Cities of the Plain(4)

Let me get the rifle.

He’ll be gone before you get done standin up.

The coyote trotted out along the ridge and stopped and looked back and then dropped off down the ridge into the brush again.

What do you reckon he’s doin out here in the middle of the day?

He probably wonders the same about you.

You think he seen us?

Well I didnt see him walkin head first into them nopal bushes yonder so I dont expect he was completely blind.

John Grady watched for the coyote to reappear but the coyote didnt.

Funny thing, said Billy, is I was fixin to quit about the time she took sick. I was ready to move on. After she died I had a lot less reason to stay on but I stayed anyways.

I guess maybe you figured Mac needed you.

Horseshit.

How old was she?

I dont know. Late thirties. Forty maybe. You’d never of knowed it though.

You think he’s gettin over it?

Mac?

Yeah.

No. You dont get over a woman like that. He aint gettin over nothin. He never will.

He sat and put his hat on and adjusted it. You ready, cousin?

Yeah.

He rose stiffly and reached down and got his lunchpail and he swiped at the seat of his trousers with one hand and then bent and got his jacket. He looked at John Grady.

There was a old waddy told me one time he never knowed a woman raised on indoor plumbin to ever turn out worth a damn. She come up the hard way. Old man Johnson was never nothin but a cowboy and you know what that pays. Mac met her at a church supper in Las Cruces when she was seventeen years old and that was all she wrote. He aint goin to be gettin over it. Not now, not soon, not never.

It was dark when they got back. Billy rolled up the window of the truck and sat looking toward the house. I’m a wore-out sumbuck, he said.

You want to just leave the gear in the truck?

Let’s bring in the come-along. It might rain. Might. And that box of staples. They’ll rust up.

I’ll get em.

He got the stuff from the bed of the truck. The lights came on in the barn bay. Billy was standing there shaking his hand up and down.

Ever time I reach for that son of a bitch I get shocked.

It’s the nails in them boots.

Then why dont it shock my feet?

I dont know.

He hung the come-along on a nail and set the box of staples on a framing crossbrace just inside the door. The horses whinnied from their stalls.

He went on down the barn bay and at the last stall pounded the flat of his hand against the stall door. There was an instant explosion against the boards on the other side. Dust drifted in the light. He looked back at Billy and grinned. Egg it on, said Billy. He’ll put a foot through that son of a bitch.


JOAQUÍN STEPPED BACK with both hands atop the board he was leaning on and lowered his head as if he’d seen something in the corral too awful to watch. But he was only stepping back to spit and he did so in his slow and contemplative way and then stepped forward and looked through the boards again. Caballo, he said. The shadow of the trotting horse passed across the boards and across his face and passed on. He shook his head.

They walked on down to where some two by twelves were nailed and braced along the top of the corral and climbed up and sat with their bootheels wedged in the board below and smoked and watched John Grady work the colt.

What does he want with that owlheaded son of a bitch anyway?

Billy shook his head. Maybe it’s like Mac says. Ever man winds up with the horse that suits him.

What is that thing he’s got on its head?

It’s called a cavesson halter.

What’s wrong with a plain hackamore?

You’d have to ask the cowboy.

Troy leaned and spat. He looked at Joaquín. Qué piensas? he said.

Joaquín shrugged. He watched the horse circle the corral at the end of the longeline.

That horse has been broke with a bit, Troy said.

Yeah.

I guess he aims to break it and start over.

Well, Billy said, I got a suspicion that whatever it is he aims to do he’ll most likely get it done.

They watched the horse circle.

He aint trainin it for the circus is he?

No. We had the circus yesterday evenin when he forked up on it.

How many times did he get thowed?

Four.

How many times did he get back up on it?

You know how many times.

Is he supposed to be some sort of specialist in spoiled horses?

Let’s go, Billy said. He’s liable to walk that son of a bitch all afternoon.

They went on toward the house.

Ask Joaquín yonder, Billy said.

Ask me what?

If the cowboy knows horses.

The cowboy says he dont know nothin.

I know it.

He claims he just likes it and works hard at it.

What do you think? said Billy.

Joaquín shook his head.

Joaquín thinks his methods is unorthodox.

So does Mac.

Joaquín didnt answer till they reached the gate. Then he stopped and looked back at the corral. Finally he said that it didnt make much difference if you liked horses or not if they didnt like you. He said the best trainers he ever knew, horses couldnt stay away from them. He said horses would follow Billy Sánchez to the outhouse and stand there and wait for him.