Scalpers

by Ralph Cotton

  “I’m proposing you give us the money bags and we let you ride out of here alive—again, out of respect for Carlos,” he said.

  “We’ll look the other way when you leave,” said Sega, “so we won’t know which way you’re—”

  “Shut up, Sergio,” Seedy said, cutting him off. “We’re atop a hill here.”

  “What did he say?” Terese called out.

  “Nothing,” said Seedy. “He’s a fool. Listen to me. We need to make a move here before Zorro comes up this trail.”

  “What did you call me?” Sega said with a surge of temper in his voice.

  Seedy ignored him and called out to Terese, “What do you say, the money for your life?”

  “You know what you can go do to yourself,” Terese said without having to consider it.

  “I’m going to be honest, Terese,” said Seedy quickly. “I wouldn’t have respected you much had you gone along with that. We’re going to do an even split with you. But you’ve got to hurry it up. We’ve not got all day here.”

  A tense silence ensued. Sega stared sullenly at Seedy.

  “You called me a fool,” he said.

  “Shut the hell up,” said Seedy almost in a whisper. “Don’t you see, once we get inside we’ll take all the money. First we’ve got to get past this rifle—”

  “All right, I’ll do it,” Terese called out.

  Seedy spread his hands and smiled.

  “See, now we’re in,” he said to Sega. “It’s all ours now, sweet as a young cousin’s kiss.”

  * * *

  Seedy and Sega left the horses’ reins hanging to the ground and walked slowly to the adobe.

  “We get inside, let me do the talking, Sergio,” Seedy said under his breath.

  Sega looked at him with resentment.

  “Why’s that?” he said.

  “Just let me,” said Seedy, not wanting to start an argument.

  “You had no right calling me a fool,” Sega said, his temper still simmering over the remark.

  Seedy ignored him. Reaching out, he slowly opened the heavy squeaking door. The two walked in, guns drawn, and saw Terese standing behind a thick weathered table by the back wall. She held Ozzie’s rifle cocked and pointed at them.

  “This is no way for us to start out doing business,” Seedy said, acting a little surprised. He knew he needed the rifle out of her hands if he and Sega were going to shoot her and take all the money. The two canvas bags lay on the table in front of her.

  “We’re not starting out,” Terese said. “We’re finishing up.” She gestured her eyes at the two bags. “They both look the same size. Take one and go.”

  “Hold on, Terese,” said Seedy with a light chuckle. “This ain’t how we’re doing it. If we just wanted a loose count, and be gone, we’d’ve had you throw one out the window to us.”

  “Perhaps I should have,” she said. “You come in with your guns drawn at me. I know what that means.”

  “Oh? And what about you? There you are with a rifle cocked on us,” he said.

  “All right, we are both armed,” Terese conceded. “Take a bag and go, before Fox gets here.”

  “I’m drawing a knife from my boot,” he announced. “Don’t go nuts on me—”

  “A knife? For what?” Terese asked quickly. Her hand tightened on the rifle.

  “Easy, now. I just want to slice open a bag and see the money,” he said in a calm, reasoning voice, his hand going down slowly toward his boot. “Then we take it and leave. Fair enough?”

  “Bullshit!” said Terese. “Lay your gun down and loosen the tie on the bag if you want to see the money.”

  Seedy stopped; his hand came up away from his boot.

  “All right, we can do it that way, now that you mention it,” he said, calmly, looking a little embarrassed, Sega thought, watching him. “Here goes,” he said. He laid his Colt down on the table beside the canvas bags.

  Sega took a step closer, he and the woman watching Seedy closely.

  Seedy loosened the knotted tie on one of the bags facing him and spread the top open. He grinned, raised the back of the bag and shook out the contents onto the table.

  “What the hell?” He stared in stunned surprise. Instead of stacks of money spilling out, two pinecones rolled across the table, followed by pine needles, scraps of punk wood and dirty clothes.

  “Damn!” said Sega. “We stole the miners’ dirty wash.”

  “It’s not the miners’ wash, you fool!” shouted Seedy. “This is Zorro’s!” He stared at a pair of dirty long johns on the table. Terese stood staring wide-eyed in disbelief. Seedy shook the bag again as if hoping money might yet fall out. But no, only dirty socks, a stiff wadded bandanna.

