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BLOOD MERIDIAN
OR THE EVENING REDNESS IN THE WEST
CORMAC McCARTHY
Cormac McCarthy is the author of The Orchard Keeper, Outer Dark, Chi
ld of God,
Suttree, Blood Meridian, and All the Pretty Horses, which won the National Book Award
and the National Book Critics Circle Award.
The author wishes to thank the Lyndhurst Foundation, the John Simon Guggenheim
Memorial Foundation, and the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation. He also
wishes to express his appreciation to Albert Erskine, his editor of twenty years.
Your ideas are terrifying and your hearts are faint. Your acts of pi ty and cruelty are
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absurd, committed with no calm, as if they were irre istible. Fina lly, you fear blood
more and more. Blood and time.
paul?valery
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It is not to be thought that the life of dark ess is sunk in misery and lost as if in
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sorrow ng. There is no sorrowing. For sorrow is a thing that is swallow ed up in death,
and death and dying are the very life of the darkness.
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JACOB ?BOEHME
Clark, who led last year's expedition to the Afar region of northe rn Ethiopia, and UC
Berkeley colleague Tim D. White, also said that a re-examinati on of a 3OO,ooo-year-old
fossil skull found in the same region earlier shows evidence of having been scalped.
THE?YUMA?DAILY?SUN
June 13,1982 I
Childhood in Tennessee - Runs away - New Orleans -

Fights - Is shot - To Galveston - Nacogdoches -
The Reverend Green - Judge Holden - An affray - Toadvine -
Burning of the hotel - Escape.
See the child. He is pale and thin, he wears a thin and ragged line
n shirt. He stokes
the scullery fire. Outside lie dark turned fields with rags of sno w and darker woods
beyond that harbor yet a few last wolves. His folk are known for hewers of wood and
drawers of water but in truth his father has been a schoolmaster. H e lies in drink, he
quotes from poets whose names are now lost. The boy crouches by th e fire and watches
him.
Night of your birth. Thirty-three. The Leonids they were called. God how the stars did
fall. I looked for blackness, holes in the heavens. The Dippe r stove.
The mother dead these fourteen years did incubate in her own bos om the creature who
would carry her off. The father never speaks her name, the chil d does not know it. He
has a sister in this world that he will not see again. He watches , pale and unwashed.
He can neither read nor write and in him broods already a taste for m indless violence.
All history present in that visage, the child the father of the man.
At fourteen he runs away. He will not see again the freezing kitch enhouse in the
predawn dark. The firewood, the washpots. He wanders west as far a s Memphis, a
solitary migrant upon that flat and pastoral landscape. Black s in the fields, lank and
stooped, their fingers spiderlike among the bolls of cotton. A shadowed agony in the
garden. Against the sun's declining figures moving in the slow er dusk across a paper
skyline. A lone dark husbandman pursuing mule and harrow down the rainblown
bottomland toward night.
A year later he is in Saint Louis. He is taken on for New Orleans a board a flatboat.
Forty-two days on the river. At night the steamboats hoot and trud ge past through the
black waters all alight like cities adrift. They break up the flo at and sell the lumber and
he walks in the streets and hears tongues he has not heard before. H e lives in a room
above a courtyard behind a tavern and he comes down at night like s ome fairybook
beast to fight with the sailors. He is not big but he has big wrist s, big hands. His
shoulders are set close. The child's face is curiously untouche d behind the scars, the
eyes oddly innocent. They fight with fists, with feet, with b ottles or knives. All races, all
breeds. Men whose speech sounds like the grunting of apes. Men f rom lands so far and
queer that standing over them where they lie bleeding in the mu d he feels mankind

itself vindicated.
On a certain night a Maltese boatswain shoots him in the back wi
th a small pistol.
Swinging to deal with the man he is shot again just below the he art. The man flees and
he leans against the bar with the blood running out of his shirt. The others look away.
After a while he sits in the floor.
He lies in a cot in the room upstairs for two weeks while the tavern keeper's wife
attends him. She brings his meals, she carries out his slops. A ha rdlooking woman with
a wiry body like a man's. By the time he is mended he has no money to pay her and
he leaves in the night and sleeps on the riverbank until he can f ind a boat that will
take him on. The boat is going to Texas.
Only now is the child finally divested of all that he has been. His origins are become
remote as is his destiny and not again in all the world's turning w ill there be terrains
so wild and barbarous to try whether the stuff of creation may be shaped to man's will
or whether his own heart is not another kind of clay. The passen gers are a diffident lot.
They cage their eyes and no man asks another what it is that brin gs him here. He
sleeps on the deck, a pilgrim among others. He watches the dim sh ore rise and fall.
Gray seabirds gawking. Flights of pelicans coastwise above th e gray swells.
They disembark aboard a lighter, settlers with their chattels, a ll studying the low
coastline, the thin bight of sand and scrub pine swimming in th e haze.
He walks through the narrow streets of the port. The air smells of sa lt and newsawn
lumber. At night whores call to him from the dark like souls in want . A week and he is
on the move again, a few dollars in his purse that he's earned, wal king the sand roads
of the southern night alone, his hands balled in the cotton poc kets of his cheap coat.
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Earthen causeways across the marsh and. Egrets in their rookeries w hite as candles
among the moss. The wind has a raw edge to it and leaves lope by th e roadside and
skelter on in the night fields. He moves north through small set tlements and farms,
working for day wages and found. He sees a parricide hanged in a cro ssroads hamlet
and the man's friends run forward and pull his legs and he hangs de ad from his rope
while urine darkens his trousers.
He works in a sawmill, he works in a diptheria pesthouse. He takes as pay from a
farmer an aged mule and aback this animal in the spring of the yea r eighteen and
forty-nine he rides up through the latterday republic of Fredonia i nto the town of
Nacogdoches.
The Reverend Green had been playing to a full house daily as long as the rain had

been falling and the rain had been falling for two weeks. When t
he kid ducked into the
ratty canvas tent there was standing room along the walls, a plac e or two, and such a
heady reek of the wet and bathless that they themselves would s ally forth into the
downpour now and again for fresh air before the rain drove them in a gain. He stood
with others of his kind along the back wall. The only thing that might have
distinguished him in that crowd was that he was not armed.
Neighbors, said the reverend, he couldnt stay out of these here he ll, hell, hellholes right
here in Nacogdoches. I said to him, said: You goin to take the so n of God in there with
ye? And he said: Oh no. No I aint. And I said: Dont you know that h e said I will foller
ye always even unto the end of the road?
Well, he said, I aint askin nobody to go nowheres. And I said: Ne ighbor, you dont need
to ask. He's a goin to be there with ye ever step of the way whethe r ye ask it or ye
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dont. I said: Neigh or, you caint get shed of him. Now. Are you goi ng to drag him,
him, into that hellhole yonder?
You ever see such a place for rain? The kid had been watching the reverend. He turned to the man who sp oke. He wore
long moustaches after the fashion of teamsters and he wore a wid ebrim hat with a low
round crown. He was slightly walleyed and he was watching the ki d earnestly as if he'd
know his opinion about the rain.
I just got here, said the kid.
Well it beats all I ever seen. The kid nodded. An enormous man dressed in an oilcloth slicker h ad entered the tent
and removed his hat. He was bald as a stone and he had no trace of be ard and he had
no brows to his eyes nor lashes to them. He was close on to seven f eet in height and
he stood smoking a cigar even in this nomadic house of God and h e seemed to have
removed his hat only to chase the rain from it for now he put it on ag ain.
The reverend had stopped his sermon altogether. There was no sound in the tent. All
watched the man. He adjusted the hat and then pushed his way fo rward as far as the
crateboard pulpit where the reverend stood and there he turned to add ress the
reverend's congregation. His face was serene and strangely child like. His hands were
small. He held them out.
Ladies and gentlemen I feel it my duty to inform you that the man holding this revival

