Dead Man's Walk (4 page)

"I don't believe you was ever on a riverboat--why would they hire you?" Call asked. At times of irritation he began to remember all the lies Gus had told him.
Gus McCrae had no more regard for truth than he did for the rules of rangering.
"Why, of course I was," Gus said. "I was a top pilot for a dern year--I'm a Tennessee boy. I can run one of them riverboats as well as the next man. I only run aground once, in all the time I worked." The truth of that was that he had once sneaked aboard a riverboat for two days; when he was discovered, he was put off on a mud bar, near Dubuque. A young whore had hidden him for the two days--the captain had roundly chastised her when Gus was discovered. Shortly after he was put off, the riverboat ran aground--that was the one true fact in the story. The tale sounded grand to his green friend, though. Woodrow Call had got no farther in the world than his uncle's scratchy farm near Navasota. Woodrow's parents had been taken by the smallpox, which is why he was raised by the uncle, a tyrant who stropped him so hard that when Woodrow got old enough to follow the road to San Antonio, he ran off. It was in San Antonio that the two of them had met--or rather, that Call had found Gus asleep against the wall of a saloon, near the river. Call worked for a Mexican blacksmith at the time, stirring the forge and helping the old smith with the horseshoeing that went on from dawn till dark. The Mexican, Jesus, a kindly old man who hummed sad harmonies all day as he worked, allowed Call to sleep on a pallet of nail sacks in a small shed behind the forge.
Blacksmithing was dirty work. Call had been on his way to the river to wash off some of the smudge from his work when he noticed a lanky youth, sound asleep against the wall of the little adobe saloon.
At first he thought the stranger might be dead, so profound were his slumbers. Killings were not uncommon in the streets of San Antonio-- Call thought he ought to stop and check, since if the boy was dead it would have to be reported.
It turned out, though, that Gus was merely so fatigued that he was beyond caring whether he was counted among the living or among the dead. He had traveled in a tight stagecoach for ten days and nine nights, making the trip from Baton Rouge through the pines of east Texas to San Antonio.
Upon arrival, his fellow passengers decided that Gus had been with them long enough; he was in such a stupor of fatigue that he offered no resistance when they rolled him out. He could not remember how long he had been sleeping against the saloon; it was his impression that he had slept about a week. That night Call let Gus share his pallet of nail sacks, and the two had been friends ever since.
It was Gus who decided they should apply for the Texas Rangers--Call would never have thought himself worthy of such a position. It was Gus, too, who boldly approached the Major when word got out that a troop was being formed whose purpose--other than hanging whatever horse thieves or killers turned up--was to explore a stage route to El Paso. Fortunately, Major Chevallie had not been hard to convince-- he took one look at the two healthy-looking boys and hired them at the princely sum of three dollars a month. They would be furnished with mounts, blankets, and a rifle apiece.
Departure was immediate; saddles proved to be the main problem. Neither Gus nor Call had a saddle, or a pistol either. Finally the Major intervened on their behalf with an old German who owned a hardware store and saddle shop, the back of which was piled with single-tree saddles in bad repair and guns of every description, most of which didn't work.
Finally two pistols were extracted that looked as if they might shoot if primed a little; and also two single-tree rigs with tattered leather that the German agreed to part withfora dollar apiece, pistols thrown in.
Major Chevallie advanced the two dollars, and the next morning at dawn, he, Call, Gus, Shadrach, Bob Bascom, Long Bill Coleman, Ezekiel Moody, Josh Corn, one-eyed Johnny Carthage, Blackie Slidell, Rip Green, and Black Sam, leading his kitchen mule, trotted out of San Antonio. Call had never been so happy in his life--overnight he had become a Texas Ranger, the grandest thing anyone could possibly be.
Gus, though, was irritated at the lack of ceremony attending their departure. A scabby dog barked a few times, but no inhabitants lined the streets to cheer them on. Gus thought there should at least have been a bugler.
"I'd blow a bugle myself, if one was available," he said.
Call thought the remark wrongheaded. Even if they had a bugle, and if Gus could blow it, who would listen to it, except a few Mexicans and a donkey or two? It was enough that they were Rangers-- two days before they had simply been homeless boys.
Bigfoot Wallace, the scout, didn't catch up until the next day--at the time of their departure he had been in jail. Apparently he had thrown a deputy sheriff out the second-floor window of the community's grandest whorehouse. The deputy suffered a broken collarbone, an annoyance sufficient to cause the sheriff to jail Bigfoot for a week.
