Neither am I,” he said. “But I’m not going to go around hurting all day when a stiff drink will put me back on my feet.”

  Fox thought about it. With each beat of his pulse, his head pounded like a hammer on a tin tub.

  “Hell, give it here,” he said, reaching a hand over toward the hitch post.

  Ozzie chuckled, picked up the bottle, swished its contents, then handed it to him.

  “You remember us robbing the mercantile?” he asked as Fox took the bottle. “Remember us tying up the owner and me bashing him over the head with my gun barrel?”

  “Yeah, sort of,” said Fox. He took a quick drink of whiskey and made a sour face. When he lowered the bottle, he felt the lumpy coins and dollar bills he’d stuffed down in his trouser pockets. The whiskey spread like warm coals throughout his chest and shoulders. He felt his head already begin to settle.

  “I went back and killed him while you was chasing that whore with the shoeing tongs,” Ozzie said matter-of-factly. “Figured it beat taking a chance him telling anybody.”

  “You didn’t have to kill him,” Fox said. “He wouldn’t dare say nothing, not after everybody here seeing Diamond Jim’s face nailed to a board. Nobody even wants to come out on the street.”

  “Still and all, it’s never good to leave a witness behind,” said Ozzie. “My uncle taught me that.” He chuckled aloud, picturing Diamond Jim Ruby’s entire face, beard, scalp and all, stretched out and tacked to a pine board. “How’d old man Sickles ever learn to do something like that, you reckon?”

  “Practice is all I can think of. He’s had lots and lots of practice,” Fox said.

  “If you ask me, old Deacon Sickles is a little peculiar,” Ozzie offered, lowering his voice a little as if Deacon Sickles might hear him.

  Fox stifled a laugh, looking over at Diamond Jim’s raw faceless head, the wide, dead grin. Lidless eyes stared up at the boiling Mexican sun.

  “You think so, huh?” he said.

  The two laughed and slung their wet hair. Finger bones and ornaments clacked and clattered on their breastwork. Fox was feeling better. He wiped his face again and looked off along the corral fence where Diamond Jim’s body lay in the dirt. Corral horses gave the grisly body a wide berth. They stood back and sniffed toward it, then blew out a breath and walked away.

  “Did we eat any breakfast this morning?” Ozzie asked.

  “I don’t think so,” said Fox. “Are you hungry?”

  “I could eat,” Ozzie said.

  “Let’s go eat, then,” said Fox, picking up his hat and rifle from the hitch post.

  “Yep, let’s look at Diamomd Jim’s face again on the way,” said Ozzie, almost childlike.

  They walked from the livery barn to the street and on to Iron Point’s public well in the center of a dusty plaza. The board with Diamond Jim’s face tacked to it leaned against the front of the well, facing the gates toward anyone entering town.

  “Who are they waiting for?” Ozzie asked Fox, the two of them stopping at the well and looking toward the iron gates of the old fortress.

  Fox just looked at him for a moment.

  “For any of the soldiers . . . ?” said Fox, trying to jog Ozzie’s memory. “Oz, you really don’t remember much,” he added.

  “Like I said, not a lot, just killing the store owner,” Ozzie replied.

  The two chuckled, turning to the board with Diamond Jim’s face stretched on it. Flies walked on the nose cartilage that lay atop a flattened cheek. Fox fanned the flies away. From a few yards away a couple of townsmen watched warily. The streets of Iron Point lay empty, save for occasional townsfolk who ventured forth one and two at a time to see the face of Jim Ruby tacked on rough pine.

  Looking at the face, Ozzie chuffed and shook his head.

  “I can’t make no sense of it,” he said, cocking his head this way and that, studying Ruby. “He was an ugly sumbitch anyways.”

  Skinned from the back of the head forward, Ruby’s face looked small inside the large circle of skin scalp and beard. His eyelids were gone, as were his lips. His ears had been kept intact on the grisly souvenir.

  “After my pa and the others hit the army patrol,” Fox said, dismissing Ruby’s face, “Pa figures any soldiers that manages to get away alive might come running back here.”

  Ozzie shook his head and turned away from Ruby.

  “Stupid soldiers,” he said.

  “Yeah . . . ,” Fox said. He gazed in contemplation at the iron gates, and beyond them, out across the distant flatlands below. At the gates Darton Alpine looked back at the two and motioned them toward the rear trail out of town.

  “Right away, Dart,” Fox called out to him. To Ozzie he said, “He wants us to cover the other end of town. Let’s go.”

  “What about something to eat?” Ozzie said.

  “We’ll get something on our way,” said Fox.

  “Hell,” said Ozzie, “no soldier’s going to go all the way around town and come the back way—not while they think Apache is on their trail.”

