Scalpers

by Ralph Cotton

  “All right, that’s enough, Oz,” Fox cautioned his friend, cutting him short.

  Ozzie fell into silent brooding.

  Fox looked all around.

  “What do you suppose happened to Paco?” he asked. “By now he should have killed them old folks, or stopped chasing them.”

  “Paco gets too much cocaine, he is like a bulldog,” said Stampeto. “He can’t turn something loose. He no doubt is still chasing the old couple.”

  Fox gave him a cold stare.

  “Maybe you made a mistake sending him,” he said.

  Ozzie started to repeat his words but caught himself and stopped.

  “Want me to ride back—see if I can find him?” Ozzie said.

  “No,” said Fox, still staring at Stampeto. “If anybody goes back it’ll be Silvar here. And if he ain’t back when we rob these French, Paco ain’t getting paid. Fair enough, Silvar?”

  “Yes, it is fair,” Silvar said, his dark eyes lowered as if in shame. “When Paco joins us, he will answer to me.”

  “He better,” Fox warned. He nodded down at the valley floor far below them where a flatbed Mexican ore wagon made its way around the winding dusty trail. Men in straw sombreros and narrow Cornish mining hats lined the wagon’s sides, their legs dangling in a stir of dust from the rolling wheels.

  “Who’s these flatheads?” Fox asked Stampeto.

  “These are men who work claims outside the main yard,” he said. “The wagon brings them in on payday. They get their money and spend it on everything the company brings here to sell to them.” As an example he pointed off to a large tent being set up inside the yard.

  “I see.” Fox nodded as he looked at women lounging half-dressed on blankets spread on the ground while they awaited their facility. A long plank bar was being set up near a small payroll shack. Crates of whiskey and wooden beer kegs sat stacked and ready in the shade of a canvas overhang.

  “At noon the guards will escort the paymaster and his assistant to that table.” Stampeto pointed to a long wooden table out in front of the payroll shack. “The paymaster will blow a whistle. Everybody will stop work and get in line for their pay.”

  Fox smiled a little to himself.

  “You’ve been watching this place for a while, Silvar,” he said quietly.

  “I have spent many hours on this spot, seeing this month after month. We all longed to rob it, but our leader was too lazy to allow us to do so,” Stampeto said. “When we leave here with the money, the federales will hear of it and come after us. But they will not try too hard to catch us. They hate the French, like everybody else.” He smiled.

  “Anything else you need to tell us?” Fox asked. “I don’t want anybody surprising us once we get started.”

  “No surprises,” said Stampeto, gazing down on the large rocky mining yard, the armed rifle guards walking back and forth inside a set of open iron gates. “Our only problem is to get inside. When they see us coming they will try to close the gates.”

  “We won’t let them do that,” Fox said, closely studying the scene on the hillside below them. “How many men will be standing in the line when the pay gets started?”

  “I’ve seen the line stretch thirty, maybe forty men long,” said Stampeto.

  “Not counting the ones already at the bar and inside the whore tent once the paying gets started,” said Fox.

  “That’s right,” said Stampeto, “not counting all the whores and drinkers.” He looked at Fox curiously. “Getting any ideas how we need to do this?” he asked.

  “Yeah, I got it all worked out,” Fox said, backing his horse and turning away from Terese, Stampeto and Ozzie. “Break up your Perro Locos, have them meet down as close as they can to the gates without being seen. When Oz and I come riding through, all of you fall in beside us.”

  Stampeto just stared at him for a moment.

  “And that’s it?” he asked finally.

  “Mostly,” Fox said as if brushing the matter aside. “We go in shooting. You stick with Oz and me while the Perros Locos mix into the drinkers and the whores. The guards won’t be so quick to take a chance shooting their workers.” He turned his horse and put it forward at a walk, leading Terese on her paint horse beside him.

  “There you have it,” Ozzie said as Stampeto looked around at him. “You stay close to me, and do everything I tell you.”

  “That’s not what he told me,” Stampeto said.

  “That’s what I’m telling you,” Ozzie said, thumbing himself on the chest. He nodded toward the Mexican banditos. “Now let’s go talk to the Perros Locos, get this thing under way.”

