Cities of the Plain (11 page)

The Moderno? It is a place where the musicians come. It is a very old place. It has always
been here. You must come on Saturday. Many old people come. You will see them. They come
to dance. Very old people dancing. Here. In this place. The Moderno.

Are they going to play again?

Yes, yes. Of course. It is early. They are my friends.

Do they play every night?

Yes. Every night. They will play soon now. You will see.

Good as the maestro's word the violinists began to tune their instruments in the inner
room. The cellist leaned listening with his head inclined and drew his bow across the
strings. A couple who had been sitting at a table against the far wall rose and stood in
the archway holding hands and then sallied forth onto the concrete floor as the musicians
struck up an antique waltz. The maestro leaned forward to hear. Are they dancing? he said.
Are any dancing now?

The little girl looked at John Grady. Yes, John Grady said. They're dancing.

The old man leaned back, he nodded. Good, he said. That is good.

THEY SAT AGAINST a rock bluff high in the Franklins with a fire before them that heeled in
the wind and their figures cast up upon the rocks behind them enshadowed the petroglyphs
carved there by other hunters a thousand years before. They could hear the dogs running
far below them. Their cries trailed off down the side of the mountain and sounded again
more faintly and then faded away where they coursed out along some rocky draw in the dark.
To the south the distant lights of the city lay strewn across the desert floor like a
tiara laid out upon a jeweler's blackcloth. Archer had stood and turned toward the running
dogs the better to listen and after a while he squatted again and spat into the fire.

She aint goin to tree, he said.

I dont believe she will either, said Travis.

How do you know it's the same lion? said JC.

Travis had taken his tobacco from his pocket and he smoothed and cupped a paper with his
fingers. She's done us thisaway before, he said. She'll run plumb out of the country.

They sat listening. The cries grew faint and after a while there were no more. Billy had
gone off up the side of the mountain to look for wood and he came back dragging a dead
cedar stump. He picked it up and dropped it on top of the fire. A shower of sparks rose
and drifted down the night. The stump sat all black and twisted over the small flames.
Like some amorphous thing come in out of the night to warm itself among them.

Couldnt you find a bigger chunk of wood, Parham?

It'll take here in a minute.

Parham's put the fire plumb out, said JC.

The darkest hour is just before the storm, said Billy. It'll take here in a minute.

I hear em, Travis said.

I do too.

She's crossed at the head of that big draw where the road cuts back.

We wont get that Lucy dog back tonight.

What dog is that?

Bitch out of that Aldridge line. Them dogs was bred by the Lee Brothers. They just forgot
to build in the quit.

Best dog we ever had was her grandaddy, said Archer. You remember that Roscoe dog, Travis?

Of course I do. People thought he was part bluetick but he was a full leopard cur with a
glass eye and he did love to fight. We lost him down in Nyarit. Jaguar caught him and bit
him damn near in two.

You all dont hunt down there no more.

No.

We aint been back since before the war. It got to be a long ways to go them last few
trips. Lee Brothers had about quit goin. They brought a lot of jaguars out of that
country, too.

JC leaned and spat into the fire. The flames were snaking up along the sides of the stump.

You all didnt care bein way off down there in old Mexico thataway?

We always got along with them people.

You dont need to go far to get in trouble, said Archer. You want trouble you can find all
you can say grace over right across that river yonder.

That's an amen on that.

You cross that river you in another country. You talk to some of these old waddies along
this border. Ask em about the revolution.

Do you remember the revolution, Travis?

Archer here can tell you moren what I can.

You was in swaddlin clothes wasnt you, Travis?

Just about it. I do remember bein woke up one time and goin to the window and we looked
out and you could see the guns goin off over there like it was the fourth of July.

