The old woman held out one hand. She called hoarsely after her. No to vayas, she called. Me equivoquZ.
The girl clutched her Santo and her purse and went down the alleyway. Before she reached the end she turned and looked back a last time. La Tuerta was still standing in the door watching her. Holding the clutch of pesos to her breast. Then her eye blinked slowly in the light and the door closed and the key turned and the bolt ran forever on that world.
She went down the alleyway to the road and turned toward the town. Dogs were barking and the air was smoky from the charcoal fires in the low mud hovels of the colonias. She walked along the sandy desert road. The stars in flood above her. The lower edges of the firmament sawed out into the black shapes of the mountains and the lights of the cities burning on the plain like stars pooled in a lake. She sang to herself softly as she went a song from long ago. The dawn was two hours away. The town one.
There were no cars on the road. From a rise she could see to the east across the desert five miles distant the random lights of trucks moving slowly upon the highway that came up from Chihuahua. The air was still. She could see her breath in the dark. She watched the lights of a car that crossed from left to right somewhere before her and she watched the lights move on. Somewhere out there in the world was Eduardo.
When she reached the crossroads she studied the distance in either direction for any sign of approaching carlights before she crossed. She kept to the narrow streets down through the barrios in the outlying precincts of the city. Already there were windows lit with oillamps behind the walls of ocotillo or woven brush. She began to come upon occasional workmen with their lunches in lardcans they carried by the bail, whistling softly as they set forth in the early morning cold. Her feet were bleeding again in her shoes and she could feel the wet blood and the coldness of it.
The cafe held the only light along the Calle de Noche Triste. In the darkened window of the adjacent shoestore a cat sat silently among the footwear watching the empty street. It turned its head to regard her as she passed. She pushed open the steamed glass door of the cafe and entered.
Two men at a table by the window looked up when she came in and followed her with their eyes as she went by. She went to the rear and sat at one of the little wooden tables and put her purse and her parcel in the chair beside her and took up the menu from the chrome wire stand and sat looking at it. The waiter came over. She ordered a cafecito and he nodded and went back to the counter. It was warm in the cafe and after a while she took off the sweater and laid it in the chair. The men were still watching her. The waiter brought the coffee and set it before her with spoon and napkin. She was surprised to hear him ask where she was from.
Mande? she said.
De d-nde viene?
She told him she was from Chiapas and he stood for a moment studying her as if to see how such people might be different from those he knew. He said that he'd been told to ask by one of the men.When she turned and looked at them they smiled but there was no joy in it. She looked at the waiter. Estoy esperando a un amigo, she said.
Por supuesto, said the waiter.
She sat over the coffee a long time. The street outside grew gray in the February dawn. The two men at the front of the cafe had long since finished their coffee and left and others had come to take their place. The shops remained closed. A few trucks passed in the street and people were coming in out of the cold and a waitress was now going from table to table.
Shortly after seven a blue taxi pulled up at the door and the driver got out and came in and canvassed the tables with his eyes. He came to the rear of the cafe and looked down at her.
Lista? he said.
D-nde est++ Ram-n?
He stood picking at his teeth reflectively. He said that Ram-n could not come.
She looked toward the front of the cafe. The cab stood in the street with the engine running in the cold.
Est++ bien, said the driver. V++monos. Debemos darnos prisa.
She asked him if he knew John Grady and he nodded and waved the toothpick. S', s', he said. He said that he knew everyone. She looked again at the cab smoking in the street.
He had stepped back to allow her to rise. He looked down at the chair where she'd put her purse. The Santo wrapped in the whorehouse towel. She placed her hand over these things. Which he might wish to carry for her. She asked him who it was who had paid him.
He put the toothpick back in his mouth and stood looking at her. Finally he said that he had not been paid. He said that he was cousin to Ram-n and that Ram-n had been paid forty dollars. He put his hand on the back of the empty chair and stood looking down at her. Her shoulders were rising and falling with her breath. Like someone about to attempt a feat of strength. She said that she did not know.
