Dead Man's Walk

by Larry McMurtry

  "Well, I guess I might come down, though it is early," Clara said. "We generally don't welcome customers this early." "I ain't a customer--I want to marry you, but I've got to leave," he said. "Won't you come? Johnny won't wait much longer." In fact, Johnny was having a hard time waiting at all. The expedition was flowing in full force through the streets of Austin; there was the creak of harness, and the swish of wagon wheels. Johnny had tried to edge to the side, but there wasn't much space--a fat mule skinner cursed him for the delay he had caused already.

  "Won't you come?--I have to go," Gus said.

  "We're hurrying to meet Colonel Cobb-- he don't like to wait." Clara didn't answer, but she disappeared from the window, and a moment later, opened the door of the general store. She had wrapped a robe around her and came right down the steps of the store, barefoot, into the muck of the street.

  "Goodness, you'll get muddy," Gus said--he had not supposed she would be so reckless as to walk barefoot into the mud.

  Clara ignored the remark--young Mr.

  McCrae was muddy to the elbows and to the knees.

  She could tell that he was drunk--but he had not forgotten to call on her. Men were not perfect, she knew; even her father, kindly as he was, flew into a temper at least once a month, usually while doing the accounts.

  "I don't see Corporal Call--what's become of him?" she asked.

  "Oh now ... you would ask," Gus complained.

  "He's off chasing Indians. He ain't no corporal, either--I've told you that." "Well, in my fancy he is," Clara retorted. "Don't you be brash with me." "I don't want him anywhere in your damn fancy!" Gus said. "For all we know he's dead and scalped, by now." Then he realized that he didn't want that, either. Annoying as Call was, he was still a Ranger and a friend. Clara's quick tongue had provoked him--she would mention Call, even in the street at dawn, with the expedition leaving.

  "Now, don't be uncharitable to your friend," Clara chided. "As I told you before, he would never do for me--too solemn! You ain't solemn, at least--you might do, once you've acquired a little polish and can remember who Romeo is and what he's supposed to do." "I ain't got the time--will you marry me once I get back?" he asked.

  "Why, I don't know," Clara said. "How should I know who'll walk into my store, while you're out wandering on the plains? I might meet a gentleman who could recite Shakespeare to me for hours--or even Milton." "That ain't the point--I love you," Gus said. "I won't be happy a minute, unless I know you'll marry me once I get back." "I'm afraid I can't say for sure, not right this minute," Clara said. "But I will kiss you--would that help?" Gus was so startled he couldn't answer. Before he could move she came closer, put her hands on his muddy arms, reached up her face, and kissed him. He wanted to hug her tight, but didn't--he felt he was all mud. But Gus kissed back, for all he was worth. It was only for a second. Then Clara, smiling, scampered back to the porch of the general store, her feet and ankles black with mud.

  "Good-bye, Mr. McCrae, don't get scalped if you can help it," she said. "I'll struggle on with my unpacking as best I can, while you travel the prairies." Gus was too choked with feeling to answer. He merely looked at her. Johnny Carthage was yelling at him, threatening to leave him. Gus began to hobble toward the cart, still looking at Clara. The sun had peeked through the clouds.

  Clara waved, smiling. In waving back, Gus almost slipped. He would have gone down again in the mud, had not a strong hand caught his arm.

  Matilda Jane Roberts, the Great Western, plodding by on Tom, her large grey, saw his plight just in time and caught his arm.

  "Here, hold the saddle strings--just hold them and hop, I'll get you to Johnny," she said.

  Gus did as he was told. He looked back, anxiously, wondering what the young woman who had just kissed him would think, seeing a whore help him out, so soon after their kiss.

  But the porch of the general store was empty-- Clara Forsythe had gone inside. When the troop of Rangers reached the Brazos River, the wide brown stream was in flood. The churning water came streaming down from the north, through the cut in the low hills where the Rangers struck the river.