is an imposter. He holds no papers of divinity from any instituti
on recognized or
improvised. He is altogether devoid of the least qualificati on to the office he has
usurped and has only committed to memory a few passages from the good book for the
purpose of lending to his fraudulent sermons some faint flavor o f the piety he despises.
In truth, the gentleman standing here before you posing as a mini ster of the Lord is not
only totally illiterate but is also wanted by the law in the sta tes of Tennessee, Kentucky,
Mississippi, and Arkansas.
Oh God, cried the reverend. Lies, lies! He began reading feverishl y from his opened
bible.
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On a variety of charges the most recent of which involved a girl of e leven years said
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eleven ho had come to him in trust and whom he was surprised in the a ct of violating
while actually clothed in the livery of his God.
A moan swept through the crowd. A lady sank to her knees.
This is him, cried the reverend, sobbing. This is him. The devil. Here he stands.
Let's hang the turd, called an ugly thug from the gallery to the re ar.
Not three weeks before this he was run out of Fort Smith Arkansas for having congress
with a goat. Yes lady, that is what I said. Goat.
Why damn my eyes if I wont shoot the son of a bitch, said a man risi ng at the far side
of the tent, and drawing a pistol from his boot he leveled it and f ired.
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The young teamster instantly produced a knife from his cloth ng and unseamed the
tent and stepped outside into the rain. The kid followed. They ducked low and ran
across the mud toward the hotel. Already gunfire was general withi n the tent and a
dozen exits had been hacked through the canvas walls and peopl e were pouring out,
women screaming, folk stumbling, folk trampled underfoot in th e mud. The kid and his
friend reached the hotel gallery and wiped the water from their e yes and turned to
watch. As they did so the tent began to sway and buckle and like a huge and wounded
medusa it slowly settled to the ground trailing tattered canvas walls and ratty guyropes
over the ground.
The baldheaded man was already at the bar when they entered.
On the polished wood before him were two hats and a double handfu l of coins. He
raised his glass but not to them. They stood up to the bar and orde red whiskeys and

the kid laid his money down but the barman pushed it back with hi
s thumb and
nodded. These here is on the judge, he said.
They drank. The teamster set his glass down and looked at the ki d or he seemed to,
you couldnt be sure of his gaze. The kid looked down the bar to wh ere the judge stood.
The bar was that tall not every man could even get his elbows up on it but it came
just to the judge's waist and he stood with his hands placed fl atwise on the wood,
leaning slightly, as if about to give another address. By now m en were piling through
the doorway, bleeding, covered in mud, cursing. They gathered a bout the judge. A posse
was being drawn to pursue the preacher.
Judge, how did you come to have the goods on that no-account?
Goods? said the judge.
When was you in Fort Smith?
Fort Smith?
Where did you know him to know all that stuff on him?
You mean the Reverend Green?
Yessir. I reckon you was in Fort Smith fore ye come out here. I was never in Fort Smith in my life. Doubt that he was.
They looked from one to the other.
Well where was it you run up on him? I never laid eyes on the man before today. Never even heard of him .
He raised his glass and drank.
There was a strange silence in the room. The men looked like mud ef figies. Finally
someone began to laugh. Then another. Soon they were all laughi ng together. Someone
bought the judge a drink.
It had been raining for sixteen days when he met Toadvine and it was raining yet. He
was still standing in the same saloon and he had drunk up all his money save two

dollars. The teamster had gone, the room was all but empty. The d
oor stood open and
you could see the rain falling in the empty lot behind the hotel . He drained his glass
and went out. There were boards laid across the mud and he followed the paling band
of doorlight down toward the batboard jakes at the bottom of the l ot. Another man was
coming up from the jakes and they met halfway on the narrow planks . The man before
him swayed slightly. His wet hatbrim fell to his shoulders save in the front where it was
pinned back. He held a bottle loosely in one hand. You better g et out of my way, he
said.
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The kid wasnt going to do that and he saw no use in discuss ng it. He kicked the
man in the jaw. The man went down and got up again. He said: I'm g oin to kill you.
He swung with the bottle and the kid ducked and he swung again a nd the kid stepped
back. When the kid hit him the man shattered the bottle against the side of his head.
He went off the boards into the mud and the man lunged after him w ith the jagged
bottleneck and tried to stick it in his eye. The kid was fending with his hands and they
were slick with blood. He kept trying to reach into his boot for h is knife.
Kill your ass, the man said. They slogged about in the dark of th e lot, coming out of
their boots. The kid had his knife now and they circled crabwise and when the man
lurched at him he cut the man's shirt open. The man threw down the b ottleneck and
unsheathed an immense bowieknife from behind his neck. His ha t had come off and his
black and ropy locks swung about his head and he had codified hi s threats to the one
word kill like a crazed chant.
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That'ns cut, said one of several men standing along the walk ay watching.
Kill kill slobbered the man wading forward.
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But someone else was coming down the lot, great steady suck ng s ounds like a cow.
He was carrying a huge shellalegh. He reached the kid first and wh en he swung with
the club the kid went face down in the mud. He'd have died if som eone hadn't turned
him over.
When he woke it was daylight and the rain had stopped and he was l ooking up into the
face of a man with long hair who was completely covered in mud. T he man was saying
something to him.
What? said the kid. I said are you quits?

Quits?
Quits. Cause if you want some more of me you sure as hell goin to ge
t it.
He looked at the sky. Very high, very small, a buzzard. He looke d at the man. Is my
neck broke? he said.
The man looked out over the lot and spat and looked at the boy ag ain. Can you not get
up?
I dont know. I aint tried.
I never meant to break your neck.
No.
I meant to kill ye.
They aint nobody done it yet. He clawed at the mud and pushed hi mself up. The man
was sitting on the planks with his boots alongside him. They a int nothin wrong with
you, he said.
The kid looked about stiffly at the day. Where's my boots? he sa id.
The man squinted at him. Flakes of dried mud fell from his face.
I'm goin to have to kill some son of a bitch if they got my boots.
Yonder looks like one of em. The kid labored off through the mud and fetched up one boot. He sl ogged about in the
yard feeling likely lumps of mud.
This your knife? he said.
The man squinted at him. Looks like it, he said.
The kid pitched it to him and he bent and picked it up and wiped t he huge blade on
his trouserleg. Thought somebody'd done stole you, he told the knife.