  Sega gave a chuckle and grinned at Terese. “So you and Rayburn weren’t so smart after all. You stole Zorro’s dirty wash!” He cackled aloud, in spite of there being no payroll money for them.

  Hearing him, Seedy gritted his teeth and snatched up his Colt from the table.

  “I’ve had it, Sega!” He swung the Colt around at the laughing bandit. “You stupid son of a bitch!”

  Sega, his own gun in hand, saw what was coming and turned his big Colt at Seedy. But he was too late. Even as his gun bucked in his hand, Seedy fanned two shots into his belly and sent him flying backward across the small adobe. Terese stood staring at Seedy, the rifle still up, still ready.

  Seedy staggered back a step and pressed his free hand to his bloody chest. He stared stoically at Terese as blood oozed down between his fingers.

  “That’s the . . . stupidest son of a bitch . . . I ever seen,” he said, wagging his Colt at Sega lying dead on the floor. “I’m glad I killed him.” He managed to turn his Colt and fan it two more times at Terese as the rifle bucked in her hands. Even as she slammed backward against the wall and slid down beneath a wide smear of blood, the top of Seedy’s head exploded. Thick blood, bone and soft tissue streaked out the open front door and terrified the already spooked horses.

  Sega’s and Seedy’s two loose horses turned and bolted away, back down the trail. In reflex, the horses hitched to the half-fallen iron rail turned and followed the other two horses. Three of the four hitched animals pulled their reins loose from the rail. But Ozzie’s smoky dun wasn’t as lucky. The dun ran along at the rear of the fleeing horses, its reins drawn tight around the rail, dragging it along bouncing and clanging beside it.

  Less than a mile down the trail, Ozzie, who had hurried as best he could on foot up toward the sound of gunfire, stopped when he heard the horses’ hooves pounding down the trail toward him. As he saw the riderless horses come into sight, he stood in the middle of the trail waving his arms up and down, trying to slow them to a halt. But the spooked horses weren’t about to slow down. They raced past him, his smoky dun bringing up the rear.

  Seeing his horse, he pressed closer, hoping the dun would settle when it saw its owner waving it down. He was right. Upon seeing Ozzie, the dun started sliding to a halt on the rocky trail. But even as it did so, the iron rail, still bouncing and flipping at the horse’s rear, made a vicious swipe through the air and struck Ozzie lengthwise down the left side of his head. Ozzie went down and out. The sound of the iron rail left a dull twang ringing inside his head.

  As his horse slowed to a stop, it circled on the trail and came back at a walk, dragging the iron rail at its side. Settled now, the horse poked it nose at Ozzie’s back, then stood over him and looked all around in the silence, as if wondering what to do next.

  Chapter 23

  The Ranger nudged his copper dun to a quicker pace when he saw how the rise of dust had moved closer across the sand flats. When he looked back a moment later and saw the dust moving up behind him, he pressed his horse even more. It might well be a posse of miners riding from the west, but he had no idea who would be heading this way from the southeast. Whoever it was from
either direction, all he wanted was to get Ozzie and head out of here.

  Even as he thought about it, he saw a single hatless rider meandering slowly—too slow to stir up dust—at the edge of the sand flats. A number of saddled horses moved along with the rider, none of them appearing to be in any hurry. Keeping watch on the rider, Sam reined his horse down, drew his telescope from his bedroll, stretched it out and raised it to his eye.

  “And there he is, Copper,” he murmured to the big sweat-streaked dun as if the horse would understand him. “It’s Ozzie Cord . . . or what’s left of him,” he added, seeing the bloodstained bandanna that drooped from around Ozzie’s swollen face and hung across his chin. He saw Ozzie’s nose barely clinging to his face in a black lacework of dried blood. A wide swollen bruise ran full length down the left side of Ozzie’s face.

  “My goodness,” Sam said. He shook his head a little as he lowered the telescope and shoved it shut between his palms. “Looks like he might welcome us taking him into custody,” he said to the dun. But as soon as he shoved the telescope back into his bedroll, he drew his Winchester, checked it and laid it across his lap just in case.

