“Do you see any Indians yet?”
“No, but I see Josh Corn taking a shit,” Gus said, pointing at their friend Josh. He was squatting behind a sage bush, rifle at the ready, while he did his business.
“I guess he must think it’s his last chance before he gets scalped,” Gus added.
Major Chevallie jumped on his sorrel and started to race after Shadrach, but had scarcely cleared the camp before he reined in his horse. Call could just see him, in the swirling dust?the plain to the north of the camp had become a wall of sand.
“I wonder how we can get some money?I sure do need a poke,” Gus said. He had turned his back to the wind and was casually reading the Major’s letter, an action that shocked Call.
“That’s the Major’s letter,” he pointed out. “You got no business reading it.”
“Well, it don’t say much anyway,” Gus said, handing the pages to Call. “I thought it might be racy, but it ain’t.”
“If I ever write a letter, I don’t want to catch you reading it,” Call said. “I think Shad’s coming back.” His eyes were stinging, from staring into the dust.
There seemed to be figures approaching camp from the north. Call couldn’t make them out clearly, and Gus didn’t seem to be particularly interested. Once he began to think about whores he had a hard time pulling his mind off the subject.
“If we could catch a Mexican we could steal his money?he might have enough that we could buy quite a few pokes,” Gus said, as they strolled back to camp.
Major Chevallie waited on his sorrel, watching. Two figures seemed to be walking. Then Bigfoot fell in with them. Shadrach appeared on his horse, a few steps behind the figures.
All around the camp Rangers began to stand up and dust the sand off their clothes. Matilda, unaffected by the crisis, was still cooking her turtle. The bloody shell lay by the campfire. Call smelled the sizzling meat and realized he was hungry.
“Why, it’s just an old woman and a boy,” he said when he finally got a clear view of the two figures trudging through the sandstorm, flanked on one side by Shadrach and on the other by Bigfoot Wallace.
“Shoot, I doubt either one of them has got a cent on them,” Gus said. “I think we ought to sneak off across the river and catch a Mexican while it’s still early.”
“Just wait,” Call said. He was anxious to see the captives, if they were captives.
“I swear,” Long Bill said. “I think that old woman’s blind. That boy’s leading her.”
Long Bill was right. A boy of about ten, who looked more Mexican than Indian, walked slowly toward the campfire, leading an old white-haired Indian woman?Call had never seen anyone who looked as old as the old woman.
When they came close enough to the fire to smell the sizzling meat, the boy began to make a strange sound. It wasn’t speech, exactly?it was more like a moan.
“What’s he wanting?” Matilda asked?she was unnerved by the sound.
“Why, a slice or two of your turtle meat, I expect,” Bigfoot said. “More than likely he’s hungry.” “Then why don’t he ask?” Matilda said.
“He can’t ask, Matilda,” Bigfoot said.
“Why not, ain’t he got a tongue?” Matilda asked.
“Nope?no tongue,” Bigfoot said. “Somebody cut it out.”
THE NORTH WIND BLEW harder, hurling the sands and soils of the great plain of Texas toward Mexico. It soon obliterated vision. Shadrach and Major Chevallie, mounted, could not see the ground. Men could not see across the campfire. Call found his rifle, but when he tried to sight, discovered that he could not see to the end of the barrel. The sand peppered them like fine shot, and it rode a cold wind. The horses could only turn their backs to it; so did the men. Most put their saddles over their heads, and their saddle blankets too. Matilda’s bloody turtle shell soon filled with sand. The campfire was almost smothered. Men formed a human wall to the north of it, to keep it from guttering out. Bigfoot and Shadrach tied bandanas around their faces?Long Bill had a bandana but it blew away and was never found. Matilda gave up cooking and sat with her back to the wind, her head bent between her knees. The boy with no tongue reached into the guttering campfire and took two slices of the sizzling turtle meat. One he gave to the old blind woman?although the meat was tough and scalding, he gulped his portion in only three bites.
