"Sit down by me, unless you don't like me anymore." Gus hobbled over and sat down by Matilda.
He was a little surprised that she had been so inviting. It wasn't that he didn't like her anymore, it was that he liked her too much; for a moment he had an urge to throw himself into Matilda's lap and cry. Of course, such an action would be the ruin of him, among the hardened Rangers. Rather than cry, he scooted as close to Matilda's comforting bulk as he could get without actually sitting in her lap. He gulped a time or two, but managed not to break down and sob.
He saw old Shadrach mount his horse and ride off into the darkness. Shadrach said not a word, and no one tried to stop him or ask him where he was going.
"Doesn't he know that big Comanche with the hump is still out there?" Gus asked. He thought the old man must be completely daft, to ride into the darkness with such an Indian near.
Call, too, was shocked by Shadrach's departure. Buffalo Hump was out there, and even Shadrach would be no match for him. No one Call knew would be a match for him--not alone; Call felt sure of that, although he had only seen the man for a second, in the flash of a lightning strike.
But Shadrach left, with no one offering him a word of caution. Bigfoot didn't seem to give Shadrach's departure a second thought, and Major Chevallie merely frowned a little when he saw the mountain man ride away.
"What now, Major?" Ezekiel Moody asked. It was a question everyone would have liked an answer to, but Major Chevallie ignored the question. He said nothing.
Ezekiel looked at Josh Corn, and Josh Corn looked at Rip Green. Long Bill looked at Bob Bascom, who looked at one-eyed Johnny Carthage.
"Now where would Shad be going, this time of night?" Johnny asked. "It's no time to be exercising your mount--not if it means leaving the troop, not if you ask me." "I didn't hear Shad ask you, Johnny," Bigfoot said.
"That's twice today he's left, though," the Major said. "It's vexing." Bigfoot walked over to the edge of the camp, lay flat down, and pressed his ear to the ground.
"Is he listening for worms--does he mean to fish?" Gus asked Call, perplexed by Bigfoot's behaviour.
"No, he's listening for horses--Comanche horses," Matilda said. "Shut up and let him listen." Bigfoot soon stood up and came back to the fire.
"Nobody's coming right this minute," he said.
"If there were hundreds of horses on the move, I'd hear them." "That don't mean they won't show up tomorrow, though," he added.
"Why tomorrow?" several men asked at once. Tomorrow was only an hour or two away.
"Full moon," Bigfoot said. "It's what they call the Comanche moon. They like to raid into Mexico, down this old war trail, when the moon is full. They like that old Comanche moon." Major Chevallie knew he had only about an hour in which to decide on a course of action.
Of course the old woman might be daft; there might be no plan to raid Chihuahua City and no great war party, hundreds of warriors strong, headed down from the Llano Estacado to terrorize the settlements in Mexico and Texas. It might all simply be the ravings of an old woman who was afraid of having her nose cut off.
But if what the old woman said was true, then the settlements needed to be warned. That many warriors moving south would threaten the whole frontier. All the farms west of the Austin-San Antonio line would be vulnerable--even half a dozen warriors split off from the main bunch could burn homesteads, steal children, and generally wreak havoc.
The devil of it was that they were just at the midpoint of their exploration, as far from the settlements to the east as they were from the Pass of the North. Striking on west to El Paso might be the safest option for his troop--the war trail ran well east of El Paso. On the other hand, Buffalo Hump already knew they were there, and knew he was only up against a few men. If he had a large force at his disposal, he might pursue them simply for his pleasure. He no doubt knew that the two scalp hunters were with them. Scalping a scalp hunter was a pursuit that would interest any Indian, Comanche or Apache.
Turning east would mean the end of their mission--and they were only a week or two from completing it--and would also take them directly across the path of the raiders, if there were raiders. They would have to depend on speed and luck, if they turned east.
What was certain was that a decision had to be made, and made soon. He had no shackles on his men--Rangers mostly served because they wanted to; if they stopped wanting to, they might all do what Shadrach had just done. They might just ride off. The youngsters, Call and McCrae, would stay, of course. They were too green to strike out for themselves. But the more experienced men were unlikely to sit around and wait for his decision much past sunup. The sight of the buffalo lance sticking out of Augustus McCrae's hip was vivid in their minds. They wouldn't be inclined to play cards, or solicit Matilda, or shoot at cactus pods, not with a big war party swooping down the plains toward them.
The Major sighed. Going to jail in Baltimore was beginning to look like it might have some advantages. He walked over to Bigfoot--the tall scout was idly chewing on a chaparral twig.
"That old woman's blind," the Major said.
"Do you think she was right about the raiding party?
