A/N: Disclaimer, yo no hablo español. So if any Spanish speakers read this and see glaring issues, I'd love to hear about them.
There's hard lessons in this world.
What's the hardest?
I dont know. Maybe it's just that when things are gone they're gone. They aint comin back.
Cormac McCarthy, Cities of the Plain
His footsteps echoed on the wet cobblestones of the alley as he halfran after the boy. Dawn had not yet lightened the sky and yellow light from streetlamps and windows cast circles of sheeny light in the puddles. They came to a dead end in the maze of the alleys and he thought for a moment that the boy had led him into some kind of trap but then he ran to a stack of crates against the far wall and bent and pulled aside a rag of curtain to reveal a hollow and he turned and hewatched Billy. Venga, he said. Él está aquí. Venga.
Billy could see the soles of John Grady's boots and he swallowed and looked at the boy and then he was on his knees crawling into the house of crates. Aw bud, he said. Dadgummit. Aw bud.
John Grady was slumped against the wall with blood old and new soaking him from his chest down through the yellow silk shirt tied round his middle to below his knees. His skin was white and sweaty and streaked with dirt and blood and his eyes were closed.
Billy squatted there and looked at him and ran a hand over his mouth and wondered if the boy was dead already. He pressed his fingers to the white neck for a heartbeat but before he could find it John Grady breathed in shallowly and his breath smoked white in the air between them.
Bud. Billy put a hand on the boy's shoulder. Bud. Hey bud. He saw the eyes move under the closed lids and he called to him twice more.
John Grady opened his eyes.
Billy halfsobbed and then he turned to the Mexican boy where he still stood holding back the curtain. Ándale, he said. Rápido. Rápido.
The curtain fell and the boy's footfalls clapped and faded down the wet street. Billy pulled a match from his shirtpocket and struck it against the wall. You daggone fool, he spat. You daggone fool.
There was a stub of candle in a dented saucer on a shelf nailed to the crates and he lit it and shook out the match and picked up the candle and passed the light of it over the boy. He cursed. Can you walk?
Don't move me, John Grady whispered.
I got to.
You couldn't get me across the border noway.
You better believe I can.
He killed her, bud. John Grady's voice trembled and he along with it. He killed her.
I know.
The police are huntin me.
JC's bringin the truck. We'll run the dadgum gate if we have to.
Don't move me, bud. I aint goin.
You are if I have anything to say about it.
I cant make it. I thought for a while I could. But I cant.
Just take it easy now. I aint listenin to that crap. Shoot, I've had worse scratches than that on my eyeball.
I'm all cut to pieces, Billy.
We'll get you back. Dont quit on me now, cowboy.
Billy. He swallowed and breathed. Listen. It's alright. I know I aint goin to make it.
I done told you.
No. Listen. He swallowed again. Whew. You dont know what I'd give for a cool drink of water.
I'll get it. Billy started to set the candle but John Grady's fingers tangled in his sleeve. He looked up and the boy's eyes were bright and blue and glassy and locked with his own.
Dont go, he said. Maybe when the boy gets back, or JC.
All right.
A muscle popped in John Grady's jaw and he squeezed his eyes shut. He said it wouldnt hurt. He was a liar. Whew. It's getting daylight, aint it?
Yeah.
I seen her, bud. His voice was ragged and he shook his head as if he could banish the recollection. They had her all laid out and it didnt look like her but it was. They found her in the river. His breath caught. He cut her throat, bud.
I know.
I just wanted him. Bud, I wanted him.
Billy felt sick. You should have told me. You didnt have no business comin down here by yourself.
He shook. I just wanted him, he said.
Just take it easy. They'll be here directly. You just hang on.
It's okay. Hurts like a sumbuck, Billy. Whew. It's okay.
You want me to get that water?
No. Stay here. She was so pretty, bud.
Yes she was.
I worried about her all day. You know we talked about dyin? Where people go. About God forgivin people. He shook his head. When I saw her layin there I knew my life was over. It come almost as a relief to me.
Billy swallowed. Hush now. They aint nothin over. Listen, I hear the truck.
I aint goin to make it.
