The Scalp Hunters (4 page)

Evelyn King drew rein when the arrow thudded into the earth, and she watched the two warriors gallop off. She still didn't know which tribe they belonged to. They weren't Blackfeet or Sioux, or they would have tried harder to kill her or take her captive.

Degamawaku's heart had leaped into his throat when he saw the glittering shaft arc out of the sky. For a few harrowing moments he thought it would bury itself in Evelyn. His relief when it missed was so profound that he trembled from head to toe. Drawing rein, he forced his throat to work. “Be careful, please. You almost be killed.”

“I don't think so,” Evelyn said. “I don't think he was trying to kill me, just scare me.”

“He scare me.”

The others came trotting up, Wakumassee and Tihikanima and Tenikawaku and Mikikawaku.

“Why did you chase them?” Waku demanded. He liked the white girl, liked her a lot, but at times she did rash things.

“I wanted to talk to them,” Evelyn explained. “I still do. Didn't you see that one of them was hurt?”

“They not want your help.” Waku considered the arrow the warrior let fly a distinct hint.

“They were afraid of us.”

“
They
afraid of
us
?” Waku repeated in some amazement.

Evelyn rose in the stirrups and surveyed the vast extent of plain to the north. “The important thing is who hurt that warrior? They must have run into enemies. If there's a war party somewhere close, we need to know.”

Waku hadn't thought of that. “If there is war party near, we must go far away.”

“What if they're between us and the mountains?” Evelyn shook her head. “They could be anywhere. We need to find out who and how many and where those two warriors last saw them.” She gigged the mare.

Dega was aghast. She had just escaped being shot with an arrow and here she was going after the men who shot at her. He glanced at his father in mute appeal and saw that he was just as dumbfounded.

Tihi didn't like this one bit. “What is that foolish girl doing?”

“She thinks we need to talk to the two warriors,” Waku said. “She says there could be enemies close by.”

“Then we should return to the mountains. Out here on the prairie it is too open. We are too exposed.”

“I agree with Mother,” Tenikawaku said. She never wanted to come hunt buffalo in the first place. She was perfectly content to stay in King Valley where they were safe.

Little Minikawaku said nothing. She did not understand any of this, but she trusted her parents to do what was best.

“Stop her, Waku,” Tihi said. “Call to her.”

“She would not listen. She is headstrong, that one.”

Tihi smothered a tart reply. At moments like these she wished her husband was a bit more forceful, even if it wasn't the Nansusequa way. The People of the Forest believed in living in harmony with everyone where possible. They exalted reason over confrontation, peace over violence. Unfortunately, as they had learned to their bitter sorrow, not everyone shared their ideals.

“We must go after her,” Waku said. “Her father and mother have been exceptionally kind to us.”

“She is a child in a woman's body,” Tihi said in uncharacteristic anger. “I am grateful for what her parents have done for us, but they have not raised her right.”

“They are not Nansusequa.”

Dega was impatient to catch up to Evelyn. A dutiful son would wait for his father and mother to finish their talk, but he slapped his horse's legs and hurried off.

“Let us go,” Waku said, and followed him.

Reluctantly Tihi goaded her animal on. She was not in the best of spirits. The long ride to the prairie had given her a lot of time to think, and her thoughts ran in troubling channels. As grateful as she was to Nate and Winona King—and she
was
sincerely grateful—she was not so sure she liked the idea of her son taking their daughter for his wife. There was the issue of Dega leaving their lodge. She was certain Evelyn would insist on it. And their children; would they be raised in the Nansusequa way or the white way? No, the more Tihi considered it, the more convinced she became that her son should not marry Evelyn King.

A jab of her heels quickened her mount's gait so that she passed her husband and her daughters and caught up to her eldest child. Dega was staring in
tently after Evelyn, so love-struck it would amuse her were the consequences not so serious.

“You would think she would wait for us.”

Dega had not looked around to see who had joined him. Now he did, and said with great admiration, “She is brave, is she not, Mother?”

Tihi chose her words with care. By no degree must she show disapproval. He might resent it. “Yes, Evelyn is brave. Brave is not always wise, though.”

“In what way?”

“Look at her. She must know you care for her, yet she rides into danger with no thought for your feelings.” Tihi smiled to blunt the blow.

“She thinks of all of us. Did you hear her about the war party?”

“I did. Which is why I would head west to the mountains. Instead, she takes us farther out into the prairie, farther from our valley, farther from safety.”

Dega glanced over his shoulder at his father and his sisters.

