The soldiers, too, had come to life. They had begun to load the bodies in the oxcart. Matilda came over to where the five survivors stood.
“We ought to go with them, boys,” she said. “They’re our people. I want to see that they’re laid out proper, in their graves.”
“Go ask the Major if we can help with the burying,” Call said, to Gus. “I expect if you ask him he’ll let us. He likes you.”
“Come with me, Matty,” Gus said. “We’ll both ask.”
The alcalde had stopped a moment, to have a word with Major Laroche, who stood by the gate. Through the gate Gus could see the long, dusty plain to the north. The Major saluted the alcalde and bowed to his women?the carriage passed out. The oxcart, with the bodies of the Texans in it, was creaking across the courtyard, toward the same gate.
“We’d like to help with the burying, Major,” Gus said. “They was our friends. We can’t do much for them now, but we’d like to be there.”
“If you like, Monsieur,” the Major said. “The graveyard is just outside the wall. Follow the cart and return when the work is finished.”
Gus was a little startled that the Major meant to send no guard.
“I suggest you hurry back,” the Major said, with a look of amusement. “The dogs here are very bad?I don’t think you can outrun them, with those chains. You saw a few of them last night, but there are many more. If you try to escape you will soon meet with the dogs.”
Matilda could not get the singing out of her mind. She wishedBigfoot could know what wonderful singing there had been, after his death and the deaths of the others. She had tried to get a good look at the woman in black, but the veils were too thick and the distance too great.
“I never heard singing like that, Major,” Matilda said. “Who is that woman?”
“That is Lady Carey,” the Major said. “She is English. You will meet her soon.”
“What’s an English lady doing in a place like this?” Gus asked. “She’s farther off from home than we are.”
Major Laroche turned, as if tired of the conversation, and motioned for one of the soldiers to bring his horse.
“Yes, and so am I,” Major Laroche said, as he prepared to mount. “But I am a soldier and this is where I was sent. Lady Carey is here because she is a prisoner of war, like yourselves. I will tell my men to let you help with the burial. I suggest you pile on many, many rocks. As I said, the dogs here are very bad, and they don’t have much to eat.”
Gus motioned to the others?they all filed out, behind the oxcart. As soon as they were out the gate, Major Laroche and his ten cavalrymen galloped out and were soon enveloped in the dust their horses’ hooves threw up.
“I asked about that woman who done the singing,” Gus told Call. “The Major says she’s a prisoner of war, like us.”
Call didn’t answer?he was looking at the bodies of his dead comrades. Blood leaked out the bottom of the crude oxcart, leaving a red line that was quickly covered by blowing sand.
“Lord, it’s windy here, ain’t it?” Wesley Buttons said.
THE MEXICAN SOLDIERS WERE glad to allow the Texans to bury their comrades. One of the soldiers had a bottle of white liquor, which he handed around among his friends. Soon the Mexicans were so drunk that all but one of them passed out in the oxcart. None of them had weapons, so it made little sense to think of overpowering them and attempting to escape, though Woodrow Call considered it.
Gus saw what direction his friend’s thoughts were taking, and quickly pointed out what the Major had said about the dogs.
“He said they’ll eat us, if we try to run with these chains on,” Gus said.
“I don’t expect to be eaten by no cur,” Call said?but he knew the Major was probably right. Packs of wild dogs could bring down any animal less fierce than a grizzly bear.
Matilda Roberts had saved a broken piece of tortoiseshell comb through the long journey?she was attempting to comb the dead men’s hair, while the Mexican soldiers finished the bottle of liquor.
The Texans were laid in one grave, by the walls of San Lazaro.
A dust storm had blown up. When they began the burial they could see the river, but the river was soon lost from view. Once the graves were covered the Texans stumbled around, gathering rocks. Several dogs had already gathered?Gus and Wesley threw rocks at them, but the dogs only retreated a few yards, snarling.
While they worked, another smaller cart, drawn by an old mule, made its way around the wall. It, too, was a vehicle of burial?on it were the bodies of two lepers, wrapped tightly in white shrouds. The cart passed close to where the Texans were working; the person driving the cart was also shrouded.
“Look, it’s that one without no meat on his fingers,” Gus said? all that was visible of the driver was the same two bony hands that had given Bigfoot his boots, only a few hours earlier. The leper did not look their way; nor did he make any pretenses. He merely tipped them out of the cart, and turned the cart back toward the gate. Soon the dogs were tearing at the shrouds. The sight saddened Matilda even more. She didn’t imagine that they could find enough rocks to make the bodies of Bigfoot and the others safe for very long.
Call led the ox back into San Lazaro. Most of the Mexican soldiers were sleeping in the oxcart; one would have thought them as dead as the Texans, but for the snores. The two soldiers who could still walk kept close to the Texans, for fear of the dogs.
Once inside the gates the Texans, though still chained, were allowed the freedom of the courtyard. They were served a simple meal of beans and posole, on the table where the jar they had drawn from had been set.
An old man and an old woman served them?both were lepers, yet neither was shrouded, and the dark spots on their cheeks and arms looked no worse to the Texans than bad bruises. Both seemed to be kindly people; they smiled at the Texans, and brought them more food when they emptied their dishes. The only soldiers left in San Lazaro were the drunks in the oxcart. In midafternoon, they began to awake. When they did, they picked up their weapons and drove the oxcart out of the walls. All of them looked frightened.
“They’re scared of them dogs,” Gus said. “Why don’t the Major get up a dog hunt and kill the damn curs?”
“There’d just be more,” Call said. “You can’t kill all the dogs.”
He watched the lepers, as they came and went at their tasks. All of them kept themselves covered, but now and then a wind would riffle a cloak, or blow a shawl, so that he could glimpse the people under the wraps. Some were bad: no chins, cheeks that were black, noses half eaten away. Some limped, from deformities of their feet. One old man used a crutch?he had only one foot. There were a few children playing in the courtyard; all of them seemed normal to Call. There was even a little blond boy, about ten, who showed no sign of the disease. Some of the adults appeared to be not much worse than the old man and the old woman who served them. Some had dark spots on their cheeks and foreheads, or on their hands.
Once the soldiers were gone, San Lazaro did not seem a bad place. Many of the lepers looked at the Texans in a friendly way. Some smiled. Others, whose mouths were affected, covered themselves, but nodded when they passed.
Overhead, the dust swirled so high they could barely see the mountain that loomed over the convent.
Gus felt such relief at being alive, that his appetite for gambling began to return. He had ceased to mind the lepers much?at night they might be scary, but in the daylight the place they were in looked not much worse than any hospital. He began to wish he had a pack of cards, or at least some dice, though of course he had not one cent to gamble with.
“I wonder how long the Mexicans mean to leave us here?” he asked.
Brognoli’s head was going back and forth, like the pendulum of a clock, as it had ever since his fright in the canyon. He watched the lepers with dispassion, and the little blond boy with curiosity. Once, he looked up at the balcony where the lady in black had been and saw a short stout woman standing there. She spoke, and the little blond boy reluctantly left his play and ran upstairs.
Call was thinking about a way to rid them of the leg irons. If he had a hammer and a chisel of some sort, he felt certain he could break the chains himself. The Major had said nothing about coming back, and the last of the soldiers had gone. They were alone with the lepers?the only impediments to their escape were the chains and the
