The Scalp Hunters (8 page)

“Who do you think is buried in the graves?” Tibbet wondered.

“How the hell do I know?” Venom snapped. “I can't see through dirt.” He had a hunch, though, about one of them. “Dig them up.”

“Dig up dead bodies?” Potter said apprehensively.

“They wouldn't be buried if they were alive.” Some days Venom had no patience with Potter's stupidity and this was one of them.

“That's not what I meant. They've been dead hours. They'll smell and have started to swell.”

“So hold your nose.” Venom turned away before he shot him. He was in a foul temper. Thanks to the delays, the girl and her green-clad friends were now hours ahead. He went over to the Kyler twins, who were standing by their mounts.

“You two are the best trackers I've got after Rubicon. I want you to go on ahead. Track the girl and her party, but don't let them see you. Leave marks for us. We'll come along as fast as we can.”

Jeph nodded at the mounds of earth. “You reckon one of them is the black, don't you?”

“Unless he killed a couple and went on after the rest, but he'd never have bothered to bury them.”

“The girl and her green Indians must have jumped him,” Seph said.

Venom scowled. “Rubicon always did what I told him, and I told him not to tangle with them. If he's in one of those graves, then yes, somehow they caught on that he was tracking them and killed him.”

“They ain't harmless then,” Jeph said.

“Whoever said they were?” Venom gestured. “On your way. Keep your eyes skinned. I don't care to lose you two, too.”

“Don't worry about us. The black only had two eyes and two ears. We have four.”

“Too much confidence can get you killed,” Venom cautioned.

“Better too much than too little,” was Seph's rebuttal.

They climbed on and rode off. Venom watched until they were out of sight, then stepped to where Potter, Tibbet, Calvert and Ryson were scooping the fresh dirt away with their hands. Potter's face was twisted in disgust.

“It's only dirt, you idiot,” Ryson chided.

Potter wiped a sleeve across his sweat-speckled brow. “It's what's under the dirt. The dead spook me.”

“Why? What can they do to you?”

“It's how they look. Pasty and bloated and all. I can't stand to touch them. It gives me shivers.”

“If it wasn't that you can shoot and cook, you'd be worthless,” Calvert put in.

Potter stopped scooping. “Here now. Why are you mad at me? What did I do?”

“You're breathing.” Venom stabbed a finger at the mound. “Dig, damn you. I don't intend to stand around here all day.” He scoured the plain, then sat down a few yards away with his rifle across his legs.

“Strange, isn't it?” Tibbet said while scooping.

“What?”

“The girl took the time to bury them. She must know we're after them, but she did it anyway.”

Venom leaned back. The sun was low in the west. They only had an hour or so of daylight left. “That's the difference between people like her and people like us. It tells you a lot about her.”

“How so?”

“We wouldn't have bothered. We'd have left these two to rot, even if one is Rubicon, and pushed on.” Venom paused. “This girl couldn't bring herself to ride off and leave them lying there. That shows she's got a good heart. She went to the trouble to plant them, knowing every minute she delayed was a minute closer we came. That shows she's got grit.”

“A good heart and grit won't stop her from being dead,” Ryson said.

“No one is to harm her unless I say,” Venom warned. “I might have another use for her before we kill her.”

Several of them laughed.

Potter mopped his brow again. “Say, how do we know she's not in one of these graves?”

Venom gave a start. He hadn't thought of that.

“Here!” Tibbet bawled. “I found a hand!”

“Get excited, why don't you?” Venom said. “It's the body the hand's attached to that I want to see.”

They dug with renewed vigor and in no time exposed a young Arapaho warrior, his hands folded across his chest, his face so pale he was whiter than a white.

“Cut in the neck,” Tibbet observed aloud.

Venom stood and went to the body. “The last of the four we jumped. We don't have to worry about
word getting back to the Araphaos. Uncover the other one.”

It took barely a minute. Rubicon's features were waxen, his mouth curled in a grimace. His arms, too, had been folded across his chest, and his eyes were closed.

“He looks like he's sleeping,” Potter said.

“He is. Forever,” Calvert remarked.

Tibbet squatted and indicated a red stain on Rubicon's shirt. “He was stabbed. They jumped him, I bet. He'd never let them get close enough, otherwise.”

Venom turned to his mount. “Let's go. We still have daylight left.”

