Cormac McCarthy - All The Pretty Horses

There aint but one truth, said John Grady. The truth is what happened. It aint what come out of somebody's mouth.

You like this little town? said the captain.

It's all right.

It is very quiet here.

Yes.

The peoples in this town are quiet peoples. Everybody here is quiet all the time.

He leaned forward and stubbed out the cigarette in the ashtray.

Then comes the assassin Blevins to steal horses and kill everybody. Why is this? He was a quiet boy and never do no harm and then he come here and do these things something like that?

He leaned back and shook his head in that same sad way. No, he said. He wagged one finger. No.

He watched John Grady.

What is the truth is this: He was no a quiet boy. He was this other kind of boy all the time. All the time.

When the guards brought John Grady back they took Blevins away with them. He could walk but not well. When the padlock had clicked shut and rattled and swung to rest John Grady squatted facing Rawlins.

How you doin? he said.

I'm okay. How are you?

I'm all right.

What happened?

Nothin.

What'd you tell him?

I told him you were full of shit.

You didnt get to go to the shower room?

No.

You were gone a long time.

Yeah.

He keeps a white coat back there on a hook. He takes it down and puts it on and ties it around his waist with a string.

John Grady nodded. He looked at the old man. The old man was watching them even if he didnt speak english.

Blevins is sick.

Yeah, I know. I think we're goin to Saltillo.

What's in Saltillo?

I dont know.

Rawlins shifted against the wall. He closed his eyes.

Are you all right? said John Grady.

Yeah, I'm all right.

I think he wants to make some kind of a deal with us.

The captain?

Captain. Whatever he is.

What kind of a deal.

To keep quiet. That kind of a deal.

Like we had some kind of a choice. Keep quiet about what? About Blevins.

Keep quiet about what about Blevins?

John Grady looked at the little square of light in the door and at the skew of it on the wall above the old man's head where he sat. He looked at Rawlins.

I think they aim to kill him. I think they aim to kill Blevins. Rawlins sat for a long time. He sat with his head turned away against the wall. When he looked at John Grady again his eyes were wet.

Maybe they wont, he said.

I think they will.

Ah damn, said Rawlins. Just goddamn it all to hell.

When they brought Blevins back he sat in the corner and didnt speak. John Grady talked with the old man. His name was Orlando. He didnt know what crime he was accused of. He'd been told he could go when he signed the papers but he couldnt read the papers and no one would read them to him. He didnt know how long he'd been here. Since sometime in the winter. While they were talking the guards came again and the old man shut up.

Thev unlocked the door and entered and set two buckets in the floor together with a stack of enameled tin plates. One of them looked into the waterpail and the other took the slop pail from the corner and they went out again. They had about them a perfunctory air, like men accustomed to caring for livestock. When they were gone the prisoners squatted about the buckets and John Grady handed out the plates. Of which there were five. As if some unknown other were expected. There were no utensils and they used the tortillas to spoon the beans from the bucket.

Blevins, said John Grady. You aim to eat?

I aint hungry.

Better get you some of this.

You all go on.

John Grady scooped beans into one of the spare dishes and folded the tortilla along the edge of the dish and got up and carried it to Blevins and came back. Blevins sat holding the dish in his lap.

After a while he said: What'd you tell em about me?

Rawlins stopped chewing and looked at John Grady. John Grady looked at Blevins.

Told em the truth.

Yeah, said Blevins.

You think it would make any difference what we told them? said Rawlins.

You could of tried to help me out.

Rawlins looked at John Grady.

Could of put in a good word for me, said Blevins.

Good word, said Rawlins.

Wouldnt of cost you nothin.

Shut the hell up, said Rawlins. Just shut up. You say anything more I'll come over there and stomp your skinny ass. You hear me? If you say one more goddamn word.

Leave him alone, said John Grady.

Dumb little son of a bitch. You think that man in there dont know what you are? He knew what you were fore he ever set eyes on you. Before you were born. Damn you to hell. Just damn you to hell.

He was almost in tears. John Grady put a hand on his shoulder. Let it go, Lacey, he said. Just let it go.

In the afternoon the guards came and left the slop bucket and took away the plates and pails.

How do you reckon the horses are makin it? said Rawlins.

John Grady shook his head.

Horses, the old man said. Caballos.

Sí. Caballos.

They sat in the hot silence and listened to the sounds in the village. The passing of some horses along the road. John Grady asked the old man if they had mistreated him but the old man waved one hand and passed it off. He said they didnt bother him much. He said there was no sustenance in it for them. An old man's dry moans. He said that pain for the old was no longer a surprise.

Three days later they were led blinking from their cell into the early sunlight and through the yard and the schoolhouse and out into the street. Parked there was a ton-and-a-half flatbed Ford truck. They stood in the street dirty and unshaven holding their blankets in their arms. After a while one of the guards motioned to them to climb up on the truck. Another guard came out of the building and they were handcuffed with the same plateworn cuffs and then chained together with a towchain that lay coiled in the spare tire in the forward bed of the truck. The captain came out and stood in the sunlight rocking on his heels and drinking a cup of coffee. He wore a pipeclayed leather belt and holster, the 45 automatic slung at full cock butt-forward at his left side. He spoke to the guards and they waved their arms and a man standing on the front bumper of the truck raised up out of the engine compartment and gestured and spoke and then bent under the hood again.

What did he say? said Blevins.

No one answered. There were bundles and crates piled forward on the truckbed together with some fivegallon army gascans. People of the town kept arriving with parcels and handing slips of paper to the driver who stuffed them into his shirtpocket without comment.

Yonder stands your gals, said Rawlins.

I see em, said John Grady.

They were standing close together, the one clinging to the arm of the other, both of them crying.

What the hell sense does that make, said Rawlins.

John Grady shook his head.

The girls stood watching while the truck was loaded and while the guards sat smoking with their rifles propped against their shoulders and they were still standing there an hour later when the truck finally started and the hood dropped shut and the truck with the prisoners in their chains jostling slightly pulled away down the narrow dirt street and faded from sight in a rolling wake of dust and motorsmoke.

There were three guards on the truckbed with the prisoners, young boys from the country in illfitting and impressed uniforms. They must have been ordered not to speak to the prisoners because they took care to avoid their eyes. They nodded or raised one hand gravely to people they knew standing in the doorways as they rolled out down the dusty street. The captain sat in the cab with the driver. Some dogs came out to chase the truck and the driver cut the wheel sharply to try to run them down and the guards on the truckbed grabbed wildly for handholds and the driver looked back at them through the rear window of the cab laughing and they all laughed and punched one another and then sat gravely with their rifles.