Cities of the Plain tbt-3

by Cormac McCarthy

  Where do you think they're goin?

  Hell, who knows.

  Why would anybody lie about goin to Sanderson Texas?

  I dont know.

  They drove on. Rounding a curve with a steep bank to the right of the road there was a sudden white flare and a solid whump of a sound. The truck veered, the tires squealing. When they got stopped they were halfway off the road into the bar ditch.

  What in the hell, said Troy. What in the hell.

  A large owl lay cruciform across the driver's windshield of the truck. The laminate of the glass was belied in softly to hold him and his wings were spread wide and he lay in the concentric rings and rays of the wrecked glass like an enormous moth in a web.

  Billy shut off the engine. They sat looking at it. One of its feet shuddered and drew up into a claw and slowly relaxed again and it moved its head slightly as if to better see them and then it died.

  Troy opened the door and got out. Billy sat looking at the owl. Then he turned off the headlights and got out too.

  The owl was all soft and downy. Its head slumped and rolled. It was soft and warm to the touch and it felt loose inside its feathers. He lifted it free and carried it over to the fence and hung it from the wires and came back. He sat in the truck and turned the lights on to judge if he could drive with the windshield in that condition or whether he might have to kick it out completely. There was a clear place in the lower right corner and he thought he could see if he hunkered down and looked through the windshield there. Troy had walked up the road and was standing taking a leak.

  He started the truck and pulled back onto the road. Troy had walked further up and was sitting in the roadside grass. He drove up and rolled down the window and looked at him.

  What's wrong with you? he said.

  Nothin, Troy said.

  Are you ready to go?

  Yeah.

  He rose and walked around in front of the truck and got in. Billy looked over at him.

  Are you all right?

  Yeah. I'm all right.

  It was just a owl.

  I know. It aint that.

  Well what is it?

  Troy didnt answer.

  He pulled the shiftlever in the floor down into first and let the clutch out. They moved down the highway. He could see pretty well. He could lean over and see through the glass on the other side of the division bar. Are you all right? he said. What is it?

  Troy sat looking out the window at the passing darkness. Just everthing, he said. Just ever goddamned thing. Hell. Dont pay no attention to me. I ought not to drink whiskey in the first place.

  They drove on to Van Horn and stopped for gas and coffee and by then the country that Troy'd grown up in and that he thought he might go back to and where his dead brother was buried was all behind them and it was two oclock in the morning.

  Mac will have a few things to say when he sees the truck.

  Billy nodded. I might be able to run into town and get it fixed in the mornin.

  What do you reckon it'll cost?

  I dont know.

  You want to just split it?

  That would suit me.

  All right.

  You sure you're okay?

  Yeah. I'm all right. I just get to thinkin about things is all.

  Yeah.

  It dont help none though, does it?

  Nope.

  They sat drinking their coffee. Troy shook out a cigarette and lit it and put his cigarettes and his Zippo lighter on the table. How come you had to stop back there?

  I just did.

  You said you had to.

  Yeah.

  What is it? Some sort of religious thing?

  No. It aint nothin like that. It's just that the worst day of my life was one time when I was seventeen years old and me and my budmy brotherwe was on the run and he was hurt and there was a truckload of Mexicans just about like them back yonder appeared out of nowhere and pulled our bacon out of the fire. I wasnt even sure their old truck could outrun a horse, but it did. They didnt have no reason to stop for us. But they did. I dont guess it would of even occurred to em not to. That's all.

  Troy sat looking out the window. Well, he said. That's a pretty good reason.

  Well. It was all the one I needed anyways. You ready?

  Yeah. He drained his cup. I'm ready.

  HE PAID HIS TWO PENNIES at the gate and pushed through the turnstile and went on across the bridge. On the banks of the river under the bridge small boys held up tin buckets nailed to the ends of poles and called out for money. He crossed the bridge into a sea of waiting vendors hustling cheap jewelry, leather goods, blankets. They followed him along for a distance and were spelled by others in a relay of huckstering down Ju++rez Avenue and up Ignacio Mej'a to Santos Degollado where they fell away and watched him go.

