Cities of the Plain (2 page)

Billy looked at John Grady and looked back at the mountains.

You think that's true? said John Grady.

Hell, who knows.

JC says the old man is gettin crazier and crazier.

Well he's still got more sense crazy than JC's got sane so what does that make JC?

I dont know.

There aint nothin wrong with him. He's just old is all.

JC says he aint been right since his daughter died.

Well. There aint no reason why he should be. He thought the world of her.

Yeah.

Maybe we ought to ask Delbert. Get Delbert's view of things.

Delbert aint as dumb as he looks.

I hope to God he aint. Anyway the old man always had a few things peculiar about him and
he's still got em. This place aint the same. It never will be. Maybe we've all got a
little crazy. I guess if everbody went crazy together nobody would notice, what do you
think?

John Grady leaned and spat between his teeth and put the stem back in his mouth. You liked
her, didnt you?

Awful well. She was as nice to me as anybody I ever knew.

A coyote came out of the brush and trotted along the crest of a rise a quarter mile to the
east. I want you to look at that son of a bitch, said Billy.

Let me get the rifle.

He'll be gone before you get done standin up.

The coyote trotted out along the ridge and stopped and looked back and then dropped off
down the ridge into the brush again.

What do you reckon he's doin out here in the middle of the day?

He probably wonders the same about you.

You think he seen us?

Well I didnt see him walkin head first into them nopal bushes yonder so I dont expect he
was completely blind.

John Grady watched for the coyote to reappear but the coyote didnt.

Funny thing, said Billy, is I was fixin to quit about the time she took sick. I was ready
to move on. After she died I had a lot less reason to stay on but I stayed anyways.

I guess maybe you figured Mac needed you.

Horseshit.

How old was she?

I dont know. Late thirties. Forty maybe. You'd never of knowed it though.

You think he's gettin over it?

Mac?

Yeah.

No. You dont get over a woman like that. He aint gettin over nothin. He never will.

He sat and put his hat on and adjusted it. You ready, cousin?

Yeah.

He rose stiffly and reached down and got his lunchpail and he swiped at the seat of his
trousers with one hand and then bent and got his jacket. He looked at John Grady.

There was a old waddy told me one time he never knowed a woman raised on indoor plumbin to
ever turn out worth a damn. She come up the hard way. Old man Johnson was never nothin but
a cowboy and you know what that pays. Mac met her at a church supper in Las Cruces when
she was seventeen years old and that was all she wrote. He aint goin to be gettin over it.
Not now, not soon, not never.

It was dark when they got back. Billy rolled up the window of the truck and sat looking
toward the house. I'm a woreout sumbuck, he said.

You want to just leave the gear in the truck?

Let's bring in the comealong. It might rain. Might. And that box of staples. They'll rust
up.

I'll get em.

He got the stuff from the bed of the truck. The lights came on in the barn bay. Billy was
standing there shaking his hand up and down.

Ever time I reach for that son of a bitch I get shocked.

It's the nails in them boots.

Then why dont it shock my feet?

I dont know.

He hung the comealong on a nail and set the box of staples on a framing crossbrace just
inside the door. The horses whinnied from their stalls.

He went on down the barn bay and at the last stall pounded the flat of his hand against
the stall door. There was an instant explosion against the boards on the other side. Dust
drifted in the light. He looked back at Billy and grinned. Egg it on, said Billy. He'll
put a foot through that son of a bitch.

JOAQUêN STEPPED BACK with both hands atop the board he was leaning on and lowered his head
as if he'd seen something in the corral too awful to watch. But he was only stepping back
to spit and he did so in his slow and contemplative way and then stepped forward and
looked through the boards again. Caballo, he said. The shadow of the trotting horse passed
across the boards and across his face and passed on. He shook his head.

They walked on down to where some two by twelves were nailed and braced along the top of
the corral and climbed up and sat with their bootheels wedged in the board below and
smoked and watched John Grady work the colt.

What does he want with that owlheaded son of a bitch anyway?

