“I wouldn’t know what you mean,” Bigfoot said. “I’m a stranger to sin.”
Matilda stuck a knife into her gourd, and a puff-of hot air came out. She sniffed at the gourd, and immediately started sneezing. Annoyed, she flipped the gourd away.
“If it makes me sneeze, it’s bad,” she said.
Later, though, she found the gourd and ate it. ‘
One of the Mexican soldiers had gathered up the gourd vines, as well as the gourds. He scorched a vine and ate it; others soon followed suit. Even Salazar nibbled at a vine.
“When will we hit the mountains, Captain?” Bigfoot asked. “There might be game, up there where it’s high.” Salazar sighed?his mood had darkened as the day wore on. He had scarcely any of his company left, and only a few of his prisoners. It would not sit well with his superiors.
“The Apaches may not let us cross,” he said. “There are many Apaches here. If there are too many, none of us will get through.”
“Now, Captain, don’t be worrying,” Bigfoot said. “We’ve walked too far to be stopped now.”
“You’ll be stopped if enough arrows hit you,” Salazar said.
The night was clear, with very bright stars. Salazar could not see the distant mountains, but he knew they were there, the last barrier they would have to cross before they reached the Rio Grande and safety. He knew he had done a hard thing?he had crossed the Jornada del Muerto with his prisoners. He had lost many soldiers and many prisoners, but he was across. In two days they could be eating goat, and corn, and perhaps the sweet melons that grew along the Rio Grande. None of his superiors could have done what he did, and yet he knew he would not be greeted as a hero, or even as a professional. He would be greeted as a failure. For that reason, he thought of Gomez?it would be worth dying, with what men he had left, if he could only kill the great Apache. Then, at least, he would die heroically, as befitted a soldier.
“I think the Captain’s lost his spunk,” Gus said, observing how silent and melancholy the man had been around the campfire. Even the amusing sight of his whole company attempting to eat the bitter gourds had not caused him to smile.
“It ain’t that,” Bigfoot said?then he fell silent. He had been around defeated officers before, in his years of scouting for the military. Some had met defeat unfairly, through caprice or bad luck; others had been beaten by such overwhelming numbers that survival itself would have brought them glory. And yet to military men, circumstances didn’t seem to matter?if they didn’t win, they lost, and no amount of reflection could take away the sting.
“It ain’t that,” he said, again. The young Rangers waited for him to explain, but Bigfoot didn’t explain. He drew circles in the ashes of the campfire with a stick.
The next morning the mountains looked closer, though not by much. The men were weak?some of them looked at the mountains and quailed. The thought that there was food on the other side of the mountains brought them no energy. They didn’t think they could cross such hills, even if the whole plain on the other side was covered with food. They marched on, dully and slowly, not thinking, just walking.
When the mountains were closer, no more than a few miles away, Call saw something white on the prairie ahead. At first he thought it was just another patch of sand?but then he looked closer, and saw that it was an antelope. He grabbed Gus’s arm and pointed.
“Tell the Captain,” he said. “Maybe Bigfoot can shoot it.”
When the antelope was pointed out to Captain Salazar, he immediately gave Bigfoot his rifle. Bigfoot was watching the antelope closely. He cautioned the troop to be quiet and still.
“That buck’s nervous,” he said. “We better just sit real still, for awhile. Maybe he’ll mistake us for a sage bush.”
All the men could see that the antelope was nervous, and a minute later they saw why: a brown form came streaking out of a patch of sage bush and leapt on the antelope’s neck, knocking it down.
“What’s that?” Gus said, startled. He had never seen an animal run so fast. All he could see was a ball of brown fur, curled over the antelope’s neck.
“That’s a lion,” Bigfoot said, standing up. “We’re in luck, boys. I doubt I could have got close enough to that buck to put a bullet in him. The cougar done my work for me.”
He started walking toward the spot where the cougar was finishing his kill. The rest of the troop didn’t move.
“He’s bold, ain’t he?that lion might get him next,” Gus said.
Before Bigfoot had gone more than a few yards, the cougar looked up and saw him. For a second the animal froze; then he bounded away. Bigfoot raised his rifle, as if to shoot, but then he lowered it. Soon they saw the spot of brown moving up the shoulder of the nearest mountain.
“Why didn’t you shoot it?” Call asked, when he came up to Bigfoot. He would have liked a closer look at the cougar.
“Because I might need the bullet for an Apache,” Bigfoot said. “We got a dead antelope?that’s better eating than a lion. When there’s food waiting to be et it’s foolish to be wasting bullets on cats you can’t hit anyway.”
They skinned the antelope, and soon had a fire going and meat cooking. The smell of the meat soon revived the men who had been ready to die. Next day, they jerkied the meat they hadn’t eaten,lingering in camp between the mountain and the plain. The more they ate the better their spirits rose; only Captain Salazar remained despondent. He ate only a little of the antelope meat, silent. Bigfoot, confident that what remained of the troop would now survive, tried to draw Salazar out about the future, but the Captain answered him only briefly.
“El Paso is not far,” Salazar said. “We are all about to end our journey.”
He said no more.
Bigfoot was allowed to leave and seek the best route through the mountains?in four hours he was back, having located an excellent low pass, not ten miles to the south. The troop marched all afternoon and camped in the deep shadow of the mountains, just at the lip of the pass.
That night, everybody felt restless. Long Bill Coleman, unable to abide the lack of tunes, cupped his hands and pretended he was playing the harmonica. Gus kept looking at the mountains?their looming presence made him a little apprehensive.
“Don’t bears live in mountains?I’ve heard they sleep in caves.”
“Why, bears live wherever they want to,” Bigfoot told him. “They go where they please.”
“I think most of them live in mountains,” Gus said. “I’d hate to be eaten by a damn bear when we’re so close to all them watermelons.”
No one slept much that night. Matilda rubbed Call’s sore foot with a little antelope fat she had saved. Call was walking better? his stride was almost normal again. He hadn’t abandoned the crutch, but mainly carried it in his hand, like a rifle.
A blue cloud, with a rainbow arched across it, was over them when the troop started through the pass. It snowed for an hour, when they were near the top, but the light flakes didn’t stick. Ahead, as they approached the crest, they could see brilliant sunlight, to the west beneath the clouds.
By noon the cloud was gone, and the bright sunlight shone on the mountains. The troop walked through a winding canyon for three hours and began to descend the west side of the mountains. Below them, they saw trees, on both sides of the river. To the south, Gus once again saw smoke, and this time he was not merely wishing. There was a village beside the river?they saw a little cornfield, and some goats.“Hurrah, boys?we’re safe,” Bigfoot said.
Everyone stopped, to survey the fertile valley below them. Some of the Mexican soldiers wept. There was even a little church in the village.
“Well, we made it, Matty,” Bigfoot said. “Maybe we’ll see a stagecoach, heading for California. Maybe you’ll get there yet.”
He had continued to carry Captain Salazar’s rifle, in case he encountered game. When they started down the hill, toward the Rio Grande, Captain Salazar quietly took it from him.
“Why, that’s right, Captain?it’s yours,” Bigfoot said.
The Captain didn’t speak. He looked back once, toward the Jornada del Muerto, and walked on down the hill.
WHEN THE TIRED TROOP made its way into the village of Las Palomas, the doves for which the village was named were whirling over the drying corn, its shuck now brittle from the frost. An old man milking a goat at the