“I worry for Teni and Miki,” Tihi continued. “Remember what those white men almost did to Teni? A war party might do the same to them.”

“Nate King says that rarely happens.” But Dega was worried now, too.

“Rare does not mean never.”

“I would give my life to prevent that from happening to them.”

“You are a fine brother and son.” Tihi adopted a lighthearted air. “But listen to us. Criticizing Evelyn when, as you say, she is only concerned for our welfare. She is a dear girl.”

“Very dear.”

“Your father thought the same of me when he was courting me. It was different for us, though, since we were both Nansusequa.”

“Love is love,” Dega said.

It was the first time her son openly used that word in referring to Evelyn King. Tihi realized she was broaching the subject at just the right time. “There are different kinds of love, my son. There is the love we share for Manitoa and all Manitoa provides. There is the love of a father and a mother for their children, and the love between brothers and sisters. Then there is the special love between a man and a woman. When they are of the same people or from the same tribe, they have much in common and their love is that much stronger. When they are not, their love is less than it could be.”

“Less how, Mother?”

“The wife will want things her way, and the husband will want things his way. There are disagreements, arguments, fights.”

“Not if they get along well.”

“That is important, yes. But they cannot help being who they are. They cannot help how they were raised. They will not always agree, not as two people would who share the same beliefs.”

“So are you saying it is wrong for a man and a woman to became husband and wife if they do not have a lot in common?”

Tihi gave him her sweetest smile. “I would never say that, Son. It is for the man and the woman to decide. Do they live in harmony with each other, as the Nansusequa believe they should, or do they argue and fight over whose way is best?”

Dega had a lot to ponder. He was still pondering when cottonwoods framed the horizon. He called to Evelyn.

Evelyn heard him, but she didn't slow. Since it was her idea to talk to the two warriors, she should take the risk of approaching them. She rode faster.
As she entered the trees, she spied two horses. She plastered a smile of greeting on her face and made sure to point her rifle at the ground so the warriors wouldn't get the wrong impression. She caught sight of the blue of a stream and heard the gurgling of water. Then she was in a clearing and saw a dead warrior on the ground in a pool of fresh blood and another warrior bound about the legs and a man who appeared to be a Negro or part Negro about to bash in the bound warrior's head with the stock of his rifle.

All this Evelyn took in at a glance. If she was surprised, so were they. No one moved. She thrust out her Hawken and thumbed back the hammer. “Hold it right there!”

Plenty Elk was astonished that the white woman would come to his aid. Yet that appeared to be exactly what she was doing. He expected the black man to fight. Instead, Rubicon whirled and was in among the cottonwoods in several long bounds.

Evelyn could have shot him. A light squeeze of the trigger and he was dead. But she refused to take a life unless she had no recourse. The black man looked back as the underbrush swallowed him. He grinned, as if he found it amusing that she hadn't done anything.

Dega arrived. He had seen the black man disappear into the vegetation, but he didn't go after him. His concern was for the girl he cared for.

Evelyn dismounted and went to the bound warrior. Drawing her knife, she slashed the rope around his legs, then stepped back.

Plenty Elk had been dazed by his friend's death. He had been dazed by the blow to his head. Now he was dazed again. He slowly sat up. “I do not know what to say.”

Evelyn had heard Arapaho spoken a few times at Bent's Fort and elsewhere. It was unlike any other tongue. To confirm her hunch, she propped her rifle against her leg and signed, ‘Question. You Arapaho?'

There was no end to the shocks Plenty Elk was enduring. To be saved by a white woman was amazing enough. For her to know sign talk was beyond belief. He wondered if he was unconscious and dreaming. One glance at Wolf's Tooth was enough to persuade him that it all was terribly real.

‘Question. You Arapaho?' Evelyn signed again when she didn't get an answer.

‘Yes.'

Waku and the rest of his family came hurrying through the trees and drew rein.

‘I called Blue Flower,' Evelyn signed her Shoshone name. ‘Grizzly Killer my father. You know him?'

Suddenly Plenty Elk understood. Yes, he had heard of the white Shoshone. A fierce fighter, by some accounts. It was said the man had taken a Shoshone woman as his blanket warmer and her tribe had adopted him. ‘Question. Your mother Shoshone?' He asked because the white girl did not look as if she had a drop of Indian blood in her veins.

‘Yes. My brother called Stalking Coyote. You know him?'

Plenty Elk had heard of her brother, too. Campfire stories had it that the brother was savage and had counted many coup. ‘Yes.'