“Don't you want us to bury them again?” Potter asked.

“I'm not the girl. I don't have a good heart. Let the coyotes and the buzzards fatten their bellies.” Venom's saddle creaked as he forked leather and hooked his feet in the stirrups.

“Even Rubicon?”

Venom sighed. “Haven't you gotten it through your head yet? You're only of use to me while you're breathing. Once you stop, I don't give a damn what happens. Now get on your damn horse and quit asking damn stupid questions.” He took the lead. They wouldn't be able to go far before darkness claimed the prairie, but that was all right. Morning would come soon enough.

“Tomorrow you're mine, girl,” Venom vowed.

Evelyn rode until well after the sun went down. She would have pushed on until midnight, but little Mikikawaku could barely sit her saddle and the rest of the family showed signs of severe fatigue. Reluctantly, Evelyn stopped in the middle of a basin and announced, “We'll spend the night here.”

Dega touched the gash in his temple. “It good we stop. I not feel well.”

Evelyn was worried he had a concussion. She swung down to help him dismount.

“I do it my own self.” Dega refused to be weak in front of her. He slowly alighted, then had to lean against his horse when dizziness threatened to buckle his legs.

“Are you all right?”

“I fine,” Dega lied.

Tihikanima put her arm around her son's shoulders. “Sit,” she directed. “Let me look at your head.”

“I just told Evelyn I am fine, Mother.”

“You try too hard to impress her.” Tihi examined the wound and touched a dry drop of blood. “You were fortunate he struck you with the flat side of the tomahawk.”

Dega sank onto his back and placed his forearm across his forehead. “I want sleep.”

Evelyn opened her parfleche. Inside was a bundle of pemmican and another that contained herbs her mother used to heal and cure. The Shoshones had treatments for all sorts of ailments and injuries. Everything from grinding sagebrush leaves into powder to use on the rash on a baby's bottom to balsam root to ward off ticks to the fuzz from prickly pear cactus for removing warts.

At the moment Evelyn was looking for what the Shoshones called
unda vich quana
. They used it on wounds. She crushed a dry leaf in her palm, then went over and knelt next to Dega. “I have something here that will help you.”

“I drink or eat?”

“Neither. I have to rub it on. It'll hurt some, but in a while the pain will go away.”

“What did she say?” Tihi asked.

Dega translated.

“Tell her I will take care of you. I have medicine in my pack.” Tihi went to rise but Dega gripped her wrist.

“I thank you, but I would like her to treat me.”

“You choose her over your mother?”

Dega didn't say anything.

“I have nursed you since you were an infant. Every scrape, every bruise, the time you burned your fingers in the fire, the time you broke a finger when you fell from a tree, the time you sprained your ankle and it was so swollen you could hardly walk on it, and many more.”

“No son ever had a better mother.”

“Then why her over me?”

Evelyn had listened to the exchange in growing puzzlement. “Is something the matter?”

“All be fine,” Dega assured her.

“Why does Tihi look upset?”

“She not like me hurt.” To his mother Dega said, “It is not her over you. No one can ever take your place.”

“Yet you want her to dress your wound.” Tihi unfurled and sadly remarked, “Every mother knows this day will come. It is not a day we look forward to.”

“What are you talking about?”

“The day when another is as important as a mother in her son's eyes, or more so.”

“I am your son. I will love you forever. Nothing can ever change that or come between us.”

“You will take a wife and enshrine her in your heart as you once enshrined me,” Tihi said. “It is the way of things. I have known this and thought I would accept the change, but it is harder than I ex
pected.” She tenderly touched his head. “I do not like it, Son. I do not like it with all I am.”

Dega had never seen his mother this way. He was troubled, but he took it for granted she would accept his interest in Evelyn and be her normal self again. “She is my friend, Mother. What harm can it do?”

“She is more than that. Whether you admit it to yourself or not, I am second in your eyes now.” Bowing her head, Tihi moved off.

“What's the matter with her?” Evelyn asked.

“She not happy we fight, we run.” Dega had told more lies in the past few moments than in all his life put together.

“We're not done with either,” Evelyn predicted. She bent and carefully rubbed the crushed leaves into the gash. Dega winced but bore it stoically. “Now you lie here while I make some tea.”

“What good that be?”

