All the Pretty Horses (5 page)

They reached the Devil’s River by midmorning and watered the horses and stretched out in the shade of a stand of black-willow and looked at the map. It was an oilcompany roadmap that Rawlins had picked up at the cafe and he looked at it and he looked south toward the gap in the low hills. There were roads and rivers and towns on the American side of the map as far south as the Rio Grande and beyond that all was white.

It dont show nothin down there, does it? said Rawlins.

No.

You reckon it aint never been mapped?

There’s maps. That just aint one of em. I got one in my saddlebag.

Rawlins came back with the map and sat on the ground and traced their route with his finger. He looked up.

What? said John Grady.

There aint shit down there.

They left the river and followed the dry valley to the west. The country was rolling and grassy and the day was cool under the sun.

You’d think there’d be more cattle in this country, Rawlins said.

You’d think so.

They walked doves and quail up out of the grass along the ridges. Now and then a rabbit. Rawlins stepped down and slid his little 25-20 carbine out of the bootleg scabbard he carried it in and walked out along the ridge. John Grady heard him shoot. In a little while he came back with a rabbit and he reholstered the carbine and took out his knife and walked off a ways and squatted and gutted the rabbit. Then he rose and wiped the blade on his trouserleg and folded shut the knife and came over and took his horse and tied the rabbit by its hind legs to his bedroll strap and mounted up again and they went on.

Late afternoon they crossed a road that ran to the south and in the evening they reached Johnson’s Run and camped at a pool in the otherwise dry gravel bed of the watercourse and watered the horses and hobbled them and turned them out to graze. They built a fire and skinned out the rabbit and skewered it on a green limb and set it to broil at the edge of the fire. John Grady opened his blackened canvas campbag and took out a small enameled tin coffeepot and went to the creek and filled it. They sat and watched the fire and they watched the thin crescent moon above the black hills to the west.

Rawlins rolled a cigarette and lit it with a coal and lay back against his saddle. I’m goin to tell you somethin.

Tell it.

I could get used to this life.

He drew on the cigarette and held it out to one side and tapped the ash with a delicate motion of his forefinger. It wouldnt take me no time at all.

They rode all day the day following through rolling hill country, the low caprock mesas dotted with cedar, the yuccas in white bloom along the eastfacing slopes. They struck the Pandale road in the evening and turned south and followed the road into town.

Nine buildings including a store and filling station. They
tied their horses in front of the store and went in. They were dusty and Rawlins was unshaven and they smelled of horses and sweat and woodsmoke. Some men sitting in chairs at the back of the store looked up when they entered and then went on talking.

They stood at the meatcase. The woman came from the counter and walked behind the case and took down an apron and pulled a chain that turned on the overhead lightbulb.

You do look like some kind of desperado, John Grady said.

You dont look like no choir director, said Rawlins.

The woman tied the apron behind her and turned to regard them above the white enameled top of the meatcase. What’ll you boys have? she said.

They bought baloney and cheese and a loaf of bread and a jar of mayonnaise. They bought a box of crackers and a dozen tins of vienna sausage. They bought a dozen packets of koolaid and a slab end of bacon and some tins of beans and they bought a five pound bag of cornmeal and a bottle of hotsauce. The woman wrapped the meat and cheese separate and she wet a pencil with her tongue and totted up the purchases and then put everything together in a number four grocery bag.

Where you boys from? she said.

From up around San Angelo.

You all ride them horses down here?

Yes mam.

Well I’ll declare, she said.

When they woke in the morning they were in plain view of a small adobe house. A woman had come out of the house and slung a pan of dishwater into the yard. She looked at them and went back in again. They’d hung their saddles over a fence to dry and while they were getting them a man came out and stood watching them. They saddled the horses and led them out to the road and mounted up and turned south.

Wonder what all they’re doin back home? Rawlins said.

John Grady leaned and spat. Well, he said, probably they’re havin the biggest time in the world. Probably struck oil. I’d say
they’re in town about now pickin out their new cars and all.

