Larry McMurtry - Dead Man's Walk

by Dead Man's Walk

  Finally she lifted Call out of the wagon and took him to where Shadrach lay. She put herself between the two men and warmed them as best she could. It was a clear night. Their breath made a cloud above them. They had moved into desert country. There was little wood, and what there was the Mexicans used for their own fires. The Texans were forced to sleep cold.

  The next morning, finding Call out of the wagon, Salazar decreed that he should walk.

  Call was semiconscious; he didn't even hear the command, but Matilda heard it and was outraged.

  "This boy can't walk--I carried him out of the wagon and put him here to keep him warm," she said. "This old man don't need to be walking, either." She gestured at Shadrach, who was coughing.

  Salazar had come to like Matilda--she was the only one of the Texans he did like. But he immediately rejected her plea.

  "If we were a hospital we would put the sick men in beds," he said. "But we are not a hospital. Every man must walk now." "Why today?" Matilda asked. "Just let the boy ride one more day--with one more day's rest, he might live." "To bury me?" Salazar asked. "Is that why you want him to live?" He was trying to make a small jest.

  "I just want him to live," Matilda said, ignoring the joke. "He's suffered enough." "We have all suffered enough, but we are about to suffer more," Salazar said. "It is not just you Texans who will suffer, either. For the next five days we will all suffer. Some of us may not live." "Why?" Gus asked. He walked up and stood listening to the conversation. "I don't feel like dying, myself." Salazar gestured to the south. They were in a sparse desert as it was. They had seen no animals all the day before, and their water was low.

  "There is the Jornada del Muerto," he said. "The dead man's walk." "What's he talking about?" Johnny Carthage asked. Seeing that a parley was in progress, several of the Texans had wandered over, including Bigfoot Wallace.

  "Oh, so this is where it is," Bigfoot said.

  "The dead man's walk. I've heard of it for years." "Now you will do more than hear of it, Se@nor Wallace," Salazar said. "You will walk it.

  There is a village we must find, today or tomorrow.

  Perhaps they will give us some melons and some corn.

  After that, we will have no food and no water until we have walked the dead man's walk." "How far across?" Long Bill asked. "I'm a slow walker, but if it's that hard I'll try not to lag." "Two hundred miles," Salazar said.

  "Perhaps more. We will have to burn this wagon soon-- maybe tonight. There is no wood in the place we are going." The voices had filtered through the red darkness in which Call lived. He opened his eyes, and saw all the Texans around him.

  "What is it, boys?" he asked. "It's frosty, ain't it?" "Woodrow, they want you to walk," Gus said.

  "Do you think you can do it?" "I'll walk," Call said. "I don't like Mexican wagons anyway." "We'll help you, Corporal," Bigfoot said. "We can take turns toting you, if we have to." "It might warm my feet, to walk a ways," Call said. "I can't feel my toes." Cold feet was a common complaint among the Texans. At night the men wrapped their feet in anything they could find, but the fact was they couldn't find much. Few of them slept more than an hour or two. It was better to sit talking over their adventures than to sleep cold. The exception was Bigfoot Wallace, who seemed unaffected by cold. He slept well, cold or hot.

  "At least we've got the horses," he remarked. "We can eat the horses, like we done before." "I expect the Mexicans will eat the horses," Gus said. "They ain't our horses." Call found hobbling on his frozen feet very difficult, yet he preferred it to lying in the wagon, where all he had to think about was the fire across his back. He could not keep up, though.

  Matilda and Gus offered to be his crutches, but even that was difficult. His wounds had scabbed and his muscles were tight--he groaned in deep pain when he tried to lift his arms across Gus's shoulders.

  "It's no good, I'll just hobble," he said.

  "I expect I'll get quicker once I warm up." Gus was nervous about bears--he kept looking behind the troop. He didn't see any bears, but he did catch a glimpse of a cougar--just a glimpse, as the large brown cat slipped across a small gully.

  Just then there was a shout from the column ahead. A cavalryman, one of the advance guard, was racing back toward the troop at top speed, his horse's hooves kicking up little clouds of dust from the sandy ground.

