Scalpers (6 page)

Sam stepped in close, keeping his words just between himself and the captain.

“These women are going to be in great danger if we should happen to run into Apache between here and Iron Point,” he said. “The scalpers have the Wolf Hearts and every other band worked into a frenzy.”

“I realize this is true,” the captain said. “And I will leave some soldiers to escort you and the women, of course. But I must keep moving and ride quickly in order to catch these murderers. The soldiers will see to it you and the women take your time and get there safely, even though it will take longer.”

It dawned on the Ranger that the captain didn't want him getting to the scalpers first.
Why?
he asked himself, looking into the captain's troubled eyes.

“On second thought, that won't be necessary, Captain,” he said. “I believe if we stay off the main trails and keep in the hills as much as we can, we'll
be all right.” As he spoke he slid a look at the sergeant, who still looked surprised at the captain's actions.

“Very well, suit yourself, Ranger,” Captain Penza said, taking on a rigid tone. He turned to the sergeant and said, “Turn this patrol around. We ride back to Iron Point immediately.”

“Sí, Capitán,”
the sergeant said, snapping to attention. He turned to his horse and stepped up into his saddle.

“Wait,” Sam said as the sergeant settled into his saddle. He stepped forward, rolled the severed head back into the burlap feed sack, picked it up and walked to the sergeant's horse. “Don't forget Cousins,” he said.

The sergeant looked to the captain for permission to take the feed sack. When the captain nodded, the sergeant took the sack and passed it along to the soldier nearest him. Then he nodded at the Ranger and straightened in his saddle. Sam stepped back to the horses and the mule cart and stood beside the women as the patrol turned around on the trail and rode away.

“So, we continue on our own alone,” Ria said warily as the patrol rode out of sight around the rocks, the guidon leading the way.

“We'll be all right, ma'am,” he said. “The way they're announcing around every turn, we might be better off without them.” He reached around before Ria could stop him and lifted Ana up onto the side of the cart. Fear flashed across Ria's face. But
then she settled and looked relieved when the Ranger turned the young woman loose. Ana scrambled the rest of the way up over the side of the cart and climbed up onto her makeshift seat.

“
Sí
, Ranger,” Ria said. “You have brought us this far. I know you will take us to safety.”

Before daylight Turner Pridemore and his men had assembled and readied their horses behind the town livery barn. They stood hidden in the purple, shadowy darkness still watching Captain Penza and his sergeant lead the twenty-four-man patrol ride out of Iron Point. Beside Pridemore stood his son, Fox, and Ozzie Cord, the two still weaving from all the whiskey they'd poured down their gullets less than two hours earlier.

When the soldiers had ridden out of sight, Pridemore looked the two drunken young men up and down. He shook his head in disgust and turned to Darton Alpine.

“Keep these two here, Dart,” he whispered. “They're no good on the trail.”

Alpine also looked the two up and down, seeing Ozzie stagger in place and almost fall.

“I've got four guards we have to kill here,” he said in a lowered voice. “Are these two up to it?”

“They best be,” said Pridemore, “else I'll bullwhip all the hide off Fox's back and feed this one's eyes to a buzzard.” He studied Alpine closer with a questioning gaze. “Maybe I'm putting more on you and Chase than the two of yas can handle?”

“Don't worry about nothing. Malcolm and I have this place covered. Right, Malcolm?” Alpine replied quickly, looking around at the burly buckskin-clad scalper standing nearby.

“We got it under control, Bigfoot,” said the veteran mercenary, Malcolm Chase. He carried a long saber wound down the length of his right jaw. He held a two-pound ironmonger's hammer in his thick fist, fastened to his wrist with a leather strap. “Once I crack a man's nut, it'll still be cracked when he crosses Jordan.”

“Good,” said Pridemore. “There's four of them and six of you, not counting Fox and Ozzie. I better not come back and hear any excuses.” He looked at the older scalper, Deacon Sickles. “Did you take care of things, Deacon?”

Sickles stood rolling down his wet buckskin shirtsleeves, his big knife in hand.

“I did,” he replied.

Pridemore nodded, then gestured toward Fox and Ozzie. “It they don't sober up and get into the
spirit of things, tie them up and throw them in the barn. I'll deal with them when I get back.” He looked toward the other men gathered in the shadows, waiting beside their horses, holding their reins.

“Let's get to it,” he said, taking his horse's reins from an outheld hand.

Alpine looked around at the men he'd be working with as Pridemore and fifteen of the mercenaries mounted quietly and rode away. He gave Deacon Sickles a grin in the shadowy darkness.

