Dead Man's Walk (34 page)

"These are important prisoners," Salazar said. "You must do your work well. If one of them escapes while they are in this village, I will hang you." Call felt a rage building in him, as the young blacksmith tightened the iron around his ankle. He regretted laying down his gun.
He felt it would have been better to die fighting than to submit to the indignity of chains.
None of the people in the village so much as moved during the whole procedure. The sheepherders did not go back to their sheep. Two old men with hoes stood where they were. The women of the village, many of whom were plump, kept their eyes downcast-- yet once or twice, Call thought he saw looks of sympathy in the eyes of the women. One girl not more than twelve looked at him several times. She didn't dare smile, but she looked.
She was a pretty thing, but the sight of a pretty girl could not distract him from the fact that the young blacksmith had just hammered an iron band around his leg.
"I guess this town ain't got no jail," Gus said, to Captain Salazar. "If it had one, I guess you'd just stick us in it." "No, it is a poor village," Salazar said. "If it had a jail I would put you in it for tonight. But the leg irons are for your march." "What march? We're just about marched out." "Don't worry--we don't start until tomorrow," Captain Salazar said. "The women will give you lots of posole and you will have all night to rest." "Oh, then we're off to Santa Fe?" Bigfoot asked. "At least we'll get to see the town." "No, you are off to El Paso," Salazar said. "El Paso is in the south. You will never see Santa Fe, I am afraid." "Well, that's a pity--I've heard it's a fine town," Bigfoot said. He was being very friendly --too friendly, Call thought. He didn't intend to be at all friendly to the man--it was clear to him that Salazar would kill them all in an instant if it suited his whim.
Gus amused himself, during his chaining, by looking over the women of the village. Several seemed disposed to be sympathetic, though none would raise their eyes for more than a second. Two or three of them resumed their cooking, which they did outdoors in round ovens. They were cooking corn tortillas. The smell was a torment to one as hungry as he was, but he tried not to show it.
Salazar turned to the militia, and pointed to a small adobe house.
"Put them in there," he said. "Lock the door and four of you stand watch--these are dangerous men.
If you let them get away, I will tie your hang ropes with my own hand." The little house they were shoved into had a door so low that Gus and Bigfoot had to bend almost to their knees to get through it. It was a single room with a mud floor and a small window with bars in it. There was nothing in the room--no pitcher, no bed, nothing. Neither Gus nor Bigfoot could stand erect. Call could, but when he did his hat touched the ceiling.
"They're a small people, ain't they?" Bigfoot said, settling himself in a corner. "I expect we could whip a passel of them, if we hadn't walked into a dern ambush." "Salazar ain't timid," Call remarked.
"He's got all these people scared." "Well, all he talks about is hanging people," Gus said. He settled in another corner. They had been allowed a jug of well water; Gus remembered that posole had been mentioned, but two hours passed and no people arrived. The four guards were standing right outside the little window. They had lowered their muskets and were talking to three girls from the village. One of the girls was the pretty one Call had noticed while he was being chained.
Though she chatted with the soldiers, the girl kept looking toward the hut where they were being held.
Gus, too starved to worry about being shot or hanged, finally lost his temper and yelled at the guards.
"We're Texas Rangers, we need to be fed!" he yelled. "Your own captain said to give us posole, so go get it." "They don't know what you're talking about," Bigfoot pointed out. "They don't know the English language." "They know what posole is," Gus declared.
"That's not English, that's Mexican." One of the soldiers went to a house not far away, and said something to an old woman. Soon, the old woman and another came and handed in three hot bowls of posole. When the Rangers emptied them, which they quickly did, the old women brought second helpings.
"See, it don't hurt to ask, even if you're in jail," Gus said. "They ain't allowed to just let prisoners starve." "How do you know their rules--you ain't Mexican," Call said.
Though Gus and Bigfoot had been in jail often, Call had never been locked up before--much less locked up and shackled. He found both experiences humiliating. More and more, he regretted laying down his arms. None of the Mexicans looked like good shots. The range was close, of course, but the more he thought over their surrender, the more he wished he had fought.
"I expect we'd have got at least half of them," he said.
"It don't matter if you got nine out of ten, if the tenth one killed you," Gus pointed out.