  The hills across the river were thick with post oak and elm. Call remembered how completely the Comanches had managed to hide themselves on the open plain. Finding them in thickets such as those across the river would be impossible.

  Long Bill looked apprehensive, when he saw that the Brazos was in flood.

  "If half of us don't get drowned going over, we'll get drowned coming back," he observed. "I can't swim no long distance. About ten yards is my limit." "Hang on to your horse, then," Bigfoot advised. "Slide off and grab his tail.

  Don't lose your holt of it, either. A horse will paw you down if he can see you in the water." Call's little bay was trembling at the sight of the water. Shadrach had ridden straight into the river and was already halfway across. He clung to his saddle strings with one hand, and kept the long rifle above the flood with the other.

  Bigfoot took the water next; his big bay swam easily. The rest of the Rangers lingered, apprehension in their eyes.

  "This is a mighty wide river," Blackie Slidell said. "Damn the Comanches! They would beat us across." Call thumped the little grey's sides with his rifle, trying to get him to jump in. It was time to go--he wanted to go. The horse made a great leap into the water and went under briefly, Call with him. But once in, the little horse swam strongly. Call managed to catch his tail-- holding the rifle up was tiring. When, now and then, he caught a glimpse of the far shore, it seemed so far away that he didn't know if a horse could swim that far. Curls of reddish water kept breaking over his head. In only a minute or two, he lost sight of all the other Rangers.

  He might have been in the river alone, for all he could tell. But he was in it: there was nothing to do but cling to the horse's tail and try to keep from drowning.

  When Call was halfway across, he caught a glimpse of something coming toward him, on the reddish, foaming flood. It seemed to be a horse, floating on its side. Just at that time he went under--when his head broke the surface again he saw that it was actually a dead mule, all bloated up, floating right down at him. The little bay horse was swimming as hard as he could--it looked, for a moment, as if the dead mule was going to surge right into them. Call thought his best bet might be to poke the mule aside with his rifle barrel; and he twisted a little and brought the rifle into position, meaning to shove the mule away. Just as he twisted he saw two eyes that weren't dead and weren't mule's eyes, staring at him from between the stiff legs of the dead mule. The mule and the Indian boy floating down with him were only five feet away when Call fired. The boy had just raised his hand, with a knife in it, when the bullet took him in the throat. Then the mule and the body of the dying boy crashed into Call, carrying him under and loosening his grip on the bay gelding's tail.

  Call went under, entangled with the corpse of the Comanche boy he had just killed. The red current rolled them over and over--all Call knew was that he mustn't lose his musket. He clung to the gun even though he knew he might be drowning. He was so confused for a moment that he didn't know the difference between up and down. It seemed to him he was getting deeper into the water; it was all just a red murk, with sticks and bits of bushes floating in it, but then he felt himself being lifted and was able to draw his breath.

  The clouds had broken, while Call was struggling under water--the sunlight when he broke the surface, bright sunlight on the foam-flecked water, with the deep blue sky above, was the most welcome sight he had ever seen.

  "Don't try to swim, just let me drag you," a voice said. "I believe I can get you to the shallows if you'll just keep still, but if you struggle we'll likely both go under." Call was able to determine that his rescuer was the tall boy from Arkansas, Jimmy Tweed.

  Unlike the rest of the Rangers, Jimmy had declined to dismount and cross the river holding on to his horse's tail. He was still in the saddle, which was mostly submerged. But his horse was a stout black mare, and she kept swimming, even tho
ugh not much more than her nose and her ears were above the stream.

  Jimmy Tweed had reached into the river and grabbed Call's shirt collar, which he gripped tightly. Call managed to get a hand into the black mare's mane, after which he felt a little more secure.

  "Watch out for dead mules--there's apt to be Comanches with 'em," Call informed him. Jimmy Tweed seemed as calm as if he were sitting in church.

  "I seen you shoot that one," Jimmy said.

