Dead Man's Walk (8 page)

Matilda was cackling, and even Sam chuckled.
Call was on the point of laughing too, but restrained himself out of consideration for his friend.
Matilda laughed so loudly that Tom, her horse, usually a stolid animal, began to hop around and act as if he might throw her.
"Dern," Gus said, so stricken with embarrassment that he could not think of another word to say. Though he had rolled all the way down the hill, his rifle had only rolled partway. It was lodged against a rock, twenty yards above them.
"Get mounted, you damn scamp, and go bring my horse back, before he runs himself out of sight," the Major commanded. "You can get that rifle when you come back." Several Rangers, Ezekiel Moody among them, were watching the horse run off--all of them were in a high state of hilarity. Rip Green was laughing so hard he could scarcely stand up.
Everyone except the Major and Gus were enjoying the little moment of comic relief when, suddenly, they saw the Major's horse go down.
"Prairie-dog hole. I hope his leg's not broken," Johnny Carthage said.
Before he could even finish saying it the sound of a shot echoed off the mountain behind them.
"No prairie-dog hole, that horse was shot," Bigfoot said.
Shadrach immediately led his horse behind one of the larger boulders.
"My God, now what?" the Major said.
All he had taken off his saddle was the rifle itself--his ammunition and all his kit were with the fallen horse.
No one said a word. The plain before them looked as empty as it had when they had all come racing across it. There was no sign of anyone. Two hawks circled in the sky. The fallen horse did not rise again.
The Rangers, all of them ready to pop off a few shots at some mountain goats, were caught in disarray. Young Josh Corn, having just emptied his stomach, found that he needed to empty his bowels too, and walked down the slope some thirty yards to a little bunch of sage bushes; most of the Rangers had no qualms about answering calls of nature in full view of a crowd, but Josh liked a little privacy. He had just undone his britches when Gus rolled down the hill. But his call was urgent; he was squatting down amid the sage bushes when the Major's horse bolted.
He heard the shot that killed the horse, but supposed it was only some Ranger, popping off a long shot at one of the goats. For a moment his cramping bowels occupied all his attention. Even since gulping a bellyful of Pecos water he had been afflicted with cramps of such severity that from time to time he was forced to dismount and pour out fluids so alkaline that they turned white in the sun.
Josh kept squatting, emptying himself of more Pecos salts. He was in no rush to get back to the crowd--the cramps were still bad, so bad that he could only have walked bending over, which would have made him an object of derision to his fellows.
Besides, he could tell from looking at the cliff that he was too weak to make it up very far. Unless he was lucky, someone else would have to shoot the goats.
Josh had just reached over to strip a few sage leaves to wipe himself with when he saw a movement in the sage some fifteen yards away. All he could see was the back of an animal; he thought it must be a pig, moving through the thickest part of the little patch of sage and chaparral. Josh reached for his pistol. The pig would come in sight in just a moment, and he meant to empty his pistol into it.
The other Rangers could go scampering up the mountain to shoot at goats if they wanted to--he would be the one bringing home meat: pig meat. They had feasted on several javelinas on the trip from San Antonio. Some had been tough, others succulent. When there was time Sam liked to bury the whole pig, head, hide, and all, overnight, with coals heaped on it. By morning the pig would be plenty tender; Sam would dig it up and the Rangers would enjoy a fine meal.
Buffalo Hump had been watching the boy.
When the young Ranger started to reach for his pistol, Buffalo Hump rose to his knees and fired an arrow just above the tops of the sage: Josh Corn saw him only for a split second before the arrow cut through his throat and severed his windpipe.
Josh dropped his pistol and managed to get a hand on the arrow, but he fell sideways as he grasped it and didn't feel the knife that finished cutting his throat. Buffalo Hump dragged the quivering body behind him as he retreated through the sage. Kicking Wolf had just shot the Major's horse; all the Rangers were looking across the plain. They had forgotten the boy who was emptying his bowels amid the sage.
