All the Pretty Horses

  Gracias, said John Grady. He had coiled the rope and now he dallied it midrope to the horn and put the horse forward. When the captain saw his situation he stood up.

  Momento, he called.

  John Grady rode forward, watching the shed. The captain when he saw the slack rope running out along the ground called out to him and began to run, his hands behind him. Momento, he called.

  When they rode out through the gate the captain was riding Redbo and he was doubled on behind him with his arm around the captain's waist. They led the Blevins horse on the rope and drove the other two horses before them. He was determined to get the four horses out of the stable yard if he died in the road and beyond that he had not thought much. His leg was numb and bleeding and felt heavy as a sack of meal and his boot was filling up with blood. When he passed through the gate the charro was standing there holding his hat and he reached down and took it from him and put it on and nodded.

  Adios, he said.

  The charro nodded and stepped back. He put the horse forward and they went down the drive, him holding on to the captain and turned partly sideways with the rifle at his waist, watching back toward the corral. The charro was still at the gate but there was no sign of the other two men. The captain in the saddle before him smelled rank and sweaty. He'd partly unbuttoned the front of his tunic and had put his hand inside to sling the arm. When they passed the house there was no one about but by the time they reached the road there were half a dozen women and young girls from the kitchen all peering past the corner of the house.

  In the road he got Junior and the grullo horse looseherded in front of him and with the Blevins horse on the leadrope behind they set out back toward Encantada at a trot. He didnt know if the grullo horse would try and quit them or not and he wished he had the spare saddle on Junior instead but there was nothing to be done about it. The captain complained about his shoulder and tried to take the reins and then he said he needed a doctor and then he said he needed to urinate. John Grady was watching the road behind. Go ahead, he said. You couldnt smell much worse.

  It was a good ten minutes before the riders appeared, four of them at a hard gallop, leaning forward, holding their rifles out to one side. John Grady let go the reins and swiveled and cocked the rifle and fired. Blevins' horse stood twisting like a circus horse and the captain must have sawed back on Redbo's reins because he stopped dead in the middle of the road and John Grady fell against him and almost pushed him forward out of the saddle. Behind him the riders were pulling up their mounts and milling in the road and he levered a fresh round into the rifle and fired again and by now Redbo had turned in the road to face the pull of the rope and the Blevins horse was wholly out of control and he swung around and whacked the captain's arm with the barrel of the rifle to make him drop the reins and he took the reins up and hauled Redbo around and whacked him with the rifle and looked back again. The riders had quit the road but he saw the last horse disappear into the brush and he knew which side they'd taken. He leaned down and got hold of the rope and drew the walleyed horse to him and coiled the rope and snubbed the horse up short and whacked Redbo again and trotting side by side they overtook the two horses in the road before them and herded them off into the brush and out onto the rolling country west of the town. The captain half turned to him with some new complaint but he only hugged his loathesome charge more fondly, the captain tottering woodenly in the saddle before him with his pain like a storedummy carried off for a prank.

  They rode down into a broad flat arroyo and he put the horses into a lope, his leg throbbing horribly and the captain crying out to be left. The arroyo bore east by the sun and they followed it for a good distance until it began to narrow and grow rocky and the loose horses before him to step cautiously and look toward the slopes above them. He hazed them on and they clambered up through traprock fallen from the rim country above and they led up onto the northfacing slope and along a barren gravel ridge where he gripped the captain anew and looked back. The riders were fanned over the open country a mile below him and he counted not four but six of them before they dropped from sight into a draw. He loosed the rope from the saddlehorn in front of the captain and dallied it again with more slack.

  You must owe them sons of bitches money, he said.

  He put the horse forward again and caught up to the other horses standing looking back a hundred feet out along the ridge. There was no place to go up the draw and no place to hide in the open country beyond. He needed fifteen minutes and he didnt have them. He slid down and caught the Purisima horse, hobbling after it on one leg and the horse shifting and eyeing him nervously. He unhitched the bridlereins from about the saddlehorn and stood into the stirrup and pulled himself painfully onto the horse and turned and looked at the captain.

  I want you to follow me, he said. And I know what you're thinkin. But if you think I cant ride you down you better think some more. And if I have to come get you I'm goin to whip you like a dog. Me entiende?

  The captain didnt answer. He managed a sardonic smile and John Grady nodded. You just keep smilin. When I die you die.

  He turned the horse and rode back down into the arroyo. The captain followed. At the rockslide he dismounted and tied the horse and took out a cigarette and lit it and hobbled up around the tumbled rocks and boulders carrying the rifle. In the sheltered lee of the slide he stopped and took the captain's pistol out of his belt and laid it on the ground and he took out his knife and cut a long narrow strip from his shirt and twisted it into a string. Then he cut the string in two and tied the trigger back on the pistol. He wrapped it tightly so as to depress the grip safety and he broke off a dead limb and tied the other string to it and tied the free end to the hammer of the pistol. He put a goodsized rock on top of the stick to hold it and he stretched the pistol out until the string cocked the hammer and then laid the pistol down and rolled a rock over it and when he slowly released it it held. He took a good draw on the cigarette to get it burning and then laid it carefully across the string and stepped back and picked up the rifle and turned and hobbled back out to where the horses stood.