Shut up. Billy got to his feet and stooped and took hold of the boy beneath his arms. You just shut up. He dragged him out into the early morning air and then he gathered him up and lifted him bloody and trembling in his arms. John Grady cried out and his back went rigid and then boneless all in a moment and Billy told him to hush and that he would be alright.
The truck pulled up at the end of the alley and JC and the boy jumped out.
Water, Billy said to the boy. Agua. Ándale rápido. Git!
The boy scurried away and JC ran to them and looked at John Grady took his hat in his hands. He cursed.
Dont just set there, idjit. Help me get him in the truck.
I aint goin to make it.
Shut up.
They laid him on a quilt that had been in the truck and they wrapped him in it and Billy sat next to him and took his hand as JC slid the tailgate in place.
Someone gettin the doc?
JC nodded. Oren. They ought to be there when we get back.
Billy nodded and then the boy was back with a mason jar filled with water which he handed up to JC who handed it to Billy.
Set up a little, cowboy. He put a hand behind John Grady's neck and lifted his head and held the jar to his lips. Some of the water trickled down the boy's neck but he didn't seem to notice. He swallowed once, twice, and again before turning his face away. Better?
John Grady's eyes slipped shut and he nodded. Better.
Billy scooted behind him with his back against the cab and a leg on each side of the boy, arms wound round him. Hang on, cowboy. You hear? He slapped the window and JC pulled away. Hang on.
He fell unconscious shortly after they crossed the bridge, his head lolling back against Billy's stomach with each bump in the road and he tried hard not to think about Boyd sitting loose and limp before him in the saddle all those years before. He kept a hand under the quilt against the warm skin of the boy's collarbone where he could feel the fall and rise his shallow breaths.
The sky was lit cool and gray when they reached the border. News seemed not to have reached the guard and he waved them on urgently when he saw the boy's condition.
Oren and the doctor were waiting with Mac and Troy and Joaquin when they pulled into the yard and they got a board and carried him into the house to a room Socorro had made ready and they laid him on the floursacked bed and the doctor called for water and towels and sheetstrips and Socorro and Troy scurried out. The rest pressed themselves flat against the walls and waited that way until the doctor hazed them out all save Oren, who had been a medic during the war.
They gathered in the parlor. Some sat, some stood. Billy paced and spat.
Dont, said Mac.
What?
Dont spit in the house.
Sorry. I didnt mean it.
I know you didnt.
He paced. The clock ticked and chimed. It was six. Socorro passed bearing the water and a moment later Troy with the sheeting. They waited.
Mac looked at Billy and JC. It's bad, huh.
Yeah. It's bad.
They waited.
After a while, Troy came in and eased down on the edge of the sofa. He stared unseeing at the far wall. Dang it, he said. Dang it.
JC asked him what he had seen but Troy just stared and said if the boy lived he would tell him someday.
Mac looked at the ceiling twisting his hat in his hands. Oh Lord, he said.
Socorro passed on her way to the kitchen with her arms full of bloody towels. Her face was very white and she did not look at them.
The clouds cleared and the sun cast a warm haze through the white curtains but no one felt it. The clock ticked. The fire faded to embers and Joaquin rose and poked at it but it died anyway.
Father.
They looked up.
Mr Johnson stood in the doorway in trousers and longjohns with his suspenders dangling about his knees. His wrinkled old eyes were screwed shut and the wrinkles ran all the way down his face and he raised his hands as if seeking a blessing. You made a special one in that boy, he said. Take care of him. Amen.
The others murmured agreement and prayers of their own and Joaquin crossed himself and then the old man began to sing.
What a fellowship, what a joy divine, he sang. Leaning on the Everlasting Arms.
Mac closed his eyes and shook his head and sang. What a blessedness, what a peace is mine. Leaning on the Everlasting Arms.
Leaning, they sang, leaning. Safe and secure from all alarms.
All joined save Billy. He could not remember the words and he was beginning to cry.
Socorro brought them coffee and biscuits and they drank and ate mechanically. She had used too much soda and the biscuits were tangy and bitter but no one complained or seemed to notice.
The clock chimed seven and crept slowly round again and chimed eight. At eight forty-two Oren and the doctor reemerged. Oren passed to the kitchen to wash but the doctor stood in the doorway wiping his hands on a redstained towel. He looked at them and they looked at him and he wiped his hands.
He's in pretty bad shape boys, he said.
