Dead Man's Walk

Once inside the gates the Texans, though still chained, were allowed the freedom of the courtyard. They were served a simple meal of beans and posole, on the table where the jar they had drawn from had been set.

An old man and an old woman served them—both were lepers, yet neither was shrouded, and the dark spots on their cheeks and arms looked no worse to the Texans than bad bruises. Both seemed to be kindly people; they smiled at the Texans, and brought them more food when they emptied their dishes. The only soldiers left in San Lazaro were the drunks in the oxcart. In midafternoon, they began to awake. When they did, they picked up their weapons and drove the oxcart out of the walls. All of them looked frightened.

“They’re scared of them dogs,” Gus said. “Why don’t the Major get up a dog hunt and kill the damn curs?”

“There’d just be more,” Call said. “You can’t kill all the dogs.”

He watched the lepers, as they came and went at their tasks. All of them kept themselves covered, but now and then a wind would riffle a cloak, or blow a shawl, so that he could glimpse the people under the wraps. Some were bad: no chins, cheeks that were black, noses half eaten away. Some limped, from deformities of their feet. One old man used a crutch—he had only one foot. There were a few children playing in the courtyard; all of them seemed normal to Call. There was even a little blond boy, about ten, who showed no sign of the disease. Some of the adults appeared to be not much worse than the old man and the old woman who served them. Some had dark spots on their cheeks and foreheads, or on their hands.

Once the soldiers were gone, San Lazaro did not seem a bad place. Many of the lepers looked at the Texans in a friendly way. Some smiled. Others, whose mouths were affected, covered themselves, but nodded when they passed.

Overhead, the dust swirled so high they could barely see the mountain that loomed over the convent.

Gus felt such relief at being alive, that his appetite for gambling began to return. He had ceased to mind the lepers much—at night they might be scary, but in the daylight the place they were in looked not much worse than any hospital. He began to wish he had a pack of cards, or at least some dice, though of course he had not one cent to gamble with.

“I wonder how long the Mexicans mean to leave us here?” he asked.

Brognoli’s head was going back and forth, like the pendulum of a clock, as it had ever since his fright in the canyon. He watched the lepers with dispassion, and the little blond boy with curiosity. Once, he looked up at the balcony where the lady in black had been and saw a short stout woman standing there. She spoke, and the little blond boy reluctantly left his play and ran upstairs.

Call was thinking about a way to rid them of the leg irons. If he had a hammer and a chisel of some sort, he felt certain he could break the chains himself. The Major had said nothing about coming back, and the last of the soldiers had gone. They were alone with the lepers—the only impediments to their escape were the chains and the dog packs. If he could get the chains off, there would be a way to brave the dogs.

Wesley Buttons, though he had held up bravely during the long march and the drawing of the beans, was feeling keenly the loss of his two brothers, and of the rest of the troop.“I remember when we left—I got to drive the wagon with old General Lloyd in it,” he said. “We had an army. There was enough of us to hold off the Indians and whip the Mexicans. Now look— there’s just us, and we’re way out here in the desert, locked in with these sick ‘uns.”

“It’s a long way home, I reckon,” he added. “Ma’s going to be sad, when she hears about the boys.”

Brognoli’s head swung back and forth, back and forth. “I barely know which way is home,” Long Bill said. “It’s so dusty it’s all I can do to keep my directions. I guess I could go downriver, but it would be a pretty long walk.”

Gus remembered that it was the same river they had camped on when Matilda caught the big green snapping turtle.

“Why, if it’s the Rio Grande, we could just stroll along it easy,” he said. “Matty could catch us turtles, when we get hungry.”

Matilda shook her head—she didn’t welcome the prospect of another long walk.

“It’s just the six of us got across New Mexico,” she pointed out. “If we have to walk the rest of the way, I doubt any of us will make it. That big Indian knows that river—he might get us yet.”

“We’d have to have weapons,” Call said. “None of us would make it, without weapons.”

“I don’t see what the hurry is,” Gus said. “We’ve had a long hike, as it is. I’d like to laze around here and rest up, myself. These lepers ain’t bothering us. All you got to do is not look at them too close.”

He had been inclined to try escape, until Matilda had mentioned Buffalo Hump. Memory of the fierce Comanche put a different slant on such a trip. Better to stay inside the walls of San Lazaro and rest with the lepers, than to expose themselves to Buffalo Hump again—especially since they only had five men.

“I want to leave, if we can get these chains off,” Call said. “What if the Major comes back and has us draw some more beans?”

He was tired, though, and didn’t urge escape immediately. When the wind was high, his back still sometimes throbbed, and his sore foot pained him. A day or two’s rest wouldn’t hurt—at least it wouldn’t if the Mexicans didn’t decide to eliminate them all.

As the evening wore on, the Texans rested and napped—they had been assigned the little room where they had spent the night’ before, but no one really wanted to go into such a dark hole. The courtyard was su

Gus was determined to gamble—he had asked several of the Mexicans who worked in the convent if they had any cards; one woman with only three teeth took a shine to him and managed to find an incomplete deck. It was missing about twenty cards, but Gus and Long Bill soon devised a game. They broke a few straws off a broom to use for money.

While they were making up rules for a card game involving only thirty-three cards, a black woman taller than Gus came across the courtyard. She didn’t seem to be a leper—her face and hands were normal. She approached them in such a dignified ma

“Gentlemen, I have an invitation for you,” the Negress said, in English better than their own. “Lady Carey would like to ask you to tea.”

“Ask us to what?” Gus asked. He was taken by surprise. Although he had just shaved the day before, the dignity and elegance of the black woman made him feel scruffy.

“Tea, gentlemen,” the Negress said. “Lady Carey is English, and in England they have tea. It’s like a little meal. Lady Carey’s son, the viscount Mountstuart, will be taking it with us. I’m sure you’ve seen him playing with the Mexican children. He’s the one who’s blond.”

Call, too, was startled by the black woman’s courtesy and poise. He had never seen a Negress so tall, much less one so well spoken. Few black women in Texas would dare to speak to a group of white men so boldly, and yet the woman had not been rude in any way. She had an invitation to deliver, and she had delivered it. Like Gus, he felt that the few Rangers left were a rugged lot, hardly fit to take food with an English lady.

While he and Gus and Wesley and Long Bill were looking at one another, a little uncertain as to how to respond, the black woman turned to Matilda Roberts and smiled.

“Miss Roberts, Lady Carey knows you’ve traveled a long way across a dusty land,” the Negress said. “She was thinking you might appreciate a bath and a change of clothes.“Matilda was surprised by the woman’s serenity.

“I would … I would … mainly I’ve just had a wash in the river, when we were by the river,” Matilda said.