“How does it feel, Sickles, going from riding alone to riding with a whole damn army?” he said.

“Comforting,” the older scalper said. “Even more so when I'm rubbing money agin my leg.” He patted his empty trouser pocket.

“It'll come soon enough,” said Alpine. “Bigfoot is a leader with vision.”

“I sensed it right off,” said Sickles.

Alpine looked around at the other faces watching him, waiting for his orders. Aside from Sickles and Malcolm Chase, there stood a newer scalper named Ed Adams and his half-breed Cherokee sidekick, Philbert Ohiola—Ohio Phil to the men. Phil wore a tall, bent and battered silk top hat atop a head that he kept shaved for safety's sake. He carried an old iron-head trade hatchet shoved down behind his belt. Next to Adams and Ohio Phil stood a scalper named Ian Pusser, who had ridden off and on with Erskine Cord's mercenaries from the group's origin.

Alpine gestured a hand to the east, ushering the
men's attention to the sliver of silver light mantling the horizon.

“Any minute now the sun is going to lift its lid,” he said quietly yet firmly. “When it does I want a man behind every one of the four guards.” He looked from face to face. “When you hear me give off a crow call, kill them quick and quietlike and leave them where they lay. Once the sun's up and they're all dead, we'll gather in the street and let this town know who's in charge.”

“Any fool who thinks four Mexican guards can handle the likes of us is asking for a bloodletting,” said Chase, swinging his ironmonger's hammer back and forth calmly on his wrist.

“Hey!
Malcolm!
” said Alpine in a stiff tone. “Don't talk while I'm talking. This is business here.”

“Excuse the
hell
out of me,” Chase said without ceasing to swing the thick hammer. “Next time I'll raise my hand.”

Alpine just stared at him, knowing if anything went wrong here, he himself would be the first person Pridemore blamed. He started to say something more, but before he could, Fox Pridemore stepped forward, hearing what was going on and trying to sober up and take part in it.

“Want me and Oz to ready some horses, just in case things don't go right?” he asked, working to control the thickness in his tongue.

“No,” said Alpine, “you two stay out of the way till you're sober. Besides, there's to be no riding away from this. Either this thing works or we all die
right here.” He looked all around at the faces. “Any questions?” he asked.

The men stood silent until finally Chase raised a hand like a courteous schoolboy, the hammer still swinging calmly at his side.

Alpine just stared at him coldly.

“Can we get on with this?” Chase said in a bored tone. “I ain't et yet.”

Damn it to hell!

Alpine seethed, but he kept his anger to himself and motioned the men away. As they moved away silently, like lingering apparitions in the grainy purple darkness, he took a position out of sight behind the livery barn. For the next few minutes he watched as the sliver of light on the eastern sky widened slowly above the earth. When the sun domed the jagged edge of the earth like a bald man peeping over a picket fence, he cupped both hands over his mouth and cawed out three times along the empty street.

Standing in the dead silence, Alpine heard not a single sound come from the two-man guard post at the wide gates to Iron Point. Neither did he hear any sound of a struggle come from the single guard post at the far end of town. Nor did any sound come from the Apache lookout post above a large boulder facing toward the hill line a mile behind the old fortress. The only sound he did hear was a sour and abrupt belch that Ozzie Cord let out, followed by Ozzie laughing and apologizing drunkenly.

“This son of a bitch,” Alpine growled, stomping off in the direction of the gurgling belch.

When he got to where Ozzie and Fox lay on the ground against the rear side of the livery barn, he saw Ozzie raise a bottle to his lips. Without hesitation he reached down and slapped the bottle away. It crashed and broke on the rocky ground.

“For two cents I'd blow your damn head off,” he growled, keeping his voice low. His cocked Colt jammed against Ozzie's forehead.

“Don't shoot, Dart!” Fox said to Alpine. “I'll sober him up; I swear I will. I'm not drinking, see?” He spread his hands to show they were empty.

Alpine knew this was not the time to be firing a gun—not just yet. He eased his gun from against Ozzie's head and uncocked it.

“See that you do, Fox,” Alpine said. He glared at Ozzie. “It's a good thing Fox here had enough sense to sober up. He's in charge of you until I say otherwise. Have you both got that?”

“I've got it,” Ozzie whined.

“I got it,” Fox said responsibly. “He'll do no more drinking, I promise you.”

The two stared as Alpine walked away. Looking sidelong at Ozzie, Fox grinned and pulled a bottle of rye up from behind his back. He took a long swig and passed the bottle to him. The two muffled their laughter, hands over their mouths like naughty children.