Kirker and Glanton, the scalp hunters, sat together with their backs to the wind. They stared through the fog of sand, appraising the boy and the old woman. Kirker took out his scalping knife and a small whetstone. He tried to spit on the whetstone, but the wind took the spit away; Kirker began to sharpen the knife anyway. The old woman turned her sightless eyes toward the sound?she spoke to the boy, in a language Call had never heard. But the boy had no tongue, and couldn’t answer.
Even through the howling of the wind, Call could hear the grinding sound, as Kirker whetted his scalping knife. Gus heard it too, but his mind had not moved very far from his favorite subject, whores.
“Be hard to poke in a wind like this,” he surmised. “Your whore would fill up with sand?unless you went careful, you’d scrape yourself raw.”
Call ignored this comment, thinking it foolish.
“Kirker and Glanton ain’t Rangers?I don’t know why the Major lets ‘em ride with the troop,” he said.
“It’s a free country, how could he stop them?” Gus asked, though he had to admit that the scalp hunters were unsavory company. Their gear smelled of blood, and they never washed. Gus agreed with Matilda that it was good to keep clean. He splashed himself regularly, if there was water available.
“He could shoot ‘em?I’d shoot ‘em, if I was in command,” Call said. “They’re low killers, in my opinion.”
Only the day before there had nearly been a ruckus with Kirker and Glanton. The two came riding in from the south, having taken eight scalps. The scalps hung from Kirker’s saddle. A buzzing cloud of flies surrounded them, although the blood on the scalps had dried. Most of the Rangers gave Kirker a wide berth; he was a thin man with three gappy teeth, which gave his smile a cruel twist. Glanton was larger and lazier?he slept more than anyone else in the troop and would even fall asleep and start snoring while mounted on his horse. Shadrach had no fear of either man, and neither did Bigfoot Wallace. When Kirker dismounted, Shadrach and Bigfoot walked over to examine his trophies. Shadrach fingeredone of the scalps and looked at Bigfoot, who swatted the cloud of flies away briefly and sniffed a time or two at the hair.
“Comanche?who said you could smell ‘em?” Kirker asked. He was chewing on some antelope jerky that black Sam, the cook, had provided. The sight of the old mountain man and the big scout handling his new trophies annoyed him.
“We picked all eight of them off, at a waterhole,” Glanton said. “I shot four and so did John.”
“That’s a pure lie,” Bigfoot said. “Eight Comanches could string you and Kirker out from here to Santa Fe. If you was ever unlucky enough to run into that many at once, we wouldn’t be having to smell your damn stink anymore.”
He waved at Major Chevallie, who strolled over, looking uncomfortable. He drew his pistol, a precaution the Major always took when he sensed controversy. With his pistol drawn, decisive judgment could be reached and reached quickly.
“These low dogs have been killing Mexicans, Major,” Bigfoot said. “They probably took supper with some little family and then shot ‘em all and took their hair.”
“That would be unneighborly behaviour, if true,” Major Chevallie said. He looked at the scalps, but didn’t touch them.
“This ain’t Indian hair,” Shadrach said. “Indian hair smells Indian, but this don’t. This hair is Mexican.”
“It’s Comanche hair and you can both go to hell,” Kirker said. “If you need a ticket I can provide it.”
The gap-toothed Kirker carried three pistols and a knife, and usually kept his rifle in the crook of his arm, where it was now.
“Sit down, Kirker, I’ll not have you roughhousing with my scouts,” the Major said.
“Roughhousing, hell,” Kirker said. He flushed red when he was angry, and a blue vein popped out alongside his nose.
“I’ll finish them right here, if they don’t leave my scalps alone,” he added. Glanton had his eyes only half open, but his hand was on his pistol, a fact both Bigfoot and Shadrach ignored.
“There’s no grease, Major,” Bigfoot said. “Indians grease their hair?take a Comanche scalp and you’ll have
