Cities of the Plain

II

HE WAITED but she didnt come. He stood at the window with the hangings of old lace gathered back in his hand and watched the life in the streets. Anyone who would have looked up to see him there behind the untrue panes of dusty glass could have told his story. The afternoon grew quiet. Across the street a merchant closed and locked the iron shutters of his hardware shop. A taxi stopped in front of the hotel and he leaned with his face against the cold pane but he could not see if anyone got out. He turned and went to the door and opened it and walked out to the head of the stairwell where he could look down into the lobby. No one came. When he went back and stood at the window again the taxi was gone. He sat on the bed. The shadows grew long. After a while it was dark in the room and the green neon of the hotel sign came on outside the window and after a while he rose and took his hat from the top of the bureau and went out. He turned at the door and looked back into the room and then pulled the door shut behind him. If he'd stood longer he'd have passed the criada La Tuerta in the shabby stairwell instead of the lobby as he did, he any lodger, she any old woman with one clouded eye struggling in from the street. He stepped out into the cool evening and she labored up the stairs and knocked at the door and waited and knocked again. A door down the hallway opened and a man looked out. He told her that he had no towels.

HE WAS LYING on his bunk staring up at the roughsawed boards of the ceiling of the bunkroom when Billy came and stood in the doorway. He was slightly drunk. His hat was pushed back on his head. What say, cowboy, he said. Hey Billy. How you doin? I'm doin all right. Where'd you all go? We went to a dance at Mesilla. Who all went? Everbody but you. He sat in the doorway and jacked one boot against the jamb and took off his hat and put it on his knee and leaned his head back. John Grady watched him. Did you dance? Danced my ass off. I didnt know you were a big dancer. I aint. I guess you give it your best. It's a thing that's got to be seen. Oren tells me that squirrelheaded horse you think so much of is eatin out of your hand. That might be a bit of an exaggeration. What do you tell em? Who? Horses. I dont know. The truth. I guess it's a trade secret. No. How can you lie to a horse? He turned and looked at John Grady. I dont know, the boy said. Do you mean how do you go about it or how can you bring yourself to do it? Go about it. I dont know. I think it's just what's in your heart. You think a horse knows what's in your heart? Yeah. Dont you? Billy didnt answer. After a while he said: Yeah. I do. I aint a very good liar. You just aint had enough practice at it.

Down the barn bay in the stalls they could hear the wheeze and stir of the animals.

Have you got a girl you're seein?

John Grady crossed his boots one over the other. Yeah, he said. Tryin to.

JC said you did.

How did JC know?

He just said you manifested all the symptoms.

Manifested?

Yeah.

What are they?

He didnt say. You intend to bring her around some time where we can get a look at her?

Yeah. I'll bring her around.

Well.

He took his hat from his knee and put it on his head and rose. Billy?

Yeah.

I'll tell you about it. It's kind of a mess. Right now I'm just a bit wore out.

I dont doubt it for a minute, cowboy. I'll see you in the mornin.

HE WENT the following week with no more money in his pocket than would buy a drink at the bar. He watched her in the mirror. She sat upright alone on the dark velvet couch with her hands composed in her lap like a debutante. He drank the whiskey slowly. When he looked in the mirror again he thought she had been watching him. He finished the whiskey and paid for it and turned to go. He had not meant to look directly at her but he did. He could not even imagine her life.

He got his hat and gave the woman the last of his change and she smiled and thanked him and he put his hat on and turned. He had his hand on the ornate onyx handle of the door when one of the waiters stepped in front of him.

Un momento, he said.

He stopped. He looked at the hatcheck girl and he looked at the waiter.

The waiter stood between him and the door. The girl, he said. She say you no forget her.

He looked toward the salon but he could not see her from the door.

Digame? he said.

She say you no.

En espa-ol, por favor. D'game en espa-ol to que dice ella.

The man would not. He repeated the words again in english and then he turned and was gone.

He sat the next night in the Moderno and waited for the maestro and his daughter. He waited for a long time and he thought perhaps they had already been or perhaps they were

not coming. When the little girl pushed open the door she saw him and looked up at her father but she said nothing. They took a table near the door and the waiter came and poured a glass of wine.

He rose and crossed the room and stood at their table. Maestro, he said.

The blind man turned his face up and smiled at the space alongside John Grady. As if some unseen double stood there.

Buenas noches, he said.

C-mo esti?

Ali, said the blind man. My young friend.

Yes.

Please. You must join us. Sit down.

Thank you.

He sat. He looked at the girl. The blind man hissed at the

waiter and the waiter came over.

QuZ toma? said the maestro.

Nothing. Thank you.

Please. I insist.

I cant stay.

Traiga un vino para mi amigo.

The waiter nodded and moved away. John Grady thumbed back his hat and leaned forward with his elbows on the table. What is this place? he said.

The Moderno? It is a place where the musicians come. It is a very old place. It has always been here. You must come on Saturday. Many old people come. You will see them. They come to dance. Very old people dancing. Here. In this place. The Moderno.

Are they going to play again?

Yes, yes. Of course. It is early. They are my friends.

Do they play every night?

Yes. Every night. They will play soon now. You will see.

Good as the maestro's word the violinists began to tune their instruments in the inner room. The cellist leaned listening with his head inclined and drew his bow across the strings. A couple who had been sitting at a table against the far wall rose and stood in the archway holding hands and then sallied forth onto the concrete floor as the musicians struck up an antique waltz. The maestro leaned forward to hear. Are they dancing? he said. Are any dancing now?

The little girl looked at John Grady. Yes, John Grady said. They're dancing.

The old man leaned back, he nodded. Good, he said. That is good.

THEY SAT AGAINST a rock bluff high in the Franklins with a fire before them that heeled in the wind and their figures cast up upon the rocks behind them enshadowed the petroglyphs carved there by other hunters a thousand years before. They could hear the dogs running far below them. Their cries trailed off down the side of the mountain and sounded again more faintly and then faded away where they coursed out along some rocky draw in the dark. To the south the distant lights of the city lay strewn across the desert floor like a tiara laid out upon a jeweler's blackcloth. Archer had stood and turned toward the running dogs the better to listen and after a while he squatted again and spat into the fire.

She aint goin to tree, he said.

I dont believe she will either, said Travis.

How do you know it's the same lion? said JC.

Travis had taken his tobacco from his pocket and he smoothed and cupped a paper with his fingers. She's done us thisaway before, he said. She'll run plumb out of the country.

They sat listening. The cries grew faint and after a while there were no more. Billy had gone off up the side of the mountain to look for wood and he came back dragging a dead cedar stump. He picked it up and dropped it on top of the fire. A shower of sparks rose and drifted down the night. The stump sat all black and twisted over the small flames. Like some amorphous thing come in out of the night to warm itself among them.

Couldnt you find a bigger chunk of wood, Parham?

It'll take here in a minute.

Parham's put the fire plumb out, said JC.

The darkest hour is just before the storm, said Billy. It'll take here in a minute.

I hear em, Travis said.

I do too.

She's crossed at the head of that big draw where the road cuts back.

We wont get that Lucy dog back tonight.

What dog is that?

Bitch out of that Aldridge line. Them dogs was bred by the Lee Brothers. They just forgot to build in the quit.

Best dog we ever had was her grandaddy, said Archer. You remember that Roscoe dog, Travis?

Of course I do. People thought he was part bluetick but he was a full leopard cur with a glass eye and he did love to fight. We lost him down in Nyarit. Jaguar caught him and bit him damn near in two.

You all dont hunt down there no more.

No.

We aint been back since before the war. It got to be a long ways to go them last few trips. Lee Brothers had about quit goin. They brought a lot of jaguars out of that country, too.

JC leaned and spat into the fire. The flames were snaking up along the sides of the stump.

You all didnt care bein way off down there in old Mexico thataway?

We always got along with them people.

You dont need to go far to get in trouble, said Archer. You want trouble you can find all you can say grace over right across that river yonder.

That's an amen on that.

You cross that river you in another country. You talk to some of these old waddies along this border. Ask em about the revolution.

Do you remember the revolution, Travis?

Archer here can tell you moren what I can.

You was in swaddlin clothes wasnt you, Travis?

Just about it. I do remember bein woke up one time and goin to the window and we looked out and you could see the guns goin off over there like it was the fourth of July.

We lived on Wyoming Street, said Archer. After Daddy died. Mama's Uncle Pless worked in a machine shop on Alameda and they brought in the firingpins out of two artillery pieces and asked him could he turn new ones and he turned em and wouldnt take a dime for it. They was all on the side of the rebels. He brought the old pins home and give em to us boys. There was one shop turned some cannon barrels out of railroad axles and they dragged em back across the river behind a team of mules. The trunnions was made out of Ford truck axle housings and they set em in wood sashes and used the wheels off of fieldwagons to mount em in. That was in November of nineteen and thirteen. Villa come into Ju++rez at two oclock in the mornin on a train he'd highjacked. It was just a flatout war. Lots of folks in El Paso had their windowlights shot out. Some people killed, for that matter. They'd go down and stand along the river there and watch it like it was a ballgame.

Villa come back in nineteen and nineteen. Travis can tell ye. We'd slip over there and hunt for souvenirs. Empty shellcases and what not. There was dead horses and mules in the street. Storewindows shot out. We seen bodies laid out in the alameda with blankets over em or wagonsheets. That sobered us up, I can tell you. They made us take showers with the Mexicans fore they'd let us back in. Disinfected our clothes and all. There was typhus down there and people had died of it.

They sat smoking quietly and looking out at the distant lights in the valley floor below them. Two of the dogs came in out of the night and passed behind the hunters. Their shadows trotted across the stone bluff and they crossed to a place in the dry dust under the rocks where they curled up and were soon asleep.

None of it done anybody any good, Travis said. Or if it did I never heard of it.

I been all over that country down there. I was a cattlebuyer for Spurlocks. Supposed to be one. I was just a kid. I rode all over northern Mexico. Hell, there wasnt no cattle. Not to speak oPS Mostly I just visited. I liked it. I liked the country and I liked the people in it. I rode all over Chihuahua and a good part of Coahuila and some of Sonora. I'd be gone weeks at a time and not have hardly so much as a peso in my pocket but it didnt make no difference. Those people would take you in and put you up and feed you and feed your horse and cry when you left. You could of stayed forever. They didnt have nothin. Never had and never would. But you could stop at some little estancia in the absolute dead center of nowhere and they'd take you in like you was kin. You could see that the revolution hadnt done them no good. A lot of em had lost boys out of the family. Fathers or sons or both. Nearly all of em, I expect. They didnt have no reason to be hospitable to anybody. Least of all a gringo kid. That plateful of beans they set in front of you was hard come by. But I was never turned away. Not a time.

Three more dogs passed by the fire and sought out beds under the bluff. The stars swung west. The hunters talked of other things and after a while another dog came in. He was favoring a forefoot and Archer got up and walked up under the bluff to see about him. They heard the dog whine and when he came back he said they'd been in a fight.

Two more dogs came in and then all were in save one.

I'll wait a while if you all want to head back, Archer said.

We'll wait with ye.

I dont mind.

We'll wait a while. Wake up young Cole yonder.

Let him sleep, said Billy. He's been fightin that bear.

The fire burned down and it grew colder and they sat close to the flames and hand fed them with sticks and with old brittle limbs they broke from the windtwisted wrecks of trees along the rimrock. They told stories of the old west that once was. The older men talked and the younger men listened and light began to show in the gap of the mountain above them and then faintly along the desert floor below.