  He took the waterbottles and he slid the bridle down off the grullo's head and caught it and he stroked the grullo under the jaw. I hate to leave you old pardner, he said. You been a goodn.

  He handed the waterbottles up to the captain and slung the bridle over his shoulder and reached a hand up and the captain looked down at him and then reached down with his good hand and he struggled up onto the horse behind the captain and reached around and took the reins and turned the horse back up the ridge again.

  He caught up the loose horses and drove them down off the ridge and out across the open country. The ground was volcanic gravel and not easy to track a horse over but not impossible either. He pushed the horses hard. There was a low rocky mesa two miles across the floodplain and he could see trees and the promise of broken country. Not half way across he heard the dead flat pop of the pistol he'd been listening for.

  Captain, he said. You just fired a shot for the common man.

  The trees he'd seen from the distance were the breaks of a dry rivercourse and he pushed the horses through the brush and entered a stand of cottonwoods and turned the horse and sat watching back across the plain they'd traversed. There were no riders in sight. He looked at the sun in the south and he judged it a good four hours till dark. The horse was hot and lathered and he looked back across the open country one more time and then pushed on to where the other two horses were standing upriver in a grove of willows drinking from a riverbed pothole. He rode alongside them and slid to the ground and caught Junior and took the bridle from his shoulder and bridled him with it and with the rifle motioned the captain down off the horse. He unbuckled the girthstraps and pulled the saddle and the blanket down onto the ground and picked up the blanket and threw it over Junior and leaned against him to get his breath. His leg was beginning to hurt horribly. He stood the rifle against the actual horse and picked up the saddle and managed to get i
t on and he pulled the girthstrap and rested and he and the horse blew and then he pulled the strap again and cinched it.

  He picked up the rifle and turned to the captain.

  You want a drink of water you better get you one, he said.

  The captain walked up past the horses holding his arm and he knelt and drank and laved water over the back of his neck with his good hand. When he rose he looked very serious.

  Why you no leave me here? he said.

  I aint leavin you here. You're a hostage.

  Mande?

  Let's go.

  The captain stood uncertainly.

  Why you come back? he said.

  I come back for my horse. Let's go.

  The captain nodded at the wound in his leg, still bleeding. The whole trouserleg dark with blood.

  You going to die, he said.

  We'll let God decide about that. Let's go.

  Are you no afraid of God?

  I got no reason to be afraid of God. I've even got a bone or two to pick with Him.

  You should be afraid of God, the captain said. You are not the officer of the law. You dont have no authority.

  John Grady stood leaning on the rifle. He turned and spat dryly and eyed the captain.

  Get on that horse, he said. You ride ahead of me. You drift out of my sight and I'll shoot you.

  Nightfall found them in the foothills of the Sierra Encantada. They followed a dry watercourse up under a dark rincon in the rocks and picked their way over a flood barricade of boulders tumbled in the floor of the wash and emerged upon a stone tinaja in the center of which lay a shallow basin of water, perfectly round, perfectly black, where the night stars were lensed in perfect stillness. The loose horses walked uncertainly down the shallow rock incline of the basin and blew at the water and drank.

  They dismounted and walked around to the far side of the tinaja and lay on their bellies on the rocks where the day's heat was still rising and sucked at the water cool and soft and black as velvet and they laved water over their faces and the backs of their necks and watched the horses drink and then drank again.

  He left the captain at the tank and hobbled with the rifle up the arroyo and gathered dead floodwash brush and hobbled back and made a fire at the upper end of the basin. He fanned the blaze with his hat and piled on more wood. The horses in the firelight reflected off the water were rimed with drying sweat and shifted pale and ghostly and blinked their red eyes. He looked at the captain. The captain was lying on his side on the smooth rock incline of the basin like something that had not quite made it to water.

  He limped around to the horses and got the rope and sat with his knife and cut hobbles from it for all the horses and looped them about their forefeet. Then he levered all the shells out of the rifle and put them in his pocket and took one of the water bottles and went back to the fire.

  He fanned the fire and he took the pistol out of his belt and pulled the cylinder pin and put the loaded cylinder and the pin in his pocket along with the rifle shells. Then he took out his knife and with the point of it unscrewed the screw from the grips and put the grips and the screw into his other pocket. He fanned the coals in the heart of the fire with his hat and with a stick he raked them into a pile and then he bent and stuck the barrel of the pistol into the coals.

  The captain had sat up to look at him.

  They will find you, he said. In this place.

  We aint stayin in this place.

  I cant ride no more.

  You'll be surprised at what you can do.

  He took off his shirt and soaked it in the tinaja and came back to the fire and he fanned the fire again with his hat and then he pulled off his boots and unbuckled his belt and let down his trousers.