Maybe Shadrach misunderstood her about the figures. Maybe she was talking about some raid that took place thirty years ago." Bigfoot spat out the twig. "Maybe," he said. "But maybe not." Bigfoot was thinking about how lucky the two young Rangers were--young Gus particularly. To walk right up on Buffalo Hump and live to tell about it was luck not many men could claim. Even to have seen the humpbacked chief was more than many experienced men could claim. He himself had glimpsed Buffalo Hump once, in a sleet storm near the Clear Fork of the Brazos, several years earlier. He had stepped out of a little post-oak thicket and looked up to see the humpbacked chief aiming an arrow at him. Just as Buffalo Hump loosed the arrow, Bigfoot stepped on an ice-glazed root and lost his footing. The arrow glanced off the bowie knife stuck in his belt. He rolled and brought his rifle up, but by the time he did, the Comanche was gone. That night, afraid to make a fire for fear Buffalo Hump would find him, he almost froze. The large feet that produced his nickname turned as numb as stone.
Now the Major was stumping about, trying to convince himself that Shadrach and the old Comanche woman were wrong about the raiding party. The men were scared, and with good reason; the Major had still not been able to think of an order to give.
"Damn it, I hate to double back," the Major said. "I was aiming to wet my whistle in El Paso." He mounted and walked his sorrel slowly around the camp for a few minutes--the horse was likely to crow-hop on nippy mornings. Shadrach came back while he was riding slowly around. Settling his horse gave the Major time to think, and time, also, to ease his head a little. He was prone to violent headaches, and had suffered one most of the night. But the sun was just rising. It looked to be a fine morning; his spirits improved and he decided to go on west. Turning back didn't jibe with his ambitions. If he found a clear route to El Paso, he might be made a colonel, or a general even.
"Let's go, boys--it's west," he said, riding back to the campfire. "We were sent to find a road, so let's go find it." The Rangers had survived a terrifying night. As soon as they mounted, warmed by the sun, many of them got sleepy and nodded in their saddles.
Gus's wounded hip was paining him. Walking wasn't easy, but riding was hard, too. His black nag had a stiff trot. He kept glancing across the sage flats, expecting to see Buffalo Hump rise up from behind a sage bush.
The scalp hunters, Kirker and Glanton, rode half a mile with the troop, and then turned their horses.
"Ain't you coming, boys?" Long Bill asked.
The scalp hunters didn't answer. Once the pack mules passed, they rode toward Mexico.
"There ain't many soldiers that know what they're doing, are there, Shad?" Bigfoot asked. "This major sure don't." "I doubt he's a major, or even a soldier," Shadrach said. "I expect he just stole a uniform." They were riding west through an area so dry that even the sage had almost played out.
Bigfoot suspected Shadrach was right.
Probably Major Chevallie had just stolen a uniform. Texas was the sort of place where people could simply name themselves something and then start being whatever they happened to name. Then they could start acquiring the skills of their new profession--or not acquiring them, as the case might be.
"Well, I ain't a soldier boy, neither," Shadrach said.
"Was you ever a soldier?" Bigfoot asked.
He was looking up at a crag, or a little hump of mountain, a few miles to the north. In the clear, dry air, he thought he saw a spot of white on the mountain, which was puzzling. What could be white on a mountain far west of the Pecos?
Shadrach ignored Bigfoot's question--he didn't answer questions about his past.
"See that white speck, up on that hill?" Bigfoot asked.
Shadrach looked, but saw nothing. Bigfoot was singular for the force of his vision, which was one reason he was sought after as a scout. He was not careful or meticulous--not by Shadrach's standards--but there was no denying that he could see a long way.
"I swear, I think it's mountain goat," Bigfoot said. "I never heard of mountain goat in Texas, but there it is, and it's white." He immediately forgot his vexation with the Major in his excitement at spotting what he was now sure must be a mountain goat--a creature he had heard of but never previously seen.
After a little more looking he thought he spotted a second goat, not far from the first one.
"Look, boys, it's mountain goats," he informed the startled Rangers, most of whom were straggling along, half asleep.
At Bigfoot's cry, excitement instantly flashed through the troop. Rangers with weak visions, such as one-eyed Johnny Carthage or little Rip Green, could barely see the mountain, much less the goats, but that didn't weaken their excitement.
Within a minute the whole troop was racing toward the humpy mountain, where the two goats, invisible to everyone but Bigfoot, were thought to be grazing. Only Matilda and Black Sam resisted the impulse to race wildly off. They continued at a steady pace. The old Comanche woman and the tongueless boy followed on a pack mule.
Gus and Call were racing along with the rest of the troop, their horses running flat out through the thin sage. Gus forgot the throb of his wounded hip in the excitement of the race.
"What do they think they're going to do, Sam, fly up that mountain?" Matilda asked. From the level plain the sides of the mountain where the goats were seemed far too steep for horses to climb.
Sam was wishing Texas wasn't so big and open--you could look and look, as far as you could see, and there would be nothing to give you encouragement.
He had been in jail for dropping a watermelon, when Bigfoot happened to get locked up. He had picked a watermelon off a stall and thumped it, to see if it was ripe; but then he dropped it and it burst on the cobblestones.
The merchant demanded ten cents for his burst melon, but Sam had only three cents. He offered to work off the difference, but the merchant had him arrested instead. The cook in the San Antonio jail got so drunk that he let a wagon run over his foot and crush it, making him too sick to cook. Sam was offered his job and took it--he had known how to cook since he was six.
