Scalpers (12 page)

“All right, then, I guess I agree with you,” Ozzie said. He gave a grin. “It sure had my mind off business last night.”

“I'm glad to hear you
agree
with me, Oz,” Fox said a little stiffly. He turned facing him, adjusting his Colt in its holster.

“So . . . what should I tell the cantina owner?” he asked.

“Tell him nothing,” Fox said. “Get the Crazy Dogs sobered and ready to ride. Soon as we're mounted, we're burning the cantina to the ground.”

Ozzie chuckled. “Yeah, right,” he said.

“Stop laughing. I'm not joking, Oz,” Fox said, with a trace of warning in his voice.

Ozzie collected himself quickly.

“We're burning the cantina, the
putas' armarios
, anything else Montoya and the Crazy Dogs had going here.”

“But this is their graze, their stomping ground!” said Ozzie. “This is where they always come back to.”

“Not anymore. That's why we're burning it,” Fox said. “We're not coming back here. It's gotten too
easy for them here. Montoya had them lying around here not robbing anything, getting drunk, feeding money into a cantina he owns part of.”

“What if they don't go for it?” Ozzie asked.

“They'll go for it,” said Fox. “If they're real banditos, they'll see how bad things have gotten here. If any of them are not real banditos, it won't matter. We'll shoot them on our way out of town.”

“And the woman?” Ozzie asked. “What about her? Is she going with us?”

“Yes, for now,” Fox said. “The men see her with me, they know my takeover is complete. When I get through with her I'll drop her off somewhere . . . give her some gold coins. She's a looker. She'll be all right.”

“When can I break the news to Stampeto that he's not
segundo
, and I am?” Ozzie asked. He grinned. “I can't wait to see his face, then shoot him down.”

“Not now, and not for a while,” Fox said. “Let him think he's my second-in-charge. We both know he's not. Everything he does I'll make him answer to you.”

“You mean I'll be in charge and he won't even know it?” Ozzie chuckled, liking the idea.

“Something like that,” Fox said, eyeing him closely. “Now go find him and let him know what we're fixing to do here. Just don't let him know why.” He picked up his battered hat and set it atop his head. “Stupid bastard should've have known to do all this for himself.”

When the first thin mantle of sunlight stood just above the eastern rim of the earth, Fox, Ozzie and Silvar Stampeto sat atop their horses. Sidled close to Fox, Montoya's widow, Terese, sat on a paint horse that Fox had taken from the town livery operator at gunpoint. The four watched high-licking flames roil upward in a cloud of thick black smoke from the felled and burning roof timbers. Behind the four sat the other four Mexican gunmen. Paco Frulio sat slumped in his saddle, his red-rimmed eyes barely open.

“I will miss this place,” Paco muttered under his breath. He stared blurry-eyed at the dead cantina owner lying in the street where Ozzie's bullet had killed him. His shirt had been scorched brown from the intense heat. A shotgun lay close to his outstretched hand.

“Juan Peddersal did not have to die this way,” a gunman named Sergio said under his breath to those around him. “For a gringo he was not so bad.” He slid a taunting look at a half-Missourian, half-Mexican outlaw named Otis Seedy. Otis only gave him a sour look and spat in the dirt.

“Suppose El Zorro takes Juan's
esposa
and marries her as well?” he said.

The men chuckled among themselves, knowing
Juan Peddersal's wife to be a monstrous woman whose odor alone both animals and children alike avoided.

“By Fox's own words she belongs to Ozzie Cord, the one who killed Juan,” said Sergio.

“Ha, this is loco,” said Paco. “I never hear such a thing as man's
esposa
belonging to the man who killed him, and I have rode with banditos my whole life.” He brushed the idea aside with a wave of his thick hand. “This was all gringo talk.”

“I never hear of it,” said Sergio, “but Zorro is the leader. He can say as he wishes, and make it become so.”

“Zorro . . . ,” said Paco, barely hiding his disgust. But he didn't elaborate. He spat down at the ground and looked back at the burning cantina. Like the others, he was still a little addled from last night's whiskey and cocaine. Fox, having heard the gunmen talking guardedly twenty feet behind him, glanced over his shoulder in time to see all five of them look away.

“Want me to go shoot one of them in the foot?” Ozzie offered in a quiet tone, his hand going to his gun belt as he spoke.

Fox gave him a look, knowing he was serious.

“They'll feel better when they've got money jingling in their
bolsillos
.”

Ozzie just looked at him dumbly.

“In their
pockets
, Oz,” Fox translated.

