The Valley of Oaxaca

There was a time I found peace in the windblown silence of an open prairie. I've calloused my hands at all manner of work – I've cowpunched across Texas and the southwest, bulldogged in Oklahoma, and I'd be a liar if I denied havin' covered my face more than once to rob a rich man's stagecoach or to rustle horses. But I ain't never done no harm to anyone that didn't have it comin', I suppose, and I never left a place havin' made an enemy. Never stayed around long enough to make 'em, neither. But I have made some friends during all of my years on the trail, in ranch bunkhouses, and in mischief, and I've heard plenty of stories and yarns, some spun so well, they would leave you fit to be tied. Sometimes, even I tell a story or two about my wanderin' from place to place – but there's one I've never told until now. It's about how I no longer find peace when I feel a cold prairie wind on my neck. It's about why I now feel a prickling kind of fear coldly slipping over me when I hear the sound of the wild suddenly die down, and silence washes over the dark open range after the sun goes down. It's a story of the night I shared a campfire with a dead man in the Oaxaca Valley, and how ever since, I've never been caught out under the stars after dark again.

I had known Chester Craft for a good many years. He was a likable man, but when he pulled the cork, he could be a temperamental son-of-a-bitch. Trouble was, he pulled the cork often. It wasn't that Chester was a disagreeable man, he just had a way of thinkin' 'bout himself and his place in this world, and if anyone said or did somethin' to challenge that, well, he'd die tryin' to prove 'em wrong.

Fact is, I once sat in camp during a cattle drive for the Triple-T, and watched that stubborn shit-kicker claim that he was the handiest man on the trail with a knife, and he was willin' to challenge any man to prove it. By the time the insults had been done slingin', Chester had bet the cook nearly a week's wages that he could best him at a game of five-finger-filet. Now, the cookie had handled knives all his life, so it weren't much wonder he took that bet, and he made a damned good showing of skill, as I recall.

But ol' Chester, he weren't never one to back down, and so when it was his turn, he took off his boot, and tried to match the cook by way of his toes. He was doin' pretty good, too, until with one errant strike, the damned fool ended up takin' off the three middle toes of his right foot. The cook felt so bad for him, he never collected his winnings, but damned if Chester still never admitted he weren't as good with a knife as an old trail ride cook.

It weren't that he was a bad man. Hell, I liked him, truth be told. He'd saved my hide more than once when I should have been killed by my own negligence. But even so, that's just how stubborn and proud Chester could be, and when he drank, let me tell you, it was even worse. I'd seen him even get violent a time or two, so it weren't no surprise to me when I got me a letter from him some years back, askin' for my help, way down south in Old Mexico, somewhere in the Valley of Oaxaca. It was a surprise, to be sure. Chester never had learned to read or write, and so for him to dictate anything to be sent to me, meant he must have been in a bad spot. There was a desperation in that letter, and the smudged writing of the broken English only made it seem even more urgent.

Now, the valley bein' as rough as it is, and this town he'd found himself in bein' small, and out of the way, it took me more'n a week to make it down there. I spent a fair sum to ride the rails as far as I could, and to rent a couple of ponies to ride the rest of the way. By the time I arrived, whatever small help Chester's letter had asked for, had now become something of a criminal matter, as I'd soon find out.

Knowing Chester, I figured the best place to start lookin' for him was at the cantina. Between the hesitant gossip of the locals, and the looks of mistrust, it didn't take long for me to figure that Chester had got himself locked up in the town jail, for the charge of murder. I couldn't say I was too surprised - the bartender had been there the night Chester had killed a man, and he'd told me Chester had drunk himself into an angry stupor. A cross word, a misunderstanding; it didn't matter. A man was dead now, and Chester was gonna hang for it, I assumed.

I went down to the jailhouse, not really holdin' out any hope of bein' able to see my friend, and when I saw the round. scowlin' face of the sweaty, portly Mexican sheriff, it did little to ease my concerns. I explained who I was, and that I was here at the request of a prisoner. To my surprise, that fat sheriff was almost relieved to see me.

