Текст книги "Dead Man's Walk"

Автор книги: Larry McMurtry

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Текущая страница: 12 (всего у книги 29 страниц)

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.

“I won’t give it up,” he said bluntly. “Give the man a musket. It’s more than he deserves.”

“I’ll decide what he deserves, Captain,” Caleb Cobb said. He had been sitting, but he rose; when he did, Buffalo Hump rose, too.

“I won’t do it, Colonel—I’ll resign first,” Captain Falconer said.

In a motion no one saw clearly, Caleb Cobb drew his pistol and fired point-blank at Captain Falconer. The bullet took him in the forehead, directly above his nose.

“You’re resigned, Captain,” Caleb said. He walked over to the baggage wagon containing the officer’s baggage and came back with the cherry wood case containing the dead man’s Holland and Holland rifle. The body of Billy Falconer lay not two feet from the edge of Buffalo Hump’s robe. Neither the war chief nor his women gave any sign that they had noticed the killing.

Caleb Cobb opened the gun case and handed it to Buffalo Hump. The rifle was disassembled, its barrel in one velvet groove, the stock and trigger in another. Caleb set the case down, lifted the two parts out, and quickly fitted them together. Then he handed the gun to Buffalo Hump, who hefted it once and then, without another word, took the rifle and walked over to his horse. He mounted and gestured to his wives to bring the blanket and the cherry wood case. He didn’t thank Caleb, but he looked once more at Matilda, and bent a moment, to speak to Shadrach.

“If I don’t take yours first,” Shadrach said, quietly.

Then Buffalo Hump rode off, followed by his wives. The sun was just setting.

The strange silence that had seized the troop continued, even though the Comanches were soon well out of hearing.

Captain Falconer’s wound scarcely bled—only a thin line of blood curled down his ear.

“Bury this skunk, I won’t have mutiny,” Caleb said. He glanced at the troop, to see if anyone was disposed to challenge his action. The men all stood around like statues, all except Sam. He was expected to do the burying, as well as the cooking. He picked up a spade.

“You can have that pacing black—I intend to make you a scout,” Caleb said, to Call.

“Sir, Captain Falconer made me a corporal,” Gus McCrae said. He knew it was bold to speak, so soon after a captain of the Rangers had been executed for mutiny, but the fact was, he had been awarded the rank and he meant to have it. He had been made a corporal legally, he believed, and he wanted Clara Forsythe to know that Woodrow Call was not the only one to earn a quick promotion.

Caleb Cobb was a little surprised, but more amused. The young Tennessee boy had gumption, at least, to insist on his promotion at such a time.

“Well, let’s have your report—what did you do to earn this honor?” Caleb asked.

“I whacked John Kirker on the head with my pistol,” Gus said. “He followed us when he wasn’t told to, and he wouldn’t go back when we asked.”

“You whacked Johnny?” Caleb asked, in surprise. “How hard did you whack him?”

“He knocked him off his horse and split his forehead open,” Bigfoot said. “I seen it. Kirker was mean spoken—I had a notion to whack him myself.”

“Scalp hunters are apt to be a little short on manners,” Caleb said. “John Kirker’s the sort of fellow who will kill you for picking your teeth, if you happen to do it at a time when he ain’t in the mood to see no teeth picked. If you laid him out, then Falconer was wrong just to make you a corporal—he ought to have made you a general.”

He paused, and smiled.

“However, since I didn’t witness the action and don’t know all the circumstances, I’ll just let the rank of corporal stand. What became of Kirker after you whacked him?”

“We don’t know,” Call said. “He left.”

Caleb nodded. “If I were you I’d watch my flank for a few days, Corporal McCrae,” he said. “John Kirker ain’t one to forget a whacking.”

Then he turned, and went into his tent.

Soon the company found its legs and drifted back to normal pursuits: cooking, drinking, standing guard, making fires. Call and Gus, feeling a kinship with Sam because they were all from San Antonio, took shovels arid picks and helped him dig Falconer’s grave.

General Phil Lloyd stood by Caleb Cobb’s tent, feeling forgotten. Falconer, too, was well on his way to being forgotten, though he had only been dead ten minutes. The difference was that Falconer was actually dead, whereas General Lloyd merely felt he might as well be. He had put on his cleanest blue coat, in preparation for Buffalo Hump’s visit. He had even had Peedee, his man, hang all his twelve medals on it. Once he had had as many as eighteen medals—he was pretty sure the correct figure was eighteen—but six of them had been lost, in various drunken outings, in various muddy towns.

