Dead Man's Walk

At the approach of the racing mare, prairie dogs throughout the town whistled and darted into their holes. Betsy kicked up dust from the edge of more than one hole, but she wove through the town without slowing. Even so, Call didn’t gain much. The Comanches, too, avoided the holes. Just as he cleared the prairie-dog town, Call felt something nudge his arm and looked down to see an arrow sticking in his left arm, just above the elbow. He had not felt the arrow go in, and had no time to pay attention to it. He spurred Betsy, urging her to even more speed, and seemed, for the space of a mile, to gain a little on the Indians. No more arrows flew. Yet when he dared glance back, he saw that he wasn’t gaining. The Comanches were racing abreast, and they were still almost within arrow range.

Call turned and fired his pistol at them once, but the shot had no effect. Now he was racing along the edge of a little bluff some fifteen feet high—ahead, the bluff gradually sloped off, but Call couldn’t wait for the slope. He put Betsy over the edge; she just managed to keep her feet when she hit, and he just managed to keep his seat. At once he heard a buzzing. Betsy began to jump and dance. Call looked around, and saw rattlesnakes everywhere. He had jumped to the edge of a den. It seemed to him that at least a hundred snakes surrounded him—they had been sunning themselves on the rocky slope: the abrupt arrival of a horse and rider startled them. Now they were buzzing in chorus. A shot came from above, but it zinged off a rock. Call put spurs to Betsy again—he couldn’t worry about the snakes—he would be dead anyway, if he didn’t run.

Seeing the snakes, the Comanches chose to lose ground and not risk the jump. But they were racing along a short decline and would soon be trying to overtake him. When he ran over the next ridge Call saw the troop—there they were, but they still seemed miles away, and the Comanches had returned to the pursuit. They were a hundred yards back, but he knew they would close with him before he could make the troop, unless he was very lucky. They had fanned out now. Two were trying to flank him on his right, while the third was directly behind him. Betsy was running flat out: so far her wind had held. Call debated the wisdom of shooting off his pistol, in the hope that someone in the troop would hear it and rush to his aid. It was a point of tactics he had not thought out in advance. If he fired, he would soon have an empty pistol.

He kept the pistol ready, but didn’t fire. He thought he could kill one Indian, anyway, if there was a close fight. Perhaps he would wound another. If the third man got him, at least he would have made a strong struggle.

Then he heard rifle shots from just ahead of him, where two or three trees bordered a little stream. A doe came bounding through the trees, so close that Betsy almost collided with it. Call skirted the spring and saw Long Bill Coleman ahead—he had been chasing the doe. He had shot once and was just reloading. He was startled to see Call, but even more startled to see the Comanches. Although the odds had altered, the Comanches were still coming.

“Oh, boy, where’s that damn Blackie when we need him?” Long Bill said, wheeling his horse. “He rode out with me but he thought the doe was too puny to bother about.”

An arrow dropped between them, and then two gunshots came from behind, one of which nicked Call’s hat brim. They raced on, hoping someone in the troop would hear the shooting and respond—it was awhile before they realized the Comanches were no longer chasing them. When they pulled up and looked back, they saw that the three Comanches, having missed the scalps, had taken the small doe instead. One of them had just slung the carcass onto his horse.

“Oh boy, I’m winded,” Long Bill said. “I was just trying to kill a little meat. I sure wasn’t looking for no Indian fight.”

Call remembered that Gus and Bigfoot were alone, at the lip of the great canyon. The three men who chased them might have been part of a larger party. With so many buffalo grazing in the canyon, it was likely more Indians were about.

Caleb Cobb was enjoying a long cigar when Call raced up: he seemed more interested in Betsy than in the news.

“I come close to choosing that little mare for myself,” he said. “I expect it’s lucky for you that I didn’t. I think Mr. Bigfoot Wallace made a good point when he said it’s horseflesh that usually makes the difference in Indian fighting.”

“Colonel, there’s hundreds of buffalo down in that canyon,” Call said. “There might be more Indians, too.”

“All right, we’re off to the rescue,” Caleb said. “We’ll take about ten men. Me and Jeb will come too. It’s a fine morning for a fracas.”

Call had forgotten to mention the dead man. He had had only a moment to look at him, before the Comanches attacked. When he told the Colonel about it, the Colonel shrugged.“Likely just a traveler who took the long route,” he said. “Traveling alone in this part of the country is generally foolhardy.” “I wouldn’t do it for seventy dollars,” Long Bill observed. Shadrach had been napping when Call arrived. The change in the old mountain man surprised everyone: from being independent, stern, and a little frightening, even when he was in a good temper, he had become aged. Though Call had always known that Shadrach was old, he had not thought of him that way until they crossed the Brazos; now, though, it was impossible to think of him any other way. He had once wandered off alone for days; now, when he left camp to hunt, he was always back in a few hours. He sometimes dozed, even when on horseback. Unless directly addressed, he spoke only to Matilda.

The news that they were near the Palo Duro Canyon seemed to take years off Shadrach, though—at once he was mounted, his long rifle out of its scabbard.

“I’ve heard of it all my life, now I aim to see it,” Shadrach said. Then he turned to Matilda.

“If it’s safe, then I’ll come and get you, Matty,” he said, before loping off.

Sam took a hasty look at Call’s arrow wound, broke off the arrow shaft and cut the arrow free. Call was impatient—he didn’t regard the wound as serious: he wanted to be off. But Sam made him wait while he dressed the wound correctly, and the Colonel, though mounted, waited with no show of impatience.

“I want Corporal Call to be well doctored,” he said. “We can’t afford to have him sick.”

Call led them to the dead man, whom Shadrach recognized. “It’s Roy Char—he was a mining man,” Shadrach said. “I don’t know what there could be to mine, out in this country,” Caleb said.

“Roy was after that old gold,” Shadrach said.

“What old gold?” Caleb asked. “If there’s a bunch of old gold around here we ought to find it and forget about New Mexico.”

“Some big Spaniard came marching through here in the old times,” Shadrach said. “They say he found a town that was made of gold. I guess Roy figured some of it might still be around here, somewhere.”

“Oh, Senor Coronado, you mean,” Caleb said. “He didn’t find no city of gold—all he found was a lot of poor Indians. Your friend Mr. Char lost his life for nothing. The gold ain’t here.”