Buffalo Hump had his horse staked in a shallow gully. As soon as he got the dead boy into the gully he stripped him, cut off his privates, and threw him on the back of his horse. A curtain of blood from the cut throat covered the boy's torso. Buffalo Hump mounted, but kept low. He held the streaming corpse across the horse's rump with one hand. He waited, looking to see if the Rangers were inclined to mount and go investigate the sudden death of the Major's horse. He had watched the Rangers closely the day of the sandstorm and felt he knew what the capability of the little force was. The only man he had to watch was old Shadrach, known to the Comanches as Tail-of-the-Bear. The long rifle of Tail-of-the-Bear had to be respected. The old man seldom missed. Bigfoot Wallace was quick and strong, but no shot; Buffalo Hump regretted not having killed him the day of the great ice storm on the Clear Fork of the Brazos. The fat Major was a good shot with a pistol, but seldom used the rifle.
Buffalo Hump waited, while the blood from Josh Corn's corpse ran down his horse's rear legs and soaked his flanks. In their haste to kill mountain goats--in fact, two Comanche boys with goat skins over their shoulders--the Rangers had foolishly run their horses down. In their eagerness the Rangers had also outrun the old woman and the tongueless boy.
He himself had already caught the old woman and notched her nose, to pay back the insult she had given his father. The tongueless boy he had given to Kicking Wolf, who would sell him as a slave. There had been much ammunition on the pack mule, too--the Rangers would soon be out of bullets, if they started shooting. He had slipped into the gully merely to watch the white men at close range, but then the careless young Ranger walked into the sage to empty his bowels. Taking him had been easier than snaring a prairie dog, or killing a turkey.
Once he was satisfied that the whites were not going as a troop to find the killer of the Major's horse, Buffalo Hump burst out of the gully.
He yelled his war cry as loudly as he could and raced directly in front of the whites, still holding the bloody corpse across the rump of his horse. He saw a bullet kick the dust, well short of where he rode. Old Tail-of-the-Bear was shooting low. Even so, Buffalo Hump slid to the off side of his mount, one hand gripping the mane, one leg hooked over the horse. The old man would keep shooting and he might not always shoot low.
Then, in plain sight of the Rangers, Buffalo Hump regained his seat, took the corpse of Josh Corn by one foot, and flung it high in the air. Then he whirled to face the whites for a few seconds, screaming his defiance. When he saw bullets kicking dust at his horse's feet, he turned and rode slowly out of range.
At the base of the steep mountain; the Rangers were stunned, and in disarray.
"Where's that old woman?" the Major asked.
He remembered suddenly that in their haste to get to the mountain they had run off and left the pack mule that was carrying the old woman and the boy; he remembered, too, that most of their ammunition was on that mule.
The Major looked around and saw that no one had even heard his question. All the Rangers had scrambled to take cover behind the few boulders or the scarce bushes. Gus and Call were huddled behind a rock, but it wasn't really a boulder and didn't hide them very well. Both of them looked around for a bigger rock, but all the bigger rocks had Rangers huddled behind them.
The Major himself got behind the other pack mule, the only cover available.
The cry that Buffalo Hump yelled as he raced across the desert was far worse, in Call's view, than the wailing of the old Comanche woman.
Buffalo Hump's war cry throbbed with hatred, terrible hatred. When the Comanche whirled to face them and flung a naked white body streaked with blood up in the air, both boys were shocked.
"Why, he's kilt somebody," Gus said in a shaking tone.
Call was more shocked by how bloody the corpse was. Whoever it was--and he could see that it was a white man--had poured out a terrible lot of blood.
"Where's young Josh?" Bigfoot asked--he had a bad feeling, suddenly. "I don't see young Josh anywhere." Ezekiel Moody gave a start--he and Josh Corn were best friends. They had joined up with the Rangers on a whim. Zeke looked around at the various Rangers, crouched behind such cover as they could get. He saw no sign of his friend.
"Why, he was right here," Zeke said, standing up.
"I think he just walked off to take a shit-- he's been having the runs." "Foolish," the Major said. He couldn't spot the boy, either, and got a weak feeling suddenly in his gut.
"He's been poorly in his belly since he drank that alky water," Zeke protested. He was sure Josh wasn't doing anything wrong.
"I wasn't talking about Josh when I said it was foolish," the Major said. He had been talking about himself. One glimpse of a mountain goat--Bigfoot's glimpse at that--had encouraged them to make a wild charge and exhaust their horses. The thought of a hunt had been something to break the monotony of plodding on west.
Well, there was no monotony now: the Comanches had really broken it.
Now they were backed against a cliff, his horse was dead, and possibly a boy, too.
