Nothin.
All right.
Boyd watched the street. After a while he turned and looked at Billy. I was thinkin it was too easy, he said.
What was?
Comin up on Keno thataway. Gettin him back.
Yeah. Maybe.
He knew that they wouldnt have the horse back until they crossed the border with it and that nothing was easy but he didnt say so.
You dont trust nothin, he said.
No.
Things change.
I know. Some things.
You worry about everthing. But that dont change nothin. Does it?
Boyd sat studying the street. Two riders passed in what looked to be band uniforms. They both looked at the horses tied in front of the cafe.
Does it, Billy said.
Boyd shook his head. I dont know, he said. I dont know how it would of turned out if I hadnt worried.
They slept that night in a field of dusty weeds just off the rail?road right of way and in the morning they washed in an irriga?tion ditch and mounted up and rode back into town and ate at the same cafe. Billy asked the woman if she knew the whereabouts of the offices of a ganadero named Soto but she did not. They ate a huge breakfast of eggs and chorizo and tortillas made from wheat flour such as they had not seen before in that country and they paid with what proved to be very nearly the last of their money and walked out and mounted up and rode through the town. Soto’s offices were in a brick building three blocks south of the cafe. Billy was watching the reflections of two riders passing in the glass of the building’s window across the street where the gaunted horses slouched by segments through the wonky panes when he saw the illjoined dog appear also and realized that the rider at the head of this unprepossessing parade was he himself. Then he saw that the lettering on the glass above the rider’s head said Ganaderos and above that it said Soto y Gillian.
Look yonder, he said.
I see it, said Boyd.
Why didnt you say somethin if you seen it?
I’m sayin it now.
They sat the horses in the street. The dog sat in the dirt and waited. Billy leaned and spat and looked back at Boyd.
You care for me to ask you somethin?
Ask it.
How long do you aim to stay sulled up like this?
Till I get unsulled.
Billy nodded. He sat looking at their reflections in the glass. He seemed at odds to account for their appearance there. I thought you might say that, he said. But Boyd had seen him studying the tableau of ragged pilgrims paired with their horses all askew in the puzzled grid of the ganadero’s glass with the mute dog at their heels and he nodded toward the window. I’m lookin at the same thing you are, he said.
They returned twice more to the ganadero’s office before they found him in. Billy left Boyd to tend the horses. You keep Keno out of sight, he said.
I aint ignorant, said Boyd.
He crossed the street and raised one hand at the door to break the glare on the glass and looked in. An oldfashioned office with dark varnished wainscotting, dark oak furniture. He opened the door and entered. The glass in the door rattled when he closed it and the man at the desk looked up. He was holding the receiver of an oldfashioned pedestal telephone to his ear. Bueno, he said. Bueno. He winked at Billy. He gestured with one hand for him to come forward. Billy took off his hat.
Sí, sí. Bueno, said the ganadero. Gracias. Es muy amable. He hung the receiver back in the cradle and pushed the telephone away from him. Bueno, he said. Pendejo. Completamente sin verguenza. He looked up at the boy. Pásale, pásale.
Billy stood holding his hat. Busco al señor Soto, he said.
No está.
Cuándo regresa?
Todo el mundo quiere saber. Who are you?
Billy Parham.
And who is that?
I’m from Cloverdale New Mexico.
Is that a fact?
Yessir. It is.
And what was your business with sefior Soto?
Billy turned his hat a quarter turn through his hands. He looked toward the window. The man looked with him.
I am Señor Gillian, he said. Perhaps I can help you.
He pronounced it Geeyan. He waited.
Well, Billy said. You all sold a horse to a German doctor named Haas.
The man nodded. He seemed anxious for the story to unfold. And I was huntin the man you bought the horse off of. It might could of been a indian.
Gillian leaned back in his chair. He tapped his lower teeth. It was a dark bay gelding about fifteen and a half hands high. What you might call a castafio oscuro.
I am familiar with the particulars of this horse. Needless to say.
Yessir. You might of sold him moren one horse.
Yes. I might have but I did not. What was your interest in this horse?
I aint really concerned about the horse. I was just huntin the man that sold him.
Who is the boy in the street?
Sir?
The boy in the street.
That’s my brother.
Why is he outside?
He’s all right outside.
Why dont you bring him in?