Part 33 (1/2)

T A CROSSROADS STATION somewhere on the other side of Paredon they picked up five farmworkers who climbed up on the bed of the truck and nodded and spoke to him with great circ.u.mspection and courtesy. It was almost dark and it was raining lightly and they were wet and their faces were wet in the yellow light from the station. They huddled forward of the chained engine and he offered them his cigarettes and they thanked him each and took one and they cupped their hands over the small flame against the falling rain and thanked him again. somewhere on the other side of Paredon they picked up five farmworkers who climbed up on the bed of the truck and nodded and spoke to him with great circ.u.mspection and courtesy. It was almost dark and it was raining lightly and they were wet and their faces were wet in the yellow light from the station. They huddled forward of the chained engine and he offered them his cigarettes and they thanked him each and took one and they cupped their hands over the small flame against the falling rain and thanked him again.

De donde viene? they said.

De Tejas.

Tejas, they said. Y donde va?

He drew on his cigarette. He looked at their faces. One of them older than the rest nodded at his cheap new clothes.

el va a ver a su novia, he said.

They looked at him earnestly and he nodded and said that it was true.

Ah, they said. Que bueno. And after and for a long time to come he'd have reason to evoke the recollection of those smiles and to reflect upon the good will which provoked them for it had power to protect and to confer honor and to strengthen resolve and it had power to heal men and to bring them to safety long after all other resources were exhausted.

When the truck finally pulled out and they saw him still standing they offered their bundles for him to sit on and he did so and he nodded and dozed to the hum of the tires on the blacktop and the rain stopped and the night cleared and the moon that was already risen raced among the high wires by the highway side like a single silver music note burning in the constant and lavish dark and the pa.s.sing fields were rich from the rain with the smell of earth and grain and peppers and the sometime smell of horses. It was midnight when they reached Monclova and he shook hands with each of the workers and walked around the truck and thanked the driver and nodded to the other two men in the cab and then watched the small red taillight recede down the street and out toward the highway leaving him alone in the darkened town.

The night was warm and he slept on a bench in the alameda and woke with the sun already up and the day's commerce begun. Schoolchildren in blue uniforms were pa.s.sing along the walkway. He rose and crossed the street. Women were was.h.i.+ng the sidewalks in front of the shops and vendors were setting up their wares on small stands or tables and surveying the day.

He ate a breakfast of coffee and pan dulce at a cafe counter in a sidestreet off the square and he entered a farmacia and bought a bar of soap and put it in the pocket of his jacket along with his razor and toothbrush and then set out along the road west.

He got a ride to Frontera and another to San Buenaventura. At noon he bathed in an irrigation ditch and he shaved and washed and slept lying on his jacket in the sun while his clothes dried. Downstream was a small wooden cofferdam and when he woke there were naked children splas.h.i.+ng in the pool there and he rose and wrapped his jacket about his waist and walked out along the bank where he could sit and watch them. Two girls pa.s.sed down the bankside path bearing between them a cloth-covered tub and carrying covered pails in their free hand. They were taking dinner to workers in the field and they smiled shyly at him sitting there half naked and so pale of skin with the angry red suture marks laddered across his chest and stomach. Quietly smoking. Watching the children bathe in the silty ditch-water.

He walked all afternoon out the dry hot road toward Cuatro Cienagas. No one he met pa.s.sed without speaking. He walked along past fields where men and women were hoeing the earth and those at work by the roadside would stop and nod to him and say how good the day was and he agreed with all they said. In the evening he took his supper with workers in their camp, five or six families seated together at a table made of cut poles bound with hemp twine. The table was pitched under a canvas fly and the evening sun resolved within the s.p.a.ce beneath a deep orange light where the seams and st.i.tching pa.s.sed in shadow over their faces and their clothes as they moved. The girls set out the dishes on little pallets made from the ends of crates that nothing overbalance on the uncertain surface of the table and an old man at the farthest end of the table prayed for them all. He asked that G.o.d remember those who had died and he asked that the living gathered together here remember that the corn grows by the will of G.o.d and beyond that will there is neither corn nor growing nor light nor air nor rain nor anything at all save only darkness. Then they ate.

