Dead Man's Walk

by Larry McMurtry

  "I expect to keep my weapons, unless I'm killed," Call said, in a tight voice.

  "You can't keep them, Corporal--you have to give them up," Caleb said, with a menacing glance. "When I give an order I expect to have it obeyed. You're a young man. I won't have you dying over this foolishness." "I'd rather die right now, fighting, than to be put in irons again," Call said. "I won't be put in irons." "Why, no--there'll be no fetters this time," Caleb said. "This is a peaceable surrender the General and I have worked out. Nobody on either side needs to get hurt. As soon as the boys over there on the ridge have given up their weapons, we can all sit down and have breakfast like friends." "You mean we can just go home, as long as we ain't armed?" Gus asked.

  "No, not home--not right away," Caleb said.

  "You'll all be visiting Mexico, for a spell." "We'll be prisoners, you mean?" Call asked. "You mean we've marched all this way just to be prisoners?" Caleb Cobb turned to one of the Mexican officers, and said a few words in Spanish. The officer, a young skinny fellow, looked startled, but he immediately took his sidearm and handed it to Caleb, who leveled it at Call.

  "Corporal, if you're determined to be dead I'll oblige you myself," he said. "I shot Captain Falconer for disobedience and I'll shoot you for the same reason." He cocked the pistol.

  "Woodrow, give up your guns," Gus said, putting a hand on Call's arm. He could see that his friend was tight as a spring. He had never intervened in Woodrow Call's conflicts before, but he felt that if he didn't try this time, his only true friend would be shot before his eyes.

  Caleb Cobb was not a man to make idle threats.

  Call shook off Gus's hand. He was ready to leap at Caleb, even if it meant his death.

  Gus quickly stepped between the two men, handing over his pistol and rifle as he did. The nearest Mexican officer took them.

  "Give it up, Woodrow," he repeated.

  "Corporal McCrae, you're more sensible than your pal," Caleb said. "Corporal Call ain't sensible, but if he'll take your advice and hand over them weapons, we'll all get out of this without loss of life." Call saw, with bitter anger, that his situation was hopeless. Even if he sprang at Caleb and knocked the pistol aside, a hundred Mexicans would shoot him before he could flee.

  "I despise you for a coward," he said to Caleb; but he handed over his guns.

  Caleb shrugged, and turned to Captain Salazar, who had come out of the tent in time to witness the little standoff.

  "Captain, would you oblige me and put this man under heavy guard until he cools off?" Caleb asked. "He's too brash for his own damn good." "Certainly, Colonel," Salazar said.

  "I'll assign six men." Caleb looked at Call again--the young Ranger was quivering, and the look in his eyes was a look of hatred.

  "Assign ten, Captain," Caleb said.

  "Six men might could handle him, if he decides to break out. But this is the man who shot Buffalo Hump's son--he'll fight, if he sees any room." "I don't care if you do call yourself colonel," Call said. "You had no right to surrender us." Caleb Cobb ignored him--he gave the skinny young officer the sidearm he had just borrowed.

  "Gracias," he said. "Corporal McCrae, I want you to walk back over to that ridge where the troop is and tell them to give up their guns. Tell them they won't be hurt, and tell them they'll be fed as soon as they surrender." "I'll go, Colonel, but they may not like the news," Gus said.

  Caleb gestured toward the Mexican army, which had quickly surrounded the little group on the ridge.

  The infantry had formed a tight ring, with the cavalry massed in two lines outside it.

  "We're not having an Alamo or a Goliad, not here," Caleb said. "Colonel Travis was a fool, though a brave fool.

  At least he had a church to fight in--we don't even have a tree to hide behind. This little war is over." "Go along--tell them that," he added. "The sooner you go, the sooner they'll get breakfast." "Woodrow, hold steady," Gus said, before leaving. "It won't help nobody for you to get killed." Caleb Cobb went back into the General's tent. Nearby, three soldiers were hitching a team of sorrel mares to a fine buggy with a canvas canopy over it.

