By noon he was on the prairie again and the dust to the north was stretched out along the edge of the earth. By evening the first of a drove of cattle came into view. Rangy vicious beasts with enormous hornspreads. That night he sat in the herders' camp and ate beans and pilotbread and heard of life on the trail.
They were coming down from Abilene, forty days out, headed for the markets in Louisiana. Followed by packs of wolves, coyotes, indians. Cattle groaned about them for miles in the dark.
They asked him no questions, a ragged lot themselves. Crossbreeds some, free niggers, an indian or two.
I had my outfit stole, he said.
They nodded in the firelight.
They got everthing I had. I aint even got a knife.
You might could sign on with us. We lost two men. Turned back to go to Californy.
I'm headed yon way.
I guess you might be goin to Californy ye own self.
I might. I aint decided.
Them boys was with us fell in with a bunch from Arkansas. They was headed down for Bexar. Goin to pull for Mexico and the west.
I'll bet them old boys is in Bexar drinkin they brains out.
I'll bet old Lonnie's done topped ever whore in town.
How far is it to Bexar?
It's about two days.
It's furthern that. More like four I'd say.
How would a man go if he'd a mind to?
You cut straight south you ought to hit the road about half a day.
You going to Bexar?
I might do.
You see old Lonnie down there you tell him get a piece for me. Tell him old Oren. He'll buy ye a drink if he aint blowed all his money in.
In the morning they ate flapjacks with molasses and the herders saddled up and moved on. When he found his mule there was a small fibre bag tied to the animal's rope and inside the bag there was a cupful of dried beans and some peppers and an old greenriver knife with a handle made of string. He saddled up the mule, the mule's back galled and balding, the hooves cracked. The ribs like fishbones. They hobbled on across the endless plain.
He came upon Bexar in the evening of the fourth day and he sat the tattered mule on a low rise and looked down at the town, the quiet adobe houses, the line of green oaks and cottonwoods that marked the course of the river, the plaza filled with wagons with their osnaburg covers and the whitewashed public buildings and the Moorish churchdome rising from the trees and the garrison and the tall stone powderhouse in the distance. A light breeze stirred the fronds of his hat, his matted greasy hair. His eyes lay dark and tunneled in a caved and haunted face and a foul stench rose from the wells of his boot tops. The sun was just down and to the west lay reefs of bloodred clouds up out of which rose little desert nighthawks like fugitives from some great fire at the earth's end. He spat a dry white spit and clumped the cracked wooden stirrups against the mule's ribs and they staggered into motion again.
He went down a narrow sandy road and as he went he met a deadcart bound out with a load of corpses, a small bell tolling the way and a lantern swinging from the gate. Three men sat on the box not unlike the dead themselves or spirit folk so white they were with lime and nearly phosphorescent in the dusk. A pair of horses drew the cart and they went on up the road in a faint miasma of carbolic and passed from sight. He turned and watched them go. The naked feet of the dead jostled stiffly from side to side.
It was dark when he entered the town, attended by barking dogs, faces parting the curtains in the lamplit windows. The light clatter of the mule's hooves echoing in the little empty streets. The mule sniffed the air and swung down an alleyway into a square where there stood in the starlight a well, a trough, a hitchingrail. The kid eased himself down and took the bucket from the stone coping and lowered it into the well. A light splash echoed. He drew the bucket, water dripping in the dark. He dipped the gourd and drank and the mule nuzzled his elbow. When he'd done he set the bucket in the street and sat on the coping of the well and watched the mule drink from the bucket.
He went on through the town leading the animal. There was no one about. By and by he entered a plaza and he could hear guitars and a horn. At the far end of the square there were lights from a cafe and laughter and highpitched cries. He led the mule into the square and up the far side past a long portico toward the lights.
There was a team of dancers in the street and they wore gaudy costumes and called out in Spanish. He and the mule stood at the edge of the lights and watched. Old men sat along the tavern wall and children played in the dust. They wore strange costumes all, the men in dark flatcrowned hats, white nightshirts, trousers that buttoned up the outside leg and the girls with garish painted faces and tortoiseshell combs in their blueblack hair. The kid crossed the street with the mule and tied it and entered the cafe. A number of men were standing at the bar and they quit talking when he entered. He crossed the polished clay floor past a sleeping dog that opened one eye and looked at him and he stood at the bar and placed both hands on the tiles. The barman nodded to him. Digame, he said.