Cormac McCarthy - Blood Meridian or the Evening Redness in the West

The owner came from the rear shaking his head at them. Aint nobody allowed in here. We aint open.

Glanton looked about the wretched enclosure. The tent smelled of oil and smoke and excrement. The judge squatted to study the imbecile.

Is that thing yours? Glanton said.

Yes. Yes he is.

Glanton spat. Man told us you was wantin to go to Californy.

Well, said the owner. Yes, that’s right. That is right.

What do you figure to do with that thing?

Take him with me.

How you aim to haul him?

Got a pony and cart. To haul him in.

You got any money?

The judge raised up. This is Captain Glanton, he said. He’s leading an expedition to California. He’s willing to take a few passengers under the protection of his company provided they can find themselves adequately.

Well now yes. Got some money. How much money are we talking about?

How much have you got? said Glanton.

Well. Adequate, I would say. I’d say adequate in money.

Glanton studied the man. I’ll tell you what I’ll do with you, he said. Are you wantin to go to Californy or are you just mouth?

California, said the owner. By all means.

I’ll carry ye for a hundred dollars, paid in advance.

The man’s eyes shifted from Glanton to the judge and back. I like some of having that much, he said.

We’ll be here a couple of days, said Glanton. You find us some more fares and we’ll adjust your tariff accordingly.

The captain will treat you right, said the judge. You can be assured of that.

Yessir, said the owner.

As they passed out by the cage Glanton turned to look at the idiot again. You let women see that thing? he said.

I dont know, said the owner. There’s none ever asked.

By noon the company had moved on to an eatinghouse. There were three or four men inside when they entered and they got up and left. There was a mud oven in the lot behind the building and the bed of a wrecked wagon with a few pots and a kettle on it. An old woman in a gray shawl was cutting up beefribs with an axe while two dogs sat watching. A tall thin man in a bloodstained apron entered the room from the rear and looked them over. He leaned and placed both hands on the table before them.

Gentlemen, he said, we dont mind servin people of color. Glad to do it. But we ast for em to set over here at this other table here. Right over here.

He stepped back and held out one hand in a strange gesture of hospice. His guests looked at one another.

What in the hell is he talkin about?

Just right over here, said the man.

Toadvine looked down the table to where Jackson sat. Several looked toward Glanton. His hands were at rest on the board in front of him and his head was slightly bent like a man at grace. The judge sat smiling, his arms crossed. They were all slightly drunk.

He thinks we’re niggers.

They sat in silence. The old woman in the court had commenced wailing some dolorous air and the man was standing with his hand outheld. Piled just within the door were the satchels and holsters and arms of the company.

Glanton raised his head. He looked at the man.

What’s your name? he said.

Name’s Owens. I own this place.

Mr Owens, if you was anything at all other than a goddamn fool you could take one look at these here men and know for a stone fact they aint a one of em goin to get up from where they’re at to go set somewheres else.

Well I caint serve you.

You suit yourself about that. Ask her what she’s got, Tommy.

Harlan was sitting at the end of the table and he leaned out and called to the old woman at her pots and asked her in Spanish what she had to eat.

She looked toward the house. Huesos, she said.

Huesos, said Harlan.

Tell her to bring em, Tommy.

She wont bring you nothin without I tell her to. I own this place.

Harlan was calling out the open door.

I know for a fact that man yonder’s a nigger, said Owens.

Jackson looked up at him.

Brown turned toward the owner.

Have you got a gun? he said.

A gun?

A gun. Have you got a gun.

Not on me I aint.

Brown pulled a small fiveshot Colt from his belt and pitched it to him. He caught it and stood holding it uncertainly.

You got one now. Now shoot the nigger.

Wait a goddamn minute, said Owens.

Shoot him, said Brown.

Jackson had risen and he pulled one of the big pistols from his belt. Owens pointed the pistol at him. You put that down, he said.

You better forget about givin orders and shoot the son of a bitch.

Put it down. Goddamn, man. Tell him to put it down.

Shoot him.

He cocked the pistol.

Jackson fired. He simply passed his left hand over the top of the revolver he was holding in a gesture brief as flintspark and tripped the hammer. The big pistol jumped and a double handful of Owens’s brains went out the back of his skull and plopped in the floor behind him. He sank without a sound and lay crumpled up with his face in the floor and one eye open and the blood welling up out of the destruction at the back of his head. Jackson sat down. Brown rose and retrieved his pistol and let the hammer back down and put it in his belt. Most terrible nigger I ever seen, he said. Find some plates, Charlie. I doubt the old lady is out there any more.

They were drinking in a cantina not a hundred feet from this scene when the lieutenant and a half dozen armed troopers entered the premises. The cantina was a single room and there was a hole in the ceiling where a trunk of sunlight fell through onto the mud floor and figures crossing the room steered with care past the edge of this column of light as if it might be hot to the touch. They were a hardbit denizenry and they shambled to the bar and back in their rags and skins like cavefolk exchanging at some nameless trade. The lieutenant circled this reeking solarium and stood before Glanton.

Captain, we’re going to have to take whoever’s responsible for the death of Mr Owens into custody.

Glanton looked up. Who’s Mr Owens? he said.

Mr Owens is the gentleman who ran the eatinghouse down here. He’s been shot to death.

Sorry to hear it, said Glanton. Set down.

Couts ignored the invitation. Captain, you dont aim to deny that one of your men shot him do you?

I aim exactly that, said Glanton.

Captain, it wont hold water.

The judge emerged from the darkness. Evening, Lieutenant, he said. Are these men the witnesses?

Couts looked at his corporal. No, he said. They aint witnesses. Hell, Captain. You all were seen to enter the premises and seen to leave after the shot was fired. Are you going to deny that you and your men took your dinner there?

Deny ever goddamned word of it, said Glanton.

Well by god I believe I can prove that you ate there.

Kindly address your remarks to me, Lieutenant, said the judge. I represent Captain Glanton in all legal matters. I think you should know first of all that the captain does not propose to be called a liar and I would think twice before I involved myself with him in an affair of honor. Secondly I have been with him all day and I can assure you that neither he nor any of his men have ever set foot in the premises to which you allude.

The lieutenant seemed stunned at the baldness of these disclaimers. He looked from the judge to Glanton and back again. I will be damned, he said. Then he turned and pushed past the men and quit the place.

Glanton tilted his chair and leaned his back to the wall. They’d recruited two men from among the town’s indigents, an unpromising pair that sat gawking at the end of the bench with their hats in their hands. Glanton’s dark eye passed over them and alighted on the owner of the imbecile who sat alone across the room watching him.