Scalpers

“I always heard you're a real daisy of a businessman. Now I see why folks think it.”

Pridemore grinned and tapped his forehead.

“I've got tricks the world has yet to see,” he said. He scooted back from the edge, his hand on Bertha's shoulder ushering her along with him. He carried a bow loaded with an arrow on it in his other hand. “We take him alive, you can saw his ears off before we kill him . . . if you've a mind to, that is.”

Bertha stared down at the soldiers riding into sight.

“That pig would've had me killed,” she said. Turning to Pridemore, she added, “You mean I can do anything I feel like to him before he dies?”

“Have yourself a good time with him, my word on it,” Pridemore said with a shrug.

“I could do that,” Bertha said under her breath. “I could do that in spades.”

Pridemore watched her face flush with vengeance at the possibilities at hand. “Power is a wonderful thing, ain't it, Big Darling?”

“Wonderful and then some.”

SIGNET

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Copyright © Ralph Cotton, 2015

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REGISTERED TRADEM
ARK—MARCA REGISTRADA

ISBN 978-0-698-17190-9

PUBLISHER'S NOTE

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance
to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

For Mary Lynn, of course . . .

Arizona Territory Ranger Sam Burrack rode his copper-colored black-point dun past a broken hitch rail, over toward a short, wind-whipped campfire fifty feet away. He led a chestnut desert barb beside him. Over the barb's back lay the blanket-wrapped body of the half-breed named Mickey Cousins, who had died in Mesa Grande in a shoot-out with the Ranger and two town deputies at the Old Senate Saloon. Cousins had been a shotgun rider on a desert stage route before falling in with a band of scalp hunters who were under contract with the Mexican government to kill the desert Apache when and wherever they found them.

The leader of the scalpers, Erskine Cord, and his nephew, Ozzie Cord, had been paid to lie in wait and gun down the sheriff of Mesa Grande. While the Ranger was convinced that Erskine had done the actual shooting, Ozzie had been with him, side by side. Erskine, whom Sam had left lying dead on the floor of the Old Senate in the same gun battle that had taken Mickey Cousins' life, had been waging a private war with a particular band of
Mescalero Apache known as the Wolf Hearts, led by the seasoned desert chief, Quetos. A bad enough hombre in his own right, Sam reminded himself.

He had been on the scalpers' trail now for, what . . .
a week
?
he asked himself. Yes, he believed it had been a week now since he'd loaded Cousins' body and struck back out on the trail. Time passed quickly, while you were chasing down scalp hunters and assassins while a band of Mescalero warriors was busy killing any white man foolhardy enough to be out here along the border badlands.

What does that say about you?
he asked himself wryly.

He looked all around the abandoned trading post when he'd stopped and stepped down from his saddle. The wooden part of the structure had burned unobstructed for days. All that remained standing were two of the original stone walls that had been here since the days of Spanish rule. The charred remnants, strewn utensils and bits of leather shoes and clothing were signs of yet another generation who'd come and gone through the portal of time. Recent bullet holes dotted the stone walls; arrows stood slantwise in the sandy ground.

Twenty feet in front of him past the blackened adobe walls, a man with dark bloodstained bandaging wrapped around his chest sat in the dirt, staring at him. Sam saw the shotgun lying across the wounded man's lap. Two Mexican women busied themselves preparing an evening meal over a wind-driven fire.

“Hello the camp,” the Ranger called out, stopping at a respectable distance.

The wounded man continued staring at him as he spoke sidelong to the two women.

“Keep . . . cooking,” he murmured under his waning breath. A few yards behind the man, a two-wheel mule cart sat with one side propped up on a stack of rocks. A removed wheel leaned against its side. A mule stood tied to a stake by a lead rope, crunching on a small mound of cracked grain.

The Ranger started to step forward and say something more. But he stopped himself as the shotgun came up quickly in the wounded man's hands and pointed at him.

“Easy there, mister,” Sam said in a calm but firm tone. “I mean you no harm.” He reached a hand up slowly and drew back the lapel of his riding duster. Late-afternoon sunlight glinted on his badge. “I'm Arizona Territory Ranger Sam Burrack.”

