Cities of the Plain(25)

I used to think I’d like to have a little spread up in the hills somewhere like this. Run a few head on it. Kill your own meat. Stuff like that.

You might one day.

I doubt it.

You never know.

I wintered one time in a linecamp up in New Mexico. You get a pretty good ration of yourself after a while. I wouldnt do it again if I could help it. I like to froze in that damn shack. The wind would blow your hat off inside.

He smoked. The horses raised their heads and looked out. John Grady pulled the latigo on his catchrope and retied it. You think you’d of liked to of lived back in the old days? he said.

No. I did when I was a kid. I used to think rawhidin a bunch of bony cattle in some outland country would be just as close to heaven as a man was likely to get. I wouldnt give you much for it now.

You think they were a tougher breed back then?

Tougher or dumber?

The dry leaves rattled. Evening was coming on and Billy buttoned his jacket against the cold.

I could live here, John Grady said.

Young and ignorant as you are you probably could.

I think I’d like it.

I’ll tell you what I like.

What’s that?

When you throw a switch and the lights come on.

Yeah.

If I think about what I wanted as a kid and what I want now they aint the same thing. I guess what I wanted wasnt what I wanted. You ready?

Yeah. I’m ready. What do you want now?

Billy spoke to the horse and reined it around. He sat and looked back at the little adobe house and at the blue and cooling country below them. Hell, he said. I dont know what I want. Never did.

They rode back in the dusk. The dark shapes of cattle moved off sullenly before them.

This is the tag end of that bunch, Billy said.

Yep.

They rode on.

When you’re a kid you have these notions about how things are goin to be, Billy said. You get a little older and you pull back some on that. I think you wind up just tryin to minimize the pain. Anyway this country aint the same. Nor anything in it. The war changed everthing. I dont think people even know it yet.

The sky to the west darkened. A cold wind blew. They could see the aura of the lights from the city come up forty miles away.

You need to wear more clothes than that, Billy said.

I’m all right. How did the war change it?

It just did. It aint the same no more. It never will be.


EDUARDO STOOD at the rear door smoking one of his thin cigars and looking out at the rain. There was a sheetiron warehouse behind the building and there was nothing much there to see except the rain and black pools of water standing in the alley where the rain fell and the soft light from the yellow bulb screwed into the fixture over the back door. The air was cool. The smoke drifted in the light. A young girl who limped on a withered leg passed carrying a great armload of soiled linen down the hall. After a while he closed the door and walked back up the hallway to his office.

When Tiburcio knocked he did not even turn around. Adelante, he said. Tiburcio entered. He stood at the desk and counted out money. The desk was of polished glass and fruit-wood and there was a white leather sofa against one wall and a low coffeetable of glass and chrome and there was a small bar against the other wall with four white leather stools. The carpeting on the floor was a rich cream color. The alcahuete counted out the money and stood waiting. Eduardo turned and looked at him. The alcahuete smiled thinly under his thin moustache. His black greased hair shone in the soft light. His black shirt bore a glossy sheen from the pressings of an iron too hot.

Eduardo put the cigar between his teeth and came to the desk. He stood looking down. He fanned with one slender jeweled hand the bills on the glass and he took the cigar from his teeth and looked up.

El mismo muchacho?

El mismo.

He pursed his lips, he nodded. Bueno, he said. Ándale.

When Tiburcio had gone he unlocked his desk drawer and took from it a long leather wallet with a chain hanging from it and put the bills in the wallet and put the wallet back in the drawer and locked it again. He opened his ledgerbook and made an entry in it and closed it. Then he went to the door and stood smoking quietly and looking out up the hallway. His hands clasped behind him at the small of his back in a stance he had perhaps admired or read of but a stance native to some other country, not his.


THE MONTH OF NOVEMBER passed and he saw her but once more. The alcahuete came to the door and tapped and went away and she said that he must leave. He held her hands in his, both of them sitting tailorwise and fully dressed in the center of the canopy bed. Leaning and talking to her very quickly and with great earnestness but she would only say it was too dangerous and then the alcahuete rapped at the door again and did not go away.

Prométeme, he said. Prométeme.

The alcahuete rapped with the heel of his fist. She clutched his hand, her eyes wide.