The dog they were waiting for came in limping badly and circled the fire. Travis called to her. She halted with her red eyes and looked at them. He rose and called her again and she came up and he took hold of her collar and turned her to the light. There were four bloody furrows along her flank. There was a flap of skin ripped loose at her shoulder exposing the muscle underneath and blood was dripping slowly from one ripped ear onto the sandy dirt where she stood.

We need to get that sewed up, Travis said.

Archer pulled a leash from among those he'd strung through his belt and he clipped it onto the Dring of her collar. She carried the only news they would have of the hunt, bearing witness to things they could only imagine or suppose out there in the night. She winced when Archer touched her ear and when he let go of her she stepped back and stood with her forefeet braced and shook her head. Blood sprayed the hunters and hissed in the fire. They rose to go.

Let's go, cowboy, Billy said.

John Grady sat up and reached about on the ground for his hat.

Hell of a lionhunter you turned out to be.

Is the peeler awake? said JC.

The peeler's awake.

A man that's been huntin that bear I dont believe these old mountain lions hold much interest.

I think you got that right.

Chips all down and where was he? And us at the mercy of the old folks here. Could of used some help, son. We been outlied till it's pitiful. I mean sent to the showers. Wasnt even a contest, was it Billy?

Not even a contest.

John Grady squared his hat and walked out along the edge of the bluff. The desert plain lay cold and blue below them in the graying light and the shape of the river running down from the north through the break of gray winter trees lay in a pale serpentine of mist. To the south the cold gray grid of the distant city and the shape of the older city across the river like stampings in the desert soil. Beyond them the mountains of Mexico. The injured hound had come from the fire where the men were sorting and chaining the dogs and it walked out and stood beside John Grady and studied with him the plain below. John Grady sat and let his boots dangle over the edge of the rock and the dog lay down and rested its bloody head alongside his leg and after a while he put his arm around it.

BILLY SAT LEANING with his elbows on the table and his arms crossed. He watched John Grady. John Grady pursed his lips. He moved the remaining white knight. Billy looked at Mac. Mac studied the move and he looked at John Grady. He sat back in his chair and studied the board. No one spoke.

Mac picked up the black queen and held it a moment and then set it back. Then he picked up the queen again and moved. Billy leaned back in his chair. Mac reached and took the cold cigar from the ashtray and put it in his mouth.

Six moves later the white king was mated. Mac sat back and lit the cigar. Billy blew a long breath across the table.

John Grady sat looking at the board. Good game, he said. It's a long road, said Mac, that has no turning.

They walked out across the yard toward the barn. Tell me somethin, Billy said.

All right.

And I know you'll tell me the truth. I already know what the question is. What's the answer.

The answer is no.

You didnt slack up on him just the littlest bit? No. I dont believe in it.

The horses stirred and snuffled in their stalls as they passed down the bay. John Grady looked at Billy. You dont reckon he thinks that do you? I hope not. He damn sure wouldnt like it a bit. He damn sure wouldnt.

H E WALKED into the pawnshop with the gun in the holster and the holster and belt slung over his shoulder. The pawnbroker was an old man with white hair and he was reading the paper spread out on the glass top of a display case at the rear of the shop. There were guns in racks along one wall and guitars hanging from overhead and knives and pistols and jewelry and tools in the cases. John Grady laid the gunbelt on the counter and the old man looked at it and looked at John Grady. He drew the pistol from the holster and cocked it and let the hammer down on the halfcock notch and spun the cylinder and opened the gate and looked at the chambers and closed the gate and cocked the hammer and let it back down with his thumb.

He turned it over and looked at the serial numbers on the frame and triggerguard and on the bottom of the backstrap and then slid it back into the holster and looked up.

How much do you want? he said.

I need about forty dollars.

The old man sucked his teeth and shook his head gravely.

I been offered fiftyfor it. I just need to pawn it.

I could let you have maybe twentyfive.

John Grady looked at the gun. Let me have thirty, he said.

The pawnbroker shook his head doubtfully.

I dont want to sell it, John Grady said. I just need to borrow on it.

The belt and holster too, yes?

Yes. It all goes together.

All right.

He brought out his pad of forms and slowly copied out the serial number and he wrote down John Grady's name and address and turned the paper on the glass for the boy to read and sign. Then he separated the sheets and handed a copy to John Grady and took the gun to his cage at the rear of the shop. When he returned he had the money and he laid it on the counter.

I'll be back for it, John Grady said.

The old man nodded.

It belonged to my grandfather.

The old man opened his hands and closed them again. A gesture of accommodation. Not quite a blessing. He nodded toward the glass case where half a dozen old Colt revolvers lay displayed, some nickelplated, some with grips of staghorn. One with old worn grips of guttapercha, one with the front sight filed away.

All of them belonged to somebody's grandfather, he said.

As he was going up Ju++rez Avenue a shineboy spoke to him. Hey cowboy, he said.

Hey.

Better let me shine those boots for you.

All right.

He sat on a little folding campstool and put his boot on the shineboy's homemade wooden box. The shineboy turned up the leg of his trousers and began to take out his rags and brushes and tins of polish and lay them to hand.

You goin to see your girl?

Yeah.

I hope you werent goin up there with these boots.

I guess it's a good thing you hollered at me. She might of run me off.

The boy dusted off the boot with his rag and lathered it. When are you gettin married? he said.

What makes you think I'm gettin married?

I dont know. You kind of got the look. Are you?

I dont know. Maybe.

Are you a cowboy sure enough?

Yep.

You work on a ranch?

Yeah. Small ranch. Estancia, you might say.

You like it?

Yeah. I like it.

He wiped off the boot and opened his can and began to slap polish onto the leather with the stained fingers of his left hand.

It's hard work, aint it?

Yeah. Sometimes.

What if you could be somethin else?

I wouldnt be nothin else.

What if you could be anything in the world?

John Grady smiled. He shook his head.

Were you in the war?

No. I was too young.

My brother was too young but he lied about his age.

Was he American?

No. How old was he?

Sixteen.

I guess he was big for his age.

He was a big bullshitter for his age.

John Grady smiled.

The boy put the lid back on the tin and took out his brush.

They asked him if he was a pachuco. He said all the pachucos he knew of lived in El Paso. He told em he didnt know any Mexican pachucos.

He brushed the boot. John Grady watched him.

Was he a pachuco?

Sure. Of course he was.

He brushed the boot and then chucked the brush back into the box and took out his cloth and popped it and bent and began to rifle the cloth back and forth over the toe of the boot.

He joined the marines. He got two purple hearts.

What about you?

What about me what.

What did you join.

He glanced up at John Grady. He whipped the cloth around the counter of the boot. I sure didnt join no marines, he said.

What about the pachucos.

Nah.

You're not a pachuco?

Nah.

Are you a bullshitter?

Sure.

A big one?

Pretty big. Let me have the other foot.

What about the black around the edges?

I do that last. Dont worry about everything.

John Grady put his other foot on the box and turned up his trouserleg.

Appearance is important with women, the boy said. Dont think they dont look at your boots.

You got a girl?

Shit no.

You sound like you've had some bad experiences.

Who aint? You fool with em and that's the kind you'll have.

There'll be some sweet young thing nail you down one of these days.

I hope not.

How old are you?

Fourteen.

You lie about your age?

Yeah. Sure.

I guess if you admit it then it aint a lie.

The boy ceased rubbing in the polish for a moment and sat looking at the boot. Then he began again.

If there's somethin I want to be a different way from what it is then that's how I say it is. What's wrong with that?

I dont know.

Who else is goin to?

Nobody, I guess.

Nobody is right.

Is your brother married?

Which brother? I got three.

The one that was in the marines.

Yeah. He's married. They're all married.

If they're all married why did you ask which one?

The shineboy shook his head. Man, he said.

I guess you're the youngest.

No. I got a brother ten years old is married with three kids. Of course I'm the youngest. What do you think?

Well maybe marriage runs in the family.

Marriage dont run in families. Anyway I'm an outlaw. Oveja negra. You speak spanish? Yeah. I speak spanish.

Oveja negra. That's me.

Black sheep.

I know what it is.

I am too.

The boy looked up at him. He reached and got his brush from the box. Yeah? he said.

Yeah.

You dont look like no outlaw to me.

What does one look like?

Not like you.

He brushed the boot and put away the brush and got his cloth out and popped it. John Grady watched him. What about you? What if you could be anything you wanted?

I'd be a cowboy.

Really?

The boy looked up at him with disgust. Shit no, he said. What's wrong with you? I'd be a rico and lay around on my ass all day. What do you think?

What if you had to do something?

I dont know. Maybe be a airplane pilot.

Yeah?

Sure. I'd fly everywhere.

What would you do when you got there?

Fly somewhere else.

He finished polishing the boot and got out his bottle of blacking and began to paint the heel and the edges of the sole with the swab.

Other boot, he said.

John Grady put his other foot up and the boy painted the edges. Then he put the swab back in the bottle and screwed the cap shut and pitched the bottle into the box. You're done, he said.

John Grady turned his cuffs back down and stood and reached into his pocket and took out a coin and handed it to the boy.

Thanks.

He looked down at his boots. What do you think.

She might let you in the door. Where's your flowers at?

Flowers?

Sure. You're goin to need all the help you can get.

You're probably right.

I shouldnt even be tellin you this stuff.

Why not?

You'd be better off just to be put out of your misery. John Grady smiled. Where are you from? he said.

Right here.

No you're not.

I grew up in California.

What are you doin over here? I like it over here.

Yeah? Yeah. You like shinin shoes? I like it all right.

You like the street.

Yeah. I dont like goin to school.

John Grady adjusted his hat and looked off up the street. He looked down at the boy. Well, he said. I never much liked it myself.

Outlaws, the boy said.

Outlaws. I think maybe you're a bigger outlaw than me. I think you're right.

I'm just kind of gettin the hang of it.

You need any pointers come see me. I'll be happy to show you the ropes.

John Grady smiled. Okay, he said. I'll see you around. Adi-s, vaquero.

Adi-s, bolero.

The boy smiled and waved him on.

THE CRIADA STOOD behind her in the fulllength mirror, her mouth bristling with hairpins. She looked at the girl in the mirror, so pale and so slender in her shift with her hair piled atop her head. She looked at Josefina. Josefina stood to the side with one arm crossed and her other elbow propped upon it, her fist to her chin. No, she said. No.

She shook her head and waved her hand as if to dismiss some outrage and the criada began to withdraw the pins and combs from the girl's hair until the long black fall descended again over her shoulders and her back. She took her brush and began again to brush the girl's hair, following with the flat of her hand beneath, holding up the silky blackness with each stroke and letting it fall again. Josefina came forward and took a silver haircomb from the table and swept back the girl's hair along the side and held it there. She studied the girl and she studied the girl in the mirror. The criada had stepped back and stood holding the brush in both hands. She and Josefina studied the girl in the mirror, the three of them in the yellow light of the tablelamp standing there within the gilded plaster scrollwork of the mirror's frame like figures in an antique flemish painting.

C-mo es, pues, said Josefina.

She was speaking to the girl but the girl did not answer.

Es m++s joven. M++s.

Inocente, said the girl.

The woman shrugged. Inocente pues, she said.

She studied the girl's face in the glass. No le gusta?

