Cormac McCarthy - Cities of the Plain

He pulled the boy close. Mira, he said. Est++ hien. No to molestarZ.

DZjame, said the boy.

Est++ bien. Est++ bien.

The boy wrenched about. He looked after his friends but they'd vanished in the darkness. DZjame, he said. He was close to tears.

John Grady talked to him the way he'd talk to a horse and after a while the boy stopped pulling and stood. He told him that he was a great filero and that he had just killed an evil man and that he needed the boy's help. He said that the police would be looking for him and that he needed to hide from them. He spoke for a long time. He told the boy of his exploits as a knifefighter and he reached with great difficulty to his hip pocket and got his billfold and gave it to the boy. He told him that the money in it was his to keep and then he told him what he must do. Then he had the boy repeat it back. Then he turned loose of the boy's wrist and waited. The boy stepped back. He stood holding the bloodstained wallet. Then he squatted and looked into the man's eyes. His arms clutching his bony knees. Puede andar? he said.

Un poquito. No mucho.

Es peligroso aqu'.

S'. Tienes raz-n.

The boy got him up and he leaned on that narrow shoulder while they made their way to the farther corner of the lot where behind the wall was a clubhouse made from packingcrates. The boy knelt and pulled back a drapery of sacking and helped him to crawl in. He said that there was a candle there and matches but the wounded filero said that it was safer in the dark. He'd started to bleed all over again. He could feel it under his hand. Vete, he said. Vete. The boy let drop the curtain.

The cushions he lay on were damp from the rain and they stank. He was very thirsty. He tried not to think. He heard a car pass in the street. He heard a dog bark. He lay with the yellow silk of his enemy's shirt wrapped about him like a ceremonial sash gone dark with blood and he held his bloodied claw of a hand over the severed wall of his stomach. Holding himself close that he not escape from himself for he felt it over and over, that lightness that he took for his soul and which stood so tentatively at the door of his corporeal self. Like some lightfooted animal that stood testing the air at the open door of a cage. He heard the distant toll of bells from the cathedral in the city and he heard his own breath soft and uncertain in the cold and the dark of the child's playhouse in that alien land where he lay in his blood. Help me, he said. If you think I'm worth it. Amen.

WHEN HE FOUND the horse standing saddled in the bay of the barn he led it out and mounted up and rode out in the dark up the old road toward John Grady's little adobe house. He hoped the horse would tell him something. When he reached the house and saw the light in the window he put the horse forward at a trot and went splashing through the little creek and into the yard where he pulled up and dismounted and halloed the house.

He pushed open the door. Bud? he said. Bud?

He walked into the bedroom.

Bud?

There was no one there. He went out and called and waited and called again. He went back in and opened the stove door. A fire was laid with stovechunks and kindling and newsprint. He shut the door and went out. He called but no one answered. He mounted up and gave the horse its head and kneed it forward but it only wanted to set out across the creek and back down the road again.

He turned and rode back and waited at the little house for an hour but no one came. By the time he got back to the ranch it was almost midnight.

He lay on his bunk and tried to sleep. He thought he heard the whistle of a train in the distance, thin and lost. He must have been sleeping because he had a dream in which the dead girl came to him hiding her throat with her hand. She was covered in blood and she tried to speak but she could not. He opened his eyes. Very faintly he had heard the phone ring in the house.

When he got to the kitchen Socorro was on the phone in her robe. She gestured wildly at Billy. S', s', she said. S', joven. EspZrate.

HE WOKE COLD and sweating and raging with thirst. He knew that it was the new day because he was in agony. When he moved the crusted blood in his clothes cracked about him like ice. Then he heard Billy's voice.

Bud, he said. Bud.

He opened his eyes. Billy was kneeling over him. Behind him the boy was holding back the cloth and outside the world was cold and gray. Billy turned to the boy. cndale, he said. R++pido. R++pido.

The curtain fell. Billy struck a match and held it. You daggone fool, he said. You daggone fool.

He reached down the stub of a candle in its saucer from the shelf nailed to the crate and lit the candle and held it close. Aw shit, he said. You daggone fool. Can you walk?

Dont move me.

I got to.

You couldnt get me across the border noway.

The hell I cant.

He killed her, bud. The son of a bitch killed her.

I know.

The police are huntin me.

JC's bringin the truck. We'll run the goddamn gate if we have to.

Dont move me, bud. I aint goin.

The hell you aint.

I cant make it. I thought there for a while I could. But I cant. Just take it easy now. I aint listenin to that shit. Hell, I've had worse scratches than that on my eyeball.

I'm cut all to pieces Billy.

We'll get you back. Dont quit on me now, goddamn it.

Billy. Listen. It's all right. I know I aint goin to make it.

I done told you.

No. Listen. Whew. You dont know what I'd give for a cool drink of water.

I'll get it.

He started to set the candle by but John Grady took hold of his arm. Dont go, he said. Maybe when the boy gets back.

All right.

He said it wouldnt hurt. The lyin son of a bitch. Whew. It's gettin daylight, aint it?

Yeah.

I seen her, bud. They had her laid out and it didnt look like her but it was. They found her in the river. He cut her throat, bud.

I know.

I just wanted him. Bud, I wanted him.

You should of told me. You didnt have no business comin down here by yourself.

I just wanted him.

Just take it easy. They'll be here directly. You just hang on.

It's okay. Hurts like a sumbitch, Billy. Whew. It's okay.

You want me to get that water?

No. Stay here. She was so goddamned pretty, bud.

Yes she was.

I worried about her all day. You know we talked about where people go when they die. I just believe you go someplace and I seen her layin there and I thought maybe she wouldnt go to heaven because, you know, I thought she wouldnt and I thought about God forgivin people and I thought about if I could ask God to forgive me for killin that son of a bitch because you and me both know I aint sorry for it and I reckon this sounds ignorant but I didnt want to be forgiven if she wasnt. I didnt want to do or be nothin that she wasnt like goin to heaven or anything like that. I know that sounds crazy. Bud when I seen her layin there I didnt care to live no more. I knew my life was over. It come almost as a relief to me.

Hush now. They aint nothin over.

She wanted to do the right thing. That's got to count for somethin dont it? It did with me.

It does with me too.

There's a pawnshop ticket in the top of my footlocker. If you wanted to you could get my gun out and keep it.

We'll get it out.

There's thirty dollars owin on it. There's some money in there too. In a brown envelope.

Dont worry about nothin now.. Just take it easy.

Mac's ring is in that little tin box. You see he gets it back. Whew. Like a sumbitch, bud.

You just hang on.

We got the little house lookin good, didnt we?

Yes we did.

You reckon you could keep that pup and kindly look after him?

You'll be there. Dont you worry now.

Hurts, bud. Like a sumbitch.