Still, twelve medals was no small number of medals; it was an even dozen, in fact. An even dozen medals was a solid number, yet out on the Brazos, with the sky getting cloudy and a gloomy dusk coming on, a dozen medals seemed to count for nothing. Buffalo Hump hadn’t even glanced at him, or his medals, though in his experience, red Indians were usually attracted to military decorations.

Not only that: Caleb Cobb had not bothered to introduce him; nor had he asked him to sit. The buffalo liver had smelled mighty appetizing, but Caleb Cobb hadn’t offered him any.

The two young Rangers, Corporal Call and Corporal McCrae, came over and rolled Captain Falconer’s body onto a wagon sheet. General Lloyd walked over and watched them tie the body into its rough shroud. He had once been the hero of the Battle of New Orleans—Andrew Jackson had made a speech about him. It seemed to him that the two youngsters, just getting their start in military life, might appreciate his history. They might want to hear how it had been, fighting the British—far different, certainly, from fighting savages such as Buffalo Hump. They might want to look at his medals and ask him what this one was for, or what exploit that one celebrated.

“It will be fine to be in Santa Fe—that high air is too good for your lungs,” he said, to put the young men at ease.

“Yes sir,” Gus said. He was wondering whether a salute was necessary, with darkness nearly on them.

Before Call could speak—he had only been planning to say something simple, as Gus had—General Lloyd decided he didn’t want to be around a corpse wrapped in a wagon sheet. He couldn’t get a bad notion out of his head, the notion being that he was really the one who was dead and wrapped in a wagon sheet.

The notion disturbed General Lloyd so much that he turned and stumbled away, to look for his wagon, his servant Peedee, and his bottle. He thought he might send Peedee after a whore.

In New Orleans, in the old days, there had been winsome and willing Creole girls—his hope was that there might be something of the sort in Santa Fe. Santa Fe was high, he knew that much; high air was thought to be good for women’s complexions. In Santa Fe he might find a young beauty to marry him; if he could, then it wouldn’t matter so much about lost medals, or the fact no one took much notice of him at parleys.

At present, though, they had only advanced to the Brazos and the only women around were rough camp whores. He thought he might send Peedee to look for one, though. It might help him sleep.

Gus and Call were trying to keep their minds off Falconer’s abrupt execution. Neither of them had supposed that the military life involved such extreme risks. They were so disturbed by what they had seen that they were having an awkward time getting Falconer’s body wrapped in its rough shroud; neither of them had had much training at burials. When Gus saw General Lloyd stumble away, he grew apprehensive. If the penalty for failing to give a fine rifle to an Indian was instant death, what might the penalty be for failing to salute a general?

“We didn’t salute him. What if he has us hung?” Gus asked. He was troubled by the thought that he might have made a serious breach of military etiquette only a few minutes after having been promoted to corporal.

Call was still trying to puzzle out the logic of Falconer’s execution. Caleb Cobb had brooked almost no argument. Without warning, he had merely yanked out his pistol and shot the Captain dead. Of course, Falconer had balked at an order, but he was a captain. He could hardly have suspected that his refusal to hand over his prized rifle would mean instant execution. If Caleb had put it to him that he viewed the matter as serious—that it meant life or death—no doubt Captain Falconer would have given up the gun. But Caleb hadn’t given a chance to argue. Call would have thought there would have to be some kind of trial, before a captain in the Rangers could be executed. He meant to ask Bigfoot about the matter the next time he saw him.

“I think we could have saluted,” Gus said again. With darkness coming, and a dead man to bury, the omission of the salute loomed large in his mind.

“Hush about it,” Call said. “I don’t even know how to salute. Help me tie this end of the wagon sheet. He’s going to slip out if you don’t.”

RAIN BEGAN AT MIDNIGHT and continued until dawn and then on through the day. Call and Gus crawled under one of the wagons, hoping for a little sleep, but the water soon puddled around them and they slept little. Gus kept remembering the puzzled look on Falconer’s face, when Caleb Cobb raised his gun to kill him. He mentioned it to Call so often that Call finally told him to shut up about it.

“I guess he was puzzled,” he said. “We were all puzzled. You don’t expect to see a man shot down like that, just to please an Indian.”

“I doubt Bigfoot was puzzled,” Gus said. “It takes a lot to puzzle Bigfoot.”

Call was glad when it became their turn to stand guard. Standing guard beat trying to sleep in a puddle.

By midmorning the Brazos was impassable—the rains fell for three days, and then the river only fell enough for a general crossing to be feasible after three more days, by which time morale in the expeditionary party had sunk very low.In the wake of Falconer’s death, men began to remember other tales they had heard, or thought they had heard, about Caleb Cobb’s violent behaviour as a commander. Long Bill Coleman recalled that someone had told him Caleb had once hanged six men at sea, in his pirating days. The men’s crime, as Long Bill remembered it, was to get into the grog and turn up drunk.