Est++ bien, the girl whispered. Me gusta.

Bueno, said the woman. She let go her hair and placed the comb in the criada's hand. Bueno.

When she was gone the old woman put the comb back on the table and came forward with her brush again. Bueno, she said. She shook her head and clucked her tongue.

No to preocupes, the girl said.

The old woman brushed her hair more fiercely. Bell'sima, she hissed. Bell'sima.

She assisted her with care. With solicitude. One by one the hooks and stays. Passing her hands across the lilac velvet, cupping her breasts each in turn and adjusting the border of the decolletage, pinning gown to undergarment. She brushed away bits of lint. She held the girl by her waist and turned her like a toy and she knelt at her feet and fastened the straps of her shoes. She rose and stood back.

Puedes caminar? she said.

No, said the girl.

No? Es mentira. Es una broma. No?

No, said the girl.

The criada made a shooing motion. The girl stepped archly about the room on the tall gold spikes of the slippers.

Te mortifican? said the criada.

Claro.

She stood again before the mirror. The old woman stood behind her. When she blinked only the one eye closed. So that she appeared to be winking in some suggestive complicity. She brushed the gathered hair with her hand, she plucked the shoulders of the sleeves erect.

Como una princesa, she whispered.

Como una puta, said the girl.

The criada seized her by the arm. She hissed at her, her eye glaring in the lamplight. She told her that she would marry a great rich man and live in a fine house and have beautiful children. She told her that she had known many such cases.

QuiZn? said the girl.

Muchas, hissed the criada. Muchas. Girls, she told her, with no such beauty as hers. Girls with no such dignity or grace. The girl did not answer. She looked across the old woman's shoulder into the eyes in the glass as if it were some sister there who weathered stoically this beleaguerment of her hopes. Standing in the gaudy boudoir that was itself a tawdry emulation of other rooms, other worlds. Regarding her own false arrogance in the pierglass as if it were proof against the old woman's entreaties, the old woman's promises. Standing like some maid in a fable spurning the offerings of the hag which do conceal within them unspoken covenants of corruption. Claims that can never be quit, estates forever entailed. She spoke to that girl standing in the glass and she said that one could not know where it was that one had taken the path one was upon but only that one was upon it.

Mande? said the criada. Cu++l senda?

Cualquier senda. Esta senda. La senda que escoja.

But the old woman said that some have no choice. She said that for the poor any choice was a gift with two faces.

She was kneeling in the floor repinning the hem of the dress. She'd taken the pins from her mouth and now she laid them on the carpet and took them up one by one. The girl watched her image in the glass. The old woman's gray head bowed at her feet. After a while she said that there was always a choice, even if that choice were death.

Cielos, said the old woman. She blessed herself quickly and went on pinning.

When she entered the salon he was standing at the bar. The musicians were assembling their pieces on the dais and tuning them and the few notes or chords sounded in the quiet of the room as if some ceremony were at hand. Within the shadows of the niche beyond the dais Tiburcio stood smoking, his fingers laced about the thin niellate ebony holder of his cigarette. He looked at the girl and he looked toward the bar. He watched the boy turn and pay and take up his glass and come down the broad stairs where the velvetcovered rope railings led into the salon. He blew smoke slowly from his thin nostrils and then he opened the door behind him. The brief light framed him in silhouette and his long thin shadow fell briefly across the floor of the salon and then the door closed again as if he had not been there at all.

Est++ peligroso, she whispered.

C-mo?

Peligroso. She looked around the salon.

Ten'a que verte, he said.

He took her hands in his but she only looked in anguish toward the door where Tiburcio had been standing. She took hold of his wrists and begged him to leave. A waiter glided forth from the shadows.

Est++s loco, she whispered. Loco.

Tienes raz-n.

She took his hand and rose. She turned and whispered to the waiter. John Grady rose and put money in the waiter's hand and turned toward her.

Debemos irnos, she said. Estamos perdidos.

He said that he would not. He said that he would not do that again and that she must meet him but she said that it was too dangerous. That now it was too dangerous. The music had begun. A long low chord from the cello.

Me matar++, she whispered.

QuiZn?

She only shook her head.

QuiZn, he said. QuiZn to matar++?

Eduardo.

Eduardo.

She nodded. S', she said. Eduardo.

HE DREAMT THAT NIGHT of things he'd heard and that were so although she'd never spoke of them. In a room so cold his breath smoked and where the corrugated steel walls were hung with bunting and a scaffolding covered with cheap red carpet rose in tiers for the folding slatwood chairs of the spectators. A raw wooden stage trimmed like a fairground float and BX cable running to a boom overhead made from galvanized iron pipe that held floodlights covered each in cellophanes of red and green and blue. Curtains of calendered velour in loops as red as blood.

The tourists sat in chairs with operaglasses hanging from their necks while waiters took their orders for drinks. When the lights dimmed the master of ceremonies strode onto the boards and doffed his hat and bowed and smiled and held up his whitegloved hands. In the wings the alcahuete stood smoking and behind him milled a great confusion of obscene carnival folk, painted whores with their breasts exposed, a fat woman in black leather with a whip, a pair of youths in ecclesiastical robes. A priest, a procurers, a goat with gilded horns and hooves who wore a ruff of purple crepe. Pale young debauchees with rouged cheeks and blackened eyes who carried candles. A trio of women holding hands, gaunt and thin as the inmates of a spitalhouse and attired the three alike in the same cheap finery, their faces daubed in fard and pale as death. At the center of all a young girl in a white gauze dress who lay upon a palletboard like a sacrificial virgin. Arranged about her are artificial flowers that appear in their varied pale and pastel colors to be faded from the sun. As if perhaps replevined from some desert grave. Music has begun. Some ancient rondel, faintly martial. There is a periodic click in the piece from a scratch in the black bakelite plate turning under a stylus somewhere behind the curtains. The houselights dim till just the stage is lit. Chairs shuffle. A few coughs. The music fades until only the whisper of the stylus remains, the periodic click like a misset metronome, a clock, a portent. A measure of something periodic and otherwise silent and vastly patient which only darkness could accommodate.

When he woke it was not from this dream but from another and the pathway from dream to dream was lost to him. He was alone in some bleak landscape where the wind blew without abatement and where the presence of those who had gone before still lingered on in the darkness about. Their voices carried back to him, or perhaps the echo of those voices. He lay listening. It was the old man wandering the yard in his nightclothes and John Grady swung his legs over the side of the bunk and reached and got his trousers and pulled them on and stood and buckled his belt and reached and got his boots. When he went out Billy was standing in the doorway in his shorts.

I'll get him, said John Grady.

That's pitiful, Billy said.

He caught him going past the corner of the barn and on to God knows where. He had on his hat and his boots and dressed in these and his long white unionsuit he looked like the ghost of some ancient waddy wandering there.

John Grady took him by the arm and they started for the house. Come on, Mr Johnson, he said. You dont need to be out here.

The light had come on in the kitchen and Socorro was standing in the door in her robe. The old man stopped again in the yard and turned and looked again toward the darkness. John Grady stood holding his elbow. Then they went on to the house.

Socorro swung the screendoor wide. She looked at John Grady. The old man steadied himself with one hand against the doorjamb and entered the kitchen. He asked Socorro if she had any coffee. As if that was what he'd been in search oPS

Yes, she said. I fix some coffee.

He's all right, said John Grady.

Quieres un cafecito?

No gracias.

P++sale, she said. P++sale. Puedes encontrar sus pantalones?

S'. S'.

He helped the old man to a chair at the table and went on down the hallway. Mac's light was on and he was standing in the door.

Is he all right?

Yessir. He's all right.

He went on to the end of the hall and entered the room on the left and got the old man's britches off the bedpost where he'd hung them. The pockets were weighted with change, with a pocketknife, a billfold. With a ring of keys to doors long since forgotten. He came back down the hallway holding them by the belt. Mac was still standing in the doorway. He was smoking a cigarette.

He aint got any clothes on?

Just his longjohns.

He'll take off out of here one of these nights naked as a jaybird. Socorro'll quit us for sure.

She wont quit.

I know it.

What time is it, Sir?

It's after five. Damn near time to get up anyways.

Yessir.

Would you mind settin with him a bit?

No Sir.

Make him feel better about it. Like he was gettin up anyways.

Yessir. I will.

You didnt know you'd hired on at a loonyfarm, did you?

He aint loony. He's just old.

I know it. Go on. Fore he catches cold. Them old dropseats he wears are probably drafty to set around in.

Yessir.

He sat with the old man and drank coffee until Oren came in. Oren looked at them but he didnt say anything. Socorro fixed breakfast and brought the eggs and biscuits and chorizo sausage and they ate. When John Grady took his plate to the sideboard and went out it was just breaking day. The old man was still sitting at the table in his hat. He'd been born in east Texas in eighteen sixtyseven and come out to this country as a young man. In his time the country had gone from the oil lamp and the horse and buggy to jet planes and the atomic bomb but that wasnt what confused him. It was the fact that his daughter was dead that he couldnt get the hang of.

THEY SAT IN THE FRONT ROW Of the bleachers near the auctioneer's table and Oren leaned forward from time to time to spit carefully over the top boards into the dust of the arena. Mac had a small notebook in his shirtpocket and he took it out and consulted his notes and put it back again and then he took it out and sat holding it in his hand.

Did we look at this little horse? he said.

Yessir, said John Grady.

He studied his notebook again.

He said it was Davis but it aint.

1 107

No Sir.

Bean, said Oren. It's a Bean horse.

I know what horse it is, said Mac.

The auctioneer blew into the microphone. The speakers were hung from the lightstandards at the far end of the arena and his voice quavered and echoed high in the auction barn.

Ladies and gentlemen a correction on that. This horse is entered by Mr Ryle Bean.

The bidding was started at five hundred. Someone at the far side of the arena touched the brim of his hat and the spotter raised one hand and turned and the auctioneer said now six now six I have six who'll give me seven seven seven. Seven now.

Oren leaned and spat thoughtfully into the dust. Over yonder's your buddy, he said.

I see him, said John Grady.

Who's that? said Mac.

Wolfenbarger.

Does he see us?

Yeah, said Oren. He sees us.

Did you know who that was, John Grady?

Yessir. He come out one afternoon.

I thought you wouldnt talk to him.

I didnt.

Just pretend like he aint even here.

Yessir.

When was he out?

Last week. I dont know. Wednesday maybe.

Just dont pay no attention to him.

Yessir. I aint.

I got more to do than worry about him.

Yessir.

Eighty, seveneighty, called the auctioneer. Will you do it. The man wont take less.

The rider rode the horse around the arena. He crossed diagonally and stopped and backed.

That's a good usin horse and a good ropin horse, the auc?tioneer said. The horse is worth a thousand dollars. All right now. I've got eight got eight got eight. Eight and a half now. Eightfifty eightfifty eightfifty.

The horse sold for eight and a quarter and they brought in an Arabian mare that sold for seventeen. Mac watched them lead her back out again.

I wouldnt have that crazy bitch on the place, he said.

They auctioned off a flashy palomino gelding that brought thirteen hundred dollars. Mac looked up from his notes. Where the hell do people get that kind of money? he said.

Oren shook his head.

Did Wolfenbarger bid on him?

You said not to look over there.

I know it. Did he?

Yep.

He didnt buy him though, did he.

No.

I thought you wasnt goin to look over there.

I didnt have to. He was wavin his hand like the place had caught fire.

