Текст книги "Dead Man's Walk"

Автор книги: Larry McMurtry

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Текущая страница: 14 (всего у книги 29 страниц)

Then he heard rifle shots from just ahead of him, where two or three trees bordered a little stream. A doe came bounding through the trees, so close that Betsy almost collided with it. Call skirted the spring and saw Long Bill Coleman ahead—he had been chasing the doe. He had shot once and was just reloading. He was startled to see Call, but even more startled to see the Comanches. Although the odds had altered, the Comanches were still coming.

“Oh, boy, where’s that damn Blackie when we need him?” Long Bill said, wheeling his horse. “He rode out with me but he thought the doe was too puny to bother about.”

An arrow dropped between them, and then two gunshots came from behind, one of which nicked Call’s hat brim. They raced on, hoping someone in the troop would hear the shooting and respond—it was awhile before they realized the Comanches were no longer chasing them. When they pulled up and looked back, they saw that the three Comanches, having missed the scalps, had taken the small doe instead. One of them had just slung the carcass onto his horse.

“Oh boy, I’m winded,” Long Bill said. “I was just trying to kill a little meat. I sure wasn’t looking for no Indian fight.”

Call remembered that Gus and Bigfoot were alone, at the lip of the great canyon. The three men who chased them might have been part of a larger party. With so many buffalo grazing in the canyon, it was likely more Indians were about.

Caleb Cobb was enjoying a long cigar when Call raced up: he seemed more interested in Betsy than in the news.

“I come close to choosing that little mare for myself,” he said. “I expect it’s lucky for you that I didn’t. I think Mr. Bigfoot Wallace made a good point when he said it’s horseflesh that usually makes the difference in Indian fighting.”

“Colonel, there’s hundreds of buffalo down in that canyon,” Call said. “There might be more Indians, too.”

“All right, we’re off to the rescue,” Caleb said. “We’ll take about ten men. Me and Jeb will come too. It’s a fine morning for a fracas.”

Call had forgotten to mention the dead man. He had had only a moment to look at him, before the Comanches attacked. When he told the Colonel about it, the Colonel shrugged.“Likely just a traveler who took the long route,” he said. “Traveling alone in this part of the country is generally foolhardy.” “I wouldn’t do it for seventy dollars,” Long Bill observed. Shadrach had been napping when Call arrived. The change in the old mountain man surprised everyone: from being independent, stern, and a little frightening, even when he was in a good temper, he had become aged. Though Call had always known that Shadrach was old, he had not thought of him that way until they crossed the Brazos; now, though, it was impossible to think of him any other way. He had once wandered off alone for days; now, when he left camp to hunt, he was always back in a few hours. He sometimes dozed, even when on horseback. Unless directly addressed, he spoke only to Matilda.

The news that they were near the Palo Duro Canyon seemed to take years off Shadrach, though—at once he was mounted, his long rifle out of its scabbard.

“I’ve heard of it all my life, now I aim to see it,” Shadrach said. Then he turned to Matilda.

“If it’s safe, then I’ll come and get you, Matty,” he said, before loping off.

Sam took a hasty look at Call’s arrow wound, broke off the arrow shaft and cut the arrow free. Call was impatient—he didn’t regard the wound as serious: he wanted to be off. But Sam made him wait while he dressed the wound correctly, and the Colonel, though mounted, waited with no show of impatience.

“I want Corporal Call to be well doctored,” he said. “We can’t afford to have him sick.”

Call led them to the dead man, whom Shadrach recognized. “It’s Roy Char—he was a mining man,” Shadrach said. “I don’t know what there could be to mine, out in this country,” Caleb said.

“Roy was after that old gold,” Shadrach said.

“What old gold?” Caleb asked. “If there’s a bunch of old gold around here we ought to find it and forget about New Mexico.”

“Some big Spaniard came marching through here in the old times,” Shadrach said. “They say he found a town that was made of gold. I guess Roy figured some of it might still be around here, somewhere.”

