Dead Man's Walk (23 page)

"He's a friend of the Colonel's--we don't need to kill him," Gus said, leaping down, as did black Sam, who had come along to select the cuts. Call swung a third time, at the man's Adam's apple--only the fact that Sam grabbed at the barrel and partially broke the force of the swing saved Kirker--even so the man went down again, rolling and clawing at his throat, trying to get air through his windpipe. Gus and Sam together managed to hold Call and keep him from smashing the man's head with the musket.
Falconer, who didn't like the scalp hunter either, turned for a moment, to look at the fallen man.
"Disarm him," he said. "He's got guns in his boots. If we leave him anything to shoot he'll try to kill us all, once he gets his wind." Call was remembering the filthy, fly-bitten scalps, hanging from the man's saddle; he also remembered Bigfoot's contention that some of them were the scalps of Mexican children.
"Don't be beating nobody to death--not here," Sam said. "Colonel Cobb, he'll hang you. He hangs folks all the time." With difficulty, Call made himself mount and ride on to the herd. When they left, Kirker was on his knees, spitting blood.
"You yanked that pistol quick," Falconer said, to Gus. "I think I'll make you my corporal. You could make a fine pistolero." "Thank you, the fellow was rude," Gus said.
"Do you think the Colonel will let me be a corporal?" Though he didn't much like Falconer, the man's words filled him with relief. He felt he had caught up with Call again, in terms of rank. He also felt that he was staunch again, and could fight when a fight was required. The weak feeling that had troubled him since his first glimpse of Buffalo Hump wasn't there anymore--or at least, not there steadily. He might die, but at least he could fight first, and not simply pass his days shaking at the expectation of slaughter.
They rode on to the herd, quickly shot two fat calves, and took their livers and sweetmeats, as instructed. Sam was deft at the cutting. He had brought a sack to put the meat on, and knotted it deftly once he was finished.
"I'll kill some big meat tomorrow," Falconer said, as they rode back toward camp. "Once we get across the river the Colonel won't mind." "These buffalo be gone tomorrow," Sam said.
"Gone--what do you mean--there's thousands of them," Falconer said, in surprise.
"They be gone tomorrow," Sam said--he did not elaborate.
When they passed the spot where the fight with Kirker had occurred there was no trace of the man, though the grass was spotted with blood from his broken forehead.
"I hope I broke his damn arm, at least," Call said.
Nobody else said anything for a bit. They rode up to the troop in silence, Sam carefully holding his sack of meat.
"Sam knows where to cut into a buffalo calf," Gus remarked. "You might give us lessons, next time we have an opportunity. I could slide around on one for an hour and not know when I had come to the liver." "Just watch me, next time," Sam said.
"Buffalo liver tastes mighty good."
General Phil Lloyd, in his youth one of the heroes of the Battle of New Orleans, was so impressed by the news that Buffalo Hump was coming to supper that he made his manservant, Peedee, scratch around amid his gear until he found a clean coat. It was wrinkled, true, but it wasn't spotted and stained with tobacco juice, or beef juice, or any of the other substances General Lloyd was apt to dribble on himself in the course of a day's libations.
"I might be getting dressed up for nothing," he informed Caleb Cobb. "There's a hundred men, at least, right here in this camp, who would like to shoot that rascal's lights out. Why would he come?" "Oh, he'll come, Phil," Caleb Cobb said. "He wants to show off his wives." Looking around the camp, Call decided that he agreed with the General. Most of the Rangers, and not a few of the merchants and common travelers, had lost friends or family members to the Comanches; some of the lost ones had died by Buffalo Hump's own hand. There were mutterings and curses as the time for his arrival approached. Several of the more radical characters were for hanging Caleb Cobb--he ought never to have issued the invitation, many Rangers felt.
Sam had to hurry his cooking, but when the smell of the sizzling liver wafted through the camp it added to the general discontent. Why should a killer get to dine on such delicacies, while most of them were making do with tough beef?
"He'll come," Gus said. "It would take more than this crowd to scare him away." Like Call, he had begun to doubt the competence of the military leadership. General Lloyd, who had been drunk the whole trip and unconscious for most of it, had his servant pin more than a dozen medals on the front of his blue coat.
"He must have won them medals for drinking, he don't do nothing else," Gus observed.
While the liver was sizzling and the sweetbreads simmering in a small pot with some onions and a little wild barley Sam had managed to locate, Caleb Cobb, noting the mood of surliness among the men, told Falconer to round up the malcontents and assemble them. Falconer liked nothing better than ordering men to do things they didn't want to do--he had a little black quirt that he popped against his leg; he circled the camp, popping the quirt against his leg and forcing the men to stroll over to Caleb Cobb's tent.
