Dead Man's Walk

Gomez knew that the large woman had been the woman of Tail-Of-The-Bear, and Tail-Of-The-Bear had been a great man, perhaps a shaman. Gomez turned away from the camp at once; he did not want the witch to find out that he was near. If she knew, she might summon the owl again—the buu—and to hear the call of the buu twice meant death.

Gomez skirted the camp and walked several miles, to where he had left his two sons. One of them had found a wolf den that day—they had made a little fire and were cooking the wolf pups they had caught. Gomez wanted to eat one of the young wolves—it would give him cu

LONG BILL COLEMAN WAS frantic, when he discovered that Joh

“I expect he just went for a walk, to keep warm,” he said. “I ought to have kept him warmer, but it was hard, without no fire.”

Bigfoot did not suppose that Joh

“Bill, he went off to die—got tired of this shivering,” Matilda said, before Gus or anyone could comment on the buzzards. It was colder that day than it had been the day before. The whole troop was shivering.

Salazar allowed the Texans to burn their few pitiful sticks, but the blaze was not even sufficient to boil coffee. It died, and the only warmth they had was the warmth of their own breath—they all stood around blowing on their hands. When Long Bill saw the buzzards and realized what they meant, he had to be restrained from ru

“Bill, the buzzards have been at him,” Bigfoot said. “Anyway, we got nothing to bury him with. Gus and me will go and take a look, just to be sure it wasn’t some varmint that froze to death.”

“Yes, go look,” Salazar said. “But hurry. We can’t wait.” When Gus saw the torn, white body of Joh

As Gus stood with his back turned, trying to keep his heaving stomach under control, Bigfoot remembered the dream he had had back on the Pecos, the dream in which Buffalo Hump and Gomez were riding together, to make war on anyone in their path, Mexican or white. Now, in a way, that dream had come true, even though the two Indians might be hundreds of miles apart, and might have never met. Buffalo Hump had almost killed them on the prairie, and now Gomez was cutting them down in the New Mexican desert. If the two men, Comanche and Apache, ever did join forces, the little troop standing around in the cold would have no chance. Texans and Mexicans alike would be drained of blood like poor one-eyed Joh

He looked across the long, barren plain, hoping to see some sign —a wolf, a bird, a fleeing antelope, anything at all that would tell him where the Apaches were. But the plain was completely empty

—only the grey clouds moved at all. Gus McCrae had dropped to his knees—despite himself, his stomach turned over; he retched and retched and retched. Bigfoot waited for him to finish, and then led him back to camp. He didn’t tell Gus what he knew, or what he feared. The troop was close to panic anyway—panic and despair, from the cold and hunger and the knowledge that they were on a journey that many of them would not live to finish.

“Did he freeze?” Long Bill asked, grief stricken, when Bigfoot came back.

“Well, he’s froze now, yes,” Bigfoot said. “We should get to walking.

Call’s hurt feet were paining him even more than they had been. He had wobbled the day before, coming over a ridge; he hit his foot on a rock, and since then, had had a sharp pain in his right foot, as if a bone thin as a needle was poking him every time he put his foot down.

All that day he struggled to keep up, helped by Matilda and Gus. He noticed that Bigfoot kept looking back, turning every few minutes to survey the desert behind them. It became so noticeable that Call finally asked Gus about it.

“Did Joh

“I don’t know,” Gus said. “All I seen was his body,” Gus said. “The buzzards had been at him.”

“I know the buzzards had been at him, but were the buzzards all that had been at him?” Call asked.

“He means did an Indian kill him,” Matilda asked. She too had noticed Bigfoot’s nervousness.

Gus had not even thought about Indians—he supposed that Joh

“I expect he just died,” Gus said.

The answer didn’t satisfy Call—Joh

Bigfoot was tempted to tell Captain Salazar what had happened to Joh

Salazar was almost at the end of his strength—the pace he set was not a military pace, but the pace of a man unused to walking. His family had a small hacienda—all his life he had ridden. Without his horse, he felt weak. Also, he liked to eat—the cold, the wound on his neck, and the lack of food had weakened him. Now, just as they faced another day with little food and another night without fire, the big Texan came to him with unwelcome news. “How was he killed?” he asked.

“Throat cut,” Bigfoot said. “He was castrated, too, but I expect he was past feeling, when that happened.”

“Why did you wait so long to tell me this, Serior Wallace?” Salazar asked. He kept walking, slowly; he had not looked at Bigfoot.

“Because this whole bunch is about to give up,” Bigfoot said. “They’ll panic and start deserting. Whoever killed Joh

“Gomez,” Captain Salazar said. “He’s toying with us.”

“Untie us, Captain,” Bigfoot said. “Our hands will freeze this way. We’ll fight with you, against the Apache—but we can’t fight if our hands are frozen off. I couldn’t hold a rifle steady now. My hands are too cold.”

Salazar looked back at the stumbling Texans. They were weak and cold, but they still looked stronger than his own men. He knew that Bigfoot Wallace was right. His men wouldn’t go much farther, unless they found food. They would flee toward the mountains, or else simply sit down and die. Gomez was the wolf who would finish them, in his own way.