Scalpers (11 page)

“Best watch your language, big boy,” Ozzie warned the huge Mexican.

The Mexican ignored Ozzie.

“His father is the one they call Bigfoot,” he continued. “He ran the desert trading post. The Apache wiped him out.”

“Ask me how many of those heathen Apache are still alive,” Fox said coolly.

Stampeto looked closer himself.

“I've been to that trading post,” he said to Fox. “Are you the one they called Fox—the one who wore the strange-looking clothes?”

Fox kept himself in check.

“Maybe . . . for a while,” he said.

Seeing Fox's embarrassment, Ozzie walked forward and stood beside his friend.

“His name is Fox. I call him El Zorro,” he said. “We just robbed every store and business in Iron Point. We've got more robbing to do all across Mexico. Right,
Zorro
?”

Fox just stared at him.

“Hell, so what if I talked about it?” Ozzie said with a shrug. “We've got nothing to hide from these boys. We might even rob this place before we're through.”

“You don't rob this place,” said Paco. “This whole hillside is
our
place. Tell him, Silvar.”

“Yeah, this whole hillside is ours,” Stampeto said, dismissing the matter. He looked back at Fox and said, “So, El
Zorro
, what about that whiskey I'm buying—?”

“Nobody calls my pard El Zorro but me,” Ozzie said.

“Take it easy, Oz,” Fox said. “I'll decide what I get called and what I don't.”

“Oz and El Zorro . . . ,” Stampeto said. He gave a thin smile. “And here I was thinking my name was peculiar.” He paused, then said, “If you two are interested in stealing some good old cash and gold coins, we likely could use a couple more good gunmen.”

Fox looked at him.

“I was just thinking the same thing myself,” he said. “When you say
we
, who are you talking about?”

“You know . . .” Stampeto shrugged. “We mean these men and myself, and our jefe, Carlos Montoya.”

“So you're not the boss, you're the
segundo
—the number-two man in charge?”

“Are you too good to talk to the number-two man?” Stampeto asked on their way into the weathered adobe building.

“No, I'm not too good,” said Fox, looking all around the shadowy candlelit cantina. “I'm just figuring who I have to kill to take over this lousy band of banditos.”

“‘Take over these banditos,' he says.” Stampeto
laughed, as if certain that Fox was joking. He slapped him on his back and ushered him on to the bar.

“You are pretty funny,
Zorro
,
mi amigo
,” he said, still laughing. “You make me laugh.” He kept his hand resting on Fox's shoulder. “I hope we ride together real soon.”

“It's almost a sure bet we will,” Fox said, slipping from under his hand as the gunmen lined up along the dusty tile-topped bar.

In a moment bottle corks were pulled; shot glasses were filled and slid along the bar. The bartender lifted a hefty leather pouch of Mexican brown cocaine and plopped it onto the bar and jerked its drawstring top open.

“Cocaína,
on the house!
Saludos, señors!”
he said. He lifted a generous pinch of the substance and sprinkled a mound of it onto Stampeto's outstretched palm.

Stampeto threw back the cocaine, licked his palm and tossed back a shot of rye.

Fox only watched, listened and waited patiently.

For the next two hours Fox sipped his whiskey sparingly, just enough to keep up with the others. Ozzie, on the other hand, drank fast and steadily, setting a quickened pace for Paco and the rest of the Perros Locos gunmen to keep up with, Fox noted.

“Your friend drinks like he has a hole in his gullet,” Silvar Stampeto commented. He and Fox had drunk slower, discussing the craft of scalp hunting, and of robbing Mexican banks and French mining companies.

“My friend does as he pleases,” Fox replied, not even realizing why he took a prickly attitude toward Stampeto's comment. “Anybody don't like it, guess what they can do?” he said pointedly.

“Fácil, fácil
,
”
said Stampeto, filling their shot glasses with amber rye.

“
Easy
yourself,” said Fox, translating the Tex-Mexican, committing the conversation back to English. He kept his hand away from the glass and stared at Stampeto.

“I mean no offense.” Stampeto shrugged. “I too am a fast drinker, except today you and I are talking about business, so I show restraint.” He offered a thin smile, raised his shot glass and glanced at Fox's glass with question. “
Saludo
, eh?”

Restraint?

Fox cooled. Not knowing why he'd taken such offense to begin with, he picked up his glass and raised it and tipped it against Stampeto's.

“Saludo,”
he said.

“Good,” said Stampeto. He nodded at the sawed-off still hanging in Fox's hand. “Again, I mean no offense. But do you always carry this shotgun against your leg?”

“Not always, but tonight,” Fox said, staring evenly at him as he sipped and set his glass down. “When am I going to meet this Carlos Montoya?”

“Soon,” said Stampeto. He wiped the back of his hand across his mouth. “But I can tell you it is up to me to decide who rides with us and who does not.” He wagged a finger to make his point. “So, don't worry. I like you and your friend.”