  “I know it,” said Fox, “but let’s do like we’re told. Maybe he’ll forget about us getting drunk on him.” They started walking, rifles in hand. “Anyways, I’ve been thinking,” Fox added. “I figure when Pa gets back, he’s going to have us pillage this town and burn it on our way out.”

  “So?” Ozzie grinned, looking all around. “That’s sounds like fun to me.”

  Fun?

  Fox just looked at him as they walked.

  “It might be fun for the two of us if we got the jump on everybody and took whatever money we can find ahead of time. Don’t you think?”

  “Oh yes, indeed I do,” Ozzie said, grinning. He looked all around. “How we going to do it without being seen by Alpine?”

  Fox looked him up and down.

>   “We just go to all the back doors,” he said, “shake a gun in the owner’s face. Tell him if he don’t keep his mouth shut, he’ll be leaning on the well beside Diamond Jim.”

  Ozzie laughed and clapped his hands together in excitement.

  “Damn! I like it!” he said. “You must think just like your pa when it comes to business.”

  “I ought to,” Fox said solemnly. “That’s who I learnt it from. Now that I’m no longer saddled with my brother, I want to put my learning to work. Maybe strike out on my own before long.”

  “I hear you, El Zorro,” said Ozzie. “You need a pal covering your back, I’m your huckleberry.”

  “‘El Zorro’?” said Fox.

  Ozzie grinned.

  “Yeah, you know, ‘The Fox’?” He made a strong fist. “The way the Mexes say it, Astuto como el zorro . . . ?”

  “Crafty as the fox,” the serious young man translated. He spat and said, “I don’t know about that, Oz. I just know the only way out for me is to shoot my way out, fight my way out and never look back.”

  Ozzie looked all around, puzzled. He shrugged and spread his hands.

  “Your way out of what?” he asked as they walked.

  “Any damn thing . . . every damn thing,” Fox said grimly without looking around. They walked on in a tight silence until finally Fox’s dark brooding seemed to lift a little. He let out a breath and glanced sidelong at Ozzie.

  “El Zorro, huh?”

  “Yeah.” Ozzie grinned. “What do you think of it?”

  “It’ll do,” Fox said. He managed a slight smile, realizing there were a lot of things about Ozzie that reminded him of his dead brother, Lucas. Ozzie still had a lot of kid in him, Fox realized. But he was smart enough to know how to stay alive. That was worth a lot.

  “El Zorro,” Fox murmured to himself, getting a feel for it. He was not a young man given to frivolity, but he liked it.

  And they walked on.

  PART 2

  Chapter 8

  The Ranger and the women had heard the gunfire from a long ways off. With little other choice they had continued moving steadily in that direction throughout the day. In the late afternoon, they stopped at a turn on the hill trail when three soldiers stood up on the hillside and waved down at them. One soldier wore a bloodstained handkerchief wrapped around his upper arm; another soldier rode slumped in his saddle with a hand pressed to his side.

  “Ranger, up here,” one soldier called out in English, recognizing Sam from when they’d met earlier on the trail. As he spoke the soldier bounded through the rocks down toward the trail. The two wounded soldiers stood watching, their French rifles in hand.

  Sam stopped his dun and the mule cart and sat watching. The woman, Ria, stopped the barb beside him. The young girl sat at the front of the cart.

  “We heard shooting earlier. What happened?” he asked.

  “Apache! Quetos and his Wolf Hearts ambushed us,” the soldier said, reaching the trail and stopping. On the hillside the other two walked down slowly, cradling their rifles. “Thank God we saw you before you go any farther. They will kill you.” He waved a hand at the trail leading to Iron Point. “They are everywhere.”

  Apache . . . ?

  Sam was skeptical. Looking out across the sand flats below and back along the hill trail in the direction of Iron Point, he saw no trail dust, no signs of life on the rugged Mexican badlands. He’d yet to see anyone ride away from fighting Apache without warriors in hot pursuit. From the condition of these three, the Wolf Hearts would have ridden them down long before now and killed them on the spot.

  “Where’s your captain?” Sam asked.

  “Dead, I think,” the soldier said. Then he stopped and said, “Or maybe he got away, I don’t know. We saw a chance to retreat and we did so. Were we wrong?”

  Sam just looked at him, getting an idea these men were in the midst of deserting when he and his little party happened along.

  “I don’t know,” Sam replied. “Sometimes a retreat is the only move to make. Where are you headed now? Where’re your horses?”

  The other two soldiers had stopped a few feet away and stood watching.

  “Where are we headed? Where are our horses?” the soldier repeated, as if needing time to come up with some answers. “Our horses are over there.” He gestured a hand toward the hillside. “We are headed back to Iron Point, of course—to defend the fort against the heathen Apache.”

  “I see,” Sam said. He picked up his canteen by the strap around his saddle horn and swung down from his saddle. The women watched him step around and hold the canteen out to the soldier.