Gus McCrae, a newcomer to Texas, had never heard of Bigfoot Wallace and saw no reason to be awed. Throwing a deputy sheriff out a window did not seem to him to be a particularly impressive feat.
"Now, if he'd thrown the governor out, that would have been a fine thing," Gus said.
Call thought his friend's comment absurd. Why would the governor be in a whorehouse, anyway?
Bigfoot Wallace was the most respected scout on the Texas frontier; even in Navasota, far to the east, Bigfoot's name was known and his exploits talked about.
"They say he's been all the way to China," Call explained. "He knows every creek in Texas, and whether it's boggy or not, and he's a first-rate Indian killer besides." "Myself, I'd rather know every whore," Gus said.
"You can have a lot more fun with whores than you can with governors." Call had seen several whores on the street, but had never visited one. Although he had the inclination, he had never had the money. Gus McCrae, though, seemed to have spent his life in the company of whores--though he had once mentioned that he had a mother and three sisters back in Tennessee, he preferred to talk mainly about whores, often to the point of tedium.
Call, though, had the greatest respect for Bigfoot Wallace; he intended to study the man and learn as many of his wilderness skills as possible. Though most of the older Rangers were well versed in woodcraft, Bigfoot and Shadrach were clearly the two masters. If the company came to a fork in a creek or river while the scouts were ranging ahead, the company waited until one of them showed up and told it which fork to take. Major Chevallie had never been west of San Antonio--once they left the settlements behind and started toward the Pecos, he allowed his accomplished scouts to choose a route.
It was Shadrach who took them south, into the lonely country of sage and sand, where the two boys were now crouched behind their chaparral bush. In San Antonio there had been talk that war with Mexico was brewing--early on, the Major had instructed the troop to fire on any Mexican who seemed hostile.
"Better to be safe than sorry," he said, and many heads nodded.
In fact, though, the only Mexican they had seen was the unfortunate driver of the donkey cart. In the western reaches, no one was quite certain where Mexico stopped and Texas began. The Rio Grande made a handy border, but neither Major Chevallie nor anyone else considered it to be particularly official.
Mexicans, hostile or otherwise, didn't occupy much of the troop's attention, almost all of which was reserved for the Comanches. Call had yet to see a Comanche Indian, though throughout the trek, Long Bill, Rip Green, and other Rangers had assured him that the Comanches were sure to show up in the next hour or two, bent on scalping and torture.
"I wonder how big Comanches are?" he asked Gus, as they peered north into the silent darkness.
"About the size of Matilda, I've heard," Gus said.
"That old woman ain't the size of Matilda," Call pointed out. "She's no taller than Rip." Rip Green was the smallest Ranger, standing scarcely five feet high. He also lacked a thumb on his right hand, having shot it off himself while cleaning a pistol he had neglected to unload.
"Yes, but she's old, Woodrow," Gus said. "I expect she's shriveled up." He had just consumed the last of his mescal, and was feeling gloomy at the thought of a long watch with no liquor. At least he had a serape, though.
Call had no coat--he intended to purchase one with his first wages. He owned two shirts, and wore them both on frosty mornings, when the thorns of the chaparral bushes were rimmed with white.
Just then a wolf howled far to the north, where they were looking. Another wolf joined the first one.
Then, nearer by, there was the yip of a coyote.
"They say an Indian can imitate any sound," Gus remarked. "They can fool you into thinking they're a wolf or a coyote or an owl or a cricket." "I doubt a Comanche would pretend to be a cricket," Call said.
"Well, a locust then," Gus said.
"Locusts buzz. You get a bunch of them buzzing and it's hard to hear." Again they heard the wolf, and again, the coyote.
"It's Indians talking," Gus said.
"They're talking in animal." "We don't know, though," Call said. "I seen a wolf just yesterday. There's plenty of coyotes, too. It could just be animals." "No, it ain't, it's Comanches," Gus said, standing up. "Let's go shoot one. I expect if we killed three or four the Major would raise our wages." Call thought it was bold thinking. They were already a good distance from camp--the campfire was only a faint flicker behind them. Clouds had begun to come in, hiding the stars. Suppose they went farther and got caught? All the tortures Bigfoot had described might be visited on them. Besides, their orders were to stand watch, not to go Indian hunting.
