“Whoever done this got off with some tasty horse meat,” Bigfoot said.
Except for the burned cavalrymen, all the dead had several arrows in them.
“No scalps taken,” Bigfoot observed.
“Apaches don’t scalp—ain’t interested,” Shadrach said. “They got better ways to kill you.”
“He is right,” Salazar said. “This is the work of Gomez. For awhile he was in Mexico, but now he is here. He has killed twenty travelers in the last month—now he has killed a great general.”
“He wasn’t great enough, I guess,” Bigfoot said. “I thought he rode off with a skimpy guard—I guess I was right.”
“Only Gomez would treat a general like this,” Salazar said. “Most Apaches would sell a general, if they caught one. But Gomez likes only to kill. He knows no law.”
Bigfoot considered that sloppy thinking.
“Well, he may know plenty of law,” he said. “But it ain’t his law and he don’t mind breaking it.”
Salazar received this comment irritably.
“You will wish he knew more law, if he catches you,” he said. “We are all in danger now.”
“I doubt he’d attack a party this big,” Bigfoot said. “Your general just had eleven men, counting himself.”
Salazar snapped his fingers; he had just noticed something.
“Speaking of counting,” he said. “Where is your Colonel? I don’t see his corpse.”
“By God, I don’t neither,” Bigfoot said. “Where is Caleb?”
“The coward, I expect he escaped,” Call said.
“More than that,” Gus said. “He probably made a deal with Gomez.”
“No,” Salazar said. “Gomez is Apache—he is not like us. He only kills.”
“He might have taken Caleb home with him, to play with,” Long Bill suggested. “I feel sorry for him if that’s so, even though he is a skunk.”
“I doubt Caleb Cobb would be taken alive,” Bigfoot said. “He ain’t the sort that likes to have coals shoveled into his belly.”
Before the burials were finished, one of the infantrymen found Caleb Cobb, naked, blind, and crippled, hobbling through the sandy desert, about a mile from where the Apaches had caught the Mexicans. Caleb’s legs and feet were filled with thorns—in his blindness he had wandered into prickly pear and other cactus.
“Oh, boys, you found me,” Caleb said hoarsely, as he was helped into camp. “They blinded me with thorns, the Apache devils.”
“They hamstrung him, too,” Bigfoot whispered. “I guess they figured he’d starve or freeze.”
“I expect that bear would have got him,” Gus said.
Even Call, beaten nearly to death himself, was moved to pity by the sight of Caleb Cobb, a man he thoroughly despised. To be blind, naked, and crippled in such a thorny wilderness, and in the cold, was a harder fate than even cowards deserved.
“How many were they, Colonel?” Salazar asked.
“Not many,” Caleb said, in his hoarse voice. “Maybe fifteen. But they were quick. They came at us at dawn, when we had the sun in our eyes. One of them clubbed me with a rifle stock before I even knew we were under attack.”
For a moment he lost his voice, and his ability to stand. He sagged in the arms of the two infantrymen who were supporting him. The leg that had been cut was twisted in an odd way.
“Fifteen ain’t many,” Gus said. He didn’t like seeing men who had been tortured, whether they were alive or dead. He couldn’t keep his mind off how it would feel to have the tortures happen to him. The sight of Caleb, with his leg jerking, his eyes ruined, and his body blue with cold, made him want to look away or go away—but of course he couldn’t go away without putting himself in peril of the Apaches and the bears.
“Fifteen was enough,” Bigfoot said. “I’ve heard they come at you at dawn.”
Captain Salazar was thinking of the journey they had to make. He kept looking south, toward the dead man’s walk. The quivering, ruined man on the ground before him was a handicap he knew he could not afford.
“Colonel, we have a hard march ahead,” the Captain said. “I’m afraid you are in no condition to make this march. The country ahead is terrible. Even healthy men may not survive it. I am afraid you have no chance.”
“Stick me in a wagon,” Caleb said. “If I can have a blanket, I’ll live.”
“Colonel, we cannot take the wagons across these sands,” Salazar said. “We will have to burn them for firewood, probably tonight. They have blinded you and crippled you.”
“I won’t be left,” Caleb said, interrupting the Captain. “All I need is a good doctor—he can fix this leg.”
“No, Colonel,” Salazar said. “No one can fix your leg, or your eyes. We can’t take you across the sands—we have to look to ourselves.”
“Then send me back,” Caleb said. “If I can be put on a horse, I reckon I can ride it to Santa Fe.”
There was anger in his voice. While they all watched, he managed to get to his feet. Even crippled he was taller than Salazar—and he was determined not to die. Call was surprised by the man’s determination.
“If he’d been that determined to fight, we wouldn’t be prisoners,” he whispered to Gus.
“He ain’t determined for us . . . he’s determined for himself,” Gus pointed out.
Salazar, though, was out of patience.
