Scalpers

by Ralph Cotton

  “I’ll tell you something you can do, Ranger,” said a half-hysterical voice of one of the women.

  “Please, Molly,” said Paulie. He reached a hand out and stopped her from stepping any closer to the Ranger. But it didn’t keep her from speaking her piece. “You can get that idiot the leader called Oz, and bring him back here to me. I’ll see to it he never pees standing up again!”

  “Please, Molly,” the young assistant engineer repeated.

  “Oz . . . ,” the Ranger said. “That sounds like Ozzie Cord, the man I’m after.”

  “He threatened to cut off my—” Molly stopped short for modesty’s sake. She glanced around at the miners and held two fingers at the tip of her breast as if wielding scissors. “Do I have to say it?”

  “No, ma’am,” Sam said, “I understand.” He turned back to Paulie and asked, “How far are they ahead of me?”

  Paulie looked around at the others as if for affirmation, then said, “Three hours . . . four at the most?” When the miners nodded their agreement, he looked back at Sam.

  Four hours. . . . He was getting closer. He breathed a little easier just realizing it.

  “If there’s nothing I can do here, I’ll be getting back on their trail,” Sam said.

  The man nodded and said, “We’ve got grain and water for your horses and the women have fixed some food. You and your horses might move faster with some food and water in your bellies.”

  “Obliged,” said Sam.

  * * *

  Within a half hour the Ranger was mounted and back under way, after a hot meal of roasted elk and gravy with red beans and peppers. Before riding out he had changed his saddle and gear from the dun to the spare horse and gotten rid of most of his supplies—traveling lighter now that the end might be coming into sight. On the ground the hoofprints he was following were fresh and undisturbed. With no heavy rain or any hard sandstorms, he could have good trailing right up to Ozzie Cord’s door, he told himself, wherever that door might be.

  On a trail leading downward, he stopped long enough to raise his battered telescope and investigate a thin rise of dust on the sand flats below. Adjusting the scope, he brought the image into closer focus and recognized one of the scalpers he’d seen riding toward the Apache warriors two days earlier. As the rider drew closer, Sam saw dark blood on the rider’s chest and a grisly string of scalps swinging from his saddle horn. Farther back at the edge of the sand flats, another rise of dust appeared.

  The other scalper trying to catch up?

  Sam sat on the speckled barb watching until at length he saw the second rider come into better focus and saw him raise a rifle and fire shots at the rider in front.

  “It never stops with these men,” he murmured to himself and the horses as their ears pricked toward the sound of gunfire.

  For the next five minutes he watched through the scope, moving it back and forth from one scalper to the next. The one in front had drawn a big Colt and returned fire back over his shoulder. But as the bullets flew back and forth, the man with the rifle finally won out. Sam saw the front rider’s horse go down and tumble in a roil of sand. The rider was alive, and struggled to his feet, jerking the string of scalps from his saddle horn while his wounded horse whinnied and thrashed on the ground.

  Sam saw the man on foot hold his Colt out at arm’s length and shoot the downed horse in the head, silencing it. But he realized it was not an act of compassion when he saw the scalper drop down and take cover behind the animal’s body as the other rider rode closer.

  Sam waited, watching, realizing the man behind the dead horse was letting his assailant get more and more into pistol range with every passing second. Rifle shots thumped into the dead horse; the man behind the fresh carcass held his fire, waiting. Finally when the horseman was in good close view, one pistol shot resounded and sent the rifleman flying backward from his saddle.

  Sam shook his head and watched as the man stood up from behind his dead horse and walked toward the downed rider. He grabbed the reins to the downed rider’s horse on his way. When he’d led the horse closer to the downed man, his big Colt appeared again at arm’s length. Sam saw it buck once in his hand. He watched the man swing up onto the dead man’s horse and ride off across the flats. “And there’s that,” Sam murmured. He turned his horses on the trail and went back to following the hoofprints on the ground. Two down, one to go, he told himself. He’d have to watch out for this last one. From what he’d seen of these scalpers, they were apt to pop up anywhere.

