Larry McMurtry - Dead Man's Walk

by Dead Man's Walk

  The moment Buffalo Hump and Kicking Wolf rode into the Sorrows with their bunch of Mexican children, Sam noticed the girl, Rosa. Joe Nibbs noticed her, too. She had a beauty not often seen in captives.

  "Why, he's caught a pretty one," Joe Nibbs said. "Them lazy Kiowas could ride for a year and not catch a girl that rare." "Let's buy her, Joe," Sam Douglas said. "Maybe the Apaches would buy her. They'd give us silver for her. They take lots of silver off them Mexicans they kill." What Sam was really thinking was that they would get to keep the girl for awhile. Old Joe could go first and rut at her from the back, if he wanted to. Then it would be Sam's turn, and he might take it two or three times a night, under the pretense of seeing that the girl was properly bound.

  "Ssh ... hush about the 'Paches," Joe instructed. "Buffalo Hump hates everybody but his own tribe, and he don't like too many of them. We don't need to let on what we aim to do with this gal." They watched closely as the Comanche raiders rode down into the shallow valley--just a cleft between two ridges, really. In the distance, they could see a curve of the Rio Rojo. The wind was blowing hard from the north; spumes of sand curled over the lip of the ridge to the north and blew into the eyes of the Mexican captives. The Mexican children appeared to be well fed, Sam noted. Some of them were as plump as the little Negro boy who was tied in the first wagon. Several of the Mexican girls looked to be eight or nine years old-- they could be used, if there was no one better, but Sam Douglas didn't figure on having to drop that low, not if the wily Joe Nibbs could talk Buffalo Hump out of the young woman. Joe had bought captives from most of the major chiefs, north of the Santa Fe trail and south. He knew a route through the Carlsbad Mountains that allowed him to slip back and forth between Comanche and Apache, desert and plain. He was the oldest slaver on the plains, good at figuring out what a given Indian would take for a prize captive.

  The girl who rode behind Buffalo Hump, her wrists tied with a rawhide thong, was the prettiest woman to come up the Comanche war trail since Sam had been driving a wagon for Joe.

  Joe Nibbs was rarely nervous, when among the red men. He cheated white men freely, but he didn't cheat Comanches or Apaches, or Kiowa or Pawnee or Sioux. A trader who cheated Indians might survive a year, or even two--but Joe Nibbs had survived almost twenty, by saving his tricks for the whites. Even an Indian who didn't speak a word of the white man's tongue would know when he was being cheated--it was a practice that didn't pay.

  Buffalo Hump, though, was one Indian who made Joe Nibbs nervous. He dealt with the humpback because Buffalo Hump raided deepest into Mexico and brought back the most captives.

  But with Buffalo Hump, Joe was always careful, always aware that he was doing something not quite safe, not quite within the normal range of hazards that went with the slaving trade on the wild Texas prairies.

  Joe Nibbs was always aware that the day might come when Buffalo Hump would rather kill than trade.

  In his dealing with the humpback, he had only once looked the war chief in the eye. What an eye!

  What he saw then unnerved him so that he immediately gave the war chief a brand-new rifle and several fine blankets. As soon as the Comanches had gone, he warned Sam Douglas to keep his eyes to himself, when dealing with the big Comanche. No wise man met the eye of a mad dog or a wolf, a bear or a panther. The animal might come out, and blood be spilled, over nothing more than a glance.

  "Hell, I won't look at him at all," Sam said. "That damn hump is an ugly thing, anyway." Buffalo Hump saw immediately that the slavers wanted Rosa, the Mexican girl. He had once come upon the slavers while the old one was tormenting a dead missionary's wife. He had watched from a distance as Joe Nibbs beat the woman with the handle of his hammer--beat her and did more. That night the woman died from the beating and abuse--she had not been young.

  What he mainly wanted from the slaver was knives and needles. It would soon be time for the fall hunt--they needed to kill many buffalo before the winter came. Often ice storms came, coating the plain for several days at a time, making hunting difficult. The white men made good knives, far better than the stone knives his people had had to use when he was a boy.

