Dead Man's Walk Read online

  "What's worse than having your pecker chewed off?" Blackie inquired.

  "Oh, having them pull out the end of your gut and tie it to a dog," Bigfoot said, pouring himself more chickory. "Then they chase the dog around camp for awhile, until about fifty feet of your gut is strung out in front of you, for brats to eat." "To eat?" Long Bill asked.

  "Why yes," Bigfoot said. "Comanche brats eat gut like ours eat candy." "Whew, I'm glad I wasn't especially hungry this morning," Major Chevallie commented. "Talk like this would unsettle a delicate stomach." "Or they might run a stick up your fundament and set it on fire--that way your guts would done be cooked when they pull them out," Bigfoot explained.

  "What's a fundament?" Call asked. He had had only one year of schooling, and had not encountered the word in his speller. He kept the speller with him in his saddlebag, and referred to it now and then when in doubt about a letter or a word.

  Bob Bascom snorted, amused by the youngster's ignorance.

  "It's a hole in your body and it ain't your nose or your mouth or your goddamn ear," Bob said. "I'd have that little mare broke by now, if it was me doing it." Call smarted at the rebuke--he knew they had been lax with the mare, who had now effectively snubbed herself to the little tree. She was trembling, but she couldn't move far, so he quickly swung the saddle in place and held it there while she crow-hopped a time or two.

  Matilda Roberts sweated over her task, but she didn't give up. The first gusts of the norther scattered the ashes of the campfire.

  Major Chevallie had just squatted to refill his cup--his coffee soon had a goodly sprinkling of sand. When the turtle's head finally came off, Matilda casually pitched it in the direction of Long Bill, who jumped up as if she'd thrown him a live rattler.

  The turtle's angry eyes were still open, and its jaws continued to snap with a sharp click.

  "It ain't even dead with its head off," Long Bill said, annoyed.

  Shadrach, the oldest Ranger, a tall, grizzled specimen with a cloudy past, walked over to the turtle's head and squatted down to study it. Shadrach rarely spoke, but he was by far the most accurate rifle shot in the troop.

  He owned a fine Kentucky rifle, with a cherry wood stock, and was contemptuous of the bulky carbines most of the troop had adopted.

  Shadrach found a little mesquite stick and held it in front of the turtle's head. The turtle's beak immediately snapped onto the stick, but the stick didn't break. Shadrach picked up the little stick with the turtle's head attached to it and dropped it in the pocket of his old black coat.

  Josh Corn was astonished.

  "Why would you keep a thing like that?" he asked Shadrach, but the old man took no interest in the question.

  "Why would he keep a smelly old turtle's head?" Josh asked Bigfoot Wallace.

  "Why would Gomez raid with Buffalo Hump?" Bigfoot asked. "That's a better question." Matilda, by this time, had hacked through the turtle shell with her hatchet and was cutting the turtle meat into strips. Watching her slice the green meat caused Long Bill Coleman to get the queasy feeling again. Young Call, though nicked by a rear hoof, had succeeded in cinching the saddle onto the Mexican mare.

  Major Chevallie was sipping his ashy coffee. Already the new wind from the north had begun to cut. He hadn't been paying much attention to the half-drunken campfire palaver, but between one sip of coffee and the next, Bigfoot's question brought him out of his reverie.

  "What did you say about Buffalo Hump?" he asked. "I wouldn't suppose that scoundrel is anywhere around." "Well, he might be," Bigfoot said.

  "But what was that you said, just now?" the Major asked. "It's hard to concentrate, with Matilda cutting up this ugly turtle." "I had a dern dream," Bigfoot admitted. "In my dream Gomez was raiding with Buffalo Hump." "Nonsense, Gomez is Apache," the Major said.

  Bigfoot didn't answer. He knew that Gomez was Apache, and that Apache didn't ride with Comanche--that was not the normal order of things. Still, he had dreamed what he dreamed. If Major Chevallie didn't enjoy hearing about it, he could sip his coffee and keep quiet.

