Scalpers (9 page)

“Get moving, ma'am,” Sam said to Ria. “I'm right behind you.”

As Ria turned the barb and pulled the mule by the cart reins, Sam rose in his saddle, drew the torch back and heaved it in the wolves' direction. The torch fell well short of the thirty yards, but it hit the ground and caused the feeding animals to hunker back. In the shadowy firelight Sam caught glimpses of arrows sticking up from the dirt, from the bodies of the dead, both men and horses alike. Then he turned the dun and rode away behind the cart.

“Thank our Holy Mother they will not follow
us,” Ria said as he rode up beside her and took the cart reins.

“So far they haven't,” Sam said, keeping the mule moving along at a quick but safe pace.

Farther along the trail, they stopped where the moonlight shone full and unobstructed. Sam and Ria met Ana at the back of the cart and stepped inside when she opened the rear gate.

Ana kneeled beside the soldier and poured a trickle of canteen water onto his lips. Sam stooped down beside him.

“Did Apache attack your patrol?” he asked, already having begun to form an opinion of his own.

The man shook his head weakly.

“No Indians . . . scalpers,” he managed to say. “They capture . . . my captain. The woman from the . . . Mockingbird Cantina. She stab . . . him in the heart. . . .” His voice trailed; his eyes closed. Sam gave Ana a nod and she poured another trickle on his lips and wet a cloth and laid it on his blood-crusted forehead.

“He hides there in the rocks ever since the battle?” Ria asked as if in disbelief.

“I would say he did,” Sam replied, “first from the ambushers, then from the wolves.” He shook his head slowly at the enormity of it. “He must've seen everything that happened back there.”

“I did . . . ,” the wounded man whispered.

Seeing his eyes open a little, Sam leaned in closer.

“Take it easy, we're going to get you to Iron
Point,” he said. He adjusted the wet cloth on the soldier's forehead.

“She stabbed . . . my
capitán
,” he whispered. “The leader . . . hit her in the face . . . for stabbing him. . . .”

“The mercenary leader hit her for stabbing the captain?” Sam asked, trying to make sense of it.

“He hit her . . . ,” the soldier said. Again he closed his eyes. This time there was a sense of finality to his action. He tried to grip the Ranger's forearm, but his strength failed him; his hand fell to his side. A long breath escaped his lips.

Ria and Ana both crossed themselves.

“You risked your life to save a dead man,” Ria commented quietly.

Sam just looked at her.

“He wasn't dead at the time,” he said. He stood up in the cart and dragged the dead soldier out of the cart to the side of the trail. As he picked up rocks and laid them over the body, he reminded himself that he was here in pursuit of one man, Ozzie Cord. The rest of these men, scalpers . . . mercenaries, whatever they wanted to call themselves . . . were the Mexican government's concern. After all, it was the government who employed them.

He stopped covering the body and looked off across the purple sky above the rugged badlands. This was a bloody land. He knew it coming in. A man with no solemn reckoning of death had no business here, he reminded himself.

“Amen,” he said silently to the pile of stones. With that, he turned and walked to the dun and stepped up into his saddle. In moments the small
party of travelers was gone. Above the desert a moon lay golden and silent in the purple velvet night.

In Iron Point four dead soldiers lay in the trail at the main gates to the fortress. Alpine and his men had lifted the soldiers' scalps the afternoon before. But he'd left the bodies sprawled in the dust overnight. The dead served as a message to the townsfolk to do as they were told, and as a reminder to Turner Pridemore what a good day's work he and his men had done in their leader's absence.

Inside the battered, crumbling wall of Iron Point, most residents were still afraid to go about their daily business. A factor that Pridemore liked to see.

“You could never pull these shenanigans in, say . . . Texas, California . . . or anywhere else, I don't expect.” He chuckled, looking all around the streets, all of them empty save for his men and a few hard-case border outlaws. “Ornery Americans wouldn't stand for it.”

“That's a fact, Bigfoot,” Darton Alpine said, feeling proud of himself.

Standing by the front gates grinning, Pridemore
rolled a dead soldier's scalped head back and forth a little with the toe of his tall Mexican boots.

“You know what's wrong with this country, Dart?” he said, tilting his chin to take in the aroma of a young pig cooking slowly on a spit out in front of the Mockingbird Tent Cantina.

“A lot of things I can think of,” Alpine said.

“Not enough guns,” Pridemore said. “These folks barely have enough armament to hunt dinner, let alone fight Apache.” He shook his head and looked down at the soldiers. “Course, they're stupid to boot,” he added, again rolling the scalped head back and forth. “Look at these poor sumbitches. They ran here fleeing the Wolf Hearts.” He chuckled. “The Wolf Hearts have cleared out. We whupped them so bad they'll not be seen for weeks—months even.”

Pridemore walked back through the open gates and stood before the public well staring down at Diamond Jim's sun-curing face. “Now, see, this right here is why it's always good to have an old hand like Deacon Sickles around. This strikes the fear of God in everybody in town.”