  "Now, what's his big hurry?" Bigfoot asked. "You reckon he spotted a grizzly?" "I hope not," Gus said. "I'm in no mood for bears." Matilda and Shadrach were walking with the old Mexican, Francisco. They were well ahead of the other Texans. All the soldiers clustered around the rider, who held something in his hand.

  "What's he got there, Matty?" Bigfoot asked, hurrying up.

  "The General's hat," Matilda said.

  "That's mighty odd," Bigfoot said.

  "I've never knowed a general to lose his hat."

  Two miles farther on they discovered that General Dimasio had lost more than his hat--he had lost his buggy, his driver, his cavalrymen, and his life. Four of the cavalrymen had been tied and piled in the buggy before the buggy was set on fire.

  The buggy had been reduced almost to ash--the corpses of the four cavalrymen were badly charred.

  The other cavalrymen had been mutilated but not scalped. General Dimasio had suffered the worst fate, a fate so terrible that everyone who looked at his corpse bent over and gagged. The General's chest cavity had been opened and hot coals had been scooped into it. All around lay the garments and effects of the dead men. Both the fine buggy horses had been killed and butchered.

  "Whoever done this got off with some tasty horse meat," Bigfoot said.

  Except for the burned cavalrymen, all the dead had several arrows in them.

  "No scalps taken," Bigfoot observed.

  "Apaches don't scalp--ain't interested," Shadrach said. "They got better ways to kill you." "He is right," Salazar said. "This is the work of Gomez. For awhile he was in Mexico, but now he is here. He has killed twenty travelers in the last month--now he has killed a great general." "He wasn't great enough, I guess," Bigfoot said. "I thought he rode off with a skimpy guard--I guess I was right." "Only Gomez would treat a general like this," Salazar said. "Most Apaches would sell a general, if they caught one. But Gomez likes only to kill. He knows no law." Bigfoot considered that sloppy thinking.

  "Well, he may know plenty of law," he said. "But it ain't his law and he don't mind breaking it." Salazar received this comment irritably.

  "You will wish he knew more law, if he catches you," he said. "We are all in danger now." "I doubt he'd attack a party this big," Bigfoot said. "Your general just had eleven men, counting himself." Salazar snapped his fingers; he had just noticed something.

  "Speaking of counting," he said. "Where is your Colonel? I don't see his corpse." "By God, I don't neither," Bigfoot said.

  "Where is Caleb?" "The coward, I expect he escaped," Call said.

  "More than that," Gus said. "He probably made a deal with Gomez." "No," Salazar said. "Gomez is Apache --he is not like us. He only kills." "He might have taken Caleb home with him, to play with," Long Bill suggested. "I feel sorry for him if that's so, even though he is a skunk." "I doubt Caleb Cobb would be taken alive," Bigfoot said. "He ain't the sort that likes to have coals shoveled into his belly." Before the burials were finished, one of the infantrymen found Caleb Cobb, naked, blind, and crippled, hobbling through the sandy desert, about a mile from where the Apaches had caught the Mexicans. Caleb's legs and feet were filled with thorns--in his blindness he had wandered into prickly pear and other cactus.

  "Oh, boys, you found me," Caleb said hoarsely, as he was helped into camp. "They blinded me with thorns, the Apache devils." "They hamstrung him, too," Bigfoot whispered. "I guess they figured he'd starve or freeze." "I expect that bear would have got him," Gus said.

  Even Call, beaten nearly to death himself, was moved to pity by the sight of Caleb Cobb, a man he thoroughly despised. To be blind, naked, and crippled in such a thorny wilderness, and i
n the cold, was a harder fate than even cowards deserved.

  "How many were they, Colonel?" Salazar asked.

  "Not many," Caleb said, in his hoarse voice.

  "Maybe fifteen. But they were quick. They came at us at dawn, when we had the sun in our eyes. One of them clubbed me with a riffle stock before I even knew we were under attack." For a moment he lost his voice, and his ability to stand. He sagged in the arms of the two infantrymen who were supporting him. The leg that had been cut was twisted in an odd way.

