Read Online The Scalp Hunters by David Thompson - Free Book Online

told him. A loyal coward who would do anything Venom wanted, no questions asked. “You can breathe easy. It appears they have no idea we’re here.”
    â€œThat’s a lot of scalps,” Tibbet remarked.
    â€œGo ahead and try if you’re that stupid.” Venomlearned early on that in the scalping trade a man must know when to cut and when to fight shy and keep his own scalp.
    â€œBy my lonesome? No thank you. I like breathing as much as the next gent.”
    Venom kept watching through the spyglass. He didn’t know what to make of it when the entire war party stopped. Then he saw one of the warriors point in his direction, and all the Sioux turned. “Damn!” He jerked the telescope down behind his horse.
    â€œWhat’s the matter?” Logan asked.
    â€œI think one of them saw the sun reflect off the metal.” Venom should have been more careful. He should have held his hat over the spyglass. It was the little mistakes that did a man in.
    â€œLook again,” Potter urged. “Maybe they’re coming.”
    â€œIdiot.” Venom could still see them, off in the haze. They hadn’t moved. He glanced down the line to make sure none of his men was holding his rifle where the sun would gleam off the barrel as it had off the spyglass.
    â€œThey’re movin’ on!” one of the Kyler twins hollered.
    That they were, continuing to the north, raising dust in their wake.
    Venom stayed put until the war party was well gone. Then, rising, he gave the signal to stand.
    â€œThat was a close one,” Potter said.
    When they moved on, they did so warily. Venom sent the Kyler twins on ahead to ride point and sent Tibbet and Potter out to each side to cover their flanks. He deemed it unlikely the Lakotas would return, but it was better to be safe than dead.
    In the excitement, Venom had forgotten to look for Rubicon’s marks. When half an hour went by andnone appeared he began to worry they had lost the trail. He was so preoccupied with finding it that when a rider reined in next to him, he glanced up in annoyance.
    â€œWhat the hell do you want now?”
    Logan answered, “It’s not our day.”
    â€œCare to explain, or am I supposed to figure it out for myself?”
    Extending an arm to the southwest, Logan said, “I haven’t seen one of those critters this far out in a coon’s age.”
    Venom sensed what he would see before he turned. A quarter of a mile off, lumbering on all fours, was a creature as massive as a buffalo but ten times as dangerous, and as difficult to kill as anything. “Hell.”
    A huge grizzly was bound who-knew-where. The hump, the tree-trunk legs, the huge head with jaws that could crush bone at a bite—the last thing Venom wanted was to have it attack.
    â€œIt hasn’t seen us yet.”
    â€œIt’s the nose we have to worry about.” Venom licked the tip of his finger and raised it over his head. The breeze was blowing from west to east—from the bear to them. They were safe so long as the wind didn’t shift. One whiff of their scent and the grizzly might decide to fill its belly.
    â€œThat hide would fetch a good price at Bent’s Fort.”
    â€œScalps fetch more.” Plus, Venom didn’t intend to stop at Bent’s. The last time they had, on their way to St. Louis, Ceran St. Vrain, who ran the place along with the Bent brothers, treated them as if they had the plague. St. Vrain had a low opinion of scalp men, as he’d made clear when he cornered Venom in the stable.
    â€œI’d like a word with you, if you don’t mind.”
    Venom had been honing his knife. “I suppose if I do, you’ll have your word anyway?”
    â€œI’m serving notice. You would be well advised to heed, or the consequences will be severe.”
    â€œDamn, you talk pretty,” Venom taunted, but his barb had no effect on the haughty master of the trading