They passed through the outskirts of the city and she could see the river to the left through the river trees and the tall buildings of the city beyond that were in another country and the barren mountains where the sun would soon fall upon the rocks. They passed the old abandoned municipal buildings. Rusted watertanks in a yard strewn with trashpapers the wind had left. The sudden thin iron palings of a fence that ratcheted silently past the window from right to left and which in their passing and in the period of their passing began to evoke the dormant sorcerer within before she could tear her gaze away. She put her hands to her eyes, breathing deeply. In the darkness inside the cups of her palms she saw herself on a cold white table in a cold white room. The glass of the doors and the windows to that room were meshed with heavy wire and clamoring there were whores and whores' handmaids many in number and all crying out to her. She sat upright on the table and threw back her head as if she would cry out or as if she would sing. Like some young diva remanded to a madhouse. No sound came. The cold pneuma passed. She should have called it back. When she opened her eyes the cab had turned off the road and was jostling over a bare dirt track and the driver was watching her in the mirror. She looked out but she could not see the bridge. She could see the river through the trees and the mist coming off the river and the raw rock mountains beyond but she could not see the city. She saw a figure moving among the trees by the river. She asked the driver if they were to cross here to the other side and he said yes. He said that she would be going to the other side now. Then the cab pulled into the clearing and came to a stop and when she looked what she saw coming toward her across the clearing in the earliest light of morning was the smiling Tiburcio.
HE'D LEFT THE RANCH around five and driven to the darkened front of the bar where he could see the dimly lit face of the clock within. He backed the truck around on the gravel apron so that he could watch the road and he tried not to turn around to look at the clock every few minutes but he did.
Few cars passed. Shortly after six oclock a set of headlights slowed and he sat upright over the steering wheel and cleared the glass with the forearm of his jacket but the lights went past and the car was not a taxi but a sheriff's prowlcar. He thought they might come back and ask him what he was doing there but they didnt. It was very cold sitting in the truck and after a while he got out and walked around and flailed at himself with his arms and stamped his boots. Then he got back in the truck. The bar clock said six-thirty. When he looked to the east he could see the gray shape of the landscape.
The lights of the gas station a half mile down the highway went out. A truck went down the highway. He wondered if he could drive down there and get a cup of coffee before the cab arrived. By eight-thirty he'd decided that if that was what it would take to make the cab arrive then that's what he would do and he started the engine. Then he shut it off again.
A half hour later he saw Travis's truck go by on the highway. In a few minutes it came back and slowed and pulled into the parking lot. John Grady rolled down the truck window. Travis pulled up and sat looking at him. He leaned and spat.
What'd they do, give you your time?
Not yet.
I thought maybe the truck was stole. You ain't broke down are you?
No. I was just waitin on somebody.
How long you been here?
I been here a while.
Has that thing got a heater in it?
Not much of a one.
Travis shook his head. He looked toward the highway. John Grady leaned and cleared the glass again with his sleeve. I better get on, he said.
Are you in some kind of trouble?
Yeah. Maybe.
Over a girl, I reckon.
Yeah.
They aint worth it, son.
I've heard that.
Well. Dont do nothin dumb.
It's probably too late.
It aint too late if you aint done it.
I'm all right.
He reached and turned the key and pushed the starter button. He turned and looked at Travis. I'll see you, he said.
He pulled out of the parking lot and headed back up the highway. Travis sat watching the truck until it was out of sight.
IV
WHEN HE got to the cafe in the Calle de Noche Triste the place was full and the girl was hurrying back and forth with orders of eggs and baskets of tortillas. She didnt know anything. She'd only come to work an hour ago. He followed her into the kitchen. The cook looked up from the stove and looked at the girl. Quien es? he said. The girl shrugged. She looked at John Grady. She balanced plates up her arm and pushed back out through the door. The cook didnt know anything. He said the waiter's name was Felipe but he wasnt here. He wouldnt be back until late afternoon. John Grady watched him for a few minutes while he turned the tortillas on the grill with his fingers. Then he pushed open the door and went back out through the restaurant.
He followed the trail of the cabdriver through the various sidestreet bars where he plied his trade. Bars where patrons from the prior night clutched their drinks and squinted in the light from the opening door like suspects under interrogation. He narrowly avoided two fights for refusing to accept a drink. He went to the Venada and knocked at the door but no one came. He stood outside the Moderno peering into the interior but all was closed and dark.
He went to the poolhall in Mariscal Street that was frequented by the musicians and where their instruments hung along the wall, guitars and mandolins and horns of brass or german silver. A mexican harp. He asked after the maestro but none had seen him. By noon he had nowhere else to go but to the White Lake. He sat in a cafe over a cup of black coffee. He sat for a long time. There was another place to go but he didnt want to go there either.
A dwarf of a man in a white coat led him down a corridor. The building smelled of damp concrete. Outside he could hear street traffic, a jackhammer.