“You'll see.” Evelyn had brought her mother's coffeepot. She didn't think her mother would mind since her mother and father were away in St. Louis having her father's rifle fixed. She filled it with water from the water skin and set it on the fire to heat. From her bundle she took pieces of dogwood bark and dropped them in the water. Then she went back to Dega. “It shouldn't be more than a few minutes.”

“You treat me nice.”

Evelyn almost said treating him nice came easy because she cared so much. Instead she said, “It's what friends are for.”

Dega had more he yearned to say to her, but his tongue was oddly frozen. Coughing, he forced out, “You best friend me ever have.”

“I ever had.”

“Eh?”

“Your English. You wanted me to correct you, remember?”

“I sorry. I try so much, but white tongue hard.” Dega averted his face in shame.

“Don't feel bad. A lot of Indians say the same. My mother speaks it so well because she has a knack for languages.”

“Blue Water Woman talk good, too.” Dega referred to the Flathead wife of Shakespeare McNair.

“She's had decades of practice. Marry a white girl and stick with her twenty years and I bet you'll speak English as good as Blue Water Woman.”

“Which white girl?” In Dega's eyes there was only one.

“Oh, any will do,” Evelyn hedged, and just knew she was blushing. “I better check on the tea.” It wasn't anywhere near done, but she opened the coffeepot and looked in and put the top back on. “The tea's not boiling yet.”

Over at the horses, Waku was stripping a saddle. He glanced up as his wife joined him. “Did you hear? She makes tea for us. She is a good girl, that one.”

“She makes tea for our son,” Tihi corrected him. “He has cast me aside in favor of her.”

“What are you talking about? Degamawaku loves you as much as he ever has.”

“So he says. But my spirit is troubled, husband. When we get back to King Valley and our lodge, I must think long and hard and decide whether I like the change in him.”

“And if you do not?”

Tihikanima feigned an interest in the stars.

“I do not see why it bothers you so. Tell me. Would you feel the same if she was a full-blooded Shoshone?”

“I am not a bigot.”

“Then let it drop. Interfere and Dega will resent it. Besides, if they are truly in love, you can never drive them apart.”

“Never say never, husband,” Tihikanima said, and smiled.

The horse he had taken from the Sioux was about done in, but Logan didn't care. He had deliberately ridden it near into the ground.

The distant glow of a campfire was why. He'd counted on Venom stopping for the night, and unless he missed his guess, the camp up ahead belonged to the bastard who shot him and the former friends who left him for dead.

Logan slowed his lathered mount and fingered the hilt of the knife. Earlier, he had come on the bodies of Rubicon and an Arapaho and out of spite cut off the black's nose. A petty act, but an impulse he couldn't resist. So what if Rubicon hadn't been with them when Venom shot him?

A few hundred yards out, Logan drew rein and slid down. He let the reins dangle and advanced on foot, staying low to the ground so there was less chance of them spotting him.

Presently Logan flattened and crawled. His former pards had camped at the base of a knoll. He counted five forms around the fire. Two were missing. The Kyler twins, he soon deduced. He reckoned that Venom had sent them on ahead, which worked in his favor.

Logan was going to kill his former boss. Here and now was as good as any other time, but he needed a gun and they weren't about to hand one to him. Staying well out in the dark, he studied on how to get one.

The five were eating. Jerky and coffee wasn't much of a meal, but it was more than Logan had. His mouth watered and his stomach growled.

No one said much. Tibbet mentioned that he wished they were eating thick venison steaks or roast buffalo and Venom growled that they couldn't risk shooting game because shots carried a long way.

Potter bit off a piece of jerky and asked with his mouth full, “Do you still think we'll catch up to them tomorrow?”

“They can't be that far ahead,” Venom said. “By noon at the latest we'll have them.”

“Let's hope the Kylers don't lift their hair before we get there,” Tibbet remarked.

“They know better.”

“What about after?” Calvert asked. “Do we keep hunting scalps hereabouts or head elsewhere?”

Venom spat. “Do you even have to ask? As soon as we're done with the girl and her friends, we're heading for Texas. There's plenty of bounty money to be made off Comanche scalps.”

“I'd rather hunt them than the Apaches,” Potter said. “Apaches aren't quite human.”

“They pull their shirts on one sleeve at a time like the rest of us,” Venom said sourly.

“That's about all we have in common. They can run all day under a hot sun without tiring, and we can't. They can go days without water, and we can't. They can kill us in a hundred different ways and do it so quietly we're dead before we know they're anywhere near.”

