Cormac McCarthy - Cities of the Plain

You look like you been in some pretty mirey country today.

Yessir. I was. Some.

That old greasy clay is hard to clean off of anything. Oliver Lee always said he come out here because the country was so sorry nobody else would have it and he'd be left alone. Of course he was wrong. At least about bein left alone.

Yessir. I guess he was.

How's your foot doin.

It's all right.

The old man smiled. He drew on his cigarette and tapped the ash into the ashtray on the table.

Dont be fooled by the good rains we've had. This country is fixin to dry up and blow away.

How do you know?

It just is.

You want some more coffee?

No thanks.

The boy got up and went to the stove and filled his cup and came back.

Country's overdue, the old man said. Folks have got short memories. They might be glad to let the army have it fore they're done.

The boy ate. How much do you think the army will take?

The old man drew on his cigarette and stubbed it out thoughtfully. I think they'll take the whole Tularosa basin. That's my guess.

Can they just take it?

Yeah. They can take it. Folks will piss and moan about it. But they dont have a choice. They ought to be glad to get shut of it.

What do you think Mr Prather will do?

John Prather will do whatever he says he'll do.

Mr Mac said he told em the only way he'd leave was in a box. Then that's how he'll leave. You can take that to the bank.

John Grady wiped his plate and sat back with his cup of coffee. I ought not to ask you this, he said.

Ask it.

You dont have to answer.

I know it.

Who do you think killed Colonel Fountain?

The old man shook his head. He sat for a long time.

I ought not to of asked you.

No. It's all right. You know his daughter's name was Maggie too. She was the one told Fountain to take the boy with him. Said they wouldnt bother a eight year old boy. But she was wrong, wasnt she?

Yessir.

A lot of people think Oliver Lee killed him. I knew Oliver pretty well. We was the same age. He had four sons himself. I just dont believe it.

You dont think he could of done it?

I'll say it stronger than that. I'll say he didnt.

Or cause it to be done?

Well. That's another matter. I'll say he never shed no tears over it. Over the colonel, leastways.

You didnt want some more coffee?

No thank you son. I'd be up all night.

Do you think they're still buried out there somewheres?

No. I dont.

What do you think happened?

I always thought the bodies were taken to Mexico. They had a choice to bury em out there somewhere south of the pass where they might be discovered or to go another thirty miles to where they could drop em off the edge of the world and I think that's what they done.

John Grady nodded. He sipped his coffee. Were you ever in a shooting scrape?

I was. One time. I was old enough to know better too.

Where was it?

Down on the river east of Clint. It was in nineteen and seventeen just before my brother died and we were on the wrong side of the river waitin for dark to cross some stolen horses we'd recovered and we got word they was layin for us. We waited and waited and after a while the moon come upjust a piece of a moon, not even a quarter. It come up behind us and we could see it reflected in the windshield of their car over in the trees along the river breaks. Wendell Williams looked at me and he said: We got two moons in the sky. I dont believe I ever seen that before. And I said: Yes, and one of em is backwards. And we opened fire on em with our rifles.

Did they shoot back?

Sure they did. We laid there and shot up about a box of shells apiece and then they left out.

Was anybody hit?

Not that I ever heard of. We hit the car a time or two. Knocked the windshield out.

Did you get the horses across?

We did.

How many head was it?

It was a few. About seventy head.

That's a lot of horses.

It was a lot of horses. We was paid good money, too. But it wasnt worth gettin shot over.

No sir. I guess not.

It does funny things to a man's head.

What's that, sir?

Bein shot at. Havin dirt thowed on you. Leaves cut. It changes a man's perspective. Maybe some might have a appetite for it. I never did.

You didnt fight in the revolution?

No.

You were down there though.

Yes. Tryin to get the hell out. I'd been down there too long. I was just as glad when it did start. You'd wake up in some little town on a Sunday mornin and they'd be out in the street shootin at one another. You couldnt make any sense out of it. We like to never got out of there. I saw terrible things in that country. I dreamt about em for years.

He leaned and put his elbows on the table and took his makings from his shirtpocket and rolled another smoke and lit it. He sat looking at the table. He talked for a long time. He named the towns and villages. The mud pueblos. The executions against the mud walls sprayed with new blood over the dried black of the old and the fine powdered clay sifting down from the bulletholes in the wall after the men had fallen and the slow drift of riflesmoke and the corpses stacked in the streets or piled into the woodenwheeled carretas trundling over the cobbles or over the dirt roads to the nameless graves. There were thousands who went to war in the only suit they owned. Suits in which they'd been married and in which they would be buried. Standing in the streets in their coats and ties and hats behind the upturned carts and bales and firing their rifles like irate accountants. And the small artillery pieces on wheels that scooted backwards in the street at every round and had to be retrieved and the endless riding of horses to their deaths bearing flags or banners or the tentlike tapestries painted with portraits of the Virgin carried on poles into battle as if the mother of God herself were authoress of all that calamity and mayhem and madness.

The tallcase clock in the hallway chimed ten.

I reckon I'd better get on to bed, the old man said.

Yessir.

He rose. I dont much like to, he said. But there aint no help for it.

Goodnight sir.

Goodnight.

THE CABDRIVER would see him through the wroughtiron gate in the high brick wall and up the walk to the doorway. As if the surrounding dark that formed the outskirts of the city were a danger. Or the desert plains beyond. He pulled a velvet bellpull in an alcove in the archway and stood back humming. He looked at John Grady.

You like for me to wait I can wait.

No. It's all right.

The door opened. A hostess in evening attire smiled at them and stood back and held the door. John Grady entered and took off his hat and the woman spoke with the driver and then shut the door and turned. She held out her hand and John Grady reached for his hip pocket. She smiled.

Your hat, she said.

He handed her his hat and she gestured toward the room and he turned and went in, brushing down his hair with the flat of his hand.

There was a bar to the right up the two stairs and he stepped up and passed along behind the stools where men were drinking and talking. The bar was mahogany and softly lit and the barmen wore little burgundy jackets and bowties. Out in the salon the whores lounged on sofas of red damask and gold brocade. They wore negligees and floorlength formal gowns and sheath dresses of white satin or purple velvet that were split up the thigh and they wore shoes of glass or gold and sat in studied poses with their red mouths pouting in the gloom. A cutglass chandelier hung overhead and on a dais to the right a string trio was playing.

He walked to the far end of the bar. When he put his hand on the rail the barman was already there placing a napkin.

Good evening sir, he said.