Billy shook his head. Maybe it's like Mac says. Ever man winds up with the horse that
suits him.

What is that thing he's got on its head?

It's called a cavesson halter.

What's wrong with a plain hackamore?

You'd have to ask the cowboy.

Troy leaned and spat. He looked at Joaquin. QuŽ piensas? he said.

Joaquin shrugged. He watched the horse circle the corral at the end of the longeline.

That horse has been broke with a bit, Troy said.

Yeah.

I guess he aims to break it and start over.

Well, Billy said, I got a suspicion that whatever it is he aims to do he'll most likely
get it done.

They watched the horse circle.

He aint trainin it for the circus is he?

No. We had the circus yesterday evenin when he forked up on it.

How many times did he get thowed?

Four.

How many times did he get back up on it?

You know how many times.

Is he supposed to be some sort of specialist in spoiled horses?

Let's go, Billy said. He's liable to walk that son of a bitch all afternoon.

They went on toward the house.

Ask Joaquin yonder, Billy said.

Ask me what?

If the cowboy knows horses.

The cowboy says he dont know nothin.

I know it.

He claims he just likes it and works hard at it.

What do you think? said Billy.

Joaquin shook his head.

Joaquin thinks his methods is unorthodox.

So does Mac.

Joaquin didnt answer till they reached the gate. Then he stopped and looked back at the
corral. Finally he said that it didnt make much difference if you liked horses or not if
they didnt like you. He said the best trainers he ever knew, horses couldnt stay away from
them. He said horses would follow Billy S‡nchez to the outhouse and stand there and wait
for him.

WHEN HE GOT BACK from town John Grady was not in the barn and when he walked up to the
house to get his supper he was not there either. Troy was sitting at the table picking his
teeth. He sat down with his plate and reached for the salt and pepper. Where's everbody
at? he said.

Oren just left. JC's gone out with his girl. John Grady I reckon is laid up in the bed.

No he aint.

Well maybe he's gone off somewheres to think things over.

What happened?

That horse fell backwards on him. Like to broke his foot.

Is he all right?

I reckon. They carried him in to the doctor, him cussin and carryin on. Doctor wrapped it
up and give him a pair of crutches and told him to stay off of it.

He's on crutches?

Yep. Supposed to be.

All this happened this afternoon?

Yep. It was lively as you could ever wish for here for a while. Joaquin come and got Oren
and he went down there and told him to come on and he wouldnt do it. Oren said he thought
he was goin to have to whip him. Hobblin around after the damned horse wantin to get up on
it again. Finally got him to take his boot off. Oren said another two minutes and they'd
of had to cut it off of him.

Billy nodded his head and bit thoughtfully into a biscuit.

He was ready to fight Oren?

Yep.

Billy chewed. He shook his head.

How bad is his foot?

He's sprained his ankle.

What did Mac say?

Nothin. He's the one carried him in to the doctor's.

I guess he cant do no wrong where Mac's concerned.

You got that right.

Billy shook his head again. He reached for the salsa. I miss ever show that comes to town,
he said. I guess this might whittle down his reputation as a pure D peeler some though,
mightnt it?

I dont know if it will or not. Joaqu’n says he stood in one stirrup and rode the son of a
bitch down like a tree.

What for?

I dont know. I reckon he just dont like to quit a horse.

HEÕD BEEN ASLEEP maybe an hour when the commotion in the dark of the barn bay woke him. He
lay listening a minute and then he rose and reached for the cord and pulled on the
overhead light and put on his hat and stepped to the door and pushed back the curtain and
looked out. The horse hove past a foot from his face and went hammering down the bay and
turned and stood breathing and stamping in the dark.

Damn, he said. Bud?

John Grady went limping past.

What the hell are you doin?

He hobbled on out of the lightfall. Billy stepped into the bay. You are a goddamned idjit,
aint you? What in the hell is wrong with you?