We lived on Wyoming Street, said Archer. After Daddy died. Mama's Uncle Pless worked in a
machine shop on Alameda and they brought in the firingpins out of two artillery pieces and
asked him could he turn new ones and he turned em and wouldnt take a dime for it. They was
all on the side of the rebels. He brought the old pins home and give em to us boys. There
was one shop turned some cannon barrels out of railroad axles and they dragged em back
across the river behind a team of mules. The trunnions was made out of Ford truck axle
housings and they set em in wood sashes and used the wheels off of fieldwagons to mount em
in. That was in November of nineteen and thirteen. Villa come into Ju‡rez at two oclock in
the mornin on a train he'd highjacked. It was just a flatout war. Lots of folks in El Paso
had their windowlights shot out. Some people killed, for that matter. They'd go down and
stand along the river there and watch it like it was a ballgame.

Villa come back in nineteen and nineteen. Travis can tell ye. We'd slip over there and
hunt for souvenirs. Empty shellcases and what not. There was dead horses and mules in the
street. Storewindows shot out. We seen bodies laid out in the alameda with blankets over
em or wagonsheets. That sobered us up, I can tell you. They made us take showers with the
Mexicans fore they'd let us back in. Disinfected our clothes and all. There was typhus
down there and people had died of it.

They sat smoking quietly and looking out at the distant lights in the valley floor below
them. Two of the dogs came in out of the night and passed behind the hunters. Their
shadows trotted across the stone bluff and they crossed to a place in the dry dust under
the rocks where they curled up and were soon asleep.

None of it done anybody any good, Travis said. Or if it did I never heard of it.

I been all over that country down there. I was a cattlebuyer for Spurlocks. Supposed to be
one. I was just a kid. I rode all over northern Mexico. Hell, there wasnt no cattle. Not
to speak o£ Mostly I just visited. I liked it. I liked the country and I liked the people
in it. I rode all over Chihuahua and a good part of Coahuila and some of Sonora. I'd be
gone weeks at a time and not have hardly so much as a peso in my pocket but it didnt make
no difference. Those people would take you in and put you up and feed you and feed your
horse and cry when you left. You could of stayed forever. They didnt have nothin. Never
had and never would. But you could stop at some little estancia in the absolute dead
center of nowhere and they'd take you in like you was kin. You could see that the
revolution hadnt done them no good. A lot of em had lost boys out of the family. Fathers
or sons or both. Nearly all of em, I expect. They didnt have no reason to be hospitable to
anybody. Least of all a gringo kid. That plateful of beans they set in front of you was
hard come by. But I was never turned away. Not a time.

Three more dogs passed by the fire and sought out beds under the bluff. The stars swung
west. The hunters talked of other things and after a while another dog came in. He was
favoring a forefoot and Archer got up and walked up under the bluff to see about him. They
heard the dog whine and when he came back he said they'd been in a fight.

Two more dogs came in and then all were in save one.

I'll wait a while if you all want to head back, Archer said.

We'll wait with ye.

I dont mind.

We'll wait a while. Wake up young Cole yonder.

Let him sleep, said Billy. He's been fightin that bear.

The fire burned down and it grew colder and they sat close to the flames and hand fed them
with sticks and with old brittle limbs they broke from the windtwisted wrecks of trees
along the rimrock. They told stories of the old west that once was. The older men talked
and the younger men listened and light began to show in the gap of the mountain above them
and then faintly along the desert floor below.

The dog they were waiting for came in limping badly and circled the fire. Travis called to
her. She halted with her red eyes and looked at them. He rose and called her again and she
came up and he took hold of her collar and turned her to the light. There were four bloody
furrows along her flank. There was a flap of skin ripped loose at her shoulder exposing
the muscle underneath and blood was dripping slowly from one ripped ear onto the sandy
dirt where she stood.

We need to get that sewed up, Travis said.

Archer pulled a leash from among those he'd strung through his belt and he clipped it onto
the Dring of her collar. She carried the only news they would have of the hunt, bearing
witness to things they could only imagine or suppose out there in the night. She winced
when Archer touched her ear and when he let go of her she stepped back and stood with her
forefeet braced and shook her head. Blood sprayed the hunters and hissed in the fire. They
rose to go.

Let's go, cowboy, Billy said.

John Grady sat up and reached about on the ground for his hat.