  After the hunt, there would be much cutting--the women would need knives, and also needles, for sewing leggins from deerskin, and stitching buffalo robes.

  The white man's blankets Buffalo Hump mostly scorned--buffalo robes were warmer. But he liked the yellow cloth that shed the rain and allowed his braves to hunt on wet days and yet be dry like ducks. The rifles he was offered were cheap, and his young braves were rough with guns: soon half would be broken, and the ammunition used up.

  It was not worth giving up good captives for weapons that would be broken in a month. He himself had the fine gun the white chief Caleb Cobb had given him. He was careful with the gun--no one in the tribe was allowed to touch it. Kicking Wolf was bitterly jealous that Buffalo Hump had such a gun, but he knew better than to disobey the edict. Buffalo Hump only rarely shot the gun; he had not even taken it with him on the raid, preferring to depend on his bow and his lance.

  But once he had shot it at an antelope, a very great distance away, and the antelope fell.

  But if the old trader, Joe Nibbs, thought he could trade a few cheap weapons for the Mexican girl, he would have to think again.

  Buffalo Hump was willing to give him several of the Mexican children for a box full of good, sharp knives. The girl he meant to keep. It might be a cold winter--a fresh young wife to lay with would be good to have on days when the ice covered the plains.

  "Now, don't be mentioning that girl--don't even look at her," Joe Nibbs warned Sam Douglas. "I'll trade for the brats first. And remember what I said. Don't look him in the eye." "Why would I want to--he's a goddamn stinking Indian," Sam said.

  Kicking Wolf at once wanted the Negro boy. When the boy was brought out of the wagon, naked, and saw Buffalo Hump, he was so frightened that he tried to run away, speeding on his little legs toward the ridge the sand spumed over.

  The Comanche braves followed, curious; Kicking Wolf and the others had seen few blacks. They thought the boy might be some kind of small black animal--perhaps he could be trained to gather firewood, or just be kept as a pet, like a bear cub. Just as the little black boy was about to get to the ridge, Kicking Wolf picked him up, screaming, and brought him back to the wagons.

  "That's my brat, give him back," Joe Nibbs said. Kicking Wolf, too, was a man to be wary of--everyone on the plains knew what a good thief he was. Joe and Sam had two extra donkeys with them, besides the horses that pulled the wagons. He meant to see the donkeys were close hobbled that night, else Kicking Wolf would come back and take them.

  Kicking Wolf motioned toward two of the captives, indicating that he would trade them for the black boy. Before Joe Nibbs could even walk over and inspect the children, to be sure that they were healthy, Buffalo Hump lowered his lance and put it in front of the children. Kicking Wolf had not set foot in Mexico. Who was he to be offering the captives in trade? While they had been raiding he had lingered near the Pecos, torturing one scalp hunter to death. Of course, Kicking Wolf had made many raids and taken many children-- he would have to be allowed some booty. But he could not simply trade away children that were not his. Fast Boy had taken the two children in question--if anyone had the right to dispose of them, it should be he.

  Kicking Wolf was very annoyed by Buffalo Hump's intervention. He himself, not Buffalo Hump, was the great child thief. He had taken more than fifty children from their homes, and brought them north. It was because of his skill as a child thief that the tribe had had plenty of knives the last few winters. Who was Buffalo Hump to deny him two children, when all he wanted in exchange was the small black animal?

  "Even swap--even swap," Joe Nibbs said, pointing at a Mexican boy who was about the same size as the little Negro. He didn't like trading blacks, not on the plains. He had only given a packet of needles and a small blanket for the black boy. In the south it was profitable to trade little blacks, but no
t on the plains, and even less so west of the Carlsbad Mountains. The Apaches had superstitions about blacks--they usually killed them.