“That's a relief,” Fox said flatly. “You like being the Perros Locos'
segundo
?”

“
Sí
, I like it,” said Stampeto, the cocaine having kicked in, loosening his voice. “Although I must say there are times when I know I am put upon.”

Fox gave him a questioning look.

“Like tonight?” Stampeto continued, speaking a little quicker. “It should be Montoya, the leader himself, not the
segundo
who meets you and your friend when you ride into our town—”

“You want to be my
segundo
?” Fox asked, cutting Stampeto off.

Stampeto started to laugh, but then his grin faded as he saw the seriousness in Fox's face.

“Do I have a choice?” he said, glancing at the shotgun against Fox's thigh.

“Everybody has a choice,” Fox said grimly, his thumb close to the sawed-off's hammers.

Stampeto looked around quickly as if making sure no one was listening to them.

“If Carlos Montoya is dead, I work for the man who has killed him,” he said. “It is the way things are done here.” He leveled his dark eyes at Fox. “My first loyalty is to Perros Locos.”

His first loyalty . . .

“When do I meet this man?” Fox asked again; this time his words were more demanding.

“I told you,
soon
,” Stampeto repeated.

“You said he should have met us coming into town,” Fox reminded him. “Is he in town somewhere?”

“
Sí.
He is with a woman,” Stampeto said. He took a large pinch of cocaine from the pouch, threw it back in his mouth, washed it down with rye and let out a whiskey hiss. “We saw you coming on the sand flats, don't forget. Carlos knows you are here.”

“With a woman,” Fox said flatly.

“
Sí
, she thinks she is his wife, so he will be finished with her soon,” Stampeto said.

“Where is he?” Fox asked.

“I told you he is with a—” Stampeto stopped when he realized what Fox was asking. “Oh. He is
in the woman's
armario
behind this place. Hers is the first
armario
on the right,” he added, giving Fox clear directions.

First
cubicle
on the right. . . .

Fox turned from the bar and walked to the rear door. As he walked past Ozzie, who stood sloshing a bottle of rye in one hand and waving a shot glass in his other, Ozzie turned and looked at him drunkenly. A brown shadow of cocaine showed on his lips.

“Where you headed, Zorro?” he asked.

“Nowhere,” Fox said over his shoulder. “Stand at the end of the bar in case I need you there.”

Listening, Paco started to step in behind Fox and follow him. But when he heard Stampeto call out to him he stopped, looked around and saw the
segundo
shake his head, stopping him. Paco gave a half-drunken shrug. He looked at the other drunken gunmen and turned back to his shot glass on the bar.

Only a few seconds after the back door closed behind Fox, the sound of a shotgun blast brought a tense silence over the drinkers. They stood staring as if frozen in place. A second later when a second blast resounded, they all turned to Stampeto for some kind of direction.

“Everybody stand fast,” he said. “See who walks through the door.” He looked away from his gunmen to Ozzie, who stood at the far end of the bar with his Colt in hand, out and cocked.

The men turned toward the rear door as it swung
open and Fox came in leading a naked, blood-splattered woman by her arm. The shotgun smoked in his hand. As he walked past Ozzie he pitched him the empty shotgun and drew his Colt and cocked it toward the Mexican gunmen, who had bristled and looked to be on the verge of reaching for their own guns.

“Too late, fellows, the party's all over,” Fox said, dragging the woman forward.

“Let him pass,” Stampeto called out. “That is an order. Zorro is our leader now. He has killed Carlos.” As he spoke he reached for the pouch of cocaine.

The gunmen looked at the woman in Fox's grip. Montoya's blood ran down her face, her belly, thighs, calves. Tissue and bone matter clung to her long black hair. Fox shook her a little to get her to speak.

“It—it is true. Carlos is dead,” she said shakily.

A silence lingered behind her words. Behind the bar a small swarthy bartender stood ready, his hands spread along the clay-tiled edge.

“All right,
mi compañeros
,” said Fox, “the next bottles are on Oz and me. Now drink up—think about how you're going to spend all the money we'll make together.”

Ozzie and the Mexican gunmen cheered and turned to the bartender, the gunmen having first looked to Stampeto for his approval.

“You work fast,
mi amigo
,” Stampeto said to Fox.

“I hate a dawdler,” Fox said. He shoved the woman to the bar beside him and waved the bartender over. “Do you have a woman here?” he asked.

“Sí, mi esposa,”
the small man said, looking worried.

“Good,” said Fox. “Then you have your wife get this woman cleaned up and dressed—made to look fitting.” He flipped a strand of the woman's hair as if disgusted. “I won't tolerate a woman looking unfitting.”

“Her name is Terese Montoya,” said Stampeto, who stood waiting to carry out any orders Fox might give him.

“Not anymore,” said Fox. He pushed a strand of blood-streaked hair back from her cheek as she stood staring down at the floor, a forearm covering her bare breasts. “Now she's Terese Pridemore, till I say otherwise.”