The kid found his other boot and came and sat on the boards. His h
ands were huge
with mud and he wiped one of them briefly at his knee and let it fa ll again.
They sat there side by side looking out across the barren lot. There was a picket fence
at the edge of the lot and beyond the fence a boy was drawing wate r at a well and
there were chickens in the yard there. A man came from the dramshop do or down the
walk toward the outhouse. He stopped where they sat and looked a t them and then
stepped off into the mud. After a while he came back and steppe d off into the mud
again and went around and on up the walk.
The kid looked at the man. His head was strangely narrow and his ha ir was plastered
up with mud in a bizarre and primitive coiffure. On his forehead were burned the
letters H T and lower and almost between the eyes the letter F an d these markings
were splayed and garish as if the iron had been left too long. When he turned to look
at the kid the kid could see that he had no ears. He stood up and sh eathed the knife
and started up the walk with the boots in his hand and the kid rose and followed.
Halfway to the hotel the man stopped and looked out at the mud a nd then sat down
on the planks and pulled on the boots mud and all. Then he rose an d slogged off
through the lot to pick something up.
I want you to look here, he said. At my goddamned hat.
You couldnt tell what it was, something dead. He flapped it ab out and pulled it over his
head and went on and the kid followed.
The dramhouse was a long narrow hall wainscotted with varnished b oards. There were
tables by the wall and spittoons on the floor. There were no patron s. The barman
looked up when they entered and a nigger that had been sweeping the floor stood the
broom against the wall and went out.
Where's Sidney? said the man in his suit of mud.
In the bed I reckon.
They went on.
Toadvine, called the barman.
The kid looked back.
The barman had come from behind the bar and was looking after the m. They crossed

from the door through the lobby of the hotel toward the stairs leav
ing varied forms of
mud behind them on the floor. As they started up the stairs the cle rk at the desk
leaned and called to them.
Toadvine.
He stopped and looked back.
He'll shoot you.
Old Sidney?
Old Sidney.
They went on up the stairs.
At the top of the landing was a long hall with a windowlight at t he end. There were
varnished doors down the walls set so close they might have been closets. Toadvine
went on until he came to the end of the hall. He listened at the l ast door and he eyed
the kid.
You got a match?
The kid searched his pockets and came up with a crushed and stain ed wooden box.
The man took it from him. Need a little tinder here, he said. He wa s crumbling the box
and stacking the bits against the door. He struck a match and set the pieces alight. He
pushed the little pile of burning wood under the door and added more matches.
Is he in there? said the boy.
That's what we're fixin to see.
A dark curl of smoke rose, a blue flame of burning varnish. They squa tted in the
hallway and watched. Thin flames began to run up over the panel s and dart back again.
The watchers looked like forms excavated from a bog.
Tap on the door now, said Toadvine.
The kid rose. Toadvine stood up and waited. They could hear the flames crackling inside
the room. The kid tapped.

You better tap louder than that. This man drinks some.
He balled his fist and lambasted the door about five times.
Hell fire, said a voice.
Here he comes.
They waited.
You hot son of a bitch, said the voice. Then the knob turned and t he door opened.
He stood in his underwear holding in one hand the towel he'd us ed to turn the
doorknob with. When he saw them he turned and started back into th e room but
Toadvine seized him about the neck and rode him to the floor and held him by the hair
and began to pry out an eyeball with his thumb. The man grabbed h is wrist and bit it.
Kick his mouth in, called Toadvine. Kick it.
The kid stepped past them into the room and turned and kicked the man in the face.
Toadvine held his head back by the hair.
Kick him, he called. Aw, kick him, honey.
He kicked.
Toadvine pulled the bloody head around and looked at it and let it flop to the floor and
he rose and kicked the man himself. Two spectators were standing in the hallway. The
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door was com letely afire and part of the wall and ceiling. They w ent out and down
the hall. The clerk was coming up the steps two at a time.
Toadvine you son of a bitch, he said.
Toadvine was four steps above him and when he kicked him he cau ght him in the
throat. The clerk sat down on the stairs. When the kid came past he hit him in the
side of the head and the clerk slumped over and began to slide to ward the landing. The
kid stepped over him and went down to the lobby and crossed to th e front door and
out.
Toadvine was running down the street, waving his fists above hi s head crazily and

laughing. He looked like a great clay voodoo doll made animate
and the kid looked like
another. Behind them flames were licking at the top corner of the hotel and clouds of
dark smoke rose into the warm Texas morning.
He'd left the mule with a Mexican family that boarded animals a t the edge of town and
he arrived there wildlooking and out of breath. The woman opened t he door and looked
at him.
Need to get my mule, he wheezed.
She looked at him some more, then she called toward the back of th e house. He walked
around. There were horses tethered in the lot and there was a flatbed wagon against the
fence with some turkeys sitting on the edge looking out. The ol d lady had come to the
back door. Nito, she called. Venga. Hay un caballero aquf. Veng a.
He went down the shed to the tackroom and got his wretched saddle and his blanketroll
and brought them back. He found the mule and unstalled it and bri dled it with the
rawhide hacka-more and led it to the fence. He leaned against th e animal with his
shoulder and got the saddle over it and got it cinched, the mul e starting and shying and
running its head along the fence. He led it across the lot. The mu le kept shaking its
head sideways as if it had something in its ear.
He led it out to the road. As he passed the house the woman came pa dding out after
him. When she saw him put his foot in the stirrup she began to run. H e swung up into
the broken saddle and chucked the mule forward. She stopped at t he gate and watched
him go. He didnt look back.
When he passed back through the town the hotel was burning and me n were standing
around watching it, some holding empty buckets. A few men sat h orseback watching the
flames and one of these was the judge. As the kid rode past the ju dge turned and
watched him. He turned the horse, as if he'd have the animal watc h too. When the kid
looked back the judge smiled. The kid touched up the mule and t hey went sucking out
past the old stone fort along the road west.
II
Across the prairie - A hermit - A nigger's heart -
A stormy night - Westward again - Cattle drovers - Their kindness - On the trail again - The deadcart - San Antonio de Bexar -

