Scalpers

by Ralph Cotton

  “Well,” said Stevens, “it means—”

  “Shut the hell up, Stevens!” said Chase, cutting him off. “You’re both warned here and now. First chance I get to kill that Ranger, he’s a dead man.” He jerked his horse around in the direction of the rising black smoke. “So’s anybody who tries to stop me.” He kicked the horse out at a trot and rode away.

  Pusser and Stevens watched him for a moment, then looked at each other.

  “I ain’t letting him get in a stew with Bigfoot just because the Ranger broke his nose,” said Stevens.

  “Me neither,” said Pusser. “But he’s right about one thing. Alpine didn’t make it real clear what him or Bigfoot wanted us to do to this Ranger.” He shook his head and yanked his horse around. “I hate it when folks ain’t clear what they want.”

  “Me too,” said Stevens. “Once you kill an hombre, there’s no way to bring him back. Maybe Malcolm is right . . . just kill the Ranger, and say he ambushed us. Who’s going to care?” They booted their horses in the same direction as Chase.

  Chapter 13

  A few remaining Mexican elders sat in a row on a short adobe wall and watched as the Ranger rode the last few hundred yards into their smoldering village. An empty water bucket lay on its side at one old man’s feet. His feet and sandals were blackened from the soot of the windswept fire. Behind the elderly villagers, all that remained were a few roofless adobes. A loose corner of the livery barn roof—the only tin roof in town—flapped and rattled on a gust of wind like the tongue of a lunatic.

  When the Ranger stopped his horses, an old man stood up, a relic of a Spanish muzzleloader rifle in hand, and picked at the seat on his blackened peasant trousers. He rolled the bucket away with his bare foot and stepped forward.

  “Buenos dias, señor,” the old man said, keeping the barrel of the ancient muzzleloader lowered. He swept a hand toward the smoldering village. “Bienvenido.”

  A woman’s voice behind the old man said in Spanish, “Tell him it was gringos like himself who set fire to our homes.”

  The old man looked troubled at the woman’s request and scratched his head.

  “Yo hablo español,” Sam said, letting the man off the hook.

  “Ah, he speaks our language,” the man said to the others in border English. He looked relieved at not having to translate.

  “These men who burned your town,” Sam said, “were they young men dressed in buckskins—lots of breastwork on their shirts?”

  “Ah yes,” the old man said. “They rode in and took up with the bad element of our village, the Perros Locos. They eat much cocaine and drink much whiskey. Then they burn our town and leave.” He shrugged as if struggling with the random insanity of it. “What did we do to them?”

  “You did nothing,” Sam said. He swung down from his saddle, his rifle in hand, and walked forward carrying a canteen of water he’d taken from its loop around his saddle horn.

  The old man took the canteen as Sam held it out.

  “Gracias, señor,” the old man said, eyeing the badge on Sam’s chest behind his open duster lapels. “I am Ramon Decarias.”

  “I’m Arizona Ranger Sam Burrack,” the Ranger said. He knew the village still had water—he saw a waterwheel and a donkey twenty yards away. Yet his was a gesture of kindness, and the villagers knew it. They stood up slowly and drew closer to the canteen as the old man drank and passed it around.

  “You can fill your canteens at the well,” the old man said, pointing off to the low stone wall where the donkey stood at the wheel. The animal had gone back into harness the moment the fire and smoke died down.

  “Gracias,” Sam said. “These Perros Locos,” he asked, “how many are there?”

  “Six . . . no, wait, five,” Ramon said. “It is said that one of the gringos—I mean the americanos—killed the leader of the Crazy Dogs and left his body to burn in the flames.” He pointed off to where a spiral of thin smoke still swirled above a pile of rubble that had been the women’s cubicles. “Do you want to see him?”

  “No, not particularly,” Sam said. But seeing the slight disappointment in the old man’s eyes, he said, “Gracias, in a minute. First I want to water my horses and find them some shade to rest in. The man I’m after is a scalp hunter—thinks he’s an assassin. The man riding with him is a scalper too. So nothing they’ve done is going to surprise me.”