  * * *

  The leader of the mine guards, a big Norwegian named Arvid Asp, stood out in front of the payroll shack watching the line of employees move along in an orderly manner. He smoked a cigar as he twirled a two-foot-long hickory club by a leather hand strap looped around his wrist. But he stopped twirling the club when he saw one of his gate guards running up to him. Asp stood watching him curiously until the man slid to a halt with a concerned look on his face.

  “Why are you running, Henri?” Asp queried in a stern tone, always striving to keep things orderly in the yard, especially while payroll was being distributed.

  “We have two riders coming to our facility at a hard run,” Henri Deloof said, out of breath, having sprinted all the way from the front gates.

  “Are they being pursued?” Asp asked. As he spoke he craned his neck and stared toward the front gate.

  “I—I don’t think so,” said Deloof. “But they are in a big hurry. We thought you should know.”

  “Yes, of course, Henri,” said Asp. He started twirling his club again. “But settle down. We don’t want our miners to see you so excited over two riders, do we?”

  “No, we do not,” said Deloof, calming down quickly now that he saw his superior was not too concerned with the news.

  As the two spoke, a Texan guard named Jep Rayburn came trotting from the gate.

  “Now what . . . ?” said Asp. The club stopped twirling.

  “Boss,” the Texan called out in a drawl, “we best shut the gates. There’s three more fell in with them! Looks like an attack coming this way!”

  Asp and Deloof looked at each other. The employees in line fell silent and looked off in the direction of the open gates.

  “Yes, Jep!” Asp shouted, jerking the cigar from his mouth. “Tell Lobeau to shut the gates immediately!”

  “You best come a-running, Asp,” said Lep. “Lobeau don’t listen to nothing I say.”

  “Consorn it all” said the big Norwegian. He and Deloof ran toward the front gates, Jep Rayburn falling in with them on their way. “What kind of imbeciles would attack a well-armed facility such as ours?”

  “Folks will do most anything these days, boss,” said Rayburn, he and Deloof giving each other a look.

  At the gate, the senior French guard, Dillus Lobeau, saw the three guards coming and pointed out at a roiling cloud of trail dust on the trail leading straight to the gates.

  “There’s more of them now, Asp!” he shouted. He’d already walked over to the large iron wheel and started turning it, drawing the iron-barred gates shut. “Must be some kind of suicide riders, is the best I can make of it.”

  “Suicide, ha!” shouted Asp. “We’ll show them suicide if that’s what they’re looking for!” He leaped up onto a stone column beside the left gate and climbed a ladder to the top, fifteen feet up.

  “Jesus!” said Rayburn, looking up at Asp. “What the hell’s he doing?”

  “Stop this at once!” Asp shouted at the riders thundering toward the gates of the mining facility. “This is the property of the sovereign nation of—” He stopped short as a volley of gunfire ripped through him and flung him backward off the column and onto the ground with a heavy thud.

  “Oh yeah, we’re in
trouble,” Jep Rayburn said, grabbing his rifle from where it leaned against a low stone wall.

  Stunned by seeing Asp fall dead on the ground, Lobeau froze with his mouth gaping. He stopped cranking the gates shut, crouched low and ran to the cover of a nearby freight wagon as more gunfire erupted from the riders.

  “For God sakes, Lobeau!” Rayburn shouted at the fleeing guard, seeing the gates still open ten feet wide. “Henri! Close the damn gates!” He raised his rifle to his shoulder, returning fire.

  Deloof made a stab at cranking the gates shut, but the riders had gained so much ground that he saw he would never get the task completed.

  “These are Mexican bandits!” he shouted at Rayburn as bullets banged and thudded against the partially closed gates.

  “I don’t give a damn if they’re Chinese laundrymen!” Rayburn shouted in reply. “Get the gates shut!” Even as he made his demand, he saw for himself that the riders had gotten too close too soon. As bullets sliced through the air, Deloof had to abandon his task and make a run for cover. The riders were so close now that they were riding back and forth twenty feet from the gates, firing at will.

