Cities of the Plain (8 page)

Go on. It's your money.

When he came in that evening Socorro had already left the kitchen and there was no one at
the table except the old man. He was smoking a homerolled cigarette and listening to the
news on the radio. John Grady got his plate and his coffee and set them on the table and
pulled back the chair and sat.

Evenin Mr Johnson, he said.

Evenin son.

What's the news?

The old man shook his head. He leaned across the table to the windowsill where the radio
sat and turned it off. It aint news no more, he said. Wars and rumors of wars. I dont know
why I listen to it. It's a ugly habit and I wish I could get broke of it but I think I
just get worse.

John Grady spooned pico de gallo over his rice and his flautas and rolled up a tortilla
and commenced to eat. The old man watched him. He nodded at the boy's boots.

You look like you been in some pretty mirey country today.

Yessir. I was. Some.

That old greasy clay is hard to clean off of anything. Oliver Lee always said he come out
here because the country was so sorry nobody else would have it and he'd be left alone. Of
course he was wrong. At least about bein left alone.

Yessir. I guess he was.

How's your foot doin.

It's all right.

The old man smiled. He drew on his cigarette and tapped the ash into the ashtray on the
table.

Dont be fooled by the good rains we've had. This country is fixin to dry up and blow away.

How do you know?

It just is.

You want some more coffee?

No thanks.

The boy got up and went to the stove and filled his cup and came back.

Country's overdue, the old man said. Folks have got short memories. They might be glad to
let the army have it fore they're done.

The boy ate. How much do you think the army will take?

The old man drew on his cigarette and stubbed it out thoughtfully. I think they'll take
the whole Tularosa basin. That's my guess.

Can they just take it?

Yeah. They can take it. Folks will piss and moan about it. But they dont have a choice.
They ought to be glad to get shut of it.

What do you think Mr Prather will do?

John Prather will do whatever he says he'll do.

Mr Mac said he told em the only way he'd leave was in a box. Then that's how he'll leave.
You can take that to the bank.

John Grady wiped his plate and sat back with his cup of coffee. I ought not to ask you
this, he said.

Ask it.

You dont have to answer.

I know it.

Who do you think killed Colonel Fountain?

The old man shook his head. He sat for a long time.

I ought not to of asked you.

No. It's all right. You know his daughter's name was Maggie too. She was the one told
Fountain to take the boy with him. Said they wouldnt bother a eight year old boy. But she
was wrong, wasnt she?

Yessir.

A lot of people think Oliver Lee killed him. I knew Oliver pretty well. We was the same
age. He had four sons himself. I just dont believe it.

You dont think he could of done it?

I'll say it stronger than that. I'll say he didnt.

Or cause it to be done?

Well. That's another matter. I'll say he never shed no tears over it. Over the colonel,
leastways.

You didnt want some more coffee?

No thank you son. I'd be up all night.

Do you think they're still buried out there somewheres?

No. I dont.

What do you think happened?

I always thought the bodies were taken to Mexico. They had a choice to bury em out there
somewhere south of the pass where they might be discovered or to go another thirty miles
to where they could drop em off the edge of the world and I think that's what they done.

John Grady nodded. He sipped his coffee. Were you ever in a shooting scrape?

I was. One time. I was old enough to know better too.

Where was it?

Down on the river east of Clint. It was in nineteen and seventeen just before my brother
died and we were on the wrong side of the river waitin for dark to cross some stolen
horses we'd recovered and we got word they was layin for us. We waited and waited and
after a while the moon come upjust a piece of a moon, not even a quarter. It come up
behind us and we could see it reflected in the windshield of their car over in the trees
along the river breaks. Wendell Williams looked at me and he said: We got two moons in the
sky. I dont believe I ever seen that before. And I said: Yes, and one of em is backwards.
And we opened fire on em with our rifles.

Did they shoot back?

Sure they did. We laid there and shot up about a box of shells apiece and then they left
out.

