Dead Man's Walk

by Larry McMurtry

  Behind them was the churning, flooding Brazos River. Their retreat would be watery, if they had to make one. Only those whose horses were good swimmers would have much of a chance.

  But the day passed with no charge. From time to time the skies cleared and the sun shone; then clouds would pour over the western hills, and squalls would wet them once again, just when they had begun to hope of being dry. Shadrach and Bigfoot had long since decided that a retreat back across the river was their best chance--Shadrach thought there might be as many as thirty warriors opposing them, more than they could reasonably hope to whip.

  A retreat in daylight, though, would be suicidal. The minute the Comanches saw them turn into the river, they would swarm down the shore like hornets and pick them off.

  "We'll wait," Bigfoot said. "That's the hard part of Indian fighting. Waiting. You never know what those red boys are doing. They may be up there cooking a coon or a possum, or they may be sneaking up. Try not to let your eyes get tired. It's when your eyes get tired that your scalp's in the worst danger." Call didn't know how you were supposed to avoid the danger of tired eyes, when the Comanches were so clever at hiding. Who would think to look for an Indian boy between the legs of a floating mule?

  The day passed very slowly. Though several Rangers speculated that the river would soon begin to fall, it didn't. Clouds continued to roll through --Call thought the muddy flood looked higher, not lower. He was dreading the crossing--it had been bad in daylight, and would be even worse in darkness. He was not the only one worrying, either.

  Long Bill, despite his successful swim that morning, was once again doubtful that he could survive in the water if he had to navigate more than ten yards.

  While the dusk gathered and the tops of the hills darkened, the Rangers debated whether it was better to hold the horse's mane or the horse's tail, the saddle strings, a stirrup, or even a saddle horn. Call didn't enter the debate --his concern was to keep his musket in firing order--but he thought that if he clung to a stirrup he might be better able to keep his gun across the saddle, where it ought to stay fairly dry.

  In the midst of the talk, with Shadrach and Bigfoot squatting at the edge of the driftwood, watching the woods, a man standing just beside Call--he was one of the new men-- suddenly jerked, lurched forward, and fell facedown in the water, an arrow right between his shoulders. Call brought his gun up and whirled to face the darkening water. He saw a floating log, and just above it, for a second, the curve of a great wet hump; it might have been a huge fish diving, but Call knew it was Buffalo Hump behind the log. He fired immediately, and a chip of wood flew off the log; then several of the Rangers fired, but to no avail. The current swept the log downstream into the deep dusk, and there was no more sign of the Comanche chief.

  Longen, the man who had fallen, was not yet dead--he was jerking and flapping in the water, like a fish that had been speared but not killed.

  Bigfoot, annoyed to have been slipped up on so easily, waded several steps into the river, as if he meant to swim after the log and engage the Comanche, but Shadrach yelled at him to come back.

  "Come back here," he said. "Don't be trying no ignorant fighting." Bigfoot hesitated a minute--he wanted to go--but the floating log was barely visible, in the dusk. If he tried to swim for it, Buffalo Hump might slip into the shallows and fill him with arrows while he swam. He knew it was folly to try it, but his fighting blood was up--it was all he could do to check himself; but he did check himself.

  Crouching low, he waded back to the little group of Rangers by the stand of driftwood.

  "Dern, I hate to let him come at us like that," he said. "The goddamn devil! He took Josh and took Zeke and now he's taken this tall fellow here." All the Rangers stood around uneasily as the tall man named Longen continued to jerk and flop.

  They pulled him up on the muddy, darkening shore, but no one had any remedy for the fact that the man had an arrow lodged in his backbone. He flopped and jerked, but made no sound at all.

  Shadrach made one attempt to pull the arrow out, but couldn't budge it.

  "I guess we could tie him on a horse," Bigfoot speculated. "Maybe if we can get him across the river he'll live till we can get him to a doc." "No, let him die," Shadrach said. "His lights are nearly out." A moment later the man named Longen--no one could remember his first name--ceased to flop.

