Dead Man's Walk

by Larry McMurtry

  "I don't like them dandified little saddles," Gus remarked.

  "Why not?" Call asked. "That Frenchie sits his like he was glued to it." "He won't be glued to it if Buffalo Hump gets after him," Gus said. He knew that they were close to El Paso--beyond it was the wilderness where Buffalo Hump had killed Josh Corn and Zeke Moody. Lately, the thought of the big Comanche had been often in his mind.

  Call didn't answer--he had not been listening very closely. He thought himself to be an adequate rider, but he knew he could not control a horse as well as the little French Major--nor as well as the humpbacked Comanche, who had raced across the desert holding a human body across his horse while he rode bareback. The Frenchman, running at full speed, had sliced the jackrabbit's head off as neatly as if he were sitting at a table, cutting an onion. The Comanche had scalped Ezekiel Moody, while racing just as fast.

  No Ranger that Call had yet seen could ride as well as either the Comanche or the Frenchman. Gus McCrae was a better rider than he was, but Gus would be no match for either the Major or Buffalo Hump, in a fight.

  Call resolved that if he survived, he would learn as much as he could about correct horsemanship.

  "The Major's better mounted," Call said.

  The Major rode a bay thoroughbred, deep chested and fast.

  "Buffalo Hump would get him with that lance," Gus said. "He nearly got me with that lance, remember?" "I didn't say he couldn't," Call said.

  But the next day, he watched the Major as he put his horse through his morning paces. Gus was annoyed that Call would bother watching such a man exercise his horse.

  "I don't like the way he curls his damn mustache," Gus said. "If I had a mustache I'd just let it grow wild." "Let it grow any way you want," Call said. "I got no opinion." At the village of Mesilla, just south of Las Cruces, the surviving Texans--there were only ten, not counting Matilda--were finally given clothes: shirts that fell to their knees, and pants that were baggy and rough.

  Then, as Major Laroche watched, an old blacksmith put the ten Texans in leg irons. The leg irons were heavier than the ones they had worn in Anton Chico, and the chains were too short for any of the men to take a full stride.

  "Major, I could crawl to El Paso faster than I can walk in these dern ankle bracelets," Bigfoot said.

  "You won't have to walk, Monsieur," the Major said. "We have a fine wagon for you to ride in. We want you to be rested for our little ceremony." The fine wagon turned out to be an oxcart, drawn by an old black ox. The ten men fit in the wagon, but Matilda didn't. Gus offered to give her his place, but Matilda shook her head.

  "I've walked this far," she said. "I reckon I can walk on into town." Ahead, northeast of the river, they could see a grey mountain looming. Although the men were chained, and the oxcart bumped along at a slow pace, the cavalrymen kept pace around it with their sabres drawn. After two hours of bumping along, Gus's bladder began to trouble him--but when he started to slide out of the wagon to take a piss, the soldiers leveled their sabres at him.

  "All right then, if that's the rule, I'll just piss over the side," Gus said, standing up. "I don't want to wet my new pants." He stood up and peed off the end of the oxcart, watched by the soldiers with the sabres. In time, several of the Texans did the same.

  It was dusk when the cart bumped into the outskirts of El Paso. A strong wind was blowing, whirling dust into their faces. They could not see the mountain ahead or the river to the west. As night came, the wind rose higher and the dust obscured everything. Now and then, they passed little huts--dogs barked, and a few people came out to look at the soldiers. Matilda kept her hand on the side of the oxcart; the dust was blowing so thickly that she was afraid she might lose her way and be without her companions.

  In the cart, the men hid their heads and waited for the journey to be over. Now and then, Call looked out for a minute. He saw a few more buildings.

  "I guess they call it the Pass of the North because all this dern wind out of New Mexico blows through it," Bigfoot said. "If it gets much stronger, it'll be blowing pigs at us." As he said it, they heard over the keening wind a faint sound that they could not identify.

  "What's that?" Bigfoot asked.

