"Why, I need her, I guess," Gus said-now that his belly didn't growl quite so loudly, his envy had returned.

"I'm as much a calf as he is-we're the same age," Gus said.

"Yeah, but you're easy to get along with, and Woodrow ain't," Bigfoot said.

"Well, then, she ought to be sitting with me, not with that hard-headed fool," Gus said. "He ain't saying a word to her-I can out-talk him any day."

"Maybe it ain't talk she's after," Bigfoot suggested.

Long Bill Coleman had been stretched out on the ground, resting on his elbow, as he listened to the little debate.

"Why are you griping, Gussie?" he asked. "She ain't sitting with me, either, but you don't hear me complaining."

"Shut up, Bill-what do you know about women?" Gus asked, testily.

"Well, I know they don't always cotton to the easy fellows," Long Bill said. "If they did, I'd have been married long ago. But I ain't married, and it's going to be another cold night."

"Why, he's right," Bigfoot said. "Matty likes Woodrow because he's hardheaded."

"Oh, I suppose you two know everything," Gus said. He went over to where the two sat, and plopped himself down on the other side of Matilda.

"Matty and her boys," Bigfoot said, smiling at Long Bill. "I doubt she expected to be the mother of two pups when she headed west with this outfit."

Long Bill wished the subject of mothers had never come up. His own had died of a fever when he was ten-he had missed her ever since.

"If Ma was alive, I expect I would have stayed with farming," he said, with a mournful look. "She cooked cobbler for us, when she was well. I ain't et cobbler since that was half as good."

"I hope this starving is over," Bigfoot said. "I don't want to think about cobbler or taters until we get back to where folks eat regular."The carcasses had been consumed completely-when the troop left, on the morning of the third day, they had no food at all. They were cheerful, though. The fact that they had seen ducks convinced many of the men that they were almost out of the desert. The Texans began to talk of catfish and venison, pig meat and chickens, as if they would be sitting down to lavish meals within the next few days.

Salazar listened to the talk with a grim expression.

"Senores, this is still the dead man's walk," he said. "We have far to go before we come to Las Cruces. Once we make it there, no one will starve."

They marched three days without seeing a single animal; they had water, but no food. On the second evening, they used the last of their coffee. The brew was so thin it was almost colorless.

"I could read a newspaper through this coffee, if I had a newspaper," Long Bill said, squinting into his cup.

"I didn't know you could read, Bill," Bigfoot said.

Long Bill looked embarrassed; the fact was, he couldn't read. Usually, if he were lucky enough to come by a newspaper, he had a whore read it to him.

Call was as hungry as the rest of the troop, but because of his crutch, he was in better spirits, even though the crutch was rough and soon rubbed his underarm raw. He had nothing to pad the crutch with, though. Matilda offered to tear off a piece of her shirt and pad the crutch for him, but he refused her. By the end of the third day, his shoulder was paining him almost as much as his foot had. Matilda, tired of his stubbornness, ripped off a piece of her shirt and padded the crutch anyway, while Call slept.

Even so, Call lagged behind the rest of the Texans. He was not quite at the rear of the column, though; three of the weakest of the young Mexican soldiers lagged far behind him. Though Call could not speak their language, he had ceased to regard the young soldiers as enemies. They had starved and frozen, just like the Texans; he didn't think they would shoot him, even if he hobbled right past them and tried to escape.

From time to time he glanced back, to see that the boys were still following him. He was afraid they might collapse and die, and he knew that if the company was too far in advance of them when they collapsed, Salazar would not go back for them. The Apaches had not bothered them for four nights; the assumption around the campfire was that they had given up, or decided the pursuit of such a miserable band wasn't worth it. There were no horses to take, only a few weapons.

Captain Salazar was not convinced. He didn't share the Texans' optimism, in regard to Gomez.

"If he stopped, it is because he has other business," he told Bigfoot. "If he has no other business, he will follow us and try to kill us all. I don't think he will attack-he will wait and take us, one by one."

He posted as strong a guard as he could muster, knowing, even so, that half his soldiers would fall asleep on duty. But four nights passed, and no corpses were found in the morning.

"He wouldn't wait four nights, if he was still after us," Bigfoot said.

"He would wait forty nights," Salazar told him. "He is Gomez."

The wrapping on Call's crutch had come loose-he stopped to rewrap it and, when he did, glanced back at the young Mexicans. It was then that he saw the Apache, a short, stumpy-legged man, with a bow in his hand, about to release an arrow. Before he could move, the arrow hit him in the right side. Call had no weapon-all he could do was yell, but he yelled loudly and the troop turned. Call gripped his crutch, prepared to defend himself if the Apache came closer, but the Apache had vanished, and so had the three Mexican soldiers who had been trailing behind. The plain to the north was completely empty.

Bigfoot came running up, and looked at the arrow in Call's right side.

"Why, he nearly missed you," he said. "The arrow's barely hanging in you."

Before Call could even look down, Bigfoot had ripped the arrow out-it had only creased his ribs. Blood flowed down his leg, but he didn't feel it. The shock of seeing the Apache, only fifty yards behind him, left him dizzy for a minute.

Captain Salazar came running back to Call.

"Where did he go?" he asked.

Call, still dizzy, couldn't tell him. He pointed to the spot where the short Indian had been, but when Bigfoot and Salazar and a few of the Mexican troops ran in that direction, they found no Indians.The three Mexican soldiers who had trailed Call were dead, each with two arrows in them. They lay face down, fully clothed.

"At least they didn't get cut," Long Bill said.

"No, he was in a hurry," Salazar said. "He wanted Corporal Call -and he almost had him. You are a very lucky man, Corporal. I think it was Gomez, and Gomez rarely misses."

"I saw him," Call said. "He would have been on me in another few steps, if I hadn't turned. I expect he would have put an arrow right through me."

"If it was Gomez and you saw him, then you are the first white to see him and live," Salazar said.

"He won't like that," Bigfoot said. "We'd best watch you close."

"You don't have to-I'll watch myself," Call said.

"Don't be feisty, Woodrow," Bigfoot said. "That old Apache might come back and try to finish the job."

"I hate New Mexico," Gus said. "If it ain't bears, it's Indians."

That night Call was placed in the center of the company, for his own safety; even so, he slept badly, and was troubled by dreams in which Gomez was carrying Buffalo Hump's great hump. One moment the Apache chief would be aiming an arrow at him, so real and so close that he would awaken. Then, the minute he dozed off again, it would be the Comanche chief that was aiming the arrow.

In the grey morning, cold but glad to be alive, Call remembered that a long time back Bigfoot had had a dream in which Buffalo Hump and Gomez rode together into Mexico, to take captives.

"Didn't you dream about Buffalo Hump and Gomez fighting together?" he asked.

"Yes, I hope it don't never come true," Bigfoot said. "One of them at a time's plenty to have to whip."

"We ain't whipping them," Call pointed out. "We ain't killed but two of them, and they've accounted for most of our troop."

"I admit they're wild," Bigfoot said. "But they're just men. If you put a bullet in them in the right place, they'll die, just like you or me. Their skins ain't the same colour as ours, but their blood's just as red."