"That was good posole. This ain't the worst jail I've ever been in. They don't feed you nothing half that good in the San Antonio jail." "It'll take more than them ten Mexicans to round up Caleb Cobb," Bigfoot said.
"I expect he'll show Captain Salazar a trick or two, if the boys ain't too starved to fight when the fight starts." "This is just a mud building," Call said.
"I imagine we could dig out, if we tried." "Dig out and go where?" Gus asked. "We nearly starved getting this far. Besides, we're chained." "I know enough blacksmithing to get these chains off in two minutes," Call reminded him. "I think we ought to try and escape. Somebody needs to warn the boys." "I ain't going--let Caleb fight his own fights," Bigfoot said. "Those old women seem friendly. I'm tired from that long walk. I say we lay around here and eat soup for a day or two before we do anything frisky." "There's a pretty girl or two in this village," Gus said. "Some of them might take pity on us and let us out." "No, Salazar's got 'em buffaloed," Bigfoot said. A minute later, he fell asleep and snored loudly.
Call still smarted from the humiliation of being caught so easily. They had escaped some very skillful Indians, only to be captured by a motley crew of Mexicans with rusty muskets. He was annoyed with himself, because he had been resolved to practice careful planning and avoid traps, yet he had let the fatigue of their journey wear him down. Anyone ought to have known there might be soldiers in the town-- yet, once again, he had failed in alertness.
"So far we've been a disgrace in every encounter," he told Gus, but Gus was not in the mood for gloomy military critiques.
"Well, but we ain't dead," Gus said.
"We still have time to learn. I guess this ain't the part of New Mexico that's filled with gold and silver." "I told you not to expect gold and silver," Call said.
Soon Gus, too, fell asleep, but Call couldn't. He stood by the little window most of the night, looking out. There was a high moon over the prairies. Now and then, the sheepdogs barked when a coyote came too close to the flock.
The soldiers who were guarding them, all of them just boys, were playing cards by the light of a little oil lantern. They didn't look capable of killing anyone, unless by accident.
Toward morning the old woman came back, bringing them coffee. Call saw the pretty girl come out of a little hut with her water jar and go toward the well. Although he was in no position to say much to her, he had the urge to exchange a good morning, at least. He regretted that he didn't know more Spanish, though, of course, working for old Jesus, he had picked up a phrase or two. As the sun rose, he could see how small the village was--just a few low houses on the edge of the great wide plain.
Bigfoot woke and drank his coffee, but Gus McCrae slept on, stretched comfortably across half the length of the floor.
"I guess he'd sleep like that if they were about to hang him," Call said.
"Well, if they were about to hang him, he might as well snooze," Bigfoot said. "He could go from one nap right into the old nap you don't wake up from." When the sun was well up the old woman came back, bringing them hot tortillas. The smell woke Gus; he sat up, looking half asleep, but he ate as if he were wide awake.
A little later, Captain Salazar rode along the one street, mounted on a fine black horse. His militia seemed to have increased during the night--some twenty-five soldiers stood at attention, awaiting his order.
Salazar rode over to their little window, and bent in the saddle to look in.
"Good morning, Se@nores," he said. "I hope you are all refreshed. We have a long way to travel." "Well, we're getting a late start," Bigfoot said. "The sun's been up an hour.
What's the delay?" "You will see--I had to conduct a trial," Salazar said. "They're bringing the scoundrel now --as soon as we shoot him we'll be on our way." "I ain't in the mood to see nobody shot.
I think I'll just snooze some more," Gus said when Salazar passed on up the street. "I wonder what the fellow did." Before Gus could stretch out, six soldiers came; one unlocked the door to their little prison.
Again, Gus and Bigfoot had to bend nearly double to get out. Once in the street, Call saw that the whole town had turned out for the event that was about to take place. Salazar had ridden up to a little church and was waiting impatiently, now and then popping his quirt against his leg. The church was not much larger than some of the houses, but it had a little bell on top and its walls had been whitewashed. Four soldiers came out, dragging a blindfolded man.
"Why, it's Bes--I wonder how they caught him?" Bigfoot said, recognizing the Pawnee scout.
Indeed, it was Bes-Das: barefoot, blindfolded, and with blood on his shirt.
"The skunks, they've been beating on him," Gus said.