“What's that mean to me?” the man asked bluntly. His voice sounded weakened and halting. He looked around and off toward the distant hill line. “Is this Arizona . . . ?”

Sam didn't answer right away. He looked at the women, noting for the first time that one was not much more than a child. They only glanced at the Ranger and continued their work.

Finally, “It is, just barely,” the Ranger said. He lowered his gloved hand from his lapel and ventured another step forward.

The man eased the shotgun back onto his lap and stared.

“Besides,” Sam said, “it wouldn't matter if it's not. I'm in pursuit of a killer. We have an agreement with the Mexican government—”

“
Ha!
The Mexican government,” the man said, cutting him off with a sharp tone. “Where was the Mexican government when I was being kilt by Injuns?” He eyed Sam bitterly. “Where were you, for that matter?”

“I expect I was somewhere between here and Mesa Grande,” Sam said, keeping his voice civil. He walked closer, leading the two horses until he stopped and looked down at the man. “How bad are you hurt?”

“I've been stabbed deep,” the man said. “I fit back a whole band of wild heathens—had 'em leaving too. Dang Injun boy no bigger than a pissant ran out of nowhere, stabbed me twice with a spear bigger than he was.” He shook his head in reflection. “And that's how I, Vernon Troxel, died . . . out here, the middle of nowhere, stuck to death . . . by a stinking little nit.”

“Take it easy, Vernon Troxel,” Sam said, hearing the man's breath and voice getting weaker, shallower as he spoke. He reached out toward the edge of the bandaging, to take a closer look at the wounds. “Maybe you're in better shape than you think.”

But the man jerked back away from him.

“Keep your hands to yourself, Ranger,” he said. “Only one's going to touch me . . . is my
esposas
.” He wagged his head toward the two women.

Sam looked around at the women, the young one in particular.

“Your wives,” he said, still looking at the younger of the two women as they straightened and looked over at Troxel.

“That's right. . . . What of it?” Troxel said, his voice growing a little stronger.

Sam didn't reply; he sat watching Troxel, listening, getting an idea what kind of man was sitting before him.

Troxel coughed up a glob of black blood and spat it away and wiped the back of his hand across his mouth. The young woman, seeing him motion for her with a weak bloody hand, hurried over with an uncapped canteen.

Troxel swiped the canteen from the young girl's hand with a malicious stare. The girl flinched and shied back in a way that told the Ranger she had more than once tasted the back of this man's hand.

“I bought them both down in Guatemala, outside Cobán. They're mother and daughter.” He gave a weak, sly grin. “Made them both my
esposas
, legal-like,” he said. “Legal as you can get . . . in Guatemala anyway.”

A slaver . . .

Sam only stared flatly, but Troxel had seen that same stare in many places across both the American and Mexican frontier.

“You see anything wrong in that, Ranger?” he said, blood bubbling deep in his chest.

“I enforce the law to the best of my calling,” Sam said. “I don't judge the laws of another nation.” He took the canteen from the man's faltering hand to keep him from spilling it.

“That's . . . no answer,” Troxel said, coughing from deep in his chest.

“It's all the answer you'll get from me,” Sam said. He didn't like slavers, legal or otherwise. He looked up and all around the pillaged and charred trading post as he capped the canteen. He handed it away to the young girl, who took it hesitantly and then hurried back out of reach. “I'm tracking some mercenaries, white men who rode through here on shod horses,” he said, nudging his head toward the wide sets of tracks across the trading post yard. “Looks like the Apache were tracking them too. Were you here?”

“No,” Troxel said, “but damn their eyes . . . for getting these Injuns stirred up.” He gave a bloody, rattling cough. “I got caught here smack . . . between the two. Damn my luck.”

Sam saw his point. The scalp hunters were going to leave bitter feelings between the whites and the desert Apache for a long time to come.

“Can I wheel your cart for you before I leave?” Sam asked.

“I won't be needing a cart come morning,” Troxel said with finality.

“You might,” Sam said. “Either way, the womenfolk will.”

“Yeah . . . they will,” Troxel said as if in afterthought. His eyes took on a crafty look. “I'd make you a good price . . . for the two of them.”

Sam just stared at him for a moment.

“Don't look at . . . me that way,” the man said,
struggling with his words. “What good will they do me . . . when I'm dead?”