  "Hit him in the neck. I'd say it was a fine shot, being as you was in the water and about to drown." Just then something hit the water, not far from Call's shoulder, with a sound like spitting. They were not far from the east bank, then--Call looked and saw puffs of smoke from a stand of trees just above the river.

  "They're shooting!" he said--another bullet had sliced the water nearby. "You oughtn't to be sitting up so tall in the saddle--you make too good a target." "I guess I'd rather be shot than drownt," Jimmy Tweed said. "If there's one thing I've never liked it's getting water up my nose." In another moment, Call felt his feet touch bottom. The water was still up to his chin, but he felt a little more confident and told Jimmy that he could let go his grip. Just as Jimmy let go, Call saw a Ranger fall.

  One of the new men had just made it to shore and was wading through the mud when a bullet knocked him backwards.

  "Why, that be Bert," Jimmy Tweed said, in mild surprise. "He sure didn't pick much of a place to land." "We can't land here, they'll shoot us like squirrels," Call said. "Slide off now, and turn the horse." "I expect Bert is dead," Jimmy said calmly--the fact was confirmed a moment later when two Comanches ran down the muddy riverbank and quickly took his scalp.

  Call managed to point the black horse downstream--he was able to feel his way behind him, clinging to saddle strings and then to the horse's tail, until he had the black horse between him and the riverbank. With only a bit of his head showing, he didn't figure a Comanche marksman would be very likely to hit him. Jimmy Tweed, though, flatly refused to slide off into the water.

  "Nope, I prefer to risk it in the saddle," he said, though he did consent to lean low over the black horse's neck.

  They heard fire from the near bank and saw that Shadrach, Bigfoot, and Blackie Slidell had made it across and taken cover behind a jumble of driftwood. Call looked up and saw what looked like a muskrat in the water, not far from where the Rangers were forting up. On closer inspection the muskrat turned out to be the fur cap procured by Long Bill Coleman before he left San Antonio. Long Bill was underneath the cap. He was walking slowly out of the river, though the water was still up to his Adam's apple.

  There was no sign of the horse he had tried to cross the Brazos River on.

  By the time Call and Jimmy Tweed struggled out of the water and took cover behind the driftwood, the firing had stopped. Bigfoot had walked downstream a few yards, in order to pull a body out of the water. Call supposed a Ranger had been shot but was surprised to see that the body Bigfoot pulled out of the Brazos was the Comanche boy he himself had shot. Several more Rangers began to struggle out of the flood, some of them clinging to the bridle reins or tails of their mounts. Others were without horses, having lost hold of their mounts during the swim.

  "Well, you got him," Bigfoot said, looking at Call. "I forgot to tell you to look out for dead animals--Comanches will use them for floats." Call was surprised at how young the boy looked. He could have been no more than twelve.

  "You're lucky your gun fired," Shadrach said. "Them old muskets will usually just snap on you, once they get wet." Call didn't say anything. He knew he had been lucky--another second and the dead boy would have had a knife in him. He could remember the boy's eyes, staring at him from between the legs of the dead mule.

  He didn't want to look at the corpse, though--he turned to walk away and noticed that both Shadrach and Bigfoot were looking at him curiously. Call stopped, puzzled--their looks suggested that he had neglected something.

  "Ain't you going to scalp him?" Bigfoot asked. "You killed him. It's your scalp." Call was startled. It had never occurred to him to scalp the Comanche boy. He was a young boy.

  Although he was glad that he had escaped death himself, he felt no pride in the act he had just committed--the boy had been daring, in his view, to float down a swollen river, armed only with a knife, clinging to a dead mule in hopes of surprising and killing an armed Ranger. The reward for his bravery had been a bullet wound that nearly tore his head off. He would never ride the prairies again, or raid farms. Although he had had to kill him, Call thought the boy's bravery deserved better than what it had got him. There would be no time to bury the boy, anyway--the thought of cutting his hair off did not appeal.

