Cities of the Plain tbt-3

by Cormac McCarthy

  Eres del White Lake, she said.

  The girl nodded.

  Y regresas?

  S'.

  Por quZ?

  No sZ.

  No sabes.

  No.

  Quieres it conmigo?

  No puedo.

  PorquZ no?

  She didnt know. The woman asked her again. She said that she could come with her and live in her house where she lived with her children.

  The girl whispered that she did not know her.

  Te gusta to vida Por all++? the woman said.

  No.

  Ven conmigo.

  She stood shivering. She shook her head no. The sun was coming soon. In the dark above them a star fell and in the cold wind before the dawn papers loped and clutched and rattled briefly in the spines of the roadside growth and loped on again. The woman looked toward the desert sky to the east. She looked at the girl. She asked the girl if she was cold and she said that she was. She asked her again: Quieres it conmigo?

  She said that she could not. She said that in three days' time the boy she loved would come to marry her. She thanked her for her kindness.

  The woman raised the girl's face in her hand and looked at her. The girl waited for her to speak but she only looked into 'her face as if to remember her. Perhaps to read at second hand the shapes of the roads that had led her to this place. What was lost or what was ruined. Whom bereft. Or what remained.

  C-mo se llama? the girl said, but the woman did not answer. She touched the girl's face and took away her hand and turned and went on along the dark of the road out of the darkened barrio and did not look back.

  Eduardo's car was gone. She crept shivering along the alley under the warehouse wall and tried the door but it was locked. She tapped and waited and tapped again. She waited a long time. After a while she went back out to the street. Her breath pluming in the light along the corrugated wall. She looked back down the alley again and then went around to the front of the building and through the gate and up the walkway.

  The portress with her painted face seemed unsurprised to see her standing there clutching herself in the stenciled shift. She stepped back and held the door and the girl entered and thanked her and went on through the salon. Two men standing at the bar turned to watch her. Pale and dirty waif drifted by mischance in from the outer cold to cross the room with eyes cast down and arms crossed at her breasts. Leaving bloody footprints in the carpet as if a penitent had passed.

  HE SEEMED to have dressed with care for the occasion although it may have been that he had business elsewhere in the city. He slid back the goldlinked cuff of his shirt to consult his watch. His suit was of light gray silk shantung and he wore a silk tie of the same color. His shirt was a pale lemon yellow and he wore a yellow silk handkerchief in the breastpocket of the suit and the lowcut black boots with the zippers up the inner sides were freshly polished for he left his shoes outside his door several pair at a time as if the whorehouse hallway were a Pullman car.

  She sat in the saffroncolored robe he'd given her. Upon the antique bed where her feet did not quite reach the floor. She sat with her head bowed so that her hair cascaded over her thighs and she sat with her hands placed on the bed at either side of her as if she might be afraid of falling.

  He spoke in reasoned tones the words of a reasonable man. The more reasonably he spoke the colder the wind in the hollow of her heart. At each juncture in her case he paused to give her space in which to speak but she did not speak and her silence only led inexorably to the next succeeding charge until that structure which was composed of nothing but the spoken word and which should have passed on in its very utterance and left no trace or residue or shadow in the living world, that bodiless structure stood in the room a ponderable being and within its phantom corpus was contained her life.

  When he was done he stood watching her. He asked her what she had to say. She shook her head.

  Nada? he said.

  No, she said. Nada.

  QuZ crees que eres?

  Nada.

  Nada. S'. Pero piensas que has traido una dispensa especial a esta casa? Que Dios to ha escogido?

  Nunca cre' tal cosa.

  He turned and stood looking out the small barred window. Along the limits of the city where the roads died in the desert in sand washes and garbage dumps, out to the white perimeters at midday where smoke from the trashfires burned along the horizon like the signature of vandal hordes come in off the inscrutable wastes beyond. He spoke without turning. He said that she had been spoiled in this house. Because of her youth. He said that her illness was illness only and that she was a fool to believe in the superstitions of the women of the house. He said that she was twice a fool to trust them for they would eat her flesh if they thought it would protect them from disease or secure for them the affections of the lover of whom they dreamt or cleanse their souls in the sight of the bloody and barbarous god to whom they prayed. He said that her illness was illness only and that it would so prove itself when at last it killed her as it soon would do.

  He turned to study her. The slope of her shoulders and their movement with the rise and fall of her breath. The bloodbeat in the artery of her neck. When she looked up and saw his face she knew that he had seen into her heart. What was so and what was false. He smiled his hardlipped smile. Your lover does not know, he said. You have not told him.

  Mande?

  Tu amado no to sabe.

  No, she whispered. fl no to sabe.

  HE SET OUT the pieces loosely on the board and swiveled it about. I'll go you one more, he said.

  Mac shook his head. He held the cigar and blew smoke slowly over the table and then picked up his cup and drained the last of his coffee.

  I'm done, he said.

  Yessir. You played a good game.

  I didnt believe you'd sacrifice a bishop.

  That was one of Schonberger's gambits.

  You read a lot of chess books?

  No sir. Not a lot. I read his.

  You told me you played poker.

