Free Scalpers by Ralph Cotton

for my men to take care of things.”
    â€œI 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.
    â€œSoon 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 finallyet 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.
    â€œYou’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.”
    â€œSo 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.”
    â€œHere 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.
    â€œI want you to keep quiet here for a minute, Big Darling,” he said. “We’re fixing to kill us a bunch of Mexican soldiers.”
    â€œCaptain 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.
    â€œRight 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.
    â€œSo, 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.”
    â€œI understand,” said Pridemore. “He won’t even have to know. Who knows? Someday he might even die himself.”
    Bertha stared at him in feigned admiration. “I always heard you’re a real daisy of a businessman. Now I see why folks think it.”
    Pridemore grinned and tapped his forehead.
    â€œI’ve got tricks the world has yet to see,” he said. He scooted back from the edge, his hand on Bertha’s shoulder ushering her along with him. He carried a bow loaded with an arrow in it in his other hand. “We take him alive, you can saw his ears off before we kill him . . . if you’ve a mind to, that is.”
    Bertha stared down at the soldiers riding into sight.
    â€œThat pig would’ve had me killed,” she said. Turning to Pridemore, she added, “You mean I can do