  "Fifteen ain't many," Gus said.

  He didn't like seeing men who had been tortured, whether they were alive or dead. He couldn't keep his mind off how it would feel to have the tortures happen to him. The sight of Caleb, with his leg jerking, his eyes ruined, and his body blue with cold, made him want to look away or go away--but of course he couldn't go away without putting himself in peril of the Apaches and the bears.

  "Fifteen was enough," Bigfoot said. "I've heard they come at you at dawn." Captain Salazar was thinking of the journey they had to make. He kept looking south, toward the dead man's walk. The quivering, ruined man on the ground before him was a handicap he knew he could not afford.

  "Colonel, we have a hard march ahead," the Captain said. "I'm afraid you are in no condition to make this march. The country ahead is terrible. Even healthy men may not survive it.

  I am afraid you have no chance." "Stick me in a wagon," Caleb said.

  "If I can have a blanket, I'll live." "Colonel, we cannot take the wagons across these sands," Salazar said. "We will have to burn them for firewood, probably tonight. They have blinded you and crippled you." "I won't be left," Caleb said, interrupting the Captain. "All I need is a good doctor--he can fix this leg." "No, Colonel," Salazar said. "No one can fix your leg, or your eyes. We can't take you across the sands--we have to look to ourselves." "Then send me back," Caleb said. "If I can be put on a horse, I reckon I can ride it to Santa Fe." There was anger in his voice. While they all watched, he managed to get to his feet. Even crippled he was taller than Salazar--and he was determined not to die. Call was surprised by the man's determination.

  "If he'd been that determined to fight, we wouldn't be prisoners," he whispered to Gus.

  "He ain't determined for us ... he's determined for himself," Gus pointed out.

  Salazar, though, was out of patience.

  "I cannot take you, Colonel," he said, "and I cannot send you back, either. If I sent you with a few men, Gomez would find you again, and this time he would do worse." "I'll take that chance," Caleb said.

  "But I won't take it, Colonel," Salazar said, drawing his pistol. "You are a brave officer--it is time to finish yourself." The troops grew silent, when Salazar drew his pistol. Caleb Cobb was balanced on one leg; the other foot scarcely touched the ground. Call saw the anger rise in his face; for a second he expected Caleb to go for Salazar. But after a second, Caleb controlled himself.

  "All right," he said. "I never expected to die in a goddamn desert. I'm a seaman.

  I ought to be on my boat." "I know you were a great pirate," Salazar said, relieved that the man was taking matters calmly. "You stole much treasure from the King of Spain." "I did, and lost it all at cards," Caleb said. "I know you need to travel, Captain. Give me your pistol and I'll finish it, and you can be on your way." "Would you like privacy?" Salazar asked--he still held the pistol.

  "Why, no--not specially," Caleb said, in a normal voice. "These wild Texas boys are all mad at me for surrendering. They'll hang me, if they get the chance. It will amuse me to cheat 'em, by shooting myself." "All right," Salazar said.

  "How was that you said I ought to do it, Wallace?" Caleb asked. "Are you here, Wallace? I know you think there's a sure way--I want to take the sure way." "Through the eyeball," Bigfoot said.

  "It'll have to be through the eye hole," Caleb said. "I'm all out of eyeballs." "Well, that will do just as well, Colonel," Bigfoot said.

  "I'll take the pistol now, if you please," Caleb said, in a pleasant, normal voice.

  "Adios, Colonel," Salazar said, handing Caleb the pistol.

  Caleb immediately turned the pistol on Salazar and shot him--the Captain fell backward, clutching his throat.

  "Rush 'em, boys--get their guns," Caleb said. "I'll take down a few." But in his blindness, Caleb Cobb fired toward the Texans, not the Mexicans. Two shots went wild, while the Texans ducked.

  "Hell, he's turned around, he's shooting at us!" Long Bill said, as he ducked.

  Before Caleb could fire a fourth time, the Mexican soldiers recovered from their shock and cut him down. As he fell, he fired a last shot--Shadrach, who had been standing calmly by Matilda, fell backwards, stiffly. He was dead before he had time to be surprised.