He leaned down. Mire, he said. Su novio. fl tiene una cicatriz aqu'. He passed his forefinger across his cheek to trace the path of the knife that had made the scar her lover carried from the fight three years ago in the comedor of the c++rcel at Cuellar in the city of Saltillo. Verdad? he said.
S', she whispered. Es verdad. Y tiene mi tarjeta verde?
S'. He took the greencard from his pocket and placed it on the table. On the card was printed her name.
Est++ satisfecha? he said.
S', she whispered. Estoy satisfecha. And rose and gathered up her things and left money on the table to pay for the coffee and followed him out into the street.
In the cold dawn all that halfsordid world was coming to light again and as she rode in silence in the rear of the cab through the waking streets she clutched the illcarved wooden relic and said a silent goodbye to everything she knew and to each thing she would not see again. She said goodbye to an old woman in a black rebozo come to a door to see what sort of day it was and she said goodbye to three girls her age stepping with care around the water standing in the street from the recent rains who were on their way to Mass and she said goodbye to dogs and to old men at streetcorners and to vendors pushing their carts through the street to commence their day and to shopkeepers opening their doors and to the women who knelt with pail and rag to wash the walkway tiles. She said goodbye to the small birds strung shoulder to shoulder along the lightwires overhead who had slept and were waking and whose name she would never know.
They passed through the outskirts of the city and she could see the river to the left through the river trees and the tall buildings of the city beyond that were in another country and the barren mountains where the sun would soon fall upon the rocks. They passed the old abandoned municipal buildings. Rusted watertanks in a yard strewn with trashpapers the wind had left. The sudden thin iron palings of a fence that ratcheted silently past the window from right to left and which in their passing and in the period of their passing began to evoke the dormant sorcerer within before she could tear her gaze away. She put her hands to her eyes, breathing deeply. In the darkness inside the cups of her palms she saw herself on a cold white table in a cold white room. The glass of the doors and the windows to that room were meshed with heavy wire and clamoring there were whores and whores' handmaids many in number and all crying out to her. She sat upright on the table and threw back her head as if she would cry out or as if she would sing. Like some young diva remanded to a madhouse. No sound came. The cold pneuma passed. She should have called it back. When she opened her eyes the cab had turned off the road and was jostling over a bare dirt track and the driver was watching her in the mirror. She looked out but she could not see the bridge. She could see the river through the trees and the mist coming off the river and the raw rock mountains beyond but she could not see the city. She saw a figure moving among the trees by the river. She asked the driver if they were to cross here to the other side and he said yes. He said that she would be going to the other side now. Then the cab pulled into the clearing and came to a stop and when she looked what she saw coming toward her across the clearing in the earliest light of morning was the smiling Tiburcio.
HE'D LEFT THE RANCH around
five and driven to the darkened front of the bar where he could see the dimly lit face of the clock within. He backed the truck around on the gravel apron so that he could watch the road and he tried not to turn around to look at the clock every few minutes but he did.
Few cars passed. Shortly after six oclock a set of headlights slowed and he sat upright over the steering wheel and cleared the glass with the forearm of his jacket but the lights went past and the car was not a taxi but a sheriff's prowlcar. He thought they might come back and ask him what he was doing there but they didnt. It was very cold sitting in the truck and after a while he got out and walked around and flailed at himself with his arms and stamped his boots. Then he got back in the truck. The bar clock said sixthirty. When he looked to the east he could see the gray shape of the landscape.
The lights of the gas station a half mile down the highway went out. A truck went down the highway. He wondered if he could drive down there and get a cup of coffee before the cab arrived. By eightthirty he'd decided that if that was what it would take to make the cab arrive then that's what he would do and he started the engine. Then he shut it off again.