  Shadrach felt his neck, and pronounced him dead.

  "Get his possibles, boys," Shadrach said, addressing Call.

  Call had no idea what the old mountain man was talking about. What were possibles?

  "He means empty his pockets--take his gun and his ammunition," Bigfoot informed him.

  "Don't leave a thing on him that might help the red boys. They don't need no help--they got five of us with no assistance, it looks like." The last light faded soon after that. Now and again the clouds would break, bringing a glimpse of faint stars, or a thin moon. Call got every item of use off the dead man: his guns, his bullets, tobacco, a knife, a few coins. The knife was a good one--Call meant to keep it for Gus, who had no knife, and had long envied him the one old Jesus had made him.

  "It's dark enough--I expect it's time to swim," Bigfoot said.

  "Dern it, I hope there ain't no red boys out there, floating around on logs or dead mules," Long Bill said. "My eyesight's poorly, in this kind of weather." Call wedged Longen's gun beneath his girth, and led the little bay back into the river. The horse had more confidence crossing back. He took the water easily and swam well. Bigfoot and Shadrach were ahead. Jimmy Tweed, true to his convictions, refused to leave the saddle. Long Bill and Blackie Slidell were right behind Call. Blackie Slidell's horse proved to be a frantic swimmer. He swam past Call, so close that Call's bay was pushed off course and floundered for a moment. Call was irritated, but it was so dark he couldn't even see Blackie. When he opened his mouth to say something he got water in it and nearly choked. He tried to keep an eye out for floating logs or floating mules, but it was so dark he couldn't see upriver at all. He concentrated on keeping his musket securely across his saddle. When his feet finally touched bottom and he and the little bay struggled out of the water, a lucky feeling came over him. The river hadn't killed him, and neither had the Comanches. He was tired, and supposed they would be stopping, but he was wrong. Shadrach and Bigfoot led them through the hills all night, toward the big encampment on Bushy Creek.

  An hour after he arrived in the big camp, to his surprise and embarrassment, Woodrow Call was made a corporal in the Texas Rangers. The Ranger troop rode in, five men short, and Bigfoot made a hasty report to Colonel Cobb, who sat outside his tent, smoking a big cigar and scratching the head of a large Irish dog who accompanied him everywhere.

  The dog was old. His long tongue lolled out, and he panted loudly.

  "Yep, this youngster killed his first Comanche," Bigfoot said. "The Comanche was floating down the Brazos holding on to a dead mule. Young Call shot him point-blank." Caleb Cobb let his sleepy eyes shift to Call for a moment; then he looked back at the Irish dog.

  "That's alert behaviour, Mr. Call," he said. "I'll make you a corporal on the spot --we ain't got many corporals in this troop, and I expect we'll need a few." "I say it's hasty, it could have been luck," Captain Falconer said, annoyed. He thought young Call far too green for such distinction.

  The Captain was wearing a black coat, and his mood seemed as dark as his garment. He was sharpening a knife on a large whetstone.

  Caleb Cobb smiled.

  "Now, Billy," he said, "let me decide on the promotions. If a Comanche was to swim up on you, in the middle of a big river, underneath a dead mule, you might be scalped before you noticed the mule." "I have always been wary of dead animals when I cross rivers," Captain Falconer said, stiffly. It was clear that he did not appreciate the Colonel's remark.

  "Would you go grind that knife out of my hearing?" Caleb asked. "It's hard to think with you grinding that knife, and I need to think." Without a word, Falconer got up and walked away from the
tent.

  "Billy's too well educated," Caleb Cobb remarked. "He thinks he knows something.

  How many Comanches did the rest of you kill?" "None," Bigfoot admitted. "We might have winged one or two, but I doubt it. They was in good cover." The Colonel did not change expression, but the tone of his voice got lower.

  "You lost five men and this cub's the only one of you who was able to kill an Indian?" he asked.

