Puedes caminar? she said.
No, said the girl.
No? Es mentira. Es una broma. No?
No, said the girl.
The criada made a shooing motion. The girl stepped archly about the room on the tall gold spikes of the slippers.
Te mortifican? said the criada.
Claro.
She stood again before the mirror. The old woman stood behind her. When she blinked only the one eye closed. So that she appeared to be winking in some suggestive complicity. She brushed the gathered hair with her hand, she plucked the shoulders of the sleeves erect.
Como una princesa, she whispered.
Como una puta, said the girl.
The criada seized her by the arm. She hissed at her, her eye glaring in the lamplight. She told her that she would marry a great rich man and live in a fine house and have beautiful children. She told her that she had known many such cases.
QuiZn? said the girl.
Muchas, hissed the criada. Muchas. Girls, she told her, with no such beauty as hers. Girls with no such dignity or grace. The girl did not answer. She looked across the old woman's shoulder into the eyes in the glass as if it were some sister there who weathered stoically this beleaguerment of her hopes. Standing in the gaudy boudoir that was itself a tawdry emulation of other rooms, other worlds. Regarding her own false arrogance in the pierglass as if it were proof against the old woman's entreaties, the old woman's promises. Standing like some maid in a fable spurning the offerings of the hag which do conceal within them unspoken covenants of corruption. Claims that can never be quit, estates forever entailed. She spoke to that girl standing in the glass and she said that one could not know where it was that one had taken the path one was upon but only that one was upon it.
Mande? said the criada. Cu++l senda?
Cualquier senda. Esta senda. La senda que escoja.
But the old woman said that some have no choice. She said that for the poor any choice was a gift with two faces.
She was kneeling in the floor repinning the hem of the dress. She'd taken the pins from her mouth and now she laid them on the carpet and took them up one by one. The girl watched her image in the glass. The old woman's gray head bowed at her feet. After a while she said that there was always a choice, even if that choice were death.
Cielos, said the old woman. She blessed herself quickly and went on pinning.
When she entered the salon he was standing at the bar. The musicians were assembling their pieces on the dais and tuning them and the few notes or chords sounded in the quiet of the room as if some ceremony were at hand. Within the shadows of the niche beyond the dais Tiburcio stood smoking, his fingers laced about the thin niellate ebony holder of his cigarette. He looked at the girl and he looked toward the bar. He watched the boy turn and pay and take up his glass and come down the broad stairs where the velvetcovered rope railings led into the salon. He blew smoke slowly from his thin nostrils and then he opened the door behind him. The brief light framed him in silhouette and his long thin shadow fell briefly across the floor of the salon and then the door closed again as if he had not been there at all.
Est++ peligroso, she whispered.
C-mo?
Peligroso. She looked around the salon.
Ten'a que verte, he said.
He took her hands in his but she only looked in anguish toward the door where Tiburcio had been standing. She took hold of his wrists and begged him to leave. A waiter glided forth from the shadows.
Est++s loco, she whispered. Loco.
Tienes raz-n.
She took his hand and rose. She turned and whispered to the waiter. John Grady rose and put money in the waiter's hand and turned toward her.
Debemos irnos, she said. Estamos perdidos.
He said that he would not. He said that he would not do that again and that she must meet him but she said that it was too dangerous. That now it was too dangerous. The music had begun. A long low chord from the cello.
Me matar++, she whispered.
QuiZn?
She only shook her head.
QuiZn, he said. QuiZn to matar++?
Eduardo.
Eduardo.
She nodded. S', she said. Eduardo.
HE DREAMT THAT NIGHT of things he'd heard and that were so although she'd never spoke of them. In a room so cold his breath smoked and where the corrugated steel walls were hung with bunting and a scaffolding covered with cheap red carpet rose in tiers for the folding slatwood chairs of the spectators. A raw wooden stage trimmed like a fairground float and BX cable running to a boom overhead made from galvanized iron pipe that held floodlights covered each in cellophanes of red and green and blue. Curtains of calendered velour in loops as red as blood.
The tourists sat in chairs with operaglasses hanging from their necks while waiters took their orders for drinks. When the lights dimmed the master of ceremonies strode onto the boards and doffed his hat and bowed and smiled and held up his whitegloved hands. In the wings the alcahuete stood smoking and behind him milled a great confusion of obscene carnival folk, painted whores with their breasts exposed, a fat woman in black leather with a whip, a pair of youths in ecclesiastical robes. A priest, a procurers, a goat with gilded horns and hooves who wore a ruff of purple crepe. Pale young debauchees with rouged cheeks and blackened eyes who carried candles. A trio of women holding hands, gaunt and thin as the inmates of a spitalhouse and attired the three alike in the same cheap finery, their faces daubed in fard and pale as death. At the center of all a young girl in a white gauze dress who lay upon a palletboard like a sacrificial virgin. Arranged about her are artificial flowers that appear in their varied pale and pastel colors to be faded from the sun. As if perhaps replevined from some desert grave. Music has begun. Some ancient rondel, faintly martial. There is a periodic click in the piece from a scratch in the black bakelite plate turning under a stylus somewhere behind the curtains. The houselights dim till just the stage is lit. Chairs shuffle. A few coughs. The music fades until only the whisper of the stylus remains, the periodic click like a misset metronome, a clock, a portent. A measure of something periodic and otherwise silent and vastly patient which only darkness could accommodate.
