John Grady didnt answer. He didnt take his eyes off the man either.
You can do better than that, the man said.
I dont believe I can.
He looked at the man holding the horse. He looked toward the house and he looked at John Grady again. Then he reached to his hip and took out his wallet and opened it and took out a tendollar bill and folded the bill and put the wallet back and tendered the bill toward the boy. Here, he said. Put that in your pocket and dont tell nobody where you got it.
I dont believe I can do that.
Go on.
No sir.
The man's face darkened. He stood holding out the bill. Then he stuck it in the pocket of his shirt.
It wouldnt be no skin off your ass.
John Grady didnt answer. The man turned and spat again.
I didnt have nothin to do with doctorin it thataway if that's what you're thinkin.
I never said you did.
You wouldnt help a man out though, would you?
Not that way I wouldnt.
The man stood looking at John Grady. He spat once more. He looked at the other man and he looked out across the spread.
Let's go, Carl, the other man said. Hell.
They walked the horse back across the lot toward the truck and trailer. John Grady stood watching them. They loaded the horse and raised the gate and shut the doors and latched them. The tall man walked around the side of the truck. Hey kid, he called.
Yessir.
You go to hell.
John Grady didnt answer.
You hear me?
Yessir. I hear you.
Then they got in the truck and turned and drove out across the lot and down the drive.
HE DROPPED THE REINS of his horse in the yard at the kitchen door and went in. Socorro was not in the kitchen and he called her and waited and then went back out. As he was mounting the horse she came to the door. She put her hands to her eyes against the sun. Bueno, she said.
A que hora regresa el Senor Mac?
No se.
He nodded. She watched him. She asked him what time he would be back and he said by dark.
Esperate, she said.
Esta bien.
No. Esperate.
She went in. He sat the horse. The horse stamped at the bare ground and shook its head. All right, he said. We're goin.
When she came back out she had his lunch done up in a cloth and she handed it up to him at the stirrup. He thanked her and reached behind him and put it in the gamepocket of his duckingjacket and nodded and put the horse forward. She watched him ride to the gate and lean and undo the latch and push the gate open horseback and ride through and turn the horse and close the gate horseback and then set off down the road at a jog with the morning sun on his shoulders, his hat pushed back. Sitting very straight in the saddle. The wrapped and bootless foot at one side, the empty stirrup. The herefords and their calves following along the fence and calling after him.
He rode among the half wild cattle in the Bransford pasture all day and a cold wind blew down from the mountains of New Mexico. The cattle trotted off before him or ran with their tails up over the gravel plains among the creosote and he studied them for culls as they went. He was horsetraining as much as he was sorting cattle and the little blue horse he rode had the cuttinghorse's contempt for cows and would closeherd them along the crossfence and bite them. John Grady gave him his head and he cut out a big yearling calf and John Grady roped the calf and dallied but the calf didnt go down. The little horse stood spraddlelegged backed into the rope with the calf standing and twisting at the end of it.
What do you want to do now? he asked the horse.
The horse turned and backed. The calf went bucking.
I guess you think I'm goin to get down and flank that big son of a bitch and me on one leg.
He waited until the calf had bucked itself into a clear space among the creosote and then he put the horse forward at a gallop. He paid the slack rope over the horse's head and overtook the calf on its off side. The calf went trotting. The rope ran from its neck along the ground on the near side and trailed in a curve behind its legs and ran forward up the off side following the horse. John Grady checked his dally and then stood in one stirrup and cleared his other leg of the trailing rope. When the rope snapped taut it jerked the calf's head backward and snatched its hind legs from under it. The calf turned endwise in the air and slammed to the ground in a cloud of dust and lay there.
John Grady was already off the horse and hobbling back along the rope to where the calf lay and he knelt on its head before it could recover and grabbed its hind leg and yanked the pigginstring from his belt and tied it and waited till it quit struggling. Then he leaned and pulled the leg up to take a closer look at the swelling on the inside of its leg that had made it run oddly and caused him to cut it out and rope it in the first place.
The calf had a stob of wood embedded under the skin. He tried to get hold of it with his fingers but it was broken off almost flush. He felt along the length of it and pushed on the end of it with his thumb and tried to feed it forward. He got a bit more of it exposed and finally leaned forward and got hold of it with his teeth and pulled it out. A watery serum ran. He held the stick under his nose and sniffed it and then pitched it away and went back to the horse to get his bottle of Peerless and his swabs. When he turned the calf loose it was running worse than before but he thought it would be all right.
He ate his lunch at noon in an outcropping of lava rock with a view across the floodplain to the north and to the west. There were ancient pictographs among the rocks, engravings of animals and moons and men and lost hieroglyphics whose meaning no man would ever know. The rocks were warm in the sun and he sat sheltered from the wind and watched the silent empty land. Nothing moved. After a while he folded away the wrappings from his lunch and rose and went down and caught the horse.
He was still currying the sweated animal by the light from the barn stall when Billy walked down picking his teeth and stood watching him.
