Dead Man's Walk

Then, just as he was at the lowest ebb of dejection, Call heard the very voice he had supposed he would never hear again: Gus McCrae’s voice, yelling from the camp. Call ran as hard as he could toward the sound—he came ru

Sure enough, though, there was Gus McCrae, alive and with his pants down. A Comanche lance protruded from his hip. The reason he was yelling was because Bigfoot and Shadrach were trying to pull it out.

THE LANCE WAS STUCK so deep in Gus’s hip that Bigfoot and Shadrach together couldn’t pull it out. It was a long, heavy lance—how Gus had managed to run all that way with it dangling from his hip Call couldn’t imagine. Gus kept yelling, as the two men tugged at it. Rip Green tried to steady Gus as the two older men attempted to work the lance out. Rip alone wasn’t strong enough—Bob Bascom had to come and help hold Gus in place.

Shadrach soon grew a

“Shut off your goddamn bellowing,” Shadrach said. “You’re yelling loud enough to call every Indian between here and the Cimarron River.”

“There wasn’t but one Indian,” Call informed them. “He had a big hump on his back. I seen him.”

At that news, the whole camp came to attention. Bigfoot and Shadrach ceased their efforts to extract the lance. Major Chevallie had been peering into the darkness, but his head snapped around when Call mentioned the hump.“You saw Buffalo Hump?” he said.

“He was the man who threw that lance,” Call said. “I saw him in the lightning flash. That was when he threw the lance. I thought he missed.”

“Nope, he didn’t miss,” Bigfoot said. “This is his buffalo lance. I’m surprised he wasted it on a boy.”

“I wish he hadn’t,” Gus said, his voice shaking. “I guess it’s stuck in my hipbone.”

“No, it’s nowhere near your damn hipbone,” Shadrach said. He squatted to take a better look at the lance head—then he waved Bigfoot away, twisted the lance a little, and with a hard yank, pulled it out. Gus fainted—Rip and Bob had loosened their hold for a moment; before they could recover, Gus fell forward on his face. Bob Bascom had looked aside, in order to spit tobacco. He kept so much tobacco in his mouth that he was prone to choking fits in time of action. Rip Green had just glanced at his bedroll; he was suspicious by nature and was always glancing at his bedroll to make sure no one was stealing anything from it. Both Rip and Bob were startled when Gus fell on his face—Call was, too. He had not supposed Gus McCrae would be the type to faint.

But blood was pouring out of Gus’s hip, and there seemed to be blood farther down his leg.

“Here, Sam,” Major Chevallie said, motioning to his cook. “You’re the doctor—tend to this man before he bleeds to death.”

“Need to get him closer to the fire so I can sew him up,” Sam said. He was a small man, about the size of Rip Green; his curly hair was white. Call was uncomfortable with him—he had had little experience of darkies, but he had to admit that the man cooked excellent grub and seemed to be expert in treating boils and other small ailments.

Sam quickly scooped some ash out of the campfire and used it to staunch the flow of blood. He patted ash into the wound until the bleeding stopped; while waiting for it to stop, he threaded a big darning needle.

Matilda walked up about that time, dragging her pallet. Gus’s yells had awakened her, and her mood was shaky. She kicked sand at Long Bill Coleman for no reason at all. The Mexican boy was asleep, but the old woman still sat by the fire, silent and unmoving.

“Sew that boy up before he gets conscious and starts bellowing again,” Shadrach said. “If there’s Indians around, they know where we are. This pup makes too much noise.”

“Why, they can mark our position by the fire—they wouldn’t need the yelling,” Bigfoot said. Gus soon proved to be awake enough to be sensitive to the darning needle. It took Matilda and Bigfoot and Bob Bascom to hold him steady enough that Sam could sew up his long wound.

“Why’d you kick that sand on me?” Long Bill asked Matilda while the sewing was in progress. He was a little hurt by Matilda’s evident scorn.

“Because I felt like kicking sand on a son of a bitch,” Matilda said. “You were the closest.”

