Cities of the Plain (5 page)

Troy sat looking out the window at the passing darkness. Just everthing, he said. Just
ever goddamned thing. Hell. Dont pay no attention to me. I ought not to drink whiskey in
the first place.

They drove on to Van Horn and stopped for gas and coffee and by then the country that
Troy'd grown up in and that he thought he might go back to and where his dead brother was
buried was all behind them and it was two oclock in the morning.

Mac will have a few things to say when he sees the truck.

Billy nodded. I might be able to run into town and get it fixed in the mornin.

What do you reckon it'll cost?

I dont know.

You want to just split it?

That would suit me.

All right.

You sure you're okay?

Yeah. I'm all right. I just get to thinkin about things is all.

Yeah.

It dont help none though, does it?

Nope.

They sat drinking their coffee. Troy shook out a cigarette and lit it and put his
cigarettes and his Zippo lighter on the table. How come you had to stop back there?

I just did.

You said you had to.

Yeah.

What is it? Some sort of religious thing?

No. It aint nothin like that. It's just that the worst day of my life was one time when I
was seventeen years old and me and my budmy brotherwe was on the run and he was hurt and
there was a truckload of Mexicans just about like them back yonder appeared out of nowhere
and pulled our bacon out of the fire. I wasnt even sure their old truck could outrun a
horse, but it did. They didnt have no reason to stop for us. But they did. I dont guess it
would of even occurred to em not to. That's all.

Troy sat looking out the window. Well, he said. That's a pretty good reason.

Well. It was all the one I needed anyways. You ready?

Yeah. He drained his cup. I'm ready.

HE PAID HIS TWO PENNIES at the gate and pushed through the turnstile and went on across
the bridge. On the banks of the river under the bridge small boys held up tin buckets
nailed to the ends of poles and called out for money. He crossed the bridge into a sea of
waiting vendors hustling cheap jewelry, leather goods, blankets. They followed him along
for a distance and were spelled by others in a relay of huckstering down Ju‡rez Avenue and
up Ignacio Mej’a to Santos Degollado where they fell away and watched him go.

He stood at the end of the bar and ordered a whiskey and propped his foot on the rail and
looked across the room at the whores.

D—nde est‡n sus compa–eros? said the barman.

He raised the glass of whiskey and turned it in his hand. En el cameo, he said. He drank.

He stood there for two hours. The whores came across the room one by one to solicit him
and one by one returned. He didnt ask about her. When he left he'd had five whiskies and
he paid for them with a dollar and put another dollar on top of it for the barman. He
crossed Ju‡rez Avenue and went limping up Mej’a to the Napole—n and took a seat in front
of the cafe and ordered a steak. He sat and drank coffee while he waited and he watched
the life in the streets. A man came to the door and tried to sell him cigarettes. A man
tried to sell him a Madonna made of painted celluloid. A man with a strange device with
dials and levers asked him if he wished to electrocute himself. After a while the steak
arrived.

He went again the following night. There were half a dozen soldiers from Fort Bliss there,
young recruits, their heads all but shaved. They eyed him drunkenly, they looked at his
boots. He stood at the bar and drank three whiskies slowly. She did not appear.

He walked up Ju‡rez Avenue through the hucksters and pimps. He saw a boy selling stuffed
armadillos. He saw a tourist drunk laboring up the sidewalk carrying a full suit of armor.
He saw a beautiful young woman vomit in the street. Dogs turned at the sound and ran
toward her.

He walked up Tlaxcala and up Mariscal and entered another such place and sat at the bar.
The whores came to tug at his arm. He said that he was waiting for someone. After a while
he left and walked back to the bridge.

*Ê*Ê*

HE'D PROMISED MAC he wouldnt ride the horse again until his ankle was better. Sunday after
breakfast he worked the animal in the corral and in the afternoon he saddled Bird and rode
up into the Jarillas. Atop a raw rock bluff he sat the horse and studied the country. The
flooded saltflats shining in the evening sun seventy miles to the east. The peak of El
Capitan beyond. All the high mountains of New Mexico paling away to the north beyond the
red plains, the ancient creosote. In the steeply canted light the laddered shadows of the
fences looked like railtracks running up the country and doves were crossing below him
toward a watertank on the McNew spread. He could see no cattle anywhere in that cowtrodden
scrubland. The doves called everywhere and there was no wind.