  He stood at the end of the bar and ordered a whiskey and propped his foot on the rail and looked across the room at the whores.

  D-nde est++n sus compa-eros? said the barman.

  He raised the glass of whiskey and turned it in his hand. En el cameo, he said. He drank.

  He stood there for two hours. The whores came across the room one by one to solicit him and one by one returned. He didnt ask about her. When he left he'd had five whiskies and he paid for them with a dollar and put another dollar on top of it for the barman. He crossed Ju++rez Avenue and went limping up Mej'a to the Napole-n and took a seat in front of the cafe and ordered a steak. He sat and drank coffee while he waited and he watched the life in the streets. A man came to the door and tried to sell him cigarettes. A man tried to sell him a Madonna made of painted celluloid. A man with a strange device with dials and levers asked him if he wished to electrocute himself. After a while the steak arrived.

  He went again the following night. There were half a dozen soldiers from Fort Bliss there, young recruits, their heads all but shaved. They eyed him drunkenly, they looked at his boots. He stood at the bar and drank three whiskies slowly. She did not appear.

  He walked up Ju++rez Avenue through the hucksters and pimps. He saw a boy selling stuffed armadillos. He saw a tourist drunk laboring up the sidewalk carrying a full suit of armor. He saw a beautiful young woman vomit in the street. Dogs turned at the sound and ran toward her.

  He walked up Tlaxcala and up Mariscal and entered another such place and sat at the bar. The whores came to tug at his arm. He said that he was waiting for someone. After a while he left and walked back to the bridge.

  * * *

  HE'D PROMISED MAC he wouldnt ride the horse again until his ankle was better. Sunday after breakfast he worked the animal in the corral and in the afternoon he saddled Bird and rode up into the Jarillas. Atop a raw rock bluff he sat the horse and studied the country. The flooded saltflats shining in the evening sun seventy miles to the east. The peak of El Capitan beyond. All the high mountains of New Mexico paling away to the north beyond the red plains, the ancient creosote. In the steeply canted light the laddered shadows of the fences looked like railtracks running up the country and doves were crossing below him toward a watertank on the McNew spread. He could see no cattle anywhere in that cowtrodden scrubland. The doves called everywhere and there was no wind.

  When he got back to the house it was dark and by the time he'd unsaddled the horse and put it up and gone to the kitchen Socorro had already cleared away and was washing the dishes. He got a cup of coffee and sat down and she brought him his supper and while he was eating Mac came and stood in the hallway door and lit a cigar.

  You about ready? he said.

  Yessir.

  Take your time. Take your time.

  He walked back up the hallway. Socorro brought the pot from the stove and spooned the last of the caldillo onto his plate. She brought him more coffee and poured a cup for Mac and left it steaming on the far side of the table. When he was done eating he rose and carried his plate and cup to the sink and he poured more coffee and then went to the old cherrywood press hauled overland in a wagon from
Kentucky eighty years ago and opened the door and took out the chess set from among the old cattleman's journals and the halfbound ledgers and leather daybooks and the old green Remington boxes of shotgun shells and rifle cartridges. On the upper shelf a dovetailed wooden box that held brass scaleweights. A leather folder of drawing instruments. A glass horsecarriage that once held candy for a Christmas in the long ago. He shut the door and carried the board and the wooden box to the table and unfolded the board and slid back the lid of the box and spilled out the pieces, carved walnut, carved holly, and set them up. Then he sat drinking his coffee.

  Mac came out and pulled back the chair opposite and sat and dragged the heavy glass ashtray forward from among the bottles of ketchup and hotsauce and laid his cigar in the ashtray and took a sip of the coffee. He nodded toward John Grady's left hand. John Grady opened his hand, he set the pawns on the board.