  Some. Yessir.

  Why do I think that means somethin else.

  I never played that much poker. My daddy was a poker player. He always said that the problem with poker was you played with two kinds of money. What you won was gravy but what you lost was hard come by.

  Was he a good poker player?

  Yessir. He was one of the best, I reckon. He cautioned me away from it though. He said it was not any kind of a life.

  Why did he do it if he thought that?

  It was the only other thing he was good at.

  What was the first thing?

  He was a cowboy.

  I take it he was pretty good at that.

  Yessir. I've heard of some that was supposed to be better and I'm sure there were some better. I just never did see any of em.

  He was on the death march, wasnt he?

  Yessir.

  There was a lot of boys from this part of the country was on it. Quite a few of em Mexicans.

  Yessir. There was.

  Mac pulled at his cigar and blew the smoke toward the window. Has Billy come around or are you and him still on the outs?

  He's all right.

  Is he still goin to stand up for you?

  Yessir.

  Mac nodded. She aint got nobody to stand on her side?

  No sir. Socorro is bringin her family.

  That's good. I aint been in my suit in three years. I'd better make a dry run in it, Ireckon.

  John Grady put the last of the pieces in the box and fitted and slid shut the wooden lid.

  Might need Socorro to let out the britches for me.

  They sat. Mac smoked. You aint Catholic are you? he said.

  No sir.

  I wont need to make no disclaimers or nothin?

  No sir.

  So Tuesday's the day.

  Yessir. February seventeenth. It's the last day before Lent. Or I guess next to last. After that you cant get married till
Easter.

  Is that cuttin it kindly close?

  It'll be all right.

  Mac nodded. He put the cigar in his teeth and pushed back the chair. Wait here a minute, he said.

  John Grady listened to him going down the hall to his room. When he came back he sat down and placed a gold ring on the table.

  That's been in my dresser drawer for three years. It aint doin nobody any good there and it never will. We talked about everthing and we talked about that ring. She didnt want it put in the ground. I want you to take it.

  Sir I dont think I can do that.

  Yes you can. I've already thought of everthing you could possibly say on the subject so rather than go over it item by item let's just save the aggravation and you put it in your pocket and come Tuesday you put it on that girl's finger. You might need to get it resized. The woman that wore it was a beautiful woman. You can ask anybody, it wasnt just my opinion. But what you saw wouldnt hold a candle to what was on the inside. We would like to of had children but we didnt. It damn sure wasnt from not tryin. Shewas a woman with a awful lot of common sense. I thought she just wanted me to keep that ring for a remembrance but she said I'd know what to do with it when the time come and of course she was right. She was right about everthing. And there's no pride in it when I tell you that she set more store by that ring and what it meant than anything else she ever owned. And that includes some pretty damn fine horses. So take it and put it in your pocket and dont be arguin with me about everthing.

  Yessir.

  And now I'm goin to bed.

  Yessir.

  Goodnight.

  Goodnight.

  FROM THE PASS in the upper range of the Jarillas they could see the green of the benchland below the springs and they could see the thin standing spire of smoke from the fire in the stove rising vertically in the still blue morning air. They sat their horses. Billy nodded at the scene.

  When I was a kid growin up in the bootheel me and my brother used to stop where we topped out on this bench south of the ranch goin up into the mountains and we'd look back down at the house. It would be snowin sometimes or snow on the ground in the winter and there was always a fire in the stove and you could see the smoke from the chimney and it was a long ways away and it looked different from up there. Always looked different. It was different. We'd be gone up in the mountains sometimes all day throwin them spooky cattle out of the draws and bringin em down to the feedstation where we'd put out cake. I dont think there was ever a time we didnt stop and look back thataway before we rode up into that country. From where we'd stop we were not a hour away and the coffee was still hot on the stove down there but it was worlds away. Worlds away.

  In the distance they could see the thin straight line of the highway and a toysized truck running silently upon it. Beyond that the green line of the river breaks and range on range the distant mountains of Mexico. Billy watched him.

  You think you'll ever go back there?

  Where?

  Mexico.

  I dont know. I'd like to. You?

  I dont think so. I think I'm done.

  I came out of there on the run. Ridin at night. Afraid to make a fire.

  Been shot.

  Been shot. Those people would take you in. Hide you out. Lie for you. No one ever asked me what it was I'd done.

  Billy sat with his hands crossed palm down on the pommel of his saddle. He leaned and spat. I went down there three separate trips. I never once come back with what I started after.

  John Grady nodded. What would you do if you couldnt be a cowboy?

  I dont know. I reckon I'd think of somethin. You?

  I dont know what it would be I'd think oPS

  Well we may all have to think of somethin.

  Yeah.

  You think you could live in Mexico?

  Yeah. Probably.

  Billy nodded. You know what a vaquero makes in the way of wages.

  Yep.

  You might luck up on a job as foreman or somethin. But sooner or later they're goin to run all the white people out of that country. Even the Bab'cora wont survive.

  I know it.

  You'd go to veterinary school if you had the money I reckon. Wouldnt you?

  Yep. I would.