“Oh, Senor Coronado, you mean,” Caleb said. “He didn’t find no city of gold—all he found was a lot of poor Indians. Your friend Mr. Char lost his life for nothing. The gold ain’t here.”

The canyon was there, though. They buried Roy Char hastily, and rode along the rim of the canyon until they found Gus and Bigfoot, hiding in a small declivity behind some thorny bushes. Both had their rifles at the ready.

“What took you all day?” Gus asked—he was badly annoyed by the fact that he had had to cower behind a bush for an hour, while he waited for Call to bring up the troop.

“I got an arrow in my arm, but it wasn’t as bad as what happened to a man we just buried,” Call said.

“You could be burying us—and you would have if we hadn’t been quick to hide,” Bigfoot told them. “There’s fifty or sixty Indians down below us—I wish you’d brought the whole troop.”

“Well, we can fetch the troop,” Caleb said. “I doubt those Indians can ride up this cliff and scalp us all.”

“No, but it’s their canyon,” Bigfoot reminded him. “They might know a trail.”

Caleb walked out on a little promontory, and looked down. He saw a good number of Indians, butchering buffalo. Six buffalo were down, at least.

“If they know a trail I hope they show it to us,” Caleb said, coming back. “We’d ride down and harvest a few of them buffalo ourselves.”

“There could be a thousand Indians around here,” Bigfoot said. “I ain’t putting myself in no place where I have to climb to get away from Indians. They might be better climbers than I am.”

“You’re right, but I hate to pass up the meat,” Caleb said.

Nonetheless, they did pass it up. The troop was brought forward and proceeded west, along the edge of the canyon. They were never out of sight of buffalo—or Indians. Quartermaster Brognoli, who believed in numbers—so many boots, so many rifles, so many sacks of flour—counted over three hundred tribesmen in the canyon, most of them engaged in cutting up buffalo. Call and Gus both kept looking into the canyon—the distance was so vast that it drew the eye. Both strained their eyes to see if they could spot Buffalo Hump, but they didn’t see him.

“He’s there, though,” Gus said. “I feel him.”

“You can’t feel an Indian who’s miles away,” Call said.

“I can,” Gus affirmed, without explanation.

“He could be five hundred miles from here—:there are thousands of Indians,” Call reminded him.

“I can feel him,” Gus insisted. “I get hot under the ribs when he’s around. Don’t you ever get hot under the ribs?”

“Not unless I’ve eaten putrid beef,” Call said. Twice on the trip he had eaten putrid beef, and his system had revolted.

The night was moonless, which worried Caleb Cobb somewhat and worried Bigfoot more. The horses were kept within a corral of ropes, and guard was changed every hour. Caleb called the men together in the evening, and made a little speech.

“We’ve come too far to go back,” he said. “We’re bound for Santa Fe. But the Indians know we’re here, and they’re clever horse thieves. We have to watch close. We won’t get across this long prairie if we lose our horses—the red boys will tag after us and pick us off like chickens.”

Despite the speech and the intensified guard, the remuda was twenty horses short when dawn came. None of the guards had nodded or closed an eye, either. Caleb Cobb was fit to be tied.

“How could they get off with twenty horses and not one of us hear them?” he asked. Brognoli kept walking around the horse herd, counting and recounting. For awhile he was sure the count was wrong—it wasn’t easy to count horses when they were bunched together. He counted and recounted until Caleb lost his temper and ordered him to stop.

“The damn horses are gone!” he said. “They’re forty miles away by now, most likely. You can’t count them because they’re gone!”

“I expect it was Kicking Wolf,” Bigfoot said. “He could steal horses out of a store.”

“If I could catch the rascal I’d tie him to a horse’s tail and let the horse kick him to death,” Caleb said. “Since his name is Kicking Wolf it would be appropriate if the son of a bitch got kicked to death.”