A Mexican cantina - Another fight - The abandoned church -
The dead in the sacristy - At the ford -
Bathing in the river.
Now come days of begging, days of theft. Days of riding where the re rode no soul save
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he. He's left behind the pinewood country and the evening sun declines before him be
ond an endless swale and dark falls here like a thunderclap and a c old wind sets the
weeds to gnashing. The night sky lies so sprent with stars that t here is scarcely space of
black at all and they fall all night in bitter arcs and it is so th at their numbers are no
less.
He keeps from off the king's road for fear of citizenry. The litt le prairie wolves cry all
night and dawn finds him in a grassy draw where he'd gone to hide fro m the wind. The
hobbled mule stands over him and watches the east for light.
The sun that rises is the color of steel. His mounted shadow fal ls for miles before him.
He wears on his head a hat he's made from leaves and they have dried and cracked in
the sun and he looks like a raggedyman wandered from some garden wh ere he'd used
to frighten birds.
Come evening he tracks a spire of smoke rising oblique from among t he low hills and
before dark he hails up at the doorway of an old anchorite nested a way in the sod like
a groundsloth. Solitary, half mad, his eyes redrimmed as if lock ed in their cages with
hot wires. But a ponderable body for that. He watched wordless wh ile the kid eased
down stiffly from the mule. A rough wind was blowing and his rags f lapped about him.
Seen ye smoke, said the kid. Thought you might spare a man a sup o f water.
The old hermit scratched in his filthy hair and looked at the grou nd. He turned and
entered the hut and the kid followed.
Inside darkness and a smell of earth. A small fire burned on the dirt floor and the only
furnishings were a pile of hides in one corner. The old man shuffle d through the gloom,
his head bent to clear the low ceiling of woven limbs and mud. H e pointed down to
where a bucket stood in the dirt. The kid bent and took up the gourd floating there and
dipped and drank. The water was salty, sulphurous. He drank on.
You reckon I could water my old mule out there?

The old man began to beat his palm with one fist and dart his eyes
about.
Be proud to fetch in some fresh. Just tell me where it's at.
What ye aim to water him with? The kid looked at the bucket and he looked around in the dim hut.
I aint drinkin after no mule, said the hermit.
Have you not got no old bucket nor nothin?
No, cried the hermit. No. I aint. He was clapping the heels of his clenched fists together
at his chest.
The kid rose and looked toward the door. Ill find somethin, he sai d. Where's the well
at?
Up the hill, foller the path.
It's nigh too dark to see out here.
It's a deep path. Foller ye feet. Foller ye mule. I caint go.
He stepped out into the wind and looked about for the mule but t he mule wasnt there.
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Far to the south lightning flared sound essly. He went up the pa th among the
thrashing weeds and found the mule standing at the well.
A hole in the sand with rocks piled about it. A piece of dry hide f or a cover and a
stone to weight it down. There was a rawhide bucket with a rawhide bail and a rope of
greasy leather. The bucket had a rock tied to the bail to help it ti p and fill and he
lowered it until the rope in his hand went slack while the mule wa tched over his
shoulder.
He drew up three bucketfuls and held them so the mule would not sp ill them and then
he put the cover back over the well and led the mule back down th e path to the hut.
I thank ye for the water, he called.
The hermit appeared darkly in the door. Just stay with me, he said.

That's all right.
Best stay. It's fixin to storm.
You reckon? I reckon and I reckon right.
Well.
Bring ye bed. Bring ye possibles.
He uncinched and threw down the saddle and hobbled the mule fore leg to rear and
took his bedroll in. There was no light save the fire and the old ma n was squatting by
it tailorwise.
Anywheres, anywheres, he said. Where's ye saddle at? The kid gestured with his chin.
Dont leave it out yonder somethinll eat it. This is a hungry co untry.
He went out and ran into the mule in the dark. It had been standing looking in at the
fire.
Get away, fool, he said. He took up the saddle and went back in.
Now pull that door to fore we blow away, said the old man.
The door was a mass of planks on leather hinges. He dragged it ac ross the dirt and
fastened it by its leather latch.
I take it ye lost your way, said the hermit.
No, I went right to it.
He waved quickly with his hand, the old man. No, no, he said. I m ean ye was lost to
of come here. Was they a sandstorm? Did ye drift off the road in the n ight? Did thieves
beset ye?

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The kid pondered this. Yes, he said We got off the road someways o r another.
Knowed ye did.
How long you been out here?
Out where?
The kid was sitting on his blanketroll across the fire from the old man. Here, he said.
In this place.
The old man didnt answer. He turned his head suddenly aside and s eized his nose
between his thumb and forefinger and blew twin strings of snot o nto the floor and
wiped his fingers on the seam of his jeans. I come from Mississip pi. I was a slaver,
dont care to tell it. Made good money. I never did get caught. Ju st got sick of it. Sick
of niggers. Wait till I shоwye somethin.
He turned and rummaged among the hides and handed through the fla mes a small dark
thing. The kid turned it in his hand. Some man's heart, dried and b lackened. He passed
it back and the old man cradled it in his palm as if he'd weigh it.
They is four things that can destroy the earth, he said. Women, w hiskey, money, and
niggers.
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They sat in silence. The wind moaned in the section of stove ip e that was run through
the roof above them to quit the place of smoke. After a while the old man put the
heart away.
That thing costed me two hundred dollars, he said.
You give two hundred dollars for it?
I did, for that was the price they put on the black son of a bitch i t hung inside of.
He stirred about in the corner and came up with an old dark brass kett le, lifted the
cover and poked inside with one finger. The remains of one of the lank prairie hares
interred in cold grease and furred with a light blue mold. He clampe d the lid back on
the kettle and set it in the flames. Aint much but we'll go share s, he said.
I thank ye.

Lost ye way in the dark, said the old man. He stirred the fire, stand
ing slender tusks of
bone up out of the ashes.
The kid didnt answer.
The old man swung his head back and forth. The way of the transgres sor is hard. God
made this world, but he didnt make it to suit everbody, did he?
I dont believe he much had me in mind.
Aye, said the old man. But where does a man come by his notions. W hat world's he
seen that he liked better?
I can think of better places and better ways.
Can ye make it be?
No.
No. It's a mystery. A man's at odds to know his mind cause his mi nd is aught he has
to know it with. He can know his heart, but he dont want to. Right ly so. Best not to
look in there. It aint the heart of a creature that is bound in the wa y that God has set
for it. You can find meanness in the least of creatures, but when God made man the
devil was at his elbow. A creature that can do anything. Make a ma chine. And a
machine to make the machine. And evil that can run itself a thou sand years, no need to
tend it. You believe that?
I dont know.
Believe that.
When the old man's mess was warmed he doled it out and they ate in silence. Thunder
was moving north and before long it was booming overhead and start ing bits of rust in
a thin trickle down the stovepipe. They hunkered over their pla tes and wiped the grease
up with their fingers and drank from the gourd.
The kid went out and scoured his cup and plate in the sand and cam e back banging
the tins together as if to fend away some drygulch phantom out there in the dark.
Distant thunderheads reared quivering against the electric sky a nd were sucked away in
the blackness again. The old man sat with one ear cocked to the howling waste without.
The kid shut the door.