"I ain't going," Call said. "That ain't what we were supposed to do." "I doubt that fat fool is a real major, anyway," Gus said. He was restless. Sitting half the night by a bush did not appeal to him much.
It was undoubtedly a long way to a whorehouse from where they sat, but at least there might be Indians to fight. Better a fight than nothing; with no more mescal to drink, his prospects were meager.
Call, though, had not responded to the call of adventure. He was still squatting by the chaparral bush.
"Why, Gus, he is too a major," Call said. "You saw how the soldiers saluted him, back in San Antonio." "Even if he ain't a major, he gave us a job," he reminded his friend. "We're earning three dollars a month. Long Bill says we'll get all the Indian fighting we want before we get back to the settlements." "Bye, I'm going exploring," Gus said.
"I've heard there's gold mines out in this part of the country." "Gold mines," Call said. "How would you notice a gold mine in the middle of the night, and what would you do with one if you did notice it? You ain't even got a spade." "No, but think of all the whores I could buy if I had a gold mine," Gus said. "I could even buy a whorehouse. I'd have twenty girls and they'd all be pretty. If I didn't feel like letting in no customers, I'd do the work myself." With that, he walked off a few steps.
"Ain't you coming?" he asked, when he heard no footsteps behind him.
"No, I was told to stand guard, not to go prospecting," Call said. "I aim to stand guard till it's my turn to sleep.
"If you go off and get captured, the Major won't like it one bit, either," Call reminded him. "Neither will you. Remember how that Mexican screamed." Gus left. Woodrow Call was stubborn-- why waste a night arguing with a stubborn man?
Gus walked rapidly through the cold night, toward where the wolf had howled. It irked him that his friend was so disposed to obey orders. The way he looked at it, being a Ranger meant you could range, which was what he intended to do.
He thought best to cock his gun, though, in case he was taken by surprise. He had heard men scream while dentists were working on them, but in his experience no one undergoing dentistry had screamed half as loud as the captured Mexican.
After strolling nearly twenty minutes through the sandy country, Gus decided to stop and take his bearings. He looked back to see if he could spot the campfire, but the long plain was dark.
Thunder had begun to rumble, and in the west, there was a flicker of lightning.
While he was stopped he thought he heard something behind him and whirled in time to spot a badger, not three feet away. The badger was bumbling along, not watching where it was going. Gus didn't shoot it, but he did kick at it. He was irritated at the animal for startling him so. It was the kind of thing that could affect a man's nerves, and it affected his. Because of the badger's intrusion Gus felt a strong urge to get back to his guard post. Walking around at night didn't accomplish much. It was annoying that Woodrow Call had been too dull to accompany him.
On the walk back Gus tried to think of some adventure he could describe that would make his friend envious. The campfire had not yet come in sight.
Probably the Rangers had been too lazy to gather sufficient firewood, and had let the fire burn down. Gus began to wonder if he was holding a true course. It was hard to see landmarks on a starless night, and there were precious few landmarks in that part of the country, anyway. Of course the river was in the direction he was walking, but the river twisted and curved; if he just depended on the river he might end up several miles from camp. He might even miss breakfast, or what passed for breakfast.
While he was walking, the wolf howled again.
Gus decided it was probably just a wolf after all. The boredom of guard duty had caused him to imagine it was a Comanche. He felt some irritation. The wolf had distracted him with its howling, and now he was beginning to get the feeling that he was lost. He had always believed that he had a perfect sense of direction. Even when he was put off on a mud bar in the middle of the Mississippi River, he didn't get lost.
He walked straight on to Dubuque. Of course, it was not hard to find Dubuque--it was there in plain sight, on its bluff. But there were willow thickets and some heavy underbrush between the river and the town. If he had been drunk he might well have gotten lost and ended up pointed toward St. Louis or somewhere. Instead he had strolled straight into Dubuque and had persuaded a bartender to draw him a mug of beer--it had been a thirsty trip, on the old boat. That Iowa beer had tasted good.
Now, though, there was no Mississippi, and no bluff. He could walk for a month in any direction and not find a town the size of Dubuque, or a bartender willing to draw him a mug of beer just because he showed up and asked. He had only owned his weapons for three weeks and so far had not been able to hit anything he shot at, although he believed he might have winged a wild turkey, back along the Colorado River.