  “Ah, these scalp hunters are very bad hombres,” the old man said. “Now I understand why they burn our village. They know no other way to live except the violent way—” He stopped talking, seeing Sam’s attention drawn to the sound of a long war cry coming from the sand flats he’d ridden in on.

  “Señor, look!” said one of the elderly women, pointing out a roiling rise of trail dust.

  “I see him,” Sam said calmly. To the old man he said, “Get your people back, Ramon—take cover.”

  “Do these scalp hunters return?” the old man asked, already shooing the people back toward the remnants of their homes.

  “This is another one,” Sam said, recognizing the big, burly Chase as he rode screaming forward. “This one most likely wants to kill me.” He kneeled and raised the rifle to his shoulder and methodically adjusted the long-distance sights. He’d been expecting these men to come calling any time. But why only one of them? Because of the broken nose . . . ? he asked himself, taking close aim on Chase’s wide chest as the rider rose and fell with the horse’s long, bounding stride.

  Chase’s war cry sounded part Apache, part rebel yell. Sam saw the man’s rifle poised out to the side like the balancing outrigger on a boat. He knew that nothing short of killing the man was going to stop him. He could think of no reason why Chase would come charging at him out in the open this way. But that would make little difference once the scalper got close enough to draw his horse down and start shooting. This was the best place to put a stop to it.

  Here goes. . . .

  Sam took close aim on Chase’s chest and held it level as the horse’s pace raised it up and down, in and out of his gun sights. He drew a breath, let a puff of it out and held it. When the horse came into its down stride and Chase fell into sight, he squeezed the trigger.

  But in the split second before the rifle responded to his command, he saw Chase, horse and all, pitch forward into a hard roll as rifle fire exploded farther back in the trail dust behind him.

  What was that?

  Sam let off the trigger without firing a shot. He lowered his rifle a few inches and stared out above the sights. For a moment the fallen horse and its rider disappeared in the roiling dust. Through the dust, Sam heard two more rifle shots, saw them blossom orange in the thick sandy veil. Somebody out there on Chase’s back trail had just shot his horse out from under him.

  Who?

  Sam watched and waited, the rifle fire falling silent after the second two shots. As the dust started settling he saw no sign of the other two men who’d been following him through the hill country. Whatever this was about, he still had to water his horses and get them rested, he reminded himself. He stood up, uncocking his rifle and dusting his knees. A few feet away his dun and the speckled barb looked haggard, dusty, sweat-streaked and thirsty.

  The copper dun chuffed, scraped a hoof and grumbled under its breath.

  “All right, I’m coming,” Sam said quietly to the tired animals. He kept an eye on the settling dust as he picked up the reins to both the dun’s and the barb’s lead rope. Then he started walking toward the well, where the waterwheel donkey had stopped once again and stood staring toward him and his thirsty horses.

  * * *

  After resting and graining the horses, the Ranger ate a meal of jerked elk from his saddlebags and corn tortillas cooked on a charred outdoor kitchen. The burned-out kitchen stood behind the spot where the cantina and the women’s cubicles used to stand. Under the insistence of the old townsman, Sam walked a few ya
rds and looked at the burnt lump of char that had been Carlos Montoya.

  “The young scalper took this bandito’s widow with him when he left,” Ramon said, gesturing toward the unrecognizable body with heat still wavering above it, “because this is what outlaws do in your country, sí? They take whatever belongs to the man they killed?”

  Sam looked at him curiously.

  “I’ve never heard of it,” he said. “But these mercenaries are good at making up the rules to their game as they go along.”

  “Mercenarios . . . outlaws. Which are these two men?” the old man asked.

  “Probably both,” Sam said. “Scalp hunting draws the worst sort of men from both sides of the border, from every occupation.”

  The old man paused. Sam saw something on his mind.

  “What is it, Ramon?” he asked.