Dont have no bacca with ye do ye?
No I aint, said the kid.
Didnt allow ye did.
You reckon it'll rain?
It's got ever opportunity. Likely it wont.
The kid watched the fire. Already he was nodding. Finally he rais ed up and shook his
head. The hermit watched him over the dying flames. Just go on a nd fix ye bed, he
said.
He did. Spreading his blankets on the packed mud and pulling of f his stinking boots.
The fluepipe moaned and he heard the mule stamp and snuffle out side and in his sleep
he struggled and muttered like a dreaming dog.
He woke sometime in the night with the hut in almost total darkn ess and the hermit
bent over him and all but in his bed.
What do you want? he said. But the hermit crawled away and in the m orning when he
woke the hut was empty and he got his things and left.
All that day he watched to the north a thin line of dust. It seeme d not to move at all
and it was late evening before he could see that it was headed hi s way. He passed
through a forest of live oak and he watered at a stream and moved on i n the dusk and
made a fireless camp. Birds woke him where he lay in a dry and dusty wood.
By noon he was on the prairie again and the dust to the north was stre tched out along
the edge of the earth. By evening the first of a drove of cattle cam e into view. Rangy
vicious beasts with enormous hornspreads. That night he sat in t he herders' camp and
ate beans and pilotbread and heard of life on the trail.
They were coming down from Abilene, forty days out, headed for th e markets in
Louisiana. Followed by packs of wolves, coyotes, indians. C attle groaned about them for
miles in the dark.
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They asked him no questions, a ragged lot themselves. Cross reed s some, free niggers,
an indian or two.

I had my outfit stole, he said.
They nodded in the firelight.
They got everthing I had. I aint even got a knife.
You might could sign on with us. We lost two men. Turned back to g o to Californy.
I'm headed yon way.
I guess you might be goin to Californy ye own self.
I might. I aint decided.
Them boys was with us fell in with a bunch from Arkansas. They was headed down for
Bexar. Goin to pull for Mexico and the west.
I'll bet them old boys is in Bexar drinkin they brains out.
I'll bet old Lonnie's done topped ever whore in town.
How far is it to Bexar?
It's about two days.
It's furthern that. More like four I'd say.
How would a man go if he'd a mind to?
You cut straight south you ought to hit the road about half a day.
You going to Bexar? I might do.
You see old Lonnie down there you tell him get a piece for me. Tel l him old Oren.
He'll buy ye a drink if he aint blowed all his money in.
In the morning they ate flapjacks with molasses and the herders s addled up and moved
on. When he found his mule there was a small fibre bag tied to the a nimal's rope and

inside the bag there was a cupful of dried beans and some peppers a
nd an old
greenriver knife with a handle made of string. He saddled up the m ule, the mule's back
galled and balding, the hooves cracked. The ribs like fishbone s. They hobbled on across
the endless plain.
He came upon Bexar in the evening of the fourth day and he sat the tattered mule on
a low rise and looked down at the town, the quiet adobe houses, t he line of green oaks
and cottonwoods that marked the course of the river, the plaza fil led with wagons with
their osnaburg covers and the whitewashed public buildings an d the Moorish
churchdome rising from the trees and the garrison and the tall stone powderhouse in
the distance. A light breeze stirred the fronds of his hat, his mat ted greasy hair. His
eyes lay dark and tunneled in a caved and haunted face and a foul stench rose from
the wells of his boot tops. The sun was just down and to the west lay reefs of bloodred
clouds up out of which rose little desert nighthawks like fugit ives from some great fire
at the earth's end. He spat a dry white spit and clumped the crack ed wooden stirrups
against the mule's ribs and they staggered into motion again.
He went down a narrow sandy road and as he went he met a deadcart boun d out with
a load of corpses, a small bell tolling the way and a lantern swin ging from the gate.
Three men sat on the box not unlike the dead themselves or spirit folk so white they
were with lime and nearly phosphorescent in the dusk. A pair of ho rses drew the cart
and they went on up the road in a faint miasma of carbolic and pas sed from sight. He
turned and watched them go. The naked feet of the dead jostled s tiffly from side to
side.
It was dark when he entered the town, attended by barking dogs, fa ces parting the
curtains in the lamplit windows. The light clatter of the mule 's hooves echoing in the
little empty streets. The mule sniffed the air and swung down a n alleyway into a square
where there stood in the starlight a well, a trough, a hitchingrail . The kid eased himself
down and took the bucket from the stone coping and lowered it int o the well. A light
splash echoed. He drew the bucket, water dripping in the dark. He dipped the gourd
and drank and the mule nuzzled his elbow. When he'd done he set t he bucket in the
street and sat on the coping of the well and watched the mule drin k from the bucket.
He went on through the town leading the animal. There was no one a bout. By and by
he entered a plaza and he could hear guitars and a horn. At the far e nd of the square
there were lights from a cafe and laughter and highpitched cries. He led the mule into
the square and up the far side past a long portico toward the light s.
There was a team of dancers in the street and they wore gaudy costum es and called out
in Spanish. He and the mule stood at the edge of the lights and w atched. Old men sat

along the tavern wall and children played in the dust. They wore s
trange costumes all,
the men in dark flatcrowned hats, white nightshirts, trousers tha t buttoned up the
outside leg and the girls with garish painted faces and tortoise shell combs in their
blueblack hair. The kid crossed the street with the mule and tied it and entered the
cafe. A number of men were standing at the bar and they quit talk ing when he entered.
He crossed the polished clay floor past a sleeping dog that ope ned one eye and looked
at him and he stood at the bar and placed both hands on the tiles . The barman nodded
to him. Digame, he said.
I aint got no money but I need a drink. I'll fetch out the slops or mop the floor or
whatever.
The barman looked across the room to where two men were playing domi noes at a
table. Abuelito, he said.
The older of the two raised his head.
Que dice el muchacho.
The old man looked at the kid and turned back to his dominoes.
The barman shrugged his shoulders.
The kid turned to the old man. You speak american? he said.
The old man looked up from his play. He regarded the kid without expression.
Tell him I'll work for a drink. I aint got no money.
The old man thrust his chin and made a clucking noise with his to ngue.
The kid looked at the barman.
The old man made a fist with the thumb pointing up and the littl e finger down and
tilted his head back and tipped a phantom drink down his throat. Quiere hecharse una
copa, he said. Pero no puede pagar.
The men at the bar watched.
The barman looked at the kid.

Quiere trabajo, said the old man. Quien sabe. He turned back to hi
s pieces and made
his play without further consultation.
Quieres trabajar, said one of the men at the bar.
They began to laugh.
What are you laughing at? said the boy.
They stopped. Some looked at him, some pursed their mouths or s hrugged. The boy
turned to the bartender. You got something I could do for a couple of drinks I know
damn good and well.
One of the men at the bar said something in Spanish. The boy gla red at them. They
winked one to the other, they took up their glasses.
He turned to the barman again. His eyes were dark and narrow. Sweep th e floor, he
said.
The barman blinked.
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The kid stepped back and made sweeping motions, a panto ime th at bent the drinkers
in silent mirth. Sweep, he said, pointing at the floor.
No esta sucio, said the barman.
He swept again. Sweep, goddamnit, he said.
The barman shrugged. He went to the end of the bar and got a broom an d brought it
back. The boy took it and went on to the back of the room.
A great hall of a place. He swept in the corners where potted trees st ood silent in the
dark. He swept around the spittoons and he swept around the playe rs at the table and
he swept around the dog. He swept along the front of the bar and wh en he reached the
place where the drinkers stood he straightened up and leaned on th e broom and looked
at them. They conferred silently among themselves and at last o ne took his glass from
the bar and stepped away. The others followed. The kid swept pa st them to the door.
The dancers had gone, the music. Across the street sat a man on a be nch dimly lit in
the doorlight from the cafe. The mule stood where he'd tied it. He tapped the broom on
the steps and came back in and took the broom to the corner where th e barman had