Mac shook his head and sat looking at his notes.

They're fixin to run that rough string in here in a minute, Oren said.

What kind of money you think we're talkin about?

I would expect a man could buy them horses for a hundred dollars a head.

What would you do with the other three, run em back through?

Run em back through. Or you might do better to sell em off out at the place.

Mac nodded. Might, he said. He glanced across the stands. I hate that sumbuck goin to school on me.

I know it.

He lit a cigarette. They watched the stableboy bring in the next horse.

I'd say he's come to buy, said Oren.

I'd say he has too.

He'll bid on ever one of them horses of Red's. See if he dont. I know it. We ought to shill him just a little bit.

Oren didnt answer.

A fool and his money, said Mac. John Grady what's wrong with that horse?

Not a thing that I know of.

I thought you said it was some kind of a mongrel outcross. A Martian horse or somethin.

Horse might be a little coldblooded.

Oren spat over the boards and grinned.

Coldblooded? said Mac.

Yessir.

The horse was bid in at three hundred dollars.

How old was that thing. You remember?

It was eleven.

Yeah, said Oren. About six years ago it was.

The bidding went to four and a half. Mac tugged at his ear. I'm just a horsetradin fool, he said. The spotter pointed to the auctioneer.

I got five got five got five got five now, called the auctioneer. I thought you didnt like to do that, said Oren.

Do what? said Mac.

The bidding went to six and then six and a half.

He's not opened that mouth or shook his head or done nothin, the auctioneer said. Horse worth a little more money than that, folks.

The horse was sold at seven hundred. Wolfenbarger never bid. Oren glanced at Mac.

Cute sumbuck, aint he? Mac said.

You care if I say somethin.

Say it.

Why dont we do what we said and just trade like he wasnt here.

Damn if you aint awful hard on a man. Callin on him to fol?low his own advice.

It's hell, aint it.

You're probably right. Be the best strategy anyway for a ned like him.

The stableboy brought out the roan four year old from McKinney and they bid the horse in at six hundred.

Where's that string at? said Mac.

I dont know.

Well, we're fixin to get down to the nutcuttin.

He put one finger to his ear. The spotter raised his hand. The auctioneer's voice clapped back from the high speakers. I got six got six got six. Do we hear seven. Who'll give me seven. Seven now. Seven seven seven.

Yonder he goes with that hand.

I see him.

The horse went to seven and seven and a half and eight. The horse went to eight and a half.

Bidders all over the barn, aint they? said Oren.

All over the barn.

Well there aint nothin you can do about it. What's this horse worth?

I dont know. Whatever it sells for. John Grady?

I liked the horse.

I wish they'd of run that string through first.

I know you got a figure in mind.

I did have.

It's the same horse out here that it was in the paddock.

Spoke like a gentleman.

The bidding was stalled at eight and a half. The auctioneer took a drink of water. This is a nice horse, boys, he said. You're way off on this one.

The rider rode the horse down and turned it and came back. He rode it with no bridle but only a rope looped around its neck and he turned and sat the horse. I'll tell you what now, he called. I dont own a hair on him but this is a gaited horse.

It'll cost you a thousand dollars to breed to his mama, said the auctioneer. What do you say boys?

The spotter raised his hand.

I got nine got nine got nine. Now half half half. Nine and a half. Now half. Niner and now half.

Can I say somethin, said John Grady.

I wish you would.

You aint buyin him to sell, are you?

No, I aint.

Well then I think you ought to get the horse you want.

You think a lot of him.

Yessir.

Oren shook his head and leaned and spat. Mac sat looking in his book.

He's goin to cost me no matter what I do, one way of lookin at it.

The horse?

No, not the damn horse.

The bidding went to nine and a half and then a thousand.

John Grady looked at Mac and then looked out at the arena. I know that old boy up yonder in the checked shirt, said Mac. I do too, said Oren.

I'd like to see em buy back their own horse.

I would too.

Mac bought the horse for eleven hundred dollars. Put me in the damn poorhouse, he said.

That's a good horse, said John Grady.

I know how good a horse it is. Dont go tryin to make me feel better.

Dont pay no attention to him, son, said Oren. He wants you to brag on his horse only he's just a little backwards about it is all.

What do you think old highpockets cost me on that trade?

Probably didnt cost you nothin on that one, Oren said. He might be fixin to cost you on the next one though.

The groom was wetting down the dust in the barn with a waterhose. They brought in the fourhorse string and Mac bought them too.

Like a thief in the dark, called the auctioneer. Number one of four. Sold at five and a quarter.

That could of been more painful than what it was I reckon, Mac said.

Skippin through the raindrops.

Yep.

He watched the groom lead the next horse out.

You remember this horse, John Grady.

Yessir. I remember all of em.

Mac thumbed his notes. You get in the habit of writin everthing down and after a while you cant remember nothin.

The reason you started writin stuff down in the first place was cause you couldnt remember nothin, Oren said.

I know this little horse, said Mac. I'd sure like to sell him to Wolfenbarger.

I thought you was goin to leave him be.

He could start a circus.

This is a smoothmouthed horse about eight year old, called the auctioneer. A good usin horse and a good ropin horse and he's worth quite a bit more than what you got him started at.

He needs to buy that horse. It'll do about anything except travel in a straight line. Ought to suit him right down to the ground.

The rider rode the horse hard up and back before the stands, closereining the horse and doubling back.

Five five five, called the auctioneer. This is a good horse, boys. Guaranteed to be sound. Work close like that. Like a cat in a stovepipe, folks. Now half now half now half.

Mac tugged at his ear. Five and a half now six now six now six, called the auctioneer.

Oren looked disgusted.

Hell, said Mac. We can have a little fun with the old boy cant we?

The bidding went to seven. The owner stood up in the stands. I'll tell you what, he said. If you can make him go through the bridle I'll give him to you.

The bidding went to seven and a half, it went to eight.

John Grady did you hear about the preacher that sold the old boy the blind horse?

No sir.

He was always justifyin everthing with scripture. They come around wantin to know how he could do the old boy thataway and he told em, said: Well, he was a stranger and I took him in.

I think you told me that.

Mac nodded. He thumbed his notes.

He didnt know how to bid on that string. I think it just confused him.

Yessir.

He's ready to buy a horse.

He might be.

You a poker player, son?

I've sat in a time or two, yessir.

You think this horse will sell for under a thousand?

No sir. I kindly doubt it.

If it does bust a thousand what will it go to?

I dont know.

I dont know either.

Mac bid the horse to eight and a half and then to nine and a half. There it stopped. Oren leaned and spat.

What Oren dont understand is that the more money that nedhead is got in his pockets the more that Welburn horse is goin to cost me.

Oren understands that, said Oren. He just thinks you ought to go on and buy the horse for what the bid is and not risk not havin the money to do it with. Anyway, that sumbuck's got more money than Carter has liver pills.

The spotter raised his hand.

I got ten got ten got ten, called the auctioneer. Now eleven now eleven.

The horse went to eleven and Wolfenbarger bid it to twelve and Mac bid it to thirteen.

I aint responsible, said Oren.

The man's a horsebuyer.

You remember what the horse was bid in at?

Yeah. I remember.

Just go on then.

Old Oren, Mac said.

Wolfenbarger bought the horse for seventeen hundred dollars.

Fine piece of horseflesh, said Mac. Ought to suit him just about right.

He reached in his pocket and took out a dollar.

Why dont you run get us some Cokes, John Grady.

Yessir.

Oren watched him climb down through the stands.

You think he'd tout you off of a horse as well as he would on?

Yes. I do.

I think he would too.

I wish I had about six more just like him.

You know there's things about a horse he can only say in spanish?

I dont care if he only knows em in greek. Why?

I just thought it was curious. You think he's from San Angelo?

I think he's from wherever he says he's from.

I guess he is.

He learned it out of a book.

Out of a book?

Joaqu'n says he knows the name of ever bone a horse has got.

Oren nodded. Well, he said. He might at that. I know some things that he didnt learn out of no book.

I do too, said Mac.

The next horse they brought out the auctioneer read from the horse's papers at some length.

I believe this here is a biblical horse, Mac said.

Aint that the truth.

The horse was bid in at a thousand dollars and went to eigh?teen five and was a no sale.

Oren leaned and spat. Man thinks a lot of his horse, he said.

The man does, said Mac.

They trotted in the Welburn horse and Mac bought him for fourteen hundred dollars.

Boys, he said. Let's go home.

You dont want to stick around and spend some more of Wolfenbarger's money?

Wolfenbarger who?

SOCORRO FOLDED and hung her towel, she untied and hung her apron. She turned at the door.

Buenas noches, she said.

Buenas noches, said Mac.

She shut the door. He could hear her winding her old tin clock. A little later he heard the faint ratcheting sound of his fatherinlaw winding the tallcase clock in the hallway. The glass doorcase closed softly. Then it was quiet. It was quiet in the house and it was quiet in the country about. He sat smoking. The cooling stove ticked. Far away in the hills behind the house a coyote called. When they had used to spend winters at the old house on the southeasternmost section of the ranch the last thing he would hear before he fell asleep at night was the bawl of the train eastbound out of El Paso. Sierra Blanca, Van Horn, Marfa, Alpine, Marathon. Rolling across the blue prairie through the night and on toward Langtry and Del Rio. The white bore of the headlamp lighting up the desert scrub and the eyes of trackside cattle floating in the dark like coals. The herders in the hills standing with their serapes about their shoulders watching the train pass below and the little desert foxes stepping into the darkened roadbed to sniff after it where the warm steel rails lay humming in the night.

That part of the ranch was long gone and the rest would soon follow. He drank the last of his coffee cold in the cup and lit his last cigarette before bed and then he rose from his chair and turned off the light and came back and sat smoking in the dark. A storm front had moved down from the north in the afternoon and it had turned off cold. No rain. Maybe in the eastern sections. Up in the Sacramentos. People imagined that if you got through a drought you could expect a few good years to try and get caught up but it was just like the seven on a pair of dice. The drought didnt know when the last one was and nobody knew when the next one was coming. He was about out of the cattle business anyway. He drew slowly on the cigarette. It flared and faded. His wife would be dead three years in February. Socorro's Candlemas Day. Candelaria. Something to do with the Virgin. As what didnt. In Mexico there is no God. Just her. He stubbed out the cigarette and rose and stood looking out at the softly lit barnlot. Oh Margaret, he said.

JC PULLED UP in front of Maud's and got out and slammed the truck door and he and John Grady went in.

Yonder come two good'ns, said Troy.

They stood at the bar. What'll you boys have, said Travis.

Give us two Blue Ribbons.

He got the bottles out of the cooler and opened them and set them on the bar.

I got it, said John Grady.

I got it, said JC.

He put forty cents on the bar and took the bottle by the neck and swigged down a long drink and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and leaned against the bar.

You put in a hard day in the saddle? said Troy.

I'm mostly a nightrider, said JC.

Billy stood bent over the shuffleboard sliding the puck up and back. He looked at Troy and he looked at JC and then he slid the puck down the hardwood alleyway. The pins at the end swung up and the strike light lit up on the scoreboard and the small bells counted up the score. Troy grinned and put the cigar he was smoking in the corner of his mouth and stepped forward and took the puck and bent over the board.

You want to play?

JC'll play.

You want to play, JC?

Yeah, I'll play. What are we playin for?

Troy scored a strike on the bowling machine and stepped back and popped his fingers.

