Free Dead Man's Walk by Larry McMurtry

for horses to climb.

Sam was wishing Texas wasn't so big and open--you could look and look, as far as you could see, and there would be nothing to give you encouragement.

He had been in jail for dropping a watermelon, when Bigfoot happened to get locked up. He had picked a watermelon off a stall and thumped it, to see if it was ripe; but then he dropped it and it burst on the cobblestones.

The merchant demanded ten cents for his burst melon, but Sam had only three cents. He offered to work off the difference, but the merchant had him arrested instead. The cook in the San Antonio jail got so drunk that he let a wagon run over his foot and crush it, making him too sick to cook. Sam was offered his job and took it--he had known how to cook since he was six.

Bigfoot liked the grub so much that he suggested Sam to Major Chevallie, who promptly paid the debt of seven cents and took Sam with him.

Now here he was, in the biggest country he had ever seen, with a horizon so distant that his eyes didn't want to seek it, and a sun so bright that he could only tolerate it by pulling the brim of his old cap down over his eyes; he was riding along with a whore after a bunch of irritable white men who had decided to chase goats. At least the whore was friendly, even if she did eat snapping turtle for breakfast.

The Rangers, young Gus in the lead, had raced to the foot of the mountain, only to discover at close range what Matilda had discerned at a distance: the little mountain was much too steep for horses, and perhaps even too steep for men. Now that they were directly underneath the crag they couldn't see the goats, either; they were hidden by rocks and boulders, somewhere above them. Also, their horses were winded from the chase; the mountain that in the clear air had looked so close had actually been several miles away. Many of the horses--skinny nags, mostly--were stumbling and shaking by the time the Rangers dismounted.

Call had never seen a mountain before, although of course he was familiar with hills. This mountain went straight up--if you could get on top of it, you wouldn't be very far from the sky. But they weren't at the top of it; they were at the bottom, near several good-sized boulders that had toppled off at some point and rolled out onto the plain.

Major Chevallie, like most of his men, had enjoyed the wild race immensely. After all the worry and indecision it was a relief just to race a horse at top speed over the plain. Besides, if they could bring down a mountain goat or two there would be meat for the pot. He had often hunted in Virginia--deer mostly, bear occasionally, and of course turkeys and geese--but he had never been in sight of a Western mountain goat and was anxious to get in a shot before someone beat him to the game.

Several of the men had already grabbed their rifles and were ready to shoot.

Josh Corn got off his horse and vomited, to the general amusement. Josh had a delicate constitution; he could never ride fast for any length of time without losing his breakfast--it was an impediment to what he hoped would be a fine career in the Rangers.

"Boys, let's climb," Bigfoot said.

"These goats ain't likely to fall off the hill." Long Bill Coleman was the pessimist in the crowd. He was too nearsighted to have seen the goats--in fact, he could not see far up the mountain at all. His horse was in better shape than most because of his lack of confidence in the hunt.

He had held the pony to a lope while the others were running flat out. Unlike the rest of the command, Long Bill had not forgotten that there were Comanches in the area. He was more interested in seeing that he had a mount fresh enough to carry him away from Comanches than he was in shooting goats. The latter, in his experience, were hard to chew anyway--worse than hard, if the goat happened to be an old billy.

Matilda and Black Sam came trotting up to the base of the cliff, where the hunting party was assembling itself. The only one to