gotten it. Then he came to the bar and stood.
The barman ignored him.
The kid rapped with his knuckles.
The barman turned and put one hand on his hip and pursed his lips.
How about that drink now, said the kid.
The barman stood.
The kid made the drinking motions that the old man had made and t
he barman flapped
his towel idly at him.
Andale, he said. He made a shooing motion with the back of his h and.
The kid's face clouded. You son of a bitch, he said. He started d own the bar. The
barman's expression did not change. He brought up from under the b ar an oldfashioned
military pistol with a flint lock and shoved back the cock wit h the heel of his hand. A
great wooden clicking in the silence. A clicking of glasses al l down the bar. Then the
scuffling of chairs pushed back by the players at the wall.
The kid froze. Old man, he said.
The old man didnt answer. There was no sound in the cafe. The kid t urned to find him
with his eyes.
Esta borracho, said the old man.
The boy watched the barman's eyes.
The barman waved the pistol toward the door.
The old man spoke to the room in Spanish. Then he spoke to the barm an. Then he put
on his hat and went out.
The barman's face drained. When he came around the end of the bar h e had laid down
the pistol and he was carrying a bung-starter in one hand.
The kid backed to the center of the room and the barman labored ove r the floor toward

him like a man on his way to some chore. He swung twice at the kid a
nd the kid
stepped twice to the right. Then he stepped backward. The barman froze. The kid
boosted himself lightly over the bar and picked up the pistol . No one moved. He raked
the frizzen open against the bartop and dumped the priming out an d laid the pistol
down again. Then he selected a pair of full bottles from the she lves behind him and
came around the end of the bar with one in each hand.
The barman stood in the center of the room. He was breathing heavi ly and he turned,
following the kid's movements. When the kid approached him he raised the bungstarter.
The kid crouched lightly with the bottles and feinted and then broke the right one over
the man's head. Blood and liquor sprayed and the man's knees bu ckled and his eyes
rolled. The kid had already let go the bottleneck and he pitched the second bottle into
his right hand in a roadagent's pass before it even reached the flo or and he backhanded
the second bottle across the barman's skull and crammed the jagg ed remnant into his
eye as he went down.
The kid looked around the room. Some of those men wore pistols in t heir belts but
none moved. The kid vaulted the bar and took another bottle an d tucked it under his
arm and walked out the door. The dog was gone. The man on the bench was gone too.
He untied the mule and led it across the square.
He woke in the nave of a ruinous church, blinking up at the vaulte d ceiling and the tall
swagged walls with their faded frescos. The floor of the church was deep in dried guano
and the droppings of cattle and sheep. Pigeons flapped through the piers of dusty light
and three buzzards hobbled about on the picked bone carcass of so me animal dead in
the chancel.
His head was in torment and his tongue swollen with thirst. He sa t up and looked
around him. He'd put the bottle under his saddle and he found it and held it up and
shook it and drew the cork and drank. He sat with his eyes closed, t he sweat beaded
on his forehead. Then he opened his eyes and drank again. The buz zards stepped down
one by one and trotted off into the sacristy. After a while he rose and went out to look
for the mule.
It was nowhere in sight. The mission occupied eight or ten ares o f enclosed land, a
barren purlieu that held a few goats and burros. In the mud walls of t he enclosure were
cribs inhabited by families of squatters and a few cookfires smo ked thinly in the sun.
He walked around the side of the church and entered the sacristy. B uzzards shuffled off
through the chaff and plaster like enormous yardfowl. The domed vaults overhead were
clotted with a dark furred mass that shifted and breathed and chit tered. In the room
was a wooden table with a few clay pots and along the back wall l ay the remains of

several bodies, one a child. He went on through the sacristy into
the church again and
got his saddle. He drank the rest of the bottle and he put the sadd le on his shoulder
and went out.
The facade of the building bore an array of saints in their niches and they had been
shot up by American troops trying their rifles, the figures shorn o f ears and noses and
darkly mottled with leadmarks oxidized upon the stone. The hug e carved and paneled
doors hung awap on their hinges and a carved stone Virgin held in her arms a headless
child. He stood blinking in the noon heat. Then he saw the mule 's tracks. They were
just the palest disturbance of the dust and they came out of th e door of the church and
crossed the lot to the gate in the east wall. He hiked the saddle higher onto his
shoulder and set out after them.
A dog in the shade of the portal rose and lurched sullenly out into the sun until he had
passed and then lurched back. He took the road down the hill towa rd the river, a
ragged figure enough. He entered a deep wood of pecan and oak and t he road took a
rise and he could see the river below him. Blacks were washing a ca rriage in the ford
and he went down the hill and stood at the edge of the water and a fter a while he
called out to them.
They were sopping water over the black lacquerwork and one of th em raised up and
turned to look at him. The horses stood to their knees in the curren t.
What? called the black. Have you seen a mule.
Mule?
I lost a mule. I think he come this way.
The black wiped his face with the back of his arm. Somethin come down the road about
a hour back. I think it went down the river yonder. It might of bee n a mule. It didnt
have no tail nor no hair to speak of but it did have long ears.
The other two blacks grinned. The kid looked off down the river. H e spat and set off
along the path through the willows and swales of grass.
He found it about a hundred yards downriver. It was wet to its belly and it looked up
at him and then lowered its head again into the lush river grass. H e threw down the
saddle and took up the trailing rope and tied the animal to a limb and kicked it

halfheartedly. It shifted slightly to the side and continued
to graze. He reached atop his
head but he had lost the crazy hat somewhere. He made his way down through the
trees and stood looking at the cold swirling waters. Then he wade d out into the river
like some wholly wretched baptismal candidate.
III
Sought out to join an army - Interview with Captain White ?
His views - The camp - Trades his mule - A cantina in the Laredito -
A Mennonite - Companion killed.
He was lying naked under the trees with his rags spread across the l imbs above him
when another rider going down the river reined up and stopped.
He turned his head. Through the willows he could see the legs of t he horse. He rolled
over on his stomach.
The man got down and stood beside the horse.
He reached and got his twinehandled knife.
Howdy there, said the rider.
He didnt answer. He moved to the side to see better through, the b ranches.
Howdy there. Where ye at?
What do you want?
Wanted to talk to ye.
What about? Hell fire, come on out. I'm white and Christian.
The kid was reaching up through the willows trying to get his bree ches. The belt was
hanging down and he tugged at it but the breeches were hung on a li mb.
Goddamn, said the man. You aint up in the tree are ye?

