Cormac McCarthy - Cities of the Plain

Where to now, cowboy? said Billy.

John Grady nodded toward the country above them and set out again leading the horse.

The shelf narrowed upward to a break in the strata of the rock and they led the horses into a defile so narrow that Billy's horse balked and would not follow. It backed and jerked at the bridlereins and skittered dangerously on the shales. Billy looked up the narrow passageway. The sheer rock walls rose up into the blue sky.

Bud are you real sure about this?

John Grady had dropped the reins on the blue horse and he peeled out of his jacket and made his way back to Billy.

Take my horse, he said.

What?

Take my horse. Or Watson's. He's been through here before.

He took the reins from Billy and calmed the horse and tied the jacket by the sleeves over the horse's eyes, leaning against the animal with his whole body. Billy worked his way up to where the dun horse stood and took up the reins and led it on up through the rocks, the horse scrabbling in the shale, the loose spurs clinking off the stone. At the top of the defile the horses lunged and clambered up and out onto the mesa and stood trembling and blowing. John Grady pulled the jacket off the horse's head and the horse blew and looked about. A mile away on the mesa three of the dogs were loping and looking back.

You want to ride that good horse? said John Grady.

Let me ride this good horse.

Well yonder they go.

They set off across the open tableland with their ropes popping and loud cries, leaning low in the saddle, riding neck and neck. In a mile they'd halved the dogs' lead. The dogs kept to the mesa and the mesa widened before them. If they'd kept to the rim they might have found a place to go down again where the horses could not follow but they seemed to think they could outrun anything that cared to follow and run they did, two of them side by side and the third behind, their long dogshadows beside them in the sun racing brokenly over the sparse taupe grass of the tableland.

Billy overhauled them on the dun horse before they could separate and leaned and roped the hindmost dog. He didnt even dally the rope but just caught two turns about his wrist and gave a yank and snatched the dog from the ground and rode on dragging it behind the horse with the rope in one hand.

He overtook the dogs again and rode past so as to head them. The running dogs looked up, their eyes lost, their tongues lolling. Their dead companion came sliding up beside them at the end of the trailing rope. Billy looked back and reined the horse to the right and dragged the dead dog in front of them and headed them in a long running arc. John Grady was coming hard across the mesa and Billy brought the dun horse to a halt in a series of hops and jumped down and freed his noose from the dog and rewound it on the run and mounted up again.

He reached the dogs first and snapped his loop around the big yellow dog in the lead. The speckled dog cut back almost under the horse's legs and headed toward the rim. The yellow dog rolled and bounced and got up again and continued running with the noose about its neck. John Grady came riding up behind Billy and swung his rope and heeled the yellow dog and quirted the horse on with the doubled rope end and then dallied. The slack of Billy's catchrope hissed along the ground and stopped and the big yellow dog rose suddenly from the ground in headlong flight taut between the two ropes and the ropes resonated a single brief dull note and then the dog exploded.

The sun was not an hour up and in the flat traverse of the light on the mesa the blood that burst in the air before them was as bright and unexpected as an apparition. Something evoked out of nothing and wholly unaccountable. The dog's head went cartwheeling, the ropes recoiled in the air, the dog's body slammed to the ground with a dull thud.

Goddamn, said Billy.

There was a long whoop from down the mesa. Joaqu'n was riding toward them with three of the blueticks. He'd seen them heel and head the dog and he waved his hat laughing. The hounds loped beside the horse. They still hadnt seen the spotted dog making for the rim of the mesa.

Ayeee muchachos, called Joaqufn. He whooped and laughed and leaned and hazed his hat at the heeling dogs.

Damn, said Billy. I didnt know you was goin to do that.

I didnt either.

Son of a bitch. He hauled his rope toward him, coiling it as it came. John Grady rode out to where the dog's headless body lay in the bloodstained grass and dismounted and freed his rope from the animal's hindquarters and mounted up again. The hounds came up circling the carcass and sniffing at the blood with their hackles up. One of them circled John Grady's horse and then backed and stood baying him but he paid it no mind. He coiled his rope and turned and dug his heels into the horse's flanks and set out across the mesa after the lone remaining dog. Joaquin by now had also seen the dog and he came riding after it, quirting his horse with the doubled rope and shouting to the dogs. Billy sat watching them go. He coiled the rope and tied it and wiped the blood from his hands on the leg of his jeans and then sat watching the race head out along the edge of the mesa. The spotted dog seemed to see no way down from the tableland and it looked to be tiring as it loped along the rim. When it heard the hounds it turned upcountry again and crossed behind Joaquin and Joaquin brought his horse around and in a flat race overtook it and roped it in less than a mile of ground. Billy rode out to the rimrock and dismounted and lit a cigarette and sat looking out over the country to the south.

They came riding back across the mesa with the hounds at the horses' heels. Joaquin trailed the dead dog through the grass at the end of his rope. The dog was bloody and half raw and its eyes were glazed and its lolling tongue was stuck with chaff and grass. They rode up to the rimrock and Joaquin dismounted and retrieved his rope from the dead dog.

Got some pups here somewhere, he said.

Billy walked up and stood looking at the dog. It was a bitch with swollen teats. He walked over and got his horse and mounted up and looked back at John Grady.

Let's take that long way back. Crawlin through them rocks gives me the fidgets.

John Grady had taken off his hat and set it in the fork of the saddle before him. His face was streaked with blood and there was blood on his shirt. He passed the back of his sleeve across his forehead and picked up his hat and put it on again. That's all right by me, he said. Joaquin? Sure, said Joaquin. He eyed the sun. We'll be back for dinner. You think we got em all? Hard to say. I'd say we broke a few of em of their habits. I'd say we did too. How many of Archer's dogs come up here with you? Three. Well we aint got but two. They turned in their saddles and scanned the mesa. Where do you reckon he's got to? I dont know, said Joaquin. He could of gone down the far side yonder. Joaquin leaned and spat and turned his horse. Let's go, he said. He could be anywheres. There's always one that dont want to go home.

IT WAS STILL DARK In the morning when John Grady woke him. He groaned and turned and put the pillow over his head. Wake up, cowboy. What the hell time is it? Fivethirty. What's wrong with you? You want to see if we can find them dogs? Dogs? What dogs? What the hell are you talkin about? Them pups. Shit, said Billy. John Grady sat in the doorway and propped one boot against the frame.Billy? he said. What, damn it.

We could ride up there and take a look around.

He rolled over and looked at John Grady sitting sideways in the door in the dark. You're makin me completely crazy, he said.

Cut for sign. I guarantee you we could find em.

You couldnt find em.

We could get a couple of dogs from Travis.

Travis wont loan his dogs. We done been through all that.