Shit, said Rawlins.

They rode.

You ever get ill at ease? said Rawlins.

About what?

I dont know. About anything. Just ill at ease.

Sometimes. If you’re someplace you aint supposed to be I guess you’d be ill at ease. Should be anyways.

Well suppose you were ill at ease and didnt know why. Would that mean that you might be someplace you wasnt supposed to be and didnt know it?

What the hell’s wrong with you?

I dont know. Nothin. I believe I’ll sing.

He did. He sang: Will you miss me, will you miss me. Will you miss me when I’m gone.

You know that Del Rio radio station? he said.

Yeah, I know it.

I’ve heard it told that at night you can take a fencewire in your teeth and pick it up. Dont even need a radio.

You believe that?

I dont know.

You ever tried it?

Yeah. One time.

They rode on. Rawlins sang. What the hell is a flowery boundary tree? he said.

You got me, cousin.

They passed under a high limestone bluff where a creek ran down and they crossed a broad gravel wash. Upstream were potholes from the recent rains where a pair of herons stood footed to their long shadows. One rose and flew, one stood. An hour later they crossed the Pecos River, putting the horses into the ford, the water swift and clear and partly salt running over the limestone bedrock and the horses studying the water before them and placing their feet with great care on the broad traprock plates and eyeing the shapes of trailing moss in the rips below the ford where they flared and twisted electric green in the
morning light. Rawlins leaned from the saddle and wet his hand in the river and tasted it. It’s gypwater, he said.

They dismounted among the willows on the far side and made sandwiches with the lunchmeat and cheese and ate and sat smoking and watching the river pass. There’s been somebody followin us, John Grady said.

Did you see em?

Not yet.

Somebody horseback?

Yeah.

Rawlins studied the road across the river. Why aint it just somebody ridin?

Cause they’d of showed up at the river by now.

Maybe they turned off.

Where to?

Rawlins smoked. What do you reckon they want?

I dont know.

What do you want to do?

Let’s just ride. They’ll either show or they wont.

They came up out of the river breaks riding slowly side by side along the dusty road and onto a high plateau where they could see out over the country to the south, rolling country covered with grass and wild daisies. To the west a mile away ran a wire fence strung from pole to pole like a bad suture across the gray grasslands and beyond that a small band of antelope all of whom were watching them. John Grady turned his horse sideways and sat looking back down the road. Rawlins waited.

Is he back there? he said.

Yeah. Somewheres.

They rode till they came to a broad swale or bajada in the plateau. A little off to the right was a stand of closegrown cedar and Rawlins nodded at the cedars and slowed his horse.

Why dont we lay up yonder and wait on him?

John Grady looked back down the road. All right, he said. Let’s ride on a ways and then double back. He sees our tracks quit the road here he’ll know where we’re at.

All right.

They rode on another half mile and then left the road and cut back toward the cedars and dismounted and tied their horses and sat on the ground.

You reckon we got time for a smoke? said Rawlins.

Smoke em if you got em, said John Grady.

They sat smoking and watching the backroad. They waited a long time but nobody came. Rawlins lay back and put his hat over his eyes. I aint sleepin, he said. I’m just restin.

He hadnt been asleep long before John Grady kicked his boot. He sat up and put on his hat and looked. A rider was coming along the road. Even at that distance they both remarked on the horse.

He came along till he was not more than a hundred yards down the road. He had on a broadbrim hat and bib overalls. He slowed the horse and looked down the bajada directly at them. Then he came on again.

It’s some kid, Rawlins said.

That’s a hell of a horse, said John Grady.

Aint it though.

You think he saw us?

No.

What do you want to do?

Give him a minute and then we’ll just ride into the road behind him.

They waited till he was all but out of sight and then they untied the horses and mounted and rode up out of the trees and into the road.

When he heard them he stopped and looked back. He pushed his hat back on his head and sat the horse in the road and watched them. They rode up one at either side.

You huntin us? said Rawlins.

He was a kid about thirteen years old.

No, he said. I aint huntin you.