Me and JC'll play you and Askins.

Askins stood by the machine with one hand in his back pocket and the other holding a beer. Me and Jessie'll play you and Troy, he said.

Billy lit a cigarette. He looked at Askins. He looked at JC.

You and Troy play them, he said.

Go on and play.

You and Troy play. Go on.

What are we playin for? said JC.

I dont care.

Make it light on yourself.

What are we playin for, Troy?

Whatever they want to play for.

We'll play for a dollar.

High rollers. Get your quarters up. Jessie, you in?

I'm in, said Jessie.

Billy sat on the stool at the bar next to John Grady. They watched while the players put their quarters in the machine. The numbers rolled back and the bells chinged. Troy poured powdered wax from a can onto the alley and slid the puck back and forth and bent to shoot. Bowlin school is now open, he said.

Show us somethin.

You'd be surprised what all you can learn from a experienced player.

He slid the puck down the boards. The bells rang. He stepped back and popped his fingers. Things, he said, that will stand you in good stead all your life.

I need to talk to you, said John Grady.

Billy blew smoke across the room. All right, he said.

Let's go back in the back.

All right.

They took their beers and walked to the rear of the place where there were tables and chairs and a bandstand and a polished concrete dancefloor. They kicked back two chairs and sat at one of the tables and set their bottles down. The place was dim and musty.

I'll bet I know what this is about, said Billy.

Yeah. I know.

He sat peeling the label from his beerbottle with his thumb nail while he listened. He didnt even look up at John Grady. John Grady told him about the girl and about the White Lake and about Eduardo and he told him what the blind maestro had said. When he'd finished Billy still hadnt looked up but he'd stopped peeling the beerlabel. He didnt say anything. After a whilehe took his cigarettes from his pocket and lit one and laid the pack and his lighter on the table.

You are shittin me aint you? he said.

No. I guess I aint.

What the hell's wrong with you? Have you been drinkin paint thinner or somethin?

John Grady pushed his hat back. He looked out across the floor. No, he said.

Let me see if I got this straight. You want me to go to a whorehouse in Ju++rez Mexico and buy this whore cash money and bring her back across the river to the ranch. Is that about the size of it?

John Grady nodded.

Shit, said Billy. Smile or somethin, will you? Goddamn. Tell me you aint gone completely crazy.

I aint gone completely crazy.

The hell you aint.

I'm in love with her, Billy.

Billy slumped back in his chair. His arms hung uselessly by his side. Aw goddamn, he said. Goddamn.

I cant help what it sounds like.

My own damn fault. I never should of took you down there. Never in this world. It's my fault. Hell, I dont even know what I'm complainin about.

He leaned and took his lighted cigarette from the tin ashtray where he'd put it and took a pull on it and blew the smoke across the table. He shook his head. Tell me this, he said.

All right.

What in the goddamn hell would you do with her if you did get her away from down there? Which you aint.

Marry her.

Billy paused with the cigarette half way to his mouth. He put it down again.

Well that's it, he said. That's it. I'm havin your ass committed.

I mean it, Billy.

Billy leaned back in the chair. After a while he threw up one hand. I cant believe my goddamn ears. I think I'm the one that's gone crazy. I'm a son of a bitch if I dont. Have you lost your rabbitassed mind? I'm an absolute son of a bitch, bud. I never in my goddamn life heard the equal of this.

I know. I cant help it.

The hell you cant.

Will you help me?

No and hell no. Do you know what they're goin to do with you? They're goin to hook your head up to one of them machines and throw a big switch and fry your brains to where you wont be a menace to yourself no more.

I mean it, Billy.

You think I dont mean it? I'm goin to help em hook up the wires.

I cant go down there. He knows who I am.

Look at me, son. You're not makin no sense. What the hell kind of people do you think it is you're talkin about? Do you really think you can go down there and dicker with some greaser pimp that buys and sells people outright like you was goin down to the courthouse lawn to trade knives?

I cant help it.

Will you quit sayin that, goddamn it? What the hell do you mean you cant help it?

Just let it go. It's all right.

It's all right? Shit.

He slumped in the chair.

You want another beer? No, I dont. I want a goddamn quart of whiskey.

I dont blame you for not wantin no part of it.

Well I'm glad as all hell to hear that.

He shook a cigarette out of the pack.

You got one lit, John Grady said.

Billy paid him no mind. You got no money, he said. So I dont know how in the hell you propose to go shoppin for whores.

I'll get it.

Get it where?

I'll get it.

How much were you plannin to offer him?

Two thousand dollars.

Two thousand dollars.

Yeah.

Well. If there was any doubt at all there sure aint now. You've gone completely crazy and that's all there is to be said about it. Aint it?

I dont know.

Well I do. Where in the hell, where in the goddamn hell, do you think you're goin to get two thousand dollars at?

I dont know. I'll get it.

You dont make that in a year.

I know it.

You're in a dangerous frame of mind, son. Did you know that?

Maybe.

I've seen it before. You know you been actin peculiar since you had that wreck? Have you thought about that? Look at me. I'm serious.

I aint crazy, Billy.

Well one of us is. Shit. I blame myself. That's all. Blame myself.

It dont have nothin to do with you.

The hell it dont.

It's all right. Just let it go.

Billy leaned back in his chair. He stared at the two cigarettes burning in the ashtray. After a while he pushed his hat back and passed his hand across his eyes and across his mouth and pulled the hat down again and looked across the room. Out at the bar the shuffleboard bells rang. He looked at John Grady.

How did you ever get in such a mess?

I dont know.

How did you let it get this far?

I dont know. I feel some way like I didnt have nothin to do with it. Like it's just the way it is. Like it always was this way.

Billy shook his head sadly. More craziness, he said. It aint too late, you know.

Yes it is.

It's never too late. You just need to make up your mind.

It's done made up.

Well unmake it. Start again.

Two months ago I'd of agreed with you. Now I know better. There's some things you dont decide. Decidin had nothin to do with it.

They sat for a long time. He looked at John Grady and he looked out across the room. The dusty dancefloor, the empty bandstand. The shapes of a covered drumset. He pushed back his chair and stood and set the chair back carefully at its place at the table and then he turned and walked out across the room and through the bar and out the door.

LATE THAT NIGHT lying in his bunk in the dark he heard the kitchen door close and heard the screendoor close after it. He lay there. Then he sat and swung his feet to the floor and got his boots and his jeans and pulled them on and put on his hat and walked out. The moon was almost full and it was cold and late and no smoke rose from the kitchen chimney. Mr Johnson was sitting on the back stoop in his duckingcoat smoking a cigarette. He looked up at John Grady and nodded. John Grady sat on the stoop beside him. What are you doin out here without your hat? he said.

I dont know.

You all right?

Yeah. I'm all right. Sometimes you miss bein outside at night. You want a cigarette?

No thanks.

Could you not sleep either?

No sir. I guess not.

How's them new horses?

I think he done all right.

Them was some boogerish colts I seen penned up in the corral.

I think he's goin to sell off some of them.

Horsetradin, the old man said. He shook his head. He smoked.

Did you used to break horses, Mr Johnson?

Some. Mostly just what was required. I was never a twister in any sense of the word. I got hurt once pretty bad. You can get spooked and not know it. Just little things. You dont hardly even know it.

But you like to ride.

I do. Margaret could outride me two to one though. As good a woman with a horse as I ever saw. Way bettern me. Hard thing for a man to admit but it's the truth.

You worked for the Matadors didnt you?

Yep. I did.

How was that?

Hard work. That's how it was.

I guess that aint changed.

Oh it probably has. Some. I was never in love with the cattle business. It's just the only one I ever knew.

He smoked.

Can I ask you somethin' said John Grady.

Ask it.

How old were you when you got married?

I was never married. Never found anybody that'd have me.

He looked at John Grady.

Margaret was my brother's girl. Him and his wife both was carried off in the influenza epidemic in nineteen and eighteen.

I didnt know that.

She never really knowed her parents. She was just a baby. Well, five. Where's your coat at?

I'm all right.

I was in Fort Collins Colorado at the time. They sent for me. I shipped my horses and come back on the train with em. Dont catch cold out here now.

No sir. I wont. I aint cold.

I had ever motivation in the world but I never could find one I thought would suit Margaret.

One what?

Wife. One wife. We finally just give it up. Probably a mistake. I dont know. Socorro pretty much raised her. She spoke better spanish than Socorro did. It's just awful hard. It liked to of killed Socorro. She still aint right. I dont expect she ever will be.

Yessir.

We tried ever way in the world to spoil her rotten but it didnt take. I dont know why she turned out the way she did. It's just a miracle I guess you could say. I dont take no credit for it, I'll tell you that.

Yessir.

Look yonder. The old man nodded toward the moon.

What?

You cant see em now. Wait a minute. No. They're gone.

What was it?

Birds flyin across the moon. Geese maybe. I dont know.

I didnt see em. Which way were they headed?

Upcountry. Probably headed for that marsh country on the river up around Belen.

Yessir.

I used to love to ride of a night.

I did too.

You'll see things on the desert at night that you cant under?stand. Your horse will see things. He'll see things that will spook him of course but then he'll see things that dont spook him but still you know he seen somethin.

What sort of things?

I dont know.

You mean like ghosts or somethin?

No. I dont know what. You just knows he sees em. They're out there.

Not just some class of varmint?

No.

Not somethin that will booger him?

No. It's more like somethin he knows about.

But you dont.

But you dont. Yes.

The old man smoked. He watched the moon. No further birds flew. After a while he said: I aint talkin about spooks. It's more like just the way things are. If you only knew it.

Yessir.

We was up on the Platte River out of Ogallala one night and I was bedded down in my soogan out away from the camp. It was a moonlit night just about like tonight. Cold. Spring of the year. I woke up and I guess I'd heard em in my sleep and it was just this big whisperin sound all over and it was geese just by the thousands headed up the river. They passed for the better part of a hour. They blacked out the moon. I thought the herd would get up off the grounds but they didnt. I got up and walked out and stood watchin em and some of the other young waddies in the outfit they had got up too and we was all standin out there in our longjohns watchin. It was just this whisperin sound. They was up high and it wasnt loud or nothin and I wouldnt of thought about somethin like that a wakin us wore out as we was. I had a nighthorse in my string named Boozer and old Boozer he come to me. I reckon he thought the herd'd get up too but they didnt. And they was a snuffy bunch, too.

Did you ever have a stampede?

Yes. We was drivin to Abilene in eighteen and eightyfive. I wasnt much more than a button. And we had got into it with a rep from one of the outfits and he followed us to where we crossed the Red River at Doane's store into Indian Territory. He knew we'd have a harder time gettin our stock back there and we did but we caught the old boy and it was him for you could still smell the coaloil on him. He come by in the night and set a cat on fire and thowed it onto the herd. I mean slung it. Walter Devereaux was comin in off the middle watch and he heard it and looked back. Said it looked like a comet goin out through there and just a squallin. Lord didnt they come up from there. It took us three days to shape that herd back and whenever we left out of there we was still missin forty some odd head lost or crippled or stole and two horses.

What happened to the boy?

The boy?

That threw the cat.

Oh. Best I remember he didnt make out too well. I guess not.

People will do anything. Yessir. They will.

You live long enough you'll see it. Yessir. I have.

Mr Johnson didnt answer. He flipped the butt of his cigarette out across the yard in a slow red arc.