“As much good as the money I'd be giving you for them,” Sam replied.

Troxel closed his eyes and sighed.

“Obliged if you'd . . . wheel my cart,” he said. “Obliged if you'd spend the night too. Keep these desert critters . . . from chewing on me before I'm gone.”

“I'll fix the cart, and then I've got to go,” Sam said. “The womenfolk will see to you. It's only another day's ride to Iron Point.”

“Punta de hierro. . . .”
The wounded man translated the name Iron Point into Spanish, then spat as if to rid his mouth of bad taste. “What might I find . . . in Iron Point?”

Sam didn't answer. He started to stand.

“Your womenfolk will see you through the night,” he said.

In spite of Troxel's waning strength, he grasped the Ranger's forearm.

“No, wait!” he said. “My womenfolk will take pleasure . . . watching critters drag away my bones.” He sounded desperate. “Stay the night. Bed down with either of them—bed them both . . . I don't mind. They need a good going-over. But don't leave tonight!”

The Ranger pulled his forearm free.

“Don't say such a thing,” Sam said quietly, seeing both the mother and her daughter look over at him from the fire. “I'm on a manhunt.”

“Shoot me, then . . . before you leave,” the man pleaded. “Shoot them and me. It's best all around.” He broke down sobbing. Sam saw the man's mind had taken all it could and was ready to snap. What would he do to the women when that happened, before he turned the double barrels up under his chin and squeezed the trigger?

Sam reached down and picked up the shotgun while he had the chance. The man stopped sobbing long enough to make a futile grab for it.

“Take it easy,” Sam said, moving the shotgun out of reach. “I'll wheel your cart. We'll load you on it and ride on to Iron Point tonight.”

“Tonight . . . ?” The man sniffled and wiped a ragged sleeve under his nose. “I— I can't go tonight. I'll never make it to Iron Point.”

Sam let out a patient breath and propped the shotgun over his shoulder. He looked over at the slaver's mother-and-daughter dual wives and felt something ugly turn in his stomach. The two stared at him; the mother tried to smile, putting herself out in front of whatever bargain Troxel might have struck for them.

“I'll fix the cart,” he said to Troxel.

Turning away from the woman's feigned smile and dark hopeless eyes, he led the two horses to where the mule stood crunching its meager handful of grain. The animal looked up and brayed and pulled back its ears, grain clinging to its lips. As Sam walked the horses closer, the mule plunged its bony head down and ate hurriedly.

*   *   *

When the last of the sun's light had sunk below the curve of the earth, the cart and the mule hitched to it stood in black silhouette against the purple sky. With the spare wheel in place and the broken wheel cast aside into the rocky sand, the Ranger and the mother and daughter gathered the remaining cooking utensils and piled them into the cart alongside the wounded, half-conscious slaver. The Ranger noted how the woman tried to keep herself between him and the young girl.

“I speak
inglés
,” the woman said quietly. “But my very young daughter does not. So you will speak to me,
sí
,
por favor
?” she asked hesitantly.

“I understand,” Sam said. “Tell your very young daughter to take the seat.” There was something about these two he wasn't buying. He gestured up at the front of the two-wheel cart where a rough board lay crosswise front to side as a makeshift driver's seat.

“Sí . . . ?”
the woman said, looking at him in cautious surprise.

“Sí,”
the Ranger replied. “She can ride up there. You can ride this one.” He nodded at the barb. The woman only stared as he pulled the blanket-wrapped body of Mickey Cousins from across the chestnut barb's back and carried it to the rear of the wagon and secured it down on a narrow board with dangling lengths of tie-down rope.

“My name is Ria Cerero,” the woman ventured in a hushed tone of voice. “My young daughter's name is Ana.”

“Arizona Territory Ranger Sam Burrack, ma'am,”
Sam said, touching the dusty brim of his pearl-gray sombrero. “If the two of you are ready, we need to mount up and move on out of here.” He nodded toward two shadowy wolves who had circled in closer over the past hour, drawn in by the scent of fresh blood. “Get your husband somewhere off the desert floor.”

“
Sí
, I understand,” Ria said. “But he is not my husband, this one,” she added in an ever-more hushed voice. “He purchased me and my daughter from my dead husband's brother.”