Salazar nodded, but didn’t answer. He and his men stood watching as the Texans were marched south, out of the village of Las Palomas.
MAJOR LAROCHE MADE NO allowance for weariness. By noon, the Texans were having a hard time keeping up with the pace he set. The pause for rest was only ten minutes; the meal just a handful of corn. The mule that the villagers had so carefully provisioned had become the property of the Major’s cavalry. The Texans hardly had time to sit, before the march was resumed. While they ate their hard corn, they watched the Mexican cavalrymen eat the cheese the women of Las Palomas had provided for them.
Gus was puzzled by the fact that a Frenchman was leading a company of Mexican cavalry.
“Why would a Frenchie fight with the Mexicans?” he asked. “I know there’s lots of Frenchies down in New Orleans, but I never knew they went as far as Mexico.”
“Money, I expect,” Bigfoot said. “I never made much money fighting?I’ve mostly done it for the sport, but plenty do it for the pay.““I wouldn’t,” Call said. “I’d take the pay, but I’ve got other reasons for fighting.”
“What other reasons?” Gus asked.
Call didn’t answer. He had not meant to provoke a question from his companion, and was sorry he had spoken at all.
“Can’t you hear? I asked you what other reasons?” Gus said.
“Woodrow don’t know why he likes to fight,” Matilda said. “He don’t know why he turned that buggy over and got himself whipped raw. My Shad didn’t know why he wandered?he was just a wandering man. Woodrow, he’s a fighter.”
“It’s all right to fight,” Bigfoot said. “But there’s a time to fight, and a time to let be. Right now we’re hog- tied, and we ain’t got no guns. This ain’t the time to fight.”
They marched all afternoon and deep into the night, which was cold. Call kept up, though his foot was throbbing again. Major Laroche sent the dark men ahead to scout. He himself never looked back at the prisoners. From time to time they could see him raise his hand, to curl his mustache.
In the morning, there was thin ice on the little puddles by the river. The men were given coffee; while they were drinking it Major Laroche lined his men up at rigid attention, and rode down their ranks, inspecting them. Now and then, he pointed at something that displeased him?a girth strap not correctly secured, or a uniform not fully buttoned, or a sabre sheath not shined. The men who had been careless were made to fall out immediately; the Major watched while they corrected the problem.
When he was finished with his own troops, the Major rode over and inspected the Texans. They knew they were ragged and filthy, but when the Frenchman looked down at them with pitiless eyes they felt even dirtier and more ragged. The Major saw Long Bill Coleman scratching himself?most of the men had long been troubled by lice.
“Gentlemen, you need a bath,” he said. “We have a fine ceremony planned for you, in El Paso. We will be there in four days. I am going to untie you now, so that you can bathe. We have a fine river here?why waste it? Perhaps if you bathe in it every day until we reach our destination, you will be presentable when we hold the ceremony.”
“What kind of ceremony would that be, Major?” Bigfoot asked.
“I will let that be a surprise,” Major Laroche said, not smiling.
Gus had taken a strong dislike to Major Laroche’s manner of speaking?his talk was too crisp, to Gus’s ear. He didn’t see why a Frenchman, or anyone, needed to be that sharp in speech. Talk that was slower and not so crisp would be a lot easier to tolerate, particularly on a cold morning when he had enough to do just keeping warm.
“I’m going to release you now, for your bath,” the Major said. “I want you to take off those filthy clothes?we’re going to burn them.”
“Burn ‘em?” Bigfoot said. “Major, we’ve got no other clothes to put on. I admit these are dirty and smelly, but if you burn them we won’t have a rag to put on.”
“You have blankets,” the Major pointed out. “You can wrap those around you, today. Tomorrow we will reach Las Cruces?when we get there we will dress you properly, so that you won’t disgrace yourselves when we hold the ceremony.”
He nodded to the dark men, who began to cut the rawhide thongs that bound the Texans.