Evelyn reckoned that her father's and brother's reputations would work in her favor. Few men would dare their wrath by harming her. ‘Question. Why your friend dead? Why black man try kill you?'

‘Scalp hunter,' Plenty Elk signed.

Evelyn gave a start. If half the tales she'd heard
about scalpers were true, her friends were in dire peril. ‘Question. How many scalp hunters? Where them now?'

Dega swung to the ground. He couldn't talk with his fingers like they were doing. He must wait for Evelyn to tell him what was being said. In the meantime, he would show he was friendly.

Plenty Elk was about to tell her about the ordeal he had been through when the green-garbed young man with her came over and held out his hand. His natural reaction was to suspect a trick, but the man seemed sincere about helping him. He took hold and let the other pull him to his feet.

Evelyn was about to introduce Waku and his family when she realized there weren't any signs for their names. The best she could do was point at each of them and say their names out loud.

Wakumassee
.
Tihikanima
. Plenty Elk had never heard of names like theirs. He repeated them and was corrected when he mispronounced the older daughter's. He liked how she smiled at his mistake but not in a mocking manner.

Evelyn again asked about the scalp hunters. What she learned alarmed her. Turning to Waku, she translated, ending with, “We must leave before they get here. They won't care that you and your family are friendly. It won't matter that Miki is so young. All they'll think of is how much money your hair will bring.”

Aghast, Waku nodded at his youngest. “They would kill her, too?” To slay another human being was bad enough. To kill a child was vile.

“They might.” Evelyn would have herself to blame. The scalp hunters had no idea she and Waku's family were in the area until she went and butted in. Now the black would tell the rest and they would be
after her and the Nansusequas like a pack of crazed wolves after sheep.

Plenty Elk coughed to get her attention. ‘Question. What you do?'

‘We run,' Evelyn signed. Fly like the wind was more like it, and the sooner they started, the better.

‘You help me. I help you. I come with you. Together we fight scalp men.'

Evelyn hesitated. The Lord knew, they could use his help. But could she trust him? The Arapaho weren't as friendly as the Shoshones. Then again, they weren't as hostile as the Sioux. ‘We happy you want fight for us.'

First they dug a shallow grave using broken tree branches and lowered Wolf's Tooth into the hole. They heaped dirt and branches and leaves on top to discourage scavengers.

Evelyn was grim as she climbed on the mare. They had gone from hunting buffalo to being the hunted, and it might well be that none of them would live to see the mountains ever again.

Venom was in no hurry. The two Dog Eaters who got away only thought they were safe. He would catch up to them presently and relieve them of their lives and their hair.

His company strung out behind him, Venom looked for the marks Rubicon made to guide them. At intervals the grass had been ripped out exposing the dirt. Each mark was about a yard long and half a foot wide and tapered in the direction they were to go.

Venom thought of the blood he had sucked from the scalp earlier and smacked his lips, wishing there had been more. Most folks didn't realize how delicious blood was. Back when he did it for the first time, when he was dying of thirst on the desert, he'd never imagined how much he would like it or how addicting it could be. He hadn't been joshing when he said that it was too bad blood wasn't sold in bottles like whiskey and ale.

Hooves thudded and he acquired a shadow at his elbow.

“What do you want, Logan?” Of all his men, Venom trusted Logan the least. Logan was snake-mean and
as shifty as desert sands on a windy day, and Venom suspected he had aspirations.

“How long do you aim to wander all over this grassland looking for redskins before we head for New Mexico?”

“As long as I want. Do you have a problem with that?”

“You're the boss.”

“That wasn't what I asked.”

“Damn, you are a testy bastard.” Logan laughed, but the sound rang hollow. “Have I ever complained?”

“You're too smart to gripe to my face.”

“I wouldn't gripe behind your back, either. If I didn't like the way you were running this outfit, I'd say so.”

“Or try to take over.” Venom cocked an eyebrow. “What the hell difference does it make how long we take to get there?”

Logan rubbed the stubble on his chin. He looked at the clouds. Finally he said, “You remember that cantina in Santa Fe?”

“The one you spent all your time in? What about it?”

“You remember Maria?”

Venom snorted in amusement. Maria waited on the tables. She had long black hair and large moon eyes and more pounds on her than a heifer. She was so heavy she waddled when she walked. “What about her?”

“I've got plans for her.”

Venom scowled. “You leave her be, you hear me? Too many people would miss her. There'd be folks nosing around, wondering where she got to. I learned my lesson with that Mex in Texas. Never kill anyone who will be missed.”

