Where's the nigger? he said.
He looked at the judge. They were all but at eyelevel and he on horseback. I dont know, he said.
The judge looked at Glanton. Glanton spat.
How many men did you see in the square?
I didnt have time to take no headcount. There was three or four shot that I know of.
But not the nigger?
I never saw him.
Sanford pushed his horse forward. There was no nigger in the square, he said. I seen them shoot them boys and they were ever one white as you and me.
The judge turned loose Carroll's horse and went to get his own animal. Two of the Delawares detached themselves from the company. When they rode out up the trail it was almost dark and the company had pulled back into the woods and posted videttes at the ford and they made no fire.
No riders came down the trail. The early part of the night was dark but the first relief at the ford saw it begin to clear and the moon came out over the canyon and they saw a bear come down and pause at the far side of the river and test the air with his nose and turn back. About daybreak the judge and the Delawares returned. They had the black with them. He was naked save for a blanket he'd wrapped himself in. He didnt even have boots. He was riding one of the bonetailed packmules from the conducta and he was shivering with cold. The only thing he'd saved was his pistol. He was holding it against his chest under the blanket for he had no other place to carry it.
The way down out of the mountains toward the western sea led them through green gorges thick with vines where paroquets and gaudy macaws leered and croaked. The trail followed a river and the river was up and muddy and there were many fords and they crossed and recrossed the river continually. Pale cascades hung down the sheer mountain wall above them, blowing off of the high slick rock in wild vapors. In eight days they passed no other riders. On the ninth they saw an old man trying to get off the trail below them, caning a pair of burros through the woods. As they came abreast of this spot they halted and Glanton turned into the woods where the wet leaves were shuffled up and he tracked down the old man sitting in the shrubbery solitary as a gnome. The burros looked up and twitched their ears and then lowered their heads to browse again. The old man watched him.
For que se esconde? said Glanton.
The old man didnt answer.
De donde viene?
The old man seemed unwilling to reckon even "with the idea of a dialogue. He squatted in the leaves with his arms folded. Glanton leaned and spat. He gestured with his chin at the burros.
Que tiene alia?
The old man shrugged. Hierbas, he said.
Glanton looked at the animals and he looked at the old man. He turned his horse back toward the trail to rejoin the party.
For que me busca? called the old man after him.
They moved on. There were eagles and other birds in the valley and many deer and there were wild orchids and brakes of bamboo. The river here was sizeable and it swept past enormous boulders and waterfalls fell everywhere out of the high tangled jungle. The judge had taken to riding ahead with one of the Delawares and he carried his rifle loaded with the small hard seeds of the nopal fruit and in the evening he would dress expertly the colorful birds he'd shot, rubbing the skins with gunpowder and stuffing them with balls of dried grass and packing them away in his wallets. He pressed the leaves of trees and plants into his book and he stalked tiptoe the mountain butterflies with his shirt outheld in both hands, speaking to them in a low whisper, no curious study himself. Toadvine sat watching him as he made his notations in the ledger, holding the book toward the fire for the light, and he asked him what was his purpose in all this.
The judge's quill ceased its scratching. He looked at Toadvine. Then he continued to write again.
Toadvine spat into the fire.
The judge wrote on and then he folded the ledger shut and laid it to one side and pressed his hands together and passed them down over his nose and mouth and placed them palm down on his knees.
Whatever exists, he said. Whatever in creation exists without my knowledge exists without my consent.
He looked about at the dark forest in which they were bivouacked. He nodded toward the specimens he'd collected. These anonymous creatures, he said, may seem little or nothing in the world. Yet the smallest crumb can devour us. Any smallest thing beneath yon rock out of men's knowing. Only nature can enslave man and only when the existence of each last entity is routed out and made to stand naked before him will he be properly suzerain of the earth.
What's a suzerain?
A keeper. A keeper or overlord.
Why not say keeper then?
Because he is a special kind of keeper. A suzerain rules even where there are other rulers. His authority countermands local judgements.
Toadvine spat.
The judge placed his hands on the ground. He looked at his inquisitor. This is my claim, he said. And yet everywhere upon it are pockets of autonomous life. Autonomous. In order for it to be mine nothing must be permitted to occur upon it save by my dispensation.