Larry McMurtry - Dead Man's Walk

by Dead Man's Walk

  "He's got all these people scared." "Well, all he talks about is hanging people," Gus said. He settled in another corner. They had been allowed a jug of well water; Gus remembered that posole had been mentioned, but two hours passed and no people arrived. The four guards were standing right outside the little window. They had lowered their muskets and were talking to three girls from the village. One of the girls was the pretty one Call had noticed while he was being chained.

  Though she chatted with the soldiers, the girl kept looking toward the hut where they were being held.

  Gus, too starved to worry about being shot or hanged, finally lost his temper and yelled at the guards.

  "We're Texas Rangers, we need to be fed!" he yelled. "Your own captain said to give us posole, so go get it." "They don't know what you're talking about," Bigfoot pointed out. "They don't know the English language." "They know what posole is," Gus declared.

  "That's not English, that's Mexican." One of the soldiers went to a house not far away, and said something to an old woman. Soon, the old woman and another came and handed in three hot bowls of posole. When the Rangers emptied them, which they quickly did, the old women brought second helpings.

  "See, it don't hurt to ask, even if you're in jail," Gus said. "They ain't allowed to just let prisoners starve." "How do you know their rules--you ain't Mexican," Call said.

  Though Gus and Bigfoot had been in jail often, Call had never been locked up before--much less locked up and shackled. He found both experiences humiliating. More and more, he regretted laying down his arms. None of the Mexicans looked like good shots. The range was close, of course, but the more he thought over their surrender, the more he wished he had fought.

  "I expect we'd have got at least half of them," he said.

  "It don't matter if you got nine out of ten, if the tenth one killed you," Gus pointed out.

  "That was good posole. This ain't the worst jail I've ever been in. They don't feed you nothing half that good in the San Antonio jail." "It'll take more than them ten Mexicans to round up Caleb Cobb," Bigfoot said.

  "I expect he'll show Captain Salazar a trick or two, if the boys ain't too starved to fight when the fight starts." "This is just a mud building," Call said.

  "I imagine we could dig out, if we tried." "Dig out and go where?" Gus asked. "We nearly starved getting this far. Besides, we're chained." "I know enough blacksmithing to get these chains off in two minutes," Call reminded him. "I think we ought to try and escape. Somebody needs to warn the boys." "I ain't going--let Caleb fight his own fights," Bigfoot said. "Those old women seem friendly. I'm tired from that long walk. I say we lay around here and eat soup for a day or two before we do anything frisky." "There's a pretty girl or two in this village," Gus said. "Some of them might take pity on us and let us out." "No, Salazar's got 'em buffaloed," Bigfoot said. A minute later, he fell asleep and snored loudly.

  Call still smarted from the humiliation of being caught so easily. They had escaped some very skillful Indians, only to be captured by a motley crew of Mexicans with rusty muskets. He was annoyed with himself, because he had been resolved to practice careful planning and avoid traps, yet he had let the fatigue of their journey wear him down. Anyone ought to have known there might be soldiers in the town-- yet, once again, he had failed in alertness.

  "So far we've been a disgrace in every encounter," he told Gus, but Gus was not in the mood for gloomy military critiques.

  "Well, but we ain't dead," Gus said.

  "We still have time to learn. I guess this ain't the part of New Mexico that's filled with gold and silver." "I told you not to expect gold and silver," Call said.

  Soon Gus, too, fell asleep, but Call couldn't. He stood by the little window most of the night, looking out. There was a high moon over the prairies. Now and then, the sheepdogs barked when a coyote came too close to the flock.

  The soldiers who were guarding them, all of them just boys, were playing cards by the light of a little oil lantern. They didn't look capable of killing anyone, unless by accident.

  Toward morning the old woman came back, bringing them coffee. Call saw the pretty girl come out of a little hut with her water jar and go toward the well. Although he was in no position to say much to her, he had the urge to exchange a good morning, at least. He regretted that he didn't know more Spanish, though, of course, working for old Jesus, he had picked up a phrase or two. As the sun rose, he could see how small the village was--just a few low houses on the edge of the great wide plain.

  Bigfoot woke and drank his coffee, but Gus McCrae slept on, stretched comfortably across half the length of the floor.

  "I guess he'd sleep like that if they were about to hang him," Call said.

  "Well, if they were about to hang him, he might as well snooze," Bigfoot said. "He could go from one nap right into the old nap you don't wake up from." When the sun was well up the old woman came back, bringing them hot tortillas. The smell woke Gus; he sat up, looking half asleep, but he ate as if he were wide awake.

  A little later, Captain Salazar rode along the one street, mounted on a fine black horse. His militia seemed to have increased during the night--some twenty-five soldiers stood at attention, awaiting his order.

  Salazar rode over to their little window, and bent in the saddle to look in.

  "Good morning, Se@nores," he said. "I hope you are all refreshed. We have a long way to travel." "Well, we're getting a late start," Bigfoot said. "The sun's been up an hour.

  What's the delay?" "You will see--I had to conduct a trial," Salazar said. "They're bringing the scoundrel now --as soon as we shoot him we'll be on our way." "I ain't in the mood to see nobody shot.