  “We know that you are in a hurry to catch up with the man you are hunting. But the others bid me to ask you this,” the old man said hesitantly. “Will you accompany us to the dead horse so we can butcher it and bring the meat back? The fire has left us without much food.” He nodded out onto the sand flats where the settled dust now revealed the fresh carcass of Malcolm Chase’s horse lying sprawled in the sand.

  Sam thought about how hospitable the old folks had been in sharing their tortillas with him in spite of being short on food for themselves.

  “Yes, of course I’ll help you and your people carry the food back here,” Sam said. Even as he spoke he gathered the reins to both horses. “I was going there anyway, to see if I can figure out why two of them killed one of their own.”

  “We have four donkeys to carry the horse meat,” the old man said. “We’d like you and your gun with us in case more of these mercenarios are out there.” He held up his muzzleloader with an ironic little grin. “The only way I know this will fire is to fire it. Then the only way to know it will fire again is to reload it and fire it again.” He shrugged. “I will never get caught up with it.”

  Sam nodded. He had no reason to think the scalpers would be out there in the heat, the sun and the dust waiting for him in such an exposed position. But he treated the elder’s fears seriously.

  “I understand,” he said.

  He and Ramon walked over to where the others stood waiting.

  “The Ranger has agreed to escort us,” Ramon said. “So let us go quickly and gather the meat before the vultures beat us to it.”

  The people looked relieved and grateful, and they hurriedly took stock of themselves and whatever butchering tools they carried.

  As they fell into a line and filed off toward the downed horse, Sam lifted an elderly woman who held a naked infant in her arms swaddled in her serape. He sat the woman and child both atop the dun.

  “Mi gran hijo,” the old woman said, smiling across empty gums as she patted the baby’s head.

  “Yes, and a beautiful grandson he is,” Sam replied in his border Spanish.

  The dun blew out a breath in discontent, wanting none of it. Yet he settled and acted with civility as Sam led him and the speckled barb forward.

  “We all do our part, Copper,” he said quietly to the dun, rubbing its muzzle as they walked on, Sam with his rifle in hand. The barb walked alongside carrying the Ranger’s trail supplies.

  * * *

  When the Ranger and the elderly villagers reached the spot where the horse lay stretched out dead in the sand, Sam dropped the reins to his horse and lifted the old grandmother and her naked grandson down from the dun’s saddle. He unhitched the dead horse’s saddle and with the help of two elderly men pulled it free from the downed horse’s side and pitched it away.

  Sam then stepped back as the elderly villagers fell upon the fresh horse carcass with skill and utility. Overhead a pair of vultures appeared high up and began circling long and lazily in the white-hot sky.

  “We beat you today!” Ramon called to the dark circling birds in Spanish. He waved a bloody knife overhead and grinned and nodded at the Ranger. Sam touched his sombrero brim in acknowledgment and looked off and all around the area. It concerned him that Malcolm Chase’s body was not lying dead on the ground. He walked out slowly away from the dead horse, looking all around on the sand.

  Seeing the look of the Ranger’s face, Ramon handed his knife off to one of the other butchers, picked up his muzzleloader and hurried over to Sam, who now stood about where he figured a man would fall if thrown from a downed horse.

  “You feel something is not right?” he asked Sam quietly.

  “Yes,” Sam said. He nodded at the ground by his feet. Large dark splotches of blood lay randomly among a line of meandering boot prints leading off to a low rise. “Stay here, keep an eye on your folks while I look around.”

  “Sí, and you be careful, Ranger,” Ramon said in a whisper, watching closely as Sam ascended the low rise and walked down out of sight.

  Sam followed the boot prints until a few yards ahead of him he saw where they disappeared, as if their owner had been plucked up from the face of the desert and flown away. As he looked off far to the left, he realized what had happened here. He jerked back around toward the end of the boot prints. But he hadn’t moved quick enough. He saw Malcolm Chase standing facing him with sand pouring from his shoulders, his hat, his rifle.

  “Huh-uh, Ranger, I’ve got you!” Chase said, seeing Sam had fallen a second short of leveling his rifle. “A man learns a lot killing Apache. Pitch it away.”

  Sam needed a second. He stalled.

