Scalpers (22 page)

“What do you think?” Sam asked.

“Aw, don't pay . . . no attention to me,” Rayburn said. “Sounds like I might have been doubting myself.”

“Not to me, it doesn't,” said Sam. He took the canteen when Rayburn handed it to him. He capped it and laid it by Rayburn's side.

They both looked from under the cactus toward the sound of horses pounding along the trail in the direction of the recent gunfire.

“Perro Locos?” Rayburn asked.

“Yeah,” Sam said. “I figured they'd be following me. But Fox isn't with them.” He watched the two ride past in a rise of sand and blowing dust without even seeing that his horse's hoofprints had turned out onto the flat.

“You best get after them, Ranger Sam Burrack,” Rayburn said with the same pained smile.

Sam laid a loaded Colt down beside the canteen.

“The barb is hitched out of the sun,” he said. “I wish I had a saddle for you. Are you going to be able to make it across these flats and get some help?”

“I will . . . you bet,” said Rayburn. “I'll wait the sun out and leave when it's cooling. Won't be the first time I rode with bullets in me. I know how it's done.”

“I'll come back when I'm finished,” Sam said.

“No need, Sam. I won't be here after this evening,” Rayburn said. “You left me a horse . . . a gun and some water. What more does a man need?”

“Jep, that was some good work you did here,” Sam said.

“Obliged, Ranger,” said Rayburn. Again the weak smile. “I like to think I didn't do too bad . . . for a payroll guard.”

“Not bad at all,” the Ranger said. He nodded, scooted back from under the cactus shade, stood up and walked to his dun. Swinging up into his saddle, he looked west at the same rise of dust he'd been watching and speculating on his whole ride along the desert floor. The riders were getting closer now, he noted. Things were coming to a head.

But where's Fox Pridemore?
he asked himself. Not that he cared, just that he didn't want to catch a bullet in his back the way Rayburn had done, when it came time to deal with Ozzie Cord. He turned his dun and put it forward in the hoofprints of the two Perro Locos. His turn to follow them for a change. . . .

Sergio Sega and Otis Seedy had slowed their horses' pace by the time they reached the trail Ozzie had taken onto the hillside. They followed his horse's hoofprints until they spotted Ozzie on a cliff overhang walking on foot, struggling up the same trail Terese had left him on.

“Why is this idiot wearing a bandanna around his face?” Seedy asked, the two of them watching from a long way off. “Is he afraid somebody will
recognize
him up here?” He gave a chuckle and shook his head.

“I don't know,” Sega replied humorlessly, “but I will be happy to blow the top of his head off and count the number of rocks in it.” He started to turn his horse back to the trail.

Seedy had turned his eyes far up toward the top of the trail Ozzie was on.

“Whoa, hold on, Sergio,” he said, stopping him. “We can kill him anytime. Look up there.” He directed Sega's attention to the woman who was struggling upward with four horses, counting the one beneath her.

“Ah yes!” said Sega. “I see her. Now to kill this fool and go get her.”

Seedy gave him a bemused look.

“Notice anything about her, Sergio?” he said.

Sega studied the woman for a moment, then nodded.

“Yes, I do,” he said. He squinted; his voice took on a suspicious note. “Why does she have so many horses?”

“Jesus, I don't know,” Seedy said, trying not to sound too disgusted. “What I'm talking about is that she has the money bags, not this idiot.”

“Okay . . . ?” Sega said, prolonging his reply, as if expecting more on the matter.

Damn it. . . .
Seedy gave him another look. “I'm saying, if we kill Ozzie first, do you suppose she might hear the gunfire and light out on us?”

“Oh . . . ,” said Sega. “Yes, I think she might.” He nodded to himself.

Seedy just looked at him again, still not certain he understood.

“Follow me, Sergio,” he said in a patient tone. “Let's go take all that money from her.”

“And we'll kill Ozzie afterward?” Sega asked as they both turned their horses.

“There you have it,” said Seedy.

The bandits rode on to where the two trails intersected and turned upward in the direction of the woman and the money. They managed to travel quietly until an hour later when the trail leveled onto a broad stone shelf. There a row of crumbling adobe and weathered-plank
chozas
stood with their thatched roofs long turned to dust and blown out across the hillside.

At a bent iron hitch rail, the end dropped from its stone anchor post, the four horses stood with
their heads bowed as if in prayer. The money bags were gone. So was the rifle from the saddle boot on Ozzie's smoky dun.

“Watch your step here,” Seedy whispered sidelong to Sega, the two of them stepping down from their saddles. He gave no response. Yet he shook his head as Sega looked down and all along the ground.

Fifty feet away, in the row of adobes and shack dwellings, Seedy stared at the only place that had a weathered front door still standing in place. He drew his Colt from his holster and gestured the barrel toward the small roofless adobe.

“Which one you think she's in?” he said quietly, yet almost jokingly.

“How would I know?” said Sega.

“The only one with the door,” said Seedy, as if giving him a clue.

They took a step forward, then ducked quickly as a rifle shot exploded from an open stone window frame. In a crouch the two hurried behind the cover of a low crumbling stone wall.

“Get on your horses and go away! This money is mine!” Terese called out following her warning shot.

Seedy looked all around for a better-covered position but found none.

“When have you ever known us Crazy Dogs to
go away when there's money on the line, Terese?” he called right back to her.

“I'll kill you both, the way I killed Rayburn!” she warned, not realizing that Rayburn was at that moment resting out of the sun preparing for his trip across the sand flats.

“Don't break ugly on us, Terese,” Seedy warned in reply. “The only reason we stopped to talk about this instead of killing you is out of respect for Carlos.” He paused, then added, “There'll be no talking once Zorro gets here. I think you know that.” He looked at Sega and grinned slyly. “He's on his way right now.”

“
Sí
, I know Zorro will kill me,” said Terese. “But where was your respect for Carlos when this man Fox forced me to ride with him, to sleep with him—made himself my husband against my will?”

“All right,” said Seedy, “we went along with that because we were told when one outlaw kills another he gets to own whatever that one had,
esposa
or whatnot.”

“That is crazy,” said Terese. “I never heard of any such thing, and I am a
puta
. I would know.”

Seedy and Sega looked at each other for a moment.

“All right,” Seedy said. “We might have been misled on that. Being part gringo, I should have kept up on how things are done on the other side of the border. But I didn't. That doesn't change nothing, though. You deal with us, or you'll deal with Zorro when he gets here.” He gave Sega a wink and fell silent.

“Deal with you
how
?” she said after a short pause. “What are you proposing?”

Seedy took a deep breath and let it out slow and evenly.
Here goes. . . .

“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.