“This boy’s lucky,” Sam said. “The lance missed the bone.”

“He might be lucky, but we ain’t,” Major Chevallie said. He was pacing around nervously.

“What I can’t figure out is why Buffalo Hump would be sitting out there by himself,” he added.

“He was sitting on a blanket,” Gus said. Sam had finally quit poking him with the big needle—that and the fact that he was alive made him feel a little better. Besides that, he was back in camp. He felt sure he was going to survive, and wanted to be helpful if he could.

“I ran right past him, that’s why he took after me,” Gus said. “He had a terrible big hump.”

Gus felt that he might want to relax and snooze, but that plan was interrupted by the old Comanche woman, who suddenly began to wail. The sound of her high wailing gave everybody a start.

“What’s wrong with her—now she’s howling,” Long Bill asked.

Shadrach went over to the old woman and spoke with her in Comanche, but she continued to wail. Shadrach waited patiently until she stopped.

“She’s a vision woman,” Shadrach said. “My grandma was a vision woman too. She would let out wails when she had some bad vision, just like this poor old soul.”

Call wanted the old woman to quiet down—her wailing had a bad effect on the whole camp. Her wails were as sad as the sound of the wind as it sighed over the empty flats. He didn’t want to hear such disturbing sounds, and none of the other Rangers did, either.Shadrach still squatted by the old woman, talking to her in her own tongue. The wind blew swirls of fine sand around them.

“Well, what now? What’s she saying?” Major Chevallie asked.

“She says Buffalo Hump is going to cut off her nose,” Shadrach said. “She was one of his father’s wives—I guess she didn’t behave none too well. Her people put her out to die, and Buffalo Hump heard about it. Now he wants to find her and cut off her nose.”

“I’d think he had better things to do,” the Major said. “She’s old, she’ll die. Why bother with her nose?”

“Because she behaved bad to his father,” Shadrach said, a little impatiently. Major Chevallie’s ignorance of Indian habits often a

“I don’t like it that he’s out there,” Long Bill said. “Once he cuts this old woman’s nose off he might keep cutting. He might cut a piece or two off all of us, before he stops.”

“Why, if you’re worried, just go kill him, Bill,” Bigfoot said.

“He’s a swift ru

Major Chevallie kept pacing back and forth, his pistol cocked.

“Let’s mount up and go,” he said abruptly. “We’re not in a secure position here—I believe it would be best to ride.”

“Now, hold still,” Shadrach insisted. “This is a vision woman talking. Let’s see what else she has to say.”

He went to the fire, poured some coffee in a tin cup, and handed it to the old woman. The Major didn’t like it that Shadrach had ignored his order—but he took it. He sat down by Matilda, who was still in a heavy mood.

“I still don’t see why he would go to so much trouble just to cut off an old woman’s nose,” he muttered, mainly to himself. Bigfoot Wallace heard him, though.

“You ain’t a Comanche,” Bigfoot said. “Comanches expect their wives to stay in the right tent.”

Major Chevallie thought of his own dear wife, Jane. If it had not been for the scrape in Baltimore, he could be home with her right then; they might be nestled together, in a nice feather bed. How long would it be before he could return to their snug stone house in London County? Would he ever return to it, or to his ardent Jane? He felt low, very low. It was too dusty in Texas. Every bite of food he had attempted to eat, all day, had been covered with grit. The large whore beside him was rough; she would never smell as good as his Jane. But Matilda was there, and Jane wasn’t. Matilda was likable, despite being rough; the Major was feeling desperate. The Comanche war chief was within earshot of his camp. A minute’s relief with Matilda would be helpful, but of course it was not a time to suggest to the troop that he was unmilitary. It was clear already that Bigfoot and Shadrach had a low opinion of his leadership. Chevallie was an old name, much respected in the Tidewater, but it meant nothing west of the Pecos. Ability was all that counted, in the West, in such a country, among such men—out West the ability to waltz gracefully did not help a man keep his scalp.