  Buffalo Hump allowed the trade--one Mexican child for the black cub Kicking Wolf held. He had merely lowered his lance to remind Kicking Wolf that he was not the war chief. Of course, Kicking Wolf was an unusually good raider; the need to torture Kirker had distracted him; but his pride had to be considered. He could have the black cub.

  Joe Nibbs produced tobacco, and the trading went quickly. Buffalo Hump kept four captives, including the girl, Rosa. The other three were Mexican boys old enough to be useful slaves. The others he traded for three boxes of knives, many needles, some mirrors, a box of fishhooks, and four rifles. Several of his younger braves considered themselves to be great marksmen.

  It was well enough to take a few guns for them to break.

  "He don't like guns much," Sam said, to Joe. "He only took four. How are we going to get this girl if he won't take guns?" Rosa, still tied, sat by a little bush near Buffalo Hump's horse. She had seen the two traders looking at her--she felt no hope. Either the white men or the Comanches would use her and kill her. She watched the sand spuming over the ridge as the wind gusted. She wished she could simply lie down and be covered with sand; be dead; be at peace. She watched the sand come, and tried not to think.

  Joe Nibbs was wondering the same thing as Sam --what could he offer Buffalo Hump that might make him part with the girl?

  "I've got that old Gypsy glass," he said. Some months before he had found a wagon and a dead man, an old Gypsy, on the Kansas plain near Fort Lawrence. Probably the old man had been killed by Pawnees, who had ripped up his body and his wagons, taken his whiskey, and left. Joe had happened to notice something shining through a crack in the wagon bed, and had discovered a ball of glass, or crystal, hidden so well that the Pawnees had not noticed it.

  "He might want that glass," he said, going to his wagon and taking the glass from a blanket he had wrapped it in. It was the size of a small melon. When you looked into it, it made your face elongated.

  "It's Gypsy glass--take it to your medicine man, he can use it for prophesying," Joe said, offering the ball of glass to Buffalo Hump.

  All the warriors crowded around, exclaiming at the way the glass made their faces long.

  Buffalo Hump thought the glass a very odd thing-- he turned it over and over, and let his young braves handle it. It was clearly a thing of power, but he was not convinced that it could be used for prophesying.

  "Yes, it's a prophecy glass, that's what it is," Joe insisted. "Take it to your medicine man. It'll tell him where the buffalo are, and when's the best time to hunt. It'll tell you when to go to war, and when to stay home." Buffalo Hump was not convinced, but as the afternoon waned, he began to want the glass. He wanted to take it home to his main camp and study it.

  Perhaps he would come to understand its power. His mother was old, and knew much. Perhaps she would understand why the glass made faces long.

  He decided, though, to kill the traders, the old one and the young one, too. He meant to take all the knives; there were several more boxes in the wagons. With so many knives they would not need the traders for several winters; he did not want Joe Nibbs coming into his country with such a thing as the glass. If it was a prophecy glass, then it could do much evil. Some of his people grew sick and died, just from meeting with the whites. With such a glass the old trader might cause many deaths. The glass might be a trick, to spread death among the Comanches, to get their robes and their horses and their hunting lands. The whites were always coming, up the rivers and creeks, always north and west, toward the Comancheria. Buffalo Hump thought the glass was a bad sign. He would take it to the main camp and let the old ones see it--perhaps one of them would know what to do.

  Buffalo Hump left them the Mexican girl and took his braves over the ridge, where the sand spumed. Then he told his braves that he had decided to kill the traders, take back the captives, and get all the knives. Kicking Wolf wanted to go back with him and catch the white men and torture them, but Buffalo Hump wouldn't let him. Instead, he gave him the glass that might be evil, and rode back alone. When he crossed the ridge of blowing sand, the old white man had already tied the girl to a wagon wheel and was abusing her. The young white man sat on the tailgate of the wagon and waited his turn.

  Buffalo Hump walked quietly, over the soft sand. He had his lance, and a knife.

