I aint responsible, said Oren.
The man's a horsebuyer.
You remember what the horse was bid in at?
Yeah. I remember.
Just go on then.
Old Oren, Mac said.
Wolfenbarger bought the horse for seventeen hundred dollars.
Fine piece of horseflesh, said Mac. Ought to suit him just about right.
He reached in his pocket and took out a dollar.
Why dont you run get us some Cokes, John Grady.
Yessir.
Oren watched him climb down through the stands.
You think he'd tout you off of a horse as well as he would on?
Yes. I do.
I think he would too.
I wish I had about six more just like him.
You know there's things about a horse he can only say in spanish?
I dont care if he only knows em in greek. Why?
I just thought it was curious. You think he's from San Angelo?
I think he's from wherever he says he's from.
I guess he is.
He learned it out of a book.
Out of a book?
Joaquin says he knows the name of ever bone a horse has got.
Oren nodded. Well, he said. He might at that. I know some things that he didnt learn out of no book.
I do too, said Mac.
The next horse they brought out the auctioneer read from the horse's papers at some length.
I believe this here is a biblical horse, Mac said.
Aint that the truth.
The horse was bid in at a thousand dollars and went to eighteen five and was a no sale. Oren leaned and spat. Man thinks a lot of his horse, he said.
The man does, said Mac.
They trotted in the Welburn horse and Mac bought him for fourteen hundred dollars.
Boys, he said. Let's go home.
You dont want to stick around and spend some more of Wolfenbarger's money?
Wolfenbarger who?
SOCORRO FOLDED and hung her towel, she untied and hung her apron. She turned at the door.
Buenas noches, she said.
Buenas noches, said Mac.
She shut the door. He could hear her winding her old tin clock. A little later he heard the faint ratcheting sound of his father-in-law winding the tallcase clock in the hallway. The glass doorcase closed softly. Then it was quiet. It was quiet in the house and it was quiet in the country about. He sat smoking. The cooling stove ticked. Far away in the hills behind the house a coyote called. When they had used to spend winters at the old house on the southeasternmost section of the ranch the last thing he would hear before he fell asleep at night was the bawl of the train eastbound out of El Paso. Sierra Blanca, Van Horn, Marfa, Alpine, Marathon. Rolling across the blue prairie through the night and on toward Langtry and Del Rio. The white bore of the headlamp lighting up the desert scrub and the eyes of trackside cattle floating in the dark like coals. The herders in the hills standing with their serapes about their shoulders watching the train pass below and the little desert foxes stepping into the darkened roadbed to sniff after it where the warm steel rails lay humming in the night.
That part of the ranch was long gone and the rest would soon follow. He drank the last of his coffee cold in the cup and lit his last cigarette before bed and then he rose from his chair and turned off the light and came back and sat smoking in the dark. A storm front had moved down from the north in the afternoon and it had turned off cold. No rain. Maybe in the eastern sections. Up in the Sacramentos. People imagined that if you got through a drought you could expect a few good years to try and get caught up but it was just like the seven on a pair of dice. The drought didnt know when the last one was and nobody knew when the next one was coming. He was about out of the cattle business anyway. He drew slowly on the cigarette. It flared and faded. His wife would be dead three years in February. Socorro's Candlemas Day. Candelaria. Something to do with the Virgin. As what didnt. In Mexico there is no God. Just her. He stubbed out the cigarette and rose and stood looking out at the softly lit barnlot. Oh Margaret, he said.
JC PULLED UP in front of Maud's and got out and slammed the truck door and he and John Grady went in.
Yonder come two good'ns, said Troy.
They stood at the bar. What'll you boys have, said Travis.
Give us two Blue Ribbons.
He got the bottles out of the cooler and opened them and set them on the bar.
I got it, said John Grady.
I got it, said JC.
He put forty cents on the bar and took the bottle by the neck and swigged down a long drink and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and leaned against the bar.
You put in a hard day in the saddle? said Troy.