  "The weather was goddamn dim," Bigfoot reminded him.

  "It was just as dim for Buffalo Hump and his warriors," Caleb said. "I won't be sending out any more punishment squads, if this is the best we can do. I can't afford to lose five men to get one Indian. From now on we'll let them come to us. Maybe if we bunch up and look like an army we can get across the plains and still have a few men left to fight the Mexicans with, if we have to fight them." "Colonel, we didn't have good horses," Bigfoot said. "A few of us did, but the rest were poorly mounted. It cost three men their lives." "What happened to the other two--I thought you lost five," Caleb asked. The big Irish dog had yellow eyes--Call had heard it said that the dog could run down deer, hamstring them, and rip out their throats. Certainly the dog was big enough--he was waist high to Bigfoot, and Bigfoot was not short.

  "The other two weren't lucky," Bigfoot said. "I don't know for sure that one of them is dead--but there's no sign of him, so I suspect it." "If poor horseflesh is the reason you lost a third of your troop, go complain to the quartermaster," the Colonel said. "I ain't the wrangler. I will admit there's a lot of puny horses in this part of Texas." "Thank you for the promotion," Call said, though he didn't know what it meant, to be a corporal. Probably there were increased duties --he meant to ask Brognoli, when he saw him next. But curiosity got the better of him, and he asked Bigfoot first.

  "It just means you make a dollar more a month," Bigfoot said. "Life's just as dangerous, whether you're a corporal or a private." "With a whole extra dollar you can buy more liquor and more whores," Bigfoot added. "At least you can if you don't let Gus McCrae cheat you out of your money." The company, in all its muddle and variety, was unlimbering itself for the day's advance. Wagons and oxcarts were snaking through the rocky hills and bumping through the little scrubby valleys. Several of the more indolent merchants were already showing the effects of prairie travel--the dentist who had decided to emigrate to Santa Fe in hopes of doing a lucrative business with the Mexican grandees had tripped over his own baggage and fallen headfirst into a prickly-pear patch. A sandy-haired fellow with a pair of blacksmith's pinchers was pulling prickly-pear thorns out of the dentist's face and neck when Call strode by. The dentist groaned, but the groans, on the whole, were milder than the howls of his patients.

  When Call located Gus McCrae and Johnny Carthage he was happy to see that Gus was his feisty self again, his ankle much improved.

  He was just hobbling back from visiting a young whore named Ginny--Caleb Cobb had permitted a few inexpensive women to travel with the company as far as the Brazos, after which, they had been informed, they would have to return to Austin, the expectation being that enough of the merchants would have given up by that point that the whores would have ample transport. Whether the Great Western would be an exception to this rule was a subject of much debate among the men, many of whom were reluctant to commit themselves to long-distance journeying without the availability of at least one accomplished whore.

  "I wouldn't call Matilda accomplished," Johnny Carthage argued. "Half the time she ain't even friendly. A woman that catches snapping turtles for breakfast is a woman to avoid, if you ask me." He was uncomfortably aware that he had only been partially successful at avoiding Matilda himself--in general, though, he preferred younger and smaller women, Mexican if possible.

  Gus had picked up a spade somewhere and was using it intermittently as a crutch. His injured ankle would bear his weight for short distances, but occasionally, he was forced to give it a rest.

  Gus had taken to wearing both his pistols in his belt, as if he expected attack at any moment.

  "Howdy, did you get wet?" he asked, very glad to see Woodrow Call. Although Woodrow was contrary, he was the best friend Gus had. The thought that he might be killed, and not reappear at all, had given Gus two uneasy nights. Buffalo Hump had risen in his dreams, holding bloody scalps.

  "I came near to drowning in the Brazos River, but I didn't lose my gun," Call said. He was especially proud of the fact that he hadn't lost his gun, though no one else seemed to consider it much of an accomplishment.

  "The river was up," he added. "Most of the Comanches got away." "Did you see that big one?" Gus asked.

