Dead Man's Walk

There was no window in the room they had been put in. When the sun did come up, they only knew it because of a thin line of light under the door.

When the door opened Major Laroche stood there, in a fancier uniform than he had worn during the journey from Las Palomas. His mustache was curled at the ends, and he wore a different sabre, one with a gold handle, in a scabbard plated with gold.

Through the door they could see a line of chairs, and five men with towels and razors waiting behind the chairs. In front of the chairs were small tables with washbasins on them.

“Good morning, Messieurs,” the Major said. “You all look weary. Perhaps it would refresh you to have a nice shave. We want you to look your best for our little ceremony.”

The Rangers came out, blinking, into the bright sunlight. The wind had died in the night; the day was clear, and no dust blew. Bigfoot stepped out cautiously. He had almost convinced himself that the skeleton with the candle had been a dream. When he sat down to get the sand-burrs out of his boots he might have nodded for a moment, and dreamed the skeletal hand.

“I guess a shave would be enjoyable,” he said, but before the words were out of his mouth a shrouded figure walked up and held out the boots he had left in the courtyard last night.

This time the whole company, Matilda included, saw what he had seen in the courtyard. The hand that held the boots was almost skeletal, with just a little loose flesh hanging from one or two fingers. Such flesh as there was, was black. The figure turned quickly and the hood was wrapped closely around it—no one could see whether it had eyes or a nose, but all had seen the bony hand, and it was enough to stop them in their tracks. They looked, and around the edge of the large courtyard, back under the balconies, there were more figures, all of them wrapped in white sheets or white cloaks.

The Texans looked at the barbers standing behind the five chairs, with their towels and razors. They looked like normal men, but the white figures under the balconies made the Texans feel uneasy. Long Bill did a hasty count of people in sheets, and came up with twenty-six.

“Go on, gentlemen—you’ll feel better once you’ve been shaved and barbered,” the Major said.

“I guess I wouldn’t mind a shave,” Bigfoot said. “What worries me is these skeletons—one of them just brought me my boots.”

Major Laroche curled the ends of his mustache. For the first time that any of the Texans could remember, he looked amused.

“They aren’t skeletons, Monsieur Wallace,” he said. “They are lepers. This is San Lazaro—the leper colony.”

“Oh Lord,” Long Bill said. “So that’s it. I seen a leper once—it was in New Orleans. The one I seen didn’t have no hands at all.”

“What about eyes?” Gus asked. “Can they see?”

Major Laroche had already walked off, leaving Long Bill to deal with the technical questions about lepers.

“It was awhile ago—I think it could see,” Long Bill said.

“These can see,” Bigfoot said. “It seen my boots and brought them to me.”

“Yeah, but what if the leprosy is in your boots now?” Bill asked. “If you put them boots on, your foot might rot off.”

Bigfoot had just started to pull on his right boot—he immediately abandoned that effort, and the boots, too.“I’ll just stay barefoot for awhile,” he said. “I’d rather get a few sand-burrs in my feet than to turn into a dern skeleton.”

Gus was more disturbed than the rest of the troop by the white figures standing around the courtyard. They had a ghostly appearance, to him.

“Well, but what are lepers, Bill?” Gus asked. “Are they dead or alive?”

“The one I seen looked kind of in-between,” Long Bill said. “It was moving, so I guess it wasn’t full dead. But it didn’t have no hands—it was like part of it had died and part of it hadn’t.”

Major Laroche had been giving his troops a brief inspection. He turned back impatiently, and gestured for the Texans to hurry on out to the row of barbers.

“Come, your shaves,” he said. “The alcalde will not like it if he comes here and finds you looking like shaggy beasts.”

“Major, we’re a little nervous about them lepers,” Bigfoot admitted. “Bill here’s the only one of us who has ever seen one.”

“The lepers are patients here,” the Major said. “They will not hurt you. Those of you who stay here will soon get used to them.”

“I hope I ain’t staying here, if it means living around people without no skin on their bones,” Gus said.

The Major looked at him with amusement.

“Who stays will depend on the beans,” the Major said. Then, without explaining, he walked away.

Call studied the lepers as best he could. In the night the notion of dead people walking had been fearful, but in the daylight the lepers, seen at a distance, were not so frightening. One leper noticed that Call was looking at him, or her, and seemed to shrink back deeper into the shadows under the balconies. Some were very short—perhaps they were the ones without feet.

Half the Texans sat down in the barber chairs to be shaved, while the others stood watching. The warm sun felt good—so, in time, did the warm water the barbers used. While Call, who was in the first group, was being wiped clean, he happened to look up, to the walkway that ran around the second story of the convent. There he saw several figures, draped in white, grouped around a smaller figure: the smaller figure was dressed entirely in black. The black figure was not draped, as the others were. She was veiled and gloved. Call saw gloved hands gripping the railing of the walkway.They were small hands—he supposed the black figure must be a woman, but as he was getting up from the barber chair, the great gates to San Lazaro swung open and a large, fancy carriage swept in, preceded and followed by cavalrymen on freshly brushed horses.

Major Laroche rushed over and spoke rapidly to the barbers, instructing them to hurry with the second group of Texans. Matilda had been given a washbasin and warm water; she washed her face and arms while the Texans were being shaved.

In the carriage was a fat man in the most elaborate uniform they had yet seen, and four women. Cavalrymen with drawn sabres flanked the carriage, and Major Laroche motioned an orderly to help the alcalde out.

Several comfortable chairs were placed in the courtyard—the alcalde and his women sat in them, and infantrymen opened large parasols and held them over the alcalde and his ladies, to protect them from the sun.

The barbers, made nervous by the presence of the alcalde and under orders to hurry, did hastier work with the second group of Texans. Both Bigfoot and Long Bill suffered small nicks as the result of this haste; but it was not the hasty barbering that worried the Texans—it was what was going to happen to them next. The ceremony that Major Laroche had mentioned to them several times was about to happen. The fat alcalde and four women, all dressed in gay clothes, had come to watch it; and yet, the Texans had no idea what the ceremony might consist of.

Call noticed, though, that ten Mexican soldiers with muskets had lined up in front of a wall, in one corner of the courtyard. They stood there in the sun, holding their muskets. Near them stood a priest in a brown habit.

“They’re go

Bigfoot looked at the soldiers, and drew the same conclusion.

“If we wasn’t chained up at the ankles we might jump the wall— one or two of us might make it out, but I figure they’d run us down in a day or two. Or them dogs would eat us.”

“Me, I’d just as soon be shot as to be eaten by a damn bunch of curs,” Long Bill said.

“Oh, they ain’t going to shoot us—we’re supposed to be marched to Mexico City,” Gus said. ‘This here’s just a show of some kind, for that big Mexican.”