I'm mostly a nightrider, said JC.
Billy stood bent over the shuffleboard sliding the puck up and back. He looked at Troy and he looked at JC and then he slid the puck down the hardwood alleyway. The pins at the end swung up and the strike light lit up on the scoreboard and the small bells counted up the score. Troy grinned and put the cigar he was smoking in the corner of his mouth and stepped forward and took the puck and bent over the board.
You want to play?
JC'll play.
You want to play, JC?
Yeah, I'll play. What are we playin for?
Troy scored a strike on the bowling machine and stepped back and popped his fingers.
Me and JC'll play you and Askins.
Askins stood by the machine with one hand in his back pocket and the other holding a beer. Me and Jessie'll play you and Troy, he said.
Billy lit a cigarette. He looked at Askins. He looked at JC.
You and Troy play them, he said.
Go on and play.
You and Troy play. Go on.
What are we playin for? said JC.
I dont care.
Make it light on yourself.
What are we playin for, Troy?
Whatever they want to play for.
We'll play for a dollar.
High rollers. Get your quarters up. Jessie, you in?
I'm in, said Jessie.
Billy sat on the stool at the bar next to John Grady. They watched while the players put their quarters in the machine. The numbers rolled back and the bells chinged. Troy poured powdered wax from a can onto the alley and slid the puck back and forth and bent to shoot. Bowlin school is now open, he said.
Show us somethin.
You'd be surprised what all you can learn from a experienced player.
He slid the puck down the boards. The bells rang. He stepped back and popped his fingers. Things, he said, that will stand you in good stead all your life.
I need to talk to you, said John Grady.
Billy blew smoke across the room. All right, he said.
Let's go back in the back.
All right.
They took their beers and walked to the rear of the place where there were tables and chairs and a bandstand and a polished concrete dancefloor. They kicked back two chairs and sat at one of the tables and set their bottles down. The place was dim and musty.
I'll bet I know what this is about, said Billy.
Yeah. I know.
He sat peeling the label from his beerbottle with his thumbnail while he listened. He didnt even look up at John Grady. John Grady told him about the girl and about the White Lake and about Eduardo and he told him what the blind maestro had said. When he'd finished Billy still hadnt looked up but he'd stopped peeling the beerlabel. He didnt say anything. After a while he took his cigarettes from his pocket and lit one and laid the pack and his lighter on the table.
You are shittin me aint you? he said.
No. I guess I aint.
What the hell's wrong with you? Have you been drinkin paint thinner or somethin?
John Grady pushed his hat back. He looked out across the floor. No, he said.
Let me see if I got this straight. You want me to go to a whoreho
use in Juarez Mexico and buy this whore cash money and bring her back across the river to the ranch. Is that about the size of it?
John Grady nodded.
Shit, said Billy. Smile or somethin, will you? Goddamn. Tell me you aint gone completely crazy.
I aint gone completely crazy.
The hell you aint.
I'm in love with her, Billy.
Billy slumped back in his chair. His arms hung uselessly by his side. Aw goddamn, he said. Goddamn.
I cant help what it sounds like.
My own damn fault. I never should of took you down there. Never in this world. It's my fault. Hell, I dont even know what I'm complainin about.
He leaned and took his lighted cigarette from the tin ashtray where he'd put it and took a pull on it and blew the smoke across the table. He shook his head. Tell me this, he said.
All right.
What in the goddamn hell would you do with her if you did get her away from down there? Which you aint.
Marry her.
Billy paused with the cigarette half way to his mouth. He put it down again.
Well that's it, he said. That's it. I'm havin your ass committed.
I mean it, Billy.
Billy leaned back in the chair. After a while he threw up one hand. I cant believe my goddamn ears. I think I'm the one that's gone crazy. I'm a son of a bitch if I dont. Have you lost your rabbit-assed mind? I'm an absolute son of a bitch, bud. I never in my goddamn life heard the equal of this.
I know. I cant help it.
The hell you cant.
Will you help me?