  Call, whose hearing was as keen as Gus McCrae's sight, was the first to identify the sound.

  "It's a bugle," he said. "I guess they're sending the army now." Ahead, through the dust, they saw what seemed to be moving lights; soon a line of infantrymen with lanterns, led by a captain and a bugler, met the cavalrymen. The bugler continued to blow his horn, although the wind snatched the sound away almost before the notes were sounded. The soldiers with the lanterns formed a line beside the oxcart as it bumped along toward the town. One soldier, startled by the sudden appearance of a large woman at his side, dropped his lantern, which smashed on a rock. The infantry captain yelled at the soldier; then he in turn was startled as Matilda Roberts appeared, almost at his elbow. Then they heard shouts and the sound of snarling dogs--there was a shot, and several of the cavalrymen galloped ahead. The snarling got louder, there were more shots, and then a squeal from one of the dogs. A minute later Major Laroche, his sabre drawn, rode close to the oxcart and peered in at the Texans.

  "The dogs here are hungry," he said. "Stay in your wagon, and you will be safe." Then Matilda yelled.

  "There's a dog got me--there's dogs all in with these horses," she cried.

  Major Laroche turned, and disappeared.

  Bigfoot, Gus, and Long Bill Coleman managed to pull Matilda into the wagon.

  "One of them dogs bit my leg," Matilda said, gasping. "I'm bloody." Just as she said it the black ox turned, and the cart almost tipped. Three wild dogs jumped in it, snarling and biting.

  "Why, this is dog town, I guess," Bigfoot said--he managed to heave one of the dogs out of the cart. The other two, after snarling and snapping at the men, leaped out themselves.

  Matilda Roberts sobbed and clung to Gus --the dogs had rushed out at her so quickly that it unnerved her.

  Through it all, the bugler continued to play, although the snatches of sound came from farther away.

  "I think that bugler's lost," Gus said.

  "He'll be lucky if them dogs don't get him." The wind rose higher--lanterns only a few feet from the wagons were hard to see. Now and then, a horse neighed. So much sand had blown into the oxcart that the men were sitting in it. Sand had sifted down the men's loose clothes--it coated their hair.

  Then, abruptly, the wind stopped--the cart had turned a corner near a high wall. The sand still swirled above the wall, but for a moment the men were protected. When they lifted their heads, sand from their hair and their collars fell inside their shirts.

  Through the dusty air they saw a nimbus of light approaching--it was Major Laroche, with a soldier beside him carrying a large lantern. The Major was wrapped in a great grey cloak, with a hood that came over his head. His mustache was still neatly curled--he seemed not at all affected by the storm.

  "Welcome to the Pass of the North, Messieurs," he said. "I have brought you to the Convent of San Lazaro. In the morning the alcalde of El Paso will be here, with his staff, to watch the little ceremony we have planned. We have a warm room waiting for you, and you will be well fed." "When do we get to know what this ceremony is all about?" Bigfoot asked. "It might be one of those things I'd rather sleep through." "You will not sleep through this one, Monsieur Wallace," the Major said. "This is what you have walked across Texas and New Mexico for. I assure you--you would not want to miss it." Then the Major was gone, and the light with him. A gate creaked open--several figures stood beside it in the darkness, but the sand swirled through as the cart passed inside the walls. Call couldn't see well enough to tell whether the figures were men or women.

  The cart they had been traveling in was so cramped that several of the Texans had to stretch their legs slowly before they could walk. When they were all mobile they were marched across a dusty, windy courtyard by the shadowy figures who had opened the gate. A few of the caval
rymen, with their lanterns, came into the courtyard with the Texans, but they stayed close to the men and avoided the dim figures who led them. All the people inside the walls were wrapped in heavy cloaks; they led the Texans across the courtyard silently. All of the figures had the cloaks wrapped closely around their faces.