Was anybody hit?

Not that I ever heard of. We hit the car a time or two. Knocked the windshield out.

Did you get the horses across?

We did.

How many head was it?

It was a few. About seventy head.

That's a lot of horses.

It was a lot of horses. We was paid good money, too. But it wasnt worth gettin shot over.

No sir. I guess not.

It does funny things to a man's head.

What's that, sir?

Bein shot at. Havin dirt thowed on you. Leaves cut. It changes a man's perspective. Maybe
some might have a appetite for it. I never did.

You didnt fight in the revolution?

No.

You were down there though.

Yes. Tryin to get the hell out. I'd been down there too long. I was just as glad when it
did start. You'd wake up in some little town on a Sunday mornin and they'd be out in the
street shootin at one another. You couldnt make any sense out of it. We like to never got
out of there. I saw terrible things in that country. I dreamt about em for years.

He leaned and put his elbows on the table and took his makings from his shirtpocket and
rolled another smoke and lit it. He sat looking at the table. He talked for a long time.
He named the towns and villages. The mud pueblos. The executions against the mud walls
sprayed with new blood over the dried black of the old and the fine powdered clay sifting
down from the bulletholes in the wall after the men had fallen and the slow drift of
riflesmoke and the corpses stacked in the streets or piled into the woodenwheeled carretas
trundling over the cobbles or over the dirt roads to the nameless graves. There were
thousands who went to war in the only suit they owned. Suits in which they'd been married
and in which they would be buried. Standing in the streets in their coats and ties and
hats behind the upturned carts and bales and firing their rifles like irate accountants.
And the small artillery pieces on wheels that scooted backwards in the street at every
round and had to be retrieved and the endless riding of horses to their deaths bearing
flags or banners or the tentlike tapestries painted with portraits of the Virgin carried
on poles into battle as if the mother of God herself were authoress of all that calamity
and mayhem and madness.

The tallcase clock in the hallway chimed ten.

I reckon I'd better get on to bed, the old man said.

Yessir.

He rose. I dont much like to, he said. But there aint no help for it.

Goodnight sir.

Goodnight.

THE CABDRIVER would see him through the wroughtiron gate in the high brick wall and up the
walk to the doorway. As if the surrounding dark that formed the outskirts of the city were
a danger. Or the desert plains beyond. He pulled a velvet bellpull in an alcove in the
archway and stood back humming. He looked at John Grady.

You like for me to wait I can wait.

No. It's all right.

The door opened. A hostess in evening attire smiled at them and stood back and held the
door. John Grady entered and took off his hat and the woman spoke with the driver and then
shut the door and turned. She held out her hand and John Grady reached for his hip pocket.
She smiled.

Your hat, she said.

He handed her his hat and she gestured toward the room and he turned and went in, brushing
down his hair with the flat of his hand.

There was a bar to the right up the two stairs and he stepped up and passed along behind
the stools where men were drinking and talking. The bar was mahogany and softly lit and
the barmen wore little burgundy jackets and bowties. Out in the salon the whores lounged
on sofas of red damask and gold brocade. They wore negligees and floorlength formal gowns
and sheath dresses of white satin or purple velvet that were split up the thigh and they
wore shoes of glass or gold and sat in studied poses with their red mouths pouting in the
gloom. A cutglass chandelier hung overhead and on a dais to the right a string trio was
playing.

He walked to the far end of the bar. When he put his hand on the rail the barman was
already there placing a napkin.

Good evening sir, he said.

Evenin. I'll have a Old Grandad and water back.

Yessir.

The barman moved away. John Grady put his boot on the polished brass footrail and he
watched the whores in the glass of the backbar. The men at the bar were mostly welldressed
Mexicans with a few Americans dressed in flowered shirts of an intemperately thin cloth. A
tall woman in a diaphanous gown passed through the salon like the ghost of a whore. A
cockroach that had been moving along the counter behind the bottles ascended to the glass
where it encountered itself and froze.

