Dead Man's Walk

“I guess that jerking finally killed him,” Gus said, when the sad news was reported.

“No, it was the opera,” Lady Carey said. “Or perhaps it was just hearing his native tongue.”

Quartermaster Brognoli was buried in the hard ground—the four remaining Rangers took turns digging. Lady Carey sang the same piece she had sung when the Mexican firing squad cut down Bigfoot and the others. All the men cried, although Wesley Buttons had never been fond of Brognoli. Still, they had traveled a long way together, and now the man was dead. In the vastness of the desert, each reduction of the group made them realize how small they were, how puny, in relation to the space they were traveling through.

“We’re back where it’s wild again,” Call said.

Lady Carey happened to overhear the remark—she drew rein for a moment, looking toward a faint outline of mountains in the east.

“Yes, it’s wild, isn’t it,” she said. “It’s like a smell. I smelled it in Africa and now I smell it here.”

“It means we have to be careful,” Call said.

Lady Carey looked again at the distant mountains.“Quite the contrary, Corporal Call,” she said. “It means we have to be wild, like the wild men.”

She turned her head toward him, and sat watching him for a moment. Call couldn’t see her eyes, through the several dark veils, but he knew she was watching him. One of her shirtsleeves had ridden up a bit—he could see just a bit of her wrist, between the shirtsleeve and her black gloves. He and Gus had speculated a little, about how affected Lady Carey was by the leprosy. She had no trouble handling her horse, and she was dexterous with her hands, when it came to pouring tea, or buttering muffins. The wrist he saw was a creamy white—much whiter than Matilda’s. Matty was brown from the sun.

Although she had been always polite, Call felt nervous, knowing that her hidden eyes were fixed on him.

“Are you wild enough, Corporal Call?” Lady Carey asked. “I have a feeling you are.”

“I guess we’ll see,” Call said.

THE COMANCHES STRUCK DEEP into Mexico, under the bright moon. In Chihuahua Buffalo Hump struck a ranch, killed the rancher and his wife and all the vaqueros, and took three children and seventy horses. He ordered three young braves, led by Fast Boy, back up the war trail with the horses. He wanted the horses safely back in the main camp, in the Palo Duro Canyon, before the worst of the winter ice storms came. They could eat the horses, if buffalo proved scarce.

Then, with the shivering, terrified children tied on one horse, he struck east, taking only those children that were old enough to be useful slaves. The others he killed, along with their parents. At one hacienda he tied the whole family, threw them on their own haystack, and burned them. The Comanches rode on, striking hard and fast. Once they saw a little militia in the distance, perhaps twenty men. The young braves wanted to attack, but Buffalo Hump wouldn’t let them. He told them they could come back and fight Mexican soldiers anytime. Now they were on a raid, and needed to concern themselves with captives and horses.

They soon had ten children—four boys and six girls—none of them older than eight or nine years. They also had twenty more horses, which they drove with them as they turned north. Buffalo Hump was satisfied. They had taken almost a hundred horses, and ten children who were strong enough not to die on the hard journey. Kicking Wolf had failed to appear. Some of the braves speculated that he had caught another white to torture.

More than thirty Mexicans had been killed on the raid. Now the wind was growing colder—Buffalo Hump wanted to go to the trading place, the Sorrows, to trade his captives for tobacco and blankets and ammunition. He himself had the fine gun the Texans had given him, but he didn’t use it to kill Mexicans. The fine gun he kept for buffalo hunting. The Mexicans he merely struck with his lance, or put an arrow through. He wanted guns, though—not for himself but for his braves. There were more Texans than ever, moving west on the creeks and rivers, cutting trees and making little farms. They were easy to kill, the Texans, but there were many of them, and most of his warriors still only had bows and arrows. All the Texans had guns—some of them could shoot well. It would be better if his young men learned to use the gun. Otherwise, the Texans might come all the way into the Comancheria and start killing the buffalo.

A day south of the Rio Grande, Buffalo Hump took a girl, a pretty Mexican girl who was caught while washing clothes on a rock in a little creek. There was a village not too far distant, but Buffalo Hump was on the girl so quickly that she did not have time to scream. He drew his knife to kill her, but in the brief struggle her young breasts spilled out of her tunic and he decided to keep her. He had had Mexican women before, but none so appealing as the slim girl he had just caught. He gagged her with a piece of rawhide, and put her over his horse.

Later, when they were many miles north and not far from the river, one of the braves came and informed him that a foolish young warrior named Crow was missing. Buffalo Hump didn’t wait. Probably Crow had gone into the outskirts of the village and attempted to steal a girl for himself—Crow had always been jealous of Buffalo Hump. Though only sixteen, he wanted everything the war chief had. The young braves became restive. They didn’t want to leave Crow; he was known to be foolish. An old witch woman had told Crow that he would not die, and Crow believed her. Yet, he was brave in battle, and the young warriors didn’t want to leave him. Buffalo Hump finally sent two of them to find their friend. They arrived back late at night with long faces and bad news. Crow had attacked the Mexican village single-handedly, convinced that he could scare away all the cowardly Mexicans and take what he wanted from the town. The braves who went back caught a boy and made him tell them what had happened, for they had not met Crow along the trail. The boy said Crow had ridden around the village, drinking and shooting off an old gun he had found. He did scare the Mexicans away for awhile, but he enjoyed frightening the village people so much that he grew careless. A vaquero roped him from a rooftop. While he was spi

Buffalo Hump took the Mexican girl, though she struggled violently. He decided to take her for a wife. It might be that when they got to the trading place one of the traders would offer him a very high price for the girl; unless it was very high he resolved to keep her, although he would have to be careful when he took her back to the tribe. His old wives were jealous and would beat the girl severely, with firewood or sticks, unless he made it clear to them that they would suffer from his hand if the girl was too much damaged.

Crow’s loss he did not lament. It was true that Crow had been brave, but he was not respectful. Several times already, Buffalo Hump had been tempted to put a lance through him, in response to an insolent look.

The girl, Rosa, whimpered from cold and fright. Buffalo Hump went to her, and took her again. Then he stuffed the rawhide gag back in her mouth; he didn’t like the sounds frightened women made.

The next day, one warrior short, the Comanches crossed the Rio Grande. That day they caught two whites, an old man and an old woman, traveling west in a little wagon. They were people of God —they prayed loudly to their Jesus, but Buffalo Hump burned them anyway, in their own wagon. They screamed more loudly than they prayed. As the Comanches were riding off, a cougar jumped out of a little spur of rocks and raced away. Several of the young braves gave chase—it would be a great thing, if one of them could kill a cougar. But Buffalo Hump let them go—he had once longed to kill a cougar or a bear himself, and finally had killed a bear, near the headwaters of the Cimarron. But it had only been an old she-bear with a wounded paw; he could not claim much credit for having killed it. Once he had put his lance in a male grizzly, but the grizzly had treated the lance like a burr, and had chased Buffalo Hump for a mile. If he had not been on his best horse that day, the bear would have killed him.