  Gus gave Call's arm a squeeze, and started walking back toward the ridge where the troop waited. He had assumed a few Mexicans would go along to keep an eye on him, but none did. He walked out of the Mexican camp alone, through the blowing grass.

  A group of ten soldiers, led by Captain Salazar, surrounded Call and marched him about a hundred yards from the General's tent.

  "Sit, Corporal--rest yourself," Salazar said. "You have a very long walk ahead. Perhaps now that this foolish invasion is over, you would care to eat." Call shook his head--he was still very angry.

  "I'll eat when my friends can eat," he said.

  "What's this about a long walk? Colonel Cobb just said we'd be going to Mexico--ain't we in Mexico?" "New Mexico, yes," Salazar said. "But there is another Mexico, and that is where you are going--to the City of Mexico, in fact." "That's where the trial will be held," he went on. "Or it will be, if any of you survive the long march." "How far is the City of Mexico?" Call asked.

  "I don't know, Se@nor," Salazar admitted. "I have never had the pleasure of going there." "Well, is it a hundred miles?" Call asked. "That's a long enough walk if we're just going to be shot at the end of it." Salazar looked at him in surprise.

  "I see you know little geography," he said.

  "The City of Mexico is more than a thousand miles away. It may be two thousand--as I said, I have never been there. But it is a long walk." "Hell, that's too far," Call said. "I don't care to walk my feet off, just to get someplace where I'll be put up against a wall and shot. I've done walked a far piece, getting here from Texas. I don't care to walk another thousand miles, and the boys won't care to, either." "You may not care to, but you will go," Salazar said. "You will go, and you will be tried properly. We are not barbarians--we do not condemn men without a fair trial." Call accepted another cup of coffee, but he didn't eat, nor did he encourage any more conversations with Captain Salazar, or anyone.

  Across the plain, he could see Gus walking--he had not even reached the company yet, to inform them of Caleb's treachery. Call wished he could be walking with him, so he could encourage the Rangers to fight, even if to the death. It would be better to die than to submit to captivity again. But Gus was gone, and he was guarded too closely to attempt to follow. He was being watched, not only by the ten soldiers who had been assigned to him but by most of the soldiers still in camp. In the darkness he would have tried it, but the clouds were thinning; it was bright daylight. Patches of sunlight struck the prairie through the thinning clouds. Gus was walking in a patch of light, toward the ridge.

  As Call sat surrounded, trying to control his bitter anger, General Dimasio came out of the white tent, with Caleb Cobb just behind him. The two men, accompanied by the General's orderlies, walked to the fancy buggy and got in. Call had supposed the General was about to leave--why else hitch the buggy?--but he was shocked when Caleb got in the buggy with the General. The General was drinking liquor, not from a flask but from a heavy glass jar, as they waited for the soldier who was to drive the buggy.

  Caleb had no jar, but as Call watched, he extracted another cigar from his shirt pocket and carefully readied it for lighting. The soldier who was to drive the team hopped up in his seat, and the buggy swung around to the west. Eight cavalrymen fell in behind it.

  As the General and his guest started out of camp, the General stopped the buggy for a moment, in order to say something to Captain Salazar. Call was sitting only a few yards from where the buggy stopped. The sight of Caleb, his own commander, sitting at ease with the Mexican general, caused his anger to rise even higher. Call got to his feet, watching. Captain Salazar sent a soldier running back to the tent--the General had forgotten his fur lap robe. In a moment the soldier came out of the tent with it, being careful to keep the end of the robe from dragging on the wet ground. The robe was almost as heavy as the soldier who was carrying it.

  Be
fore anyone could stop him, Call stepped closer to the buggy.

  "Where are you running to?" he asked Caleb.

  There was such anger in his voice that the ten soldiers who were guarding him all flinched.

  Caleb Cobb himself looked surprised and annoyed--he had already consigned Call to the past, and did not appreciate being approached so boldly.