  “Holy jumping cats!” shouted Rayburn, seeing two riders throw out lariats from their saddles and loop the gate handles and hold them open. “Get to the pay shack and hold them back from there!” he shouted, seeing the two riders loop the lariats around their saddle horns and begin to pull the big gates farther open.

  In the yard miners ran wild, some taking cover, other racing to their shacks for guns and weapons. Shrieking whores took cover behind the bar. The payroll clerk had scooped up his paperwork and made a run for it.

  “Jesus, we’re dead, boys,” Rayburn murmured, firing as he moved backward toward the payroll shack, stunned by the relentless speed and fierceness of the outlaws.

  Chapter 17

  As the two riders pulled the gates open wider with their lariats, Fox Pridemore led the Perros Locos inside, firing and trampling into the crowd of drinking miners and scantily clad women. Guards, joined by a few miners with guns, took positions in the payroll shack, ready to defend the large amount of cash on hand. But instead of attacking the shack straight-on, Fox led his bandits into the crowd and began herding them into a tight circle like cattle being prepared for slaughter.

  “The hell are they doing now?” Jep Rayburn said to anyone listening inside the payroll shack. As soon as he asked he saw a miner fall from one of the guard’s bullets that had sliced through a bandit’s arm and hit the hapless miner in the chest.

  “Got one!” shouted the guard, firing from an open window. He quickly levered a fresh round into his rifle chamber.

  “You hit one of ours!” Rayburn shouted above the roar of gunfire. “Good God, men, stop shooting!” He waved a hand up and down in the looming gun smoke. Another miner fell on the street even as the shooting inside the shack halted.

  As the firing from the shack stopped, so did the shooting from the bandits, except for Ozzie Cord, who had dragged a half-naked woman up onto his lap while she screamed and kicked.

  “Easy, woman, easy,” Ozzie said into her ear. “Don’t make me start whittling on you.” He reached his free hand around and plopped his big scalping knife across her naked lap.

  The woman settled, trembling but under control.

  “That’s good,” Ozzie said. He slipped a hand around, cupped her exposed breast. “Every time I shoot, you scream, else I’ll clip the noses off your puppies and use them for earplugs.”

  The woman gasped, believing he’d do what he said.

  Holding her against his chest as a shield, Ozzie continued firing, spacing his shots to every fifteen or twenty seconds, his rifle resting on the woman’s bare shoulder. Every time he fired the woman screamed as if being tortured.

  “Hold your fire!” Rayburn shouted, jerking a white handkerchief from his lapel pocket. “We’re not shooting back! See?” He stepped into full view in the open window and gestured the white handkerchief back and forth.

  This is how easy it is robbing a payroll, Fox told himself. He gave a slight smile, his horse restless, stepping back and forth among the miners and the women. Every few seconds Ozzie fired another round into the closed door of the shack. With every shot the woman on his lap screamed loudly.

  “Jesus, I can’t stand much more of this,” Rayburn said to the men nearest him.

  “Then lucky for you I’m here,” said the gruff voice of the head mine engineer, Harvey Gatts. He stood up from behind an overturned desk in front of a large safe that he had closed and locked as soon as the shooting started. “I’ll get this nonsense organized.” He walked to where Rayburn stood in full view. He jerked the handkerchief from his hand and shoved him aside.

  “See here, you rapscallions,” he shouted out at Fox. “Have your man stop that infernal shooting this instant! I won’t even speak to ill-mannered saddle tramps.”

  Ill-mannered saddle tramps?

  Fox grinned. He still sat alone atop his horse while the rest of the bandits had grabbed miners and women for shields.

  “I can’t stop him. He likes shooting at you,” he called out to the engineer. Around him the Perros Locos gave a laugh as Fox continued. “You know what we’re after. Give it up. Else we start killing everybody out here.”

  Fear stirred among the crowd. The miners and the women surged, but the riders held them herded in.

  “I’m afraid you’re in for a disappointment,” Gatts said confidently. “You have killed the only man who knows the combination to this safe.” As he spoke he looked shrewdly at Rayburn.

