Dead Man's Walk

“It might be a piece of a cloud,” Gus said. He liked Blackie and didn’t want to flatly contradict him, if he could help it.

Blackie saw that he wasn’t going to be able to convince Bigfoot orSalazar that there were villages to the west. But he had become friendly with six boys from Arkansas, and he had better luck with them.

“Hell, I’d like to live to eat one more catfish from the old Arkansas River,” one of them, a thin youth named Cotton Lovett, said.

“Or maybe one more possum,” Blackie said. He had been down the Arkansas on occasion and remembered that the possums there were fat and easy to catch. The meat of the Arkansas possums was a trifle greasy—several of the Arkansas boys agreed to that—but they were all so hungry that the prospect of grease only made the venture more attractive.

That night, worried about Gomez, Salazar put all his men in a tight circle, facing out, their guns ready. They had crossed a flat lake that afternoon, mainly dry but with just enough smelly puddles to allow the men enough water to boil coffee. Several of the men were already cramping from the effects of the bad water. The Texans had drunk too, and were suffering. Blackie Slidell tried to interest several other men in escaping. He was sure the villages were there. But he found no takers and slipped off about midnight, with the six boys. Call and Gus watched them go—for a moment, Gus felt inclined to go with them, but Call talked him out of it.

“We don’t know much about this country, but we do know the Apaches are that way,” Call reminded him. “That’s one good reason to stay with the troop.”

“I would strike out with the boys, but I’m too cold,” Gus said. “Anyway, I have to get you home. Clara will think poorly of me, if I don’t.”

Call didn’t answer, but he was surprised—not by his friend’s loyalty, but that cold, hungry, lost, and a prisoner, he was still hoping to gain the good opinion of a girl in a general store in Austin. He started to point out what seemed obvious: that the girl had probably forgotten them both, by this time. For all they knew, she could have married. Gus’s hopes of wi

He didn’t say that, though; recent experience had shown him that men had to use what hope they could muster, to stay alive.

They sat together through the night, one on either side of Matilda Roberts. For several days the weather had been overcast, but when the dawn came, it was clear. Just seeing the bright sunlight made them feel better, although it was still cold and the prospects still bleak.

Captain Salazar had taken a little of the bad water the day before; he arose so tired and weak that he could scarcely walk to the campfire. When a cramp took him he had to bend almost double to endure the pain.

Bad as he was, his troop was worse. Several of his soldiers were too weak to rise. The fact that seven prisoners had escaped the night before didn’t interest them—nor did it interest Salazar.

“Their freedom will be temporary,” he told Bigfoot.

“How about our freedom, Captain?” Bigfoot asked. “Half your men are dying and half of ours too. What’s the point of keeping us prisoners when we’re all dying? Why can’t you just turn us loose and let it be every man for himself? Maybe one or two of us will make it home, if we do it that way.”

Call and Gus were there—and Long Bill. Captain Salazar could barely stand on his feet. Even a march of one mile might be beyond him, and they had far more than a mile to go. Bigfoot’s request seemed reasonable, to them. If they were let go they might wander off in twos and threes and find food of some sort and live, whereas if the whole troop had to stay together they would probably all starve.

Salazar looked at his troops, many of them unable to rise. He still had at most eight soldiers who could be considered able-bodied men. The Texans had more, but not many more. The end of the dead man’s walk was not in sight—it might be three days away, or four, or even five. He thought for a moment before answering Bigfoot’s request.

He took his pistol out of its holster, checked to see that it was fully loaded, and handed it butt first to Bigfoot Wallace.

“If you want to be free, kill me,” he said.

Bigfoot looked at the sick, exhausted man in astonishment.

“Captain, I must have misheard,” he said.

“No, you heard correctly,” Salazar said. “I have decided that you can be free, if freedom is what you want most. But I am a Mexican officer, under orders to take you to El Paso. There is no one here to countermand my orders, and the General who gave them to me is dead. You saw what the Apaches did to him.”

“Well, Captain, I know that,” Bigfoot said. “But if the General was here and saw how weak we all are, he might change his mind.”

“He might, but we ca

Bigfoot held the gun awkwardly, not sure what to make of the Captain’s odd decision. He looked at Call, at Gus, at Long Bill Coleman, and at Matilda Roberts. Now and then, throughout their time as prisoners, any one of them would have been happy to have the opportunity to kill Captain Salazar. When Call was being whipped, when they were chained, when Jimmy Tweed was shot— at such moments any of them might have killed him. But Salazar was no longer the cold Captain who chained them or tied them at his whim. He had suffered the same cold and the same hunger as they had, drunk the same bad water and been weakened by the same cramps. He was a weakened man, so weakened that he had calmly ordered his own death.

“Captain, I don’t want to shoot you,” Bigfoot said. “At times I could have done it easy, I expect, but now you’re worse off than we are. I’ve got no stomach for shooting you now.”

Salazar stood his ground. He looked the Texans over. “If not you, then another,” he offered. “Perhaps Corporal Call would shoot me. He endured the lash, and life has not been easy for him since. Surely he would like revenge. His feet are giving him pain, and yet I have kept him walking. Give him the gun.”

“Caleb Cobb broke my feet,” Call said. “You didn’t. I’d shoot you if this was a fight, but I ain’t go

“Corporal McCrae?” Salazar said. “Surely you hate me enough to shoot me,” Salazar said, with a small smile.

“I used to, Captain, but I’m too cold and too tired to worry about shooting anybody,” Gus said. “I’d just like to go home and get married quick.”

Call was a

“Kill me, Senorita,” he said. “Then you will all be free.”

“Free to what?” Matilda asked. “It ain’t you I need to be freed of —I ain’t a prisoner, anyway. What I’d like to be free of is this damn desert, and shooting you won’t accomplish that.”

“Then shoot me just for vengeance,” Salazar said. “Shoot me to avenge your dead.”

“I won’t—they all died from foolishness,” Matilda said. “All except my Shad—my Shad died from being in the wrong spot at the wrong time. Shooting you won’t bring him back, or make me miss him no less.”

Captain Salazar took the pistol, and put it back in its holster.

“Caleb Cobb would have shot you, if he was here,” Bigfoot said, almost apologetically. He thought it bold of Salazar to take the risk he had just taken—any Texan, in the right mood, might have shot him. Of course, the Captain was as tired and hungry as the rest of them; his neck wound had never healed properly—there was pus on his collar. Perhaps he felt his end was coming, and wanted to hasten it. Still, it was bold. A man could perhaps and perhaps all day, and not find his way to the truth.