With the night’s theft, the horse situation became critical. Three men were totally without mounts, and no man had more than one horse. To make matters worse, Tom, Matilda’s big grey, was one of the horses that had been stolen. She was now afoot. Matilda cried all morning. She had a fondness for Tom. The sight of Matilda crying unnerved the whole camp. Since taking up with Shadrachr

Matilda had raged less—everyone noted her mildness. But watching such a large woman cry was a trial to the spirit. It fretted Shadrach so that he grew restless and rode out of camp, over Matilda’s protests.

“Now he’ll go off and get killed,” Matilda said.

“Well, if you hush up that crying, maybe he’ll come back,” Long Bill said. He was one of the men who was afoot, and as a result, was in a sour mood. The prospect of walking to Santa Fe, across such a huge plain, did not appeal to him—but the thought of walking back to Austin didn’t appeal to him, either. He had seen what had just happened to the mining man, Roy Char. He was determined to stay with the troop, even if it meant blisters on his feet.

Call and Gus had both been on guard, in the darkest part of the night. Call felt shamed by the thought that he had not been keen enough to prevent the theft.

“Why, I wasn’t sleepy a bit,” Gus said. “It couldn’t have happened on our watch. I can hear a rat move, when I’m that wide awake.”

“You might could hear a rat, but you didn’t hear the Indians and you didn’t hear the horses leaving, either,” Call told him.

That night Call, Bigfoot, and a number of other guards periodically put their ear to the ground to listen. All they heard was the tramp of their own horses in the rope corral. In addition to the rope, most of the horses had been hobbled, so they couldn’t bolt. . Call and Gus had the watch just before sunrise. They moved in circles around the herd, meeting every five minutes. Call was certain no Indians were there. It was only when dawn came that he had a moment of uncertainty. He saw the beginnings of the sunrise—the light was yellow as flame. But the yellow light was in the west, and dawn didn’t come from the west.

A second later Bigfoot saw it too, and yelled loud enough to wake the whole camp.

“That ain’t the sunrise, boys!” he yelled.

Just as he said it, Call saw movement to the north. Two Indians had sneaked in and slipped the hobbles on several horses. Call threw off a shot, but it was still very dark—he could no longer see anything to the north.

“Damn it all, they got away again,” he said. “I don’t know how many horses they got away with, this time.““Don’t matter now, we’ve got to head back to that last creek,” Bigfoot said.

“Why?” Call asked, startled.

Bigfoot merely pointed west, where the whole horizon was yellow.

“That ain’t sunrise,” he said, in a jerky voice. “That’s fire.”

THE TROOP HAD NO sooner turned to head back south toward the little creek Bigfoot mentioned when they saw the same yellow glow on the prairie south of them. The flames to the west were already noticeably closer. Bigfoot wheeled his mount, and rode up to Caleb.

“They set it,” he said. “The Comanches. They waited till the wind was right. Now we have the canyon at our backs and prairie fires on two sides.”

“Three,” Caleb said, pointing west, where there was another fierce glow.

The whole troop immediately discerned the nature of their peril. Call looked at Gus, who tried to appear nonchalant.

“We’ll have to burn or we’ll have to jump,” Call said. “I hate the thought of burning most, I guess.”

Gus looked into the depths of the canyon—he was only twenty feet from its edge. The prairie now was a great ring of burning grass. Though he sat calmly on his horse, waiting for Bigfoot and the Colonel to decide what to do, inside he felt the same deep churning that he had felt beyond the Pecos. The Indians were superior to them in their planning. They would always lay some clever trap.

“Ride, boys,” Bigfoot said. “Let’s try the west—it’s our best chance.”

Soon the whole troop was fleeing, more than twenty of the men mounted double for lack of horses. Shadrach took Matilda on behind him—he rode right along the canyon edge, looking for a way down.

“I believe we could climb down afoot,” he told Caleb. “If we can get a little ways down, we won’t burn. There’s nothing to burn, on those cliffs.”