“No one will ever suspect me.”

“I just said no.”

Now it was Logan who scowled. “You're not being fair. You get to drink blood all you want, but you won't let me do what I like?”

“What you like is to tie women down and do things that would get you hung in the States. What you like is to see them suffer. What you like is for them to beg and cry.” Venom shook his head in disgust. “What you like is sick.”

“Don't give me that. You've tortured. I've seen you.”

“Now and then, sure. If someone makes me mad. Or if I need information. But I don't get the pleasure out of it that you do.”

“It's not fair, I tell you.”

Venom resented his tone. “I'll make it plain. You're not to touch Maria. Buck me on this and you will by-God regret it.”

Logan was holding his rifle across his saddle. He started to raise it, but then lowered it again. “I don't like being threatened.”

“I don't give a good damn what you do or don't like. You'll do as I damn well tell you.”

“This is how you treat me when I've ridden with you longer than practically anyone?”

“This is how I treat you. Let me hear your word on Maria.”

Logan swore and then growled, “I give you my word I won't touch the cow when we get to Santa Fe. Happy now?”

“If you need a female so much, we're bound to come across plenty of squaws. Do them.”

“They're not as much fun. Most don't beg or cry.” Logan went to rein around to fall back in line, and stiffened. “Look! Injuns!”

Venom whipped around in the saddle. To the northeast, so far away they were little more than vague shapes in the heat haze, were a lot of riders. Even at that distance it was obvious they weren't white.

Venom turned and pumped his right arm three times. It was a signal he had worked out. To a man his company promptly dismounted. Each gripped the bridle of his mount. Tugging and pulling, they coaxed their animals to the ground. Then they crouched with their rifles at the ready, their mounts now barriers against enemy lances and arrows.

Venom had a lot of tricks like this. Tricks that kept him and his men alive.

“Use your spyglass,” Logan urged.

Venom disliked being told what to do, but he was about to take a look through the spyglass anyway. He opened his saddlebag, slid out the metal tube, and telescoped it as far it would go. Raising it to his eye, he studied the warriors. Lakotas, unless he missed his guess, or Sioux, as they were more commonly called.

“Well?” Potter nervously called out. “Can you tell who they are?”

Venom told him. “I count at least thirty. I think they're wearing war paint.”

“You think?” Logan said.

“Have they spotted us?” Potter asked. “Folks say the Sioux are as fierce as Apaches. I sure don't want to tangle with any.”

“You're a damn coward,” Venom told him. A loyal coward who would do anything Venom wanted, no questions asked. “You can breathe easy. It appears they have no idea we're here.”

“That's a lot of scalps,” Tibbet remarked.

“Go ahead and try if you're that stupid.” Venom
learned early on that in the scalping trade a man must know when to cut and when to fight shy and keep his own scalp.

“By my lonesome? No thank you. I like breathing as much as the next gent.”

Venom kept watching through the spyglass. He didn't know what to make of it when the entire war party stopped. Then he saw one of the warriors point in his direction, and all the Sioux turned. “Damn!” He jerked the telescope down behind his horse.

“What's the matter?” Logan asked.

“I think one of them saw the sun reflect off the metal.” Venom should have been more careful. He should have held his hat over the spyglass. It was the little mistakes that did a man in.

“Look again,” Potter urged. “Maybe they're coming.”

“Idiot.” Venom could still see them, off in the haze. They hadn't moved. He glanced down the line to make sure none of his men was holding his rifle where the sun would gleam off the barrel as it had off the spyglass.

“They're movin' on!” one of the Kyler twins hollered.

That they were, continuing to the north, raising dust in their wake.

Venom stayed put until the war party was well gone. Then, rising, he gave the signal to stand.

“That was a close one,” Potter said.

When they moved on, they did so warily. Venom sent the Kyler twins on ahead to ride point and sent Tibbet and Potter out to each side to cover their flanks. He deemed it unlikely the Lakotas would return, but it was better to be safe than dead.

In the excitement, Venom had forgotten to look for Rubicon's marks. When half an hour went by and
none appeared he began to worry they had lost the trail. He was so preoccupied with finding it that when a rider reined in next to him, he glanced up in annoyance.

“What the hell do you want now?”

Logan answered, “It's not our day.”

“Care to explain, or am I supposed to figure it out for myself?”

Extending an arm to the southwest, Logan said, “I haven't seen one of those critters this far out in a coon's age.”