Where'd you go?
Cedar Springs.
You up there all day?
Yep.
The man called that owned that filly.
I figured he would.
He wasnt pissed off or nothin.
He had no reason to be.
He asked Mac if he could get you to look at some horses for him.
Well.
He moved along the horse brushing. Billy watched him. She says she's fixin to throw it out if you dont come.
I'll be there in a minute.
All right.
What did you think about that country down there?
I thought it was some pretty nice country.
Yeah?
I aint goin nowheres. Troy aint either.
John Grady ran the brush down the horse's loins. The horse shuddered. We'll all be goin somewhere when the army takes this spread over.
Yeah, I know it.
Troy aint leavin?
Billy looked at the end of his toothpick and put it back in his mouth. The shadow of a bat come to hunt in the barnlight passed across the horse, across John Grady.
I think he just wanted to see his brother.
John Grady nodded. He leaned with both forearms across the horse and stripped the loose hairs from the brush and watched them drop.
When he entered the kitchen Oren was still at the table. He looked up from his paper and then went back to reading. John Grady went to the sink and washed and Socorro opened the warmer door over the oven and got down a plate.
He sat eating his supper and reading the news on the back side of Oren's paper across the table.
What's a plebiscite? said Oren.
You got me.
After a while Oren said: Dont be readin the back of the paper.
What?
I said dont be readin the back of the paper.
All right.
He folded the paper and slid it across the table and raised his coff
ee and sipped it.
How did you know I was readin the back of the paper?
I could feel it.
What's wrong with it?
Nothin. It just makes me nervous is all. It's a bad habit people got. If you want to read a man's paper you ought to ask him.
All right.
The man that owned that filly you wouldnt have on the property called out here tryin to hire you.
I already got a job.
I think he just wanted you to ride out to Fabens with him to look at a horse.
John Grady nodded. That aint what he wants.
Oren watched him. That's what Mac said.
Or it aint all he wants.
Oren lit a cigarette and laid the pack back on the table. John Grady ate.
What did Mac say?
Said he'd tell you.
Well. I been told.
Hell, call the man. You could do a little horsetradin on the weekend. Make yourself some money.
I guess I dont know how to work for but one man at a time.
Oren smoked. He watched the boy.
I went up to Cedar Springs. Worked them scrubs up there.
I wasnt askin.
I know it. I took that little blue horse of Watson's.
How did he do?
I thought he done awful good. Not braggin or nothin. He was a good horse fore I ever put a saddle on him.
You could of bought that horse.
I know it.
What didnt you like about him?
There wasnt nothin I didnt like about him.
You wont buy him now.
Nope.
He finished eating and wiped his plate with the last piece of tortilla and ate that and pushed the plate back and drank his coffee and set the cup down and looked at Oren.
He's just a good all around horse. He aint a finished horse but I think he'll make a cow horse.
I'm pleased to hear it. Of course your preference is for one that'll bow up like a bandsaw and run head first into the barn wall.
John Grady smiled. Horse of my dreams, he said. It aint exactly like that.
How is it then?
I dont know. I think it's just somethin you like. Or dont like. You can add up all of a horse's good points on a sheet of paper and it still wont tell you whether you'll like the horse or not.
What about if you add up all his bad ones?
I dont know. I'd say you'd probably done made up your mind at that point.
You think there's horses so spoiled you cant do nothin with em?
Yes I do. But probably not as many as you might think.
Maybe not. You think a horse can understand what a man says?
You mean like the words?
I dont know. Like can he understand what he says.
John Grady looked out the window. Water was beaded on the glass. Two bats were hunting in the barnlight. No, he said. I think he can understand what you mean.
He watched the bats. He looked at Oren.
I guess my feelin about a horse is that he mostly worries about what he dont know. He likes to be able to see you. Barring that, he likes to be able to hear you. Maybe he thinks that if you're talkin you wont be doin somethin else he dont know about.
You think horses think?
Sure. Dont you?
Yes I do. Some people claim they dont.
Well. Some people could be wrong.
You think you can tell what a horse is thinkin?
I think I can tell what he's fixin to do.
Generally.
John Grady smiled. Yeah, he said. Generally.
Mac always claimed a horse knows the difference between right and wrong.
Mac's right.
Oren smoked. Well, he said. That's always been a bit much for me to swallow.
I think if they didnt you couldnt even train one.
You dont think it's just gettin em to do what you want?
I think you can train a rooster to do what you want. But you wont have him. There's a way to train a horse where when you get done you've got the horse. On his own ground. A good horse will figure things out on his own. You can see what's in his heart. He wont do one thing while you're watchin him and another when you aint. He's all of a piece. When you've got a horse to that place you cant hardly get him to do somethin he knows is wrong. He'll fight you over it. And if you mistreat him it just about kills him. A good horse has justice in his heart. I've seen it.
You got a lot higher opinion of horses than I got, Oren said.