  The rifle bullet had entered his thigh high up on the outside and the exit wound was in a rotation at the rear such that by turning his leg he could see both wounds clearly. He took up the wet shirt and very carefully wiped away the blood until the wounds were clear and stark as two holes in a mask. The area around the wounds was discolored and looked blue in the firelight and the skin around that was yellow. He leaned and ran a stick through the gripframes of the pistol and swung it up and away from the fire into his shadow and looked at it and then put it back. The captain was sitting holding his arm in his lap and watching him.

  It's fixin to get kindly noisy in here, he said. Watch out you dont get run over by a horse.

  The captain didnt answer. He watched him while he fanned the fire. When next he dragged the pistol from the coals the end of the barrel glowed at a dull red heat and he laid it on the rocks and picked it up quickly by the grips in the wet shirt and jammed the redhot barrel ash and all down into the hole in his leg.

  The captain either did not know what he was going to do or knowing did not believe. He tried to rise to his feet and fell backwards and almost slid into the tinaja. John Grady had begun to shout even before the gunmetal hissed in the meat. His shout clapped shut the calls of lesser creatures everywhere about them in the night and the horses all stood swimming up into the darkness beyond the fire and squatting in terror on their great thighs screaming and pawing the stars and he drew breath and howled again and jammed the gunbarrel into the second wound and held it the longer in deference to the cooling of the metal and then he fell over on his side and dropped the revolver on the rocks where it clattered and turned and slid down the basin and vanished hissing into the pool.

  He'd seized the fleshy part of his thumb in his teeth, shaking in agony. With the other hand he reached for the waterbottle standing unstoppered on the rocks and poured water over his leg and heard the flesh hiss like something on a spit and he gasped and let the bottle fall and he raised up and called out his horse's name to him softly where he scrabbled and fell on the rocks in his hobbles among the others that he might ease the fright in the horse's heart.

  When he turned and reached for the water bottle where it lay draining on the rocks the captain kicked it away with his boot. He looked up. He was standing over him with the rifle. He held it with the stock under his armpit and he gestured upward with it.

  Get up, he said.

  He pushed himself up on the rocks and looked across the tank toward the horses. He could only see two of them and he thought the third one must have run out down the arroyo and he couldnt tell which one was missing but guessed it was the Blevins horse. He got hold of his belt and managed to get his breeches back on.

  Where is the keys? said the captain.

  He pushed himself up and rose and turned and took the rifle away from the captain. The hammer dropped with a dull metallic snap.

  Get back over there and set down, he said.

  The captain hesitated. The man's dark eyes were turned toward the fire and he could see the calculation in them and he was in such a rage of pain he thought he might have killed him had the gun been loaded. He grabbed the chain between the handcuffs and yanked the man past him and the captain gave out a low cry and went tottering off bent over and holding his arm.

  He got the shells out and sat and reloaded the rifle. He reloaded it one shell at a time sweating and wheezing and trying to concentrate. He hadnt known how stupid pain could make you and he thought it should be the other way around or what was the good of it. When he'd got the rifle loaded he picked up the wet rag of a shirt and used it to carry a brand from the fire down to the edge of the tank where he stood holding it out over the water. The water was dead clear in the stone pool and he could see the pistol and he waded out and bent and picked it up and stuck it in his belt. He walked out in the tank till the water was to his thigh which was as deep as it got and he stood there soaking the blood out of his trousers and the fire out of his wounds and talking to his horse. The horse limped down to the edge of the water and stood and he stood in the dark tinaja with the rifle over his shoulder holding the brand above him until it burned out and then he stood holding the crooked orange ember of it, still talking to the horse.

  They left the fire burning
in the tank and rode out down the draw and picked up the Blevins horse and pushed on. The night was overcast to the south the way they'd come and there was rain in the air. He rode Redbo bareback in the fore of their little caravan and he held up from time to time to listen but there was nothing to hear. The fire in the tank behind them was invisible save for the play of it on the rocks of the rincon and as they rode it receded to a faint glow pocketed in the otherwise dark of the desert night and then vanished altogether.

  They rode up out of the wash and went on along the south-facing slope of the ridge, the country dark and silent and without boundary and the tall aloes passing blackly along the ridge one by one. He reckoned it to be some time past midnight. He looked back at the captain from time to time but the captain rode slumped in the saddle on Rawlins' horse and seemed much reduced by his adventures. They rode on. He'd knotted his wet rag of a shirt through his belt and he rode naked to the waist and he was very cold and he told the horse that it was going to be a long night and it was. Sometime in the night he fell asleep. The clatter of the rifle dropping on the rocky ground woke him and he pulled up and turned and rode back. He sat looking down at the rifle. The captain sat Rawlins' horse watching him. He wasnt sure he could get back on the horse and he thought about leaving the rifle there. In the end he slid down and picked up the rifle and then led the horse up along Junior's offside and told the captain to shuck his foot out of the stirrup and he used the stirrup to mount up onto his own horse and they rode on again.