I just wanted him.
Just take it easy. They'll be here directly. You just hang on.
It's okay. Hurts like a sumbitch, Billy. Whew. It's okay.
You want me to get that water?
No. Stay here. She was so goddamned pretty, bud.
Yes she was.
I worried about her all day. You know we talked about where people go when they die. I just believe you go someplace and I seen her layin there and I thought maybe she wouldnt go to heaven because, you know, I thought she wouldnt and I thought about God forgivin people and I thought about if I could ask God to forgive me for killin that son of a bitch because you and me both know I aint sorry for it and I reckon this sounds ignorant but I didnt want to be forgiven if she wasnt. I didnt want to do or be nothin that she wasnt like goin to heaven or anything like that. I know that sounds crazy. Bud when I seen her layin there I didnt care to live no more. I knew my life was over. It come almost as a relief to me.
Hush now. They aint nothin over.
She wanted to do the right thing. That's got to count for somethin dont it? It did with me.
It does with me too.
There's a pawnshop ticket in the top of my footlocker. If you wanted to you could get my gun out and keep it.
We'll get it out.
There's thirty dollars owin on it. There's some money in there too. In a brown envelope.
Dont worry about nothin now.. Just take it easy.
Mac's ring is in that little tin box. You see he gets it back. Whew. Like a sumbitch, bud.
You just hang on.
We got the little house lookin good, didnt we?
Yes we did.
You reckon you could keep that pup and kindly look after him?
You'll be there. Dont you worry now.
Hurts, bud. Like a sumbitch.
I know it. You just hang on.
I think maybe I'm goin to need that sup of water.
You just hang on. I'll get it. I wont be a minute either.
He set the candlestub in its saucer of grease on the shelf and backed out and let the curtain fall. As he trotted out across the vacant lot he looked back. The square of yellow light that shone through the sacking looked like some haven of promise out there on the shore of the breaking world but his heart misgave him.
Midblock there was a small cafe just opening. The girl setting up the little tin tables started when she saw him there, wild and sleepless, the knees of his breeches red with blood where he'd knelt in the bloodsoaked mat.
Agua, he said. Necesito aqua.
She made her way to the counter without taking her eyes off him. She took down a tumbler and filled it from a bottle and set it on the counter and stepped back.
No hay un vaso m++s grande? he said.
She stared at him dumbly.
Dame dos, he said. Dos.
She got another glass and filled it and set it out. He put a dollar bill on the counter and took the glasses and left. It was gray dawn. The stars had dimmed out and the dark shapes of the mountains stood along the sky. He carried the glasses carefully one in each hand and crossed the street.
When he got to the packingcrate the candle was still burning and he took the glasses both in one hand and pushed back the sacking and crouched on his knees.
Here you go, bud, he said.
But he had already seen. He set the waterglasses slowly down. Bud, he said. Bud?
The boy lay with his face turned away from the light. His eyes were open. Billy called to him. As if he could not have gone far. Bud, he said. Bud? Aw goddamn. Bud?
Aint that pitiful, he said. Aint that the most goddamn pitiful thing? Aint it? Oh God. Bud. Oh goddamn.
When he had him gathered in his arms he rose and turned. Goddamn whores, he said. He was crying and the tears ran on his angry face and he called out to the broken day against them all and he called out to God to see what was before his eyes. Look at this, he called. Do you see? Do you see?
The Sabbath had passed and in the gray Monday dawn a procession of schoolchildren dressed in blue uniforms all alike were being led along the gritty walkway. The woman had stepped from the curb to take them across at the intersection when she saw the man coming up the street all dark with blood bearing in his arms the dead body of his friend. She held up her hand and the children stopped and huddled with their books at their breasts. He passed. They could not take their eyes from him. The dead boy in his arms hung with his head back and those partly opened eyes beheld nothing at all out of that passing landscape of street or wall or paling sky or the figures of the children who stood blessing themselves in the gray light. This man and his burden passed on forever out of that nameless crossroads and the woman stepped once more into the street and the children followed and all continued on to their appointed places which as some believe were chosen long ago even to the beginning of the world.
EPILOGUE
HE LEFT three days later, he and the dog. A cold and windy day. The pup shivering and whining until he took it up in the bow of the saddle with him. He'd settled up with Mac the evening before. Socorro would not look at him. She set his plate before him and he sat looking at it and then rose and walked down the hallway leaving it untouched on the table. It was still there when he went out through the kitchen again ten minutes later for the last time and she was still there at the stove, bearing on her forehead in ash the thumbprint of the priest placed there that morning to remind her of her mortality. As if she had any thought other. Mac paid him and he folded the money and put it in his shirtpocket and buttoned it. When are you leavin? In the mornin.
You dont have to go.
I dont have to do nothin but die. You wont change your mind?
No sir.
Well. Nothin's forever. Some things are.
Yeah. Some things are. I'm sorry Mr Mac.
I am too, Billy.
I should of looked after him better. We all should oPS
Yessir.
That cousin of his got here about a hour ago. Thatcher Cole.
Called from town. He said they finally got hold of his mother.
What did she have to say?
He didnt say. He said they hadnt heard from him in three years. What do you make of that?
I dont know.
I dont either.
Are you goin to San Angelo?
No. Maybe I ought to. But I aint.
Yessir. Well.
Let it go, son.
I'd like to. I think it's goin to be a while.
I think so too.
Yessir.
Mac nodded toward his blue and swollen hand. You dont think you ought to get somebody to look at that?
It's all right.
You've always got a job here. The army's goin to take this place, but we'll find somethin to do.
I appreciate that.
What time will you be leavin?
Early of the mornin.
You told Oren?
No sir. Not yet.
I reckon you'll see him at breakfast.
Yessir.
But he didnt. He rode out in the dark long before daylight and he rode the sun up and he rode it down again. In the oncoming years a terrible drought struck west Texas. He moved on. There was no work in that country anywhere. Pasture gates stood open and sand drifted in the roads and after a few years it was rare to see stock of any kind and he rode on. Days of the world. Years of the world. Till he was old.
In the spring of the second year of the new millennium he was living in the Gardner Hotel in El Paso Texas and working as an extra in a movie. When the work came to an end he stayed in his room. There was a television set in the lobby and men his age and younger sat in the lobby in the evening in the old chairs and watched the television but he cared little for it and the men had little to say to him or he to them. His money ran out. Three weeks later he was evicted. He'd long since sold his saddle and he set forth into the street with just his AWOL bag and his blanketroll.