So imagine my shock when he asked me, "So you're here to take the gringo home, then?"

You coulda toppled me over with a sneeze, I tell you. The sheriff must have seen my shock, because that's when he explained to me what had happened.

See, Chester hadn't gotten into a fight with just any man. This man was the son of a bruja. If you don't know, a bruja is a witch, and this young man was the bruja's only child. Apparently, she had not taken too kindly to Chester being locked in that jail cell, waitin' on a trial and a hangin' day, when her idea of justice was far more immediate. And brutal. That sheriff was more than eager to wash his hands of Chester before whatever that bruja had comin' for him came to pass, and I was none too eager to press the issue. I agreed to take Chester out of town, and the whole damn Valley posthaste, and with that, the sheriff took me to Chester's cell.

When I first laid eyes on my friend Chester Craft, I thought there had been a mistake. He didn't look himself. I'd never seen a man look so akin to a skeleton in my life. Poor devil's eyes had sunk in so low, the skin around them had wrinkled and turned black. His nails were long and yellow, his hair like coarse straw. When he saw me, he leaped up from his cot and took hold of the cell bars, pressin' his face against them. For a moment, I thought if he pushed hard enough, he coulda squeezed his whole frail frame through.

"Buck! Hot damn, am I glad to see you, no doubt about it!" he cried. "You gotta get me outta here, Buck!"

I told him I intended to, and that he weren't gonna hang if I could help it.

"Hang?" he cried. "Buck, I don't care 'bout no hangin'. It's her, Buck! I can't sleep, she's in my dreams, always whisperin' things, terrible things, things too terrible to say, things I don't understand..."

I looked at the whisper of the man I used to know, and felt an overwhelming sense of pity.

“What happened to you, Chester?” I asked him.

Chester's whole body sagged, and he began to cry.

“Muertos vivientes,” the sheriff said. I looked at him, confused.

“The Walking Death,” he said to me, and when I saw the look in the sheriff's eyes, for the first time I began to wonder if it really was a stroke of good luck that I was being tasked with taking my friend away from this place.

“It's a curse, gringo. A terrible curse. Your friend will not find sleep. Not here, not anywhere. Day and night, he will do her bidding, until... agotamiento. Exhaustion will take him. But he will still be hers. He will not rest. He will do what she tells him, or he will walk until he rots away to nothing. His soul will be hers until Dia del Juicio. Then he will have an eternity of Hell to look forward to.”

The sheriff crossed himself, and I looked back at the pitiful, crying creature before me that had once been my friend.

I did my best to quiet Chester down, and with the sheriff's help, I got him outside, and onto a horse. We wasted little time preparin' to leave. My arrival had apparently spread through town, and the streets were now deserted. No one came to gawk at the two gringo cowboys and their shabby ponies, or point and whisper at the sight of the sickly thin man.

We rode quickly and quietly from that place, and I didn't look back until we were some distance away. Now, I don't know if my eyes were playin' tricks on me, cuz it were gettin' a might dark by then, but I coulda sworn I'd seen a lone figure, dressed in black, standin' at the edge of town, watchin' us ride away.

That first night out in the valley, I thought Chester was gonna drive me crazy. He walked all over that campsite, checkin' horses, starin' into the dark, rubbin' his ears, mutterin' to himself, the whole night through. I could see how he was wastin' away. He didn't eat that night, nor breakfast the next day, and I never saw him sleep once. He jus' kept on mutterin' 'bout that bruja, and her voice in his head, talkin' 'bout how he'd robbed a life and how he had to pay it back.

The next night, he'd stopped talkin' - I think he hadn't the energy left - but still he never rested. He stood in the dark, starin' off into the mountains, his eyes full o' tears. It got so damned cold, and he'd shiver so hard, I swear I could hear his joints clangin' together like chicken bones in a cooking pot. Every now and then, I'd hear him try to whisper somethin'... sounded like he was tryin' to reason with somethin', but I never could make it out.

