They sat for a long time. Nothing moved.
I think they’ve quit us.
I do too.
Let’s keep movin.
By late afternoon the horses were stumbling. They watered them out of their hats and drank the other canteen dry themselves and mounted again and rode on. They saw the riders no more. Toward evening they came upon a band of sheepherders camped on the far side of a deep arroyo that was floored with round white rocks. The sheepherders seemed to have selected the site with an eye to its defense as did the ancients of that country and they watched with great solemnity the riders making their way along the other side.
What do you think? said John Grady.
I think we ought to keep ridin. I’m kindly soured on the citizens in this part of the country.
I think you’re right.
They rode on another mile and descended into the arroyo to look for water. They found none. They dismounted and led the horses, the four of them stumbling along into the deepening darkness, Rawlins still carrying the rifle, following the senseless tracks of birds or wild pigs in the sand.
Nightfall found them sitting on their blankets on the ground with the horses staked a few feet away. Just sitting in the dark with no fire, not speaking. After a while Rawlins said: We should of got water from them herders.
We’ll find some water in the mornin.
I wish it was mornin.
John Grady didnt answer.
Goddamn Junior is goin to piss and moan and carry on all night. I know how he gets.
They probably think we’ve gone crazy.
Aint we?
You think they caught him?
I dont know.
I’m goin to turn in.
They lay in their blankets on the ground. The horses shifted uneasily in the dark.
I’ll say one thing about him, said Rawlins.
Who?
Blevins.
What’s that?
The little son of a bitch wouldnt stand still for nobody high-jackin his horse.
In the morning they left the horses in the arroyo and climbed up to watch the sun rise and see what the country afforded. It had been cold in the night in the sink and when the sun came up they turned and sat with their backs to it. To the north a thin spire of smoke stood in the windless air.
You reckon that’s the sheepcamp? said Rawlins.
We better hope it is.
You want to ride back up there and see if they’ll give us some water and some grub?
No.
I dont either.
They watched the country.
Rawlins rose and walked off with the rifle. After a while he came back with some nopal fruit in his hat and poured them out on a flat rock and sat peeling them with his knife.
You want some of these? he said.
John Grady walked over and squatted and got out his own knife. The nopal was still cool from the night and it stained their fingers blood red and they sat peeling the fruit and eating it and spitting the small hard seeds and picking the spines out of their fingers. Rawlins gestured at the countryside. There aint much happenin out there, is there?
John Grady nodded. Biggest problem we got is we could run into them people and not even know it. We never even got a good look at their horses.
Rawlins spat. They got the same problem. They dont know us neither.
They’d know us.
Yeah, said Rawlins. You got a point.
Course we aint got no problem at all next to Blevins. He’d about as well to paint that horse red and go around blowin a horn.
Aint that the truth.
Rawlins wiped the blade of his knife on his trousers and folded it shut. I believe I’m losin ground with these things.
Peculiar thing is, what he says is true. It is his horse.
Well it’s somebody’s horse.
It damn sure dont belong to them Mexicans.
Yeah. Well he’s got no way to prove it.
Rawlins put the knife in his pocket and sat inspecting his hat for nopal stickers. A goodlookin horse is like a goodlookin woman, he said. They’re always more trouble than what they’re worth. What a man needs is just one that will get the job done.
Where’d you hear that at?
I dont know.
John Grady folded away his knife. Well, he said. There’s a lot of country out there.
Yep. Lot of country.
God knows where he’s got to.
Rawlins nodded. I’ll tell you what you told me.
What’s that?
We aint seen the last of his skinny ass.
They rode all day upon the broad plain to the south. It was noon before they found water, a silty residue in the floor of an adobe tank. In the evening passing through a saddle in the low hills they jumped a spikehorn buck out of a stand of juniper and Rawlins shucked the rifle backward out of the bootleg scabbard and raised and cocked it and fired. He’d let go the reins and the horse bowed up and hopped sideways and stood trembling and he stepped down and ran to the spot where he’d seen the little buck and it lay dead in its blood on the ground. John Grady rode up leading Rawlins’ horse. The buck was shot through the base of the skull and its eyes were just glazing. Rawlins ejected the spent shell and levered in a fresh round and lowered the hammer with his thumb and looked up.