Caleb stopped a minute, to appraise the fire. The ring had now been closed. With every surge of wind the fire seemed to leap toward them, fifty yards at a leap. The prairie grass was tall—flames shot twenty and thirty feet in the air.

“The damn fiends,” Caleb said. “Maybe we can start a backfire, and get it stopped. I’ve heard that can be done.”

“No time, and the wind’s wrong,” Bigfoot said. “I think Shad’s right. We’re going to have to climb a ways down.”

Caleb hesitated. It might be the only good strategy, but it meant abandoning their mounts. There was no trail a horse could go down. They might survive the fire, but then what? They would be on the bald prairie—no horses, no supplies, no water. How long would it take the Comanches to pick them off?

The troop huddled around Bigfoot and their commander. All eyes were turned toward the fire, and all eyes were anxious. The flames were advancing almost at loping speed. They were only three hundred yards away. The men could hear the dry grass crackle as it took flame. When the wind surged there was a roar, as the flames were sucked into the sky.

Call felt bitter that their commander had had no more forethought than to bring them to such an exposed place. Nothing about the expedition had been well planned. Of course, no one would have imagined that the Indians could steal horses at will, frorn such a tight guard. But now they were caught: he imagined Buffalo Hump, somewhere on the other side of the flames, his lance in his hand, waiting to come in and take some scalps.

Caleb Cobb waited until the flames were one hundred yards away to make his decision. He waited, hoping to spot a break in the flames, something they might race through. But there was no break in the flames—the Indians who set the fire had done an expert job. The ring of flames grew tighter every minute. General Lloyd, drunk as usual, was shivering and shaking, although the heat from the great fire was already close enough to be felt.

“We’re done for now—we’ll cook,” he said.

“No, but we will have to climb down this damn cliff,” Caleb said, turning his horse toward the canyon’s edge. No sooner had he turned than he heard a gunshot—General Phil Lloyd had taken out his revolver and shot himself in the head. His body hung halfway off his horse, one foot caught in a stirrup.

The horses were beginning to be hard to restrain, jumping and pitching, their nostrils flaring. Two or three men were thrown— one horse raced straight into the flames.

“Let’s go boys—keep your guns and get over the edge, as best you can,” Caleb yelled.

To Gus’s relief the canyon walls were not as sheer as they had first looked. There were drop-offs of a hundred feet and more, but there were also humps and ledges, and inclines not too steep to negotiate. The Irish dog went down at a run, his tail straight in the air. Before the men had scrambled thirty feet down there was another tragedy: the horses were in panic now—some raced into the flames, but others raced straight off into the canyon. Some hit ledges, but most rolled once or twice and fell into the void. One of the leaping horses fell straight down now on Dakluskie, the leader of the Missourians. Several of the Rangers saw the horse falling, but Dakluskie didn’t. He was crushed before he could look up. The horse kept rolling, taking Dakluskie with it. General Lloyd’s horse made the longest leap of all—he flew over the group and fell out of sight, General Lloyd’s body still dangling from the stirrup.

“Oh God, look there!” Gus said, pointing across the canyon. “Look at them—where are they going?”

Not all of the men could afford to look—some of them clung to small bushes, or balanced on narrow ledges in terror. Over them the fire roared right to the edge of the canyon; the heat made all of them sweat, although they were cold with fear.

Call looked, though, and so did Caleb Cobb. At first Call thought it was goats, creeping along the face of the cliff across the canyon. Just as he looked, a ledge crumbled under Black Sam—Call saw a startled look on Sam’s face, as he fell. He did not cry out.

“My God, look at them!” Caleb said.

Across the canyon, on a trail so narrow that they had to proceed single file, a party of fifty Comanches were moving west. It seemed from across the great distance that the Comanches were walking on air.

In the lead was Buffalo Hump, with the lance Gus had imagined in his fear.

“Look at them!” Bigfoot said. “Are they flying?”

“No, it’s a trail,” Shadrach told him. He was on a tiny ledge of rock, with Matilda. He shushed her like a child, hoping to keep her from making a foolish movement.