Cobb was large; he enjoyed imposing himself.
When the men were assembled he stretched himself and pointed toward the hill to the east. Four horses were moving across the ridge--Buffalo Hump was coming with his wives.
"Here he comes, right on time," Caleb said.
"I'll make a short speech. He's a murdering devil but I invited him to supper and I won't have no guest of mine interfered with." "Does that mean we ain't to spit while he's in camp?" Shadrach asked. He had no great respect for Caleb Cobb, who, in his view, was just a pirate who had decided to come ashore.
Cobb had caught several Mexican ships, so it was said, and had made off with the gold and silver, and the women. That was the rumour in the Galveston waters, anyway. Shadrach suspected that the main reason for the Texas-Santa Fe expedition was that Cobb wanted to get the gold and silver at its source. None of that gave Cobb license to instruct him in behaviour, and Shadrach wanted him to know it.
"You can spit, but not in his direction," Caleb said. He was well aware that the mountain man didn't like him.
"Why are you having him, Colonel, if he's such a killer?" the dentist, Elihu Carson, asked. He had heard that the Comanches sometimes removed the jawbones of their captives with the teeth intact; as a professional he would have liked to question Buffalo Hump about the technique involved, but he knew that at such an important parley he was unlikely to get the chance.
"Curiosity," Caleb replied. "I've never met him, and I'd like to. If you want to know the mettle of your opponent, it don't hurt to look him in the eye. Besides, he knows the country--he might loan us a scout." "He won't loan you no scout, he'll kill the ones we got," Bigfoot said.
"Mr. Wallace, it won't hurt to try," Caleb said. "I brought you all here to make a simple point: Buffalo Hump's my guest at dinner. I will promptly hang any ill-tempered son of a bitch who interferes with him." The men stared back at him, unawed and unpersuaded.
"If we kill him, the Comanche and the Kiowa will rise up and wipe out every damn farm between the Brazos and the Nueces," Caleb said. "We have to cross his country to reach Santa Fe, and we don't know much about it. If it turns out that we have to fight him, we'll fight him, but right now I'd like to see some manners in this camp." The men were silent, watching the horses approach. They gave ground a few steps, so that the Comanches could ride up to Caleb's tent, but their mood was dark. While not eager to be hanged, they all knew that hanging was gentle compared to what would happen to them if Buffalo Hump caught them. Those who had lost sons in the Comanche wars, or had daughters stolen, thought that a hanging would be a cheap price to pay for the opportunity to put a bullet in the big war chief. Yet they held back--bound, if uneasily, by the rules their commander had laid down.
Buffalo Hump still had the three scalps tied to his lance when he rode into camp. He had on leggins but no shirt--he had coated his face and body with red clay and had painted yellow lines across his cheeks and forehead. The three women riding behind him were all young and plump. If frightened at riding into the white man's camp, they didn't show it. They rode a short distance behind Buffalo Hump, and kept their eyes on the ground.
Call thought it remarkably bold of the war chief to ride into such a camp alone. Gus agreed. He tried to imagine himself riding into a Comanche camp with no one beside him but a whore or two, but remembering the tortures Bigfoot had described, he thought he would decline the invitation, if one ever came.
"He ain't afraid of us--and every man in camp wants to kill him," Call said. "He don't think much of Rangers, I guess." When Buffalo Hump dismounted, his wives did, too--they quickly spread a robe for him outside the Colonel's tent. Caleb Cobb offered tobacco. One of the wives took it and gave it to Buffalo Hump, who smelled it briefly and gave it back. Call knew the man had to be powerful just to carry his own hump, a mass of gristle as broad as his back--it rose as high as his ears.
Yet, Buffalo Hump wasn't stooped. He didn't so much as glance at the massed Rangers, but he did take note of Caleb Cobb's Irish dog, who was watching him alertly. The dog wasn't growling, but his hair bristled.
"Tell him he's welcome and put in some guff about what a great chief he is," Caleb instructed Bes-Das.
Bes-Das turned to Buffalo Hump and spoke five or six words. Buffalo Hump was watching the dog; he didn't answer.
"That was too short a compliment," Caleb said.