"I think that was Josh he pitched up in the air," Bigfoot said. "I think that sneaking devil caught him." "No, it can't be Josh!" Zeke said, suddenly very distraught. "Josh just went over in them bushes to take a shit." "I think he caught him, Zeke," Bigfoot said, in a kindly tone. He knew the boys were friends.
"Oh no, all that blood," Zeke said. Before anyone could stop him he jumped on his horse and went riding off toward the spot where Buffalo Hump had thrown the body.
"Hell, where's that pup going?" Shadrach said.
He came walking up, disgusted with himself for having been tricked into such a situation. He hadn't expected to hit Buffalo Hump when he shot, unless he was lucky, and he didn't intend to waste any more bullets in the hope of being lucky. He might need every bullet--likely would.
Just as he was walking up to the group, he thought he saw movement--the movement had been an arrow, which thudded into Bigfoot's horse. The horse squealed and reared. The arrow had come from above--from the mountain.
"They're above us!" Shadrach yelled. "Get them horses out of range!" "Oh, damn it, it wasn't goats, it was Comanches!" Bigfoot said, mortified that he had been so easily taken in. He began to drag his wounded horse farther from the hill.
Arrows began to fly off the mountain, though no one could spot the Indians who were shooting them.
Several Rangers shot at the mountain, to no effect. Three horses were hit, and one-eyed Johnny Carthage got an arrow in his upper leg. Call had an arrow just glance off his elbow --he knew he was lucky. The horses were in a panic--he had no time to think about anything except hanging on to his mount.
The Rangers all retreated toward the patch of sage bush where Josh Corn had been taken. It was Call, dragging his rearing horse by the bridle, who spotted the bloody patch of ground where Josh had been killed. Call knew it must be Josh's blood because the shit on the ground was white--his own had mostly been white, since crossing the Pecos.
"Look," he said to Gus, who was just behind him.
At the sight of all the fresh blood, the strength suddenly drained out of Gus. He dropped to his knees and began to vomit, letting go of his horse's reins in the process. The horse had an arrow sticking out of its haunch and was jumpy; Call just managed to catch a rein and keep the horse from bolting.
Long Bill and Rip Green were shooting at the Comanches on the hill, although they couldn't see their targets.
"Hold off shooting, you idiots," Bigfoot yelled. "You ain't going to hit an Indian a thousand feet up a mountain?" Bigfoot felt very chagrined. He knew he ought to have been able to tell a goatskin with a Comanche boy under it from a living goat, and he could have if he had just had the patience to ride a little closer and observe the goats as they grazed. His lack of patience had led the Rangers into a trap. Of course, he hadn't expected the pell-mell rush to shoot goats, but he should have expected it: most Rangers would ride half a day to shoot any game, much less unusual game such as mountain goats.
Now one man was dead, several horses were hurt, a Ranger had an arrow in his leg, Zeke Moody had just foolishly ridden off, and no one had any idea how many Indians they faced. There were several on the mountain and at least two on the plain, one of them Buffalo Hump, no mean opponent. But there could be forty, or even more than forty. In his hurry to get to the mountain he had paid no attention to signs. At least Matilda and Sam had not been cut off. The fact that they had survived probably meant they weren't dealing with a large party. The loss of the ammunition that was on the other pack mule was a grievous loss, though.
The next worry was Ezekiel Moody, who was still loping off to locate the body of his friend.
Bigfoot knew that Zeke would soon be dead or captured, unless he was very lucky.
"Damn that boy, they'll take him for sure," the Major said. All the Rangers, plus Matilda and Sam, were huddled in the little patch of sage. Shadrach saw the gully where Buffalo Hump had tethered his horse and found the bloody trail he had made when he dragged Josh Corn's body. Gus McCrae had the dry heaves. He could not stop retching. The sight of the Indian with the great hump reminded him of his own terrified flight; the smell of Josh Corn's blood caused his stomach to turn over and over, like a churn. Gus knew that Buffalo Hump had almost caught him--the sight of Josh's blood-streaked body showed him clearly what his fate would have been had the lance that struck his hip been thrown a little more accurately. A yard or so difference in the footrace, and he would have been as dead as Josh.
Gus finally got to his feet and stumbled a little distance from the blood; he needed to steady himself so he could shoot if the Comanches launched an attack.
Major Chevallie felt that he had decided foolishly--he should have followed his first instinct and headed east. More and more he regretted not taking his chances with the Baltimore judge.