  "Why, to Santa Fe, Corporal," Caleb said. "General Dimasio says the governor wants to meet me. I think he plans to give me a little banquet." Call decided it would be worth dying just to strike the coward once--at least his body decided it. In a second, he was charging through the startled soldiers--he even managed to snatch a musket as he ran past, but he didn't get a good grip on it and the musket fell to the ground.

  He kept running. His wild charge spooked the high-strung buggy horses, both of whom leaped into the air, jerking the driver off the buggy, right under the horses' feet. It was a light buggy, and Call hit it while it was slightly tipped from the team's leap. Caleb and the General lurched forward on the buggy seat. Call leapt for Caleb and hit him once. Then, as the buggy was tipping, he grabbed the heavy glass jar the General had been drinking from and smashed Caleb with it, flattening his nose and also his fresh cigar. The jar broke in Caleb's face--blood and whiskey poured down his chest. Soon four men were squirming in the overturned buggy, which the frantic horses were dragging slowly forward on its side. The driver was caught under one of the wheels and groaned loudly every time the horses moved.

  For a second, the whole Mexican camp was paralyzed. They all stood stunned while one Texan caused their General's buggy to tip over. General Dimasio was near the bottom of the pile, and Call was still pounding at Caleb with his bloody fist. After the first shock, though, the Mexicans regained their power of motion--soon fifty rifles were leveled at Call.

  "Don't shoot!" Captain Salazar yelled, in Spanish. "You'll hit the General.

  Use your bayonets--stick this man, stick him!" The nearest soldier did manage to bayonet Call in the calf, but before anyone else could stab him, General Dimasio struggled to his feet and ordered them to stop.

  "El Fiero!" he said, looking at Call, whose hands were bleeding as badly as Caleb Cobb's face.

  Several soldiers, all with their bayonets raised to deal the Texan a fatal wound, were startled by the General's order, but all obeyed it.

  The first blow with the whiskey bottle had rendered Caleb unconscious, but Call was still trying to strike him.

  "I think Colonel Cobb's jaw is broken," Salazar said; though the man's face was very bloody, it seemed to him that his jaw had dropped at an odd angle.

  Call wanted to kill Caleb Cobb, but he had no weapon--the few shards of glass around him were all too small to stab with, and before he could get a grip on Caleb's bloody neck to strangle him, the Mexicans began to drag him off. It was not easy--Call was bent on killing the man, and he flailed so that the soldiers kept losing their grip. Finally, one looped a horsehide rope over one of Call's legs and they pulled him off. A dozen men piled on him and finally held him steady enough that they could truss him hand and foot. Just before they pulled him off, Call pounded Caleb's head against the edge of the wagon-wheel seat, opening a split in his forehead. He failed in his purpose, though.

  Caleb Cobb was damaged, but he was not injured fatally.

  Through the legs of the men standing over him, many of them panting from the struggle, Call saw several Mexicans help Caleb Cobb to his feet.

  Caleb's face and forehead were dripping blood, but once he cleared his head, he hobbled through the soldiers and broke into the circle where Call lay tied. Without a word he grabbed a musket from the nearest soldier and raised it high, to bayonet Call where he lay, but Captain Salazar was quicker. Before Caleb struck, he stepped in front of him and leveled a pistol at him.

  "No, Colonel, put down the gun," Salazar said. "I must remind you that this man is our prisoner, not yours." Call looked at Caleb calmly. He had done his best to kill the man, and was prepared to take the consequences. He knew that Caleb wanted his death--he could see the murderous urge in the man's eyes.

  With difficulty, Caleb mastered himself. He turned the musket over, as if he meant to hand it back to the soldier he had borrowed it from. But then, in a whipping motion too quick for anyone to stop, he struck with the stock of the musket across both of Call's bound feet. The blow was so sudden and painful that Call cried out. Caleb immediately handed the musket back to the soldier he had borrowed it from, and hobbled back toward the buggy.