“Don't make more out of them than there is.”

Logan was watching Calvert Finally he groped himself and stood. Without saying a word, he went to heed the need.

Quickly rising into a crouch, Logan circled the camp. The sound of urine spattering the grass drew him to the spot.

Calvert had leaned his rifle against his leg and was gazing at the stars.

On cat's feet Logan came up behind him and drove his knife into Calvert's back while simultaneously clamping his other hand over Calvert's mouth.

Calvert went rigid and tried to pull free, but the long blade did its work well. Exhaling out his nose, he deflated like a punctured water skin.

Logan lowered him to the grass. He helped himself to Calvert's pistols and ammo pouch and powder horn. He hefted Calvert's rifle and grinned. He also took a large pouch Calvert always wore.

Time to kill Venom. Logan crept toward the fire. He tucked the stock to his shoulder and fixed a bead on the center of Venom's chest. Curling his thumb, he pulled back the hammer. There was a
click
but not so loud that any of them would hear. He had Venom dead to rights and he paused to savor the moment.

The pause proved costly. The firelight must have gleamed off the barrel because suddenly Venom threw himself flat, bellowing to the others as he dived. “Get down!”

Cursing, Logan fired. He rushed his shot and the lead kicked up dirt next to Venom's face instead of coring his head as Logan wanted. Whirling, Logan did the only thing he could under the circumstances; he ran.

Guns boomed. The air sizzled with death. That Logan wasn't struck he took to be a miracle. Weaving, he made it to the horse he'd taken from the Indian. Instead of climbing on, he swung it around and gave it a hard smack on the rump. Then he flung himself in the grass.

“This way!”

Dark figures went pounding past after the horse.

“He's getting away!”

As soon as the blackness swallowed them, Logan hurried to the fire. He yanked out the picket pin and scattered all the horses save Venom's with cries and slaps. More lead sought him as he galloped to the west, but his luck held.

Logan didn't expect pursuit. By the time they collected their mounts, he would be miles away.

He needed to think, to come up with a way to kill Venom and the others and have the girl to himself.

The smart thing, Logan supposed, was to forget her and light a shuck. Forget his revenge, too, but that he would never do. A man had to stand up for himself or he wasn't much of a man. Granted, by the standards of churchgoing folk he wasn't much anyway. He still had his pride.

Before too long, he would also have the white girl.

Evelyn tossed and turned and couldn't sleep no matter how she tried. Maybe that was the problem. She was trying too hard. Casting off her blanket, she rose and fed buffalo chips to the fire, then stood and stretched and yearned for the comfort of her parents' cabin.

Everyone else was asleep.

They'd debated taking turns keeping watch. As tired as they were, Evelyn had argued with Waku
that rest was more important. Given that his son was hurt and his wife and daughters exhausted, Waku gave in.

Evelyn checked the coffeepot. There was some tea left. She filled her tin cup and walked a dozen feet into the dark to contemplate the stars and ponder. She needed a brainstorm. The scalp hunters would be after their hair tomorrow, and she had yet to think of a way to stop them.

Sinking down, Evelyn placed her Hawken at her side and rested her elbows on her legs. Her body was sore and weary, but her mind flew on Chinook winds. How? How? How? she asked herself.

Moccasins scraped the grass.

Evelyn glanced up and wasn't surprised at who it was. “You can't sleep, either?”

“No.” Dega eased down. He didn't tell her why he couldn't sleep.

“Some hunting trip this turned out to be. We should have waited until my folks got back from St. Louis.”

“My father want hunt,” Dega reminded her.

“I didn't think any harm would come of it. My father and Uncle Shakespeare have done it many a time and always make it home safe. I tend to forget, I guess.”

“Forget what?”

“The dangers. They make everything seem so easy. But then, they know how to do everything, so they run fewer risks.” Evelyn motioned the way they had come, and when she did, her arm brushed Dega's. “If I had any brains, I'd never have gone after the two Arapahos like I did.”

“You save Plenty Elk,” Dega reminded her.

“Only to have him be killed later.” Evelyn sadly bowed her head. “I'm doing my best, but I'm not my
father. I'm not even my brother. God, how I wish he was here.”

“You love him great much.” Dega knew he had not spoken proper English and repressed an urge to smack his forehead in frustration.