When he got back to the house it was dark and by the time he'd unsaddled the horse and put
it up and gone to the kitchen Socorro had already cleared away and was washing the dishes.
He got a cup of coffee and sat down and she brought him his supper and while he was eating
Mac came and stood in the hallway door and lit a cigar.

You about ready? he said.

Yessir.

Take your time. Take your time.

He walked back up the hallway. Socorro brought the pot from the stove and spooned the last
of the caldillo onto his plate. She brought him more coffee and poured a cup for Mac and
left it steaming on the far side of the table. When he was done eating he rose and carried
his plate and cup to the sink and he poured more coffee and then went to the old
cherrywood press hauled overland in a wagon from Kentucky eighty years ago and opened the
door and took out the chess set from among the old cattleman's journals and the halfbound
ledgers and leather daybooks and the old green Remington boxes of shotgun shells and rifle
cartridges. On the upper shelf a dovetailed wooden box that held brass scaleweights. A
leather folder of drawing instruments. A glass horsecarriage that once held candy for a
Christmas in the long ago. He shut the door and carried the board and the wooden box to
the table and unfolded the board and slid back the lid of the box and spilled out the
pieces, carved walnut, carved holly, and set them up. Then he sat drinking his coffee.

Mac came out and pulled back the chair opposite and sat and dragged the heavy glass
ashtray forward from among the bottles of ketchup and hotsauce and laid his cigar in the
ashtray and took a sip of the coffee. He nodded toward John Grady's left hand. John Grady
opened his hand, he set the pawns on the board.

I'm white again, said Mac.

Yessir.

He moved his pawn forward.

JC came in and got a cup of coffee from the stove and came to the table and stood.

Set down, said Mac. You're makin the room untidy.

That's all right. I aint stayin.

Better set down, said John Grady. He needs all his powers of concentration.

You got that right, said Mac.

JC sat down. Mac studied the board. JC glanced at the pile of white chesspieces at John
Grady's elbow.

Son, you better cut the old man some slack. You might could be replaced with somebody that
cowboys better and plays chess worse.

Mac reached and moved his remaining bishop. John Grady moved his knight. Mac took up his
cigar and sat puffing quietly.

He moved his queen. John Grady moved his other knight and sat back. Check, he said.

Mac sat studying the board. Damn, he said. After a while he looked up. He turned to JC.
You want to play him?

No sir. He's done made a believer out of me.

I know the feelin. He's beat me like a rented mule.

He looked at the wallclock and picked up his cigar again and put it in his teeth. I'll
play you one more, he said.

Yessir, said John Grady.

Socorro took off her apron and hung it up and stood at the door.

Goodnight, she said.

Night Socorro.

JC rose from his chair. You all want some more coffee?

They played. When John Grady took the black queen JC pushed back his chair and got up.

I've tried to tell you, son. There's a cold winter comin.

He crossed the kitchen and set his cup in the sink and went to the door.

Night, he said.

Mac sat quietly studying the board. The cigar lay dead in the ashtray.

Night, said John Grady.

He pushed open the door and went out. The screendoor flapped shut. The clock ticked. Mac
leaned back. He picked up the cigar stub and then he put it back in the ashtray. I believe
I'll concede, he said.

You could still win.

Mac looked at him. Bullshit, he said.

John Grady shrugged. Mac looked at the clock. He looked at John Grady. Then he leaned and
carefully turned the board around. John Grady moved Mac's remaining black knight.

Mac pursed his lips. He studied the board. He moved.

Five moves later John Grady mated the white king. Mac shook his head. Let's go to bed, he
said.

Yessir.

He began to put away the pieces. Mac pushed back his chair and picked up the cups.