  The whole troop fell silent for a moment. Just hearing the names of the two terrible warriors was enough to make the Rangers reflect on the uncertainties of their calling, which were considerable.

  "I don't like that part about the guts," Long Bill said. "I aim to keep my own guts inside me, if nobody minds." Shadrach was saddling his horse--he felt free to leave the troop at will, and his absences were apt to last a day or two.

  "Shad, are you leaving?" Bigfoot asked.

  "We're all leaving," Shadrach said.

  "There's Indians to the north. I smell 'em." "I thought I still gave the orders around here," Major Chevallie said. "I don't know why you would have such a dream, Wallace. Why would those two devils raid together?" "I've dreamt prophecy before," Bigfoot said. "Shad's right about the Indians. I smell 'em too." "What's this--where are they?" Major Chevallie asked, just as the norther hit with its full force. There was a general scramble for guns and cover. Long Bill Coleman found the anxiety too much for his overburdened stomach.

  He grabbed his rifle, but then had to bend and puke before he could seek cover.

  The cold wind swirled white dust through the camp. Most of the Rangers had taken cover behind little hummocks of sand, or chaparral bushes.

  Only Matilda was unaffected; she continued to lay strips of greenish turtle meat onto the campfire. The first cuts were already dripping and crackling.

  Old Shadrach mounted and went galloping north, his long rifle across his saddle.

  Bigfoot Wallace grabbed a rifle and vanished into the sage.

  "What do we do with this mare, Gus?" Call asked. He had only been a Ranger six weeks--his one problem with the work was that it was almost impossible to get precise instructions in a time of crisis. Now he finally had the Mexican mare saddled, but everyone in camp was lying behind sandhills with their rifles ready. Even Gus had grabbed his old gun and taken cover.

  Major Chevallie was attempting to unhobble his horse, but he had no dexterity and was making a slow job of it.

  "You boys, come help me!" he yelled--from the precipitate behaviour of Shadrach and Bigfoot, the most experienced men in the troop, he assumed that the camp was in danger of being overrun.

  Gus and Call ran to the Major's aid. The wind was so cold that Gus even thought it prudent to button the top button of his flannel shirt.

  "Goddamn this wind!" the Major said. During breakfast he had been rereading a letter from his dear wife, Jane. He had read the letter at least twenty times, but it was the only letter he had with him and he did love his winsome Jane. When the business about Gomez and Buffalo Hump came up he had casually stuffed the letter in his coat pocket, but he didn't get it in securely, and now the whistling wind had snatched it. It was a long letter--his dear Jane was lavish with detail of circumstances back in Virginia--and now several pages of it were blowing away, in the general direction of Mexico.

  "Here, boys, fetch my letter!" the Major said. "I can't afford to lose my letter.

  I'll finish saddling this horse." Call and Gus left the Major to finish cinching his saddle on his big sorrel and began to chase the letter, some of which had sailed quite a distance downwind. Both of them kept looking over their shoulders, expecting to see the Indians charging.

  Call had not had time to fetch his rifle--his only weapon was a pistol.

  Thanks to his efforts with the mare, the talk of torture and suicide had been hard to follow.

  Call liked to do things correctly, but was in doubt as to the correct way to dispatch himself, should he suddenly be surrounded by Comanches.

  "What was it Bigfoot said about shooting out your brains?" he asked Gus, his lanky pal.

  Gus had run down four pages of the Major's lengthy letter. Call had three pages. Gus didn't seem to be particularly concerned about the prospect of Comanche capture-- his nonchalant approach to life could be irksome in times of conflict.

  "I'd go help Matty clean her turtle if I
thought she'd give me a poke," Gus said.

  "Gus, there's Indians coming," Call said.

  "Just tell me what Bigfoot said about shooting out your brains.

  "That whore don't need no help with that turtle," he added.

  "Oh, you're supposed to shoot through the eyeball," Gus said. "I'll be damned if I would, though. I need both eyes to look at whores." "I should have kept my rifle handier," Call said, annoyed with himself for having neglected sound procedure. "Do you see any Indians yet?" "No, but I see Josh Corn taking a shit," Gus said, pointing at their friend Josh.