  Sam Douglas sat on the wagon, trying to decide whether to take one of the nine-year-old Mexican girls, or wait for night, when old Joe would be sleeping. Then he could do what he pleased with Rosa. He had meant to leave the nine-year-olds alone, but after all, why should he?

  They were slaves. They were there. Old Joe was tiresome, when he had a new slave to abuse.

  He might keep Rosa tied to the wagon wheel for hours.

  Then, before he knew it, Sam Douglas found himself doing the one thing he had vowed not to do: he looked straight into Buffalo Hump's eyes.

  It was a mistake: he knew it. He had thought the big Indian was gone. But there he was: the animal, the panther, the bear.

  The next second, Buffalo Hump drove his knife straight down through Sam Douglas's skull. One of the Mexican captives screamed. The old trader, Joe Nibbs, had his hammer in his hand. When he turned, Buffalo Hump threw the lance--the distance was short. Half the lance came out the other side of Joe Nibbs's body and stuck in the ground, so that his torso was tilted slightly back. He was still alive; he dropped his hammer. Buffalo Hump picked it up and hit him at the base of the neck. Joe Nibbs's head flopped back, like a chicken's.

  Then the warriors came back; they took the captives, the knives, the donkeys. They decided to burn the wagons and camp for the night; they could eat all the white men's food.

  Buffalo Hump could not get his knife out of Sam Douglas's skull. It was stuck so deep that not even his strength was enough to pull it out. The braves laughed. Their own war chief had stuck a perfectly good knife into a white man's skull so deeply that he could not get it out. Finally, Buffalo Hump smashed the skull with the old slaver's hammer and freed his knife.

  Rosa, the young captive, could not stop weeping.

  She hurt from what the man with the hammer had done to her. She wanted to be with her mother, her brother, and little sisters; but she knew she could not go home.

  She had been with the Comanche; the people of her village would consider her disgraced, if she went home.

  She wept, and listened to the sand; she wished that she could sleep beneath the sand, breathe it into her, and die.

  But she could not; she could only weep, and be cold, and wait for the big Comanche who sat nearby, holding the rawhide string that bound her wrists.

  Later, not long before dawn, one of the donkeys began to whinny. The wind had shifted; now it blew from the west, and the donkey had smelled something. The horses pointed their ears to the west, but did not whinny. The braves around the campfire thought it was an animal. Donkeys were cowards--they would whinny at a coyote, or even a badger. Fast Boy, who slept little, decided that the animal was probably a cougar. Perhaps the cougar they had seen earlier was following them, hoping to eat a donkey.

  The other braves laughed at Fast Boy, and laughed even more when he mounted his horse and loped off to look for the cougar. They thought it was ridiculous for Fast Boy to suppose he could find a cougar in the darkness.

  When Fast Boy returned, running his horse, the sun was just rising. The wind was high; the sun was ringed with a haze of sand. Buffalo Hump was annoyed, when Fast Boy raced into camp.

  He did not approve of such behaviour. They were cooking horse meat from one of the old slaver's horses. Fast Boy's horse kicked dust on the meat, which was gritty enough, anyway.

  But Buffalo Hump forgot his irritation when Fast Boy told him that a party of whites was camped only three miles to the west. It was a small party, mostly women, Fast Boy said.

  There were only four men and a boy, besides th
e women.

  But the news that made Buffalo Hump forgive the reckless riding and the gritty meat was that one of the men was Gun-In-The-Water, the young Ranger who had killed his son. When Buffalo Hump heard that, he began to put on his war paint--most of the other warriors put on their war paint, too. Kicking Wolf declined to bother--he did not like to paint himself. He made the point to Buffalo Hump that he himself could sneak over the hill and kill Gun-In-The-Water and all the whites in less time than it would take for Buffalo Hump and the other braves to paint themselves. Buffalo Hump ignored Kicking Wolf. Kicking Wolf had always thought his way of doing things was best. Buffalo Hump didn't care what Kicking Wolf thought.