  Bigfoot Wallace had so much sand in his boots that he found it difficult to walk. Big as his feet were, he considered them to be appendages to be cared for correctly; they had taken him across Texas and New Mexico successfully, and now they yet might have to take him farther, to Mexico City, it was rumoured. Sand often contained sand-burrs; he had once got a badly infected toe because he had neglected the prick of a sand-burr. The others marched into the room they were shown to, but Bigfoot calmly sat down and emptied his boots, one by one. He wanted to do it outside, rather than risk emptying burrs into the quarters they were being shown into. Some of the boys were nearly barefoot, as it was--he didn't want to bring burrs inside, where one of them could get stepped on and infect someone else.

  As he sat, one of the dim figures, with a very small light, a candle whose flame flicked in the wind, came and stood beside him. Bigfoot was grateful for the light, small though it was.

  Sand-burrs were small, and not easy to see. He didn't want to miss any. He wiped off the soles of his feet carefully and prepared to pull his boots back on when he happened to glance toward the small, flickering light of the candle.

  Whoever was holding the candle cupped a hand around it, to shield the flame from the puffs of wind. That, too, was considerate, but what caught Bigfoot's eye was the hand itself--the hand was the hand of a skeleton, just bone, with a few pieces of loose, blackened flesh hanging from one of the fingers.

  In all his years on the frontier, Bigfoot Wallace had never had such a shock. He had seen many startling sights, but never a skeleton holding a candle. He was so shocked that he dropped the boot he had been about to put on. His hands, steady through many fierce battles, began to shake and tremble--he could not even locate the boot he had just dropped.

  The presence holding the candle--Bigfoot was not sure he could call it a person--bent, in an effort to be helpful, and held the candle closer to the ground, so that Bigfoot could pick up his boot. When he fumbled, the presence bent even closer with the candle; Bigfoot looked up, hoping to see a human face, and received an even greater shock, for the person holding the candle had no nose --just a dark hole. Where he had expected to see eyes, he could see nothing. A hand that was mostly bone held the candle, and the form the hand belonged to had no nose. Then the wind rose higher, and the candle flickered.

  Bigfoot was so shaken that he forgot the sand-burrs--he even forgot his boots. He stood up and walked barefoot straight through the doorway, into the room where his companions were.

  He almost ran through the door, running into Matilda Roberts and knocking her into Gus.

  There was no light at all in the room. The wind whooshed past the door, and the sand blew in--then someone outside closed the door, and a key grated in the lock.

  When Matty knocked Gus down, Gus fell into Long Bill--no one knew what was happening, in the pitch-dark room.

  "Woodrow, where are you?" Gus cried-- "Someone knocked Matty down." "It was nobody but me," Bigfoot said.

  He realized at that moment that he had forgotten his boots and he turned to go back for them, only to find the door locked. He didn't know whether to be relieved or frightened that he was inside. It was so dark he could see no one--he had only known he shoved Matilda Roberts because none of the Rangers were that large.

  "Oh Lord, Matty," he said. "Oh Lord.

  I seen something bad." "What?" Matty asked. "I didn't see nothing but folks wrapped in serapes." "It was so bad I don't want to tell it," Bigfoot said.

  "Well, tell it," Matilda insisted.

  "I seen a skeleton holding a candle," Bigfoot said. "I guess they've put us in here with the dead."

  All night the Rangers huddled in pitch darkness, not knowing what to expect. Bigfoot, when questioned, would only say that he had seen a skeleton holding a candle, and that when he looked up he had seen a face with no nose.

  "But how would you breathe, with no nose?" Long Bill said.

  "You wouldn't need to breathe," Gus said. "If it was just a big hole there, the air would go right into your head." "You don't need it in your head, Gus--you need it in your lungs." "What about eyes?" Long Bill asked.

  "That's right, didn't it have eyes?" Don Shane asked. The mere sound of Don Shane's deep voice startled everyone almost as much as Bigfoot's troubling report. Don Shane, a thin man with a black beard, was the most silent man in the Ranger troop. He had walked all the way across Texas and Mexico, enduring hunger and cold, without saying more than six words.

