Cormac McCarthy - All The Pretty Horses

They spent the night with their hands chained through the stirrups of their saddles, trying to keep warm under their single blankets. They were on the trail again before the sun was up an hour and glad to be so.

This was their life for three days. On the afternoon of the third they rode into the town of Encantada of recent memory.

They sat side by side on a bench of iron slats in the little alameda. A pair of the guards stood a little ways off with their rifles and a dozen children of different ages stood in the dust of the street watching them. Two of the children were girls about twelve years of age and when the prisoners looked at them they turned shyly and twisted at their skirts. John Grady called to them to ask if they could get them cigarettes.

The guards glared at him. He made smoking motions at the girls and they turned and ran off down the street. The other children stood as before.

Ladies' man, said Rawlins.

You dont want a cigarette?

Rawlins spat slowly between his boots and looked up again. They aint goin to bring you no damn cigarette, he said.

I'll bet you.

What the hell you goin to bet with?

I'll bet you a cigarette.

How you goin to do that?

I'll bet you a cigarette she brings em. If she brings em I keep yours.

What are you goin to give me if she dont bring em?

If she dont bring em then you get mine.

Rawlins stared out across the alameda.

I aint above whippin your ass, you know.

Dont you think if we're goin to get out of this jackpot we might better start thinkin about how to get out of it together?

You mean like we got in it?

You dont get to go back and pick some time when the trouble started and then lay everthing off on your friend.

Rawlins didnt answer.

Dont sull up on me. Let's get it aired.

All right. When they arrested you what did you say?

I didnt say nothin. What would of been the use?

That's right. What would of been the use.

What does that mean?

It means you never asked em to go wake the patrón, did you? No.

I did.

What did they say?

Rawlins leaned and spat and wiped his mouth.

They said he was awake. They said he'd been awake for a long time. Then they laughed.

You think he sold us down the river?

Dont you?

I dont know. If he did it was because of some lie.

Or some truth.

John Grady sat looking down at his hands.

Would it satisfy you, he said, if I was to just go on and admit to bein a fourteen carat gold plated son of a bitch?

I never said that.

They sat. After a while John Grady looked up.

I cant back up and start over. But I dont see the point in slobberin over it. And I cant see where it would make me feel better to be able to point a finger at somebody else.

It dont make me feel better. I tried to reason with you, that's all. Tried any number of times.

I know you did. But some things aint reasonable. Be that as it may I'm the same man you crossed that river with. How I was is how I am and all I know to do is stick. I never even promised you you wouldnt die down here. Never asked your word on it either. I dont believe in signing on just till it quits suitin you. You either stick or you quit and I wouldnt quit you I dont care what you done. And that's about all I got to say.

I never quit you, Rawlins said.

All right.

After a while the two girls came back. The taller of them held up her hand with two cigarettes in it.

John Grady looked at the guards. They motioned the girls over and looked at the cigarettes and nodded and the girls approached the bench and handed the cigarettes to the prisoners together with several wooden matches.

Muy amable, said John Grady. Muchas gracias.

They lit the cigarettes off one match and John Grady put the other matches in his pocket and looked at the girls. They smiled shyly.

Son americanos ustedes? they said.

Sí.

Son ladrones?

Sí. Ladrones muy famosos. Bandoleros.

They sucked in their breath. Qué precioso, they said. But the guards called to them and waved them away.

They sat leaning forward on their elbows, smoking the cigarettes. John Grady looked at Rawlins' boots.

Where's them new boots at? he said.

Back at the bunkhouse.

He nodded. They smoked. After a while the others returned and called to the guards. The guards gestured at the prisoners and they rose and nodded to the children and walked out to the street.,

They rode out through the north end of the town and they halted before an adobe building with a corrugated tin roof and an empty mud bellcot above it. Scales of old painted plaster still clung to the mud brick walls. They dismounted and entered a large room that might once have been a schoolroom. There was a rail along the front wall and a frame that could once have held a blackboard. The floors were of narrow pine boards and the grain was etched by years of sand trod into them and the windows along both walls had missing panes of glass replaced with squares of tin all cut from the same large sign to form a broken mozaic among the windowlights. At a gray metal desk in one corner sat a stout man likewise in khaki uniform who wore about his neck a scarf of yellow silk. He regarded the prisoners without expression. He gestured slightly with his head toward the rear of the building and one of the guards took down a ring of keys from the wall and the prisoners were led out through a dusty weed yard to a small stone building with a heavy wooden door shod in iron.

There was a square judas-hole cut into the door at eye level and fastened across it and welded to the iron framing was a mesh of lightgauge rebar. One of the guards unfastened the old brass padlock and opened the door. He took a separate ring of keys from his belt.

Las esposas, he said.

Rawlins held up his handcuffs. The guard undid them and he entered and John Grady followed. The door groaned and creaked and thudded shut behind them.

There was no light in the room save what fell through the grate in the door and they stood holding their blankets waiting for their eyes to grade the darkness. The floor of the cell was concrete and the air smelled of excrement. After a while someone to the rear of the room spoke.

Cuidado con el bote.

Dont step in the bucket, said John Grady.

Where is it?

I dont know. Just dont step in it.

I caint see a damn thing.

Another voice spoke out of the darkness. It said: Is that you all?

John Grady could see part of Rawlins' face broken into squares in the light from the grid. Turning slowly. The pain in his eyes. Ah God, he said.

Blevins? said John Grady.

Yeah. It's me.

He made his way carefully to the rear. An outstretched leg withdrew along the floor like a serpent recoiling underfoot. He squatted and looked at Blevins. Blevins moved and he could see his teeth in the partial light. As if he were smiling.

What a man wont see when he aint got a gun, said Blevins. How long have you been here?

I dont know. A long time.

Rawlins made his way toward the back wall and stood looking down at him. You told em to hunt us, didnt you? he said. Never done no such a thing, said Blevins.

John Grady looked up at Rawlins.

They knew there were three of us, he said. Yeah, said Blevins.

Bullshit, said Rawlins. They wouldnt of hunted us once they got the horse back. He's done somethin.

It was my goddamn horse, said Blevins.

They could see him now. Scrawny and ragged and filthy. It was my horse and my saddle and my gun.

They squatted. No one spoke.

What have you done? said John Grady.

Aint done nothin that nobody else wouldnt of. What have you done.

You know what he's done, said Rawlins. Did you come back here?

Damn right I come back here.