  He tapped the dun forward, keeping his eyes on Ozzie and the land surrounding him. After the shooting he’d heard from this direction, he warned himself to be prepared for anything. Yet, as Sam rode the horse closer at a light gallop, he noted Ozzie was making no move to even straighten in his saddle, let alone raise a firearm toward him.

  Is he dead?

  “Ozzie Cord, show your hands,” Sam called out, stopping his horse, the Winchester up and in his hand.

  At first Ozzie made no effort to respond. But before Sam called out again, he slowly raised his hands and held them out a few inches on either side of him.

  “Nail me up,” Ozzie mumbled in a slurred voice.

  Nail him up?

  Sam nudged the dun forward and stopped again only a few feet away. Seeing no weapon, and more important, seeing the shape the young man was in, Sam reached behind his back and took out a pair of handcuffs.

  “What happened to you, Ozzie?” the Ranger asked, laying the rifle back across his lap.

  “When . . . ?” Ozzie said in a dreamlike tone.

  Sam sidled in, clamped the cuff around one wrist and noted that Ozzie had enough comprehension to raise his other wrist into reach.

  “Never mind,” Sam said, both cuffs in place. “Who do these horses belong to?” He lifted Ozzie’s big Colt from its holster and shoved it down behind his gun belt.

  “Hell, everybody . . . I guess,” Ozzie said. He shrugged and, answering the Ranger’s first question, said, “My horse . . . did all this to me.” He turned his face up a little to show the Ranger the long bruise and his disfigured face. “Nearly bit my nose off. Busted me upside the head . . . with an iron rail.”

  Sam winced a little.

  “I’ve never seen a horse do such a thing,” he said, not sure he believed a word Ozzie said in his dazed condition.

  “I’ll never . . . feel safe sleeping around him again,” Ozzie said, sounding addled from the iron rail batting him in the head.

  Sam looked off west at the closing rise of dust.

  “Where’s the payroll money?” he asked. “If the miner posse catches up to us, the money is all that’ll keep them from—”

  “It’s gone,” Ozzie said, cutting him off. “Don’t even ask me where. . . .”

  Sam stared at him.

  “What do you mean it’s gone?” Sam said. “Money doesn’t disappear.”

  “No,” Ozzie said with a thin, dreamlike smile. “But it . . . changes into pinecones and dirty long johns.”

  “Start making sense or I’ll give you to the posse,” Sam said, bluffing. “They’ve got as much right taking you into custody as I do, maybe more.”

  “I am making sense,” Ozzie said. “Look back here.” He nodded over his shoulder.

  Sam stepped his horse back and picked up a half-empty canvas bag lying across Ozzie’s saddlebags. Spreading the bag open, he saw pine needles and cones stuffed against some wadded dirty clothes.

  “This is what the shooting was about,” Sam deduced. He stepped his horse back and faced Ozzie.

  “Yeah. They’re all dead up there,” said Ozzie. “I rode up . . . found the woman and two Perros Locos shot all to pieces. Brought this back with me.” He nodded again toward the bag behind him.

  “Why’d you bring it back?” Sam asked.

  Ozzie shrugged and said, “It changed once . . . who says it won’t change again?” He gave a dark nasally chuckle that sounded as though it had to hurt. Sam looked at him, wondering if he was serious or just making a mindless joke in his addled condition.

  Sam shook his head. He half turned in his saddle and looked back along the edge of the sand flats. The newer rise of dust had moved closer. He brought out his telescope and stretched it out in his hands.

  “Step down and bury the bag,” he said. “Hurry up, we don’t have much time.”

  “Step down and bury it?” Ozzie said. “I’m cuffed. Look at the shape I’m in.”

  The Ranger wondered if this was how he’d be all the way back across the border. “You could be in worse shape real quick when the miners see it. They won’t find anything funny about their money turning to pinecones.”

  “Then your job will be protecting me,” Ozzie said, again with a dark chuckle. He raised the bandanna back across the bridge of his nose and adjusted it into place. He winced in pain while he did it.

  Yep, this was how it was going to be.

