Dead Man's Walk

Call shook his head—he was still very angry.

“I’ll eat when my friends can eat,” he said. “What’s this about a long walk? Colonel Cobb just said we’d be going to Mexico—ain’t we in Mexico?”

“New Mexico, yes,” Salazar said. “But there is another Mexico, and that is where you are going—to the City of Mexico, in fact.”

“That’s where the trial will be held,” he went on. “Or it will be, if any of you survive the long march.”

“How far is the City of Mexico?” Call asked.

“I don’t know, Serior,” Salazar admitted. “I have never had the pleasure of going there.”

“Well, is it a hundred miles?” Call asked. “That’s a long enough walk if we’re just going to be shot at the end of it.”

Salazar looked at him in surprise.

“I see you know little geography,” he said. “The City of Mexico is more than a thousand miles away. It may be two thousand—as I said, I have never been there. But it is a long walk.”

“Hell, that’s too far,” Call said. “I don’t care to walk my feet off, just to get someplace where I’ll be put up against a wall and shot. I’ve done walked a far piece, getting here from Texas. I don’t care to walk another thousand miles, and the boys won’t care to, either.”

“You may not care to, but you will go,” Salazar said. “You will go, and you will be tried properly. We are not barbarians—we do not condemn men without a fair trial.”

Call accepted another cup of coffee, but he didn’t eat, nor did he encourage any more conversations with Captain Salazar, or anyone. Across the plain, he could see Gus walking—he had not even reached the company yet, to inform them of Caleb’s treachery. Call wished he could be walking with him, so he could encourage the Rangers to fight, even if to the death. It would be better to die than to submit to captivity again. But Gus was gone, and he was guarded too closely to attempt to follow. He was being watched, not only by the ten soldiers who had been assigned to him but by most of the soldiers still in camp. In the darkness he would have tried it, but the clouds were thinning; it was bright daylight. Patches of sunlight struck the prairie through the thinning clouds. Gus was walking in a patch of light, toward the ridge.

As Call sat surrounded, trying to control his bitter anger, General Dimasio came out of the white tent, with Caleb Cobb just behind him. The two men, accompanied by the General’s orderlies, walked to the fancy buggy and got in. Call had supposed the General was about to leave—why else hitch the buggy?—but he was shocked when Caleb got in the buggy with the General. The General was drinking liquor, not from a flask but from a heavy glass jar, as they waited for the soldier who was to drive the buggy. Caleb had no jar, but as Call watched, he extracted another cigar from his shirt pocket and carefully readied it for lighting. The soldier who was to drive the team hopped up in his seat, and the buggy swung around to the west. Eight cavalrymen fell in behind it.

As the General and his guest started out of camp, the General stopped the buggy for a moment, in order to say something to Captain Salazar. Call was sitting only a few yards from where the buggy stopped. The sight of Caleb, his own commander, sitting at ease with the Mexican general, caused his anger to rise even higher. Call got to his feet, watching. Captain Salazar sent a soldier running back to the tent—the General had forgotten his fur lap robe. In a moment the soldier came out of the tent with it, being careful to keep the end of the robe from dragging on the wet ground. The robe was almost as heavy as the soldier who was carrying it.

Before anyone could stop him, Call stepped closer to the buggy.

“Where are you running to?” he asked Caleb.

There was such anger in his voice that the ten soldiers who were guarding him all flinched. Caleb Cobb himself looked surprised and annoyed—he had already consigned Call to the past, and did not appreciate being approached so boldly.

“Why, to Santa Fe, Corporal,” Caleb said. “General Dimasio says the governor wants to meet me. I think he plans to give me a little banquet.”

Call decided it would be worth dying just to strike the coward once—at least his body decided it. In a second, he was charging through the startled soldiers—he even managed to snatch a musket as he ran past, but he didn’t get a good grip on it and the musket fell to the ground. He kept running. His wild charge spooked the high-strung buggy horses, both of whom leaped into the air, jerking the driver off the buggy, right under the horse’s feet. It was a light buggy, and Call hit it while it was slightly tipped from the team’s leap. Caleb and the General lurched forward on the buggy seat. Call leapt for Caleb and hit him once. Then, as the buggy was tipping, he grabbed the heavy glass jar the General had been drinking from and smashed Caleb with it, flattening his nose and also his fresh cigar. The jar broke in Caleb’s face—blood and whiskey poured down his chest. Soon four men were squirming in the overturned buggy, which the frantic horses were dragging slowly forward on its side. The driver was caught under one of the wheels and groaned loudly every time ‘the horses moved.

For a second, the whole Mexican camp was paralyzed. They all stood stunned while one Texan caused their General’s buggy to tip over. General Dimasio was near the bottom of the pile, and Call was still pounding at Caleb with his bloody fist. After the first shock, though, the Mexicans regained their power of motion—soon fifty rifles were leveled at Call.

“Don’t shoot!” Captain Salazar yelled, in Spanish. “You’ll hit the General. Use your bayonets—stick this man, stick him!”

The nearest soldier did manage to bayonet Call in the calf, but before anyone else could stab him, General Dimasio struggled to his feet and ordered them to stop.“El Fiero!” he said, looking at Call, whose hands were bleeding as badly as Caleb Cobb’s face.

Several soldiers, all with their bayonets raised to deal the Texan a fatal wound, were startled by the General’s order, but all obeyed it. The first blow with the whiskey bottle had rendered Caleb unconscious, but Call was still trying to strike him.

“I think Colonel Cobb’s jaw is broken,” Salazar said; though the man’s face was very bloody, it seemed to him that his jaw had dropped at an odd angle.

Call wanted to kill Caleb Cobb, but he had no weapon—the few shards of glass around him were all too small to stab with, and before he could get a grip on Caleb’s bloody neck to strangle him, the Mexicans began to drag him off. It was not easy—Call was bent on killing the man, and he flailed so that the soldiers kept losing their grip. Finally, one looped a horsehide rope over one of Call’s legs and they pulled him off. A dozen men piled on him and finally held him steady enough that they could truss him hand and foot. Just before they pulled him off, Call pounded Caleb’s head against the edge of the wagon-wheel seat, opening a split in his forehead. He failed in his purpose, though. Caleb Cobb was damaged, but he was not injured fatally.

Through the legs of the men standing over him, many of them panting from the struggle, Call saw several Mexicans help Caleb Cobb to his feet. Caleb’s face and forehead were dripping blood, but once he cleared his head, he hobbled through the soldiers and broke into the circle where Call lay tied. Without a word he grabbed a musket from the nearest soldier and raised it high, to bayonet Call where he lay, but Captain Salazar was quicker. Before Caleb struck, he stepped in front of him and leveled a pistol at him.

“No, Colonel, put down the gun,” Salazar said. “I must remind you that this man is our prisoner, not yours.”

Call looked at Caleb calmly. He had done his best to kill the man, and was prepared to take the consequences. He knew that Caleb wanted his death—he could see the murderous urge in the man’s eyes.