“I cannot take you, Colonel,” he said, “and I cannot send you back, either. If I sent you with a few men, Gomez would find you again, and this time he would do worse.”
“I’ll take that chance,” Caleb said.
“But I won’t take it, Colonel,” Salazar said, drawing his pistol. “You are a brave officer—it is time to finish yourself.”
The troops grew silent, when Salazar drew his pistol. Caleb Cobb was balanced on one leg; the other foot scarcely touched the ground. Call saw the anger rise in his face; for a second he expected Caleb to go for Salazar. But after a second, Caleb controlled himself.
“All right,” he said. “I never expected to die in a goddamn desert. I’m a seaman. I ought to be on my boat.”
“I know you were a great pirate,” Salazar said, relieved that the man was taking matters calmly. “You stole much treasure from the King of Spain.”
“I did, and lost it all at cards,” Caleb said. “I know you need to travel, Captain. Give me your pistol and I’ll finish it, and you can be on your way.”
“Would you like privacy?” Salazar asked—he still held the pistol.
“Why, no—not specially,” Caleb said, in a normal voice. “These wild Texas boys are all mad at me for surrendering. They’ll hang me, if they get the chance. It will amuse me to cheat ’em, by shooting myself.”
“All right,” Salazar said.
“How was that you said I ought to do it, Wallace?” Caleb asked. “Are you here, Wallace? I know you think there’s a sure way—I want to take the sure way.”
“Through the eyeball,” Bigfoot said.
“It’ll have to be through the eye hole,” Caleb said. “I’m all out of eyeballs.”
“Well, that will do just as well, Colonel,” Bigfoot said.
“I’ll take the pistol now, if you please,” Caleb said, in a pleasant, normal voice.
“Adiós, Colonel,” Salazar said, handing Caleb the pistol.
Caleb immediately turned the pistol on Salazar and shot him—the Captain fell backward, clutching his throat.
“Rush ’em, boys—get their guns,” Caleb said. “I’ll take down a few.”
But in his blindness, Caleb Cobb fired toward the Texans, not the Mexicans. Two shots went wild, while the Texans ducked.
“Hell, he’s turned around, he’s shooting at us!” Long Bill said, as he ducked.
Before Caleb could fire a fourth time, the Mexican soldiers recovered from their shock and cut him down. As he fell, he fired a last shot—Shadrach, who had been standing calmly by Matilda, fell backwards, stiffly. He was dead before he had time to be surprised.<
br />
“Oh no! no! not my Shad,” Matilda cried, squatting down by Shadrach.
The Mexican soldiers continued to pour bullets into Caleb Cobb—the corpse had more than forty bullets in it, when it was buried. But the Texans had lost interest in Caleb—Bigfoot ripped open Shadrach’s shirt, hoping the old man was stunned but not dead. But the bullet had taken Shadrach exactly in the heart.
“What a pity,” Captain Salazar said. He was bleeding profusely from the wound in his throat—the wound, though, was only a crease.
“Shad, Shad!” Matilda said, trying to get the old man to answer—but Shadrach’s lips didn’t quiver.
“This man had walked the dead man’s walk,” Salazar said. “He might have guided us. Your Colonel was already dead when he shot him—I suppose his finger twitched. We are having no luck today.”
“Why, you’re having plenty of luck, Captain,” Bigfoot said. “If that bullet had hit your neck a fraction to the left, you’d be as dead as Shad.”
“True,” Salazar said. “I was very foolish to give Colonel Cobb my gun. He was a man like Gomez—he knew no law.”
When Matilda Roberts saw that Shadrach was dead, she began to wail. She wailed as loudly as her big voice would let her. Her cries echoed off a nearby butte—many men felt their hair stand up when the echo brought back the sound of a woman wailing in the desert. Many of the Mexican soldiers crossed themselves.
“Now, Matty,” Bigfoot said, kneeling beside and putting his big arm around her. “Now, Matty, he’s gone and that’s the sad fact.”
“I can’t bear it, he was all I had,” Matilda said, her big bosom, wet already with tears, heaving and heaving.
“It’s sad, but it might be providential,” Bigfoot said. “Shadrach wasn’t well, and we have to cross the Big Dry. I doubt Shad would have made it. He’d have died hard, like some of us will.”
“Don’t tell me that, I want him alive—I just want him alive,” Matilda said.
She cried on through the morning, as graves were dug. There were a dozen men to bury, and the ground was hard. Captain Salazar sat with his back to a wagon wheel as the men dug the graves. He was weak from loss of blood. He had reloaded his pistol, and kept it in his hand all day, afraid the brief commotion might encourage the Texans to rebel.
His caution was justified. Stirred by the shooting, several of the boys talked of making a fight. Blackie Slidell was for it, and also Jimmy Tweed—both men had had enough of Mexican rule.
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 San Saba, 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 gray, 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.
32.
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 a feast 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.”
The Lonesome Dove Chronicles (1-4) Page 34