“I heard it was four,” Blackie Slidell said.

“Well, that’s still a passel of men to hang because they were drunk,” Long Bill argued.

During the day, hunting parties scoured the south bank of the Brazos, sure that some of the thousands of buffalo they had seen must still be on the south side of the river; their hopes were disappointed. Not a single buffalo could be located, nor were deer or wild pigs easy to find. Caleb ordered the killing of three beeves— but the meat was stringy, and the men’s discontent increased.

“We could have been eating buffalo liver every night,” Johnny Carthage complained. “I’ve heard the hump is good, too.”

“No, the hump is fatty,” Bigfoot said. “I generally take the liver and the tongue.”

That was the first Gus McCrae had heard about people eating tongue.

“Tongue?” he said. “I won’t be eating no tongues—I don’t care if they do come from a buffalo.”

“I’ll take yours, then,” Bigfoot said. “Buffalo tongue beats polecat by a long shot, although polecat ain’t bad if you salt it heavy.”

“What happens in an army if the colonel goes crazy?” Call asked. It seemed to him that Caleb Cobb might be insane. His own promotion, for doing nothing more than defending himself from sure death, had been a whimsy on Caleb’s part—as much a whimsy as Falconer’s execution. During the long rainy nights, huddled around campfires, their pants soaked, the men speculated and speculated about Caleb Cobb’s surprising action.

“He had to make a show for Buffalo Hump,” Bigfoot contended. “He wanted him to know he had sand. Once an Indian thinks you don’t have sand, he don’t show no mercy.”

“That one don’t show no mercy, sand or not,” Long Bill said. “Zeke Moody had plenty of sand, and so did Josh.”

“Maybe Falconer tried to steal his girl, or beat him at cards or something,” Blackie suggested. “Caleb might have had a grudge.“Call couldn’t see that it mattered why—not now. In his view, the killing had not been done properly, but he was young and he didn’t voice his opinion. Captain Falconer had been an officer. If there were charges against him he should have been informed of them, at least. But the only message he got was the bullet that killed him. Probably Caleb Cobb would have been just as quick to kill any man who happened to be standing there at that time. Probably Bigfoot was right: Caleb had just wanted to show Buffalo Hump that a colonel in the Rangers could be as cruel as any warchief, dealing out death as he chose.

Call resolved to do his duties as best he could, but he meant to avoid Caleb Cobb whenever possible. He thought the man was insane, though Gus disagreed.

“Killing somebody don’t mean you’re insane,” he argued.

“I think he’s insane, you can think what you like,” Call told him. “It was Falconer made you a corporal, remember. The Colonel might decide he don’t like you, for no better reason than that.”

Gus thought the matter over, and decided there could be some truth in it. Yet, unlike Call, he was drawn to Caleb Cobb. It interested him that a pirate had got to be commander of an army. Whenever he happened to be around the Colonel, he listened carefully.

On the sixth day, the Colonel decided to cross the river, though it was still dangerously high. Every night his forces diminished— men slipped off, back toward Austin. They decided they had no stomach for prairie travel, and they left. Caleb didn’t have them pursued—half the troop had no idea why they were bound for Santa Fe, anyway; most of them would have been useless in a fight and a burden, had supplies run low, as they were likely to do, on the high plains. Yet, by the sixth day, discontent was so rife that he decided to ford the river despite the risk. Another day or two of waiting and the whole Texas-Santa Fe expedition might simply melt into the Brazos mud. In retrospect, he regretted not letting the men chase the buffalo—it would have given them some sporting exploits to talk about around the campfires. His reasoning in holding them back had been sound, but the weather confounded his reason, as it was apt to.

Both Bes-Das and Alchise were against the crossing. The Brazos was still too high. Shadrach was against it, and Bigfoot too, although Bigfoot agreed with the Colonel that if they didn’t cross soon the expedition would quietly disband. All the scouts remembered the fate of Captain Falconer, though. They offered little advice, knowing that the wrong piece of advice might get them shot.

Gus had not been along for the earlier river crossing, but he had crossed the Mississippi and had no fear of the Brazos.

“Why, this is just a creek,” he said. “I could swim it on my back.”

“I couldn’t,” Call told him. “I swum it twice and it was all I could do, even with a horse pulling me.”