Why dont you go on and leave me the hell alone.
Just wanted to talk to ye. Didnt intend to get ye all riled up.
You done got me riled.
Was you the feller knocked in that Mexer's head yesterday eveni n? I aint the law.
Who wants to know? Captain White. He wants to sign that feller up to join the army.
The army?
Yessir.
What army? Company under Captain White. We goin to whip up on the Mexican s.
The war's over.
He says it aint over. Where are you at?
He rose and hauled the breeches down from where he'd hung them and p ulled them on.
He pulled on his boots and put the knife in the right bootleg and came out from the
willows pulling on his shirt.
The man was sitting in the grass with his legs crossed. He was dres sed in buckskin and
he wore a plug hat of dusty black silk and he had a small Mexican c igar in the corner
of his teeth. When he saw what clawed its way out through the wil lows he shook his
head.
Kindly fell on hard times aint ye son? he said.
I just aint fell on no good ones.
You ready to go to Mexico?
I aint lost nothin down there.

It's a chance for ye to raise ye self in the world. You best make a m
ove someway or
another fore ye go plumb in under.
What do they give ye?
Ever man gets a horse and his ammunition. I reckon we might find s ome clothes in
your case.
I aint got no rifle.
We'll find ye one.
What about wages?
Hell fire son, you wont need no wages. You get to keep ever-thing you can raise. We
goin to Mexico. Spoils of war. Aint a man in the company wont com e out a big
landowner. How much land you own now?
I dont know nothin about soldierin.
The man eyed him. He took the unlit cigar from his teeth and turne d his head and spat
and put it back again. Where ye from? he said.
Tennessee.
Tennessee. Well I dont misdoubt but what you can shoot a rifle.
The kid squatted in the grass. He looked at the man's horse. The h orse was fitted out
in tooled leather with worked silver trim. It had a white blaze o n its face and four
white stockings and it was cropping up great teethfuls of the ric h grass. Where you
from, said the kid.
I been in Texas since thirty-eight. If I'd not run up on Captain W hite I dont know
where I'd be this day. I was a sorrier sight even than what you are an d he come along
and raised me up like Lazarus. Set my feet in the path of righteous ness. I'd done took
to drinkin and whorin till hell wouldnt have me. He seen somethi n in me worth savin
and I see it in you. What do ye say?
I dont know.
Just come with me and meet the captain.

The boy pulled at the halms of grass. He looked at the horse again
. Well, he said. Dont
reckon it'd hurt nothin.
They rode through the town with the recruiter splendid on the stoc kingfooted horse and
the kid behind him on the mule like something he'd captured. Th ey rode through
narrow lanes where the wattled huts steamed in the heat. Grass and prickly pear grew
on the roofs and goats walked about on them and somewhere off in t hat squalid
kingdom of mud the sound of the little deathbells tolled thin ly. They turned up
Commerce Street through the Main Plaza among rafts of wagons and t hey crossed
another plaza where boys were selling grapes and figs from little trundlecarts.
A few bony dogs slank off before them. They rode through the Milit ary Plaza and they
passed the little street where the boy and the mule had drunk the n ight before and
there were clusters of women and girls at the well and many shapes o f wickercovered
clay jars standing about. They passed a little house where wome n inside were wailing
and the little hearsecart stood at the door with the horses patie nt and motionless in the
heat and the flies.
The captain kept quarters in a hotel on a plaza where there were trees and a small
green gazebo with benches. An iron gate at the hotel front opened into a passageway
with a courtyard at the rear. The walls were whitewashed and set wit h little ornate
colored tiles. The captain's man wore carved boots with tall he els that rang smartly on
the tiles and on the stairs ascending from the courtyard to the room s above. In the
춊
courtyard there were green plants growing and they were freshly watere d and steam ng.
The captain's man strode down the long balcony and rapped sharpl y at the door at the
end. A voice said for them to come in.
He sat at a wickerwork desk writing letters, the captain. They st ood attending, the
captain's man with his black hat in his hands. The captain wrot e on nor did he look
up. Outside the kid could hear a woman speaking in Spanish. Ot her than that there was
just the scratching of the captain's pen.
When he had done he laid down the pen and looked up. He looked at his man and
then he looked at the kid and then he bent his head to read what he 'd written. He
nodded to himself and dusted the letter with sand from a little onyx box and folded it.
Taking a match from a box of them on the desk he lit it and held it t o a stick of
sealing wax until a small red medallion had pooled onto the pap er. He shook out the
match, blew briefly at the paper and knuckled the seal with his ring. Then he stood the
letter between two books on his desk and leaned back in his cha ir and looked at the
kid again. He nodded gravely. Take seats, he said.

They eased themselves into a kind of settle made from some dark w
ood. The captain's
man had a large revolver at his belt and as he sat he hitched the be lt around so that
the piece lay cradled between his thighs. He put his hat over it and leaned back. The
kid folded his busted boots one behind the other and sat uprigh t.
The captain pushed his chair back and rose and came around to the front of the desk.
He stood there for a measured minute and then he hitched himself up on the desk and
sat with his boots dangling. He had gray in his hair and in the sw eeping moustaches
that he wore but he was not old. So you're the man, he said.
What man? said the kid.
What man sir, said the captain's man. How old are you, son?
Nineteen.
The captain nodded his head. He was looking the kid over. What h appened to you?
What?
Say sir, said the recruiter.
Sir?
I said what happened to you.
The kid looked at the man sitting next to him. He looked down at himself and he
looked at the captain again. I was fell on by robbers, he said.
Robbers, said the captain.
Took everthing I had. Took my watch and everthing.
Have you got a rifle?
Not no more I aint.
Where was it you were robbed.

I dont know. They wasnt no name to it. It was just a wilderness.
Where were you coming from?
I was comin from Naca, Naca ...
Nacogdoches?
Yeah.
Yessir.
Yessir. How many were there?
The kid stared at him.
Robbers. How many robbers.
Seven or eight, I reckon. I got busted in the head with a scantli n.
The captain squinted one eye at him. Were they Mexicans?
Some. Mexicans and niggers. They was a white or two with em. The y had a bunch of
cattle they'd stole. Only thing they left me with was a old pie ce of knife I had in my
boot.
The captain nodded. He folded his hands between his knees. Wh at do you think of the
treaty? he said.
The kid looked at the man on the settle next to him. He had his ey es shut. He looked
down at his thumbs. I dont know nothin about it, he said.
I'm afraid that's the case with a lot of Americans, said the capt ain. Where are you from,
son?
Tennessee.
You werent with the Volunteers at Monterrey were you?