“Of course I do. Just like you love Teni and Miki. But it's more than that. Zach is able to do something I never can. All my big talk, and I'm next to worthless.”

“I confused,” Dega admitted. He was touched by her sorrow and almost reached out to comfort her.

Evelyn looked at him. “All along I've been telling your pa that we have to kill the slave hunters. That it's our only chance, our only hope. But do you know what? I don't have it in me to take a life unless maybe someone is about to stick a knife into me or shoot me, and even then I'm not so sure.” Evelyn balled her fists, angry at her weakness. “I'm no killer.”

Dega chose his words carefully. “You make sound no kill sound bad, but it good you not take life.”

“How can it be good if we lose our own because of it?”

“Good for you here.” Dega touched his chest. “It mean you have peace inside. Nansusequa peace.”

“Explain, if you don't mind.”

Dega fought down panic. She was asking him to make clear a complicated concept in a tongue in which he was woefully inadequate. Nevertheless, for her, he tried his best. “Nansusequa like peace. Nansusequa peaceful with all people unless people try hurt Nansusequa.”

“That's my own problem. I just told you.”

“But not problem. It what Manitoa want.”

“The spirit in all things that your people believe in? How does that enter into it?”

Dega gestured, and his arm brushed hers. “Manitoa in all life. Manitoa in you. Manitoa in me. Manitoa in buffalo. Manitoa in grass, in trees, in sky. Manitoa in scalp hunters. You…” He sought the right white word. “…savvy?”

“Yes, I get that much.”

“Life special to my people. We hurt life, we hurt Manitoa. So we try live in peace with all there is so not hurt Manitoa. Savvy that?”

“It's very commendable.”

“But you see?” Dega made bold to put his hand on her arm. “You commendable. You not want hurt life, not want hurt Manitoa. You have peace in heart. Nansusequa heart.”

Evelyn smiled. “Thank you for the compliment. A lot of my people don't see it that way. They say we have to kill our enemies. Whole countries go to war and take great pride in the killing they do.”

Dega gently squeezed her arm. “They not you. You like Nansusequa. You, what is word? You cherish life.”

“I try.” Evelyn impulsively leaned over and kissed him on the cheek. “Thank you for trying to cheer me. You're about the sweetest man I've ever met.”

A warm tingle spread through Dega. “Thank you,” he said, oddly hoarse. “You sweetest girl.” He started to kiss her cheek as she had kissed his but caught himself. The Nansusequa believed that a man and woman should not kiss until after the two joined hearts in a formal ceremony, as his father and mother had done.

Evelyn saw him lean toward her and sensed what he was about to do. Her pulse quickened. When he stopped, she thought he must be shy. So she figured she would peck him on the cheek again to show him he had nothing to be embarrassed about.

At that instant Dega decided that if it was the white custom to kiss cheeks, he should respect the custom and kiss her. He turned his head slightly just as her face rose to meet his.

Their lips met.

A lightning bolt seemed to cleave Evelyn's body. She jerked back in shock and raised her fingers to her lips. “Oh.”

Dega thought his body was on fire. He trembled slightly, and felt his insides roil. “I sorry,” he blurted, afraid he had offended her. “I not mean kiss mouth.”

“It's all right,” Evelyn said softly.

“It is?”

“I liked it.”

“You did?” Dega had broken out in a sweat and his tongue felt as thick as his wrist.

Evelyn leaned in close again. “You're the first boy I've ever kissed. Did you know that?”

Dega wanted to respond, but his thick tongue refused to move.

“A girl's not supposed to admit she likes a boy kissing her. If I'm being too forward, say so.”

Dega wondered how she could say she was going forward when she was sitting. “I like kiss, too.”

“Well.”

“Well,” Dega echoed, unsure what else he should say.

“Would you like to do it again?”

“I like do it whole life.”

Evelyn smiled. “That's getting a little ahead of ourselves. Maybe we should take it one kiss at a time.”

Dega's breath nearly caught in his throat as he asked, “I kiss you one time more?”

“You can kiss me ten times if you want.”

The breeze stirred the grass. The fire danced and flickered. Somewhere to the north a wolf howled.

Dega's senses were swimming when after a while he drew back and let the cool night breeze caress his hot face.

“Why did you stop?”

“That ten kisses.”

“Silly goose,” Evelyn said, and pulled him close again.