What time did Troy and Billy say they'd be back?

I dont reckon they said.

How come you not to go with em?

I just thought I'd stick around here.

Mac carried the cups to the sink. Did they ask you to go?

Yessir. I dont need to go everwhere they go.

He slid the cover shut on the box and folded the board and rose.

Is Troy fixin to go down there and go to work for his brother?

I dont know sir.

He crossed the room and put the chess set back in the press and closed the door and got
his hat.

You dont know or you aint sayin?

I dont know. If I wasnt sayin I'd of said so.

I know you would.

Sir.

Yes.

I feel kind of bad about Delbert.

What do you feel bad about?

Well. I guess I feel like I took his job.

Well you didnt. He'd of been gone anyways.

Yessir.

You let me run the place. All right?

Yessir. Goodnight sir.

Switch on the barnlight yonder.

I can see all right.

You could see better with the light on.

Yessir. Well. It bothers the horses.

Bothers the horses?

Yessir.

He put on his hat and pushed open the door. Mac watched him cross the yard. Then he
switched off the kitchen light and turned and crossed the room and went up the hallway.
Bothers the horses, he said. Damn.

WHEN HE GOT UP in the morning and went down to Billy's room to wake him Billy wasnt there.
The bed looked slept in and he limped out past the horse stalls and looked across the yard
toward the kitchen. Then he went around to the side of the barn where the truck was
parked. Billy was sitting in the seat leaning over the steering wheel taking the screws
out of the metal sashframe that held the windshield and dropping the screws into the
ashtray.

Mornin cowboy, he said.

Mornin. What happened to the windshield?

Owl.

Owl?

Owl.

He took the last screws out and pried up and lifted away the frame and began to pry the
edges of the cavedin glass out of the rubber molding with the blade of the screwdriver.

Walk around and push in on this thing from the outside. Wait a minute. There's some gloves
here.

John Grady pulled on the gloves and hobbled around and pushed on the edges of the glass
while Billy pried with the screwdriver. They got the glass worked out of the molding along
the bottom and one side and then Billy borrowed the gloves and pulled the whole thing out
in one piece and lifted it over the steering wheel and laid it in the floor of the truck
on the passenger side.

What did you do, drive with your head out the window?

No. I just sort of sat in the middle and looked out the good side.

He pushed at the windshield wiper lying inside across the dashboard.

I thought maybe you'd not got in yet.

We got in around five. What'd you do?

Nothin much.

You aint been rodeoin in the barn while I was gone have you? Nope.

How's your foot?

It's all right.

Billy pushed the wiper up on its spring and pried the wiper arm off the capstan with the
screwdriver and laid it on the seat.

You goin to get a new glass for it?

I'll get Joaqu’n to bring one when he goes in. I dont want the old man to see it if I can
help it.

Hell, anybody could run into a owl.

I know. But anybody didnt.

John Grady was leaning through the open window of the standing truck door. He turned and
spat and leaned some more. Well, he said. I dont know what that means.

Billy laid the screwdriver in the seat. I dont either, he said. I dont know why I said it.
Let's go in and see if she's got breakfast ready. I could eat the runnin gears of a bull
moose.

When they sat down Oren looked up from his paper and studied John Grady over the tops of
his glasses. How's your foot? he said.

It's all right.

I'll bet.

It's all right enough to ride a horse. That's what you wanted to know isnt it?

Can you get that in a stirrup?

I dont have to.

Oren went back to his paper. They ate. After a while he put the paper down and took off
his glasses and laid them on the table.

There's a man sendin a two year old filly out here that he aims to give to his wife. I
kept my own counsel on that. He dont know nothin about the horse other than its blood. Or
any other horse I reckon probably you could say.

Is she broke?

The wife or the horse?

I'll lay eight to five they aint either one, said JC. Sight unseen.

I dont know, said Oren. Green broke or some kind of broke. He wants to leave her here two
weeks. I said we'd give her all the trainin she was capable of absorbin in that length of
time and he seemed satisfied with that.