How come you followin us?

I aint followin you.

Rawlins looked at John Grady. John Grady was watching the kid. He looked off toward the distant mountains and then back at the kid and finally at Rawlins. Rawlins sat with his hands composed upon the pommel of his saddle. You aint been followin us? he said.

I’m goin to Langtry, the kid said. I dont know who you all are.

Rawlins looked at John Grady. John Grady was rolling a smoke and studying the kid and his outfit and his horse.

Where’d you get the horse? he said.

It’s my horse.

He put the cigarette in his mouth and took a wooden match from his shirtpocket and popped it with his thumbnail and lit the cigarette. Is that your hat? he said.

The boy looked up at the hatbrim over his eyes. He looked at Rawlins.

How old are you? said John Grady.

Sixteen.

Rawlins spat. You’re a lyin sack of green shit.

You dont know everthing.

I know you aint no goddamn sixteen. Where are you comin from?

Pandale.

You seen us in Pandale last night, didnt you?

Yeah.

What’d you do, run off?

He looked from one of them to the other. What if I did?

Rawlins looked at John Grady. What do you want to do?

I dont know.

We could sell that horse in Mexico.

Yeah.

I aint diggin no grave like we done that last one.

Hell, said John Grady, that was your idea. I was the one said just leave him for the buzzards.

You want to flip to see who gets to shoot him?

Yeah. Go ahead.

Call it, said Rawlins.

Heads.

The coin spun in the air. Rawlins caught it and slapped it down on top of his wrist and held his wrist where they could see it and lifted his hand away.

Heads, he said.

Let me have your rifle.

It aint fair, said Rawlins. You shot the last three.

Well go on then. You can owe me.

Well hold his horse. He might not be gunbroke.

You all are just funnin, said the boy.

What makes you so sure?

You aint shot nobody.

What makes you think you wouldnt be somebody good to start with?

You all are just funnin. I knowed you was all along.

Sure you did, said Rawlins.

Who’s huntin you? John Grady said.

Nobody.

They’re huntin that horse though, aint they?

He didnt answer.

You really headed for Langtry?

Yeah.

You aint ridin with us, said Rawlins. You’ll get us thowed in the jailhouse.

It belongs to me, the boy said.

Son, said Rawlins, I dont give a shit who it belongs to. But it damn sure dont belong to you. Let’s go bud.

They turned their horses and chucked them up and trotted out along the road south again. They didnt look back.

I thought he’d put up more of a argument, said Rawlins.

John Grady flipped the stub of the cigarette into the road before them. We aint seen the last of his skinny ass.

By noon they’d left the road and were riding southwest through the open grassland. They watered their horses at a steel stocktank under an old F W Axtell windmill that creaked slowly
in the wind. To the south there were cattle shaded up in a stand of emory oak. They meant to lay clear of Langtry and they talked about crossing the river at night. The day was warm and they washed out their shirts and put them on wet and mounted up and rode on. They could see the road behind them for several miles back to the northeast but they saw no rider.

That evening they crossed the Southern Pacific tracks just east of Pumpville Texas and made camp a half mile on the far side of the right of way. By the time they had the horses brushed and staked and a fire built it was dark. John Grady stood his saddle upright to the fire and walked out on the prairie and stood listening. He could see the Pumpville watertank against the purple sky. Beside it the horned moon. He could hear the horses cropping grass a hundred yards away. The prairie otherwise lay blue and silent all about.

They crossed highway 90 midmorning of the following day and rode out onto a pastureland dotted with grazing cattle. Far to the south the mountains of Mexico drifted in and out of the uncertain light of a moving cloud-cover like ghosts of mountains. Two hours later they were at the river. They sat on a low bluff and took off their hats and watched it. The water was the color of clay and roily and they could hear it in the rips downstream. The sandbar below them was thickly grown with willow and carrizo cane and the bluffs on the far side were stained and cavepocked and traversed by a constant myriad of swallows. Beyond that the desert rolled as before. They turned and looked at each other and put on their hats.