Aint nothin to burn out there. I remember when you could have grassfires in this country.

I didnt mean I'd seen everthing, John Grady said.

I know you didnt.

I just meant I'd seen things I'd as soon not oPS

I know it. There's hard lessons in this world.

What's the hardest?

I dont know. Maybe it's just that when things are gone they're gone. They aint comin back.

Yessir.

They sat. After a while the old man said: The day after my fiftieth birthday in March of nineteen and seventeen I rode into the old headquarters at the Wilde well and there was six dead wolves hangin on the fence. I rode along the fence and ran my hand along em. I looked at their eyes. A government trapper had brought em in the night before. They'd been killed with poison baits. Strychnine. Whatever. Up in the Sacramentos. A week later he brought in four more. I aint heard a wolf in this country since. I suppose that's a good thing. They can be hell on stock. But I guess I was always what you might call superstitious. I know I damn sure wasnt religious. And it had always seemed to me that somethin can live and die but that the kind of thing that they were was always there. I didnt know you could poison that. I aint heard a wolf howl in thirty odd years. I dont know where you'd go to hear one. There may not be any such a place.

When he walked back through the barn Billy was standing in the doorway.

Has he gone back to bed?

Yeah.

What was he doin up?

He said he couldnt sleep. What were you?

Same thing. You?

Same thing.

Somethin in the air I reckon.

I dont know.

What was he talkin about?

Just stuff.

What did he say?

I guess he said cattle could tell the difference between a flight of geese and a cat on fire.

Maybe you dont need to be hangin around him so much.

You might be right.

You all seem to have a lot in common.

He aint crazy, Billy.

Maybe. But I dont know as you'd be the first one I'd come to for an opinion about it.

I'm goin to bed.

Night.

Night.

HE TOLD THE WOMAN in spanish that he intended to keep his hat and he carried it with him up the two steps to the bar and then he put it on again. There were some Mexican businessmen standing at the bar and he nodded to them as he passed. They nodded back curtly. The barman placed a napkin down. Se-or? he said.

Old Grandad and water back.

The barman moved away. Billy took out his cigarettes and lighter and laid them on the bar. He looked in the backbar mirror. Several whores were draped about on the couches in the lounge. They looked like refugees from a costume ball. The barman returned with the shot of whiskey and set it and the glass of water on the bar and Billy picked up the whiskey and rocked it once in a slow circular motion and then raised it and drank. He reached for his cigarettes, he nodded to the barman.

Otra vez, he said.

The barman came with the bottle. He poured.

D-nde est++ Eduardo, said Billy.

QuiZn?

Eduardo.

The barman poured reflectively. He shook his head.

El patr-n, said Billy.

El patr-n no est++.

Cu++ndo regresa?

No sZ. He stood holding the bottle. Hay un problema? he said.

Billy shook a cigarette from the pack and put it in his mouth and reached for the lighter. No, he said. No hay un problema. I need to see him on a business deal.

What is your business?

He lit the cigarette and laid the lighter on top of the pack and blew smoke across the bar and looked up.

I dont feel like we're makin much progress here, he said.

The barman shrugged.

Billy took his money from his shirtpocket and laid a tendollar bill on the bar.

That aint for the drinks.

The barman looked down the bar to where the businessmen were standing. He looked at Billy.

Do you know what this job is worth? he said.

What?

I said do you know what this job is worth?

You mean you make pretty good on tips.

No. I mean do you know what it costs to buy a job like this? I never heard of nobody buyin a job.

You do lots of business in Mexico?

No.

The barman stood with the bottle. Billy took out his money again and put down two fives on top of the ten. The barman palmed the money off the bar and put it in his pocket. Un momento, he said. EspZrate.

Billy took up the whiskey and swirled it and drank. He set the glass down and passed the back of his wrist across his mouth. When he looked in the backbar glass the alcahuete was standing at his left elbow like Lucifer.

S' se-or, he said.

Billy turned and looked at him.

Are you Eduardo?

No. How may I help you?

I wanted to see Eduardo.

What do you want to see him about?

I wanted to talk to him.

Yes. Talk to me.

Billy turned to look at the barman but the barman had moved away to serve the other patrons.

It's just somethin personal, Billy said. Hell, I aint goin to hurt him.

The alcahuete's eyebrows moved slightly upward. That is good to know, he said. You find something you dont like?

I got a deal he might be interested in.

Who is the dealer.

What?

Who is the dealer.

Me. I'm the dealer.

Tiburcio studied him for a long time. I know who you are, he said.

You know who I am?

Yes.

Who am I?

You are the trujam++n.

What's that?

You dont speak spanish?

I speak spanish.

You come with the mordida.

Billy took out his money and laid it on the bar. I got eighteen dollars. That's all I got. And I aint paid for the drinks yet.

Pay for the drinks.

What?

Pay for the drinks.

Billy left a five on the bar and put the thirteen dollars in his shirtpocket along with his cigarettes and lighter and stood.

Follow me.

He followed him out through the lounge past the whores in their whore's finery. Through the kaleidoscope of pieced light from the overhead chandelier and past the empty bandstand to a door at the rear.

The door was covered in winecolored baize and there was no doorknob to it. The alcahuete opened it anyway and they entered a corridor with blue walls and a single blue bulb screwed into the ceiling above the door. The alcahuete held the door and he stepped through and the alcahuete closed it behind them and turned and went down the corridor. The musky spice of his cologne hung in the air. At the farthest end of the corridor he stopped and tapped twice with his knuckles upon a door embossed with silver foil. He turned, waiting, his hands crossed before him at the wrist.

A buzzer buzzed and the alcahuete opened the door. Wait here, he said.

Billy waited. An old woman with one eye came down the corridor and tapped at one of the doors. When she saw him there she blessed herself with the sign of the cross. The door opened and she disappeared inside and the door closed and the corridor stood empty once again in the soft blue light.

When the silver door opened the alcahuete motioned him inside with a cupping motion of his thin ringed fingers. He stepped in and stood. Then he took off his hat.

Eduardo was sitting at his desk smoking one of his slender black cigars. He was sitting sideways with his feet crossed before him propped in the open lower drawer of his desk and he appeared to be examining his polished lizardskin boots. How may I help you? he said.

Billy looked back at Tiburcio. He looked again at Eduardo. Eduardo lifted his feet from the drawer and swiveled slowly in his chair. He was dressed in a black suit with a pale green shirt open at the neck. He rested his arm on the polished glass top of the desk, he held the cigar. He looked like he had nothing much on his mind.

I got a business proposition for you, Billy said.

Eduardo held up the little cigar and studied it. He looked at Billy again.

Somethin you might be interested in, Billy said.

Eduardo smiled thinly. He looked past Billy at the alcahuete and he looked at Billy again. My fortunes are to change for the better, he said. How very good.

He took a long slow pull on the cigar. He made a strange and graceful gesture with the hand that held it, turning it in an arc and holding it palm up. As if it cupped something unseen. Or were accustomed to holding something now absent.

Do you care if we talk alone? Billy said.

He nodded and the alcahuete withdrew and closed the door. When he was gone Eduardo leaned back in his chair and turned again and recrossed his boots in the drawer. He looked up and waited.

What I wanted, said Billy, was to buy one of these girls.

Buy, said Eduardo.

Yessir.

How do you mean, buy.

I give you the money and take her out of here.

You believe these girls are here against their will.

I dont know what they are.

But that's what you think.

I dont think anything.

Of course you do. Otherwise what would there be to buy?

I dont know.

Eduardo pursed his lips. He studied the end of the cigar. He doesnt know, he said.

You're tellin me that these girls are free to just walk out of here.

That is a good question.

Well what would be a good answer.

I would say that they are free in their persons.

In their what?

In their persons. They are free in their persons. Whether they are free here? He placed his forefinger alongside his temple. Well, who can say?

If one of em wanted to leave she could leave.

They are whores. Where would they go?

Suppose one of em wanted to get married.

Eduardo shrugged. He looked up at Billy.

Tell me this, he said.

All right.

Are you principal or agent?

Am I what?

Is it you who wishes to buy this girl?

Yes.

Do you come often to the White Lake?

I was here one time.

Where did you meet this girl?

At La Venada.

And now you wish to marry her.

Billy didnt answer.

The pimp pulled slowly on the cigar and blew the smoke slowly toward his boots. I think you are the agent, he said.

I aint no agent. I work for Mac McGovern at the Cross Fours out of Orogrande New Mexico and you can ask anybody.

I think you are not here on your own behalf.

I'm here to make you a offer.

Eduardo smoked.

Cash money, Billy said.

This girl has an illness. Does your friend know that?

I didnt say I had a friend.

She has not told him that, has she?

How do you know what girl it is.

Her name is Magdalena.

Billy studied him. You knew that because of what I said about La Venada.

This girl will not leave here. Perhaps your friend thinks that she will but she will not. Perhaps even she thinks it. She is very young.

Let me ask you this.

Ask it.

What is wrong with your friend that he falls in love with whores?

I dont know.

Does he think she is not really a whore?

I couldnt tell you.

You cannot talk to him?

No.

Because she is whore to the bone. I know her.

I expect you do.

Your friend is very rich?

No.

What can he offer this girl? Why would she leave?

I dont know. I reckon he thinks she's in love with him.

Heavens, said Eduardo. Do you believe such a thing?

I dont know.

Do you believe such a thing?

No.

What are you going to do?

I dont know. What do you want me to tell him?

There is nothing to tell him. He drinks a great deal, your friend?

No. Not especially.

I am trying to help you.

Billy tapped his hat against the side of his leg. He looked at Eduardo and he looked around the room that was his office. In the corner against the far wall there was a small bar. A sofa upholstered in white leather. A glasstopped coffeetable.

You dont believe me, said Eduardo.

I dont believe you dont have some money invested in this girl.

Did I say that?

I thought you did.

She owes me a certain amount. Money that was advanced to her for her costumes. Her jewelry.

How much money.

Would I ask you such a question?

I dont know. I guess I wouldnt be in a position to be asked. You think I am a whiteslaver.

I didnt say that.

That is what you think.

What do you want me to tell him. What difference does it make?

I guess it might make a difference to him.

Your friend is in the grip of an irrational passion. Nothing you say to him will matter. He has in his head a certain story. Of how things will be. In this story he will be happy. What is wrong with this story?

You tell me.

What is wrong with this story is that it is not a true story. Men have in their minds a picture of how the world will be. How they will be in that world. The world may be many different ways for them but there is one world that will never be and that is the world they dream of. Do you believe that? Billy put his hat on. I thank you for your time, he said. You are welcome. He turned to go. You didnt answer my question, said Eduardo. He turned back. He looked at the pimp. His cigar in his gracefully cupped fingers, his expensive boots. The windowless room. The furniture in it that looked as if it had been brought in and set in place solely for the purpose of this scene. I dont know, he said. I guess probably I do. I just dont like to say it.

Why is that?

It seems like a betrayal of some kind. Can the truth be a betrayal?

Maybe. Anyway, some men get what they want.

No man. Or perhaps only briefly so as to lose it. Or perhaps only to prove to the dreamer that the world of his longing made real is no longer that world at all.

Yeah.

Do you believe that? I'll tell you what.

Tell me.

Let me sleep on it.

The pimp nodded. Andale pues, he said. The door opened by no visible means or signal. Tiburcio stood waiting. Billy turned again and looked back. You didnt answer mine, he said. No? No. Ask it again. Let me ask you this instead. All right.

