The Scalp Hunters

Chapter Eleven

Rubicon liked being a scalper. He got to track, and tracking was something he was good at. He also got to kill Indians, of whom he was not all that fond.

Rubicon had been born and raised in Rhode Island. Most people assumed he was a former slave or the son of a slave, but he was neither.

His father was a minister. Reverend Rubicon made the circuit of the state’s Freewill Baptist churches. Some of Rubicon’s earliest memories were of sitting in hardwood pews and fidgeting and squirming, wishing his father would get done with the sermon so they could leave. His father was also prominent in the American Anti-Slavery Society and high in the ranks of the Temperance Society. It kept him so busy that Rubicon rarely got to see him. Which was fine by Rubicon.

They had lived in a small frame house on the outskirts of Coopersville, with miles and miles of woodland out their back door. As a boy Rubicon spent every spare moment he could in those woods. He learned the ways of the animals. He learned to hunt and fish. His father didn’t approve, but the good reverend prided himself on being fair-minded and on letting the young grow as they saw fit, with the result that shortly after he turned sixteen Rubicon packed his few belongings, bid his father and those church pews good-bye, and headed west.

Rubicon had heard a lot about the frontier, about mountains that reared to the clouds and prairies as vast as the sea and deep woods where no man had ever set foot. All that turned out to be true. Unfortunately, though, while he was adept at living off the land, he still needed money. He refused to make his own clothes when he could buy them. Then there were things like guns and ammunition and coffee and blankets.

A few scrapes with hostiles gave Rubicon the opinion that the whites were right and the only good red man was a dead red man. So when fate drew him and Venom to the same card table at a cantina in Taos, their small talk led to Rubicon becoming a scalp hunter.

If his reverend pa could see him now, Rubicon reflected, it would put him in his grave. Provided his father wasn’t already six feet under. It had been a dozen years since Rubicon struck off on his own, and for all he knew both his parents were dead. He wouldn’t lose any sleep if they were. They never had seen eye to eye on much.

Take that slavery business. The reverend had thundered every Sunday from the pulpit about how downtrodden the blacks in the South were and how vile slavery was and how the abominable institution should be abolished. He wanted Rubicon to join the Anti-Slavery Society, but Rubicon refused.

“Have you no conscience, boy?” his father once asked. “Your skin is the same color as theirs. They’re your brothers and your sisters. We must do what we can to ease their plight.”

Rubicon had laughed. “Ma only ever gave birth to me. I don’t have any brothers or sisters. As for my skin, a bay horse is the same color as a black bear. That’s doesn’t mean the horse should let the bear eat it.”

“You make no sense.”

It did to Rubicon. He saw his color as an accident of birth. He could just as well have been born white or red or yellow. So what if other blacks were used as slaves. He wasn’t, and the only one in his world that mattered was him.

Rubicon remembered how upset his father had been, and grinned. The reverend and his high-and-mighty ways. Always claiming to be right about everything because he lived by the Bible.

That was another thing Rubicon could go the rest of his days without. He had been sick to death of his father always quoting from Scripture. If he had heard “thou shall not” one more time, he would have screamed.

Once more Rubicon grinned, but it promptly faded. He had found where his quarry stopped to rest. Dismounting, he squatted beside a hoofprint and pinched some of the dirt between his thumb and index finger. He reckoned he was an hour behind, maybe a little less.

Hefting his rifle, Rubicon climbed on his horse and used his heels. Venom’s orders were to track them but not show himself. He must wait for the others to catch up. Venom claimed it was for his own safety, but Rubicon wasn’t fooled. Venom wanted to be in on the catch and the kill.

The tracks continued to the west. Rubicon figured they were making for the foothills. The timbered slopes might seem to offer them sanctuary, but they were fools if they thought they could shake him. When he was on a trail he was like a hound on a scent. He never gave up. He’d follow them to the ends of the earth, if that was what it took to bring them to bay.

Rubicon rose in the stirrups and scanned the horizon. There was no sign of them. He must be careful not to get too close until after the sun went down or they might spot him.

His rifle across his saddle, Rubicon rode at a leisurely pace. He came to a gully and went down it and up the other side. Beyond were more, an erosionworn maze that would slow the white girl and her friends. Their tracks led down into another and along the bottom.

Rubicon wondered about those friends of hers. He’d never run across Indians who dyed their buckskins green. Mostly, Indians wore ordinary buckskins, or breechclouts like the Apaches sometimes did.

The tracks led around a bend.

Rubicon was almost to it when his horse pricked its ears. Instantly, he drew rein. He listened, but all he heard was the long grass whispering in the breeze.

Alighting, Rubicon let the reins dangle and cat-footed to the bend. A familiar tingle rippled down his spine, a sensation he felt when danger was about to break over him like a wave over a beach. He checked the right rim and the left rim.

A bee buzzed about a flower.

Rubicon crouched, every sense straining. He noted that his shadow was behind him and wouldn’t give him away when he crept forward. As silently as a stalking cat, he edged around the bend. No one was there. Rubicon started to lower his rifle.

“Stand as still as can be,” said the white girl’s voice, “or so help me God I’ll blow out your wick.”

Venom’s anger grew to where he abruptly drew rein and wheeled his mount. His company halted, their expressions adding to his anger. “Well?” he demanded.

“Well what?” Potter responded.

“Let’s hear it.”

“Hear what?” This from Tibbet.

“Not one of you has said a word for miles. Out with it. Let me hear who thinks I did wrong.”

They looked at one another and one of the Kyler twins, it had to be Jeph by the nick in his ear, scratched his chin and said, “Not me or my brother. You put up with more from him than we would.”

Seph nodded. “It served him right for doin’ to girls what he done. I’ll kill ‘em and I’ll take their hair, but it’s not right to do the other.”

