Dead Man's Walk

Now they were leaving them—Salazar and the other Mexicans were already a hundred yards away, plodding on toward the far distant mountains.

“I’m much obliged,” Call said, to the boy who had smoothed his crutch.

Several of the Texans mumbled brief good-byes, but Matilda didn’t—she felt she couldn’t stand it: boys dying, day after day, one by one. She turned her back and walked away, crying.

“Oh Lord, I wish we’d get somewhere,” Long Bill said. “All this walking on an empty belly’s wore me just about out.”

That afternoon the company—what was left of it—stumbled on a patch of gourds. There were dozens of gourds, their vines curling over the sand.

“Can we eat these, Captain?” Bigfoot asked.

“They’re gourds,” Salazar said. “You can eat them if you want to eat gourds.”

“Captain, there’s nothing else,” Bigfoot pointed out. “Them mountains don’t look no closer. We better gather up a few and try them.”

“Do as you like,” Salazar said. “I will have to be hungrier than this before I eat gourds.”

That night, though, he was hungrier than he had been in the afternoon, and he ate a gourd. They made a little fire and put the gourds in it, as if they were potatoes. The gourds shriveled up, and the men nibbled at their ashy skins.

“Mine just tastes like ashes,” Gus said, in disappointment.

“It might taste better if it were served on a plate,” Long Bill said, a remark that amused Bigfoot considerably. Though he had strongly recommended gathering the gourds—after all, there was nothing else to gather—he had not yet got around to tasting one.

Several of the men were so hungry they ate the scorched gourds without hesitation.

“Tastes bitter as sin,” Gus observed, after chewing a bite.

“I wouldn’t know what you mean,” Bigfoot said. “I’m a stranger to sin.”

Matilda stuck a knife into her gourd, and a puff-of hot air came out. She sniffed at the gourd, and immediately started sneezing. Annoyed, she flipped the gourd away.

“If it makes me sneeze, it’s bad,” she said.

Later, though, she found the gourd and ate it. ‘

One of the Mexican soldiers had gathered up the gourd vines, as well as the gourds. He scorched a vine and ate it; others soon followed suit. Even Salazar nibbled at a vine.

“When will we hit the mountains, Captain?” Bigfoot asked. “There might be game, up there where it’s high.” Salazar sighed—his mood had darkened as the day wore on. He had scarcely any of his company left, and only a few of his prisoners. It would not sit well with his superiors.

“The Apaches may not let us cross,” he said. “There are many Apaches here. If there are too many, none of us will get through.”

“Now, Captain, don’t be worrying,” Bigfoot said. “We’ve walked too far to be stopped now.”

“You’ll be stopped if enough arrows hit you,” Salazar said.

The night was clear, with very bright stars. Salazar could not see the distant mountains, but he knew they were there, the last barrier they would have to cross before they reached the Rio Grande and safety. He knew he had done a hard thing—he had crossed the Jornada del Muerto with his prisoners. He had lost many soldiers and many prisoners, but he was across. In two days they could be eating goat, and corn, and perhaps the sweet melons that grew along the Rio Grande. None of his superiors could have done what he did, and yet he knew he would not be greeted as a hero, or even as a professional. He would be greeted as a failure. For that reason, he thought of Gomez—it would be worth dying, with what men he had left, if he could only kill the great Apache. Then, at least, he would die heroically, as befitted a soldier.

“I think the Captain’s lost his spunk,” Gus said, observing how silent and melancholy the man had been around the campfire. Even the amusing sight of his whole company attempting to eat the bitter gourds had not caused him to smile.

“It ain’t that,” Bigfoot said—then he fell silent. He had been around defeated officers before, in his years of scouting for the military. Some had met defeat unfairly, through caprice or bad luck; others had been beaten by such overwhelming numbers that survival itself would have brought them glory. And yet to military men, circumstances didn’t seem to matter—if they didn’t win, they lost, and no amount of reflection could take away the sting.

“It ain’t that,” he said, again. The young Rangers waited for him to explain, but Bigfoot didn’t explain. He drew circles in the ashes of the campfire with a stick.

The next morning the mountains looked closer, though not by much. The men were weak—some of them looked at the mountains and quailed. The thought that there was food on the other side of the mountains brought them no energy. They didn’t think they could cross such hills, even if the whole plain on the other side was covered with food. They marched on, dully and slowly, not thinking, just walking.

When the mountains were closer, no more than a few miles away, Call saw something white on the prairie ahead. At first he thought it was just another patch of sand—but then he looked closer, and saw that it was an antelope. He grabbed Gus’s arm and pointed.

“Tell the Captain,” he said. “Maybe Bigfoot can shoot it.”

When the antelope was pointed out to Captain Salazar, he immediately gave Bigfoot his rifle. Bigfoot was watching the antelope closely. He cautioned the troop to be quiet and still.

“That buck’s nervous,” he said. “We better just sit real still, for awhile. Maybe he’ll mistake us for a sage bush.”

All the men could see that the antelope was nervous, and a minute later they saw why: a brown form came streaking out of a patch of sage bush and leapt on the antelope’s neck, knocking it down.

“What’s that?” Gus said, startled. He had never seen an animal run so fast. All he could see was a ball of brown fur, curled over the antelope’s neck.

“That’s a lion,” Bigfoot said, standing up. “We’re in luck, boys. I doubt I could have got close enough to that buck to put a bullet in him. The cougar done my work for me.”

He started walking toward the spot where the cougar was finishing his kill. The rest of the troop didn’t move.

“He’s bold, ain’t he—that lion might get him next,” Gus said.

Before Bigfoot had gone more than a few yards, the cougar looked up and saw him. For a second the animal froze; then he bounded away. Bigfoot raised his rifle, as if to shoot, but then he lowered it. Soon they saw the spot of brown moving up the shoulder of the nearest mountain.

“Why didn’t you shoot it?” Call asked, when he came up to Bigfoot. He would have liked a closer look at the cougar.

“Because I might need the bullet for an Apache,” Bigfoot said. “We got a dead antelope—that’s better eating than a lion. When there’s food waiting to be et it’s foolish to be wasting bullets on cats you can’t hit anyway.”

They skinned the antelope, and soon had a fire going and meat cooking. The smell of the meat soon revived the men who had been ready to die. Next day, they jerkied the meat they hadn’t eaten,lingering in camp between the mountain and the plain. The more they ate the better their spirits rose; only Captain Salazar remained despondent. He ate only a little of the antelope meat, silent. Bigfoot, confident that what remained of the troop would now survive, tried to draw Salazar out about the future, but the Captain answered him only briefly.

“El Paso is not far,” Salazar said. “We are all about to end our journey.”