They'd have made a bed for him but he thanked them and walked out in the dark along the road until he came to a grove of trees and there he slept. In the morning there were sheep in the road. Two trucks carrying fieldhands were coming along behind the sheep and he walked out to the road and asked the driver for a ride. The driver nodded him aboard and he dropped back along the bed of the moving truck and tried to pull himself up. He could not and when the workers saw his condition they rose instantly and pulled him aboard. By a series of such rides and much walking he made his way west through the low mountains beyond Nadadores and down into the barrial and took the clay road out of La Madrid and in the late afternoon entered once more the town of La Vega.

He bought a Coca-Cola in the store and stood leaning against the counter while he drank it. Then he drank another. The girl at the counter watched him uncertainly. He was studying a calendar on the wall. He did not know the date within a week and when he asked her she didnt know either. He set the second bottle on the counter alongside the first one and walked back out into the mud street and set off afoot up the road toward La Purisima.

He'd been gone seven weeks and the countryside was changed, the summer past. He saw almost no one on the road and he reached the hacienda just after dark.

When he knocked at the gerente's door he could see the family at dinner through the doorway. The woman came to the door and when she saw him she went back to get Armando. He came to the door and stood picking his teeth. No one invited him in. When Antonio came out they sat under the ramada and smoked.

Quien esta en la casa? said John Grady.

La dama.

Y el senor Rocha?

En Mexico.

John Grady nodded.

Se fue el y la hija a Mexico. Por avion. He made an airplane motion with one hand.

Cuando regresa?

Quien sabe?

They smoked.

Tus cosas quedan aqui.

Si?.

Si. Tu pistola. Todas tus cosas. Y las de tu compadre.

Gracias.

De nada.

They sat. Antonio looked at him.

Yo no se nada, joven.

Entiendo.

En serio.

Esta bien. Puedo dormir en la cuadra?

Si. Si no me lo digas.

Como estan las yeguas?

Antonio smiled. Las yeguas, he said.

He brought him his things. The pistol had been unloaded and the sh.e.l.ls were in the mochila along with his shaving things, his father's old Marble huntingknife. He thanked Antonio and walked down to the barn in the dark. The mattress on his bed had been rolled up and there was no pillow and no bedding. He unrolled the tick and sat and kicked off his boots and stretched out. Some of the horses that were in the stalls had come up when he entered the barn and he could hear them snuffling and stirring and he loved to hear them and he loved to smell them and then he was asleep.

At daylight the old groom pushed open the door and stood looking in at him. Then he shut the door again. When he had gone John Grady got up and took his soap and his razor and walked out to the tap at the end of the barn.

When he walked up to the house there were cats coming from the stable and orchard and cats coming along the high wall or waiting their turn to pa.s.s under the worn wood of the gate. Carlos had slaughtered a sheep and along the dappled floor of the portal more cats sat basking in the earliest light falling through the hydrangeas. Carlos in his ap.r.o.n looked out from the doorway of the keep at the end of the portal. John Grady wished him a good morning and he nodded gravely and withdrew.

Maria did not seem surprised to see him. She gave him his breakfast and he watched her and he listened as she spoke by rote. The senorita would not be up for another hour. A car was coming for her at ten. She would be gone all day visiting at the quinta Margarita. She would return before dark. She did not like to travel the roads at night. Perhaps she could see him before he left.

John Grady sat drinking his coffee. He asked her for a cigarette and she brought her pack of El Toros from the window above the sink and put them on the table for him. She neither asked where he'd been nor how things had been with him but when he rose to go she put her hand on his shoulder and poured more coffee into his cup.

Puedes esperar aqui, she said. Se levantara p.r.o.nto.

He waited. Carlos came in and put his knives in the sink and went out again. At seven oclock she went out with the breakfast tray and when she returned she told him that he was invited to come to the house at ten that evening, that the senorita would see him then. He rose to go.

Quisiera un caballo, he said.

Caballo.

Si. Por el dia, no mas.

Moment.i.to, she said.

When she returned she nodded. Tienes tu caballo. Esperate un momento. Sientate.