The man pushed through a door at the end of the corridor and held the door and nodded him through and then reached and threw the lightswitch. The boy took off his hat. They stood in a room where the recent dead four in number lay on their coolingboards. The boards were trestled up on legs made from plumbing pipe and the dead lay upon them with their hands at their sides and their eyes closed and their necks in dark stained wooden chocks. None were covered over but all lay in their clothes as death had found them. They had the look of rumpled travelers resting in an anteroom. He walked along slowly past the tables. The overhead ceiling lights were covered with small wire baskets. The walls were painted green. In the floor a brass drain. Bits of gray mopstring twisted about the castered wheels under the tables.
The girl to whom he'd sworn his love forever lay on the last table. She lay as the rushcutters had found her that morning in the shallows under the shore willows with the mist rising off the river. Her hair damp and matted. So black. Hung with strands of dead brown weed. Her face so pale. The severed throat gaping bloodlessly. Her good blue dress was twisted about on her body and her stockings were torn. She'd lost her shoes.
There was no blood for it had all washed away. He reached and touched her cheek. Oh God, he said.
La conoce? said the orderly.
Oh God.
La conoce?
He leaned on the table, crushing his hat. He put his hand across his eyes, gripping his skull. Had he the strength he'd have crushed out all it held. What lay before him now and all else it might hold forever.
Senor, said the orderly, but the boy turned and pushed past him and stumbled out. The man called after him. He stood in the door and called down the hallway. He said that if he knew this girl he must make an identification. He said that there were papers to be filled out.
THE CATTLE in the long Cedar Springs Draw up through which he rode studied him as they stood chewing and then lowered their heads again. The rider knew they could tell his intentions by the attitude of the horse he rode. He passed on and rode up into the hills and crested out on the mesa and rode slowly along the rim. He sat the
horse facing into the wind and watched the train going up the valley fifteen miles away. To the south the thin green line of the river lay like a child's crayon mark across that mauve and bistre waste. Beyond that the mountains of Mexico in paling blues and grays washing out in the distance. The grass along the mesa underfoot twisted in the wind. A dark head of weather was making up to the north. The little horse dipped its head and he pulled it about and rode on. The horse seemed uncertain and looked off to the west. As if to remember the way. The boy booted him forward. You dont need to worry about it, he said.
He crossed the highway and crossed through the westernmost section of the McGregor ranch. He rode through country he'd not seen before. In the early afternoon he came upon a rider sitting his horse with his hands crossed loosely over the pommel of his saddle. The horse was a goodlooking black gelding with a savvy look to its eye. It was ochred to the knees from the dust of that country and the rig was an old rimfire outfit with visalia stirrups and a flat saddlehorn the size of a coffeesaucer. The rider was chewing tobacco and he nodded as John Grady rode up. Can I help you? he said.
John Grady leaned and spat. Meanin I aint supposed to be on your land, he said. He looked at the rider. A man a few years older than he. The rider studied him back with his pale blue eyes.
I work for Mac McGovern, John Grady said. I reckon you know him.
Yes, the rider said. I know him. You all got stock drifted up this way?
No. Not that I know of. I just kindly drifted up this way myself.
The rider pushed the brim of his hat back slightly with his thumb. They were met upon a clay floodplain bereft of grass or any growing thing and the only sound the wind made was in their clothes. The dark clouds stood banked in a high wall to the north and a thin and soundless wire of lightning appeared there and quivered and vanished again. The rider leaned and spat and waited.
I was supposed to get married in two days' time, the boy said.
The rider nodded but the boy said no more.
I take it you changed your mind.
The boy didnt answer. The rider looked off to the north and looked back again.
We might get some rain out of that.
We might. It's rained over in town the last two nights.
Have you had your dinner?
No. I guess I aint.
Why dont you come on to the house.
I better get on back.
I reckon she changed hers.
The boy looked away. He didnt answer.
There'll be anothern along directly. You'll see.
No there wont.
Why dont you come on to the house and take dinner with us.
I appreciate it. I need to get back.
You remind me some of myself. Get somethin on your mind and just ride.
John Grady sat loosely holding the reins. He looked a long time out at the running country before he spoke. When he did speak the rider had to lean to catch his words. I wish I could ride, he said. I wish I could.
The rider wiped the corners of his mouth with the heel of his thumb. Maybe you'd better ought not to go back just yet, he said. Maybe you ought to just wait a little while.
I'd ride and I'd never look back. I'd ride to where I couldnt find a single day I ever knew. Even if I was to turn back and ride over ever foot of that ground. Then I'd ride some more.
I've been thataway, said the rider.
I better get on.
You sure you wont change your mind? We feed pretty good.
No. I thank you.
Well.
I hope you get that rain up here.
I appreciate it.
He turned the horse and set out south down the broad floodplain. The rider turned his own horse and started back upcountry but he stopped before he'd gone far. He sat the horse and watched the boy riding out down the broad valley and he watched him for a long time. When he could see him no more he raised himself slightly in the stirrups. As if he might call after him. The boy never looked back. When he was gone the rider stayed a while yet. He'd dropped the reins and he sat with one leg crossed over the fork of the saddle and he pushed back his hat and leaned and spat and studied the country. As if it ought to have something to tell him for that figure having passed through it.