  Chapter 19

  In the evening light Fox Pridemore led his men around a rocky turn above the flatlands to the town of Big Sand. When he looked down to his right, he saw both federale and U.S. Cavalry troops riding into the desert town, and he waved his riders to a sudden halt behind him. But caught by surprise, Ozzie, horse and all, started sliding sidelong off the edge of the trail. Beside him, Jep Rayburn leaped out of his saddle and caught the unbalanced horse by its bridle. He and Ozzie goaded and wrestled the animal back onto the path and got it settled.

  When horse and rider were safe, Ozzie jumped down from his saddle on weakened knees and looked down the three-hundred-foot drop that would have swallowed him and the animal had Rayburn not thought quick, grabbed the horse and gotten it moving forward off the loose gravelly earth and back onto the solid path.

  “Man oh man! I was dead!” he said, rubbing his sweaty forehead, seeing loose gravel still showering down into the open chasm. He turned and checked the canvas bag full of money behind his saddle, then turned to Rayburn and looked him up and down as if with new eyes. “Obliged,” he said almost humbly.

  “Think nothing of it, Oz,” said Rayburn, rubbing Ozzie’s horse on its nose, settling it more. “I hope you’d do the same for me if it came down that way.”

  Ozzie looked at him for a moment as if considering it, then said, “I would now.”

  Watching it from the other side of Fox, Terese noted first thing that Rayburn had shot a glance at the canvas bag tied down behind Ozzie’s saddle as he’d made his move. But she kept quiet.

  Fox had grabbed Rayburn’s horse when Rayburn leaped from his saddle. He handed the reins back to him now and said, “Fast thinking, Rayburn. Right, Silvar?”

  “Sí, fast thinking, Rayburn,” Stampeto said grudgingly, having been closer to Ozzie Cord than the fast-acting Texan, yet not making a move when the horse had slipped.

  Ozzie just glared at Stampeto.

  “Everybody stay back in these rocks while we see what we’ve got in Big Sand,” Fox ordered.

  The men backed their horses on the high, narrow trail. Fox, Ozzie and Stampeto eased upward atop a boulder and lay looking down on the town, Fox with a battered telescope to his eye.

  “Yep, just like I thought,” said Fox, scanning the streets of the town, its cavalry and the Mexicans. “My pa was afraid this would happen.” He lowered the scope and handed it sidelong to Ozzie.

  “What’s it all mean?” Ozzie asked, taking the battered lens and looking down through it, seeing sweaty, dusty horses lined up riderless in columns of twos along the narrow streets of Big Sand.

  “It means the U.S. and Mexico have joined together to get rid of the Lipans and Mescaleros on both sides on the border,” said Fox. “The governments palavered about it a long time. Now here it is.”

  Stampeto nodded, watching the streets with his naked eyes.

  “If they are united to kill Apache, what will stop them from killing us too?”

  “All right, let’s not get crazy over it,” Fox said, scooting back from the boulder’s edge and standing. “I’m just glad I spotted them before we rode in with these bags of money strapped down behind us.” He gestured toward Ozzie’s and Stampeto’s horses standing below the boulder on the trail. “Except for all that money, we’re just good ol’ scalp hunters, out to kill the heathen Apache. I’ll say I came all this way and recruited you me
n to work for my pa’s mercenaries.” He grinned. “Hell, they’ll want to buy us all a drink.”

  “We’re riding in, Zorro?” Ozzie asked.

  “Some of us,” Fox said, “but not you and Silvar. You’re both staying out of Big Sand. I want you keeping an eye on our money. I’m riding in and making an appearance in case we run into these soldiers out on the trail. I don’t want us explaining who we are with a sword to our throats.”

  “Will you bring us back some whiskey?” Ozzie asked hopefully. “I figured it’d be all right to celebrate a little.”

  “You figured wrong,” said Fox. “It’s a long way there and back. I’ll be back by morning, but I’m not bringing no whiskey. There’ll be no celebrating until we get somewhere and split up the money. Then you can get drunk as a one-eyed hoot owl, far as I’m concerned.” He looked at Sergio Sega and Otis Seedy and said, “We rest our horses and ourselves a half hour. Then we ride.”