  "Oh no! no! not my Shad," Matilda cried, squatting down by Shadrach.

  The Mexican soldiers continued to pour bullets into Caleb Cobb--the corpse had more than forty bullets in it, when it was buried. But the Texans had lost interest in Caleb-- Bigfoot ripped open Shadrach's shirt, hoping the old man was stunned but not dead. But the bullet had taken Shadrach exactly in the heart.

  "What a pity," Captain Salazar said.

  He was bleeding profusely from the wound in his throat--the wound, though, was only a crease.

  "Shad, Shad!" Matilda said, trying to get the old man to answer--but Shadrach's lips didn't quiver.

  "This man had walked the dead man's walk," Salazar said. "He might have guided us. Your Colonel was already dead when he shot him--I suppose his finger twitched. We are having no luck today." "Why, you're having plenty of luck, Captain," Bigfoot said. "If that bullet had hit your neck a fraction to the left, you'd be as dead as Shad." "True," Salazar said. "I was very foolish to give Colonel Cobb my gun. He was a man like Gomez--he knew no law." When Matilda Roberts saw that Shadrach was dead, she began to wail. She wailed as loudly as her big voice would let her. Her cries echoed off a nearby butte--many men felt their hair stand up when the echo brought back the sound of a woman wailing in the desert. Many of the Mexican soldiers crossed themselves.

  "Now, Matty," Bigfoot said, kneeling beside and putting his big arm around her. "Now, Matty, he's gone and that's the sad fact." "I can't bear it, he was all I had," Matilda said, her big bosom, wet already with tears, heaving and heaving.

  "It's sad, but it might be providential," Bigfoot said. "Shadrach wasn't well, and we have to cross the Big Dry. I doubt Shad would have made it. He'd have died hard, like some of us will." "Don't tell me that, I want him alive --I just want him alive," Matilda said.

  She cried on through the morning, as graves were dug. There were a dozen men to bury, and the ground was hard. Captain Salazar sat with his back to a wagon wheel as the men dug the graves. He was weak from loss of blood. He had reloaded his pistol, and kept it in his hand all day, afraid the brief commotion might encourage the Texans to rebel.

  His caution was justified. Stirred by the shooting, several of the boys talked of making a fight.

  Blackie Slidell was for it, and also Jimmy Tweed--both men had had enough of Mexican rule.

  Gus listened, but didn't encourage the rebellion. His friend Call had collapsed, from being made to walk when he wasn't able. He was weaker than Salazar, and more badly injured.

  Escape would mean leaving him behind and Gus had no intention of leaving him behind. Besides, Matilda was incoherent with grief--four men had to pull her loose from Shadrach's body, before it could be buried. The Mexican soldiers might mostly be boys, but they had had the presence of mind to kill Caleb Cobb--since they had all the guns, rebellion or escape seemed a long chance.

  They had planned to shelter for the night in a village called San Saba, but the burials and the weakness of Captain Salazar kept them in place until it was too late to travel more than a few miles.

  That night a bitter wind came from the north, so cold that the men, Mexicans and Texans alike, couldn't think of anything but warmth. The Texans even agreed to be tied, if they could only share the campfires. No
one slept. The wind keened through the camp. Matilda, having no Shadrach to care for, covered Call with her body.

  Before dawn, they had burned both wagons.

  "How far's that village, Captain?" Bigfoot asked--dawn was grey, and the wind had not abated.

  "Too far--twenty miles," Captain Salazar said.

  "We have to make it tomorrow, we've got nothing else to burn," Bigfoot said.

  "Call will die if he has to sleep in the open without no fire," Matilda said.

  "Let's lope along, then, boys," Bigfoot said.

  "I'll help you with Woodrow, Matty," Gus said. "He looks poorly to me." "Not as poorly as my Shad," Matilda said.

  Between them, they got Call to his feet.

  All day Call struggled through the barren country. The freezing wind seemed to slide through the slices in his back and sides; it seemed to blow right into him. He couldn't feel his feet, they were so cold. Gus supported him some; Matilda supported him some; even Long Bill Coleman helped out.