“What if the fire don’t stop?” Matilda asked, looking upward. She had always been scared of fire; now she could not stop trembling. She expected flames to curl over the edge of the canyon and come down and burn her shirt. She had such a horror of her clothes being on fire that she began to take her shirt off.

“What … stop that!” Shadrach said, one eye on Matilda and the other eye on the Comanches.

“No, I have to get this shirt off, I don’t want to burn up in it,” Matilda said, and she half undressed on the small ledge.

Call could look up and see flames at the canyon’s edge, but he knew Matilda’s fear was unfounded. Ash from the burning prairie floated down on them, but the fire was not going to curl over. He kept watching the Indians across the Palo Duro. It did seem that their horses were walking delicately, on the air itself.

“Can you see a trail—you’ve got those keen eyes?” Call asked Gus.

Gus himself had to squint—smoke was floating over the canyon now, from the fire. But when he looked close he could see that the Indians weren’t flying. Buffalo Hump was picking his way slowly, a step at a time, along a small trail.

“He ain’t flying, there’s a trail,” he said. “But if any man could fly I expect it would be that rascal. It felt like he was flying that night he chased me.”

“I don’t care if they’re flying or walking,” Caleb said—he was clinging to a small bush. “I’d be happier if they were going in the other direction—it looks like they’re flanking us.”

Just then the dentist, Elihu Carson, lost his balance and began to roll downward.

“Grab his foot!” Call yelled to Long Bill, who was nearest the falling man. Long Bill grabbed but missed by an inch or less. His own situation was so precarious that he did not dare lean farther. The dentist bounced off a boulder and flew out of sight, screeching loudly as he vanished.

“We’ll have to take care, now, and not get no toothaches,” Bigfoot said, his eyes still on the file of Indians across the canyon, who seemed to be walking on air.

WHEN THE RANGERS CRAWLED back out of the canyon, the prairie was black and smouldering, as far as anyone could see. Here and there a little bush, a cactus or a pack rat’s den still showed a trace of flame. Several dead horses were in sight; the gear the men had dumped smouldered like the rats’ dens. Young Tommy Spencer was sobbing loudly. Dakluskie had been his only relative. Black Sam was gone, and the dentist—Brognoli had been kicked in the neck by a falling horse, and sat glassy eyed. His head was set at an odd angle; from time to time his head seemed to jerk, backward and forward, quickly. He couldn’t speak, though whether from fear or injury no one yet knew.

Much of the extra ammunition had exploded. This surprised everybne, because no one could remember having heard an explosion. By hasty count more than twenty men were missing, fallen unobserved. In view of the fact that at least fifty Indians were to the west of them, not to mention the armies of Santa Fe, the loss of the ammunition was a grave problem. Various of the men commented apprehensively on this fact, but Bigfoot Wallace merely smiled.

“I ain’t worried about bullets, yet,” he said. “We’re afoot, and there ain’t many water holes. We’ll probably starve before we can find anybody to shoot.”

Caleb Cobb’s Irish dog, Jeb, had gone so far down the cliff that he could not get back up. He was crouched more than a hundred feet below on a small ledge, in danger of falling off down a sheer cliff at any moment.

“I’ve either got to shoot him or rescue him,” Caleb said. “Any volunteers for a dog rescue?”

The troop was silent—the thought of going over the edge again, just to rescue a dog that no one but Caleb liked, did not appeal.

“I’ll make the man a sergeant who’ll rescue my damn dog,” Caleb said.

“I’ll do it,” Gus said, at once. He was thinking of Clara Forsythe when he said it. The dog’s dilemma had presented him with a golden opportunity to get ahead of Call. Once ahead, in the race for rank, he meant to stay ahead. Clara would probably hurry to kiss him, if he came back from the trip a sergeant. Corporal Call wouldn’t loom so large—not then.