When he woke it was not from this dream but from another and the pathway from dream to dream was lost to him. He was alone in some bleak landscape where the wind blew without abatement and where the presence of those who had gone before still lingered on in the darkness about. Their voices carried back to him, or perhaps the echo of those voices. He lay listening. It was the old man wandering the yard in his nightclothes and John Grady swung his legs over the side of the bunk and reached and got his trousers and pulled them on and stood and buckled his belt and reached and got his boots. When he went out Billy was standing in the doorway in his shorts.
I'll get him, said John Grady.
That's pitiful, Billy said.
He caught him going past the corner of the barn and on to God knows where. He had on his hat and his boots and dressed in these and his long white unionsuit he looked like the ghost of some ancient waddy wandering there.
John Grady took him by the arm and they started for the house. Come on, Mr Johnson, he said. You dont need to be out here.
The light had come on in the kitchen and Socorro was standing in the door in her robe. The old man stopped again in the yard and turned and looked again toward the darkness. John Grady stood holding his elbow. Then they went on to the house.
Socorro swung the screendoor wide. She looked at John Grady. The old man steadied himself with one hand against the doorjamb and entered the kitchen. He asked Socorro if she had any coffee. As if that was what he'd been in search oPS
Yes, she said. I fix some coffee.
He's all right, said John Grady.
Quieres un cafecito?
No gracias.
P++sale, she said. P++sale. Puedes encontrar sus pantalones?
S'. S'.
He helped the old man to a chair at the t
able and went on down the hallway. Mac's light was on and he was standing in the door.
Is he all right?
Yessir. He's all right.
He went on to the end of the hall and entered the room on the left and got the old man's britches off the bedpost where he'd hung them. The pockets were weighted with change, with a pocketknife, a billfold. With a ring of keys to doors long since forgotten. He came back down the hallway holding them by the belt. Mac was still standing in the doorway. He was smoking a cigarette.
He aint got any clothes on?
Just his longjohns.
He'll take off out of here one of these nights naked as a jaybird. Socorro'll quit us for sure.
She wont quit.
I know it.
What time is it, Sir?
It's after five. Damn near time to get up anyways.
Yessir.
Would you mind settin with him a bit?
No Sir.
Make him feel better about it. Like he was gettin up anyways.
Yessir. I will.
You didnt know you'd hired on at a loonyfarm, did you?
He aint loony. He's just old.
I know it. Go on. Fore he catches cold. Them old dropseats he wears are probably drafty to set around in.
Yessir.
He sat with the old man and drank coffee until Oren came in. Oren looked at them but he didnt say anything. Socorro fixed breakfast and brought the eggs and biscuits and chorizo sausage and they ate. When John Grady took his plate to the sideboard and went out it was just breaking day. The old man was still sitting at the table in his hat. He'd been born in east Texas in eighteen sixtyseven and come out to this country as a young man. In his time the country had gone from the oil lamp and the horse and buggy to jet planes and the atomic bomb but that wasnt what confused him. It was the fact that his daughter was dead that he couldnt get the hang of.
THEY SAT IN THE FRONT ROW Of the bleachers near the auctioneer's table and Oren leaned forward from time to time to spit carefully over the top boards into the dust of the arena. Mac had a small notebook in his shirtpocket and he took it out and consulted his notes and put it back again and then he took it out and sat holding it in his hand.
Did we look at this little horse? he said.
Yessir, said John Grady.
He studied his notebook again.
He said it was Davis but it aint.
1 107
No Sir.
Bean, said Oren. It's a Bean horse.
I know what horse it is, said Mac.
The auctioneer blew into the microphone. The speakers were hung from the lightstandards at the far end of the arena and his voice quavered and echoed high in the auction barn.
Ladies and gentlemen a correction on that. This horse is entered by Mr Ryle Bean.
The bidding was started at five hundred. Someone at the far side of the arena touched the brim of his hat and the spotter raised one hand and turned and the auctioneer said now six now six I have six who'll give me seven seven seven. Seven now.
Oren leaned and spat thoughtfully into the dust. Over yonder's your buddy, he said.
I see him, said John Grady.
Who's that? said Mac.
Wolfenbarger.
Does he see us?
Yeah, said Oren. He sees us.
Did you know who that was, John Grady?
Yessir. He come out one afternoon.
I thought you wouldnt talk to him.
I didnt.
Just pretend like he aint even here.
Yessir.
When was he out?
Last week. I dont know. Wednesday maybe.
Just dont pay no attention to him.
Yessir. I aint.
I got more to do than worry about him.
Yessir.
Eighty, seveneighty, called the auctioneer. Will you do it. The man wont take less.
The rider rode the horse around the arena. He crossed diagonally and stopped and backed.
