villages that could supply them, theypiled so many provisions on the mule that the animal was scarcely visible, under the many sacks and bags. Several of the Texans even had blankets pressed on them, as protection against the chill nights.
Captain Salazar was just turning to lead the party out of the village, when they heard the sound of horses?the sound came from the south.
“Reckon it’s Indians?” Gus asked. Even though he was feeling more confident of his survival, thanks to a good meal and a night beside a warm fire, he knew that they were not yet beyond the Apache country. What the villagers had had to say about their stolen children was fresh in his mind.
Captain Salazar listened for a moment.
“No, it is not Indians,” he said. “It’s cavalry.”
“Lots of cavalry,” Bigfoot said. “Maybe it’s the American army, coming to rescue us.”
“I’m afraid not, Senor,” Salazar said. “It’s the Mexican army, coming to march you to El Paso.”
All the villagers were apprehensive?they were not used to being visited by soldiers, twice in two days. Some of the women crept back inside their little houses. The men, most of them elderly, stood where they were.
In a few minutes, the horses they had been hearing clipped into town, forty in all. The soldiers riding them were wearing clean uniforms; and all were armed with sabres, as well as rifles and pistols. At their head rode a small man in a smart uniform, with many ribbons on his breast.
The sun glinted on the forty sabres in their sheaths.
Beside the cavalry were several men on foot, so dark that Call couldn’t tell whether they were Mexican or Indian. They trotted beside the horses?none of them looked tired.
The Mexican soldiers who stood with Salazar looked embarrassed. Their own uniforms were torn and dirty?some had no coats at all, only the blankets that had been given them by the people of Las Palomas. Some of them remembered that when they had started out from Santa Fe to catch the Texans they had been as smartly dressed as the approaching cavalry. Now, in comparison to the soldiers from the south, they looked like beggars, and they knew it.
The small man with the ribbons rode right up to Captain Salazarand stopped. He had a thin mustache that curled at the ends to a fine point.
“You are Captain Salazar?” he asked.
“Yes, Major,” the Captain said. .
“I am Major Laroche,” the small man said. “Why are these men not tied?”
The Major looked at the Texans with cold contempt?the tone of his voice alone made Call bristle.
The thing that surprised Gus was that the Major was white. He did not look Mexican at all.
Captain Salazar looked discouraged.
“I have walked a long way with these men, Major,” he said. “Together we walked the dead man’s walk. The reason they are not tied is because they know I will shoot them if they try to escape.”
Major Laroche did not change expression.
“Perhaps you would shoot at them, but would you hit them?” he asked. “I think it would be easier to hit them if they were tied?but that is not my point.”
Captain Salazar looked up, waiting for the Major’s point. He did not have to wait very long.
“They are prisoners,” the Major said. “Prisoners should be tied. Then they should be put up against a wall and shot. That is what we would do with such men in France, if we caught them.”
The Major looked at the dark men who trotted beside the horses. He said something to them?one of the dark men immediately went to the pack mule and came back with a handful of rawhide thongs.
“Tie him first,” the Major said, pointing at Bigfoot. “Then tie the one who turned over the General’s buggy. Which is he?”
Salazar gestured toward Call. In a moment, two of the dark men were beside him with the thongs.
Bigfoot had already held out his hands so that the men could tie them, but Call had not. He tensed, ready to fight the dark men, but before his rage broke Bigfoot and Salazar both spoke to him.
“Let it be, Woodrow,” Bigfoot said. “The Major here’s ready to shoot you, and it’s too nice a morning to get shot.”
“He is right,” Salazar said.
Call mastered himself with difficulty. He held out his hands, and one of the dark men bound him tightly at the wrists with the rawhide thongs. In a few minutes, all the Texans were similarly bound.“Perhaps you should chain them, too,” Salazar said, with a touch of sarcasm. “As you know, Texans are very wild.”
Major Laroche ignored the remark.
“Where is the rest of your troop, Captain?” he asked.
“Dead,” Salazar said. “The Apaches followed us into the Jornada del Muerto. They killed some. A bear killed two. Six starved to death.”
“But you had horses, when you left Santa Fe,” the Major said. “Where are your horses?”
“Some are dead and some were stolen,” Salazar admitted. He spoke in a dull tone, not looking at the Major, who sat ramrod stiff on his horse.
When all the prisoners were bound, the Major turned his horse. He looked down once more at Captain Salazar.
“I suggest you go home, Captain,” he said. “Your commanding officer will want to know why you lost half your men and all your horses. I am told that you were well provisioned. No one should have starved.”
“Gomez killed General Dimasio, Major,” Salazar said. “He killed Colonel Cobb, the man who led these Texans. He is the reason I lost the men and the horses.”
Major Laroche curled the ends of his mustache once more.
“No officer in the Mexican army should be beaten by a savage,” he said. “One day perhaps they will let me go after this Gomez. When I catch him I will put a hook through his neck and hang him in the plaza in Santa Fe.”
“You won’t catch him,” Call said.
Major Laroche looked briefly at Call.
“Is there a blacksmith in this village?” he asked.
No one spoke. The men of the village had all lowered their eyes.
“Very well,” the Major said. “If there were a blacksmith I would chain this man now. But we cannot wait. I assure you when we reach Las Cruces I will see that you are fitted with some very proper irons.”
Salazar had not moved.
“Major, I have no horses,” he said. “Am I to walk to Santa Fe? I am a captain in the army.”
“A disgraced captain,” Major Laroche said. “You walked here. Walk back.”
“Alone?” Salazar asked.
“No, you can take your soldiers,” Major Laroche said. “I don’t want them?they stink. If I were you I would take them to the river and bathe them before you leave.”
“We have little ammunition,” Salazar said. “If we leave here without horses or bullets, Gomez will kill us all.”
The priest had come out of the little church. He stood with his hands folded into his habit, watching.
“Ask that priest to say a prayer for you,” Major Laroche said. “If he is a good priest his prayers might be better than bullets or horses.”
“Perhaps, but I would rather have bullets and horses,” Salazar said.
Major Laroche didn’t answer. He had already turned his horse.
The Texans were placed in the center of the column of cavalry? the cavalrymen behind them drew their sabres and held them ready, across their saddles. Captain Salazar and his ragged troop stood in the street and watched the party depart.
“Good-bye, Captain?if I was you I’d travel at night,” Bigfoot said. “If you stick to the river and travel at night you might make it.”
The Texans looked once more at the Captain who had captured them, and the few men they had traveled so far with. There was no time for farewells. The cavalrymen with drawn sabres pressed close behind them.
Matilda Roberts had not been tied. She passed close to Captain Salazar as she walked out of the village of Las Palomas.
“Adios, Captain,” she said. “You ain’t a bad fellow. I hope you get home alive.”