Call was startled by his friend’s foolish offer. There was no footing around the dog at all—just a tiny ledge. There was not a bush or a tree within twenty feet of the dog—there was nothing to hold on to. Besides that, the dog was big.

“Gus, don’t do it,” Call said. “You’ll go on over, like the dentist.”

But Gus was in a reckless mood, emboldened by the thought of how proud Clara would be of him, when he returned a sergeant. It was a steep stretch between him and the dog, but he had been over the edge of the canyon once and had survived. No doubt he could survive again.

“Somebody tie a rope to me,” he said. “That’ll be safe enough— unless all the ropes burnt up.”

Call and Long Bill quickly poked through the smouldering baggage, using their rifle barrels to turn the hot rags and smoking blankets. They found three horsehide ropes that, though charred, were not burnt through. Call inspected them carefully, inch by inch, to see if there were any weak spots in the rawhide. He found none.

“I still think it’s foolish,” he said, as he carefully tied the ropestogether. Even with all three ropes knotted into one, it still looked short to him. Every time he looked over the edge of the canyon the dog seemed farther away. The dog had brayed himself out. He lay flat on the ledge now, his head on his paws. His tail stuck over the chasm.

Six Rangers, Call at the front, held the end of the rope and lowered Gus slowly over the canyon rim. In places there were bushes he could hold on to. Caleb Cobb stood at the edge of the canyon, supervising the operation.

“The point about heights is that you don’t want to look down, Corporal,” he said. “Just look at the dirt in front of you.”

Gus took the advice. He studiously kept his eyes on the cliff wall, reaching down carefully, a foot at a time. Though he didn’t look down, he did look up, and immediately felt a serious flutter in his stomach. The rim above him seemed halfway to the sky. He could not even see the men who were holding the rope. He knew they were trustworthy men, but it would have reassured him to see them.

Suddenly he remembered the Comanches, the ones who had seemed to walk on air. What if they crossed the canyon and attacked? The men would drop him for sure—they’d have to.

“Lower me faster,” he said. “I’m anxious to get back.”

When Gus was within fifteen yards of the dog, the dog began to whine and scratch. He knew Gus was coming to rescue him—but the rope didn’t quite reach, and the stretch between the dog and Gus was stony and steep. Gus began to feel fear rising. If the men lost their hold, or if he slipped trying to grab the dog, he would fall hundreds of feet and be dead. He wanted the promotion, and he wanted Clara’s love—yet his fear rose and swallowed the feelings that had caused him to volunteer.

A moment later, he came to the last foothold and saw that he was beaten: the rope was just too short.

“Colonel, can’t you call him?” Gus yelled—“I can’t go no lower —maybe he can come up a ways.”

Caleb Cobb gave a holler, and the dog began to scramble up.

“Ho, Jeb! Ho, Jeb!” Caleb yelled.

The dog made a frantic effort to scramble back up the cliff. He lunged upward just enough that Gus could grab its thick collar. But the weight of the dog was an immediate shock—the dog weighed as much as a small man. When Gus tried to lift the dog by its collar, Call was almost dragged over the edge—Bigfoot caught his belt, or he might have slipped off.

The weight of the dog cost Gus his narrow foothold. He swung free, into space, holding the dog’s collar with one hand. Then, to his horror, he began to swivel. The rope was tied to his belt—the weight of the dog caused him to turn in the air. In a moment his head was pointed down and his legs were waving above him.

“Pull, pull!” he yelled. When he opened his eyes, the world swirled. One moment he would be facing the cliff, the next he would be looking into space. Once, when he twisted, two buzzards flew right by him, so close he felt the beat of their wings in the air.

Then, in a moment, the dog dropped, gone so quickly that he didn’t even bark. Gus still had the collar in his hand—the dog’s skinny head had slipped out. Gus twisted and twisted, as the men pulled him up. He lost consciousness; when he came to he was flat on his back, looking up at the great sky. Call and Bigfoot and Long Bill stood over him—the dog’s collar was still tightly gripped in his hand. He reached up and handed it to Caleb Cobb, who took it, scowling.

