Blood Meridian(84)

They were drinking in a cantina not a hundred feet from this scene when the lieutenant and a half dozen armed troopers entered the premises. The cantina was a single room and there was a hole in the ceiling where a trunk of sunlight fell through onto the mud floor and figures crossing the room steered with care past the edge of this column of light as if it might be hot to the touch. They were a hardbit denizenry and they shambled to the bar and back in their rags and skins like cavefolk exchanging at some nameless trade. The lieutenant circled this reeking solarium and stood before Glanton.

Captain, we're going to have to take whoever's responsible for the death of Mr Owens into custody.

Glanton looked up. Who's Mr Owens? he said.

Mr Owens is the gentleman who ran the eatinghouse down here. He's been shot to death.

Sorry to hear it, said Glanton. Set down.

Gouts ignored the invitation. Captain, you dont aim to deny that one of your men shot him do you?

I aim exactly that, said Glanton.

Captain, it wont hold water.

The judge emerged from the darkness. Evening, Lieutenant, he said. Are these men the witnesses?

Gouts looked at his corporal. No, he said. They aint witnesses. Hell, Captain. You all were seen to enter the premises and seen to leave after the shot was fired. Are you going to deny that you and your men took your dinner there?

Deny ever goddamned word of it, said Glanton.

Well by god I believe I can prove that you ate there.

Kindly address your remarks to me, Lieutenant, said the judge. I represent Captain Glanton in all legal matters. I think you should know first of all that the captain does not propose to be called a liar and I would think twice before I involved myself with him in an affair of honor. Secondly I have been with him all day and I can assure you that neither he nor any of his men have ever set foot in the premises to which you allude.

The lieutenant seemed stunned at the baldness of these disclaimers. He looked from the judge to Glanton and back again. I will be damned, he said. Then he turned and pushed past the men and quit the place.

Glanton tilted his chair and leaned his back to the wall. They'd recruited two men from among the town's indigents, an unpromising pair that sat gawking at the end of the bench with their hats in their hands. Glanton's dark eye passed over them and alighted on the owner of the imbecile who sat alone across the room watching him.

You a drinkin man? said Glanton.

How's that?

Glanton exhaled slowly through his nose.

Yes, said the owner. Yes I am.

There was a common wooden pail on the table before Glanton with a tin dipper in it and it was about a third full of wagonyard whiskey drawn off from a cask at the bar. Glanton nodded toward it.

I aint a carryin it to ye.

The owner rose and picked up his cup and came across to the table. He took up the dipper and poured his cup and set the dipper back in the bucket. He gestured slightly with the cup and raised and drained it.

Much obliged.

Where's your ape at?

The man looked at the judge. He looked at Glanton again.

I dont take him out much.

Where'd you get that thing at?

He was left to me. Mama died. There was nobody to take him to raise. They shipped him to me. Joplin Missouri. Just put him in a box and shipped him. Took five weeks. Didnt bother him a bit. I opened up the box and there he set.

Get ye another drink there.

He took up the dipper and filled his cup again.

Big as life. Never hurt him a bit. I had him a hair suit made but he ate it.

Aint everbody in this town seen the son of a bitch?

Yes. Yes they have. I need to get to California. I may charge four bits out there.

You may get tarred and feathered out there.

I've been that. State of Arkansas. Claimed I'd given him something. Drugged him. They took him off and waited for him to get better but of course he didnt do it. They had a special preacher come and pray over him. Finally I got him back. I could have been somebody in this world wasnt for him.

Do I understand you correctly, said the judge, that the imbecile is your brother?

Yessir, said the man. That's the truth of the matter.

The judge reached and took hold of the man's head in his hands and began to explore its contours. The man's eyes darted about and he held onto the judge's wrists. The judge had his entire head in his grip like an immense and dangerous faith healer. The man was standing tiptoe as if to better accommodate him in his investigations and when the judge let go of him he took a step back and looked at Glanton with eyes that were white in the gloom. The recruits at the end of the bench sat watching with their jaws down and the judge narrowed an eye at the man and studied him and then reached and gripped him again, holding him by the forehead while he prodded along the back of his skull with the ball of his thumb. When the judge put him down the man stepped back and fell over the bench and the recruits commenced to bob up and down and to wheeze and croak. The owner of the idiot looked about the tawdry grogshop, passing up each face as if it did not quite suffice. He picked himself up and moved past the end of the bench. When he was halfway across the room the judge called out to him.