  Sam gave him a hard stare.

  “Step down out of that saddle now,” he said menacingly.

  Seeing the look in the Ranger’s eyes, Ozzie decided not to push it.

  “All right, calm down,” he said grudgingly. As he managed to swing his leg up over his horse and step down, Sam raised the telescope to his eye and gaze out into the cloud of dust. Now the riders were close enough for the scope to penetrate the heavy dust, the riders coming into sight. Seeing them, Sam stiffened a little.

  “Get back on your horse,” he said sidelong without taking the lens down from his eye.

  “No, I just got down,” Ozzie said in a childlike huff. “I’m going to bury the bag, like I was told to.”

  The Ranger jerked the lens down and stared at his irritating prisoner. “It’s not miners, it’s Lipan Apache. Get in the saddle or I’ll leave you to them.”

  Ozzie scrambled into his saddle, yet even as he did so, he still had to make a comment.

  “Lipans ain’t near as bad as Mescaleros,” he said. “They’re just a bunch of gray-skin Texan horse thieves, got run out of their own lands—”

  “That’s interesting, Ozzie,” Sam said, cutting him short. “I ought to leave you here to tell them all that—” He turned the copper dun toward the sand flats and grabbed Ozzie’s reins from his hands. “But you’re going with me.”

  “Wait, Ranger! My nose will fall plumb off on a running horse.”

  “Hold on to it,” Sam said.

  “I can’t! My hands are cuffed.” He wiggled his fingers.

  Sam sidled in close and unlocked the cuffs from his wrists.

  “Try making a run,” he said to his grinning prisoner, “the last thing you’ll feel is a bullet in your back.”

  Ozzie started to say something more, but before he could, the Ranger reached over and slapped his smoky dun on its rump. Ozzie’s horse bolted forward at a run; the bandanna lying flat atop Ozzie’s head flew away. Sam put his own coppery dun at a run beside him. Immediately the loose horses fell in, running behind the two, out onto the barren sand flats. Behind them the two clouds of dust closed in on each other from both directions.

  * * *

  Following close behind Ozzie, the Ranger looked back on the length of the flats, seeing the clearer outlines of the Apache, both
man and horse emerging from the thick swirling dust. From the opposite direction he saw the tan-with-red-piping uniforms of the Mexican army, riding side by side with the dusty blue uniforms of U.S. Cavalry troops. Bandoleers of ammunition crisscrossed the soldiers’ chests; brass bullet casings glinted in the dull dusty sunlight. He had to give it a second to realize that on the right flank of the troops rode Turner Bigfoot Pridemore and his mercenaries. They rode fast, loose and wildly, like demons unleashed from the gates of hell to do the worst on man’s bidding.

  This was the battle that had been the talk on both sides of the border for months, he told himself—a joint Mexican–U.S. alliance to eradicate the deserts and plains of the Mescalero and Lipan Apache. Like it or not, here it comes, he thought as his coppery dun pounded on right behind Ozzie’s smoky dun, the rest of the loose horses running right with them. All he could hope for was to get Ozzie and himself out of their way.

  Seeing the set of hoofprints ahead of them on his right, Sam quickly recognized them as belonging to Rayburn and the speckled barb from earlier. He figured Rayburn had seen the coming Apache and didn’t wait until dark to clear out. All right. . . . With any luck and a canteen of water, Rayburn and the barb had made it well out onto the flats by now.

  “Swing right, Ozzie!” he shouted. As Ozzie glanced around, Sam waved him toward the dry wash Rayburn had taken shade in. The wash lay down out of sight from the flats behind them. If the stony wash had been good enough cover for Rayburn, it would be good enough for him. He almost wished Rayburn and his gun were still there. But the tracks leading away told him different.

  Without hesitation Ozzie swung his horses toward the dry wash, and in moments, as rifle fire began cracking back and forth on the flats, the two slowed their horses enough to get over the sandy cut bank along the wash and slow to a stop.

  “Up ahead,” said the Ranger with a nod. “There’s cactus shade and rock for cover.” He nudged the dun forward, Ozzie beside him, the horses still following, but hanging back some now that the hard running appeared to be over.