“No question about it,” said Alpine, looking at the face, the flies walking on it.

Pridemore cocked his head, looking down at the face. “I'm told the English pay high for these kinds of American keepsakes. Ol' Deacon might be onto something here.”

Alpine couldn't see the potential. But he kept quiet about it.

Pridemore looked all around, stretched his back
and looked over where Bertha Buttons supervised an elderly Mexican turning the pig on its spit.

“What other news you got for me, Dart?” he asked. “All of it good, I hope?”

“It's not all good, Bigfoot,” Alpine said cautiously. “While we were getting this town braced and broken, that idiot Ozzie Cord lit out of here. Nobody is saying, but I get the feeling these townsfolk would like to gut-shoot him.”

“Tell them to fire away. I've heard worse news than that in my life,” Pridemore said, again the grin. “Good riddance,
idiot
,”
he called out to the surrounding hillsides.

“The thing is, your son, Fox, lit out with him.”

That stopped Pridemore.

“
Fox . . .
rode out with Ozzie Cord? You don't mean it, Dart,” he said, surprised. “Now, that's a different thing altogether. Are these folks down on him too?”

“I get that feeling, Bigfoot,” said Alpine. “I saw grumbling and whispering going on when the two walked down the street. Of course everybody shut up when I asked about it.”

“Maybe you didn't ask hard enough, Dart,” Pridemore said pointedly. “Sometimes you need to ask with a whip in your hand, acting like you already know the answer.”

“I'll start at one end of town and whip my way to the other, if you want me to,” Alpine said.

Pridemore seemed to consider it for a moment.

“This town is ours to do with as we see fit,” he said. “They might hate us for some things, but they damn sure worship us for keeping the Wolf Hearts out of their rectums.”

“They'll stay out of our way and leave us alone—that's for sure,” said Alpine. “Want me to ask around easylike what that idiot Ozzie and Fox might have done?”

“Not just now,” Pridemore said. “Fox is good at looking out for himself. If he lets an idiot like Ozzie lead him astray, I reckon he'll have to account for it. He's been itching to get away on his own for a while now.”

“I can send some men out to look for him,” said Alpine. “Leave Ozzie nailed to a tree if you want me to.”

“Keep that ‘nailed to a tree'
thought,” said Pridemore. “Let's see if they come back. I know my son. If Ozzie ain't careful, Fox'll get enough of his foolishness and stick a bullet in his brain—”

Pridemore stopped talking when Philbert Ohiola trotted past the guard at the main gaits and came toward them.

“Top of the morning, Ohio Phil,” Pridemore said, his hand resting on the butt of the big Walker Colt sticking up from his waist. “The way you come running up, I was thinking Ol' Dan Webster here might have to greet you.” He tapped his fingers on
his Colt and eyed the rifle Ohio Phil carried across his chest at port arms.

“Sorry, Bigfoot,” Ohio Phil said, letting his rifle slump to his side. “There's two riders on horseback and a mule cart just cleared up onto the trail. One's a white man wearing a badge. Pusser saw it through his spyglass.”

“White man wearing a badge, you say . . . ?” said Pridemore. He looked at Alpine with a grin, then back at Phil Ohiola. “Think somebody ought to tell this fool he's not in Texas?”

“Seems like we should,” Alpine said, going along with his boss's wry humor.

“All right, I just come to tell you,” said Phil Ohiola. “Pusser's still out there keeping an eye on them.”

“Good work, Phil,” Pridemore said. “You and Pusser pull back and let them past you.”

“It could be that Ranger,” said Alpine.

“I hope it is,” said Pridemore. “I ought to thank him. Hadn't been for him killing Erskine Cord, I might be back at the trading post, swatting flies off rattlesnake meat, serving it for chicken soup.”

“I'm just saying . . . ,” Alpine replied.

“Don't worry about it,” said Pridemore. “He's not after any of us. If Ozzie was here I'd hand him over to the Ranger just to watch him wiggle.”

“Anything else . . . ?” Phil Ohiola asked in his deep, solemn voice.

Pridemore looked the hatless half-breed up and down, noting his shaved head.

“Tell me, Phil,” he asked amicably. “When are you going to let your hair grow out?”

“No time soon, Bigfoot,” said the serious half-breed. He rubbed his shaved and weathered cranium.

Pridemore nodded back toward the gates.

“That's all, Phil,” he said. “You and Pusser stay sharp out there.”

“If it is the Ranger, I can drop back out of sight and stick a bullet in him,” Alpine said as Ohio Phil trotted away, his rifle dangling at his side.

Pridemore had taken a thin black cigar from inside his buckskins and stuck it in his mouth. He eyed Alpine up and down.

“You're doing good work here, Dart,” he said. “Stop trying too hard to please me.” He pulled out a long match, hiked a knee and struck it down his trouser leg. “I had a whore in Abilene acted like that. Turned out she tried to nut me in my sleep.” He held the flaming match to the cigar but stopped first. “You would not want me showing you the scar.”