“But . . . he is
mi esposo
,” the woman said, gesturing at the blood down her front.

“He's nothing but a glob of dead meat, little darling,” Fox said. “You're my
esposa
now.” He put the tip of a finger on her chin. “See . . . that's how we do it where I come from,” he explained patiently. “You kill a man, you get to take everything he's got, his wife, his guns, horses and whatnot.” His words reminded him of what he'd heard his father say over the years. He smiled a little. “You understand that, don't you?”

“
Sí
, I understand,” the woman said, again
lowering her dark eyes. “You kill him, so now I am yours?”

“There it is,” said Fox. “I couldn'ta said it any better.” He looked at Stampeto. “You're still the
segundo
here, Stampeto,” he said. “But let me warn you. If you don't do what I say, when I say it, I will kill you graveyard dead and give Ozzie your job.” He looked back and forth along the bar, then back to Stampeto. “Let everybody get liquored up tonight. Come morning we ride. We're going to start robbing everything Mexico has to offer.” He turned to walk away.

“But where do we ride to?” Stampeto asked.

“You tell me,
segundo
,” Fox said over his shoulder. “You're the one who's been thinking about all this.”

*   *   *

In the gray hour of morning, Ozzie managed to sober himself on hot, thick coffee at the cantina bar and walk half staggering back to the cubicle where Fox and the woman had spent the night. Seeing Ozzie looming in the doorway, the woman stood up naked from where she sat on the edge of the bed and ran out a rear door, grabbing a serape on her way. Ozzie stood staring at the door she slammed behind herself.

On the bed, Fox sprang awake and grabbed his Colt from its holster hanging from a short bedpost. Upon seeing Ozzie, he relaxed back onto the bed and stared at him, the Colt cocked in hand.

“Does that girl not own any clothes?” Ozzie asked, struggling not only against the rye, but also
against the effects of the powerful brown Mexican cocaine still boiling in his brain.

“She does,” Fox said in a tired voice. “She just has a hard time keeping them on.” He uncocked the big Colt and slid it back into the holster. “How's everybody feel about me killing Carlos Montoya?”

“Everybody's good with it,” Ozzie said. “If they're not they've been keeping it from me. He stooped and picked up Fox's boots and pitched them over beside the bed. “Montoya had played out his string with everybody. They were ready for somebody to kill him. They just didn't know it.” He watched Fox swing up onto the side of the bed and push his hair back from his face. “I palavered with the cantina owner,” he continued. “He's been paying Montoya almost half of every dollar he makes here, the whiskey, the
putas
.”

“That tells me why the Crazy Dogs haven't been doing much robbing,” said Fox. “The leader was squeezing money from this place. He wasn't taking care of his men.”

“If you say so, Zorro.” Ozzie shrugged. “I've got no mind for that sort of figuring. Anyway, I think he's nervous, wondering how it's going to be dealing with us.”

Dealing with us. . . .

“What did you tell him?” Fox asked.

“I told him I'd talk to you, see what you had to say, you know, about how much he's going to pay us, the way he paid Montoya.”

Fox didn't answer. He just looked at his friend as he stood up, stepped into his trousers and pulled
them up around his waist. He had a lot to consider today, he reminded himself, getting his gang into shape. He stepped into his tall Mexican boots one at a time, pulled them up just below his knees and pushed his trousers down over the wells.

“Ease up some calling me Zorro,” he said, buttoning his fly, looping his suspenders up over his shoulders.

“But I thought it was all right, me calling you Zorro,” Ozzie said, a little childlike hurt showing in his voice. “Else I never would have—”

“It
is
all right,” said Fox, cutting him short. “I'm just saying don't overdo it.” He picked up his buckskin shirt from a stool, put it on and smoothed it down, the bone work clattering slightly on his chest. “What happened to all the cocaine?”

“
Whew
,”
said Ozzie, “that was powerful stuff.” He put a hand to his head in recollection.

Fox just looked at him solemnly, waiting for an answer. Ozzie finally got it.

“Oh, it's still on the bar back there,” he said, thumbing over his shoulder. “There's plenty left. Want me to get you a taste or snort of it?”

“Get rid of it—all of it,” Fox said. “Any man I catch using it while we're on the prowl gets a bullet in his head.” He picked up his gun belt and swung it around his waist. “Make it known, loud and clear.”

Ozzie looked stunned.

“Zorr—I mean
Fox
,” he said, correcting himself. “These are Mexican banditos. They need their cocaine like a preacher needs verse.”

“They can find cocaine anywhere we stop on the trail,” Fox said, adjusting his gun belt on his hip. “I'm not having it traveling with us . . . whiskey neither. It takes a man's mind off his business.”

Ozzie considered it for a moment, watching Fox pick up a large knife in its fringed sheath from beside the bed. Lifting the back of his shirt, Fox shoved the big knife down into the back of his trousers.