“Why didn't you say ‘pockets,' then?” Ozzie replied. Fox saw an instant of dark anger stir in Ozzie's eyes. But then it was gone.

“Next time I will,” he said, realizing how his
words had belittled his thick-witted friend. He'd seen his brother, Lucas, have those same flashes of anger, and he knew they never lasted long. But now it was time to make quick repair. “You and I could use some cash in our
bolsillos
too, eh?” he said, reaching over and pushing his fist against Ozzie's shoulder.

Ozzie stared straight ahead, but he gave a slight grin.

“Yeah,” he said, “my
bolsillos
always need money in them.”

“Sí, dinero en nuestros bolsillos,”
said Silvar Spampeto, trying to include himself in their camaraderie. But Fox only turned in his saddle and stared at him.

“Did you decide upon a good place for us to rob, my
segundo
?” he asked the nervous Stampeto.

Stampeto straightened in his saddle, seeing the no-nonsense look on Fox's face.

“Yes, I think of several,” he said.

“One at a time,” Fox said.

“Yes.” Stampeto nodded. “There is a nice fat French mining company three days' ride from here—the Mexico-France Consorta Tierra Mineral. They pay their employees every month around this time. They open a large safe and set up a pay line the first of every month. Afterward I hear there is much fiesta, dancing and drinking and—”

“I don't care about their payday party,” Fox said, abruptly cutting him off. He considered the date. “That's only five days from now. Do they keep their payroll money on hand or have it sent in every month?”

“Unlike the Germans who have their payroll brought by the
federales
every month, these French like to keep large amounts of money on hand.”

“Why haven't the Perros Locos robbed this place before now?” Fox asked him.

“Because Carlos Montoya said it is too far to ride,” Stampeto replied.

Hearing him, Ozzie turned in his saddle to face Fox as if in amazement.

“Three days,
too far
to ride . . . 
?” He stifled a laugh and shook his head. “No wonder his men didn't care that you killed him,” he said to Fox. “Lazy beaners. . . .”

Stampeto's dark eyes moved back and forth between the two of them. Terese Montoya sat staring blankly at the raging fire and the body of Juan Peddersal. The heat had burned away the back of his shirt; the skin beneath had peeled, blackened and curled.

“Any towns between here and there worth raising?” Fox asked.

“There are two,” said Stampeto with a slight shrug. “There are women and whiskey in Big Sand, and some nice horses at Ranchero Casa Robos just before you get there.”

Fox let out a breath.

“All right,
segundo
,” he said. “That's where we're headed. You get with the men, let them know what a sweet payroll this French mining company's going to be. Get them lathered up over it.”

“
Sí
, I will do this, Zorro,” Stampeto said, feeling as he'd been taken off the hook.

“On our way there, be thinking of where we're heading next,” Fox put in. “Soon as you figure it out, tell Oz all about it. He'll tell it to me.” He turned his horse. “Let's ride,” he added, nudging his horse forward, leading the woman beside him.

“Yeah, you just bring any ideas to me. I'll tell Zorro,” Ozzie said to Stampeto with a sharp chiding little grin. “Get the men and follow us. Hurry up about it.” He jerked his horse around and rode off behind Fox, liking the way this was all working out for him.

Silvar Stampeto grumbled to himself as he turned his horse and rode to the men who still sat slumped in their saddles.

“Tell me, amigo,” said Paco, his dark eyes red-rimmed and bloodshot, “why does this man burn down such a fine place as Peddersal's cantina?” He gestured a hand toward the
putas
' plank cubicles flaming up behind the blazing cantina. Women ran back and forth grabbing what meager belongings they could salvage. “What did Peddersal and these
putas
ever do to him?” In the dirt near the roiling fire, the dead owner's back sizzled like a pig on a spit. Burned hair smoked on the back of his head; his ears appeared to be melted away.

“El Zorro does not want us riding back here,” said
Stampeto. “Unlike Montoya, he wants us to stay in the saddle and make money.” He rubbed his finger and thumb together in the universal sign of greed. “I say he is right. I do not choose the life of a desperado gunman so I can lie around and do nothing.” He looked around. “What about the rest of you?”

“I feel like I have swallowed a rattlesnake,” said a hungover young Mexican gunman named Ricardo Mirano. “We did not have to ride today. We could do this
mañana
when we are—”

“Shut up, Ricardo,” shouted Stampeto. He gigged his horse over to the young man, yanked his sombrero from his head and slapped him back and forth across his face with it. The young gunman bowed down and covered his face with his forearms. Before Ricardo could go for his gun, Stampeto snatched it from his holster and held it up for everyone to see.