With the cavalry behind them, the Texans were marched to the Rio Grande. They were all apprehensive?none of them trusted the French Major. Besides that, they were cold, and the green river looked colder. The frost had not yet melted from the thorn bushes.
“Strip, gentlemen?your bath awaits,” Major Laroche said.
The Texans hesitated?no one wanted to start undressing. But Major Laroche was looking at them impatiently, and the cavalry was lined up behind him.
“I guess you boys think you’re gents,” Matilda said. “I’m tired of stinking, so I’ll be first, if nobody cares.”
There was a titter from the cavalry, when Matilda began to shed her clothes, but Major Laroche whirled on his men angrily and the titter died. Then he turned back, and watched Matilda walk into the water.
“Hurry, gentlemen,” the Major said. “The lady has set you an example. Hurry?we have a march to make.”
Reluctantly, the Texans began to strip, while the Mexican cavalry watched Matilda Roberts splash in the Rio Grande.“I reckon it won’t hurt us to get clean’ Bigfoot said. “I’d prefer a big brass tub, but I guess this old river will do.”
He undressed; so, finally, did the rest of the men. They were encouraged slightly by the fact that Matilda, skinnier than she had been when she lifted the snapping turtle out of the Rio Grande, but still a large woman, splashed herself over and over, rubbing her arms and breasts with sand scooped from the shallows where she stood.
“It might hurt us if we freeze,” Gus said.
“Oh, now, it’s just water,” Long Bill said. “If it ain’t froze Matty, I guess I can tolerate it.”
The water, when Call stepped in, was so cold he felt as if he had been burned. It sent a pain so deep into his sore foot that he thought for a moment the foot might have died. Gradually, though, wading up to his knees, he came to tolerate the water a little better, and began to follow Matilda’s example, scooping sand from the shallow riverbed and rubbing himself. He was surprised at how white the bodies of the men were?their faces were dark from the sun, but their bodies were white as fish bellies.
While the Texans splashed, Major Laroche decided to drill his troops a little. He put them through a sabre drill, and then had them present muskets and advance as if into battle.
Wesley Buttons, the youngest and most excitable of the three Buttons brothers, happened to glance ashore just as the cavalry was advancing with their muskets ready. Seeing the advancing Mexicans convinced Wesley that massacre was imminent. They had been expecting death for weeks?from Indians, from bears, from Mexicans, from the weather?and now here it came.
“Run, boys, they mean to shoot us all!” he yelled, grabbing his two brothers, Jackie and Charlie, by the arms.
Within a second, panic spread among the Texans, though Bigfoot Wallace at once saw that the Mexicans were merely drilling. He yelled out as loudly as he could, but his cry was lost?half the Texans were already splashing deeper into the river, desperate suddenly to get across.
The Mexican cavalry, and even Major Laroche, were startled by the sudden panic which had seized the naked men. For a moment the Major hesitated, and in that moment Bigfoot ran toward the shore, meaning to run to where the Major sat on his horse and explain that the men had merely taken a fright.
Call, Gus, and Matilda were downriver slightly, near the bank where the Mexicans were assembled. Gus had cut his foot on a mussel shell. Call and Matilda were helping him out of the water when the panic started. Long Bill Coleman had already had enough of the freezing water. He had walked back toward the pile of clothes, hoping to find a clean shirt or pants leg to dry himself with.
“Boys, come back?come back!” Bigfoot yelled, turning to look as he splashed ashore; but only the five or six men nearest him understood the command. One of the dark men had been attempting to burn the Texans’ clothes?he was holding a stick of firewood to a shirt, hoping the filthy garment would ignite.
At that moment Major Laroche saw Bigfoot coming, and realized the Texans were merely scared.
He motioned his cavalry forward, disgusted at the delay this foolish act of ignorance would cause him?then, a second later, the cavalry, primed to shoot, and excited by the fact that half the prisoners seemed to be escaping,