  The three of them walked away. Rayburn, Stampeto and the woman gathered wood and built a small campfire. They set a pot of coffee to boil. Ozzie turned sullen and drifted away and sat off by himself until the half hour had passed and Fox and the two Perros Locos walked back up from where they had rested, ready to ride. He only stood up after the three had ridden off along the first of a series of switchback trails leading down to Big Sand. Ricardo Mirano, tormented by the pain in his wounded side, stayed behind with Stampeto, Ozzie, the woman and Jep Rayburn.

  As soon as Fox and the two Mexican bandits were out of sight, Ozzie drifted back and joined the others at the small campfire behind the cover of the large boulder. When he’d plopped down beside Stampeto, he let out a huff of breath.

  “I know damn well they’ll be drinking while they’re in Big Sand.”

  Stampeto didn’t answer; neither did Mirano. Ozzie sat brooding, staring into the fire.

  Rayburn walked back from attending their horses and sat down across the fire from him. The two canvas bags of money lay just out of the firelight where Fox had put them earlier.

  “Damn shame not being able to have a drink on a night like this,” he said. As he spoke he pulled a bottle of whiskey from his saddlebags and stood it on a rock beside the fire. “I was going to pass this around tonight, sort of my way of saying obliged for letting me in.”

  “You mean for not killing you, Rayburn,” Ozzie said. He gave him a flat half smile.

  “That too, come to think of it,” said Rayburn. “Either way it ain’t going to happen now.” He picked the bottle up and started to shove it back into his saddlebags. “Rules are rules.”

  Ozzie, Stampeto and the wounded Mexican stared at him.

  “Not so fast, Rayburn,” Ozzie said. He looked at Mirano and said, “How bad you hurting, Ricardo?”

  “Damn bad,” said the young Mexican in a pained voice. “My whole side is on fire.” He stared longingly at the bottle of whiskey. “I can’t see what harm one drink would do, as bad as I hurt.”

  Rayburn shook his head. “I shouldn’t have pulled this out. I don’t want to get nobody in trouble.”

  “Yeah, but this man needs it,” Ozzie said. “Look at him. It’s not right, a man hurting that bad, can’t even have a drink of whiskey.”

  “Not much we can do about it, though,” Rayburn said. “Zorro says no drinking. I don’t want to take the chance and have somebody tell him about it.” He looked back and forth from one shadowed face to the next.

  “The thing is,” Ozzie said, “if we all take a drink, nobody can tell Fox without getting himself in trouble.”

  A big stupid kid, Rayburn thought listening to him.

  Ozzie looked around then at Mirano, then at Rayburn holding the bottle.

  “I’m giving this poor sumbitch a drink, and then I’m passing the bottle around.” He reached for the bottle. “Any objections?” he asked in a menacing tone. Rayburn handed the bottle over without another word.

  Ozzie helped Mirano raise the bottle to his lips and take a drink. Then Ozzie took the bottle, raised it, poured down a long gurgling swig and let out a whiskey hiss.

  “Here, Silvar, take a drink and pass it to her.” He nodded toward Terese, who sat watching in silence. “Everybody drinks.” He gave Terese a dark look.

  “Don’t worry about running out. I’ve got more,” said Rayburn. He reached into his saddlebags and pulled out a second full bottle. “I grabbed them when I saw we were leaving the mines.”

  Ozzie took the bottle back after Terese took a modest sip. He poured another long swig down his throat before passing the bottle to Stampeto. Rayburn sat back and watched.

  * * *

  In the middle of the night, Terese had dozed for a moment as the drunken back-and-forth talk among the men waned into snoring around the small fire. She awakened with a start when she felt a hand take her by her forearm. But when she opened her eyes, she saw Rayburn stooped beside her. He whispered, “Let’s go,” and it immediately came back to her what they were about to do.

  Rayburn assisted her to her feet and she looked around the fire at the three passed-out men. Their holsters were empty; their rifles were gone. So were the two canvas bags of money. Yet, upon seeing a big knife stuck in the ground by Ozzie’s side, she started to step toward it.

  Rayburn’s hand on her arm stopped her. She looked at him in the light of the three-quarter moon and saw him shake his head no. He gestured toward their horses, standing only a few feet away, saddled and ready to ride, the canvas bags both tied down behind the saddle on Rayburn’s line-back dun. She started to speak, but he touched a finger to her lips and ushered her away from the sleeping men.

