All the Pretty Horses(22)
They tried to buy water from the caravans but they had no coin among them small enough with which to do so. When Rawlins offered a man fifty centavos for the half pennysworth of water it would take to fill their canteens the man would have no part of it. By evening they’d bought a canteenful of sotol and were passing it back and forth among themselves as they rode and soon they were quite drunk. Rawlins drank and swung up the cap by its thong and screwed it down and took the canteen by its strap and turned to swing it to Blevins. Then he caught it back. Blevins’ horse was plodding along behind with an empty saddle. Rawlins eyed the animal stupidly and pulled his horse up and called to John Grady riding ahead.
John Grady turned and sat looking.
Where’s he at?
Who knows? Lay in back yonder somewheres I reckon.
They rode back, Rawlins leading the riderless horse by the bridlereins. Blevins was sitting in the middle of the road. He still had his hat on. Whoo, he said when he saw them. I’m drunkern shit.
They sat their horses and looked down at him.
Can you ride or not? said Rawlins.
Does a bear shit in the woods? Hell yes I can ride. I was ridin when I fell off.
He stood uncertainly and peered about. He reeled past them and felt his way among the horses. Flank and flew, Rawlins’ knee. Thought you all had done rode off and left me, he said.
Next time we will leave your skinny ass.
John Grady reached and took the reins and held the horse while Blevins lurched aboard. Let me have them reins, said Blevins. I’m a goddamned buckaroo is what I am.
John Grady shook his head. Blevins dropped the reins and reached to get them and almost slid off down the horse’s shoulder. He saved himself and sat up with the reins and pulled the horse around sharply. Certified goddamn broncpeeler, what I mean, he said.
He dug his heels in under the horse and it squatted and went forward and Blevins fell backwards into the road. Rawlins spat in disgust. Just leave the son of a bitch lay there, he said.
Get on the goddamned horse, said John Grady, and quit assin around.
By early evening all the sky to the north had darkened and the spare terrain they trod had turned a neuter gray as far as eye could see. They grouped in the road at the top of a rise and looked back. The storm front towered above them and the wind was cool on their sweating faces. They slumped bleary-eyed in their saddles and looked at one another. Shrouded in the black thunderheads the distant lightning glowed mutely like welding seen through foundry smoke. As if repairs were under way at some flawed place in the iron dark of the world.
It’s fixin to come a goodn, said Rawlins.
I caint be out in this, said Blevins.
Rawlins laughed and shook his head. Listen at this, he said.
Where do you think you’re goin to go? said John Grady.
I dont know. But I got to get somewheres.
Why cant you be out in it?
On account of the lightnin.
Lightnin?
Yeah.
Damn if you dont look about halfway sober all of a sudden, said Rawlins.
You afraid of lightnin? said John Grady.
I’ll be struck sure as the world.
Rawlins nodded at the canteen hung by its strap from the pommel of John Grady’s saddle. Dont give him no more of that shit. He’s comin down with the DT’s.
It runs in the family, said Blevins. My grandaddy was killed in a minebucket in West Virginia it run down in the hole a hunnerd and eighty feet to get him it couldnt even wait for him to get to the top. They had to wet down the bucket to cool it fore they could get him out of it, him and two other men. It fried em like bacon. My daddy’s older brother was blowed out of a derrick in the Batson Field in the year nineteen and four, cable rig with a wood derrick but the lightnin got him anyways and him not nineteen year old. Great uncle on my mother’s side—mother’s side, I said—got killed on a horse and it never singed a hair on that horse and it killed him graveyard dead they had to cut his belt off him where it welded the buckle shut and I got a cousin aint but four years oldern me was struck down in his own yard comin from the barn and it paralyzed him all down one side and melted the fillins in his teeth and soldered his jaw shut.
I told you, said Rawlins. He’s gone completely dipshit.
They didnt know what was wrong with him. He’d just twitch and mumble and point at his mouth like.
That’s a out and out lie or I never heard one, said Rawlins.
Blevins didnt hear. Beads of sweat stood on his forehead. Another cousin on my daddy’s side it got him it set his hair on fire. The change in his pocket burned through and fell out on the ground and set the grass alight. I done been struck twice how come me to be deaf in this one ear. I’m double bred for death by fire. You got to get away from anything metal at all. You dont know what’ll get you. Brads in your overalls. Nails in your boots.