  “Don’t fool with these men, sir,” Rayburn warned. “He looks like one of them scalpers—”

  “Oh, shut up, Rayburn,” said Gatts, cutting the Texan off. “Had you and the guards done your job, we wouldn’t be in this pickle.”

  Rayburn just stared at him. All right, son of a bitch. . . .

  “You’re the one in for a disappointment,” Fox called out to the shack window. A shot resounded; the woman screamed. “Give over the money or we will blow the shack up . . . all of you with it.”

  “All right, I’ve got him talking,” Gatts said under his breath to Rayburn. He kept the white handkerchief waving in his hand. “Stop the shooting, put the woman down and let’s talk,” he called out to Fox.

  Instead of answering Gatts, Fox called out over his shoulder to Silvar Stampeto, “Hey, segundo, get over to the dynamite shack. Bring us back, say . . . five or six sticks—some fusing too.” He turned and grinned at the engineer waving the handkerchief in the window. “We’ll blow up the shack, then the safe.”

  “That will do you no good,” Gatts called out. “You’ll blow up the money when you blow up the safe. You still won’t leave here with any money.”

  “So?” Fox shrugged. “We didn’t come here with any.” He gave Ozzie a look as Ozzie sat with his rifle cocked and ready on the woman’s bare shoulder.

  “That would be the most idiotic, mindless, irresponsible thing you could possibly—” Gatts’ words stopped as a shot exploded from Ozzie’s rifle, followed by the woman’s scream.

  Gatts’ blood splattered all over Rayburn as the shot flung the engineer backward, leaving the handkerchief hanging suspended in the air for a second. Rayburn grabbed the handkerchief in reflex as Gatts flew backward across the shack, across the overturned desk and slammed against the big locked safe door. A misty streak of blood trailed in the air behind him.

  “Anybody here feels like getting blown up today, raise your hands,” Rayburn said democratically, wiping Gatts’ blood from his eyes with the handkerchief he’d retrieved on the fly.

  The miners and guards looked at each other and shook their heads.

  “That’s what I thought,” said Rayburn. He waved the blood-smeared handkerchief in the window and called out to Fox, “You’ve got it all, mister! We’re giving it up.”

 
“Throw out your guns,” Ozzie called out. He whispered into the woman’s ear, “See . . . ? You get to keep those puppies, nose and all.”

  Fox smiled and looked around at Stampeto and the Perros Locos. He motioned for Terese to move her horse over beside him. She had ridden in wearing a large sombrero like one of the bandits. Joining Fox, they watched rifles, shotguns and revolvers fall out of the window onto the rocky ground. A small Uhlinger pocket pistol slid over by her foot. She stepped down from her horse and stretched her back and stood watching for a moment. Before stepping back into the saddle, she managed to pick the small pistol up and hide it in her clothing without being seen. A moment later the shack door opened and Jep Rayburn stepped out, the men filing behind him, all of their hands raised chest high.

  “You’ll have to blow open the safe door,” Rayburn said. “The engineer was right about none of us knowing the combination. He knew it. So there’s that, unless you can raise the dead.” He gave a shrug.

  Fox cocked his head slightly.

  “Are you sure you don’t know the numbers?” he asked.

  “If I did, it’s possible I would have robbed it myself,” he said. “I once went so far as to figure the miles between here and every water stop on the way to the Guatemalan border.” He stared at Fox. The bandits gave a hearty laugh.

  “You seem like a cool hombre,” Fox said. “Play your cards right, you won’t have to die here before we leave.”

  “You get the money you come for,” said Rayburn, “why does anybody have to die?”

  “See what I mean?” Fox said, wagging a finger at Rayburn. “That sounds like a man who’s looked down a gun barrel from both ends.”

  “I’m not admitting nothing,” Rayburn said calmly to Fox, noting the eyes of the miners on him.

  “Why don’t I shoot him, Zorro?” Ozzie blurted out for no reason, butting his horse through the crowd over beside Fox.

  Fox looked at him curiously.

  “Easy, Oz,” he said, surprised by Ozzie’s sudden outburst. “The man and I are speaking civilly here.”