  You ever write to your mother?

  What's my mother got to do with anything?

  Nothin. I just wonder if you even know what a outlaw you are.

  Why?

  Why do I wonder it?

  Why am I a outlaw.

  I dont know. You just got a outlaw heart. I've seen it before.

  Because I said I could live in Mexico?

  It aint just that.

  Dont you think if there's anything left of this life it's down there?

  Maybe.

  You like it too.

  Yeah? I dont even know what this life is. I damn sure dont know what Mexico is. I think it's in your head. Mexico. I rode a lot of ground down there. The first ranchera you hear sung you understand the whole country. By the time you've heard a hundred you dont know nothin. You never will. I concluded my business down there a long time ago.

  He hooked his leg over the pommel of the saddle and sat rolling a cigarette. They'd dropped the reins and the horses leaned and picked bleakly at the sparse tufts of grass trembling in the wind coming through the gap. He bent with his back to the wind and popped a match with his thumbnail and lit the cigarette and turned back.

  I aint the only one. It's another world. Everbody I ever knew that ever went back was goin after somethin. Or thought they was.

  Yeah.

  There's a difference between quittin and knowin when you're beat.

  John Grady nodded.

  I guess you dont believe that. Do you?

  John Grady studied the distant mountains. No, he said. I guess I dont.

  They sat for a long time. The wind blew. Billy had long since finished his cigarette and stubbed it out on the sole of his boot.

  He unfolded his leg back over the horn of the saddle and slid his boot into the stirrup and leaned down and took up the reins. The horses stepped and stood.

  My daddy once told me that some of the most miserable people he ever knew were the ones that finally got what they'd always wanted.

  Well, said John Grady. I'm willin to risk it. I've damn sure tried it the other way.

  Yeah.

  You cant tell anybody anything, bud. Hell, it's really just a way of tellin yourself. And you cant even do that. You just try and use your best judgment and that's about it.

  Yeah. Well. The world dont know nothin about your judgment.

  I know it. It's worse than that, even. It dont care.

  QUINQUAGESIMA SUNDAY in the predawn dark she lit a candle and set the candledish on the floor beside the bureau where the light would not show beneath the doorway to the outer hall. She washed herself at the sink with soap and cloth and she leaned and let her black hair fall before her and passed the wet cloth the length of it a half a hundred times and brushed it as many more. She poured a frugal few drops of scent into her palm and pressed her palms together and scented her hair and the nape of her neck. Then she gathered her hair and twisted it into a rope and coiled and pinned it up.

  She dressed with care in one of the three street dresses she owned and stood regarding herself in the dimly lit mirror. The dress was navy blue with white bands at the collar and sleeves and she turned in the mirror and reached over her shoulder and fastened the topmost buttons and turned again. She sat in the chair and pulled on the black pump shoes and stood and went to the bureau and got her purse and put into it the few toilet articles it would hold. No coja nada, she whispered. She folded in her clean underwear and her brush and combs and forced the catch shut. No coja nada. She took her sweater from the back of the chair and pulled it over her shoulders and turned to look at the room she would never see again. The crude carved Santo stood as before. Holding his staff so crookedly glued. She took a towel from the rack by the washstand and she wrapped
the santo in the towel and then she sat in the chair with the Santo in her lap and the purse hanging from her shoulder and waited.

  She waited a long time. She had no watch. She listened for the bells to toll in the distant town but sometimes when the wind was coming in off the desert you could not hear them. By and by she heard a rooster call. Finally she heard the slippered steps of the criada along the corridor and she rose as the door opened and the old woman looked in on her and turned and looked back down the hallway and then entered with her hand fanned before her and one finger to her lips and pressed the door shut silently behind her.

  Lista? she hissed.

  S'. Lista.

  Bueno. V++monos.

  The old woman gave a hitch of her shoulder and a sort of half jaunty cock of her head. Some powdered stepdam from a storybook. Some ragged conspiratress gesturing upon the boards. The girl clutched her purse and stood and put the santo under her arm and the old woman opened the door and peered out and then urged her forward with her hand and they stepped out into the hallway.

  Her shoes clicked on the tiles. The old woman looked down and the girl bent slightly and raised her feet each in turn and slipped off the shoes and tucked them under her arm along with the Santo.

  The old woman shut the door behind them and they moved down the hallway, the crone holding her hand like a child's and tugging at her apron to sort forth her keys where they hung by their thong from the piece of broomhandle.

  At the outer door she stood and put her shoes on again while the old woman muffled the heavy latch with her rebozo and turned it with her key. Then the door opened onto the cold and the dark.

  They stood facing one another. R++pido, r++pido, whispered the old woman and the girl pressed the money that she had promised into her hands and then threw her arms around her neck and kissed her dry and leather cheek and turned and stepped through the door. On the step she turned to take the old woman's blessing but the criada was too distraught to respond and before she could step away from out of the doorway light the old woman had reached and seized her arm.

  No to vayas, she hissed. No to vayas.

  The girl tore her arm away from the old woman's grip. The sleeve of her dress ripped loose along the shoulder seam. No, she whispered, backing away. No.