  I'm white again, said Mac.

  Yessir.

  He moved his pawn forward.

  JC came in and got a cup of coffee from the stove and came to the table and stood.

  Set down, said Mac. You're makin the room untidy.

  That's all right. I aint stayin.

  Better set down, said John Grady. He needs all his powers of concentration.

  You got that right, said Mac.

  JC sat down. Mac studied the board. JC glanced at the pile of white chesspieces at John Grady's elbow.

  Son, you better cut the old man some slack. You might could be replaced with somebody that cowboys better and plays chess worse.

  Mac reached and moved his remaining bishop. John Grady moved his knight. Mac took up his cigar and sat puffing quietly.

  He moved his queen. John Grady moved his other knight and sat back. Check, he said.

  Mac sat studying the board. Damn, he said. After a while he looked up. He turned to JC. You want to play him?

  No sir. He's done made a believer out of me.

  I know the feelin. He's beat me like a rented mule.

  He looked at the wallclock and picked up his cigar again and put it in his teeth. I'll play you one more, he said.

  Yessir, said John Grady.

  Socorro took off her apron and hung it up and stood at the door.

  Goodnight, she said.

  Night Socorro.

  JC rose from his chair. You all want some more coffee?

  They played. When John Grady took the black queen JC pushed back his chair and got up.

  I've tried to tell you, son. There's a cold winter comin.

  He crossed the kitchen and set his cup in the sink and went to the door.

  Night, he said.

  Mac sat quietly studying the board. The cigar lay dead in the ashtray.

  Night, said John Grady.

  He pushed open the door and went out. The screendoor flapped shut. The clock ticked. Mac leaned back. He picked up the cigar stub and then he put it back in the ashtray. I believe I'll concede, he said.

  You could still win.

  Mac looked at him. Bullshit, he said.

  John Grady shrugged. Mac looked at the clock. He looked at John Grady. Then he leaned and carefully turned the board around. John Grady moved Mac's remaining black knight.

  Mac pursed his lips. He studied the board. He moved.

  Five moves later John Grady mated the white king. Mac shook his head. Let's go to bed, he said.

  Yessir.

  He began to put away the pieces. Mac pushed back his chair and picked up the cups.

  What time did Troy and Billy say they'd be back?

  I dont reckon they said.

  How come you not to go with em?

  I just thought I'd stick around here.

  Mac carried the cups to the sink. Did they ask you to go?

  Yessir. I dont need to go everwhere they go.

  He slid the cover shut on the box and folded the board and rose.

  Is Troy fixin to go down there and go to work for his brother?

  I dont know sir.

  He crossed the room and put the chess set back in the press and closed the door and got his hat.

  You dont know or you aint sayin?

  I dont know. If I wasnt sayin I'd of said so.

  I know you would.

  Sir.

  Yes.

  I feel kind of bad about Delbert.

  What do you feel bad about?

  Well. I guess I feel like I took his job.

  Well you didnt. He'd of been gone anyways.

  Yessir.

  You let me run the place. All right?

  Yessir. Goodnight sir.

  Switch on the barnlight yonder.

  I can see all right.

  You could see better with the light on.

  Yessir. Well. It bothers the horses.

  Bothers the horses?

  Yessir.

  He put on his hat and pushed open the door. Mac watched him cross the yard. Then he switched off the kitchen light and turned and crossed the room and went up the hallway. Bothers the horses, he said. Damn.

  WHEN HE GOT UP in the morning and went down to Billy's room to wake him Billy wasnt there. The bed looked slept in and he limped out past the horse stalls and looked across the yard toward the kitchen. Then he went around to the side of the barn where the truck was parked. Billy was sitting in the seat leaning over the steering wheel taking the screws out of the metal sashframe that held the windshield and dropping the screws into the ashtray.

  Mornin cowboy, he said.

  Mornin. What happened to the windshield?

  Owl.

  Owl?

  Owl.

