Cormac McCarthy - Cities of the Plain

He turned to study her. The slope of her shoulders and their movement with the rise and fall of her breath. The bloodbeat in the artery of her neck. When she looked up and saw his face she knew that he had seen into her heart. What was so and what was false. He smiled his hardlipped smile. Your lover does not know, he said. You have not told him.

Mande?

Tu amado no to sabe.

No, she whispered. fl no to sabe.

HE SET OUT the pieces loosely on the board and swiveled it about. I'll go you one more, he said.

Mac shook his head. He held the cigar and blew smoke slowly over the table and then picked up his cup and drained the last of his coffee.

I'm done, he said.

Yessir. You played a good game.

I didnt believe you'd sacrifice a bishop.

That was one of Schonberger's gambits.

You read a lot of chess books?

No sir. Not a lot. I read his.

You told me you played poker.

Some. Yessir.

Why do I think that means somethin else.

I never played that much poker. My daddy was a poker player. He always said that the problem with poker was you played with two kinds of money. What you won was gravy but what you lost was hard come by.

Was he a good poker player?

Yessir. He was one of the best, I reckon. He cautioned me away from it though. He said it was not any kind of a life.

Why did he do it if he thought that?

It was the only other thing he was good at.

What was the first thing?

He was a cowboy.

I take it he was pretty good at that.

Yessir. I've heard of some that was supposed to be better and I'm sure there were some better. I just never did see any of em.

He was on the death march, wasnt he?

Yessir.

There was a lot of boys from this part of the country was on it. Quite a few of em Mexicans.

Yessir. There was.

Mac pulled at his cigar and blew the smoke toward the window. Has Billy come around or are you and him still on the outs?

He's all right.

Is he still goin to stand up for you?

Yessir.

Mac nodded. She aint got nobody to stand on her side?

No sir. Socorro is bringin her family.

That's good. I aint been in my suit in three years. I'd better make a dry run in it, Ireckon.

John Grady put the last of the pieces in the box and fitted and slid shut the wooden lid.

Might need Socorro to let out the britches for me.

They sat. Mac smoked. You aint Catholic are you? he said.

No sir.

I wont need to make no disclaimers or nothin?

No sir.

So Tuesday's the day.

Yessir. February seventeenth. It's the last day before Lent. Or I guess next to last. After that you cant get married till Easter.

Is that cuttin it kindly close?

It'll be all right.

Mac nodded. He put the cigar in his teeth and pushed back the chair. Wait here a minute, he said.

John Grady listened to him going down the hall to his room. When he came back he sat down and placed a gold ring on the table.

That's been in my dresser drawer for three years. It aint doin nobody any good there and it never will. We talked about everthing and we talked about that ring. She didnt want it put in the ground. I want you to take it.

Sir I dont think I can do that.

Yes you can. I've already thought of everthing you could possibly say on the subject so rather than go over it item by item let's just save the aggravation and you put it in your pocket and come Tuesday you put it on that girl's finger. You might need to get it resized. The woman that wore it was a beautiful woman. You can ask anybody, it wasnt just my opinion. But what you saw wouldnt hold a candle to what was on the inside. We would like to of had children but we didnt. It damn sure wasnt from not tryin. Shewas a woman with a awful lot of common sense. I thought she just wanted me to keep that ring for a remembrance but she said I'd know what to do with it when the time come and of course she was right. She was right about everthing. And there's no pride in it when I tell you that she set more store by that ring and what it meant than anything else she ever owned. And that includes some pretty damn fine horses. So take it and put it in your pocket and dont be arguin with me about everthing.

Yessir.

And now I'm goin to bed.

Yessir.

Goodnight.

Goodnight.

FROM THE PASS in the upper range of the Jarillas they could see the green of the benchland below the springs and they could see the thin standing spire of smoke from the fire in the stove rising vertically in the still blue morning air. They sat their horses. Billy nodded at the scene.

When I was a kid growin up in the bootheel me and my brother used to stop where we topped out on this bench south of the ranch goin up into the mountains and we'd look back down at the house. It would be snowin sometimes or snow on the ground in the winter and there was always a fire in the stove and you could see the smoke from the chimney and it was a long ways away and it looked different from up there. Always looked different. It was different. We'd be gone up in the mountains sometimes all day throwin them spooky cattle out of the draws and bringin em down to the feedstation where we'd put out cake. I dont think there was ever a time we didnt stop and look back thataway before we rode up into that country. From where we'd stop we were not a hour away and the coffee was still hot on the stove down there but it was worlds away. Worlds away.

In the distance they could see the thin straight line of the highway and a toysized truck running silently upon it. Beyond that the green line of the river breaks and range on range the distant mountains of Mexico. Billy watched him.

You think you'll ever go back there?

Where?

Mexico.

I dont know. I'd like to. You?

I dont think so. I think I'm done.

I came out of there on the run. Ridin at night. Afraid to make a fire.

Been shot.

Been shot. Those people would take you in. Hide you out. Lie for you. No one ever asked me what it was I'd done.

Billy sat with his hands crossed palm down on the pommel of his saddle. He leaned and spat. I went down there three separate trips. I never once come back with what I started after.

John Grady nodded. What would you do if you couldnt be a cowboy?

I dont know. I reckon I'd think of somethin. You?

I dont know what it would be I'd think oPS

Well we may all have to think of somethin.

Yeah.

You think you could live in Mexico?

Yeah. Probably.

Billy nodded. You know what a vaquero makes in the way of wages.

Yep.

You might luck up on a job as foreman or somethin. But sooner or later they're goin to run all the white people out of that country. Even the Bab'cora wont survive.

I know it.

You'd go to veterinary school if you had the money I reckon. Wouldnt you?

Yep. I would.

You ever write to your mother?

What's my mother got to do with anything?

Nothin. I just wonder if you even know what a outlaw you are.

Why?

Why do I wonder it?

Why am I a outlaw.

I dont know. You just got a outlaw heart. I've seen it before.

Because I said I could live in Mexico?

It aint just that.

Dont you think if there's anything left of this life it's down there?

Maybe.

You like it too.

Yeah? I dont even know what this life is. I damn sure dont know what Mexico is. I think it's in your head. Mexico. I rode a lot of ground down there. The first ranchera you hear sung you understand the whole country. By the time you've heard a hundred you dont know nothin. You never will. I concluded my business down there a long time ago.

He hooked his leg over the pommel of the saddle and sat rolling a cigarette. They'd dropped the reins and the horses leaned and picked bleakly at the sparse tufts of grass trembling in the wind coming through the gap. He bent with his back to the wind and popped a match with his thumbnail and lit the cigarette and turned back.