No and hell no. Do you know what they're goin to do with you? They're goin to hook your head up to one of them machines and throw a big switch and fry your brains to where you wont be a menace to yourself no more.
I mean it, Billy.
You think I dont mean it? I'm goin to help em hook up the wires.
I cant go down there. He knows who I am.
Look at me, son. You're not makin no sense. What the hell kind of people do you think it is you're talkin about? Do you really think you can go down there and dicker with some greaser pimp that buys and sells people outright like you was goin down to the courthouse lawn to trade knives?
I cant help it.
Will you quit sayin that, goddamn it? What the hell do you mean you cant help it?
Just let it go. It's all right.
It's all right? Shit.
He slumped in the chair.
You want another beer?
No, I dont. I want a goddamn quart of whiskey.
I dont blame you for not wantin no part of it.
Well I'm glad as all hell to hear that.
He shook a cigarette out of the pack.
You got one lit, John Grady said.
Billy paid him no mind. You got no money, he said. So I dont know how in the hell you propose to go shoppin for whores.
I'll get it.
Get it where?
I'll get it.
How much were you plannin to offer him?
Two thousand dollars.
Two thousand dollars.
Yeah.
Well. If there was any doubt at all there sure aint now. You've gone completely crazy and that's all there is to be said about it. Aint it?
I dont know.
Well I do. Where in the hell, where in the goddamn hell, do you think you're goin to get two thousand dollars at?
I dont know. I'll get it.
You dont make that in a year.
I know it.
You're in a dangerous frame of mind, son. Did you know that?
Maybe.
I've seen it before. You know you been actin peculiar since you had that wreck? Have you thought about that? Look at me. I'm serious.
I aint crazy, Billy.
Well one of us is. Shit. I blame myself. That's all. Blame myself.
It dont have nothin to do with you.
The hell it dont.
It's all right. Just let it go.
Billy leaned back in his chair. He stared at the two cigarettes burning in the ashtray. After a while he pushed his hat back and passed his hand across his eyes and across his mouth and pulled the hat down again and looked across the room. Out at the bar the shuffleboard bells rang. He looked at John Grady.
How did you ever get in such a mess?
I dont know.
How did you let it get this far?
I dont know. I feel some way like I didnt have nothin to do with it. Like it's just the way it is. Like it always was this way.
Billy shook his head sadly. More craziness, he said. It aint too late, you know.
Yes it is.
It's never too late. You just need to make up your mind.
It's done made up.
Well unmake it. Start again.
Two months ago I'd of agreed with you. Now I know better. There's some things you dont decide. Decidin had nothin to do with it.
They sat for a long time. He looked at John Grady and he looked out across the room. The dusty dancefloor, the empty bandstand. The shapes of a covered drumset. He pushed back his chair and stood and set the chair back carefully at its place at the table and then he turned and walked out across the room and through the bar and out the door.
*
LATE THAT NIGHT lying in his bunk in the dark he heard the kitchen door close and heard the screendoor close after it. He lay there. Then he sat and swung his feet to the floor and got his boots and his jeans and pulled them on and put on his hat and walked out. The moon was almost full and it was cold and late and no smoke rose from the kitchen chimney. Mr Johnson was sitting on the back stoop in his duckingcoat smoking a cigarette. He looked up at John Grady and nodded. John Grady sat on the stoop beside him. What are you doin out here without your hat? he said.
I dont know.
You all right?
Yeah. I'm all right. Sometimes you miss bein outside at night. You want a cigarette?
No thanks.
Could you not sleep either?
No sir. I guess not.
How's them new horses?
I think he done all right.
Them was some boogerish colts I seen penned up in the corral.
I think he's goin to sell off some of them.
Horsetradin, the old man said. He shook his head. He smoked.
Did you used to break horses, Mr Johnson?
Some. Mostly just what was required. I was never a twister in any sense of the word. I got hurt once pretty bad. You can get spooked and not know it. Just little things. You dont hardly even know it.
