Earlier that morning the company had met in a courtyard behind a house on the outskirts of the city. Two men carried from a wagon a stenciled ordnance box from the Baton Rouge arsenal and a Prussian jew named Speyer pried open the box with a pritchel and a shoeing hammer and handed up a flat package in brown butcherpaper translucent with grease like a paper of bakery goods. Glanton opened the package and let the paper fall to the dirt. In his hand he held a longbarreled sixshot Colt's patent revolver. It was a huge sidearm meant for dragoons and it carried in its long cylinders a rifle's charge and weighed close to five pounds loaded. These pistols would drive the half-ounce conical ball through six inches of hardwood and there were four dozen of them in the case. Speyer was breaking out the gang-molds and flasks and tools and Judge Holden was unwrapping another of the pistols. The men pressed about. Glanton wiped the bore and chambers of the piece and took the flask from Speyer.
She's a stout looker, said one.
He charged the bores and seated a bullet and drove it home with the hinged lever pinned to the underside of the barrel. When all the chambers were loaded he capped them and looked about. In that courtyard other than merchants and buyers were a number of living things. The first that Glanton drew sight upon was a cat that at that precise moment appeared upon the high wall from the other side as silently as a bird alighting. It turned to pick its way among the cusps of broken glass set upright in the mud masonry. Glanton leveled the huge pistol in one hand and thumbed back the hammer. The explosion in that dead silence was enormous. The cat simply disappeared. There was no blood or cry, it just vanished. Speyer glanced uneasily at the Mexicans. They were watching Glanton. Glanton thumbed back the hammer again and swung the pistol. A group of fowl in the corner of the courtyard that had been pecking in the dry dust stood nervously, their heads at varied angles. The pistol roared and one of the birds exploded in a cloud of feathers. The others began to trot mutely, their long necks craned. He fired again. A second bird spun and lay kicking. The others flared, piping thinly, and Glanton turned with the pistol and shot a small goat that was standing with its throat pressed to the wall in terror and it fell stone dead in the dust and he fired upon a clay garraffa that burst in a shower of potsherds and water and he raised the pistol and swung toward the house and rang the bell in its mud tower above the roof, a solemn tolling that hung on in the emptiness after the echoes of the gunfire had died away.
A haze of gray gunsmoke lay over the courtyard. Glanton set the hammer at halfcock and spun the cylinder and lowered the hammer again. A woman appeared in the doorway of the house and one of the Mexicans spoke to her and she went in again.
Glanton looked at Holden and then he looked at Speyer. The jew smiled nervously.
They aint worth no fifty dollars.
Speyer looked grave. What is your life worth? he said.
In Texas five hundred but you'd have to discount the note with your ass.
Mr Riddle thinks that it's a fair price.
Mr Riddle aint payin it.
He's putting up the money.
Glanton turned the pistol in his hand and examined it.
I thought it was agreed, said Speyer.
Aint nothin agreed.
They were contracted for the war. You'll not see their like again.
Not till some money changes hands it aint agreed.
A detachment of soldiers, ten or a dozen of them, entered from the street with their arms at the ready.
Que pasa aqui?
Glanton looked at the soldiers without interest.
Nada, said Speyer. Todo va bien.
Bien? The sergeant was looking at the dead birds, the goat.
The woman appeared at the door again.
Esta bien, said Holden. Negocios del Gobernador.
The sergeant looked at them and he looked at the woman in the door.
Somos amigos del Senor Riddle, said Speyer.
Andale, said Glanton. You and your halfassedlookin niggers.
The sergeant stepped forward and assumed a posture of authority. Glanton spat. The judge had already crossed the space between them and now he took the sergeant aside and fell to conversing with him. The sergeant came to his armpit and the judge spoke warmly and gestured with a great expan-siveness of spirit. The soldiers squatted in the dust with their muskets and regarded the judge without expression.
Dont you give that son of a bitch no money, said Glanton.
But the judge was already bringing the man forward for a formal presentation.
Le presento al sargento Aguilar, he called, hugging the ragged militant to him. The sergeant held out his hand quite gravely. It occupied that space and the attention of all who stood there like something presented for validation and then Speyer stepped forward and took it.
Mucho gusto.
Igualmente, said the sergeant.
The judge escorted him from one to the next of the company, the sergeant formal and the Americans muttering obscenities or shaking their heads silently. The soldiers squatted on their heels and watched each movement in this charade with the same dull interest and at length the judge hove up before the black.