  He was squatting behind a sage bush, rifle at the ready, while he did his business.

  "I guess he must think it's his last chance before he gets scalped," Gus added.

  Major Chevallie jumped on his sorrel and started to race after Shadrach, but had scarcely cleared the camp before he reined in his horse.

  Call could just see him, in the swirling dust--the plain to the north of the camp had become a wall of sand.

  "I wonder how we can get some money--I sure do need a poke," Gus said. He had turned his back to the wind and was casually reading the Major's letter, an action that shocked Call.

  "That's the Major's letter," he pointed out.

  "You got no business reading it." "Well, it don't say much anyway," Gus said, handing the pages to Call. "I thought it might be racy, but it ain't." "If I ever write a letter, I don't want to catch you reading it," Call said. "I think Shad's coming back." His eyes were stinging, from staring into the dust.

  There seemed to be figures approaching camp from the north. Call couldn't make them out clearly, and Gus didn't seem to be particularly interested. Once he began to think about whores he had a hard time pulling his mind off the subject.

  "If we could catch a Mexican we could steal his money--he might have enough that we could buy quite a few pokes," Gus said, as they strolled back to camp.

  Major Chevallie waited on his sorrel, watching. Two figures seemed to be walking.

  Then Bigfoot fell in with them. Shadrach appeared on his horse, a few steps behind the figures.

  All around the camp Rangers began to stand up and dust the sand off their clothes. Matilda, unaffected by the crisis, was still cooking her turtle. The bloody shell lay by the campfire. Call smelled the sizzling meat and realized he was hungry.

  "Why, it's just an old woman and a boy," he said when he finally got a clear view of the two figures trudging through the sandstorm, flanked on one side by Shadrach and on the other by Bigfoot Wallace.

  "Shoot, I doubt either one of them has got a cent on them," Gus said. "I think we ought to sneak off across the river and catch a Mexican while it's still early." "Just wait," Call said. He was anxious to see the captives, if they were captives.

  "I swear," Long Bill said. "I think that old woman's blind. That boy's leading her." Long Bill was right. A boy of about ten, who looked more Mexican than Indian, walked slowly toward the campfire, leading an old white-haired Indian woman--Call had never seen anyone who looked as old as the old woman.

  When they came close enough to the fire to smell the sizzling meat, the boy began to make a strange sound. It wasn't speech, exactly--it was more like a moan.

  "What's he wanting?" Matilda asked--she was unnerved by the sound.

  "Why, a slice or two of your turtle meat, I expect," Bigfoot said. "More than likely he's hungry." "Then why don't he ask?" Matilda said.

  "He can't ask, Matilda," Bigfoot said.

  "Why not, ain't he got a tongue?" Matilda asked.

  "Nope--no tongue," Bigfoot said.

  "Somebody cut it out."

  The north wind blew harder, hurling the sands and soils of the great plain of Texas toward Mexico. It soon obliterated vision.

  Shadrach and Major Chevallie, mounted, could not see the ground. Men could not see across the campfire. Call found his rifle, but when he tried to sight, discovered that he could not see to the end of the barrel. The sand peppered them like fine shot, and it rode a cold wind. The horses could only turn their backs to it; so did the men. Most put their saddles over their heads, and their saddle blankets too. Matilda's bloody turtle shell soon filled with sand. The campfire was almost smothered. Men formed a human wall to the north of it, to keep it from guttering out. Bigfoot and Shadrach tied bandanas around their faces--Long Bill had a bandana but it blew away and was never found. Matilda gave up cooking and sat with her back to the wind, her head bent between her knees.

  The boy with no tongue reached into the guttering campfire and took two slices of the sizzling turtle meat. One he gave to the old blind woman--although the meat was tough and scalding, he gulped his portion in only three bites.

