bodies.
The Kid frowned as he saw sunlight reflect off steel. “What’s he doing?”
Kelly glanced over his shoulder at Valdez and said carelessly, “That business I just mentioned.”
Valdez straightened from the corpse with something dark hanging from his hand. He held it out toward Mateo and grinned proudly.
The Kid’s jaw tightened as he realized what he was seeing. “Valdez just scalped that man, didn’t he?”
Kelly chuckled. “That’s the only way to collect the bounty the Mexican government pays for dead Apaches. You’ve got to have the scalps to prove it. We made some money here today. Not a whole lot, mind you, but it all adds up.”
“You’re scalphunters,” The Kid said.
“Somebody’s got to do it. It’s no different from exterminating any other kind of vermin.”
After seeing what the Apaches had done in that wagon camp, The Kid felt no sympathy for them. Politicians and newspaper writers back east liked to talk about how the Indians would be peaceful if only they were given the chance. That might even be true in some cases ... but not this one. The Apaches lived to kill their enemies, and it didn’t matter who those enemies were. If there hadn’t been any white or Mexican settlers in the Southwest, the Apaches would have warred against other tribes, as they had done all through the ages.
Even knowing that, The Kid didn’t like seeing men being mutilated. It didn’t sit right inside him.
But he was aware that Kelly was watching him. Though the man had seemed friendly enough so far and had stopped Valdez from shooting at him, The Kid saw something cold and intent in Kelly’s eyes. A lot was riding on how he reacted.
“Bounty, eh?” he said. “Well, I killed four of those varmints, so I’ll expect my share.”
Kelly threw back his head and laughed, and even the normally dour Chess smiled a little. Kelly nudged his companion with an elbow. “What’d I tell you, Chess? I told you that if we ran into Kid Morgan down here below the border, we ought to ask him to throw in with us.”
“That’s what you said, all right,” Chess agreed quietly.
“You know who I am?” The Kid asked.
“Well, I wasn’t sure,” Kelly said, “but you said your name was Morgan and I thought I remembered hearing about a fella who’s supposed to look like you. I know a man who’s fast on the draw when I see one, and you’re not anywhere near old enough to be that other Morgan, the one they call The Drifter.”
“People will forget about him, but they’ll remember me,” The Kid said with the cool arrogance most gunfighters displayed. He figured these men would be less likely to try to double-cross him if they believed he was as deadly as his reputation. “Are you serious about wanting me to join forces with you?”
“Damn right I’m serious,” Kelly responded without hesitation. “That’s a damned big bunch of redskins we’re going after. We can use some help, especially from a man as good with a gun as you are.”
“Even with the ones we killed here, that war party still has eighty-five or ninety men in it,” The Kid pointed out. “I’m not sure one more gun on your side is going to make much of a difference.”
“It wouldn’t if we took them all on at once. But my plan is to cut a few out of the bunch at a time. Also, I’ve got a pretty good idea where they’re going. If we can get ahead of them, maybe we can set up an ambush of our own.”
“You know where their stronghold is?”
“Mateo’s got a pretty good idea,” Kelly replied as he inclined his head toward the Yaqui, who was walking back from the other side of the canyon with Valdez. Three blood-dripping scalps now hung from the Mexican’s hand.
Kelly went on, “But that’s not where the Apaches will be going first. I knew that as soon as you mentioned those female prisoners they have, back in that border settlement.”
“I don’t understand,” The Kid said.
“The Apaches won’t be that interested in keeping the women,” Kelly said. “The fact that they haven’t already killed them and dumped the bodies tells me they’ve got something else in mind for them. They’re taking them to Alberto Guzman.”
“And who’s that?” The Kid asked.
Kelly grinned. “The biggest slaver in this part of Mexico.”
Chapter 19
Taking the scalps obviously had cheered him up, but Valdez still wasn’t happy when he found out The Kid was throwing in with them. “You can’t trust this damn gringo!” he protested to Kelly.
“Chess and I are gringos,” Kelly said.
“Si, but that’s different. This one kicked me in the cojones!”
“You drew a knife on him. He could have shot you.”
Valdez continued to scowl, but after a few seconds he shrugged. “This is true.” He turned to The Kid. “I may have to work with you, gringo, but I don’t have to like you!”
“Feeling’s mutual,” The Kid said.
Kelly rubbed his hands together. “Now that we’ve got that all squared away, let’s get moving. I don’t want those savages to get too far ahead of us.”
Valdez stored the scalps away in a canvas sack he hung on his saddle horn. From the ugly, faded brown stains on the sack, The Kid could tell that it had been used for that purpose in the past, probably often.
They led their horses up the ledge on the south wall of the canyon. Valdez and Mateo stayed behind to scalp the Apaches who still lay dead on the ledge at the site of the ambush.
“They’ll catch up to us,” Kelly told The Kid. “It won’t take long for Lupe to lift those heathens’ hair. He’s had plenty of practice.”
When they reached the top, The Kid, Kelly, and Chess swung into their saddles and rode south, still following the war party’s trail. Less than a quarter hour later, Valdez and Mateo galloped up from behind to join them.
The sack bulged even more, and fresh bloodstains were soaking through the canvas.
“Tell me more about this Guzman hombre,” The Kid suggested as he rode alongside Kelly.
“Sure,” Kelly said. “Like I told you, he deals in slaves. Indian, Mexican, white ... it doesn’t matter. As long as somebody’s willing to pay, Guzman can supply the merchandise. Say you own a mine in the mountains, and you want some cheap labor to work it. Guzman can get you all the Indians you want, and once you’ve paid him, the only cost for that labor is a little bit of food. Damned little, if you get my drift.”
The Kid nodded. “The mine owners work them and starve them to death.”
“Well, if there’s one thing there’s plenty of in this world, it’s poor Indians,” Kelly said with a grin. “Or say you own a whorehouse and some of your customers have a liking for young girls.
“The youngest of these captives I’m looking for is seventeen or eighteen,” The Kid pointed out.
“Yeah, but they’re white. There are rich men in Mexico City who’ll pay a pretty peso for white women they can do anything they want with, and Guzman has contacts with those men. He’ll find somebody who’s willing to pay his price for those gals once he’s traded for them with the Apaches, you can count on that.”
“What’s he going to trade for them?”
“Rifles, maybe. Ammunition. Liquor. Whatever the savages want, Guzman will get it.”
“You make it sound like he does all this out in the open.”
“Well, that’s pretty much true,” Kelly said. “Most folks in northern Mexico know about Guzman.”
The Kid shook his head in amazement. “Why haven’t the Rurales gone after him?”
That question drew a startling response from Kelly. The man threw his head back and boomed a hearty laugh. The other three chuckled, as well.
“I said something funny?” The Kid asked tightly.
“You just don’t know,” Kelly said. “The reason the Rurales haven’t gone after Guzman is because. . . Guzman
