Dead Man's Walk

Gus listened, but didn’t encourage the rebellion. His friend Call had collapsed, from being made to walk when he wasn’t able. He was weaker than Salazar, and more badly injured. Escape would mean leaving him behind—and Gus had no intention of leaving him behind. Besides, Matilda was incoherent with grief—four men had to pull her loose from Shadrach’s body, before it could be buried. The Mexican soldiers might mostly be boys, but they had had the presence of mind to kill Caleb Cobb—since they had all the guns, rebellion or escape seemed a long chance.

They had planned to shelter for the night in a village called SanSaba, but the burials and the weakness of Captain Salazar kept them in place until it was too late to travel more than a few miles.

That night a bitter wind came from the north, so cold that the men, Mexicans and Texans alike, couldn’t think of anything but warmth. The Texans even agreed to be tied, if they could only share the campfires. No one slept. The wind keened through the camp. Matilda, having no Shadrach to care for, covered Call with her body. Before dawn, they had burned both wagons.

“How far’s that village, Captain?” Bigfoot asked—dawn was grey, and the wind had not abated.

“Too far—twenty miles,” Captain Salazar said.

“We have to make it tomorrow, we’ve got nothing else to burn,” Bigfoot said.

“Call will die if he has to sleep in the open without no fire,” Matilda said.

“Let’s lope along, then, boys,” Bigfoot said.

“I’ll help you with Woodrow, Matty,” Gus said. “He looks poorly to me.”

“Not as poorly as my Shad,” Matilda said. Between them, they got Call to his feet.

ALL DAY CALL STRUGGLED through the barren country. The freezing wind seemed to slide through the slices in his back and sides; it seemed to blow right into him. He couldn’t feel his feet, they were so cold. Gus supported him some; Matilda supported him some; even Long Bill Coleman helped out.

“How’d it get so damn cold?” Jimmy Tweed muttered, several times. “I never been no place where it was this cold. Even that snow wasn’t this cold.”

“You ought to leave me,” Call said. “I’m slowing you down.” It grated on him, that he had to be helped along.

“Maybe there’ll be a bunch of goats in this village,” Gus said. He was very hungry. The wind in his belly made the wind from the north harder to bear. He had always had a fondness for goat meat—in his imagination, the village they were approaching was a wealthy center of goat husbandry, with herds in the hundreds of fat, tasty goats grazing in the desert scrub. He imagined afeast in which the goats they were about to eat were spitted over a good fire, dripping their juices into the flame. Yet, as he struggled on, it became harder to trust in his own imaginings, because there was no desert scrub. There was nothing but the rough earth, with only here and there a cactus or low thornbush. Even if there were goats, there would be no firewood, no fire to cook them over.

Captain Salazar rode in silence, in pain from his neck wound. Now and then the soldiers walking beside him would rub their hands against his horse, pressing their hands into the horsehair to gain a momentary warmth.

Except when she was helping Call, Matilda walked alone. She cried, and the tears froze on her cheeks and on her shirt. She wanted to go back and stay with Shadrach—she could sit by his grave until the wind froze her, or until the Indians came, or a bear. She wanted to be where he had died—and yet she could not abandon the boy, Woodrow Call, whose wounds were far from healed. He still might take a deep infection; even if he didn’t, he might freeze if she was not there to warm him.

The cold had had a bad effect on Johnny Carthage’s sore leg. He struggled mightily to keep up, and yet as the day went on he fell farther and farther behind. Most of the Mexican soldiers were freezing, too. They had no interest in the lame Texan, who dropped back into their ranks, and then behind their ranks.

“I’ll catch you, I’ll catch you,” Johnny said, over and over, though the Mexicans weren’t listening.

By midafternoon some of the other Texans had begun to lag, and many of the Mexican infantrymen as well. The marchers were strung out over a mile—then, over two. Bigfoot went ahead, hoping for a glimpse of the village they were seeking—but he saw nothing, just the level desert plain. Behind them there was a low bank of dark clouds—perhaps it meant more snow. He felt confident that he himself could weather the night, even without fire, but he knew that many of the men wouldn’t—they would freeze, unless they reached shelter.

“I wonder if we even know where we’re going—we might be missing that town,” Bigfoot said, to Gus. “If we miss it we’re in for frosty sleeping.““I don’t want to miss it—I hope they have goats,” Gus said. He was half carrying Call at the time.

Bigfoot dropped back to speak with Salazar—the Captain was plodding on, but he was glassy eyed from pain and fatigue.

“Captain, I’m fearful,” Bigfoot said. “Have you been to this place —what’s it called?”

“San Saba,” Salazar said. “No, I have not been to it.”

“I hope it’s there,” Bigfoot said. “We’ve got some folks that won’t make it through the night unless we find shelter. Some of them are my boys, but quite a few of them are yours.”

“I know that, but I am not a magician,” Salazar said. “I cannot make houses where there are no houses, or trees where there are no trees.”

“Why don’t you let us go, Captain?” Bigfoot asked. “We ain’t all going to survive this. Why risk your boys just to take us south? Caleb Cobb was the man who thought up this expedition, and he’s dead.”

Captain Salazar rode on, still glassy eyed, for some time before answering. When he did speak, his voice was cracked and hoarse.

“I cannot let you go, Mr. Wallace,” he said. “I’m a military man, and I have my orders.”

“Dumb orders, I’d say,” Bigfoot said. “We ain’t worth freezing to death for. We haven’t killed a single one of your people. All we’ve done is march fifteen hundred miles to make fools of ourselves, and now we’re in a situation where half of us won’t live even if you do let us go. What’s the point?”

Salazar managed a smile, though the effort made his face twist in pain.

“I didn’t say my orders were intelligent, merely that they were mine,” he said. “I’ve been a military man for twenty years, and most of my orders have been foolish. I could have been killed many times, because of foolish orders. Now I have been given an order so foolish that I would laugh and cry if I weren’t so cold and in such pain.”

Bigfoot said nothing. He just watched Salazar.

“Of course, you are right,” Salazar went on. “You marched a long way to make fools of yourselves and you have done no harm to my people. If you had, by the way, you would have been shot— then all of us would have been spared this wind. But my orders are still mine. I have to take you to El Paso, or die trying.”

. “It might be the latter, Captain,” Bigfoot said. “I don’t like that cloud.”

Soon, a driving sleet peppered the men’s backs. As dusk fell, it became harder to see—the sleet coated the ground and made each step agony for those with cold feet.

“I fear we’ve lost Johnny,” Bigfoot said. “He’s back there somewhere, but I can’t see him. He might be a mile back—or he might be froze already.”

“I’ll go back and get him,” Long Bill said.

“I wouldn’t,” Bigfoot said. “You need all you’ve got, to make it yourself.”

“No, Johnny’s my companero” Long Bill said. “I reckon I’ll go back. If we die tonight, I expect I should be with Johnny.”

It took Gus and Matilda both to keep Call going. The sleet thickened on the ground, until it became too slippery for him to manage. Finally, the two of them carried him, his arms over their shoulders, his body warmed between their bodies.