Dead Man's Walk

The cold had had a bad effect on Joh

“I’ll catch you, I’ll catch you,” Joh

By midafternoon some of the other Texans had begun to lag, and many of the Mexican infantrymen as well. The marchers were strung out over a mile—then, over two. Bigfoot went ahead, hoping for a glimpse of the village they were seeking—but he saw nothing, just the level desert plain. Behind them there was a low bank of dark clouds—perhaps it meant more snow. He felt confident that he himself could weather the night, even without fire, but he knew that many of the men wouldn’t—they would freeze, unless they reached shelter.

“I wonder if we even know where we’re going—we might be missing that town,” Bigfoot said, to Gus. “If we miss it we’re in for frosty sleeping.““I don’t want to miss it—I hope they have goats,” Gus said. He was half carrying Call at the time.

Bigfoot dropped back to speak with Salazar—the Captain was plodding on, but he was glassy eyed from pain and fatigue.

“Captain, I’m fearful,” Bigfoot said. “Have you been to this place —what’s it called?”

“San Saba,” Salazar said. “No, I have not been to it.”

“I hope it’s there,” Bigfoot said. “We’ve got some folks that won’t make it through the night unless we find shelter. Some of them are my boys, but quite a few of them are yours.”

“I know that, but I am not a magician,” Salazar said. “I ca

“Why don’t you let us go, Captain?” Bigfoot asked. “We ain’t all going to survive this. Why risk your boys just to take us south? Caleb Cobb was the man who thought up this expedition, and he’s dead.”

Captain Salazar rode on, still glassy eyed, for some time before answering. When he did speak, his voice was cracked and hoarse.

“I ca

“Dumb orders, I’d say,” Bigfoot said. “We ain’t worth freezing to death for. We haven’t killed a single one of your people. All we’ve done is march fifteen hundred miles to make fools of ourselves, and now we’re in a situation where half of us won’t live even if you do let us go. What’s the point?”

Salazar managed a smile, though the effort made his face twist in pain.

“I didn’t say my orders were intelligent, merely that they were mine,” he said. “I’ve been a military man for twenty years, and most of my orders have been foolish. I could have been killed many times, because of foolish orders. Now I have been given an order so foolish that I would laugh and cry if I weren’t so cold and in such pain.”

Bigfoot said nothing. He just watched Salazar.

“Of course, you are right,” Salazar went on. “You marched a long way to make fools of yourselves and you have done no harm to my people. If you had, by the way, you would have been shot— then all of us would have been spared this wind. But my orders are still mine. I have to take you to El Paso, or die trying.”

. “It might be the latter, Captain,” Bigfoot said. “I don’t like that cloud.”

Soon, a driving sleet peppered the men’s backs. As dusk fell, it became harder to see—the sleet coated the ground and made each step agony for those with cold feet.

“I fear we’ve lost Joh

“I’ll go back and get him,” Long Bill said.

“I wouldn’t,” Bigfoot said. “You need all you’ve got, to make it yourself.”

“No, Joh

It took Gus and Matilda both to keep Call going. The sleet thickened on the ground, until it became too slippery for him to manage. Finally, the two of them carried him, his arms over their shoulders, his body warmed between their bodies.

As the darkness came on and the sleet blew down the wind like bird shot, doom was in the mind of every man. All of them, even Bigfoot Wallace, veteran of many storms, felt that it was likely that they would die during the night. Long Bill had gone loyally back into the teeth of the storm, to find his companero, Joh

It was Gus McCrae, with his keen vision, who first saw a tiny flicker of light, far ahead.

“Why, it’s a fire,” he said. “If it ain’t a fire, it’s some kind of light.”

“Where?” Matilda asked. “I can’t see nothing but sleet.”

“No, there’s a fire, I seen it,” Gus said. “I expect it’s that town.” One of the Mexican soldiers heard him, and prodded his captain awake.

Salazar, too, felt that he would not survive the night. The wound Caleb Cobb had given him was worse than he had thought—he had bled all day, the blood freezing on his coat. Now a soldier had awakened him with some rumour of a light, although the sleet was blowing and he himself could not see past his horse’s head. There was no light, no town. The blood had dripped down to his pants, which were frozen to the saddle. Instead of delivering the invading Texans to El Paso and being promoted, at least to major for his valour in capturing them, his lot would be to die in a sleet storm on the frozen plain. He thought of shooting himself, but his hands were so cold he feared he would merely drop his pistol, if he tried to pull it out. The pistol, too, was coated in bloody ice—it might not even shoot.

Then Gus saw the light again, and yelled out, hoping somebody ahead would hear him.

“There’s the light—there it is, we’re close,” he said. This time, Bigfoot saw it, too.

“By God, he’s right,” he said. “We’re coming to someplace with a fire.”

Then he heard something that sounded like the bleating of sheep —the men who heard it all perked up. If there were sheep, they might not starve. Captain Salazar suddenly felt better.

“I remember the stories,” he said. “There is a spring—an underground river. They raise sheep here—this must be San Saba. I thought it was just a lie—a traveler’s lie, about the sheep and the spring. Most travelers lie, and few sheep cross this desert. But maybe it is true.”

One by one, hopeful for the first time in days, the men plodded on toward the light. Now and then they lost it in the sleet, and their hopes sank, but Gus McCrae had taken a bead on the light, and, leaving Matilda to support Woodrow Call, led the troop into the little village of San Saba. There were not many adobe huts, but there were many, many sheep. The ones they heard bleating were in a little rail corral behind the jefe’s hut, and the jefe himself, an old man with a large belly, was helping a young ewe bring forth her first kid. The light they had seen was his light. At first, he was surprised and alarmed by the spectral appearance of the Texans, all of them white with the sleet that covered their clothes. The old man had no weapon—he could do nothing but stare; also, the ewe was at her crisis and he could not afford to worry about the men who appeared out of the night, until he had delivered the kid. Although he had many sheep, he also lost many—to the cold, to wolves and coyotes and cougars. He wanted to see that the kid was correctly delivered before he had to face the wild men who had come in on a stormy night into the village. He thought they might be ghosts—if they were ghosts, perhaps the wind would blow them on, out of the village, leaving him to attend to his flock.