By now three more dogs had started across the plain with Travis and Joaquin after them. They passed a hundred feet out riding hard and John Grady punched the dun forward and set out after them with the yellow dog bouncing behind over the rocks and through the creosote at the end of the thirtyfive foot maguey rope. Other hounds and riders had come out of the rocks to the west and were lined out upon the floodplain and he rode on dragging the dog a ways and then hauled the horse up short and jumped down and ran back to get his rope off of the dog. The dog was limp and bloody and it lay in the gravels grinning with its eyes half started from their sockets. He stood on it with his boot and pulled off the loop and trotted back to the waiting horse coiling the rope as he went.
By this time it was good daylight and there were already four riders out on the plain before him riding in a long sweep and he mounted up and slung the coiled rope over his shoulder and set out after them at a handgallop.
When he passed Joaquin the Mexican shouted something after him but he couldnt hear what it was. He quirted the horse on with the loop end of the rope, following Travis and JC and Travis's hounds. He almost ran over one of the outlaw dogs. It had crawled up and hidden in a clump of greasewood and he would have ridden past it had it not lost its nerve at the last moment and bolted. He reined the horse around so hard he nearly lost a stirrup. Billy came up on his right and passed him and the dog cut back and tried to cross in front of his horse and as it did so Billy rode it down and leaned and roped it and the horse squatted and slid to a stop in a boil of dust and the dog went sailing and bounced and skidded and then scrambled up and stood looking about. Billy turned his horse and pulled the dog down but it got up again and began to run at the end of the rope. When John Grady went past the dog was standing and twisting and pawing at the rope but Billy put his heels to the horse and the dog was snatched away. Out on the floodplain Joaquin was sawing his horse about and whooping and the dogs were scattered and baying and fighting. Travis rode up swinging his loop and John Grady reined to one side but the dog he was after cut in front of the horse and suddenly appeared in front of him. He put the horse after it and the dog tried to cut back but he swung his loop and dallied and reined the horse to the right. The dog spun in the air and landed and rose running and turned and was snatched up again. John Grady spurred the dun forward and the dog went bouncing and slamming mutely in a wide arc and then went dragging through the brush and gravel behind him.
He came back trailing the empty rope, paying it up and recoiling it as he rode. Travis and Joaquin and Billy were sitting the horses and letting them blow. The second cast of hounds were now tracking the dogs along the lower end of the floodplain, running them down among the boulders and scree and fighting and going on again. Joaquin was grinning.
I hogged your all's dog, I reckon, John Grady said.
Plenty of dogs, Joaquin said.
Watch JC, Billy said. Watch him now. He looks like he's fightin bees.
How many of these damn dogs are there?
I dont know. Archer started up a whole other bunch yonder where that big wash comes out.
Have they caught any?
I dont think so. Troy's afoot up in them rocks.
Two hounds appeared out of the chaparral and circled and sniffed the ground and stood uncertainly.
Hyeah, called Travis. Hunt em up.
Well pardner if your horse aint bottomed out completely why dont we ride on down there where the fun's at?
Billy booted his horse forward. You aint waitin on me, he said.
You all go on, said Travis. I'll catch you up.
Dogropers, called Billy. I knew it'd come to this.
Joaqu'n grinned and pressed his horse into a lope and raised one fist over his head. Adelante, muchachos, he called.
Perreros.
Tonteros.
Travis watched them go. He shook his head and leaned and spat and turned his horse to ride up toward where he'd last seen Archer.
Where they came up off the desert parkland there were great boulders fallen from the mesa above and they rode up the slope among them until John Grady halted his horse and held up his hand. They stopped to listen. John Grady stood in the saddle and scanned the slope above them. Billy rode up.
I think they're headed up towards the top of the mesa.
I do too.
Can they get up there?
I dont know. Probably. They seem to think so.
Can you see them?
No. There was one big yellow son of a bitch and another kindly spotted one. There may be three or four of em.
I guess they've thrown the dogs, aint they?
It looks like it.
You think we can get up there?
I think I might know a way.
Billy squinted up at the stone ramparts. He leaned and spat. I'd hate to get a horse half way up that draw and not be able to go either way.
So would I.
Plus I dont know how much good we're goin to do runnin these varmints without dogs. Do you?
We just need to get up there before they get gone. It's pretty open country up on top.
Well, lead on then.
All right.
Let's not get in too big a hurry.
All right.
Let's just cover the ground in front of us. Let's not get in a jackpot up here.
All right.
He followed John Grady back down the way they'd come and they rode for the better part of a mile and then turned up along the wash. The way grew steep, the path more narrow. They dismounted and led the horses. They crossed gray bands of midden soil from ancient campsites washed down out of the arroyo that carried bits of bone and pottery and they passed under pictographs upon the rimland boulders that bore images of hunter and shaman and meetingfires and desert sheep all picked into the rock a thousand years and more. They passed beneath a band of dancers holding hands like paper figures scissored out by children and stenciled on the stone. Under the caprock was a running shelf and they turned and looked back down over the floodplain and the desert. Troy was riding out toward Travis and JC and Archer and they were crossing toward the truck with most of the dogs in tow. They couldnt see Joaqu'n anywhere. In the distance they could see the highway through a gap in the low hills fifteen miles away. The horses stood blowing.
Where to now, cowboy? said Billy.
John Grady nodded toward the country above them and set out again leading the horse.
The shelf narrowed upward to a break in the strata of the rock and they led the horses into a defile so narrow that Billy's horse balked and would not follow. It backed and jerked at the bridlereins and skittered dangerously on the shales. Billy looked up the narrow passageway. The sheer rock walls rose up into the blue sky.
Bud are you real sure about this?
John Grady had dropped the reins on the blue horse and he peeled out of his jacket and made his way back to Billy.
Take my horse, he said.
What?
Take my horse. Or Watson's. He's been through here before.
He took the reins from Billy and calmed the horse and tied the jacket by the sleeves over the horse's eyes, leaning against the animal with his whole body. Billy worked his way up to where the dun horse stood and took up the reins and led it on up through the rocks, the horse scrabbling in the shale, the loose spurs clinking off the stone. At the top of the defile the horses lunged and clambered up and out onto the mesa and stood trembling and blowing. John Grady pulled the jacket off the horse's head and the horse blew and looked about. A mile away on the mesa three of the dogs were loping and looking back.