  I think I'll just snooze some more," Gus said when Salazar passed on up the street. "I wonder what the fellow did." Before Gus could stretch out, six soldiers came; one unlocked the door to their little prison.

  Again, Gus and Bigfoot had to bend nearly double to get out. Once in the street, Call saw that the whole town had turned out for the event that was about to take place. Salazar had ridden up to a little church and was waiting impatiently, now and then popping his quirt against his leg. The church was not much larger than some of the houses, but it had a little bell on top and its walls had been whitewashed. Four soldiers came out, dragging a blindfolded man.

  "Why, it's Bes--I wonder how they caught him?" Bigfoot said, recognizing the Pawnee scout.

  Indeed, it was Bes-Das: barefoot, blindfolded, and with blood on his shirt.

  "The skunks, they've been beating on him," Gus said.

  "He's a skunk himself--he deserted us," Call reminded them--and yet he, too, felt sorry for the man. The whole village fell silent as he was hustled across the little plaza and placed in front of the white wall of the church.

  Bes-Das limped as he walked to the wall.

  Salazar rode over to his militia and pointed six times, at six of the young soldiers.

  An old priest, barefoot like the prisoner, came out of the little church and watched--he did not approach the prisoner. The six soldiers lined up in front of Bes-Das and leveled their muskets. Gus felt his stomach quiver--he did not want to see Bes-Das shot down, but he could not seem to turn his face away. Salazar motioned to the firing squad, and all the soldiers fired--one shot came a moment later than the others. Bes-Das slammed back against the church, and then fell forward on his face.

  Salazar rode over, drew his pistol, and handed it to one of the young soldiers, who quickly stepped across the body and fired one shot into Bes-Das's head.

  "I think that was a wasted bullet," Bigfoot said. "I think old Bes was dead." Salazar reached down for his pistol, looking over at Bigfoot as he took it.

  "Men have survived six bullets before," he remarked. "The pistol was to make sure." "What did he do?" Call asked, looking at the body of the scout. Some of the young soldiers on the firing squad had not liked their task--one or two were trembling.

  "He was a thief," Salazar said. "All Indians are thieves. This one
stole a ring from the governor's wife." He reached into the pocket of his blue tunic and pulled out a large silver ring.

  "This ring," he said.

  The ring he had was large, with a green stone of some kind set in it. Salazar rode over to where the Texans stood and showed them the ring, one by one.

  "The finest silver," he said. "Silver from our own mines, the ones you Texans hope to steal from us. This is why you made your long walk, isn't it--to steal our silver and gold?" "Captain, we ain't miners," Bigfoot said. "We come for the scenery, mostly--and for the adventure." "Oh," Salazar said. "Of course the scenery is free. We have no objection to your looking at it, if you do it with respect. As for the adventure ..." He stopped, and looked over his shoulder at the body of the man he had just executed. Two old men were digging a grave behind the church.

  "As you see, some adventures end badly," he went on. "This man paid his debt. Now we must hurry to meet your friends." The little militia assembled itself and followed Salazar southwest, onto the plain but in the direction of the line of mountains. The three Texans marched at the rear, guarded by two soldiers on mules. Three soldiers flanked them on either side.

  As they passed out of town the two old men were carrying Bes-Das, the crooked-toothed Pawnee, toward the little grave behind the whitewashed church.

  "He got killed for a ring," Call observed.

  "It looked like pure silver, to me," Gus said. "I guess he just thought he'd grab it and go." "He didn't go fast enough, then," Bigfoot said. "I wonder what happened to that Apache boy he left with. If he's loose around here somewhere I'd like to know. Apaches are slick when it comes to escapes." "They don't mean for us to escape," Call said, looking at the three armed soldiers who were marching one on each side of them. Salazar, riding at the head of the little column, frequently turned his horse and sometimes rode all the way back and walked his mount behind the prisoners for a few steps, to remind them of his vigilance.

  "They don't mean for us to, but they could get fooled," Bigfoot said.

  "That ring was pure silver," Gus said. "I told you there was silver out here." "You didn't mention the firing squad, though," Call said.

  Before the Rangers had walked a mile they had learned to their vexation the difficulties of walking while chained. The irons soon chafed their ankles raw--they were forced to tear off pieces of their shirts to wrap their ankles with, as some protection from the rough iron.

  "Dern, I'll be scraped to the bone before we get ten miles," Gus said. "They ought to unchain us during the march--they could always hammer the chains back on at night." The scraping, though, was only a part of the vexation. The chains dragged on the ground and caught on small protuberances--rocks, cactus, small bushes. Call, though the shortest man, had been given the longest chain. He found that he could hitch his chain to his belt and proceed at a normal stride, but that was not the case with Gus McCrae or Bigfoot Wallace, both of whom had to adjust their long strides to the length of the chains. Both men soon grew so annoyed at having to hobble mile after mile that they conceived a murderous hatred for Captain Salazar and for all Mexicans.

  "Let's throttle these two boys back here and grab the mules and go for it," Gus suggested, more than once. The plain stretched before them, empty for fifty miles at least.