Mac spoke up for all of them. Will he live?
Oren and I have done about all we can do for him. It's a waitin matter now. A waitin matter and a prayin matter. He looked down at his hands and the towel and the blood on them and he looked back at the men gathered there like sentries of another time misplaced and awaiting a sacred commission. He said, Where can I go to wash?
He slept deeply. He dreamt of Rawlins and his grandfather and sometimes he dreamt of Saltillo and he dreamt once of Alejandra lying cold and dead with her throat cut and her blue eyes wide and sightless. He dreamt of Eduardo holding Magdalena by her hair at the river and her black eyes locked pleading with his as Eduardo pulled her head back to expose her pale throat but he could not move to help her and then it was not Magdalena or Eduardo but Blevins and the Mexican captain and Blevins called to him as he was dragged away but John Grady said nothing. The judge sat watching him and he turned his face away.
In waves of vague awareness he felt pain and he heard voices pass back and forth and he knew they were talking to him or about him but the words were lost. He was very cold. When he opened his eyes he saw the faces of Oren or Billy or Mac and sometimes a man he thought he knew but couldn't remember swimming before him and bathed in lamplight. He thought perhaps they were dreams too, because once among them he saw his dead father and with him a boy whom he had never seen but whom he knew to be Boyd.
They took shifts watching him. The doctor came and went and a waiting silence settled over the ranch like a cloak. At meals no one spoke save to thank Socorro or ask for the salt. Billy fed the pup and did his work and John Grady's and at night he sat with the boy.
He'd bring a book with him most nights but his eyes were often drawn away from the page to fall on John Grady and linger there. The doctor said he was running a high fever but that he had expected it and he said that it was staving off infection and if it broke soon he thought the boy would live.
But the fever showed no signs of breaking. In the evening of the third day, the doctor came again and changed the dressings and took his temperature and looked at the thermometer and Billy saw his mouth take a grim set that turned his heart to lead.
What are you thinkin, Mac said.
The doctor shook his head. I'm thinkin this is it. I'm thinkin tonight his fever will either break or it wont and if it does he'll live. One way or the other, I expect we'll have our answer by mornin.
Mac saw the doctor out and Billy sat down and looked at John Grady, all pale and sweatsheened with his cheeks splotched in bright red and his old scar running starkly along the bone of his left cheek. He looked at him for a long time and then he took off his boots and leaned back in his chair with his arms crossed over his chest and looked some more. Dont you die on me now, he said. You hear?
Around ten o'clock Socorro came in with coffee as she had become wont to do every night and he thanked her and watched her as she stood by the bed and brushed her knuckles against the boy's face and frowned at the heat she found there. Her breath caught and she left rubbing at the corners of her eyes with her thumb.
He sipped his coffee and watched the boy's chest rise and fall. Look at that, he said after a while. You made Socorro cry. If that dont guilt you into livin there's no pity in this whole dadgum world.
Mande?
He looked up to see Socorro returned and standing in the doorway. She was holding a towel and a basin and her eyes and nose were red.
Nada, he said. Que es eso?
Por su rostro. La fiebre.
He nodded and rose and took the basin from her and she draped the towel over his arm and looked at John Grady once more before she turned away and pulled shut the door.
He set the basin on the nightstand and sank the towel in it and wrung it out and passed it over the boy's face and neck. Would you look at this, he said. She's got your old dad playin dadgum wetnurse. Aint that just pathetic. I bet you're laughin it up in there.
He turned to dip the cloth again and when he turned back John Grady's eyes were open.
Bud, Billy said. Bud?
John Grady looked at him and his eyes were bright and very wet in their sockets.
Billy put a hand on his forehead. You awake?
Billy?
That's right, cowboy. How do you feel?
He closed his eyes. Like I wish I wasnt awake.
Shoot, kid. You aint done nothin but sleep for goin on four days. Lazybones. It's about time you was awake.
The boy said nothing and for a while Billy thought he was asleep again but then he said, She's gone?
What?
She's gone, I guess. I wasn't dreamin? He opened his eyes and looked at Billy.
You dont worry about it now, bud. Just get some sleep.
I thought you wanted me to stay awake.
Billy wiped at his eyes. Shut up. You're worsen Boyd, you know that?