“Look, he cannot move quick enough to defend himself? And he calls himself a bad hombre, a bandito, a Perros Locos?” He threw the gunman's sombrero to the ground in disgust, but held on to his pistol.

The men sat staring. Stampeto backed his horse and addressed them angrily.

“This grocery clerk, Fox—El Zorro—comes into our town and takes us over so quickly none of us even realize it is happening until it is done. He kills Carlos Montoya as easily as snapping his fingers. That is how sorry we have become in conducting our business!”

He looked at each pair of bloodshot eyes as
Ricardo stepped from his saddle and retrieved his sombrero. The Perros Locos men stared back at him.

“Listen to me, all of you,” Stampeto said. “El Zorro means business. He is leading us to rob the mining company we have wanted to rob for so long. Montoya has turned us into drunken fools. But once we get the taste of our business back into our mouths, we will be bad hombres again, and men will fear us.” He looked back and forth and shrugged. “As it is, no one fears us anymore. But I promise you, when we get back to work, no one will ever walk in and take us over again.”

The men looked at each other, their eyes lowered in shame.

“We agree with you, Stampeto,” said Paco. “We should have robbed these French miners months ago. We will go wherever this Zorro takes us. Only . . . can we first have some whiskey to settle our senses?”

“If I catch you drinking I will kill you,” Stampeto warned somberly, “because if I do not kill you, this man will kill me, for not doing my job.” He paused, then said, “If you cannot stay sober, ride away now and save yourself. If you want to ride with the new Perros Locos, come with me, and El Zorro will make us rich.”

The men looked at each other again.

“I have long dreamed of robbing these French
bastardos
,” Otis Seedy said. He spat in contempt. “It's worth being sober just to see the fear in their eyes while I drop the hammer on them.” He nudged
his horse forward to stand beside Stampeto. Behind him the others followed, including Ricardo, whose face was red-streaked from the bite of his sombrero across his cheeks.

*   *   *

For the last three miles along the lower hills trail, the Ranger had followed the high rise of black smoke adrift on the desert air. At length he stopped the dun on a rocky cliff overlooking the charred remnants of the small village below. From there he could see a few men and women walking in a straggling line toward the hill line off to their west. They carried their earthly possessions on their shoulders, and on the backs of donkeys and horses too old to properly support a saddle and rider.

The day before, he'd sensed someone on his tail. But that was to be expected, he'd told himself, knowing that Turner Pridemore's son was riding with the man he was tracking.
So be it.
The main thing for now was not to let them know that he was onto them being there. He'd deal with them when the time came. They would either come forward and confront him when they thought they had the advantage, or manage to get ahead of him and set up an ambush—something he wouldn't let happen if he could keep from it. For now he'd simply tolerate them. Swat them when the time was right, he told himself.

He nudged the dun forward onto a downhill path, the speckled barb beside him.

“There he goes,” said Malcolm Chase, one of the three scalpers Pridemore had sent to follow the
Ranger. “I could drop him from right here and be done with him.” Chase spoke with a terrible nasal twang and a thick lisp owing to the crushed nose and mouth Sam had given him with his rifle butt. Chase lifted his rifle from across his lap.

“Hold it, Malcolm,” said Bernard Stevens, a scalper who'd joined Pridemore right after he took over the mercenary band. “Your face is swollen the size of a mule's ass. You're lucky you can even see your rifle, let alone aim it.”

Chase gave him a hard stare.

“I want to kill the son of a bitch,” he said, “for doing all this to me.” He gestured at his swollen face. “You got any objections, Stevens?”

Stevens looked at Ian Pusser, the third horseman, then back at Chase.

“Yeah, I suppose I do,” Stevens said. “Dart said Bigfoot wants us to follow this lawman, make sure if he kills Ozzie he don't kill Fox Pridemore at the same time.”

“Listen to you,” Chase said with contempt. “You act like this law dog has already got everybody killed and in the ground.” He spat unevenly through his swollen purple lips. “I say I go on and kill him and be done with it. We can tell it however suits us when we get back. Who'll give a damn?”

“Huh-uh, I don't work that way, Malcolm,” said Stevens, shaking his head.

“Nor do I,” said Pusser, who sat listening with his wrists crossed on his saddle horn. “Nobody loves killing a lawman more than me. Having been one myself, I know what rotten sons a' bitches they
are. But Dart said follow and keep watch. That's what I intend to do.”

Chase stare at the two, his nose and lips swollen, purple and blood-crusted. His eyes were puffed out and black as a raccoon's. Anger flared inside his chest. But he took a deep breath and calmed himself.