That's a good usin horse and a good ropin horse, the auc?tioneer said. The horse is worth a thousand dollars. All right now. I've got eight got eight got eight. Eight and a half now. Eightfifty eightfifty eightfifty.
The horse sold for eight and a quarter and they brought in an Arabian mare that sold for seventeen. Mac watched them lead her back out again.
I wouldnt have that crazy bitch on the place, he said.
They auctioned off a flashy palomino gelding that brought thirteen hundred dollars. Mac looked up from his notes. Where the hell do people get that kind of money? he said.
Oren shook his head.
Did Wolfenbarger bid on him?
You said not to look over there.
I know it. Did he?
Yep.
He didnt buy him though, did he.
No.
I thought you wasnt goin to look over there.
I didnt have to. He was wavin his hand like the place had caught fire.
Mac shook his head and sat looking at his notes.
They're fixin to run that rough string in here in a minute, Oren said.
What kind of money you think we're talkin about?
I would expect a man could buy them horses for a hundred dollars a head.
What would you do with the other three, run em back through?
Run em back through. Or you might do better to sell em off out at the place.
Mac nodded. Might, he said. He glanced across the stands. I hate that sumbuck goin to school on me.
I know it.
He lit a cigarette. They watched the stableboy bring in the next horse.
I'd say he's come to buy, said Oren.
I'd say he has too.
He'll bid on ever one of them horses of Red's. See if he dont. I know it. We ought to shill him just a little bit.
Oren didnt answer.
A fool and his money, said Mac. John Grady what's wrong with that horse?
Not a thing that I know of.
I thought you said it was some kind of a mongrel outcross. A Martian horse or somethin.
Horse might be a little coldblooded.
Oren spat over the boards and grinned.
Coldblooded? said Mac.
Yessir.
The horse was bid in at three hundred dollars.
How old was that thing. You remember?
It was eleven.
Yeah, said Oren. About six years ago it was.
The bidding went to four and a half. Mac tugged at his ear. I'm just a horsetradin fool, he said. The spotter pointed to the auctioneer.
I got five got five got five got five now, called the auctioneer. I thought you didnt like to do that, said Oren.
Do what? said Mac.
The bidding went to six and then six and a half.
He's not opened that mouth or shook his head or done nothin, the auctioneer said. Horse worth a little more money than that, folks.
The horse was sold at seven hundred. Wolfenbarger never bid. Oren glanced at Mac.
Cute sumbuck, aint he? Mac said.
You care if I say somethin.
Say it.
Why dont we do what we said and just trade like he wasnt here.
Damn if you aint awful hard on a man. Callin on him to fol?low his own advice.
It's hell, aint it.
You're probably right. Be the best strategy anyway for a ned like him.
The stableboy brought out the roan four year old from McKinney and they bid the horse in at six hundred.
Where's that string at? said Mac.
I dont know.
Well, we're fixin to get down to the nutcuttin.
He put one finger to his ear. The spotter raised his hand. The auctioneer's voice clapped back from the high speakers. I got six got six got six. Do we hear seven. Who'll give me seven. Seven now. Seven seven seven.
Yonder he goes with that hand.
I see him.
The horse went to seven and seven and a half and eight. The horse went to eight and a
half.
Bidders all over the barn, aint they? said Oren.
All over the barn.
Well there aint nothin you can do about it. What's this horse worth?
I dont know. Whatever it sells for. John Grady?
I liked the horse.
I wish they'd of run that string through first.
I know you got a figure in mind.
I did have.
It's the same horse out here that it was in the paddock.
Spoke like a gentleman.
The bidding was stalled at eight and a half. The auctioneer took a drink of water. This is a nice horse, boys, he said. You're way off on this one.
The rider rode the horse down and turned it and came back. He rode it with no bridle but only a rope looped around its neck and he turned and sat the horse. I'll tell you what now, he called. I dont own a hair on him but this is a gaited horse.
It'll cost you a thousand dollars to breed to his mama, said the auctioneer. What do you say boys?
The spotter raised his hand.
I got nine got nine got nine. Now half half half. Nine and a half. Now half. Niner and now half.
Can I say somethin, said John Grady.
I wish you would.
You aint buyin him to sell, are you?
No, I aint.
Well then I think you ought to get the horse you want.
You think a lot of him.
Yessir.
Oren shook his head and leaned and spat. Mac sat looking in his book.
He's goin to cost me no matter what I do, one way of lookin at it.
The horse?
No, not the damn horse.
The bidding went to nine and a half and then a thousand.
John Grady looked at Mac and then looked out at the arena. I know that old boy up yonder in the checked shirt, said Mac. I do too, said Oren.
I'd like to see em buy back their own horse.
I would too.
Mac bought the horse for eleven hundred dollars. Put me in the damn poorhouse, he said.
That's a good horse, said John Grady.
I know how good a horse it is. Dont go tryin to make me feel better.
Dont pay no attention to him, son, said Oren. He wants you to brag on his horse only he's just a little backwards about it is all.
What do you think old highpockets cost me on that trade?
Cities of the Plain tbt-3 Page 10