“No, I wouldn't, Bigfoot,” Alpine said.

“Good,” said Pridemore. He puffed the cigar to life and flipped the match into the dirt. “Go gather a few men around us. Tell Chase to goad whoever this is wearing a badge. We'll see what he's made of.”

“Got it,” said Alpine.

But before he could turn and leave, Pridemore stopped him. “If this
is
the Ranger, I want to first off try to make him feel welcome.” He gave a
skeptical grin. “Maybe he'll even tell us about gutting Wilson Orez with his own knife.”

Alpine gave him a curious look, then nodded and moved away.

*   *   *

It was midmorning when the Ranger and the women made it up the last few yards of the trail with the creaking, slow-rolling mule cart. As the animals climbed to the old fortress on the craggy hill, Sam was a little surprised to find no guards standing at the open gates. He entered the town ahead of the woman and the cart, and came to a halt, rifle in hand, seeing the throng of buckskinned mercenaries lounging against the town well facing him.

At the center of the rugged-looking group, Turner “Bigfoot” Pridemore sat in a large, high thronelike Spanish chair as if awaiting him. The Ranger looked around warily as the women and the cart stopped beside him. Ria sidled the barb over closer to him. She and Ana sat staring in silence.

“Top of the morning, lawman!” Pridemore called out, hoisting a tall Spanish goblet that sloshed liquid over its rim as he raised it out toward Sam. He wore a wide scowl of a grin on his face. “I'm betting every dollar in the bank that you be Arizona Ranger Samuel Burrack.” As he spoke he waved a hand, inviting Sam to step down and come forward.

“You bet right,” said the Ranger. “I am Sam Burrack.” He handed Ria his dun's reins and swung
down from his saddle with his thumb across the hammer of his rifle. He nodded at Pridemore walking toward him. “You're the man they call Bigfoot—owned the trading post over on the edge of the sand flats.” He stopped a few feet away.

“
Owned
is right,” Pridemore said. “It was mine until the heathen Apache ran it over and killed my elder son.” He eyed the Ranger closer. “Have you ever lost kin to the savages, Ranger? 'Cause let me tell you, it hurts something awful.” He looked at Sam for an answer. When none came, he nodded all around at his men, who returned his nod in agreement. Then he swigged from the goblet and wiped his buckskin sleeve across his lips.

Sam cut to the point. “I'm tracking one of your men for killing the sheriff in Mesa Grande.”

Pridemore wagged a big finger.

“Say . . . I heard about that,” he said. “You'd be talking about the idiot, Ozzie Cord, nephew of the late Erskine Cord.” Again the scowling grin. “Of course you know all about that, you being the one made him the
late
Erskine Cord.”

“I killed him; that's a fact,” Sam said. He glanced around for Ozzie but didn't see him. “I had him jailed, but your men broke him and his nephew out.”

“Huh-uh, not my men,” Pridemore pointed out quickly. “That was Cord's men. They're all dead now,” he lied. Waving the matter aside, he added, “Anyway, I harbor no ill feeling toward you. Fact is, you killing Erskine is what got me the contract to kill Apache for the Mexican government. I ought to thank you.”

Having seen no soldiers along the streets, Sam wondered if the
federale
patrol he'd met on the trail and later found lying dead had been the entire military presence. He caught the waft of roasting pork from the spit out in front of the tent saloon and saw Bertha Buttons and a Mexican woman attending it.

“As for the idiot, Ozzie,” Pridemore continued, “he's not here. I wish he was, 'cause watching you kill him would be better than watching a wrestling match. Oh, and by the way, I'd be rooting for you.”

“I'd be rooting for Ozzie,” said a huge scalper standing beside Pridemore's chair. The scalper stood a head taller than Sam and stared down hard and cold at him.

“I forgot to mention, Ranger,” said Pridemore. “I've no ill feelings, but my friend Malcolm Chase here was broken up over Erskine's demise.”

“That's right, I was,” said the huge man. He stepped forward just enough to the side to reveal the face tacked to the board, leaning behind him. “I still am,” he said. He handed his rifle off to the man beside him.

Seeing what was happening, Sam continued staring at the face on the board as if engrossed.

“Hey, Ranger!” Chase demanded. “Look at me when I'm talking to you—” He'd reached two fingers out as if to gouge Sam on his shoulder and get his attention. But he never completed the move.

The butt of the Ranger's Winchester came up full stroke under the big man's chin and lifted his face high. As Chase staggered back a step and his face bounced back into place, Sam stabbed the
Winchester butt full strength. The blow crushed the big man's nose and both lips and splattered blood in every direction. Chase flipped backward and hung over the stone edge of the well, his big booted toes pointing to the sky.

Some of the men winced at the sight and sound of the Ranger's action. No sooner had Sam made the hard stab with the rifle butt than he swung the rifle around and cocked it in his hands, ready to fire in any direction.

“Jesus, Ranger!” said Pridemore, holding a hand out sidelong to keep his men back. “You didn't have to break
violent
on the man. You call that a fair fight?”