No sir.
춑
Bravest bunch of men under fire I believe I ever saw. I sup ose more men from
Tennessee bled and died on the field in northern Mexico than from any other state. Did
you know that?
No sir.
They were sold out. Fought and died down there in that desert and t hen they were sold
out by their own country.
The kid sat silent.
The captain leaned forward. We fought for it. Lost friends and b rothers down there. And
then by God if we didnt give it back. Back to a bunch of barbarian s that even the most
biased in their favor will admit have no least notion in God's earth of honor or justice
or the meaning of republican government. A people so cowardly th ey've paid tribute a
hundred years to tribes of naked savages. Given up their crops and livestock. Mines shut
down. Whole villages abandoned. While a heathen horde rides ov er the land looting and
killing with total impunity. Not a hand raised against them. W hat kind of people are
these? The Apaches wont even shoot them. Did you know that? Th ey kill them with
rocks. The captain shook his head. He seemed made sad by what he had to tell.
Did you know that when Colonel Doniphan took Chihuahua City h e inflicted over a
thousand casualties on the enemy and lost only one man and him all but a suicide?
With an army of unpaid irregulars that called him Bill, were half na ked, and had walked
to the battlefield from Missouri?
No sir.
The captain leaned back and folded his arms. What we are dealing with, he said, is a
race of degenerates. A mongrel race, little better than niggers. A nd maybe no better.
There is no government in Mexico. Hell, there's no God in Mexico. Never will be. We
are dealing with a people manifestly incapable of governing th emselves. And do you
know what happens with people who cannot govern themselves? T hat's right. Others
come in to govern for them.
There are already some fourteen thousand French colonists in the s tate of Sonora.
They're being given free land to settle. They're being given too ls and livestock.
Enlightened Mexicans encourage this. Paredes is already calli ng for secession from the

Mexican government. They'd rather be ruled by toadeaters than th
ieves and imbeciles.
Colonel Carrasco is asking for American intervention. And he's going to get it.
Right now they are forming in Washington a commission to come ou t here and draw up
the boundary lines between our country and Mexico. I dont thi nk there's any question
that ultimately Sonora will become a United States territory. G uaymas a U S port.
Americans will be able to get to California without having to pa ss through our benighted
sister republic and our citizens will be protected at last from t he notorious packs of cut
춗 hroats presently infesting the routes which they are obliged to t ravel.
The captain was watching the kid. The kid looked uneasy. Son, said the captain. We are
to be the instruments of liberation in a dark and troubled land. Th at's right. We are to
spearhead the drive. We have the tacit support of Governor Burnett of California.
He leaned forward and placed his hands on his knees. And we will be the ones who
will divide the spoils. There will be a section of land for ever y man in my company.
Fine grassland. Some of the finest in the world. A land rich in min erals, in gold and
silver I would say beyond the wildest speculation. You're you ng.
But I dont misread you. I'm seldom mistaken in a man. I think you mean to make your
mark in this world. Am I wrong?
No sir.
No. And I don't think you're the sort of chap to abandon a land tha t Americans fought
and died for to a foreign power. And mark my word. Unless Americans a ct, people like
you and me who take their country seriously while those mollyc oddles in Washington sit
뾞 뾵
on their hindsides, unless we act, Mexico nd I mean the whole o f the country ill one
day fly a European flag. Monroe Doctrine or no.
The captain's voice had become soft and intense. He tilted hi s head to one side and
regarded the kid with a sort of benevolence. The kid rubbed the pal ms of his hands on
the knees of his filthy jeans. He glanced at the man beside him but he seemed to be
asleep.
What about a saddle? he said. Saddle?
Yessir.

You dont have a saddle?
No sir.
I thought you had a horse.
A mule.
I see.
I got a old hull on the mule but they aint much left of it. Aint a w hole lot left of the
mule. He said I was to get a horse and a rifle.
Sergeant Trammel did?
I never promised him no saddle, said the sergeant.
We'll get you a saddle. I did tell him we might find him some clothes, Captain.
Right. We may be irregulars but we dont want to look like bobtails , do we?
No sir.
We aint got no more broke horses neither, said the sergeant.
Well break one.
That old boy that was so good about breakin em is out of commissi on.
I know that. Get somebody else.
Yessir. Maybe this man can break horses. You ever break horses? No s ir.
Aint no need to sir me. Yessir. Sergeant, said the captain, easing himself down from the desk. Yessir. Sign this man up.
The camp was upriver at the edge of the town. A tent patched up fro m old wagon
canvas, a few wickiups made of brush and beyond them a corral in th e form of a figure

eight likewise made from brush where a few small painted ponies s
tood sulking in the
sun.
Corporal, called the sergeant.
He aint here.
He dismounted and strode toward the tent and threw back the fly. T he kid sat on the
mule. Three men were lying in the shade of a tree and they studied h im. Howdy, said
one.
Howdy.
You a new man?
I reckon.
Captain say when we leavin this pesthole?
He never said.
The sergeant came from the tent. Where's he at? he said.
Gone to town.
Gone to town, said the sergeant. Come here.
The man rose from the ground and ambled over to the tent and stood w ith his hands
resting in the small of his back.
This here man aint got no outfit, said the sergeant.
The man nodded.
The captain give him a shirt and some money to get his boots mend ed. We need to get
him somethin he can ride and we need to get him a saddle.
A saddle.
Ought to be able to sell that mule for enough to get him one of so me kind.

The man looked at the mule and turned back and squinted at the se
rgeant. He leaned
and spat. That there mule wont bring ten dollars.
What it brings it brings.
They done killed another beef.
I dont want to hear about it.
I caint do nothin with em.
I aint tellin the captain. He'll roll them eyes around till they come unscrewed and fall
out in the ground.
The man spat again. Well, that's the gods truth anyway.
See to this man now. I got to get.
Well.
Aint nobody sick is they? No.
Thank God for that.
He stood up into the saddle and touched the horse's neck lightl y with the reins. He
looked back and shook his head.
In the evening the kid and two other recruits went into town. He' d bathed and shaved
himself and he wore a pair of blue cord trousers and the cotton shirt the captain had
given him and save for the boots he looked a new man altogether. His friends rode
small and colorful horses that forty days ago had been wild anima ls on the plain and
they shied and skittered and snapped like turtles.
Wait till you get you one of these, said the second corporal. You aint never had no fun.
These horses is all right, said the other.
There's one or two in there yet that might make ye a horse.

The kid looked down at them from his mule. They rode either side l
ike escorts and the
mule trotted with its head up, its eyes shifting nervously. Th ey'll all stick ye head in the
ground, said the second corporal.
They rode through a plaza thronged with wagons and stock.
With immigrants and Texans and Mexicans and with slaves and Li pan Indians and
deputations of Karankawas tall and austere, their faces dyed b lue and their hands locked
about the shafts of their sixfoot spears, all but naked savage s who with their painted
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skins and their whispered taste for human flesh seemed out age ous presences even in
that fabled company. The recruits rode with their animals close reined and they turned
up past the courthouse and along the high walls of the carcel wit h the broken glass
imbedded in the topmost course. In the Main Plaza a band had ass embled and were at
tuning their instruments. The riders turned down Salinas Street p ast small gaminghouses
and coffee-stands and there were in this street a number of Mexic an harness-makers and
traders and keepers of gamechickens and cobblers and bootmakers i n little stalls or
shops of mud. The second corporal was from Texas and spoke a littl e Spanish and he
meant to trade the mule. The other boy was from Missouri. They were in good spirits,
scrubbed and combed, clean shirts all. Each foreseeing a night o f drink, perhaps of love.
How many youths have come home cold and dead from just such nigh ts and just such
plans.
They traded the mule accoutred as it was for a Texas stock saddle , bare tree with
raw