Cities of the Plain(29)

They sat smoking quietly and looking out at the distant lights in the valley floor below them. Two of the dogs came in out of the night and passed behind the hunters. Their shadows trotted across the stone bluff and they crossed to a place in the dry dust under the rocks where they curled up and were soon asleep.

None of it done anybody any good, Travis said. Or if it did I never heard of it.

I been all over that country down there. I was a cattlebuyer for Spurlocks. Supposed to be one. I was just a kid. I rode all over northern Mexico. Hell, there wasnt no cattle. Not to speak of. Mostly I just visited. I liked it. I liked the country and I liked the people in it. I rode all over Chihuahua and a good part of Coahuila and some of Sonora. I’d be gone weeks at a time and not have hardly so much as a peso in my pocket but it didnt make no difference. Those people would take you in and put you up and feed you and feed your horse and cry when you left. You could of stayed forever. They didnt have nothin. Never had and never would. But you could stop at some little estancia in the absolute dead center of nowhere and they’d take you in like you was kin. You could see that the revolution hadnt done them no good. A lot of em had lost boys out of the family. Fathers or sons or both. Nearly all of em, I expect. They didnt have no reason to be hospitable to anybody. Least of all a gringo kid. That plateful of beans they set in front of you was hard come by. But I was never turned away. Not a time.

Three more dogs passed by the fire and sought out beds under the bluff. The stars swung west. The hunters talked of other things and after a while another dog came in. He was favoring a forefoot and Archer got up and walked up under the bluff to see about him. They heard the dog whine and when he came back he said they’d been in a fight.

Two more dogs came in and then all were in save one.

I’ll wait a while if you all want to head back, Archer said.

We’ll wait with ye.

I dont mind.

We’ll wait a while. Wake up young Cole yonder.

Let him sleep, said Billy. He’s been fightin that bear.

The fire burned down and it grew colder and they sat close to the flames and hand fed them with sticks and with old brittle limbs they broke from the windtwisted wrecks of trees along the rimrock. They told stories of the old west that once was. The older men talked and the younger men listened and light began to show in the gap of the mountain above them and then faintly along the desert floor below.

The dog they were waiting for came in limping badly and circled the fire. Travis called to her. She halted with her red eyes and looked at them. He rose and called her again and she came up and he took hold of her collar and turned her to the light. There were four bloody furrows along her flank. There was a flap of skin ripped loose at her shoulder exposing the muscle underneath and blood was dripping slowly from one ripped ear onto the sandy dirt where she stood.

We need to get that sewed up, Travis said.

Archer pulled a leash from among those he’d strung through his belt and he clipped it onto the D-ring of her collar. She carried the only news they would have of the hunt, bearing witness to things they could only imagine or suppose out there in the night. She winced when Archer touched her ear and when he let go of her she stepped back and stood with her forefeet braced and shook her head. Blood sprayed the hunters and hissed in the fire. They rose to go.

Let’s go, cowboy, Billy said.

John Grady sat up and reached about on the ground for his hat.

Hell of a lionhunter you turned out to be.

Is the peeler awake? said JC.

The peeler’s awake.

A man that’s been huntin that bear I dont believe these old mountain lions hold much interest.

I think you got that right.

Chips all down and where was he? And us at the mercy of the old folks here. Could of used some help, son. We been outlied till it’s pitiful. I mean sent to the showers. Wasnt even a contest, was it Billy?

Not even a contest.

John Grady squared his hat and walked out along the edge of the bluff. The desert plain lay cold and blue below them in the graying light and the shape of the river running down from the north through the break of gray winter trees lay in a pale serpentine of mist. To the south the cold gray grid of the distant city and the shape of the older city across the river like stampings in the desert soil. Beyond them the mountains of Mexico. The injured hound had come from the fire where the men were sorting and chaining the dogs and it walked out and stood beside John Grady and studied with him the plain below. John Grady sat and let his boots dangle over the edge of the rock and the dog lay down and rested its bloody head alongside his leg and after a while he put his arm around it.


BILLY SAT LEANING with his elbows on the table and his arms crossed. He watched John Grady. John Grady pursed his lips. He moved the remaining white knight. Billy looked at Mac. Mac studied the move and he looked at John Grady. He sat back in his chair and studied the board. No one spoke.