He did so.
Put down your pants.
Do what?
Put down your pants.
What the hell for?
The captain must have made another gesture because the guard stepped forward and took a leather sap from his rear pocket and struck Rawlins across the back of the head with it. The room Rawlins was in lit up all white and his knees buckled and he reached about him in the air.
He was lying with his face against the splintry wooden floor. He didnt remember falling. The floor smelled of dust and grain. He pushed himself up. They waited. They seemed to have nothing else to do.
He got to his feet and faced the captain. He felt sick to his stomach.
You must co-po-rate, said the captain. Then you dont have no troubles. Turn around. Put down your pants.
He turned around and unbuckled his belt and pushed his trousers down around his knees and then the cheap cotton undershorts he’d bought in the commissary at La Vega.
Lift your shirt, said the captain.
He lifted the shirt.
Turn around, said the captain.
He turned.
Get dressed.
He let the shirt fall and reached and hauled up his trousers and buttoned them and buckled back the belt.
The captain was sitting holding the driver’s license from his billfold.
What is your date of birth, he said.
September twenty-sixth nineteen and thirty-two.
What is your address.
Route Four Knickerbocker Texas. United States of America.
How much is your height.
Five foot eleven.
How much is your weight.
A hundred and sixty pounds.
The captain tapped the license on the desk. He looked at Rawlins.
You have a good memory. Where is this man?
What man?
He held up the license. This man. Rawlins.
Rawlins swallowed. He looked at the guard and he looked at the captain again. I’m Rawlins, he said.
The captain smiled sadly. He shook his head.
Rawlins stood with his hands dangling.
Why aint I? he said.
Why you come here? said the captain.
Come where?
Here. To this country.
We come down here to work. Somos vaqueros.
Speak english please. You come to buy cattle?
No sir.
No. You have no permit, correct?
We just come down here to work.
At La Purísima.
Anywhere. That’s just where we found work.
How much they pay you?
We was gettin two hundred pesos a month.
In Texas what do they pay for this work.
I dont know. Hundred a month.
Hundred dollars.
Yessir.
Eight hundred pesos.
Yessir. I reckon.
The captain smiled again.
Why you must leave Texas?
We just left. We didnt have to.
What is your true name.
Lacey Rawlins.
He pushed the forearm of his sleeve against his forehead and wished at once he hadnt.
Blevins is your brother.
No. We got nothin to do with him.
What is the number of horses you steal.
We never stole no horses.
These horses have no marca.
They come from the United States.
You have a factura for these horses?
No. We rode down here from San Angelo Texas. We dont have no papers on them. They’re just our horses.
Where do you cross the border.
Just out of Langtry Texas.
What is the number of men you kill.
I never killed nobody. I never stole nothin in my life. That’s the truth.
Why you have guns for.
To shoot game.
Ghem?
Game. To hunt. Cazador.
Now you are hunters. Where is Rawlins.
Rawlins was close to tears. You’re lookin at him, damn it.
What is the true name of the assassin Blevins.
I dont know.
How long since you know him.
I dont know him. I dont know nothin about him.
The captain pushed back the chair and stood. He pulled down the hem of his coat to correct the wrinkles and he looked at Rawlins. You are very foolish, he said. Why do you want to have these troubles?
They let Rawlins go just inside the door and he slid to the floor and sat for a moment and then bent slowly forward and to one side and lay holding himself. The guard crooked his finger at John Grady who sat squinting up at them in the sudden light. He rose. He looked down at Rawlins.
You sons of bitches, he said.
Tell em whatever they want to hear, bud, whispered Rawlins. It dont make a damn.
Vámonos, said the guard.
What did you tell them?
Told em we was horsethieves and murderers. You will too.
But by then the guard had come forward and seized his arm and shoved him out the door and the other guard shut the door and pushed the boltshackle home in the padlock.
When they entered the office the captain sat as before. His hair newly slicked. John Grady stood before him. In the room aside from the desk and the chair that the captain sat in there were three folding metal chairs against the far wall that had an uncomfortable emptiness about them. As if people had got up and left. As if people expected were not coming. An old seed-company calendar from Monterrey was nailed to the wall above them and in the corner stood an empty wire birdcage hung from a floorpedestal like some baroque lampstand.