  “Ah, gracias, Ranger,” the man said. He took the canteen, started to uncap it.

  “You’re headed the wrong way,” Sam said, leaning in close to the soldier as if sharing a secret. He eyed him closely.

  The soldier looked surprised, nervous, feeling pressed by the Ranger.

  “We are?” he said. He glanced over at the two men as he raised the canteen to his lips. But he stopped suddenly when he felt the tip of the Ranger’s gun barrel stuck up under his chin.

  “You try signaling them to fire, I’ll lift the top off your head,” Sam said quietly.

  “No, no, señor! You have us wrong!” the man said, hearing the Colt cock in the Ranger’s hand. “Por favor. Let me explain to you—”

  But Sam was having none of it.

  “Tell your pards to drop the rifles,” he demanded, cutting the man off.

  The soldier’s eyes flashed toward the men. Sweat beaded thick on his forehead.

  “Okay, lay down your rifles, both of you!” he shouted. “I told you this would not work. That this man is too smart to fall for any trick—”

  “Shut up,” Sam said, gripping the man by his shirt with his free hand, the barrel of the Colt still in place under his chin. “Tell them to drop every weapon they’ve got. If they hold out, I’ll kill you first. Don’t forget, yo hablo español.”

  “This one speaks Spanish,” the soldier said to the men in their own language. Then he quickly ordered them to disarm, and looked back at the Ranger. “There, you see, no tricks.” He gave a shrug, his head cocked high on the tip of the gun barrel.

  “Ria, you and Ana search those two,” Sam called out to the women. “See to it they’re unarmed.”

  “I will search them,” Ria replied. She motioned for Ana to remain in the cart.

  Sam watched her climb down from her saddle and hurry over to the wounded soldiers. He looked at Ana, who had sat back down and folded her hands on her lap.

  “Ana, find some bandages for these men,” he called out to the young woman.

  “Please do not blame us for what we do, Ranger,” the soldier said. “We are in desperation here. We know the Apache will kill us if they catch us.”

  “You’ve got no horses, do you?” Sam said. “You were going to take ours, right?”

  “It is true, God forgive us,” the soldier said. “We have no horses . . . no food, no water.” He lowered his eyes to the canteen in his hand. “Yes, we are going as far from this place as we can get. The patrol is dead. What else can we do?”

  Sam lowered the Colt from under the man’s chin when he looked around and saw Ria give him a nod. The soldier drank from the canteen and gestured toward the other two men.

  “Ana, come take the water to the men,” he said, seeing the young woman step down from the cart with bandaging in her hands.

  “No, Ana, stay where you are!” Ria called out, hurrying toward the canteen in the soldier’s outstretched hand. “I will do it.”

  Sam stepped back from the soldier; he lowered the Colt to his side but kept it cocked. He watched Ria take the canteen from the soldier and hurried to Ana to get the bandaging.

  “We’re going to give you a canteen,” he said to the sweating soldier. “You know there�
�s a water hole back there.”

  “Sí, yes, we know,” the soldier said.

  “We’ll give you the bandaging and part of what food we have.”

  “Gracias,” the soldier said humbly, his head lowered in shame for what he and his companions had planned to do.

  “Here’re your choices,” Sam said. “We’re going to Iron Point—”

  “But, Ranger, the Apache!” the soldier blurted out.

  Sam silenced him with a firm stare.

  “You three can follow along with us on foot.” He motioned the other two soldiers over closer as he spoke. “Or you can take your chances and head for your next nearest outpost.”

  “The next nearest outpost is the old mission fortress near Rio Santo,” the soldier said. “It is a two-day ride—walking, I don’t know.” He shook his head a little at the prospect and looked at the other two as they walked closer, stopped and listened.

  Sam noted the bloodstained bandages on the two men.

  “We had a wounded man back there and the wolves got awfully bold on us,” he warned.

  “Better we face the wolves than the Wolf Hearts,” the sweaty soldier said. He paused, then said, “Perhaps you should go with us, Ranger. When we reach the outpost we will have over a hundred armed soldiers around us.”

  “We’re headed on to Iron Point,” Sam said in a voice that invited no more discussion on the matter. “Unless the womenfolk want to go to Rio Santo with you.” He looked at Ria and Ana as the two walked in closer. But Sam already knew that Ria wasn’t about to allow these soldiers around Ana, not for a minute, certainly not for a long trek across the Mexican badlands.

  “No,” Ria said flatly, “we are going to Iron Point with the Ranger.” She stared at the soldiers and looked them up and down with wary distrust in her dark eyes.

  “There you have it,” Sam said to the soldiers. “We’ll get you outfitted best we can. I’ll unload your guns and pitch your bullets up on the hillside. We’ll be cleared out of here by the time you find them.”

  “But, señor—” one of the wounded soldiers started to protest.