  “I don’t throw away rifles,” he said calmly. But he lowered the Winchester, took his right hand off it and let his hand drift down onto the butt of his Colt as he spoke.

  “Get your hand off the Colt too!” Chase said. “I’ve heard how you do, you sneaking bastard.”

  Sam took his hand off the Colt, running out of moves now. He looked at the dark blood down Chase’s thigh, a large black circle on his left shoulder.

  “You’re hit bad,” Sam said. “You’ll need help getting out of here—”

  “Shut up, Ranger,” Chase shouted, his voice weakening a little from his hours in the sand, and under it. “The only reason you’re alive this minute is that I need some help. Here’s the deal. Tell your beaner amigos to patch me up after I kill you, and I promise I’ll let them live. Otherwise no dice. I’ll kill them all after I blow your head off.”

  “Your deal sounds shaky,” Sam said, needing an edge, looking for it, hoping for it. Drawing against a cocked rifle hammer was never good—he knew, having been on the other side of this play too many times to count. “Why should I believe you’d keep your word after I’m—”

  “To hell with it,” said Chase, cutting him off, feeling himself growing weaker. “I’ll make them help me at gunpoint.” He steadied the rifle at his shoulder. Sam saw him tense himself for the shot. Here it came. Sam had to make the move—no choice— slim though his odds were.

  He snatched for the Colt, already knowing it was taking too long, even as his Colt was up and aimed, his finger ready to press back on the trigger. All he needed was a split second—

  But he didn’t get it. Instead he heard the powerful explosion of a huge-caliber rifle shot. Confusing, though, since he saw no smoke or fire fly from Chase’s rifle barrel. Instead he saw the scalper’s head explode like a busted bucket of red paint and raw eggs from the nose up.

  “This time it worked! This time it worked!” shouted Ramon behind him.

  Sam spun instinctively toward the rifle shot, his Colt cocked and ready. He let his gun and his hand fall to his side, seeing Ramon hold the big muzzleloader up over his head in a large cloud of silvery black powder smoke. He breathed in a deep breath and let it out, realizing how fortunate he’d been in escorting the elderly villagers out to collect their horse meat. Had he ridden out alone . . .

  But you didn’t, did you? he reminded himself, already wanting to put the clo
se call behind him.

  “Now I must reload and wait and see if it works the next time,” Ramon called out, trotting down the rise to him. “I know you said to wait up there.” He stopped ten feet away, the big ancient rifle leaving a trail of smoke behind him and a stream still curling from its barrel. “But I am old and do not always do as I am told. Forgive me, Ranger.”

  Sam only gave a faint smile and nodded.

  “Good shooting,” he said, lowering his Colt back into its holster.

  “Gracias, Ranger,” said Ramon, fanning the smoke away from his rifle. “Now to reload, and wait and see if it works the next time I try to fire it.” He crossed himself quickly. “By the saints, I hope it does.”

  “So do I, Ramon,” Sam said. He looked toward the dead man, then off into the distance. One down, two to go, he told himself. Then he and Ramon turned and walked back up the rise toward the elderly villagers. The elders had looked up at the sound of the gunshot, yet upon seeing no harm done went back to gathering their food.

  Chapter 14

  Twice the two scalpers had started to ride out onto the sand flats to make sure their rifle fire had killed Malcolm Chase, but each time something had stopped them. The first time, when the dust had settled enough for them to get a clear view of their handiwork, they spotted the Ranger and the elderly villagers trekking out to butcher the dead horse. Their second attempt, the loud blast of the big rifle had resounded at the same time they stepped into their saddles.

  They stopped and looked at each other warily. Instead of riding out to investigate, they straightened high in their saddles and stared out, only to have their view blocked by the low rise on the other side of which the Ranger and Ramon stood over Chase’s body.

  This was their third attempt at making sure Chase was dead, although by now they were both certain he was. They’d watched the villagers butcher his horse, pack it onto the donkeys and haul it back to the blackened rubble that had been their homes. The Ranger had ridden with them, lagging behind, keeping watch on the sand flats as they left.