He ordered another drink. The barman poured. When he looked into the glass again she was
sitting by herself on a dark velvet couch with her gown arranged about her and her hands
composed in her lap. He reached for his hat, not taking his eyes from her. He called for
the barman.

La cuenta por favor.

He looked down. He remembered that he'd left his hat with the hostess at the door. He took
out his wallet and pushed a fivedollar bill across the mahogany and folded the rest of the
bills and put them in his shirtpocket. The barman brought the change and he pushed a
dollar back toward him and turned and looked across the room to where she sat. She looked
small and lost. She sat with her eyes closed and he realized that she was listening to the
music. He poured the shot of whiskey into the glass of water and set the shotglass on the
bar and took his drink and set out across the room.

His faint shadow under the lights of the great glass tiara above them may have brought her
from her reveries. She looked up at him and smiled thinly with her painted child's mouth.
He almost reached for his hatbrim.

Hello, he said. Do you care if I set down?

She recomposed herself and smoothed her skirt to make room on the couch beside her. A
waiter moved out from the shadows along the walls and laid down two napkins on the low
glass table before them and stood.

Bring me a Old Grandad and water back. And whatever she's drinkin.

He nodded and moved away. John Grady looked at the girl. She leaned forward and smoothed
her skirt again.

Lo siento, she said. Pero no hablo inglŽs.

Est‡ bien. Podemos hablar espa–ol.

Oh, she said. QuŽ bueno.

QuŽ es su nombre?

Magdalena. Y usted?

He didnt answer. Magdalena, he said.

She looked down. As if the sound of her name were troubling to her.

Es su nombre de pila? he said.

S’. Por supuesto.

No es su nombre . . . su nombre profesional.

She put her hand to her mouth. Oh, she said. No. Es mi nombre propio.

He watched her. He told her that he had seen her at La Venada but she only nodded and did
not seem surprised. The waiter arrived with the drinks and he paid for them and tipped the
man a dollar. She did not pick up her drink then or later. She spoke so softly he had to
lean to catch her words. She said that the other women were watching but that it was
nothing. It was only that she was new to this place. He nodded. No importa, he said.

She asked why he had not spoken to her at La Venada. He said that it was because he was
with friends. She asked him if he had a sweetheart at La Venada but he said that he did
not.

No me recuerda? he said.

She shook her head. She looked up. They sat in silence.

Cu‡ntos a–os tiene? he said.

Bastantes.

He said it was all right if she did not wish to say but she didnt answer. She smiled
wistfully. She touched his sleeve. Fue mentira, she said. Lo que dec’a.

C—mo?

She said that it was a lie that she did not remember him. She said that he was standing at
the bar and she thought that he would come to talk to her but that he had not and when she
looked again he was gone.

Verdad?

S’.

He said that she had not really lied. He said she'd only shook her head, but she shook her
head again and said that these were the worst lies of all. She asked him why he had come
to the White Lake alone and he looked at the drinks untouched on the table before them and
he thought about that and about lies and he turned and looked at her.

Porque la andaba buscando, he said. Ya tengo tiempo busc‡ndola.

She didnt answer.

Y c—mo es que me recuerda?

She half turned away, she almost whispered. TambiŽn yo, she said.

Mande?

She turned and looked at him. TambiŽn yo.

In the room she turned and closed the door behind them. He couldnt even remember how they
got there. He remembered her hand in his, small and cold, so strange to feel. The
prismbroken light from the chandelier that ran in a river over her naked shoulders when
they passed beneath. Half stumbling after her like a child.

She went to the bedside and lit two candles and then turned off the lamp. He stood in the
room with his hands at his sides. She reached to the back of her neck and undid the clasp
of her gown and reached behind and pulled down the zipper. He began to unbutton his shirt.
The room was small and the bed all but filled it. It was a fourpost bed with a canopy and
curtains of winecolored organza and the candles shone through onto the pillows with a
winey light.