"He's a skunk himself--he deserted us," Call reminded them--and yet he, too, felt sorry for the man. The whole village fell silent as he was hustled across the little plaza and placed in front of the white wall of the church.
Bes-Das limped as he walked to the wall.
Salazar rode over to his militia and pointed six times, at six of the young soldiers.
An old priest, barefoot like the prisoner, came out of the little church and watched--he did not approach the prisoner. The six soldiers lined up in front of Bes-Das and leveled their muskets. Gus felt his stomach quiver--he did not want to see Bes-Das shot down, but he could not seem to turn his face away. Salazar motioned to the firing squad, and all the soldiers fired--one shot came a moment later than the others. Bes-Das slammed back against the church, and then fell forward on his face.
Salazar rode over, drew his pistol, and handed it to one of the young soldiers, who quickly stepped across the body and fired one shot into Bes-Das's head.
"I think that was a wasted bullet," Bigfoot said. "I think old Bes was dead." Salazar reached down for his pistol, looking over at Bigfoot as he took it.
"Men have survived six bullets before," he remarked. "The pistol was to make sure." "What did he do?" Call asked, looking at the body of the scout. Some of the young soldiers on the firing squad had not liked their task--one or two were trembling.
"He was a thief," Salazar said. "All Indians are thieves. This one stole a ring from the governor's wife." He reached into the pocket of his blue tunic and pulled out a large silver ring.
"This ring," he said.
The ring he had was large, with a green stone of some kind set in it. Salazar rode over to where the Texans stood and showed them the ring, one by one.
"The finest silver," he said. "Silver from our own mines, the ones you Texans hope to steal from us. This is why you made your long walk, isn't it--to steal our silver and gold?" "Captain, we ain't miners," Bigfoot said. "We come for the scenery, mostly--and for the adventure." "Oh," Salazar said. "Of course the scenery is free. We have no objection to your looking at it, if you do it with respect. As for the adventure ..." He stopped, and looked over his shoulder at the body of the man he had just executed. Two old men were digging a grave behind the church.
"As you see, some adventures end badly," he went on. "This man paid his debt. Now we must hurry to meet your friends." The little militia assembled itself and followed Salazar southwest, onto the plain but in the direction of the line of mountains. The three Texans marched at the rear, guarded by two soldiers on mules. Three soldiers flanked them on either side.
As they passed out of town the two old men were carrying Bes-Das, the crooked-toothed Pawnee, toward the little grave behind the whitewashed church.
"He got killed for a ring," Call observed.
"It looked like pure silver, to me," Gus said. "I guess he just thought he'd grab it and go." "He didn't go fast enough, then," Bigfoot said. "I wonder what happened to that Apache boy he left with. If he's loose around here somewhere I'd like to know. Apaches are slick when it comes to escapes." "They don't mean for us to escape," Call said, looking at the three armed soldiers who were marching one on each side of them. Salazar, riding at the head of the little column, frequently turned his horse and sometimes rode all the way back and walked his mount behind the prisoners for a few steps, to remind them of his vigilance.
"They don't mean for us to, but they could get fooled," Bigfoot said.
"That ring was pure silver," Gus said. "I told you there was silver out here." "You didn't mention the firing squad, though," Call said.
Before the Rangers had walked a mile they had learned to their vexation the difficulties of walking while chained. The irons soon chafed their ankles raw--they were forced to tear off pieces of their shirts to wrap their ankles with, as some protection from the rough iron.
"Dern, I'll be scraped to the bone before we get ten miles," Gus said. "They ought to unchain us during the march--they could always hammer the chains back on at night." The scraping, though, was only a part of the vexation. The chains dragged on the ground and caught on small protuberances--rocks, cactus, small bushes. Call, though the shortest man, had been given the longest chain. He found that he could hitch his chain to his belt and proceed at a normal stride, but that was not the case with Gus McCrae or Bigfoot Wallace, both of whom had to adjust their long strides to the length of the chains. Both men soon grew so annoyed at having to hobble mile after mile that they conceived a murderous hatred for Captain Salazar and for all Mexicans.
"Let's throttle these two boys back here and grab the mules and go for it," Gus suggested, more than once. The plain stretched before them, empty for fifty miles at least.