THEY RODE ON SOUTH along the dusty road, doubled once more upon Billy’s horse. The dust blew off the crown of the road before them and the roadside acacias twisted and hissed in the wind. Late in the afternoon it darkened over and rain began to splatter in the dirt and to rattle in their hatbrims. They passed three men in the road riding. Illsorted horses and worse tack. When Billy looked back two of them were looking back at him.
Would you know them Mexicans we took the girl off of? he said.
I dont know. I dont think so. Would you?
I dont know. Probably not.
They rode on in the rain. After a while Boyd said: They’d know us.
Yeah, said Billy. They’d know us.
The road narrowed going up into the mountains. The country was all barren pinewood and the spare and reedy grass in the parklands looked poor fare for the sustenance of a horse. They took turns walking on the switchbacks, leading the horse or walking beside it. They camped in the pinewoods at night and the nights were cold again and when they rode into the town of Las Varas they had not eaten in two days. They crossed the railroad tracks and rode past the big adobe warehouses with their mud buttresses and their signs that said puro maíz and compro maíz. There were stacks of raw yellow slabcut pine lumber along the sidings and the air was rank with piñon smoke. They rode past the low stuccoed railstation with its tin roof and descended into the town. The houses were adobe with pitched roofs of wood shake and there were stacks of firewood in the yards and fences made from pine slabs. A boldlooking dog with one leg off limped into the street before them and turned to stand them off.
Sic him, Trooper, said Boyd.
Shit, said Billy.
They ate in what passed for a cafe in that rawlooking country. Three tables in an empty room and no fire.
I believe it’s warmer outside than what it is in here, Billy said.
Boyd looked out the window at the horse standing in the street. He looked toward the rear of the cafe.
You reckon this place is even open?
After a while a woman came through the door at the rear and stood before them.
Qué tiene de comer? Billy said.
Tenemos cabrito.
Qué más?
Enchiladas de pollo.
Qué más?
Cabrito.
I aint eatin no goat, Billy said.
I aint either.
Dos ordenes de las enchiladas, Billy said. Y café.
She nodded and went away.
Boyd sat with his hands between his knees to warm them. Outside gray smoke blew through the streets. No one was about.
You think it’s worse to be cold or be hungry?
I think it’s worse to be both.
When the woman brought the plates she set them down and then made a shooing motion toward the front of the cafe. The dog was standing at the window looking in. Boyd took off his hat and made a pass at the glass with it and the dog went away. He put his hat back on again and picked up his fork. The woman went to the rear and returned with two mugs of coffee in one hand and a basket of corn tortillas in the other. Boyd pulled something from his mouth and laid it on the plate and sat looking at it.
What’s that? said Billy.
I dont know. It looks like a feather.
They poked the enchiladas apart trying to find something edible inside. Two men came in and looked at them and went on to sit at the table at the back.
Eat the beans, Billy said.
Yeah, said Boyd.
They spooned the beans into the tortillas and ate them and drank the coffee. The two men at the rear sat quietly waiting for their meal.
She’s goin to ask us what was wrong with the enchiladas, Billy said.
I dont know if she will or not. You reckon people eat them things?
I dont know. We can take em and give em to the dog.
You propose to take the woman’s food out and feed it to the dog right in front of her own cafe?
If the dog’ll eat it.
Boyd pushed back his chair and rose. Let me go out and get the pot, he said. We can feed the dog down the road.
All right.
We’ll just tell her we’re taken it with us.
When he came back in with the pot they scraped the food off the plates and put the lid on and sat drinking their coffee. The woman came out with two platters of richlooking meat with gravy and rice and pico de gallo.
Damn, said Billy. Dont that look good.
He called for the bill and the woman came over and told them it was seven pesos. Billy paid and nodded toward the rear and asked the woman what those men were eating.
Cabrito, she said.
When they walked out into the street the dog got up and stood waiting.
Hell, said Billy. Just go on and give it to him.
In the evening on the road to Boquilla they encountered a bunch of vaqueros looseherding perhaps a thousand head of raw corriente steers upcountry toward the Naco pens at the border. They’d been trailing the herd three days from the Quemada deep at the southern end of La Babícora and they were dirty and outlandishlooking and the cattle wild and spooky. They passed bawling in a sea of dust and the ghostcolored horses trod among them sullen and red‑eyed with their heads lowered. A few of the riders raised a hand in greeting. The young güeros had pulled to a piece of high ground and swung down and they stood with the horse and watched the slow pale chaos drift west with the sun leaving the ground behind them smoking gently and the last cries of the riders and the last moans of the cattle drifting away into the deep blue silence of the evening. They mounted up and rode on again. At dark they passed through a hamlet on that high plain where the houses were of logs with woodshingle roofs. Smoke and the smell of cooking drifted on the cold air. They rode through the bands of yellow light that fell over the road from the lamplit windows and on into the dark and the cold again. In the morning on that same road they encountered wet and sleek coming up from the highcountry laguna south of the road the horses Bailey and Tom and Niño.