Venom sensed what he would see before he turned. A quarter of a mile off, lumbering on all fours, was a creature as massive as a buffalo but ten times as dangerous, and as difficult to kill as anything. “Hell.”

A huge grizzly was bound who-knew-where. The hump, the tree-trunk legs, the huge head with jaws that could crush bone at a bite—the last thing Venom wanted was to have it attack.

“It hasn't seen us yet.”

“It's the nose we have to worry about.” Venom licked the tip of his finger and raised it over his head. The breeze was blowing from west to east—from the bear to them. They were safe so long as the wind didn't shift. One whiff of their scent and the grizzly might decide to fill its belly.

“That hide would fetch a good price at Bent's Fort.”

“Scalps fetch more.” Plus, Venom didn't intend to stop at Bent's. The last time they had, on their way to St. Louis, Ceran St. Vrain, who ran the place along with the Bent brothers, treated them as if they had the plague. St. Vrain had a low opinion of scalp men, as he'd made clear when he cornered Venom in the stable.

“I'd like a word with you, if you don't mind.”

Venom had been honing his knife. “I suppose if I do, you'll have your word anyway?”

“I'm serving notice. You would be well advised to heed, or the consequences will be severe.”

“Damn, you talk pretty,” Venom taunted, but his barb had no effect on the haughty master of the trading post.

“These grounds are a safe haven for anyone who desires to visit. That applies to red and white alike.”

Venom knew that. Tribes at war put aside their animosity when they visited Bent's or they were banned from trading, and no tribe wanted that, not when Bent's Fort was the only place within a thousand miles where they could trade for everything from rifles to steel knives to pots and pans. “So?”

“So I'm aware of how you earn your despicable livelihood, Mr. Venom. I don't approve, but then each man to his own affairs.”

“My sentiments exactly.”

“However”—St. Vrain leaned down, his face as hard as iron—“there will be no taking the scalp of any Indian who visits our post. Not here, not for fifty miles around.”

“Fifty miles?” Venom bristled. “Who do you think you are, God Almighty? You have the right to tell me what not to do when I'm within these walls, but you sure as hell don't have the right to tell me what to do fifty miles from here. You don't own the prairie.”

“True,” St. Vrain conceded. “But all I have to do is snap my fingers and I'll have twenty armed men ready to enforce my edict, along with a large number of our Indian friends.”

“Are you threatening me?”

“Yes.”

The man's bluntness rankled. Venom wasn't used to being treated as if he was of no account. “I should gut you where you stand.”

“You won't find it easy. And keep in mind that if you
try, you and your cutthroats won't make it out the gate alive.”

The hell of it was, Venom was forced to back down. St. Vrain's men were a salty bunch, and the Indians all thought highly of him. “Listen. I'm not after scalps. We're here to buy grub and tobacco and whatnot. Then we'll be on our way.”

St. Vrain turned to go. “Remember what I told you about the fifty-mile limit. Word will get back to me if you don't heed. You might think you can lift a few scalps and get clean away, but how long would you last with a five-hundred-dollar bounty on your own hair?”

“You wouldn't.”

“Try me and find out.” St. Vrain walked to the stable door and turned. “Some of us, Mr. Venom, happen to like the Indians. We regard them as human beings. One of my partners, William Bent, is married to a Cheyenne. All he has to do is get word to them and every warrior in the tribe will descend upon you and do what should have been done years ago.”

On that sour note, their talk had ended. Just thinking about it left a bitter taste in Venom's mouth.

A shout brought him out of his reverie.

“Here come the Kyler twins! And Rubicon is with them!”

To say Venom was surprised was an understatement. He contained his anger as the rest of his men converged, and when the twins and the black man drew rein, he jabbed a finger at Rubicon. “What the hell are you doing here? I thought I told you to track those Arapaho bucks.”

“I did,” Rubicon said, his face alight with suppressed excitement. “I killed one and took his hair and was saving the other one for you, like you wanted. But then some others came along.”

“Other Arapahos?”

“No. Indians, the likes of which I've never seen, all of them wearing green buckskins.”

“The deuce you say.”

“A whole family, from what I could make out, five in all.”

“This gets more interesting by the moment.”

“There's a mother and a couple of girls. One of them is almost full grown and as pretty as can be.”

“Well, now.” Venom grinned.

“There's more. I've saved the best for last.”

“Spit it out, damn you. What could be better than five scalps and some fun, besides?”

“There's a white girl with them.”

Venom's grin widened. “Did you hear him, boys? Christmas has come early this year.”