Dead Man's Walk

Call was as hungry as the rest of the troop, but because of his crutch, he was in better spirits, even though the crutch was rough and soon rubbed his underarm raw. He had nothing to pad the crutch with, though. Matilda offered to tear off a piece of her shirt and pad the crutch for him, but he refused her. By the end of the third day, his shoulder was paining him almost as much as his foot had. Matilda, tired of his stubbor

Even so, Call lagged behind the rest of the Texans. He was not quite at the rear of the column, though; three of the weakest of the young Mexican soldiers lagged far behind him. Though Call could not speak their language, he had ceased to regard the young soldiers as enemies. They had starved and frozen, just like the Texans; he didn’t think they would shoot him, even if he hobbled right past them and tried to escape.

From time to time he glanced back, to see that the boys were still following him. He was afraid they might collapse and die, and he knew that if the company was too far in advance of them when they collapsed, Salazar would not go back for them. The Apaches had not bothered them for four nights; the assumption around the campfire was that they had given up, or decided the pursuit of such a miserable band wasn’t worth it. There were no horses to take, only a few weapons.

Captain Salazar was not convinced. He didn’t share the Texans’ optimism, in regard to Gomez.

“If he stopped, it is because he has other business,” he told Bigfoot. “If he has no other business, he will follow us and try to kill us all. I don’t think he will attack—he will wait and take us, one by one.”

He posted as strong a guard as he could muster, knowing, even so, that half his soldiers would fall asleep on duty. But four nights passed, and no corpses were found in the morning.

“He wouldn’t wait four nights, if he was still after us,” Bigfoot said.

“He would wait forty nights,” Salazar told him. “He is Gomez.”

The wrapping on Call’s crutch had come loose—he stopped to rewrap it and, when he did, glanced back at the young Mexicans. It was then that he saw the Apache, a short, stumpy-legged man, with a bow in his hand, about to release an arrow. Before he could move, the arrow hit him in the right side. Call had no weapon—all he could do was yell, but he yelled loudly and the troop turned. Call gripped his crutch, prepared to defend himself if the Apache came closer, but the Apache had vanished, and so had the three Mexican soldiers who had been trailing behind. The plain to the north was completely empty.

Bigfoot came ru

“Why, he nearly missed you,” he said. “The arrow’s barely hanging in you.”

Before Call could even look down, Bigfoot had ripped the arrow out—it had only creased his ribs. Blood flowed down his leg, but he didn’t feel it. The shock of seeing the Apache, only fifty yards behind him, left him dizzy for a minute.

Captain Salazar came ru

“Where did he go?” he asked.

Call, still dizzy, couldn’t tell him. He pointed to the spot where the short Indian had been, but when Bigfoot and Salazar and a few of the Mexican troops ran in that direction, they found no Indians.The three Mexican soldiers who had trailed Call were dead, each with two arrows in them. They lay face down, fully clothed.

“At least they didn’t get cut,” Long Bill said.

“No, he was in a hurry,” Salazar said. “He wanted Corporal Call —and he almost had him. You are a very lucky man, Corporal. I think it was Gomez, and Gomez rarely misses.”

“I saw him,” Call said. “He would have been on me in another few steps, if I hadn’t turned. I expect he would have put an arrow right through me.”

“If it was Gomez and you saw him, then you are the first white to see him and live,” Salazar said.

“He won’t like that,” Bigfoot said. “We’d best watch you close.”

“You don’t have to—I’ll watch myself,” Call said.

“Don’t be feisty, Woodrow,” Bigfoot said. “That old Apache might come back and try to finish the job.”

“I hate New Mexico,” Gus said. “If it ain’t bears, it’s Indians.”

That night Call was placed in the center of the company, for his own safety; even so, he slept badly, and was troubled by dreams in which Gomez was carrying Buffalo Hump’s great hump. One moment the Apache chief would be aiming an arrow at him, so real and so close that he would awaken. Then, the minute he dozed off again, it would be the Comanche chief that was aiming the arrow.

In the grey morning, cold but glad to be alive, Call remembered that a long time back Bigfoot had had a dream in which Buffalo Hump and Gomez rode together into Mexico, to take captives.

“Didn’t you dream about Buffalo Hump and Gomez fighting together?” he asked.

“Yes, I hope it don’t never come true,” Bigfoot said. “One of them at a time’s plenty to have to whip.”

“We ain’t whipping them,” Call pointed out. “We ain’t killed but two of them, and they’ve accounted for most of our troop.”

“I admit they’re wild,” Bigfoot said. “But they’re just men. If you put a bullet in them in the right place, they’ll die, just like you or me. Their skins ain’t the same colour as ours, but their blood’s just as red.”

Call knew that what Bigfoot said was true. The Indians were men; bullets could kill them. He himself had fired a bullet into Buffalo Hump’s son and the son had died, just as dead as the three Mexican boys who had fallen to Apache arrows.

“It’s hitting them that’s hard,” he said. “They’re too smart about the country.”

So far the Indians had won every encounter, and not because bullets couldn’t hurt them: they won because they were too quick, and too skilled. They moved fast, and silently. Both Kicking Wolf and Gomez had taken horses, night after night—horses that were within feet of the best guards they could post.

“The Corporal is right,” Salazar said. “We are strangers in this country, compared to them. We know a little about the animals, that’s all. The Apaches know which weeds to eat—they can smell out roots and dig them up and eat them. They can survive in this country, because they know it. When we learn how to smell out roots, and which weeds to eat, maybe we can fight them on even terms.”

“I doubt I’ll ever be in the mood to study up on weeds,” Gus said.

“This is gloomy talk, I guess I’ll walk by myself awhile, unless Matty wants to walk with me,” Bigfoot said. He didn’t like to hear Indians overpraised, just because the Rangers found them hard to kill. There were exceptional Indians, of course, but there were also plenty who were unexceptional, and no harder to kill than anyone else. He himself would have welcomed an encounter with Gomez, whom Call described as short and bowlegged.

“I expect I can outfight most bowlegged men,” he remarked to Long Bill Coleman, who found the remark eccentric.

“I wish I still had my harmonica,” Long Bill said. “It’s dreary at night, without no tunes.”

THE NEXT DAY THEY saw a distant outline to the west—the outline of mountains. Captain Salazar’s spirits improved at once.

“Those are the Caballo Mountains,” he said. “Once we cross them we will soon arrive at a place where there is food. Las Cruces is not far.”

“Not far?” Gus said. Even with his eyesight the distant mountains made only the faintest outline, and his stomach was growling from hunger.

“What does he think far is?” he asked Call. “We might walk another week before we come to them hills.”

Call’s shoulder had become so sensitive from the rough crutch that he had to grit his teeth every time he put his weight on it. His foot was better—he could put a little weight on it, if he moved cautiously—but he was afraid to discard the crutch entirely. The mountains might be another seventy-five miles away, and even then, they would have to be crossed.