Free Dead Man's Walk by Larry McMurtry Page A

venture up the cliff was young McCrae, who had climbed some thirty yards up when his wounded leg gave out suddenly.

"Look out, he's falling," Bob Bascom said.

Call felt embarrassed, for indeed his friend was falling, or rather rolling, down the steep slope he had just climbed up. Gus tried to grab for a little bush to check his descent, but he missed and rolled all the way down, ending up beneath Major Chevallie's horse, which abruptly began to pitch. The Major had dropped his reins in order to adjust the sights on his rifle. To his intense annoyance, the horse suddenly bolted and went dashing across the plain to the west.

"Now look, you young fool, who told you to climb?" the Major exploded. "Now you've run off my horse!" Gus McCrae was so embarrassed he couldn't speak. One minute he had been climbing fine, the next minute he was rolling. Call was just as embarrassed. The Major was red in the face with anger. In all likelihood he was about to fire Gus on the spot.

There was a funny side to the spectacle, though --the sight of Gus rolling over and over set many of the Rangers to slapping their thighs and laughing.

Matilda was cackling, and even Sam chuckled.

Call was on the point of laughing too, but restrained himself out of consideration for his friend.

Matilda laughed so loudly that Tom, her horse, usually a stolid animal, began to hop around and act as if he might throw her.

"Dern," Gus said, so stricken with embarrassment that he could not think of another word to say. Though he had rolled all the way down the hill, his rifle had only rolled partway. It was lodged against a rock, twenty yards above them.

"Get mounted, you damn scamp, and go bring my horse back, before he runs himself out of sight," the Major commanded. "You can get that rifle when you come back." Several Rangers, Ezekiel Moody among them, were watching the horse run off--all of them were in a high state of hilarity. Rip Green was laughing so hard he could scarcely stand up.

Everyone except the Major and Gus were enjoying the little moment of comic relief when, suddenly, they saw the Major's horse go down.

"Prairie-dog hole. I hope his leg's not broken," Johnny Carthage said.

Before he could even finish saying it the sound of a shot echoed off the mountain behind them.

"No prairie-dog hole, that horse was shot," Bigfoot said.

Shadrach immediately led his horse behind one of the larger boulders.

"My God, now what?" the Major said.

All he had taken off his saddle was the rifle itself--his ammunition and all his kit were with the fallen horse.

No one said a word. The plain before them looked as empty as it had when they had all come racing across it. There was no sign of anyone. Two hawks circled in the sky. The fallen horse did not rise again.

The Rangers, all of them ready to pop off a few shots at some mountain goats, were caught in disarray. Young Josh Corn, having just emptied his stomach, found that he needed to empty his bowels too, and walked down the slope some thirty yards to a little bunch of sage bushes; most of the Rangers had no qualms about answering calls of nature in full view of a crowd, but Josh liked a little privacy. He had just undone his britches when Gus rolled down the hill. But his call was urgent; he was squatting down amid the sage bushes when the Major's horse bolted.

He heard the shot that killed the horse, but supposed it was only some Ranger, popping off a long shot at one of the goats. For a moment his cramping bowels occupied all his attention. Even since gulping a bellyful of Pecos water he had been afflicted with cramps of such severity that from time to time he was forced to dismount and pour out fluids so alkaline that they turned white in the sun.

Josh kept squatting, emptying himself of more Pecos salts. He was in no rush to get back to the crowd--the cramps were still bad, so bad that he could only have walked bending over, which would have made him an object of derision to his fellows.

Besides, he