“No promotion, Corporal,” Caleb said. “I wanted the dog, not the collar.”

Then he walked away.

“Just be glad you’re back on solid earth,” Bigfoot said.

“I’m glad, all right—real glad,” Gus said.

THE BURNED PRAIRIE RINGED the canyon for five miles — the Rangers had to huddle where they were all day, lest the burnt grass damage their boots.

“Some of our horses might have made it out,” Gus said. “I doubt they all burnt.”

“Buffalo Hump will have taken the ones that lived,” Bigfoot said. “We’ve got to depend on our own feet now. I’m lucky I got big ones.”

“I ain’t got big ones,” Johnny Carthage said, apprehensively. “I ain’t even got but one leg that’s like it ought to be. How far is it we got to walk before we find the Mexicans?”

No one answered his question, because no one knew.

“I expect it’s a far piece yet,” Long Bill said. “Long enough that we’ll get dern thirsty unless we find a creek.”

Most of the men squatted or sat, looking at the blackened plain. In the space of a morning they had been put in serious peril. The thought of water was on every man’s mind. Even with horses it had sometimes been hard to find waterholes. On foot they might stumble for days, or until they dropped, looking for water. Caleb Cobb was still very angry over the loss of his dog. He sat on the edge of the canyon, his legs dangling, saying nothing to nobody. The men were afraid to approach him, and yet they all knew that a decision had to be made soon. They couldn’t just sit where they were, with no food and almost no water—some of the men had canteens, but many didn’t. Many had relied on leather pouches, which had burnt or burst in the fire.

Finally, after three hours, Caleb stood up.

“Well, we’re no worse off than old Coronado,” he said, and started walking west. The men followed slowly, afraid of scorching themselves. The plain was dotted with wands of smoke, drifting upward from smouldering plants. Call was not far behind Caleb— he saw Caleb reach down and pick up a charred jackrabbit that had been crisped coming out of its hole. Caleb pulled a patch of burned skin off the rabbit and ate a few bites of rabbit meat, as he walked. Looking back, he noticed that Call was startled. “We’re going to have to eat anything we can scratch up now, Corporal,” he said. “You better be looking for a rabbit yourself.”

Not ten minutes later, Call saw another dead rabbit. He picked it up by its leg and carried it with him—he did not feel hungry enough to eat a scorched rabbit; not yet. Gus, still weak from his scare, saw him pick it up.

“What’s the jackrabbit for?” he asked.

“It’s to eat,” Call said. “The Colonel ate one. He says we have to eat anything we can find, now. It’s a long way to where we can get grub.”

“I mean to find something better than a damn rabbit,” Gus said. “I might find a deer or an antelope, if I look hard.”

“You better take what you can get!” Bigfoot advised. “I’m looking for a burnt polecat, myself. Polecat meat is tastier than rabbit.”

A little later he came upon five dead horses; evidently they had run into a wall of fire and died together. Call’s little bay was one of them—remembering how the horse had towed him across the Brazos made him sad; even sadder was the fact that the charred ground ended only a hundred yards from where the horses lay. A little more speed, or a shift in the wind, and they might have made it through.“Why are we walking off from this meat?” Shadrach asked. He wore moccasins—the passage through the hot plains had been an ordeal for him. Matilda Roberts half carried him, as it was. But Shadrach had kept his head—most of the men were so shocked by the loss of the horses and the terrible peril of the fire that they merely trudged along, heads down, unable to think ahead.

Caleb Cobb wheeled, and pulled out his big knife.

“You’re right,” he said. “We got horse meat, and it’s already cooked. That’s good, since we lost our cook.”

He looked at the weary troop and smiled.

“It’s every man for himself now, boys,” he said. “Carve off what you can carry, and let’s proceed.”

Call carved off a sizable chunk of haunch—not from his bay, but from another horse. Gus whittled a little on a gelding’s rump, but it was clear his heart was not in the enterprise.