Dead Man's Walk

Major Chevallie advanced the two dollars, and the next morning at dawn, he, Call, Gus, Shadrach, Bob Bascom, Long Bill Coleman, Ezekiel Moody, Josh Corn, one-eyed Joh

Gus, though, was irritated at the lack of ceremony attending their departure. A scabby dog barked a few times, but no inhabitants lined the streets to cheer them on. Gus thought there should at least have been a bugler.

“I’d blow a bugle myself, if one was available,” he said.

Call thought the remark wrongheaded. Even if they had a bugle, and if Gus could blow it, who would listen to it, except a few Mexicans and a donkey or two? It was enough that they were Rangers— two days before they had simply been homeless boys.

Bigfoot Wallace, the scout, didn’t catch up until the next day— at the time of their departure he had been in jail. Apparently he had thrown a deputy sheriff out the second-floor window of the community’s grandest whorehouse. The deputy suffered a broken collarbone, an a

Gus McCrae, a newcomer to Texas, had never heard of Bigfoot Wallace and saw no reason to be awed. Throwing a deputy sheriff out a window did not seem to him to be a particularly impressive feat.

“Now, if he’d thrown the governor out, that would have been a fine thing,” Gus said.

Call thought his friend’s comment absurd. Why would the governor be in a whorehouse, anyway? Bigfoot Wallace was the most respected scout on the Texas frontier; even in Navasota, far to the east, Bigfoot’s name was known and his exploits talked about.

“They say he’s been all the way to China,” Call explained. “He knows every creek in Texas, and whether it’s boggy or not, and he’s a first-rate Indian killer besides.”

“Myself, I’d rather know every whore,” Gus said. “You can have a lot more fun with whores than you can with governors.”

Call had seen several whores on the street, but had never visited one. Although he had the inclination, he had never had the money. Gus McCrae, though, seemed to have spent his life in the company of whores—though he had once mentioned that he had a mother and three sisters back in Te

Call, though, had the greatest respect for Bigfoot Wallace; he intended to study the man and learn as many of his wilderness skills as possible. Though most of the older Rangers were well versed in woodcraft, Bigfoot and Shadrach were clearly the two masters. If the company came to a fork in a creek or river while the scouts were ranging ahead, the company waited until one of them showed up and told it which fork to take. Major Chevallie had never been west of San Antonio—once they left the settlements behind and started toward the Pecos, he allowed his accomplished scouts to choose a route.

It was Shadrach who took them south, into the lonely country of sage and sand, where the two boys were now crouched behind their chaparral bush. In San Antonio there had been talk that war with Mexico was brewing—early on, the Major had instructed the troop to fire on any Mexican who seemed hostile.

“Better to be safe than sorry,” he said, and many heads nodded.

In fact, though, the only Mexican they had seen was the unfortunate driver of the donkey cart. In the western reaches, no one was quite certain where Mexico stopped and Texas began. The Rio Grande made a handy border, but neither Major Chevallie nor anyone else considered it to be particularly official.

Mexicans, hostile or otherwise, didn’t occupy much of the troop’s attention, almost all of which was reserved for the Comanches. Call had yet to see a Comanche Indian, though throughout the trek, Long Bill, Rip Green, and other Rangers had assured him that the Comanches were sure to show up in the next hour or two, bent on scalping and torture.

“I wonder how big Comanches are?” he asked Gus, as they peered north into the silent darkness.

“About the size of Matilda, I’ve heard,” Gus said.

“That old woman ain’t the size of Matilda,” Call pointed out. “She’s no taller than Rip.”

Rip Green was the smallest Ranger, standing scarcely five feet high. He also lacked a thumb on his right hand, having shot it off himself while cleaning a pistol he had neglected to unload.

“Yes, but she’s old, Woodrow,” Gus said. “I expect she’s shriveled up.

He had just consumed the last of his mescal, and was feeling gloomy at the thought of a long watch with no liquor. At least hehad a scrape, though. Call had no coat—he intended to purchase one with his first wages. He owned two shirts, and wore them both on frosty mornings, when the thorns of the chaparral bushes were rimmed with white.

Just then a wolf howled far to the north, where they were looking. Another wolf joined the first one. Then, nearer by, there was the yip of a coyote.

“They say an Indian can imitate any sound,” Gus remarked. “They can fool you into thinking they’re a wolf or a coyote or an owl or a cricket.”

“I doubt a Comanche would pretend to be a cricket,” Call said.

“Well, a locust then,” Gus said. “Locusts buzz. You get a bunch of them buzzing and it’s hard to hear.”

Again they heard the wolf, and again, the coyote.

“It’s Indians talking,” Gus said. “They’re talking in animal.”

“We don’t know, though,” Call said. “I seen a wolf just yesterday. There’s plenty of coyotes, too. It could just be animals.”

“No, it ain’t, it’s Comanches,” Gus said, standing up. “Let’s go shoot one. I expect if we killed three or four the Major would raise our wages.”

Call thought it was bold thinking. They were already a good distance from camp—the campfire was only a faint flicker behind them. Clouds had begun to come in, hiding the stars. Suppose they went farther and got caught? All the tortures Bigfoot had described might be visited on them. Besides, their orders were to stand watch, not to go Indian hunting.

“I ain’t going,” Call said. “That ain’t what we were supposed to do.”

“I doubt that fat fool is a real major, anyway,” Gus said. He was restless. Sitting half the night by a bush did not appeal to him much. It was undoubtedly a long way to a whorehouse from where they sat, but at least there might be Indians to fight. Better a fight than nothing; with no more mescal to drink, his prospects were meager.

Call, though, had not responded to the call of adventure. He was still squatting by the chaparral bush.

“Why, Gus, he is too a major,” Call said. “You saw how the soldiers saluted him, back in San Antonio.”

“Even if he ain’t a major, he gave us a job,” he reminded his friend. “We’re earning three dollars a month. Long Bill says we’ll get all the Indian fighting we want before we get back to the settlements.”

“Bye, I’m going exploring,” Gus said. “I’ve heard there’s gold mines out in this part of the country.”

“Gold mines,” Call said. “How would you notice a gold mine in the middle of the night, and what would you do with one if you did notice it? You ain’t even got a spade.”

“No, but think of all the whores I could buy if I had a gold mine,” Gus said. “I could even buy a whorehouse. I’d have twenty girls and they’d all be pretty. If I didn’t feel like letting in no customers, I’d do the work myself.”

With that, he walked off a few steps.

“Ain’t you coming?” he asked, when he heard no footsteps behind him.

“No, I was told to stand guard, not to go prospecting,” Call said. “I aim to stand guard till it’s my turn to sleep.

“If you go off and get captured, the Major won’t like it one bit, either,” Call reminded him. “Neither will you. Remember how that Mexican screamed.”