But you like to ride.
I do. Margaret could outride me two to one though. As good a woman with a horse as I ever saw. Way bettern me. Hard thing for a man to admit but it's the truth.
You worked for the Matadors didnt you?
Yep. I did.
How was that?
Hard work. That's how it was.
I guess that aint changed.
Oh it probably has. Some. I was never in love with the cattle business. It's just the only one I ever knew.
He smoked.
Can I ask you somethin? said John Grady
Ask it.
How old were you when you got married?
I was never married. Never found anybody that'd have me.
He looked at John Grady.
Margaret was my brother's girl. Him and his wife both was carried off in the influenza epidemic in nineteen and eighteen.
I didnt know that.
She never really knowed her parents. She was just a baby. Well, five. Where's your coat at?
I'm all right.
I was in Fort Collins Colorado at the time. They sent for me. I shipped my horses and come back on the train with em. Dont catch cold out here now.
No sir. I wont. I aint cold.
I had ever motivation in the world but I never could find one I thought would suit Margaret.
One what?
Wife. One wife. We finally just
give it up. Probably a mistake. I dont know. Socorro pretty much raised her. She spoke better spanish than Socorro did. It's just awful hard. It liked to of killed Socorro. She still aint right. I dont expect she ever will be.
Yessir.
We tried ever way in the world to spoil her rotten but it didnt take. I dont know why she turned out the way she did. It's just a miracle I guess you could say. I dont take no credit for it, I'll tell you that.
Yessir.
Look yonder. The old man nodded toward the moon.
What?
You cant see em now. Wait a minute. No. They're gone.
What was it?
Birds flyin across the moon. Geese maybe. I dont know.
I didnt see em. Which way were they headed?
Upcountry. Probably headed for that marsh country on the river up around Belen.
Yessir.
I used to love to ride of a night.
I did too.
You'll see things on the desert at night that you cant understand. Your horse will see things. He'll see things that will spook him of course but then he'll see things that dont spook him but still you know he seen somethin.
What sort of things?
I dont know.
You mean like ghosts or somethin?
No. I dont know what. You just knows he sees em. They're out there.
Not just some class of varmint?
No.
Not somethin that will booger him?
No. It's more like somethin he knows about.
But you dont.
But you dont. Yes.
The old man smoked. He watched the moon. No further birds flew. After a while he said: I aint talkin about spooks. It's more like just the way things are. If you only knew it.
Yessir.
We was up on the Platte River out of Ogallala one night and I was bedded down in my soogan out away from the camp. It was a moonlit night just about like tonight. Cold. Spring of the year. I woke up and I guess I'd heard em in my sleep and it was just this big whisperin sound all over and it was geese just by the thousands headed up the river. They passed for the better part of a hour. They blacked out the moon. I thought the herd would get up off the grounds but they didnt. I got up and walked out and stood watchin em and some of the other young waddies in the outfit they had got up too and we was all standin out there in our longjohns watchin. It was just this whisperin sound. They was up high and it wasnt loud or nothin and I wouldnt of thought about somethin like that a wakin us wore out as we was. I had a nighthorse in my string named Boozer and old Boozer he come to me. I reckon he thought the herd'd get up too but they didnt. And they was a snuffy bunch, too.
Did you ever have a stampede?
Yes. We was drivin to Abilene in eighteen and eighty-five. I wasnt much more than a button. And we had got into it with a rep from one of the outfits and he followed us to where we crossed the Red River at Doane's store into Indian Territory. He knew we'd have a harder time gettin our stock back there and we did but we caught the old boy and it was him for you could still smell the coaloil on him. He come by in the night and set a cat on fire and thowed it onto the herd. I mean slung it. Walter Devereaux was comin in off the middle watch and he heard it and looked back. Said it looked like a comet goin out through there and just a squallin. Lord didnt they come up from there. It took us three days to shape that herd back and whenever we left out of there we was still missin forty some odd head lost or crippled or stole and two horses.