Alpine walked on a few yards toward the sound of a hammer tacking nails into a board. When he
got closer, the tacking stopped and Deacon Sickles looked over his shoulder at him.

“Am I starting too early?” Sickles asked in a hushed tone.

“No, you're good,” said Alpine. “It's time the town wakes up and sees what we're doing here.” He looked around and saw two of his men walking in from different guard posts. “How long before you're done and ready?” he asked Sickles.

“Another nail or two, I'm finished,” Sickles said, turning back to the board. “This ought to put the fear of God in them.”

“Damn right it will,” said Alpine. He raised his Colt again and wagged it back and forth. “All right, here we go.”

*   *   *

Pridemore and half of his men lay strewn along a rock ledge overlooking the trail where they had spotted the patrol riding back toward Iron Point. The other half of the scalpers lay in wait along the trail below, every third one with a bow and a quiver of arrows beside him. Overhead the scalding noon sun beat down, casting a harsh wavering whiteness over the rock desert badlands. Beside Pridemore, Early Doss looked up at the burning sky, then looked down and batted his eyes against the sun's glare.

“By now, I expect Alpine and his lot has Iron Point under their thumbs,” Doss said to Pridemore.

“They better have,” Pridemore said. “We get back there, I best see every gold coin and peso stuffed into a bag, ready to carry off.” He allowed
himself a tight grin, staring down at the rocky hill trail. He looked on his other side at Bertha Buttons, who lay shielded from the sun beneath a ragged serape. Under the serape her dress hung torn and soiled. Her left shoe was missing, her hair tangled and dusty from the trail.

“How you holding up, Big Darling?” Pridemore asked. He reached a hand over and brushed her hair from her eyes. Her rouge had been smeared from her cheek to her chin.

“Better . . . than I expected, Bigfoot,” she said, careful not to say anything that might upset the mercenary leader. “I—I worry about my saloon, my girls. I really should be there—”

“Now, now. . . .” Pridemore cut her off with a finger up against her parched lips. “You don't need to be there. You just think you do. I left orders for my men to take care of things.”

“I know you did, and I'm grateful,” said Bertha. “The truth is, this desert is roasting me alive. It's been a long while since I've trekked outside Iron Point.” She looked all along the row of men for a canteen. “Could I get some water?”

Pridemore reached his hand over and patted her rouge-smeared cheek.

“Soon you can, but not just now,” he said. “I believe we've got to toughen you up some. If you're going to be my gal—my partner so to speak—you'll need to get by for long stretches like this without water, food and whatnot.” He drew his hand away. “My last gal never got the hang of it, bless her heart. She fried like bacon before the desert finally
et her innards.” He rubbed the back on her hand as if stroking the head of a pet cat. “That poor sweet darling . . . ,” he murmured. An Apache bow lay on the rock beside him.

Fried like bacon . . . ? The desert ate her innards . . . ?

Bertha just stared at him for a moment. She looked off along the row of filthy buckskins, of a grisly assortment of human hair and bone ornamentation. Then back at Pridemore. They were insane, every single bloody last one of them. She'd never met a scalp hunter who wasn't.

Turner Pridemore had never been known as a madman before. Was this madness something that joining these mercenaries had brought out in him? Was this what scalp hunting did to a man? She didn't know; she didn't care, she concluded to herself. All she knew was that she had to find a way to stay alive until she could either get away or scratch out a safer place herself.

“You're right about food and water,” she said, forcing a thin smile in spite of her parched lips. “I've always said, it takes more than food and water to sustain a gal.”

“So true,” Pridemore said. “And whatever sustenance a gal like you needs, I will bring it and lay it at your feet. You'll never flee another hanging posse, Texas or otherwise, so long as you're with me.”

“Here they come now, Bigfoot,” Early Doss said on Pridemore's other side.

Pridemore affectionately tapped the tip of his finger on Bertha's nose and grinned at her.

“I want you to keep quiet here for a minute, Big Darling,” he said. “We're fixing to kill us a bunch of Mexican soldiers.”

“Captain Penza's patrol?” Bertha asked, seeing the soldiers follow their guidon into sight. The scout had fallen back closer to the men, riding about ten yards ahead of them.

“Right you are,” said Pridemore, “the very son of a bitch who paid me to kill you and Jim Ruby. He believed with you two out of the way he could slip somebody of his own in to run the saloon.”

Bertha thought about it.

“So, now, with Jim Ruby out of the way, you figure killing Penza will make you and me partners?” She leveled her gaze. “You realize I have a Mexican official I pay every month.”

“I understand,” said Pridemore. “He won't even have to know. Who knows? Someday he might even die himself.”