  Call twisted in pain--through the legs of his captors he could see the buggy being righted. The horses, still jumpy, were being held by three men each. General Dimasio stood by the buggy, talking to Captain Salazar. Now and then, the General gestured toward Call. The company barber had been hastily summoned, to pick the glass out of Caleb's face and neck. The barber wiped the blood away with a rag as best he could, but several cuts were still bleeding freely--he took the rag from the barber and dabbed at the cuts himself.

  General Dimasio climbed back into the buggy, and Caleb after him. The canopy was sitting a little crookedly. The driver had survived; he turned the buggy, and the eight cavalrymen fell in behind it again, as it left the camp.

  The buggy went at a good clip--soon the General and Caleb Cobb were nearly to the mountains.

  Captain Salazar strolled over and stood looking down at Call, who was still surrounded by soldiers ready to bayonet him if he gave them an excuse.

  "You are a brave young man, but foolish," Salazar said. "Your Colonel had no choice but to surrender. His men had no food and no ammunition. If he hadn't surrendered, we would have killed you all." "I despise him," Call said. "At least he won't look so pretty at his damn banquet." "You're right about that," Salazar said. "But the governor's wife will enjoy him anyway. She likes adventurers." "I despise him," Call said, again.

  "I'm afraid you will not look so good either, once we have whipped you," Salazar said. "The General admired your mettle so much that he ordered one hundred lashes for you--a great honor." Call looked at Captain Salazar, but said nothing. His feet still pained him badly. He had supposed there would be more punishment coming, too. After all, he had knocked the fat General out of his fancy buggy, turned the buggy over, caused the driver to get partly crushed by a wagon wheel, and bent the canopy of the buggy out of shape.

  "Fifty lashes is usually enough to kill a man, Corporal," Captain Salazar went on. "You will have to eat heartily before this punishment, if you hope to live." "Why would I need to eat, especially?" Call asked.

  "Because you won't have any flesh left on your ribs," the Captain said. "The whip will take it off." Then he smiled at Call again, and turned away.

  Gus was walking up the little slope toward the Ranger troop when suddenly a cheer went up.

  He looked up to see that the men were all waving their guns and hooting. At first he thought they were merely welcoming him back--but when he looked more closely, he saw that they were looking beyond him, toward the Mexican camp.

  He turned to see what the commotion was about and saw that the General's buggy had been overturned, somehow--at first he supposed it was merely some accident with the horses. Good buggy horses were often too high strung to be reliable.

  When he saw there was a melee, and that Call was in the middle of it, his stomach turned over.

  Call was in the overturned buggy, pounding at Caleb Cobb. Then he saw a soldier bayonet Call in the leg--several more soldiers had their bayonets up, ready to stab Call when they could. Gus didn't want to watch, but was unable to turn away. He knew his friend would be dead in a few seconds.

  But then, to Gus's surprise, Salazar stepped in and stopped the stabbing. He saw Caleb come over and strike at Call with the musket stock. Why he struck his feet, rather than his head, Gus couldn't figure. He began to walk backward, up the ridge, so he could continue to watch the drama in the Mexican camp.

  Salazar came back and seemed to be having a talk with Call, while Call lay
on the ground. Gus didn't know what any of it meant.

  All he could be sure of was that Caleb Cobb then left the camp with General Dimasio.

  Call was tied up--no doubt he was in plenty of trouble for attacking the General's buggy.

  He soon gave up walking backward--the ground was too rough. The boys were close by, anyway--some were coming down the ridge to meet him.

  The Mexican infantry stood in a ring around them, just out of rifle range.

  "So what's the orders, why did Caleb leave?" Bigfoot asked, when Gus walked up to the troop.

  "The orders are to surrender our weapons," Gus said. "Call didn't like them--I guess that's why he knocked over that buggy." "Well, he was bold," Bigfoot said. "I expect they'll put him up against the wall of a church, like they did Bes." "They would have already, only there's no church available," Blackie Slidell said.

  "Where did Caleb bounce off to, with that fat general?" Bigfoot asked.

  Gus didn't know the answer to that question, or to most of the questions he was asked. He couldn't get his mind off the fact that Woodrow Call was probably going to be executed, and very soon.