Hell of a lionhunter you turned out to be.

Is the peeler awake? said JC.

The peeler's awake.

A man that's been huntin that bear I dont believe these old mountain lions hold much
interest.

I think you got that right.

Chips all down and where was he? And us at the mercy of the old folks here. Could of used
some help, son. We been outlied till it's pitiful. I mean sent to the showers. Wasnt even
a contest, was it Billy?

Not even a contest.

John Grady squared his hat and walked out along the edge of the bluff. The desert plain
lay cold and blue below them in the graying light and the shape of the river running down
from the north through the break of gray winter trees lay in a pale serpentine of mist. To
the south the cold gray grid of the distant city and the shape of the older city across
the river like stampings in the desert soil. Beyond them the mountains of Mexico. The
injured hound had come from the fire where the men were sorting and chaining the dogs and
it walked out and stood beside John Grady and studied with him the plain below. John Grady
sat and let his boots dangle over the edge of the rock and the dog lay down and rested its
bloody head alongside his leg and after a while he put his arm around it.

BILLY SAT LEANING with his elbows on the table and his arms crossed. He watched John
Grady. John Grady pursed his lips. He moved the remaining white knight. Billy looked at
Mac. Mac studied the move and he looked at John Grady. He sat back in his chair and
studied the board. No one spoke.

Mac picked up the black queen and held it a moment and then set it back. Then he picked up
the queen again and moved. Billy leaned back in his chair. Mac reached and took the cold
cigar from the ashtray and put it in his mouth.

Six moves later the white king was mated. Mac sat back and lit the cigar. Billy blew a
long breath across the table.

John Grady sat looking at the board. Good game, he said. It's a long road, said Mac, that
has no turning.

They walked out across the yard toward the barn. Tell me somethin, Billy said.

All right.

And I know you'll tell me the truth. I already know what the question is. What's the
answer.

The answer is no.

You didnt slack up on him just the littlest bit? No. I dont believe in it.

The horses stirred and snuffled in their stalls as they passed down the bay. John Grady
looked at Billy. You dont reckon he thinks that do you? I hope not. He damn sure wouldnt
like it a bit. He damn sure wouldnt.

H E WALKED into the pawnshop with the gun in the holster and the holster and belt slung
over his shoulder. The pawnbroker was an old man with white hair and he was reading the
paper spread out on the glass top of a display case at the rear of the shop. There were
guns in racks along one wall and guitars hanging from overhead and knives and pistols and
jewelry and tools in the cases. John Grady laid the gunbelt on the counter and the old man
looked at it and looked at John Grady. He drew the pistol from the holster and cocked it
and let the hammer down on the halfcock notch and spun the cylinder and opened the gate
and looked at the chambers and closed the gate and cocked the hammer and let it back down
with his thumb.

He turned it over and looked at the serial numbers on the frame and triggerguard and on
the bottom of the backstrap and then slid it back into the holster and looked up.

How much do you want? he said.

I need about forty dollars.

The old man sucked his teeth and shook his head gravely.

I been offered fiftyfor it. I just need to pawn it.

I could let you have maybe twentyfive.

John Grady looked at the gun. Let me have thirty, he said.

The pawnbroker shook his head doubtfully.

I dont want to sell it, John Grady said. I just need to borrow on it.

The belt and holster too, yes?

Yes. It all goes together.

All right.

He brought out his pad of forms and slowly copied out the serial number and he wrote down
John Grady's name and address and turned the paper on the glass for the boy to read and
sign. Then he separated the sheets and handed a copy to John Grady and took the gun to his
cage at the rear of the shop. When he returned he had the money and he laid it on the
counter.

I'll be back for it, John Grady said.

The old man nodded.

It belonged to my grandfather.

The old man opened his hands and closed them again. A gesture of accommodation. Not quite
a blessing. He nodded toward the glass case where half a dozen old Colt revolvers lay
displayed, some nickelplated, some with grips of staghorn. One with old worn grips of
guttapercha, one with the front sight filed away.