  "No, I don't want to scalp him," Call said.

  "He would have scalped you, if he could have," Bigfoot said.

  "I don't doubt it," Call said.

  "Scalping's the Indian way. It ain't my way." "It'll be your way when you're a year or two older, boy--if you survive," Shadrach said.

  Then he casually knelt by the Comanche boy and took his scalp. When he finished, he pulled the boy well back into the current and let him float away.

  "I should have buried him--I killed him," Call said.

  "No, you don't bury Indians," Bigfoot informed him. "They gather up their own dead, when they can. I guess Shad wants to make them work at it, this time." Shadrach had just turned and started back toward the shore, when they heard a scream from far down the river.

  "Oh Lord, it's Rip--he went downstream too far," Long Bill said. "I believe he's bogged." "Puny horse," Bigfoot commented, raising his rifle. Rip's horse seemed to be bogged, some twenty yards out into the stream. Five Comanches, screaming their wild cries, raced out of the scrub oak toward the river. Bigfoot shot and so did Shadrach, but the range was long and both missed. Just then a rain squall passed over them, making it hard to see well enough to shoot accurately at such distances. Rip screamed again and flailed at his horse, but his horse was too weak from his long swim to pull out of the thick river mud. The first Comanche had already splashed into the edge of the river. Call had reloaded his musket --he took careful aim and thought he hit the first Comanche, but the hit was not solid enough to slow the man. They saw Rip raise his rifle and fire point-blank at the first Comanche, but the gun misfired and in a second the Indians swarmed over him. His final scream was cut short. Before Call could get off another shot, Rip Green was hacked to death and scalped. His body was soon floating down the same river as that of the Indian boy.

  Several Rangers shot at the Indians who killed Rip, but none of the shots had any effect. Bigfoot and Shadrach, concluding that the range was hopeless, didn't shoot.

  "It don't pay to be a poor judge of horseflesh, not in this country," Bigfoot observed. "He ought never to have tried the river on that nag, not with the river running this high." "What could he do? He couldn't just sit over there and watch," Call said. Rip Green had gone into the water just as he did--it was just Rip's bad luck to float downstream, out of the range of help.

  "Well, he could have let the horse go and swum out, like me," Long Bill said. "I reckon I'm a better swimmer than I thought I was.

  My pony gave out when we was right in the middle, but here I am." "If you don't hunker down you won't need to swim no more rivers--you'll be floating down this one, dead," Bigfoot said. Bullets began to hit the water all around them--the Rangers were forced to huddle together in the shelter of a small patch of driftwood. No men were hit, though-- probably the driving rain threw off the Comanche marksmen. Call watched the trees above them as closely as he could, but he was unable to glimpse a single Indian--just puffs of smoke from their guns. The shots were coming from a semicircle of woods above them.

  "There's too many of them, Shad," Bigfoot concluded. "They had a party waiting, I expect." Call tried to get a sense of how many Indians they faced by counting the shots--but he knew the method wasn't accurate. After all, the Indians were hidden. They could move around at will, shooting from one pa
rt of the woods and then another.

  When the Rangers counted heads they discovered that they were down to eleven men, four less than they had started across the river with. Rip was dead, and so was the man named Bert--the whereabouts of the other two could not be ascertained.

  "Probably drowned--I nearly did," Long Bill said.

  "No, probably deserted," Shadrach said.

  "One is that fellow from Cincinnati. I don't think he had much stomach." All that could be remembered about the other missing man was that he had ridden a roan horse. No roan horses were visible among the horses, though Long Bill's horse and two others were also unaccounted for.

  Call supposed the Comanches would charge any minute. He kept his gun as dry as he could and got ready to shoot accurately, when the charge came. Once again he found himself questioning the competence of the Rangers--here they were, huddled behind a few trees, four men and three horses short of what they had started out with, facing a Comanche force that had so far been invisible, commanding the woods above them.