IT WAS LATE EVENING and almost dark when he rode the horse through the ford and dismounted under the cottonwoods in the glade at the far side. He let drop the reins and crossed to the cabin and pushed open the door. Inside it was dark and he stood in the doorway and looked back out at the evening. The darkening land. The sky to the west blood red where the sun had gone and the small dark birds blowing down before the storm. The wind in the flue moaned with a long dry sound. He went into the bedroom and stood. He got a match and lit the lamp and turned down the wick and put back the glass chimney and sat on the bed with his hands between his knees. The carved wooden santo leered from the shadows. His own shadow from the lamp rose up the wall behind him. A hulking shape which looked no description of him at all. After a while he took off his hat and let it drop to the floor and lowered his face into his hands.
When he rode out again it was dark and windy and starless and cold and the sacaton grass along the creek thrashed in the wind and the small bare trees he passed hummed like wires. The horse quivered and stepped and raised the flues of its nose to the wind. As if to sort what there might be in the coming storm that was not storm alone. They crossed the creek and set out down the old road. He thought he heard a fox bark and he looked for it along the rimrock skylined above the road to the left. Evenings in Mexico he used to see them come out and walk the traprock dikes above the plains for the vantage of the view there. To spy out what smaller life might venture forth in the dusk. Or they would simply sit upon those godlaid walls in silhouette like icons out of Egypt, silent and still against the deepening sky, sufficient to all that might be asked of them.
He'd left the lamp burning in the cabin and the softly lit window looked warm and inviting. Or it would have to other eyes. For himself he was done with all that and after he'd crossed the creek and taken the road he had to take he did not look back again.
When he rode into the yard it was raining lightly and he could see them all at supper through the rainbleared glass of the kitchen window. He rode on toward the barn and then halted the horse and looked back. He thought it was like seeing these people in some other time before he'd ever come to the ranch. Or they were like people in some other house of whose lives and histories he knew nothing. Mostly they all just seemed to be waiting for things to be a way they'd never be again.
He rode into the barn and dismounted and left the horse standing there and went to his room. The horses looked out over the stall doors and watched him as he passed. He did not turn on the light. He got his flashlight from the shelf and knelt and opened the footlocker and rummaged out his slicker and a dry shirt and he got the huntingknife that had belonged to his father from the bottom of the locker and the brown envelope that held his money and laid them on the bed. Then he stripped out of his shirt and put on the dry shirt and pulled on the slicker and put the huntingknife in the slicker pocket. He took some bills from the envelope and put the envelope back in the locker and closed the lid. Then he switched off the flashlight and set it back on the shelf and went out again.
When he reached the end of the road he dismounted and tied the reins together over the saddlehorn and led the horse a ways back up the road sliding in the mud and then let go the cheekstrap and stepped away and slapped the horse on the rump and stood watching as it trotted off up the road in the heavy muck to disappear in the rain and the dark.
The first lights that picked him up standing by the side of the highway slowed and stopped. He opened the car door and looked in.
My boots are awful muddy, he said.
Get in here, the man said. You cant hurt this thing.
He climbed in and pulled the door shut. The driver put the car in gear and leaned forward and squinted out at the road. I cant see at night
worth a damn, he said. What are you doin out in the rain like this?
You mean aside from gettin wet?
Aside from gettin wet.
I just needed to get to town.
The driver looked at him. He was an old rancher, lean and rawboned. He wore the crown of his hat round the way some old men used to do. Damn, son, he said. You a desperate case.
It aint nothin like that. I just got some business to attend to.
Well I reckon it must be somethin that wont keep or you wouldnt be out here, would you?
No sir. I wouldnt.
Well I wouldnt either. It's a half hour past my bedtime right now.
Yessir.
Errand of mercy.
Sir?
Errand of mercy. I got a animal down.
He was bent over the wheel and the car was astraddle of the white center line. He looked at the boy. I'll get over if anything comes, he said. I know how to drive. I just cant see.
Yessir.
Who you work for?
Mac McGovern.
Old Mac. He's one of the good'ns. Aint he?
Yessir. He is.
You'd wear out a Ford pickup truck findin a better.
Yessir. I believe I would.
Got a mare down. Young mare. Tryin to foal.
You leave anybody with her?
My wife's at the house. At the barn, I should say.
They drove. The rain slashed over the road in the lights and the wipers rocked back and forth over the glass.
We'll be married sixty years April twenty-second.
That's a long time.
Yes it is. It dont seem like it, but it is. She come out here with her family from Oklahoma in a covered wagon. Got married we was both seventeen. We went to Dallas to the exposition on our honeymoon. They didnt want to rent us a room. Didnt neither one of us look old enough to be married. There aint been a day passed in sixty years I aint thanked God for that woman. I never done nothin to deserve her, I can tell you that. I dont know what you could do.