Cities of the Plain(40)

What happened to the boy?

The boy?

That threw the cat.

Oh. Best I remember he didnt make out too well.

I guess not.

People will do anything.

Yessir. They will.

You live long enough you’ll see it.

Yessir. I have.

Mr Johnson didnt answer. He flipped the butt of his cigarette out across the yard in a slow red arc.

Aint nothin to burn out there. I remember when you could have grassfires in this country.

I didnt mean I’d seen everthing, John Grady said.

I know you didnt.

I just meant I’d seen things I’d as soon not of.

I know it. There’s hard lessons in this world.

What’s the hardest?

I dont know. Maybe it’s just that when things are gone they’re gone. They aint comin back.

Yessir.

They sat. After a while the old man said: The day after my fiftieth birthday in March of nineteen and seventeen I rode into the old headquarters at the Wilde well and there was six dead wolves hangin on the fence. I rode along the fence and ran my hand along em. I looked at their eyes. A government trapper had brought em in the night before. They’d been killed with poison baits. Strychnine. Whatever. Up in the Sacramentos. A week later he brought in four more. I aint heard a wolf in this country since. I suppose that’s a good thing. They can be hell on stock. But I guess I was always what you might call superstitious. I know I damn sure wasnt religious. And it had always seemed to me that somethin can live and die but that the kind of thing that they were was always there. I didnt know you could poison that. I aint heard a wolf howl in thirty odd years. I dont know where you’d go to hear one. There may not be any such a place.

When he walked back through the barn Billy was standing in the doorway.

Has he gone back to bed?

Yeah.

What was he doin up?

He said he couldnt sleep. What were you?

Same thing. You?

Same thing.

Somethin in the air I reckon.

I dont know.

What was he talkin about?

Just stuff.

What did he say?

I guess he said cattle could tell the difference between a flight of geese and a cat on fire.

Maybe you dont need to be hangin around him so much.

You might be right.

You all seem to have a lot in common.

He aint crazy, Billy.

Maybe. But I dont know as you’d be the first one I’d come to for an opinion about it.

I’m goin to bed.

Night.

Night.


HE TOLD THE WOMAN in spanish that he intended to keep his hat and he carried it with him up the two steps to the bar and then he put it on again. There were some Mexican businessmen standing at the bar and he nodded to them as he passed. They nodded back curtly. The barman placed a napkin down. Señor? he said.

Old Grandad and water back.

The barman moved away. Billy took out his cigarettes and lighter and laid them on the bar. He looked in the backbar mirror. Several whores were draped about on the couches in the lounge. They looked like refugees from a costume ball. The barman returned with the shot of whiskey and set it and the glass of water on the bar and Billy picked up the whiskey and rocked it once in a slow circular motion and then raised it and drank. He reached for his cigarettes, he nodded to the barman.

Otra vez, he said.

The barman came with the bottle. He poured.

Dónde está Eduardo, said Billy.

Quién?

Eduardo.

The barman poured reflectively. He shook his head.

El patrón, said Billy.

El patrón no está.

Cuándo regresa?

No sé. He stood holding the bottle. Hay un problema? he said.

Billy shook a cigarette from the pack and put it in his mouth and reached for the lighter. No, he said. No hay un problema. I need to see him on a business deal.

What is your business?

He lit the cigarette and laid the lighter on top of the pack and blew smoke across the bar and looked up.

I dont feel like we’re makin much progress here, he said.

The barman shrugged.

Billy took his money from his shirtpocket and laid a tendollar bill on the bar.

That aint for the drinks.

The barman looked down the bar to where the businessmen were standing. He looked at Billy.

Do you know what this job is worth? he said.

What?

I said do you know what this job is worth?

You mean you make pretty good on tips.

No. I mean do you know what it costs to buy a job like this?

I never heard of nobody buyin a job.

You do lots of business in Mexico?

No.

The barman stood with the bottle. Billy took out his money again and put down two fives on top of the ten. The barman palmed the money off the bar and put it in his pocket. Un momento, he said. Espérate.

Billy took up the whiskey and swirled it and drank. He set the glass down and passed the back of his wrist across his mouth. When he looked in the backbar glass the alcahuete was standing at his left elbow like Lucifer.