He's in trouble, aint he?

Eduardo smiled. He blew cigar smoke across the glass top of his desk. That is not a question, he said.

IT WAS LATE When he got back but the light was still on in the kitchen. He sat in the truck for a minute, then he shut off the engine. He left the key in the ignition and got out and walked across the yard to the house. Socorro had gone to bed but there was cornbread in the warmer over the oven and a plate of beans and potatoes with two pieces of fried chicken. He carried the plates to the table and went back and got silver out of the dishdrainer and got down a cup and poured his coffee and set the pot back over the eye of the stove where there was still a dull red glow of coals and he took his coffee to the table and sat and ate. He ate slowly and methodically. When he'd finished he carried the dishes to the sink and opened the refrigerator and bent to scout the interior for anything in the way of dessert. He found a bowl of pudding and took it to the sideboard and got down a small dish and filled it and put the pudding back in the refrigerator and got more coffee and sat eating the pudding and reading Oren's newspaper. The clock ticked in the hallway. The cooling stove creaked. When John Grady came in he went on to the stove and got a cup of coffee and came to the table and sat down and pushed back his hat.

You up for the day? said Billy.

I hope not.

What time is it?

I dont know.

Billy sipped his coffee. He reached in his pocket for his cigarettes.

Did you just get in? John Grady said.

Yep.

I reckon the answer was no.

You reckon right, little hoss.

Well.

It's about what you expected aint it?

Yeah. Did you offer him the money?

Oh we had a pretty good visit, take it all around.

What did he say.

Billy lit his cigarette and laid the lighter on top of the pack. He said she didnt want to leave there.

Well that's a lie.

Well that may be. But he says she aint leavin.

Well she is.

Billy blew smoke slowly across the table. John Grady watched him.

You just think I'm crazy, dont you?

You know what I think.

Well.

Why dont you take a good look at yourself. Look at what it's brung you to. Talkin about sellin your horse. It's just the old story all over again. Losin your head over a piece of tail. Cept in your case there aint nothin about it makes any sense. Nothin.

In your eyes.

In mine or any man's.

He leaned forward and began to count off on the fingers of the hand that held the cigarette: She aint American. She aint a citizen. She dont speak english. She works in a whorehouse. No, hear me out. And last but not leasthe sat holding his thumbthere's a son of a bitch owns her outright that I guarangoddamntee you will kill you graveyard dead if you mess with him. Son, aint there no girls on this side of the damn river?

Not like her.

Well I'll bet that's the truth if you ever told it.

He stubbed out the cigarette. Well. I've gone as far as I can go with you. I'm goin to bed.

All right.

He pushed back his chair and rose and stood. Do I think you're crazy? he said. No. I dont. You've rewrote the book for crazy. If all you are is crazy then all them poor bastards in the loonybin that they're feedin under the door need to be set loose in the street.

He put the cigarettes and lighter in his shirtpocket and carried the cup and bowl to the sink. At the door he stopped again and looked back. I'll see you in the mornin, he said.

Billy?

Yeah.

Thanks. I appreciate it.

I'd say you're welcome but I'd be a liar.

I know it. Thanks anyway.

You aim to sell that stallion?

I dont know. Yeah.

Maybe Wolfenbarger will buy him.

I thought about that.

I expect you did. I'll see you in the mornin.

John Grady watched him walk across the yard toward the barn. He leaned and wiped the beaded water from the window glass with his sleeve. Billy's shadow shortened across the yard until he passed under the yellow light over the barn door and then he stepped through into the dark of the barn and was lost to view. John Grady let the curtains fall back across the glass and turned and sat staring into the empty cup before him. There were grounds in the bottom of the cup and he swirled the cup and looked at them. Then he swirled them the other way as if he'd put them back the way they'd been.

HE STOOD IN THE GROVE Of willows with his back to the river and watched the road and the vehicles that moved along the road. There was little traffic. The dust of the few cars hung in the dry air long after the cars were gone. He walked on down to the river and squatted and watched the passing water murky with clay. He threw in a rock. Then another. He turned and looked back toward the road.

The cab when it came stopped at the turnoff and then backed and turned and came rocking and bumping down the rutted mud road and pulled up in the clearing. She got out on the far side and paid the driver and spoke briefly with him and the driver nodded and she stepped away. The driver put the cab in gear and put his arm across the seat and backed the cab and turned. He looked toward the river. Then he pulled away out to the road and went back toward town.

He took her hand. Ten'a miedo que no vendr'as, he said.

She didnt answer. She leaned against him. Her black hair falling about her shoulders. The smell of soap. The flesh and bone living under the cloth of her dress.

Me amas? he said.

S'. Te amo.

He sat on a cottonwood log and watched her while she waded in the gravel shallows. She turned and smiled at him. Her dress gathered about her brown thighs. He tried to smile back but his throat caught and he looked away.

She sat on the log beside him and he took her feet in his hands each in turn and dried them with his kerchief and fastened with his own fingers the small buckles of her shoes. She leaned and put her head on his shoulder and he kissed her and he touched her hair and her breasts and her face as a blind man might.

Y mi respuesta? he said.

She took his hand and kissed it and held it against her heart and she said that she was his and that she would do whatever he asked her if it take her life.

She was from the State of Chiapas and she had been sold at the age of thirteen to settle a gambling debt. She had no family. In Puebla she'd run away and gone to a convent for protection. The procurer himself appeared on the convent steps the following morning and in the pure light of day paid money into the hand of the mother superior and took the girl away again.

This man stripped her naked and beat her with a whip made from the innertube of a truck tire. Then he held her in his arms and told her that he loved her. She ran away again and went to the police. Three officers took her to a room in the basement where there was a dirty mattress on the floor. When they were through with her they sold her to the other policemen. Then they sold her to the prisoners for what few pesos they could muster or traded her for cigarettes. Finally they sent for the procurer and sold her back to him.

He beat her with his fists and slammed her against the wall and knocked her down and kicked her. He said that if she ran away again he would kill her. She closed her eyes and offered him her throat. In his rage he seized her up by the arm but the arm broke in his hand. A muted snap, like a dry stick. She gasped and cried out with the pain.

Mira, he shouted. Mira, puta, que has hecho.

The arm was set by a curandera and now would not straighten. She showed him. Mires, she said. The house was called La Esperanza del Mundo. Where a painted child in a stained kimono with her arm in a sling wept in silence or went wordlessly with men to a room at the rear for a price of less than two dollars.

He had bent forward weeping with his arms around her. He put his hand over her mouth. She took it away. Hay m++s, she said.

No.

She would tell him more but again he placed his fingers against her mouth. He said that there was only one thing he wished to know.

Lo que quieras, she said.

Te casas conmigo.

S', querido, she said. La respuesta es s'. I marry you.

WHEN HE ENTERED the kitchen Oren and Troy and JC were sitting there and he nodded to them and went on to the stove and got his breakfast and his coffee and came to the table. Troy scooted his chair slightly to make room. You aint about give out under this heavy courtin schedule are you son?

Shit, said JC. Dont even think about tryin to keep up with the cowboy.

I talked to Crawford about your horse, said Oren.

What did he say.

He said he thought he had a buyer if you could come to his figures.

Same figures?

Same figures.

I dont believe I can do it.

He might do a little better. But not much.

John Grady nodded. He ate.

You might do better to run him through the auction.

The auction aint for three more weeks.

Two and a half.

Tell him I'll take three and a quarter.

JC got up and carried his dishes to the sink. Oren lit a cigarette.

When will you see him? said John Grady.

I'll talk to him today if you want.

All right.

He ate. Troy got up and took his dishes to the sink and he and JC went out. John Grady wiped his plate with the last bite of biscuit and ate it and pushed back his chair.

These fourminute breakfasts are goin to get you in trouble with the union, Oren said.

I got to see the old man a minute.

He carried his plate and cup to the sink and wiped his hands on the sides of his trousers and crossed the room and went down the hall.

He knocked on the jamb of the office doorway and looked in but the room was empty. He went on down the hall to Mac's bedroom and tapped at the open door. Mac came out of the bathroom with a towel around his neck and his hat on.

Mornin son, he said.

Mornin sir. I wondered if I could talk to you for a minute.

Come on in.

He hung the towel over a chairback and went to the oldfashioned chifforobe and took out a shirt and shook it unfolded and stood undoing the buttons. John Grady stood in the doorway.

Come on in, Mac said. Put your damn hat back on.

Yessir. He took a couple of steps into the room and put his hat on and stood there. On the wall opposite were framed pho tographs of horses. On the dresser in an ornate silver frame a photograph of Margaret Johnson McGovern.

Mac pulled on his shirt and stood buttoning it. Set down, son, he said.

That's all right.

Go on. You look like you got a lot on your mind.

There was a heavy oak chair covered with dark leather at the far side of the bed and he crossed the floor and sat in it. Some of Mac's clothes were thrown across one arm of the chair. He put his elbow on the other arm. Mac swept up and tucked in his shirt front and back and buttoned his trousers and buckled his belt and got his keys and his change and his billfold from thedresser. He came over to the bed carrying his socks and sat and unrolled them and began to pull them on. Well, he said. You wont never have no better of a chance.

John Grady started to take off his hat again but then he put his hands back in his lap. Then he leaned forward with his elbows on his knees.

Just pretend it's a cold stockpond on a hot day and jump on in, said Mac.

Yessir. Well. I want to get married.

Mac stopped midsock. Then he pulled the sock on and reached down for his boot. Married, he said.

Yessir.

All right.

I want to get married and I thought for one thing if you didnt care I'd just go on and sell that horse.

Mac pulled on the boot and picked up the other boot and sat with it in his hand. Son, he said. I can understand a man wantin to get married. I lacked about a month bein twenty when I did. We kind of finished raisin one another. But I might of been fixed a little better than you. You think you can afford it?

I dont know. I thought maybe if I sold the horse.

How long have you been thinkin about this?

Well. A while.

This aint a haveto kind of thing is it?

No sir. It aint nothin like that.

Well why dont you hold off for a while. See if it wont keep.

I cant really do that.

Well, I dont know what that means.

There's some problems.

Well I got time to listen if you want to tell me about it.

Yessir. Well. For one thing she's Mexican.

Mac nodded. I've known that to work, he said. He pulled on the boot.

So I got the problem of gettin her over here.

Mac put his foot down on the floor and put his hands on his knees. He looked up at the boy. Over here? he said.

Yessir.

You mean across the river?

Yessir.

You mean she's a Mexican Mexican?

Yessir.

Damn, son.

He looked off across the room. The sun was just up over the barn. He looked at the white lace curtains on the window. He looked at the boy sitting stiffly there in his father's chair. Well, he said. That's somethin of a problem, I reckon. Aint the worst one I ever heard of. How old is she?

Sixteen.

Mac sat with his lower lip between his teeth. It keeps gettin worse, dont it? Does she speak english?

No sir.

Not word one.

No sir.

Mac shook his head. Outside they could hear the cattle calling along the fence by the road. He looked at John Grady. Son, he said, have you give this some thought?

Yessir. I sure have.

I take it you've pretty much made up your mind.

Yessir.

You wouldnt be here if you hadnt, would you?

No sir.

Where do you plan on livin at?

Well sir, I wanted to talk to you about that. I thought if you didnt care I'd see if I could fix up the old place at Bell Springs.

Damn. It dont even have a roof anymore does it?