A half hour later he saw Travis's truck go by on the highway. In a few minutes it came back and slowed and pulled into the parking lot. John Grady rolled down the truck window. Travis pulled up and sat looking at him. He leaned and spat.
What'd they do, give you your time?
Not yet.
I thought maybe the truck was stole. You ain't broke down are you?
No. I was just waitin on somebody.
How long you been here?
I been here a while.
Has that thing got a heater in it?
Not much of a one.
Travis shook his head. He looked toward the highway. John Grady leaned and cleared the glass again with his sleeve. I bet?ter get on, he said.
Are you in some kind of trouble?
Yeah. Maybe.
Over a girl, I reckon.
Yeah.
They aint worth it, son.
I've heard that.
Well. Dont do nothin dumb.
It's probably too late.
It aint too late if you aint done it.
I'm all right.
He reached and turned the key and pushed the starter but?ton. He turned and looked at Travis. I'll see you, he said.
He pulled out of the parking lot and headed back up the highway. Travis sat watching the truck until it was out of sight.
IV
WHEN HE got to the cafe in the Calle de Noche Triste the place was full and the girl was hurrying back and forth with orders of eggs and baskets of tortillas. She didnt know anything. She'd only come to work an hour ago. He followed her into the kitchen. The cook looked up from the stove and looked at the girl. QuiZn es? he said. The girl shrugged. She looked at John Grady. She balanced plates up her arm and pushed back out through the door. The cook didnt know anything. He said the waiter's name was Felipe but he wasnt here. He wouldnt be back until late afternoon. John Grady watched him for a few minutes while he turned the tortillas on the grill with his fingers. Then he pushed open the door and went back out through the restaurant.
He followed the trail of the cabdriver through the various sidestreet bars where he plied his trade. Bars where patrons from the prior night clutched their drinks and squinted in the light from the opening door like suspects under interrogation. He narrowly avoided two fights for refusing to accept a drink. He went to the Venada and knocked at the door but no one came. He stood outside the Moderno peering into the interior but all was closed and dark.
He went to the poolhall in Mariscal Street that was frequented by the musicians and where their instruments hung along the wall, guitars and mandolins and horns of brass or german silver. A mexican harp. He asked after the maestro but none had seen him. By noon he had nowhere else to go but to the White Lake. He sat in a cafe over a cup of black coffee. He sat for a long time. There was another place to go but he didnt want to go there either.
A dwarf of a man in a white coat led him down a corridor. The building smelled of damp concrete. Outside he could hear street traffic, a jackhammer.
The man pushed through a door at the end of the corridor and held the door and nodded him through and then reached and threw the lightswitch. The boy took off his hat. They stood in a room where the recent dead four in number lay on their coolingboards. The boards were trestled up on legs made from plumbing pipe and the dead lay upon them with their hands at their sides and their eyes closed and their necks in dark stained wooden chocks. None were covered over but all lay in their clothes as death had found them. They had the look of rumpled travelers resting in an anteroom. He walked along slowly past the tables. The overhead ceiling lights were covered with small wire baskets. The walls were painted green. In the floor a brass drain. Bits of gray mopstring twisted about the castered wheels under the tables.
The girl to whom he'd sworn his love forever lay on the last table. She lay as the rushcutters had found her that morning in the shallows under the shore willows with the mist rising off the river. Her hair damp and matted. So black. Hung with strands of dead brown weed. Her face so pale. The severed throat gaping bloodlessly. Her good blue dress was twisted about on her body and her stockings were torn. She'd lost her shoes.
There was no blood for it had all washed away. He reached and touched her cheek. Oh God, he said.
La conoce? said the orderly.
Oh God.
La conoce?
He leaned on the table, crushing his hat. He put his hand across his eyes, gripping his skull. Had he the strength he'd have crushed out all it held. What lay before him now and all else it might hold forever.
Se-or, said the orderly, but the boy turned and pushed past him and stumbled out. The man called after him. He stood in the door and called down the hallway. He said that if he knew this girl he must make an identification. He said that there were papers to be filled out.