  "I seen his hump," Call said. "He floated down behind a log and put an arrow in a man standing right by me--split his backbone." The sun had broken through the last of the clouds-- bright sunlight gleamed on the wet grass in the valleys and on the hills.

  "I wish I could have gone--we would have killed several if we'd worked together," Gus said.

  Long Bill Coleman walked up about that time, in a joshing mood.

  "Have you saluted him yet?" he asked Gus, to Call's deep embarrassment.

  "Why would I salute him, he's my pard," Gus said.

  "He may be your pard but he's a corporal now--he killed a red boy and the Colonel promoted him," Long Bill said.

  Gus could not have been more taken aback if Call had come back scalpless. The very thing that Clara teased him about had actually happened.

  Woodrow was Corporal Call now. No doubt Clara would hurry to court him, once they all got back.

  "So that's the news, is it?" Gus said, feeling slightly weak all of a sudden. He had not forgotten Clara and her kiss. Young Ginny had been pleasant, but Clara's kiss was of another realm.

  "Yes, he done it just now," Call admitted, well aware that his friend would be at least a little discommoded by the news.

  "You kilt one--what was it like?" Gus asked, trying to act normal and not reveal his acute discomfort at the fact of his friend's sudden success.

  "He was almost on me--I shot just in time," Call said. "As soon as your ankle heals proper I expect we'll have another engagement. Once you kill a Comanche the Colonel will promote you, too, and we can be corporals together." He wanted to do what he could to lighten the blow to his friend.

  "If I don't, then one will kill me and that will be the end of things," Gus said, still feeling weak.

  "I just hope I don't get scalped while I'm alive, like Ezekiel done." "Why, you won't get killed," Call said, alarmed at his friend's sudden despondency. Gus possessed plenty of fight, but somehow that willful girl in the general store had deprived him of it.

  All he could think about was that girl--it was not good.

  You couldn't be thinking about girls in general stores, when you were out in Indian country and needed to be alert.

  With Call's help, Gus at least managed to get saddled and mounted on the shorter of the two horses that had been assigned him. The two young Rangers rode side by side all day, at a lazy pace, while the wagons and oxcarts toiled up the low hills and across the valleys.

  Call told the story of the chase, and the fight by the river, but he couldn't tell that his friend was particularly interested.

  He held his tongue, though. At least Gus was in the saddle. Once they got across the Brazos, farther from the girl, he might eventually forget her and enjoy the rangering more.

  In the afternoon of the third day they glimpsed a fold of the Brazos, curving between two hills, to the west. The falling sun brightened the brown water. To the east they couldn't see the river at all, but gradually the Rangers at the head of the expedition, who included Gus and Call, heard a sound they couldn't identify. It was akin to the sound a cow might make, splashing through a river, only multiplied thousands of times, as if someone were churning the river with a giant churn.

  Captain Falconer was at the very front of the troop, on his pacing black. When he heard the sound like water churning, he drew rein. Just as he did the Colonel's big Irish dog
shot past him, braying. His ears were laid back--in a second he was out of sight in the scrubby valley, but not out of earshot.

  "It's buf," Shadrach said, pulling his rifle from its long sheath.

  Just then, two riders came racing from the east. One of the rider's horses almost jumped the Irish dog, which was racing in sight again. Then it raced away, braying loudly.

  "Bes-Das has seen 'em," Shadrach said.

  Bes-Das was a Pawnee scout--he ranged so far ahead that many of the Rangers had scarcely seen him. The other rider was Alchise, a Mexican who was thought to be half Apache.

  Both were highly excited by what they had seen behind the eastern hills. Colonel Cobb came galloping up to meet the two scouts; soon the three wheeled their horses and went flying after the dog. The horses threw up their heads and snorted. The excitement that had taken the troop when they thought they were racing to kill mountain goats seized them again--soon forty riders were flying after the Colonel, the Irish dog, and the two scouts.