There was no agreement as to the swimming capacity of sheep, so the twenty sheep were tied and tossed in the sturdiest of the wagons. Then, for no reason that anyone could determine, the wagon with the sheep in it capsized in midstream, drowning the driver—he got a foot tangled in the harness—two of the horses, and all twenty sheep. Three of the beeves wandered into quicksand on the south bank—they were mired so deep that Caleb ordered them shot. Sam waded in mud to his thighs, with his butcher knife, to take what meat he could from the three muddy carcasses. Six merchants and four whores decided the Brazos was their limit, and turned back for the settlements. Brognoli was the only man to swim he river without a horse. It was rumoured that Brognoli could swim five miles or more, though there was no body of water large enough to allow the claim to be tested. Caleb Cobb crossed in a canoe he had brought along in one of the wagons for that purpose. The wagon they had been hauling the canoe in was hit by some heavy driftwood; it broke up just shy of the north bank. Only four wagons survived the crossing, but they were the ones containing the ammunition and supplies. The expeditionary force, though a little leaner, was still mostly intact. The four wagons had all they could haul as it was, but Caleb Cobb proceeded to hoist his canoe on top of the largest wagon, despite his scouts’ insistence that he wouldn’t need it.

“Colonel, most of the rivers between here and the Arkansas is just creeks,” Bigfoot said. “That canoe’s wider than some of them. You could turn it upside down and use it as a bridge.”

“Fine, that’s better than traveling wet,” Caleb said. “I despise traveling wet.”

The fourth day north of the Brazos the post oak and elm petered out, and the troop began to move across an open, rolling prairie. There were still plenty of trees along the many creeks, so the troopdidn’t lack for firewood, but the traveling was easier, and the men’s mood improved. Little seeping springs dotted the prairie, producing water that was clearer and more tasteful than that of the muddy Brazos. Deer were plentiful though small, but the men could scarcely raise an interest in venison. They expected to come on the great buffalo herd any day. They had all smelled the buffalo liver Sam had cooked for the Comanches, and were determined to try it for themselves.

Call and Gus had been made scouts, assigned to range ahead with Bes-Das and Alchise. Bigfoot the Colonel kept close at hand— though he valued Bigfoot’s advice, he mainly wanted him handy because he was amused by his conversation. Shadrach had taken a cough, and roamed little. He rode beside Matilda Roberts, his long rifle always across his saddle.

They crossed the Trinity River on a sunny day with no loss of life other than one brown dog, a mongrel who had hung around the camp since the troop’s departure. Sam liked the little dog and fed him scraps. The dog was swimming by a big bay gelding, when the horse panicked and pawed the dog down. Sam was gloomy that night, so gloomy that he failed to salt the beans.

The stars were very bright over the prairie, so bright that Call had trouble sleeping. The only Indians they had seen were a small, destitute band of Kickapoos, who seemed to be living off roots and prairie dogs. When asked if the buffalo herd were near, they shook their heads and looked blank. “No buffalo,” one old man said.

None of the men could figure out what had become of the buffalo —hundreds of thousands of them had crossed the Brazos less than a week before, and yet they had not seen one buffalo, or even a track. Call asked Bigfoot about it, and Bigfoot shrugged.

“When we got across the river, we turned west,” he said. “I reckon them buffalo turned east.”

Even so, the men rode out every day, expecting to see the herd. At night they talked of buffalo, anticipating how good the meat would taste when they finally made their kills. In Austin, they had talked of women, or of notable card games they had been in; on the prairie, they talked of meat. Sam promised to instruct them all in buffalo anatomy—show them where the liver was, and how best to extract the tongue. After weeks in the trees, the breadth and silence of the prairie unnerved some of the men.

“Dern, I can’t get cozy out here,” Johnny Carthage observed. “There’s nothing to stop the damn wind.”

“Why would you want to stop it—just let it blow,” Gus said. “It’s just air that’s on the move.”

“It rings in my ears, though,” Johnny said. “I’d rather bunk up behind a bush.”

“I wonder how far it is, across this prairie?” Jimmy Tweed asked.

“Well, it’s far,” Blackie Slidell said. “They say you can walk all the way to Canada on it.”

“I have no interest in hearing about Canada,” Jimmy Tweed said. “I’d rather locate Santa Fe and get me a shave.”

There was a whole group of men just come from Missouri, especially to join the expedition. They were a sour lot, in Gus’s view, seldom exchanging more than a word or two with the Texans, and not many among themselves. They camped a little apart, and were led by a short, red-bearded man named Dakluskie. Gus tried to make friends with one or two of the Missourians, meaning to draw them into a card game, but they rebuffed him. The only one he developed a liking for was a boy named Tommy Spencer, no more than fourteen years old. Dakluskie was his uncle and had brought him along to do camp chores. Tommy Spencer thought Texas Rangers were all fine fellows. When he could, he sneaked over to sit at the campfire with them, listening to them yarn. He had a martial spirit, and carried an old pistol that was his pride.