"Tell him he's stronger than the buffalo and wiser than the bear. Tell him his name is enough to freeze Mexican blood. We need some wind here--they expect it." Bes-Das tried again, but Buffalo Hump didn't appear to pay his words the slightest attention. He gestured toward the food, which Sam had waiting, but he made no gesture at all toward Caleb Cobb. Two of the plump young women took wooden bowls and went over to Sam, who ladled up his sweetbreads and filled the other bowl with large slices of liver. Gus thought the red clay and the yellow paint made the Comanche look even more terrible. Call watched closely, wondering why the air itself seemed to change when a wild Indian came around. He decided it was because no one but the Indian knew the rules that determined actions--if there were rules.
For a moment it seemed that Buffalo Hump was simply going to eat his food standing up, ignoring Caleb Cobb. Caleb himself was worried--with all his men watching, it would only do to let himself be insulted up to a point. But after he had sniffed the dishes, Buffalo Hump gestured again to the young women, who took two more bowls and filled them; these they brought to Caleb.
Buffalo Hump looked at Caleb for the first time, lifting the bowls. Then he took a place on the robe and handed the bowls to his young wives, who then began to take turns feeding him with their fingers.
"If I could find a woman to hand-feed me sweetbreads, I expect I'd get married too," Caleb said. "Tell that to the rascal." At the word "rascal," Buffalo Hump lifted his head slightly. It occurred to Caleb too late that perhaps the Comanche had picked up a few words of English--after all, he had taken many captives who spoke it.
Bes-Das spoke at length, in Comanche, but if his words made any impression on the chief, Buffalo Hump didn't show it. His young wives continued to feed him buffalo liver and sweetbread stew. The camp had become completely silent.
The men who had been cursing Buffalo Hump merely stood looking at him. Several who had proposed to risk hanging by attempting to kill him offered no threat. Call and Gus stood stock-still, watching, while Buffalo Hump ate.
Caleb Cobb took a bite or two of liver himself, but seemed to have lost his usual vigorous appetite.
Buffalo Hump paid little attention to the company, at least until he noticed Matilda Roberts, standing with Shadrach. Once he noticed, he gave Matilda a long look; then he turned to Bes-Das and spoke what seemed like a long speech. Bes-Das glanced at Matilda and shook his head, but Buffalo Hump repeated what he had said.
"Taken a fancy to Matty, has he?" Caleb asked.
"Yes, he wants her for a wife," Bes-Das said. "He has seen her before. He calls her Turtle Catching Woman." "First he wants a rifle and now he wants a wife," Caleb said. "What is it they call Shadrach, in Comanche?" "They call him Tail-Of-The-Bear," Bes-Das said.
"Tell the great chief that Matilda is the wife of Tail-Of-The-Bear," Caleb said.
"She ain't available for marriage unless she gets divorced." Bes-Das spoke to Buffalo Hump, who seemed amused by what was said. He replied at length, in a tone of derision; the reply made Bes-Das rather uncomfortable, Call thought.
"Well, what's the report?" Caleb asked, impatiently.
"He says Tail-Of-The-Bear is too old for such a large woman," Bes-Das said.
"He says he will give him a young horse, in exchange." Neither Matilda nor Shadrach moved, or changed expression.
"Tell him we can't accept--it is not our custom to trade people for horses," Caleb said. "Falconer, go get your fancy rifle." Captain Falconer was startled.
"What for?" he asked.
Ignoring this exchange, Buffalo Hump suddenly spoke again. This time he spoke at more length, looking at Shadrach as he talked. When he stopped he reached for the pot that had the sweetbread stew in it, and drained it.
"What was that last?" Caleb said. "It had a hostile kind of sound." "He says he will take the scalp of Tail-Of-The-Bear if he crosses the Canadian River," Bes-Das said. "Then he will take the woman and keep the horse." "Go get the rifle, Billy--supper's about over," Caleb said, though in a mild tone.
"Why, it's my rifle?" Captain Falconer said.
"Go get it, Billy--we need a good present and it's the only gun in camp fine enough to offer the chief," Caleb said. "Hurry.
I'll buy you one just as good as soon as we get to Santa Fe." Captain Falconer balked. The Holland and Holland sporting rifle was the finest thing he owned. He had ordered it special, from London, and had waited two years for it to come.
The case he kept it in was made of cherry wood. One of his reasons for signing on with the expedition was an eagerness to try his rifle on the game of the prairies--buffalo, elk, antelope, maybe even a grizzly bear. The rifle had cost him six months' wages--he intended to treasure it throughout his life. The thought of having to hand it over to a murdering savage with yellow paint on his face was more than he could tolerate, and he said so.