THE CATTLE in the long Cedar Springs Draw up through which he rode studied him as they stood chewing and then lowered their heads again. The rider knew they could tell his intentions by the attitude of the horse he rode. He passed on and rode up into the hills and crested out on the mesa and rode slowly along the rim. He sat the horse facing into the wind and watched the train going up the valley fifteen miles away. To the south the thin green line of the river lay like a child's crayon mark across that mauve and bistre waste. Beyond that the mountains of Mexico in paling blues and grays washing out in the distance. The grass along the mesa underfoot twisted in the wind. A dark head of weather was making up to the north. The little horse dipped its head and he pulled it about and rode on. The horse seemed uncertain and looked off to the west. As if to remember the way. The boy booted him forward. You dont need to worry about it, he said.
He crossed the highway and crossed through the westernmost section of the McGregor ranch. He rode through country he'd not seen before. In the early afternoon he came upon a rider sitting his horse with his hands crossed loosely over the pommel of his saddle. The horse was a goodlooking black gelding with a savvy look to its eye. It was ochred to the knees from the dust of that country and the rig was an old rimfire outfit with visalia stirrups and a flat saddlehorn the size of a coffeesaucer. The rider was chewing tobacco and he nodded as John Grady rode up. Can I help you? he said.
John Grady leaned and spat. Meanin I aint supposed to be on your land, he said. He looked at the rider. A man a few years older than he. The rider studied him back with his pale blue eyes.
I work for Mac McGovern, John Grady said. I reckon you know him.
Yes, the rider said. I know him. You all got stock drifted up this way?
No. Not that I know oPS I just kindly drifted up this way myself.
The rider pushed the brim of his hat back slightly with his thumb. They were met upon a clay floodplain bereft of grass or any growing thing and the only sound the wind made was in their clothes. The dark clouds stood banked
in a high wall to the north and a thin and soundless wire of lightning appeared there and quivered and vanished again. The rider leaned and spat and waited.
I was supposed to get married in two days' time, the boy said. The rider nodded but the boy said no more.
I take it you changed your mind.
The boy didnt answer. The rider looked off to the north and looked back again.
We might get some rain out of that.
We might. It's rained over in town the last two nights.
Have you had your dinner?
No. I guess I aint.
Why dont you come on to the house.
I better get on back.
I reckon she changed hers.
The boy looked away. He didnt answer.
There'll be anothern along directly. You'll see.
No there wont.
Why dont you come on to the house and take dinner with us. I appreciate it. I need to get back.
You remind me some of myself. Get somethin on your mind and just ride.
John Grady sat loosely holding the reins. He looked a long time out at the running country before he spoke. When he did speak the rider had to lean to catch his words. I wish I could ride, he said. I wish I could.
The rider wiped the corners of his mouth with the heel of his thumb. Maybe you'd better ought not to go back just yet, he said. Maybe you ought to just wait a little while.
I'd ride and I'd never look back. I'd ride to where I couldnt find a single day I ever knew. Even if I was to turn back and ride over ever foot of that ground. Then I'd ride some more.
I've been thataway, said the rider.
I better get on.
You sure you wont change your mind? We feed pretty good. No. I thank you.
Well.
I hope you get that rain up here.
I appreciate it.
He turned the horse and set out south down the broad floodplain. The rider turned his own horse and started back upcountry but he stopped before he'd gone far. He sat the horse and watched the boy riding out down the broad valley and he watched him for a long time. When he could see him no more he raised himself slightly in the stirrups. As if he might call after him. The boy never looked back. When he was gone the rider stayed a while yet. He'd dropped the reins and he sat with one leg crossed over the fork of the saddle and he pushed back his hat and leaned and spat and studied the country. As if it ought to have something to tell him for that figure having passed through it.
Cities of the Plain tbt-3 Page 21