John Grady smiled and closed his eyes.
The doctor came at four thirty and said that he'd been out delivering the Masterson baby and decided to go ahead and come check on the boy. He smiled and nodded his approval as he looked at the thermometer. Well son, he said to the sleeping boy. I guess God wasn't ready for you just yet.
Then he'll be okay?
Okay? I don't know about okay. He's still got a lot of healin up to do.
But he'll live?
Live? Yessir, I expect he will.
Billy watched as he set about cutting away the old bandages around John Grady's middle and then his arm and then his leg. The doctor hummed to himself as he worked.
Billy looked at the grisly E carved on John Grady's thigh. It's kindly a silly question I reckon, he said after a while. Considerin. But do you think it'll scar real bad?
The doctor grunted. His belly, yes. His leg here. I cant rightly say for the arm.
Billy nodded and was quiet a moment. Then he said, He's pretty well marked up for a young dude, aint he.
The doctor paused and looked up at Billy and then at John Grady and his eyes traveled from the scars on the boy's cheek to the old slashes across his chest to the new ones across his belly and down to where from one one leg stared the old bullet mark and from the other the bright red wounds. Yes he is, he said. Yes he is.
A cold wind blew in with Billy when he stepped into the kitchen and stomped the dirt from his boots.
Howdy cowboy, said JC.
What cat drug you in, said Troy.
Not one from around here, Joaquin said. They'd know better.
Billy looked at Socorro as if they shared some secret and shook his head sadly. Ves estas idiotas?
She chuckled and turned to the stove to get his plate.
You all seen the kid today?
They nodded.
He wake up at all?
Not when we were in there. Mac said he aint been up since he was watchin him either.
Billy nodded and Socorro set his plate before him and he ate.
He say anythin to you? Troy asked.
Billy chewed. Naw, he said.
He found Mac sitting with John Grady, his elbows resting on his knees and his hands fisted and his chin propped on them, watching the boy furtively.
He'll be alright, Billy said.
Yeah.
Socorro's got supper laid out.
Yeah. Mac rose and clapped Billy on the back and glanced at the boy and went out.
Evenin cousin, Billy said. Look at you. You dont even look any moren halfdead tonight.
He sat in his chair and kicked off his boots and leaned back and closed his eyes. He thought of John Grady and he thought of the house at Bell Springs and he thought of Magdalena and then he thought of Boyd and then he dozed.
He woke a while later with no idea of the time or what had stirred him. John Grady lay small and still in the bed and Billy put his socked feet up on the edge of it and watched him.
Socorro brought his coffee and pet the boy's hair and then she went out and he sat sipping his coffee.
John Grady sighed. I aint dead. He opened his eyes and looked at the ceiling.
Billy sat up. No you aint, he said. But you sure gave it your best shot.
She is, though.
Yeah, bud. She is.
Tears welled in John Grady's eyes and he closed them and the tears quivered free and ran down his cheeks like rivers of gold in the lamplight. I love her, Billy.
I know it.
John Grady wept softly and Billy looked away and they sat that way for a long time with the nightsounds whispering on and the moon climbing slowly in the windowpane.
How's the dog?
He's alright. He's awful whiny when you're not around. It's a good thing you didnt die or we woulda had to put him out of his misery or risk our sanity.
What do you know about sanity?
Haw haw. I asked the doc about bringin him in here but he said no on account of he might con-somethin-or-other somethin.
Contaminate.
That's it.
She was special, Billy. It wasnt just she was pretty. She was special.
Musta been for you to take on like you did. Billy swore. I wish you'd told me. You never shouldve been down there on your lonesome. Daggone fool.
I know it. I couldnt think. All I could see was her with her—was her like that.
I'm sorry, John Grady.
What do you got to be sorry about?
Billy shrugged and looked out the window. I'm not very good at lookin after people, I think.
You wasnt supposed to be lookin after me. Shouldnt of had to. This is my own fault. All of it.
It's Eduardo's fault.
Well.
Yeah. Well. Get some sleep now, cowboy.
Okay. Billy?
Yeah?
You feed the pup?
I fed him.
Okay. Billy?
Yeah.
Will you stay?
Yeah, cowboy. I'll stay. Go to sleep.
A/N: Thank you for reading, gorgeous soul.