I really dont have all that much in the way of opinions where horses are concerned. When I was a kid I thought I knew all there was to know about a horse. Where horses are concerned I've just got dumber and dumber.
Oren smiled.
If a man really understood horses, John Grady said. If a man really understood horses he could just about train one by lookin at it. There wouldnt be nothin to it. My way is a long way from workin one over with a tracechain. But it's a long way from what's possible too.
He stretched his legs out. He crossed the sprained foot over his boot.
You're right about one thing, he said. They're mostly ruint before they ever bring em out here. They're ruined at the first saddle. Before that, even. The best horses are the ones been around kids. Or maybe even just a wild horse in off the range that's never even seen a man. He's got nothin to unlearn.
You might have a hard time gettin anyone to agree with you on that last one.
I know it.
You ever break a wild horse?
Yeah. You hardly ever train one though.
Why not?
People dont want em trained. They just want em broke. You got to train the owner.
Oren leaned and stubbed out his cigarette. I hear you, he said.
John Grady sat studying the smoke rising into the lampshade over the table. That probably aint true what I said about the one that aint never seen a man. They need to see people. They need to just see em around. Maybe what they need is to just think people are trees until the trainer comes along.
IT WAS STILL LIGHT OUT, a gray light with the rain falling in the streets again and the vendors huddled in the doorways looking out at the rain without expression. He stomped the water from his boots and entered and crossed to the bar and took off his hat and laid it on the barstool. There were no other customers. Two whores lounging on a sofa watched him without much interest. The barman poured his whiskey.
He described the girl to the barman but the barman only shrugged and shook his head.
Eres muy joven.
He shrugged again. He wiped the bar and leaned back and took a cigarette from his shirtpocket and lit it. John Grady motioned for another whiskey and doled his coins onto the counter. He took his hat and his glass over to the sofa and queried the whores but they only tugged at his clothing and asked him to buy them a drink. He looked into their faces. Who they might be behind the caked sizing and the rouge, the black greasepaint lining their dark indian eyes. They seemed alien and sad. Like madwomen dressed for an outing. He looked at the neon deer hanging on the wall behind them and the garish tapestries of plush, of foil and braid. He could hear the rain on the roof to the rear and the steady small drip of water falling from the ceiling into puddles in the bloodred carpeting. He drained his whiskey and set the glass on the low table and put on his hat. He nodded to them and touched the brim of his hat to go.
Joven, said the oldest.
Si.
She looked furtively about but there was no one there to hear.
Ya no esta, she said.
He asked where she had gone but they did not know. He asked if she would return but they did not think so.
He touched his hat again. Gracias, he said.
Andale, said the whores.
At the corner a sturdy cabdriver in a blue suit of polished serge hailed him. He held an antique umbrella, rare to see in that country. One of the panels between the ribs had been replaced by a sheet of blue cellophane and under it the driver's f
ace was blue. He asked John Grady if he wanted to go see the girls and he said that he did.
They drove through the flooded and potholed streets. The driver was slightly drunk and commented freely on pedestrians that crossed before them or that stood in the doorways. He commented on aspects of their character deducible from their appearance. He commented on crossing dogs. He talked about what the dogs thought and where they might be going and why.
They sat at a whorehouse bar on the outskirts of the city and the driver pointed out the virtues of the various whores that were in the room. He said that men out for an evening were often likely to accept the first proposal but that the prudent man would be more selective. That he would not be misled by appearances. He said that it was best to move freely where whores were concerned. He said that in a healthy society choice should always be the prerogative of the buyer. He turned to regard the boy with dreamy eyes.
De acuerdo? he said.
Claro que si, said John Grady.
They drank up and moved on. Outside it was dark and in the streets the colored lights lay slurred and faintly peened in the fine rain. They sat at the bar of an establishment called the Red Cock. The driver saluted with his glass aloft and drank. They studied the whores.
I can take you some other places, the driver said. Maybe she is go home.
Maybe.
Maybe she is get married. Sometimes these girls is get married.
I seen her down here two weeks ago.
The driver reflected. He sat smoking. John Grady finished his drink and rose. Vamos a regresar a La Venada, he said.
In the Calle de Santos Degollado he sat at the bar and waited. After a while the driver returned and leaned and whispered to him and then looked about with studied caution.
You must talk to Manolo. Manolo only can give us this information.
Where is he?
I take you to him. I take you. It is arrange. You have to pay.
John Grady reached for his wallet. The driver stayed his arm. He looked toward the barman. Afuera, he said. No podemos hacerlo aqui.
Outside he again reached for his billfold but the driver said for him to wait. He looked about theatrically. Es peligroso, he hissed.
They got into the cab.
Where is he? said John Grady.
We go to him now. I take you.
He started the engine and they pulled away down the street and turned right. They drove half way up the block and turned again and pulled into an alley and parked. The driver cut the engine and switched off the lights. They sat in the darkness. They could hear a radio in the distance. They could hear rainwater from the canales dripping in the puddles in the alley. After a while a man appeared and opened the rear door of the cab and got in.