  "There's two mules and three of us," Call pointed out. "They're small mules, too. Before we could get out of rifle range, they'd shoot us fifty times." Bigfoot was as annoyed with the irons as Gus, but when he looked the situation over, he decided Call was right.

  "Maybe that Apache boy will show up some night and help us slip off," he said.

  Call thought that Gus's hope that Alchise would show up and free them a far-fetched one, at best.

  Alchise had never been particularly friendly. That very night, though, he fell into a shivery sleep and dreamed that one-eyed Johnny Carthage, the slowest member of the troop, slipped into camp and helped him ride off on Salazar's black horse. The dream was so powerful that he awoke at four in the morning with his teeth chattering and could not at first convince himself that he was where he was, instead of on the black horse, speeding away. They had been given no posole that evening, just a few scraps of tortillas and a handful of hard corn.

  They had no blankets either; a frost crept down from the mountains and edged out onto the plain.

  Many of the Mexican soldiers were as tired and cold as the three prisoners. They huddled around small campfires, some dozing, some simply trying to keep warm. Several were barefooted, and few had any footgear except sandals.

  By morning, there were groans throughout the camp as men tried to hobble around on their cold feet. The Texans found to their surprise that they were better off than all but a few of their captors. Though their clothes were frayed and ragged, they were still warmer than what the Mexicans wore.

  "Why, we won't have to whip this army," Bigfoot said. "Half of them will freeze before the fight starts, and the other half will be too sleepy to load their guns." Captain Salazar was the only member of the company to have a portable shelter with him.

  He owned a fine tent, made of canvas. A large mule carried it for him from camp to camp, and two soldiers were assigned to set it up at the end of each day. Besides the tent, there were a cot and several brightly colored blankets, to keep the Captain warm. In the morning Salazar came out, wrapped in one of the blankets, and sat before a substantial fire that one of his soldiers tended.

  Salazar also had a personal cook, an old man named Manuel, who brewed his coffee and brought it to him in a large tin cup. Two nanny goats trailed the troop, in order to provide milk for the Captain's coffee.

  "He could offer us some of that coffee," Gus said. "If I could get a few drops of something warm inside me, I might not be so cold." Bigfoot Wallace appeared not to be affected by the chill.

  "You boys have lived too south a life," he said. "Your blood gets thin, when you're living south. This ain't cold. If we're still in these parts in a month or two you'll see some weather that makes this seem like summer." Gus McCrae received that information with a grim expression. The morning had been so cold that he had found himself almost unable to urinate, a difficulty he had not experienced before.

  "Hell, it's so cold it took me ten minutes to piss," he said. "I won't be here two months from now, if you think it'll be colder than this, not unless I have a buffalo hide to wrap up in or a big whore to sleep with." Mention of a big whore reminded them all of Matilda--it set them all to wondering about the fate of their companions, somewhere out on the long plain to the south.

  "I wonder if they're all still alive?" Gus said. "What if the hump man came after them with two hundred warriors? Every one of them might be dead, for all we know--these Mexicans can march us to China and we won't find them, if that's the case." "He wouldn't have needed two hundred warriors," Call said.

  "Oh, they're there somewhere," Bigfoot said.

  "The Mexicans have had reports, I expect.

  They wouldn't march these barefoot boys around the prairie unless they thought there was somebody to fight, somewhere." Captain Salazar waited until midmorning before setting the company in motion. Many of the men were so tired from the cold night that they merely stumbled along. Captain Salazar rode ahead, on his fine black gelding.

  In the middle of the afternoon, a curl of dark clouds appeared over the mountains to the north. An hour before darkness, snow began to fall, blown on a cold north wind. Call had never seen snow to any extent--just a dusting now and then, in midwinter. Though it was not yet the end of October, snow was soon falling heavily, the white flakes swirling silently out of the dark sky. In half an hour, the whole plain was white.

  "It'll be a bad night for these barefoot boys," Bigfoot said. "They ain't dressed for such weather." "We ain't, either," Gus said. He was appalled at the uncomfortable state he found himself in. The irons were like ice bands around his ankles --soon he was having to drag his chains through the slushy snow.

  Captain Salazar had formed the habit
of dropping back every hour or so, to exchange a few words with his captives. He had enveloped himself in a warm poncho, and seemed to enjoy the sudden storm.

  "This snow will refresh us for battle," he said.

  "I guess it might refresh the soldiers it don't freeze," Bigfoot said.

  "My men are hardy, Se@nor," Salazar said. "They won't freeze." That night, at least, there was coffee for all the men, including the prisoners. Gus kept his hands cupped around his coffee cup as long as he could, for the warmth--he had always had trouble keeping his hands warm in chilly weather. The meal, again, was tortillas and hard corn. The snow swirled thickly in the dusk. Call and Gus and Bigfoot were sitting close together around a little fire when they suddenly heard a high terrified squealing from Captain Salazar's horse. The nanny goats, tethered nearby, began to bleat frantically. The mules began to bray--they were tame mules and had not been hobbled. Soon they were racing away into the darkness. Captain Salazar began to fire his pistol at something Call couldn't see. Then, a moment later, he saw a great shape lope into the center of the camp. Men were grabbing muskets and firing, but the great shape came on.