“It’s sick,” Jeph said.

“How about the rest of you?” Venom prompted, knowing full well none of the others had the grit to stand up to him.

Potter pursed his thick lips. “I’m not saying it was wrong. I’m not saying Logan shouldn’t have sassed you like he done. I am saying we should have buried him.”

“Since when did you turn Christian?”

“Now, now. You asked us. I’ve never liked to leave anyone aboveground when they should be below it.”

“You’ll scalp a ten-year-old Comanche boy, but you’re squeamish about leaving bodies for the coyotes to eat?” Venom had always considered Potter an idiot, and this did nothing to raise his estimation. “I swear, some of you don’t have the sense God gave a goat.”

“We do the best we can,” Potter assured him.

Venom reminded himself that for all their faults, they had stayed loyal to him through all sorts of hardships. “Look. It wasn’t just his sass that got Logan dead. It was how he acted all the time, always prodding me, always giving the notion he could do a better job at leading this outfit. I put up with it longer than I should have because he always held his own in a fight and that’s when we need each other the most. But there are limits to what a man will take and he pushed me over mine.”

“No need to explain, boss,” said Calvert.

“Yes, there is. We can’t have hard feelings. We have to always cover the other’s back. It’s why I don’t let just anyone join us. I only pick those I think we can depend on. I only pick the best.” Venom was flattering them to win them over. He had learned long ago that a carrot worked a lot better than a stick at keeping them content.

“Shucks, boss,” Tibbet said proudly. “We have full pokes thanks to you. There’s not one of us who won’t cover your back when you need it covered.”

Venom smiled. “That’s what I like to hear.” He headed west again. It wasn’t long before he came on one of Rubicon’s marks. It made him think of the time he’d asked the black how he got such a strange name. Rubicon said it had been his pa’s idea, that his pa always intended to stay single, but when he met Rubicon’s mom, he’d given in to temptation and crossed the Rubicon, whatever the hell that was.

A killdeer’s shrill cry brought Venom out of himself. The bird was pretending it had a broken wing and running in circles to get them to go after it and lead them away from its mate and their nest. Venom almost shot it out of spite.

The warm sun and the steady rhythm of his horse began to make Venom drowsy. He stifled a yawn and shook himself. A buffalo wallow appeared, and then another, and yet a third. Since most of the buffs had migrated, he didn’t give any thought to them until a loud grunt heralded the rise of a massive form from out of a wallow partially hidden by high grass.

“Hell,” Venom said, and reined up.

The bull glared and pawed the earth. It was an old bull, well past its prime, its left horn broken.

“Shoot it!” Potter whispered.

Bulls often gathered in small herds when they weren’t battling for harems. The really old ones became loners and wandered the prairie until disease or wolves or something else brought them down.

“What are you waiting for?”

“Hush, you yack,” Venom whispered back. He’d rather let the bull go its ornery way if the bull would let them do the same.

The buff snorted and stamped and shook its huge head.

Venom hoped it wouldn’t charge. He couldn’t afford to lose any of his men. Worse, he might lose a horse. “Stay still, everyone,” he commanded. “We don’t want to rile this critter.”

The bull took a few lumbering steps while rumbling deep in its barrel chest. Again it tossed its head and gouged the ground with a heavy front hoof.

“Damn it,” Venom said under his breath. He thumbed back the hammer on his rifle and curled his finger around the trigger. It was a .75-caliber Brown Bess he had taken from a Mexican he shot and scalped, and could drop just about any animal this side of a whale. But he’d rather not put it to the test against the buff’s inches-thick skull.

The bull kept stomping and snorting.

Venom took a gamble. The buff was working itself up to attack. Maybe it would calm down if they showed that they meant it no harm. Accordingly, he reined to the left to go around.

The buffalo’s beady eyes followed him.

“Stay where you are, you mangy son of a bitch,” Venom said, holding his mount to a walk. Over his shoulder he cautioned his men, “Nice and easy does it, boys.”

“We should ride like hell,” Tibbet suggested.

Suddenly the bull turned and lumbered back down into the wallow and out of sight.

Potter uttered a nervous laugh. “Thank goodness! I thought for sure it would charge.”

Tibbet laughed, too. “We were lucky. The only thing worse than an angry griz is an angry buff.”

Venom twisted to tell them to shut the hell up, that they weren’t out of danger yet and should keep quiet until the wallow was well behind them. He was a shade too late.

Up and over the bank hurtled the old bull. It came at them so fast that it was on them before practically any of them could get off a shot. The twins did. Jeph and Seph fired at the same split second. The bull stumbled, but it didn’t go down. It only slowed and then it was up and at full speed again, its head lowered to ram and gore.

Venom took aim but didn’t shoot. The bull wasn’t broadside, and he wanted it broadside in order to be sure to hit its vitals.

Most of the others were trying to rein to safety.

Potter had his horse halfway around when the bull rammed into it with an audible crunch. His scream and the screech of his stricken mount preceded the crash of both to the hard earth.

“Help me!” Raw fear twisted Potter’s face as he frantically sought to push clear. Above him, the bull dug at his mount’s belly with its good horn. The horse whinnied and kicked and struggled to rise, but the bull had it pinned to the earth. Intestines oozed from a widening cavity.

Venom gigged his own animal, not away from the bull as some of the others were doing but toward it. He pressed the Brown Bess to his shoulder and the moment he had the target he wanted, he fired. The Brown Bess thundered and spat smoke and lead. He’d hoped to drop the bull in its tracks, but it wasn’t to be. No sooner did he fire than the brute left off goring Potter’s horse and wheeled with astounding swiftness for a creature so immense.

“Look out!” Tibbet hollered.

“It’s charging again!” Ryson yelled.

Venom didn’t need the warning. He could see that the bull had a new victim picked out.

It was him.