Bigfoot liked the grub so much that he suggested Sam to Major Chevallie, who promptly paid the debt of seven cents and took Sam with him.
Now here he was, in the biggest country he had ever seen, with a horizon so distant that his eyes didn't want to seek it, and a sun so bright that he could only tolerate it by pulling the brim of his old cap down over his eyes; he was riding along with a whore after a bunch of irritable white men who had decided to chase goats. At least the whore was friendly, even if she did eat snapping turtle for breakfast.
The Rangers, young Gus in the lead, had raced to the foot of the mountain, only to discover at close range what Matilda had discerned at a distance: the little mountain was much too steep for horses, and perhaps even too steep for men. Now that they were directly underneath the crag they couldn't see the goats, either; they were hidden by rocks and boulders, somewhere above them. Also, their horses were winded from the chase; the mountain that in the clear air had looked so close had actually been several miles away. Many of the horses--skinny nags, mostly--were stumbling and shaking by the time the Rangers dismounted.
Call had never seen a mountain before, although of course he was familiar with hills. This mountain went straight up--if you could get on top of it, you wouldn't be very far from the sky. But they weren't at the top of it; they were at the bottom, near several good-sized boulders that had toppled off at some point and rolled out onto the plain.
Major Chevallie, like most of his men, had enjoyed the wild race immensely. After all the worry and indecision it was a relief just to race a horse at top speed over the plain. Besides, if they could bring down a mountain goat or two there would be meat for the pot. He had often hunted in Virginia--deer mostly, bear occasionally, and of course turkeys and geese--but he had never been in sight of a Western mountain goat and was anxious to get in a shot before someone beat him to the game.
Several of the men had already grabbed their rifles and were ready to shoot.
Josh Corn got off his horse and vomited, to the general amusement. Josh had a delicate constitution; he could never ride fast for any length of time without losing his breakfast--it was an impediment to what he hoped would be a fine career in the Rangers.
"Boys, let's climb," Bigfoot said.
"These goats ain't likely to fall off the hill." Long Bill Coleman was the pessimist in the crowd. He was too nearsighted to have seen the goats--in fact, he could not see far up the mountain at all. His horse was in better shape than most because of his lack of confidence in the hunt.
He had held the pony to a lope while the others were running flat out. Unlike the rest of the command, Long Bill had not forgotten that there were Comanches in the area. He was more interested in seeing that he had a mount fresh enough to carry him away from Comanches than he was in shooting goats. The latter, in his experience, were hard to chew anyway--worse than hard, if the goat happened to be an old billy.
Matilda and Black Sam came trotting up to the base of the cliff, where the hunting party was assembling itself. The only one to venture up the cliff was young McCrae, who had climbed some thirty yards up when his wounded leg gave out suddenly.
"Look out, he's falling," Bob Bascom said.
Call felt embarrassed, for indeed his friend was falling, or rather rolling, down the steep slope he had just climbed up. Gus tried to grab for a little bush to check his descent, but he missed and rolled all the way down, ending up beneath Major Chevallie's horse, which abruptly began to pitch. The Major had dropped his reins in order to adjust the sights on his rifle. To his intense annoyance, the horse suddenly bolted and went dashing across the plain to the west.
"Now look, you young fool, who told you to climb?" the Major exploded. "Now you've run off my horse!" Gus McCrae was so embarrassed he couldn't speak. One minute he had been climbing fine, the next minute he was rolling. Call was just as embarrassed. The Major was red in the face with anger. In all likelihood he was about to fire Gus on the spot.
There was a funny side to the spectacle, though --the sight of Gus rolling over and over set many of the Rangers to slapping their thighs and laughing.
Matilda was cackling, and even Sam chuckled.
Call was on the point of laughing too, but restrained himself out of consideration for his friend.
Matilda laughed so loudly that Tom, her horse, usually a stolid animal, began to hop around and act as if he might throw her.
"Dern," Gus said, so stricken with embarrassment that he could not think of another word to say. Though he had rolled all the way down the hill, his rifle had only rolled partway. It was lodged against a rock, twenty yards above them.
"Get mounted, you damn scamp, and go bring my horse back, before he runs himself out of sight," the Major commanded. "You can get that rifle when you come back." S
everal Rangers, Ezekiel Moody among them, were watching the horse run off--all of them were in a high state of hilarity. Rip Green was laughing so hard he could scarcely stand up.
Everyone except the Major and Gus were enjoying the little moment of comic relief when, suddenly, they saw the Major's horse go down.
"Prairie-dog hole. I hope his leg's not broken," Johnny Carthage said.
Before he could even finish saying it the sound of a shot echoed off the mountain behind them.
"No prairie-dog hole, that horse was shot," Bigfoot said.
Shadrach immediately led his horse behind one of the larger boulders.
"My God, now what?" the Major said.
All he had taken off his saddle was the rifle itself--his ammunition and all his kit were with the fallen horse.
No one said a word. The plain before them looked as empty as it had when they had all come racing across it. There was no sign of anyone. Two hawks circled in the sky. The fallen horse did not rise again.