By the next afternoon, I held out little hope that my friend would survive. Around noon, we stopped to rest and eat. I had only jerky, hardtack, and coffee, but it was better than nothin' out there in all that desert. I tried to get Chester to eat as well, but he wouldn't take it. After a while, he finally spoke to me for the first time in two days.

"Buck," he said, "I ain't gonna make it out here.” When I looked over at him, he was starin' at me with cavernous eyes. He resembled a frightened child, but there was something else there, too. He looked almost thankful that I had come for him.

“You just gotta eat somethin', Chess,” I said, but he was looking off into the distance again, like he hadn't even heard me.

“Please don't bury me in Old Mexico, Buck. Promise me. I ain't got family, but... I knew a pretty girl out in Premont, from my youth. I loved her somethin' dear... but the yellow fever took her."

He hadn't the strength to say no more, much less cry, and so he sat there shakin', his sunken yellow eyes lookin' 'round the valley like he'd never see the world again.

“I promise. I won't leave you behind.” I wanted to tell him more, but there was nothin' I knew to say that would bring him comfort. And so I lit a cigar, and we sat there together for a time, sayin' nothin'.

By that afternoon, he was dead. I wrapped him up in his blankets, tied him tight with rope, and laid him across the saddle, strappin' his body down like cargo. He was light, no heavier than a calf, and it made me think back to the days when he and I rode together on the Triple-T Ranch. I couldn't believe this was the same man that had once saved my life.

We were still two days from gettin' out of the valley, and it was two days I had no desire to go through, seein' as that sun was gonna keep on bakin' ol' Chester in those blankets. But, I'd made a promise to the man, and I aimed to keep it, as long as I was able to do so. That night, I laid Chester down by the fire, ate my fill, and bedded down. It was a while before I finally fell off to sleep, and when I did, strange dreams filled my head. Dreams of a great vulture, with the face of an old woman, walking around my bed, snapping her yellowing teeth at me, while somewhere beyond the light of the campfire, I could hear Chester screaming, as if he were runnin' through the brush and over the desert rocks like a mad man.

I woke before dawn, feelin' like I had hardly slept at all. The fire had burned out in the night, and gentle smoke rose from the white ashes. I sat up, and rubbed my eyes, wishin' Chester were still around to help make coffee.

I looked over to where I'd laid his body, and my heart 'bout stopped. Right there on the ground, were them two blankets lyin' in a pile, with the rope I'd used to lash them about Chester - but Chester was gone.

I stood up and stared at where his body had been, unsure if I were still asleep, or if I were really seein' what I was seein'. But it weren't no dream - Chester's body had vanished. I grabbed my rifle from my saddle that I'd been usin' as a pillow, figurin' he'd been dragged off by some predator. I figured I'd follow them tracks and get my friend back, just as soon as it was light.

I knelt down by them ol' blankets, and I looked for tracks - but all I saw was footsteps.

Boys, my blood ran cold. Footsteps walked all around them blankets, then around the campfire, and finally, around my bedding, where I had laid all night. Somethin' had walked around me so many times, it'd tracked a bald spot in the dirt. After some time, the tracks broke off, and disappeared back into the rugged wasteland of the valley.

Now, y'all might be thinkin', maybe some rustlers came and took the body, or maybe somebody was pullin' a trick on me, but I tell you now, that weren't the case. Even writin' it down now, a shiver goes up my spine.

You see, the tracks around that camp... them footsteps was missin' three toes on the right foot.

Some things just stick with you, and on nights like these, I think about what that Mexican sheriff told me. Muertos Vivientes. The Curse of the Walking Death. I wonder if ol' Chester is out there still, walkin' and droppin' pieces of himself all over creation, bangin' 'round like chicken bones in a cookin' pot, servin' that bruja 'til Judgment Day. Or, I wonder maybe, if he's already decayed to nothin', and his spirit is still restlessly blowin' about, like a cold prairie wind.

I still wonder, boys. Even now, having quit the open range, when I lay my head down in town, each time a chill runs up my spine for no reason, I think of ol' Chester.

And I wonder.