“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.
