Está bien, said Billy. He stood.
The man said that it was not all right. He said that he did not want their horses soiling the ground on which they were to sleep.
Billy looked at him. He turned slightly and looked at his horse. He could see curved like a dark triptych in a glass paperweight the figures of the two men and the girl burning in the fugitive light of the fire at the black center of the animal’s eye. He passed the reins behind him to Boyd. Take them out yonder, he said. Dont unsaddle Bird and dont loose the latigo and dont put them with their horses.
Boyd passed in front of him leading the horses and went on past the men and into the dark of the trees. Billy came forward and nodded to them and pushed his hat back slightly from his eyes. He stood before the fire and looked down into it. He looked at the girl.
Cómo está, he said.
She didnt answer. When he looked across the fire the man who was smoking had squatted on his heels and was watching him through the warp of heat with eyes the color of wet coal. On the ground at his side stood a bottle stoppered with a corncob.
De dónde viene? he said.
America.
Tejas.
Nuevo Mexico.
Nuevo Mexico, the man said. Adónde va?
Billy watched him. He had his right arm folded across his chest and held in place with the elbow of his left so that his left forearm stood vertically before him holding the cigarette in a pose strangely formal, strangely delicate. Billy looked at the girl again and he looked again at the man across the fire. He had no answer to his query.
Hemos perdido un caballo, he said. Lo buscamos.
The man didnt answer. He held the cigarette between his forefingers and dipped his wrist in a birdlike motion and smoked and then raised the cigarette aloft again. Boyd came out of the trees and circled the fire and stood but the man did not look at him. He pitched the butt of the cigarette into the fire before him and wrapped his arms around his knees and began to rock back and forth in a motion barely perceptible. He jutted his chin at Billy and asked if he had followed them in order to see their horses.
No, said Billy. Nuestro caballo es un caballo muy distinto. Lo conoceríamos en cualquier luz.
As soon as he’d said it he knew that he’d given up his only plausible answer to the man’s next question. He looked at Boyd. Boyd knew it too. The man rocked, he studied them. Qué quieren pues? he said.
Nada, said Billy. No queremos nada.
Nada, said the man. He formed the word as if tasting it. He gave his chin a slight sideways turn as a man might in pondering likelihoods. Two horsemen who meet two others on a dark road and pass on and thereafter meet also a traveler afoot know that those riders have overtaken the foot‑traveler and passed on. That was what was known. The man’s teeth shone in the firelight. He picked something from between them and examined it and then ate it. Cuántos años tiene? he said.
Yo?
Quién más.
Diecisiete.
The man nodded. Cuántos años tiene la muchacha?
No to sé.
Qué opina.
Billy looked at the girl. She sat staring into her lap. She looked to be maybe fourteen.
Es muy joven, he said.
Bastante.
Doce quizás.
The man shrugged. He reached and took up the bottle from the ground and pulled the stopper and drank and sat holding the bottle by the neck. He said that if they were old enough to bleed they were old enough to butcher. Then he held the bottle up over his shoulder. The man behind him stepped forward and took it from him and drank. Out in the road a horse was passing. The dog had stood to listen. The rider did not stop and the slow clop of the hooves on the dried mud of the roadway faded and the dog lay down again. The man standing drank a second time and then handed the bottle back. The other man took it and pushed the cob back into the neck of the bottle with the heel of his hand and then weighed the bottle.
Quiere tomar? he said.
No. Gracias.
He weighed the bottle in his hand again and then pitched it underhand across the fire. Billy caught it and looked at the man. He held the bottle to the light. The smoky yellow mescal rolled viscously inside the glass and the curled form of the dead gusano circled the floor of the bottle in a slow drift like a small wandering fetus.
No quiero tomar, he said.
Tome, the man said.
He looked at the bottle again. The greaseprints on the glass shone in the firelight. He looked at the man and then he twisted the cob out of the neck.
Get the horses, he said.
Boyd stepped behind him. The man watched him. Adónde vas? he said.
Go on, said Billy.
Adónde va el muchacho?
Está enfermo.
Boyd crossed and went on toward the trees. The dog stood up and looked after him. The man turned and looked at Billy again.Billy raised the bottle and began to drink. He drank and lowered the bottle. Water ran from his eyes and he wiped them with his forearm and looked at the man and raised the bottle and drank again.