  Kirker and Glanton, the scalp hunters, sat together with their backs to the wind. They stared through the fog of sand, appraising the boy and the old woman. Kirker took out his scalping knife and a small whetstone. He tried to spit on the whetstone, but the wind took the spit away; Kirker began to sharpen the knife anyway. The old woman turned her sightless eyes toward the sound--she spoke to the boy, in a language Call had never heard. But the boy had no tongue, and couldn't answer.

  Even through the howling of the wind, Call could hear the grinding sound, as Kirker whetted his scalping knife. Gus heard it too, but his mind had not moved very far from his favorite subject, whores.

  "Be hard to poke in a wind like this," he surmised. "Your whore would fill up with sand-- unless you went careful, you'd scrape yourself raw." Call ignored this comment, thinking it foolish.

  "Kirker and Glanton ain't Rangers--I don't know why the Major lets 'em ride with the troop," he said.

  "It's a free country, how could he stop them?" Gus asked, though he had to admit that the scalp hunters were unsavory company. Their gear smelled of blood, and they never washed. Gus agreed with Matilda that it was good to keep clean.

  He splashed himself regularly, if there was water available.

  "He could shoot 'em--I'd shoot 'em, if I was in command," Call said. "They're low killers, in my opinion." Only the day before there had nearly been a ruckus with Kirker and Glanton. The two came riding in from the south, having taken eight scalps. The scalps hung from Kirker's saddle. A buzzing cloud of flies surrounded them, although the blood on the scalps had dried.

  Most of the Rangers gave Kirker a wide berth; he was a thin man with three gappy teeth, which gave his smile a cruel twist. Glanton was larger and lazier--he slept more than anyone else in the troop and would even fall asleep and start snoring while mounted on his horse.

  Shadrach had no fear of either man, and neither did Bigfoot Wallace. When Kirker dismounted, Shadrach and Bigfoot walked over to examine his trophies. Shadrach fingered one of the scalps and looked at Bigfoot, who swatted the cloud of flies away briefly and sniffed a time or two at the hair.

  "Comanche--who said you could smell 'em?" Kirker asked. He was chewing on some antelope jerky that black Sam, the cook, had provided.

  The sight of the old mountain man and the big scout handling his new trophies annoyed him.

  "We picked all eight of them off, at a waterhole," Glanton said. "I shot four and so did John." "That's a pure lie," Bigfoot said.

  "Eight Comanches could string you and Kirker out from here to Santa Fe. If you was ever unlucky enough to run into that many at once, we wouldn't be having to smell your damn stink anymore." He waved at Major Chevallie, who strolled over, looking uncomfortable. He drew his pistol, a precaution the Major always took when he sensed controversy. With his pistol drawn, decisive judgment could be reached and reached quickly.

  "These low dogs have been killing Mexicans, Major," Bigfoot said. "They probably took supper with some little family and then shot 'em all and took their hair." "That would be unneighborly behaviour, if true," Major Chevallie said. He looked at the scalps, but didn't touch them.

  "This ain't Indian hair," Shadrach said.

  "Indian hair smells Indian, but this don't.

  This hair is Mexican." "It's Comanche hair a
nd you can both go to hell," Kirker said. "If you need a ticket I can provide it." The gap-toothed Kirker carried three pistols and a knife, and usually kept his rifle in the crook of his arm, where it was now.

  "Sit down, Kirker, I'll not have you roughhousing with my scouts," the Major said.

  "Roughhousing, hell," Kirker said. He flushed red when he was angry, and a blue vein popped out alongside his nose.

  "I'll finish them right here, if they don't leave my scalps alone," he added. Glanton had his eyes only half open, but his hand was on his pistol, a fact both Bigfoot and Shadrach ignored.

  "There's no grease, Major," Bigfoot said. "Indians grease their hair--take a Comanche scalp and you'll have grease up to your elbow. Kirker ain't even sly. He could have greased this hair if he wanted to fool us, but he didn't. I expect he was too lazy." "Get away from them scalps--they're government property now," Kirker said. "I took 'em and I intend to collect my bounty." Shadrach looked at the Major--he didn't believe the Major was firm, although it was undeniable that he was an accurate shot.