Cormac McCarthy - Cities of the Plain

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.