  But the thought of a person with no nose brought him out of his silence. He felt he would like to know about the eyes. After all, Comanches sometimes cut the noses off their women. A barber in Shreveport had once slashed Don's own nose badly. The barber had been drunk. But a person without eyes would be harder to tolerate, at least in Don Shane's view.

  "I didn't see eyes," Bigfoot said.

  "But it had a sheet wrapped over its head. There could have been eyes, under that sheet." "If there weren't no eyes, that's bad," Long Bill said.

  "It's bad anyway," Gus said. "Why would a skeleton be wanting to hold a candle?" No one had an answer to that question. Call was in a corner--he took no part in the discussion. He thought Bigfoot was probably just imagining things.

  Gus's question was a good one. A skeleton would have no reason to light their way to their prison cell.

  Perhaps Bigfoot had gone to sleep in the oxcart, and had a dream he hadn't quite waked out of--skeletons were more likely in dreams than in Mexican prisons. It was true that the Mexican soldiers had seemed a little nervous when they brought them into the prison, but that could well have been because the wild dogs had attacked them.

  Wild dogs ran in packs; they were known to be worse killers than wolves. They sometimes killed cattle, and even horses. The fact was they were locked in until morning and wouldn't find out the truth about the skeleton until the sun came up.

  There was no window in the room they had been put in. When the sun did come up, they only knew it because of a thin line of light under the door.

  When the door opened Major Laroche stood there, in a fancier uniform than he had worn during the journey from Las Palomas. His mustache was curled at the ends, and he wore a different sabre, one with a gold handle, in a scabbard plated with gold.

  Through the door they could see a line of chairs, and five men with towels and razors waiting behind the chairs. In front of the chairs were small tables with washbasins on them.

  "Good morning, Messieurs," the Major said. "You all look weary. Perhaps it would refresh you to have a nice shave. We want you to look your best for our little ceremony." The Rangers came out, blinking, into the bright sunlight. The wind had died in the night; the day was clear, and no dust blew. Bigfoot stepped out cautiously. He had almost convinced himself that the skeleton with the candle had been a dream. When he sat down to get the sand-burrs out of his boots he might have nodded for a moment, and dreamed the skeletal hand.

  "I guess a shave would be enjoyable," he said, but before the words were out of his mouth a shrouded figure walked up and held out the boots he had left in the courtyard last night.

  This time the whole company, Matilda included, saw what he had seen in the courtyard. The hand that held the boots was almost skeletal, with just a little loose flesh hanging from one or two fingers. Such flesh as there was, was black. The figure turned quickly and the hood was wrapped closely around it--no one could see whether it had eyes or a nose, but all had seen the bony hand, and it was enough to stop them in their tracks. They looked, and around the edge of the large courtyard, back under the balconies, there were more figures, all of them wrapped in white sheets or white cloaks.

  The Texans looked at the barbers standing behind
the five chairs, with their towels and razors. They looked like normal men, but the white figures under the balconies made the Texans feel uneasy. Long Bill did a hasty count of people in sheets, and came up with twenty-six.

  "Go on, gentlemen--you'll feel better once you've been shaved and barbered," the Major said.

  "I guess I wouldn't mind a shave," Bigfoot said. "What worries me is these skeletons--one of them just brought me my boots." Major Laroche curled the ends of his mustache. For the first time that any of the Texans could remember, he looked amused.

  "They aren't skeletons, Monsieur Wallace," he said. "They are lepers. This is San Lazaro--the leper colony." "Oh Lord," Long Bill said. "So that's it.

  I seen a leper once--it was in New Orleans. The one I seen didn't have no hands at all." "What about eyes?" Gus asked. "Can they see?" Major Laroche had already walked off, leaving Long Bill to deal with the technical questions about lepers.

  "It was awhile ago--I think it could see," Long Bill said.