  When they had gathered the two horses and led them farther away, Rayburn reached out with the knife from his boot well and cut the rope line holding the other horses. He gave one horse a shove on its rump and watched the animals turn and walk away quietly.

  “We must kill these men in their sleep,” Terese said as Rayburn handed her the reins to her horse.

  “No,” said Rayburn, “let them face Fox when he gets back. Every second they waste here is a second we gain getting ahead of them. If they start killing each other, so much the better.”

  Terese nodded.

  They led the horses away a few yards, then stepped into their saddles and rode off into the purple night as quiet as ghosts. Behind them two of the three loosened horses milled and nipped at blades of pale wild grass until the trail of their grazing led them away from the sleeping campsite.

  The third horse—Ozzie Cord’s smoky dun—milled and sniffed and stood around for a few moments like an animal lost. Finally, in its wandering, the animal made its way fireside, stood over Ozzie and stuck its muzzle in his sleeping face, letting out a blast of wet breath. When Ozzie only stirred but didn’t awaken, the smoky dun raised its lip, opened its mouth, took a hard bite on Ozzie’s nose and shook its head back and forth mercilessly.

  Ozzie let out a drunken nasal yelp, swinging both arms, striking the animal. The smoky dun turned Ozzie’s nose loose and bolted away ten yards, then stopped and looked back at its staggering owner.

  “You gawd-damn flea-bitten, slab-sided son of a bitch!” Ozzie raged and sobbed, his left hand cupped to his bleeding nose. His right hand tried to grab his gun from its holster but found the holster empty. “God Almighty, Silvar! Wake up!” He kicked at Stampeto’s shoulder, but Stampeto only grumbled and rolled away onto his other side.

  “He’s bit my nose off!” Ozzie sobbed. He looked toward the dun with watery eyes. Why? Why?

  Sobbing overcame his rage as his fingertips found the sharp edges of bloody severed cartilage hanging between his eyes. The dun stood watching with disinterest outside the small circle of firelight.

  Ozzie looked all around on the ground for his Colt, as if he might have lost it in his sleep. When he couldn’t find it he looked for his rifle. Nothing. He loosened a bandanna from around his neck and
pressed it to his bleeding nose. This is bad. Sobering up quickly, he looked around for the canvas money bags. They were gone too! He looked around for Rayburn and the woman, seeing no sign of them. Horses lose . . . money gone.

  Oh no!

  “Stampeto, you damn drunk, wake up! Rayburn’s robbed us!” he shouted. Still no response from Stampeto.

  Think! Think! he told himself, pacing back and forth, realizing what Fox would do when he got back and found the three of them drunk, the money gone!

  “Stampeto, Mirano, wake up!” he shouted. Neither man stirred. He started to kick Stampeto again. But he stopped and fell silent for a moment as an idea started forming. All right. . . . He looked all around, saw his knife standing stuck in the ground beside his spot, and reached down and picked it up.

  “You should have woke up, fools,” he said, looking back and forth at the sleeping men. He quickly rolled up the bloody bandanna and tied it around his face, making sure it pressed his nearly severed nose back in place. His whole face throbbing in pain, he stooped over Stampeto, put a hand down to hold him and slit his throat deep and wide.

  The doomed man bucked and kicked, but only for a moment as his lifeblood spewed in every direction. Rising when he felt Stampeto fall limp to the ground, Ozzie walked over to Mirano and methodically did the same thing.

  “That’ll teach you both for drinking against Zorro’s orders,” he said in earnest. Wiping the blade on the dirt, he picked up both bottles, one of them empty and the other nearly so. He turned up the one with some whiskey in it and gulped it down. “Waste not, want not,” he said.

  He walked outside the circle of firelight and threw the bottles off into the brush. The story of what happened here began to assemble itself in his mind.

  “That slippery Texan and his pals caught you two off guard, but not me,” he said to the bloody bodies on the ground, making it up on the spot. I was off relieving myself when some men slipped and took these two by surprise. I come running, but something hit me over the head—woke up, this is what I found. . . . He rummaged through his saddlebags as he constructed the story, even reaching up and rubbing the imaginary knot on his head. Right now the story was full of holes, but he’d work on it along the trail.