All the Pretty Horses(91)

I want you to follow me, he said. And I know what you’re thinkin. But if you think I cant ride you down you better think some more. And if I have to come get you I’m goin to whip you like a dog. Me entiende?

The captain didnt answer. He managed a sardonic smile and John Grady nodded. You just keep smilin. When I die you die.

He turned the horse and rode back down into the arroyo. The captain followed. At the rockslide he dismounted and tied the horse and took out a cigarette and lit it and hobbled up around the tumbled rocks and boulders carrying the rifle. In the sheltered lee of the slide he stopped and took the captain’s pistol out of his belt and laid it on the ground and he took out his knife and cut a long narrow strip from his shirt and twisted it into a string. Then he cut the string in two and tied the trigger back on the pistol. He wrapped it tightly so as to depress the grip safety and he broke off a dead limb and tied the other string to it and tied the free end to the hammer of the pistol. He put a goodsized rock on top of the stick to hold it and he stretched the pistol out until the string cocked the hammer and then laid the pistol down and rolled a rock over it and when he slowly released it it held. He took a good draw on the cigarette to get it burning and then laid it carefully across the string and stepped back and picked up the rifle and turned and hobbled back out to where the horses stood.

He took the waterbottles and he slid the bridle down off the grullo’s head and caught it and he stroked the grullo under the jaw. I hate to leave you old pardner, he said. You been a goodn.

He handed the waterbottles up to the captain and slung the bridle over his shoulder and reached a hand up and the captain looked down at him and then reached down with his good hand and he struggled up onto the horse behind the captain and reached around and took the reins and turned the horse back up the ridge again.

He caught up the loose horses and drove them down off the ridge and out across the open country. The ground was volcanic gravel and not easy to track a horse over but not impossible either. He pushed the horses hard. There was a low rocky mesa two miles across the floodplain and he could see trees and the promise of broken country. Not half way across he heard the dead flat pop of the pistol he’d been listening for.

Captain, he said. You just fired a shot for the common man.

The trees he’d seen from the distance were the breaks of a dry rivercourse and he pushed the horses through the brush and entered a stand of cottonwoods and turned the horse and sat watching back across the plain they’d traversed. There were no riders in sight. He looked at the sun in the south and he judged it a good four hours till dark. The horse was hot and lathered and he looked back across the open country one more time and then pushed on to where the other two horses were standing upriver in a grove of willows drinking from a riverbed pothole. He rode alongside them and slid to the ground and caught Junior and took the bridle from his shoulder and bridled him with it and with the rifle motioned the captain down off the horse. He unbuckled the girthstraps and pulled the saddle and the blanket down onto the ground and picked up the blanket and threw it over Junior and leaned against him to get his breath. His leg was beginning to hurt horribly. He stood the rifle against the actual horse and picked up the saddle and managed to get it on and he pulled the girthstrap and rested and he and the horse blew and then he pulled the strap again and cinched it.

He picked up the rifle and turned to the captain.

You want a drink of water you better get you one, he said.

The captain walked up past the horses holding his arm and he knelt and drank and laved water over the back of his neck with his good hand. When he rose he looked very serious.

Why you no leave me here? he said.

I aint leavin you here. You’re a hostage.

Mande?

Let’s go.

The captain stood uncertainly.

Why you come back? he said.

I come back for my horse. Let’s go.

The captain nodded at the wound in his leg, still bleeding. The whole trouserleg dark with blood.

You going to die, he said.

We’ll let God decide about that. Let’s go.

Are you no afraid of God?

I got no reason to be afraid of God. I’ve even got a bone or two to pick with Him.

You should be afraid of God, the captain said. You are not the officer of the law. You dont have no authority.

John Grady stood leaning on the rifle. He turned and spat dryly and eyed the captain.

Get on that horse, he said. You ride ahead of me. You drift out of my sight and I’ll shoot you.

Nightfall found them in the foothills of the Sierra Encantada. They followed a dry watercourse up under a dark rincón in the rocks and picked their way over a flood barricade of boulders tumbled in the floor of the wash and emerged upon a stone tinaja in the center of which lay a shallow basin of water, perfectly round, perfectly black, where the night stars were lensed in perfect stillness. The loose horses walked uncertainly down the shallow rock incline of the basin and blew at the water and drank.