Not much of a one. I looked it over. It could be fixed up.

It would take some fixin.

I could fix it up.

You probably could. Probably could. You aint said nothin about money. I cant raise you. You know that.

I aint asked for a raise.

I'd have to raise Billy and JC both. Hell. I might have to raise Oren.

Yessir.

Mac sat leaning forward with his fingers laced together. Son, he said, I think you ought to wait. But if you got it in your head to go on, then go ahead. I'll do whatever I can for you.

Thank you sir.

He put his hands on his knees and rose. John Grady rose. Mac shook his head, half smiling. He looked at the boy.

Is she pretty?

Yessir. She sure is.

I'll bet she is, too. You bring her in here. I want to see her.

Yessir.

You say she dont speak no english?

No sir.

Damn. He shook his head again. Well, he said. Go on. Get your butt out of here.

Yessir.

He crossed the room to the door and stopped and turned.

Thank you sir.

Go on.

HE AND BILLY rode t0 Cedar Springs. They rode to the top of the draw and rode back down again throwing all the cattle out downcountry before them and roping everything that looked suspicious, heading and heeling them and stretching the screaming animals on the ground and dismounting and dropping the reins while the horses backed and held the catchropes taut. There were new calves on the ground and some of them had worms in their navels and they doused them with Peerless and swabbed them out and doused them again and turned them loose. In the evening they rode up to Bell Springs and John Grady dismounted and left Billy with the horses while they drank and crossed through the swales of sacaton grass to the old adobe and pushed open the door and went in.

He stood very quietly. Sunlight fell the length of the room from the small sash set in the western wall. The floor was of packed clay beaten and oiled and it was strewn with debris, old clothes and foodtins and curious small cones of mud that had formed from water percolating down through the mud roof and dripping through the latillas to stand about like the work of oldworld termites. In the corner stood an iron bedstead with random empty beercans screwed into the bare springs. On the back wall a 1928 Clay Robinson and Co. calendar showing a cowboy on nightherd under a rising moon. He passed on through the long core of light where he set the motes to dancing and went through the doorless framework into the other room. There was a small twoeyed woodburning stove against the far wall with the rusted pipes fallen into a pile behind it and there were a couple of old Arbuckle coffeeboxes nailed to the wall and a third one lying in the floor. A few jars of homecanned beans and tomatoes and salsa. Broken glass in the floor. Old newspapers from before the war. An old rotted Fish brand slicker hanging from a peg in the wall by the kitchen door and some pieces of old tackleather. When he turned around Billy was standing in the doorway watching him.

This the honeymoon suite? he said.

You're lookin at it.

He leaned in the doorframe and took his cigarettes from his shirtpocket and shucked one out and lit it.

The only thing you aint got here is a dead mule in the floor. John Grady had crossed to the back door and stood looking out.

You think you're goin to be able to get the truck up here?

I think we might could comin up the other side.

What's this we shit? You got a rat in your pocket?

John Grady smiled. From the kitchen door you could see the late sun high on the bare ridgerock of the Jarillas. He shut the door and looked back at Billy and walked over to the stove and lifted one of the castiron eyeplates and looked in and lowered it again.

I may be wrong about this, said Billy, but it's my feelin that once they get used to lights and runnin water it's kindly hard to wean em back off again.

Got to start somewhere.

Is she goin to cook on that?

John Grady smiled. He went past Billy into the other room. Billy straightened up in the doorway to let him by and then stood looking after him. I hope she's a country girl, he said.

What do you say we ride back down on the back side and see what the old road looks like.

Whatever you want to do. We'll be late gettin in.

John Grady stood in the doorway looking out. Yeah, he said. All right. I can ride up on Sunday.

Billy watched him. He unlimbered himself out of the doorframe and crossed the room. Let's do it, he said. We're goin to be ridin back in the dark either way.

Billy?

Yeah.

It dont make any difference, you know. What anybody thinks.

Yeah. I know it too well.

That's a pretty picture, aint it.

He looked at the horses across the creek where they stood footed to their darkening shapes in the ford with their heads raised looking toward the house and the cottonwoods and the mountains and the red sweep of the evening sky beyond.

You think I'll outgrow whatever it is I got.

No. I dont. I used to but I dont no more.

I'm too far gone, is that it?

It aint just that. It's you. Most people get smacked around enough after a while they start to pay attention. More and more you remind me of Boyd. Only way I could ever get him to do anything was to tell him not to.

There used to be a pipe from the spring to the house.

You could run it again I would reckon.

Yeah.

I'd say the water's still good. There aint nothin above here.

Billy walked out in the yard and took a long drag on his cigarette and stood looking at the horses. John Grady pulled the door shut. Billy looked at him.

You never did tell me what Mac said.

He didnt say much. If he thought I was crazy he was too much of a gentleman to mention it.

What do you think he'd say if he knew she worked at the White Lake?

I dont know.

The hell you dont.

He wont know it unless you tell him.

I've thought about it.

Yeah?

He'd shit green apples.

Billy flipped the butt of the cigarette out across the yard. It was already dark enough that it made an arc in the fading light. Arcs within the arc. We better get on, he said.

H E DIDNT s ELL the horse to Wolfenbarger. On Saturday two friends of McGovern's came out and they leaned on the fender of their truck and smoked and talked while he saddled the horse and led it out. They straightened up when they saw the horse. He nodded to them and took the animal out to the corral.

Mac came from the kitchen and nodded to the men.

Mornin.

He crossed the yard. Crawford introduced him to the other man and the three of them walked out to the corral.

That looks like the horse old man Ch++vez used to ride, the man said.

As far as I know there's no connection.

That was a funny story about that horse.

Yes it was.

You think a horse can grieve for a man?

No. Do you?

No. Still it was a funny kind of story.

It was.

The man walked around the horse while John Grady held it. He put his hand behind the horse's front leg and he looked into its eye. He backed up against the horse and picked up one hindleg and put it down again but he didnt look at the hoof and he didnt look into the horse's mouth.

You say this is a three year old?

Yessir.

Ride him around some.

They stood watching while John Grady rode the horse up and back and turned the horse and backed him and then cantered him around the corral.

How come the boy wants to sell him?

Mac didnt answer. They watched the horse. After a while he said: He just needs the money. The horse is sound.

What do you think, Junior?

You aint goin to pay no attention to me. Get me on Mac's wrong side.

It aint my horse, said Mac.

What do you think?

Crawford spat. Pretty good lookin horse I think.

What will he take for him?

What he's askin.

They stood.

I might go two and a half.

Mac shook his head.

It's his horse to sell aint it? the man said.

Mac nodded. Yes, he said. It is. But if he was to let that horse go for two hundred and fifty dollars I'd pay him off. I wouldnt want anybody that ignorant on the place. Liable to do themselves a injury.

The man toed the dirt. He looked at Crawford and he studied the horse again and he looked at Mac.

Will he take three?

Will you give three?

Yessir.

John Grady, called Mac.

Yessir?

Bring that man's horse over here and get your saddle off of him.

Yessir, said John Grady.

WHEN HE CAME IN that night Oren and Troy were still at the table drinking coffee and he got his plate from the warmer and filled his cup and joined them.

They tell me you're damn near afoot, said Oren.

Just about it.

I guess you decided that varmint was just too crazy to make a horse out of.

I just needed the money.

Mac said the man never even rode him.

He didnt.

I suppose the critter's reputation had done preceded him.

Could be.

You may not of heard the last from him.

Could be.

They watched him eat.

The cowboy thinks horses are sane and people are crazy, Troy said.

He might have a point.

You all have been around different horses from what I have. More likely we been around different people.

I dont know, said Troy. I been acquainted with some lulus.

How did you all get along?

John Grady looked up. He smiled. Oren was shucking a cigarette out of the pack. All horses are crazy, he said. To a degree. Only thing to be said in their favor is that they dont try to hide it from you.

He reached down and popped a wooden match on the underside of his chair and lit his cigarette and shook the match out and laid it in the ashtray.

Why do you think they're crazy? said John Grady.

Why do I think it or why are they?

Why are they.

They're just made that way. A horse has got two brains. He dont see the same thing out of both eyes at once. He's got a eye for each side.

So does a fish, said Troy.

Well. That's true.

So does a fish have two brains?

I dont know. I dont know that a fish has got any brains at all to speak oPS

Maybe a fish just aint smart enough to be crazy.

I think you got a point. A horse aint really all that dumb.

They're too dumb to shade up and a dumbassed cow will do that.

So will a fish. Or a rattlesnake for that matter.

You think a snake is dumber than a fish?

Hell, Troy. I dont know. Who in the hell would know such a thing? They're both dumbern hell in my opinion.

Well I didnt mean to get you stirred up.

I aint stirred up.

Well go on with the story.

It aint a story. It was just a observation about horses.

Well what was it.

I dont know. I forgot.

No you aint.

You were talkin about a horse havin two brains, said John Grady.

Oren pulled on the cigarette. He looked at John Grady. He leaned and tapped the ash into the ashtray.

All I was sayin is that a horse is a different proposition from what a lot of people think. A lot of what people take for ignorance on the part of the horse is just confusion between the righthand horse and the lefthand horse. Like if you was to saddle a horse and all and then walk around to his off side and start to mount up. You know what's goin to happen.

Sure. All hell's goin to bust loose.

That's right. That particular horse aint even seen you yet.

Oren jerked up his elbows and drew back in alarm from his own off side. Shit, he said. Who's that?

Troy grinned. John Grady drank from his cup and set it back on the table. Why couldnt it be that he's just not used to bein mounted from that side? he said.

It is. But the point is he cant ask the other half of the horse if he's ever seen this man before or get his advice about what to do.

Well it seems to me that if the two sides of the horse aint even speakin to one another you'd have some real problems. The whole horse wouldnt even start off together in the same direction. What about that?

Oren smoked. He looked at Troy. I aint a authority on horses' brains. I'm just tellin you what one cowboy's experience has been. There's two sides to a horse and it's been my experience that what you got to do is work the one side and let the other side go.

I've known some people the same way. Several, in fact.

Yes. I have too. But I think it's somethin they've worked at. A horse comes by it natural.

You dont think you could train both sides of the horse the same?

You're wearin me out.

Hell, that's a fair question.

I suppose you could. Maybe. It'd be hard to do. There would just about have to be two of you.

Well suppose you had a twin brother.

I suppose in principle maybe you could work with a horse thatawap I dont know. But what would you have when you got done?

You'd have a twosided balanced horse.

No you wouldnt. You'd just have a horse that thought there was two of you. Suppose one day he sees you both on the same side. What then?

I reckon he'd think you was quadruplets.

Oren stubbed out the cigarette. No, he said. He'd think the same thing as everbody else.

What's that?

That you're as crazy as a shithouse rat.

He pushed back his chair and rose. I'll see you all in the mornin.

The kitchen door closed. Troy shook his head. Old Oren is losin his sense of humor.

John Grady smiled. He thumbed his plate back from the edge of the table and leaned back in his chair. Through the window he could see Oren adjust his hat as he set out down the drive toward the small house he shared with his cat. As if the dead world past might take pains to notice. He'd not always been a cowboy. He'd been a miner in northern Mexico and he'd fought in wars and revolutions and he'd been an oilfield roustabout in the Permian Basin and a mariner under three different flags. He'd even been married once.

John Grady drained the last dark dregs from the bottom of the cup and set the cup on the table. Oren's all right, he said.