  He took the last screws out and pried up and lifted away the frame and began to pry the edges of the cavedin glass out of the rubber molding with the blade of the screwdriver.

  Walk around and push in on this thing from the outside. Wait a minute. There's some gloves here.

  John Grady pulled on the gloves and hobbled around and pushed on the edges of the glass while Billy pried with the screwdriver. They got the glass worked out of the molding along the bottom and one side and then Billy borrowed the gloves and pulled the whole thing out in one piece and lifted it over the steering wheel and laid it in the floor of the truck on the passenger side.

  What did you do, drive with your head out the window?

  No. I just sort of sat in the middle and looked out the good side.

  He pushed at the windshield wiper lying inside across the dashboard.

  I thought maybe you'd not got in yet.

  We got in around five. What'd you do?

  Nothin much.

  You aint been rodeoin in the barn while I was gone have you? Nope.

  How's your foot?

  It's all right.

  Billy pushed the wiper up on its spring and pried the wiper arm off the capstan with the screwdriver and laid it on the seat.

  You goin to get a new glass for it?

  I'll get Joaqu'n to bring one when he goes in. I dont want the old man to see it if I can help it.

  Hell, anybody could run into a owl.

  I know. But anybody didnt.

  John Grady was leaning through the open window of the standing truck door. He turned and spat and leaned some more. Well, he said. I dont know what that means.

  Billy laid the screwdriver in the seat. I dont either, he said. I dont know why I said it. Let's go in and see if she's got breakfast ready. I could eat the runnin gears of a bull moose.

  When they sat down Oren looked up from his paper and studied John Grady over the tops of his glasses. How's your foot? he said.

  It's all right.

  I'll bet.

  It's all right enough to ride a horse. That's what you wanted to know isnt it?

  Can you get that in a stirrup?

  I dont have to.

  Oren went back to his paper. They ate. After a while he put the paper down and took off his glasses and laid them on the table.

  There's a man sendin a two year old filly out here that he aims to give to hi
s wife. I kept my own counsel on that. He dont know nothin about the horse other than its blood. Or any other horse I reckon probably you could say.

  Is she broke?

  The wife or the horse?

  I'll lay eight to five they aint either one, said JC. Sight unseen.

  I dont know, said Oren. Green broke or some kind of broke. He wants to leave her here two weeks. I said we'd give her all the trainin she was capable of absorbin in that length of time and he seemed satisfied with that.

  All right.

  Billy, are you all workin with us this week?

  I reckon.

  What time did the man say they'd be here? said John Grady. He said after breakfast. JC. You all ready?

  I was born that way.

  Well the day advanceth, said Oren. He put his glasses in his shirtpocket and pushed back his chair.

  THEY PULLED INTO the yard in a pickup truck towing a new single trailer at about eightthirty. John Grady walked out to meet them. The trailer was painted black and had the name of a ranch somewhere up in New Mexico that he'd never heard of painted on the side in gold. The two men unlatching and taking down the gate on the trailer nodded at him and the taller of the two looked briefly around the yard and then they backed the horse down the ramp.

  Where's Oren at? the tall man said.

  John Grady watched the filly. She had a nervous look to her which was all right for a young mare offloaded onto strange terrain. He limped around to see her from the other side. Her eye followed him.

  Walk her around.

  What?

  Walk her around.

  Is Oren here?

  No sir. He's not. I'm the trainer. Just walk her around a minute and let me watch her.

  The man stood for a minute. Then he handed the halter rope to the other man. Walk her around some there, Louis. He looked at John Grady. John Grady was watching the filly.

  What time you expect him back?

  Not till this evenin.

  They watched the little filly walk up and back.

  Are you the trainer sure enough?

  Yessir.

  What is it you're lookin for?

  John Grady studied the filly and he looked at the man. That horse is lame, he said.

  Lame.

  Yessir.

  Shit, the man said.

  The man walking the horse looked back over his shoulder.