Dead Man's Walk

CALEB COBB AND HIS sour captain, Billy Falconer, enlisted the six Rangers for the expedition against New Mexico immediately. The Rangers simply walked up to the hotel where the enlistments were being handled, and the matter was done.

Billy Falconer was a dark little snipe of a man, with quick eyes, but Caleb Cobb was large; to Call he appeared slow. He stood a good six foot five inches, and had long, flowing blond hair. On the table in front of him, when he cast his lazy gaze over the men who hoped to go with him on the expedition, were two Walker Colt pistols, the latest thing in weaponry. Call would have liked one of the Walkers—at least he would have liked to hold one and heft it, though of course he knew that such fine guns were far beyond his means.

“There’s no wages, this is volunteer soldiering,” Caleb Cobb pointed out at once. “All we furnish is ammunition and grub.”

“When possible, we expect you to rustle your own grub, at that,” Captain Falconer said.

Caleb Cobb had a deep voice—he kept a deck of cards in his hand, and shuffled them endlessly.

“This is a freeman’s army—only we won’t call it an army,” Caleb said.

“I wouldn’t call it an army anyway, if these fellows outside the hotel are specimens of the soldiers,” Bigfoot said.

Caleb Cobb smiled, or half smiled. Billy Falconer’s eyes darted everywhere, whereas Caleb scarcely opened his. He leaned back in a big. chair and watched the proceedings as if half asleep.

“Mainly we’re a trading expedition, Mr. Wallace,” Caleb Cobb said after a moment. “St. Louis has had the Santa Fe business long enough. Some of us down here in the Texas Republic think we ought to go up there and capture a bunch of it for ourselves.”

“That crowd outside is mostly bankers and barbers,” Bigfoot said. “If they want to trade, that’s fine, but what are we going to do for fighting men if the Mexicans decide they don’t like our looks?”

“That ain’t your worry, that’s ours,” Captain Falconer snapped.

“It’s mine if I’m taking my scalp over in that direction,” Bigfoot said.

“Why, we’ll gather up some fighters, here and there,” Caleb said. “Captain Billy Falconer’s such a firebrand I expect he could handle the Mexican army all by himself.”

“If he’s such a scrapper then let him go handle Buffalo Hump,” Bigfoot suggested. “He and his boys cooked two mule skinners yesterday, not thirty miles from this hotel.”

“Why, the ugly rascal,” Falconer said, grabbing one of the Walker Colts. “I’ll get up a party and go after him right now. You boys can come if you’re game.”

“Whoa, now, Billy,” Caleb Cobb said. “You can go chase violent Comanches if you want to, but you ain’t taking one of my new pistols. That humpback man might get the best of you, and then I’d be out a gun.”

“Oh—I thought one of these was mine,” Falconer said. He put the gun back on the table with a sheepish look.

“It ain’t,” Cobb said, sitting up a little straighter. Then he looked at Bigfoot again, and let his sleepy eyes drift over the troop. Call didn’t like the man’s manner—he considered it insolent. But he was conscious that he and Gus were the youngest men in the troop—it was not his place to speak.

“When are we leaving, then?” Bigfoot asked.

“Day after tomorrow, if General Lloyd gets here,” Caleb said. “The roads down Houston way are said to be muddy—they’re generally muddy. I guess the General may be stuck.”

“General Lloyd?” Bigfoot asked, a little surprised. “I scouted for the man a few years back. Why are we taking a general, if this is a trading expedition?”

“It never hurts to have a general in tow, especially if you’re dealing with Mexicans,” Cobb said. “They like to deal with the jefe, in my experience. If they get runctious we can hang a few medals on Phil Lloyd and send him in to parley with the governor of Santa Fe —it might spare us some hostilities.”

“I’d rather avoid hostilities, if we can,” Caleb added, shuffling his cards.

“I’d rather avoid them myself—we’ll be outnumbered fifty to one,” Bigfoot commented. “The reason General Lloyd ain’t here is because he got drunk and got lost. The man was dead drunk the whole time I scouted for him, and he got lost every time he stepped out of his tent to piss. He couldn’t find Mexico if you pointed him south and gave him a year, and what’s more, he can’t ride.”

Caleb Cobb chuckled. “Well, he can ride in a wagon, and if he can’t we’ll tie him in,” he said.

“Our mounts are a little on the feeble side,” Long Bill put in. “What do we do about horses?”

“You look like seasoned men,” Caleb said. “The Republic of Texas will furnish you a horse apiece—Billy, sign them some chits. Half the men in Austin are horse traders—I expect you can find good mounts.”

“What about guns? Mine’s a poor weapon,” Call asked. “I would like to replace it if possible, before we leave.”

“Guns are your lookout,” Captain Falconer snapped. “If you’re Rangers I guess you’re drawing Rangers’ pay. You can buy your own guns.”

“No, I think some new guns would be a sound investment, Billy,” Caleb said. “I expect the Mexicans will welcome us with open arms and probably cook a few goats and lay us out a feast. But folks are unpredictable. If the Mexicans get fractious it would be good if we’re well armed, so we can shoot the damn bastards. Tell the quartermaster to help these gentlemen arm themselves proper.”

“So what’s our route, Colonel?” Bigfoot inquired.

“You’re too full of questions—we ain’t figured out the route,” Falconer snapped. “We ain’t got all day to stand around talking, either.”

Caleb Cobb merely smiled.

Captain Falconer briskly wrote them out some chits for horses— good with any trader in Austin, he claimed—and then marched them over to a man named Brognoli, who was in charge of stores and armaments. Brognoli was in the process of buying livestock when they found him. Twenty beeves had been driven in—they were ambling around the town square, which, at that time, was a maelstrom of activity. A wagon master was hammering together a new wagon, several saddle makers were making repairs on saddles the volunteers had brought in, and a dentist was pulling a man’s tooth right in the middle of it all. The man yowled, but the dentist persisted and brought out a tooth with a long red root.

“I’ll be damned if I’d let a man stick pliers in my mouth and pull out my teeth,” Gus said, as they walked through the crowd. Horses, mules, sheep, pigs, and chickens crowded the square. Call had never been in the midst of so much activity before—he felt a little hemmed in. There was so much to see that it was more than a little confusing. So engrossed was the quartermaster Brognoli in purchasing livestock that it was half an hour before he could attend to their request for guns. When he did get time for them, he proved to be a friendly man.

“Muskets are what we’ve got—I’ve not been issued pistols,” he said. “The muskets will do for buffalo, or Indians, either.”

He took them into a storeroom behind a large general store— cases of muskets were stacked on top of one another. While Call and the others were hefting various rifles and looking at ammunition pouches, Gus happened to peek into the store itself—there was a girl standing there by a counter who was so lovely that Gus immediately forgot all about cap-and-ball muskets, ammunition pouches, and everything else. The girl seemed to work in the store—she was helping an old lady try on a sunbonnet. The girl was slim; she had the liveliest expression—also, she was alert. Gus had merely glanced at her, supposing that she was too busy to notice, but she caught his glance and looked at him so directly that it unnerved him. He would have retreated back to the muskets had she not immediately smiled at him in a quick, friendly way.