The horse began to run again. He heard it coming and knew it was coming but he'd no more
than just got back inside the doorframe before it exploded into the space of light from
the single bulb in his cubicle, running with its mouth open and its eyes like eggs in its
head.

Goddamn it, he said. He got his pants off of the iron footrail of his cot and pulled them
on and squared his hat and stepped out again.

The horse had started down the bay again. He flattened himself against the stall door next
to his bunkroom. The horse went by as if the barn were afire and slammed up against the
door at the end of the bay and turned and stood shrieking.

Goddamn it will you leave that squirrelheaded son of a bitch alone? What the hell's got
into you?

John Grady came limping past into the dusty light again trailing a loop of rope and limped
on out the other side.

You cant even see to rope the son of a bitch, Billy called.

The horse came pounding down the far side of the bay. It was saddled and the stirrups were
kicking out. One of them must have caught on a board toward the far end where it turned in
the thin slats of light from the yardlamp because there was a crack of breaking wood and a
clattering in the dark and then the horse stood on its forefeet and jackslammed the boards
at the end of the barn. A minute later the lights came on at the house. The dust in the
barn drifted like smoke.

There you go, called Billy. The whole damn house is up.

The dark shape of the horse shifted in the barred light. It leaned its long neck and
screamed. The door opened at the end of the barn.

John Grady limped past again with the rope.

Someone threw the lightswitch. Oren was standing there flapping his hand about. Goddamn
it, he said. Why dont somebody fix that thing.

The crazed horse stood blinking at him ten feet away. He looked at the horse and he looked
at John Grady standing in the middle of the barn bay with the catchrope.

What in hell's thunder is goin on out
here? he
said.

Go on, said Billy. Tell him somethin. I sure as hell dont have no answer for him.

The horse turned and trotted partway down the bay and stopped and stood.

Put the damn horse up, said Oren.

Let me have the rope, said Billy.

John Grady looked back at him. You think I cant even catch him?

Go on then. Catch him. I hope the son of a bitch runs over you.

One of you all catch him, said Oren, and lets quit this damn nonsense.

The door opened behind Oren and Mr Johnson stood there in his hat and boots and
nightshirt. Shut the door, Mr Johnson, said Oren. Come in if you want.

John Grady dropped the loop over the horse's neck and walked the horse down along the rope
and reached up through the loop and took hold of the trailing bridlereins and threw the
rope off.

Dont get on that horse, said Oren.

It's my horse.

Well you can tell that to Mac then. He'll be out here in a minute.

Go on bud, said Billy. Put the damn horse up like the man asked you.

John Grady looked at him and he looked at Oren and then he turned and led the horse back
down the barn bay and put it up in the stall.

Bunch of damned ignorance, said Oren. Come on, Mr Johnson. Damn.

The old man turned and went out and Oren followed and pulled the door shut behind him.
When John Grady came limping out of the stall he was carrying the saddle by the horn, the
stirrups dragging in the dirt. He crossed the bay toward the tackroom. Billy leaned
against the jamb watching him. When he came out of the tackroom he passed Billy without
looking at him.

You're really somethin, said Billy. You know that?

John Grady turned at the door of his bunkroom and he looked at Billy and he looked down
the hall of the lit barn and spat quietly in the dirt and looked at Billy again. It wasnt
any of your business, he said. Was it.

Billy shook his head. I will be damned, he said.

IN THE MOUNTAINS they saw deer in the headlights and in the headlights the deer were pale
as ghosts and as soundless. They turned their red eyes toward this unreckoned sun and
sidled and grouped and leapt the bar ditch by ones and twos. A small doe lost her footing
on the macadam and scrabbled wildly and sank onto her hindquarters and rose again and
vanished with the others into the chaparral beyond the roadside. Troy held the whiskey up
to the dashlights to check the level in the bottle and unscrewed the cap and drank and
screwed the cap back on and passed the bottle to Billy. Be no lack of deer to hunt down
here it looks like.

Billy unscrewed the cap from the bottle and drank and sat watching the white line down the
dark road. I dont doubt but what it's good country.