By midnight there were fires in the street and dancing and drunkenness and the house rang with the shrill cries of the whores and rival packs of dogs had infiltrated the now partly darkened and smoking yard in the back where a vicious dogfight broke out over the charred racks of goatbones and where the first gunfire of the night erupted and wounded dogs howled and dragged themselves about until Glanton himself went out and killed them with his knife, a lurid scene in the flickering light, the wounded dogs silent save for the pop of their teeth, dragging themselves across the lot like seals or other things and crouching under the walls while Glanton walked them down and clove their skulls with the huge copperbacked beltknife. He was no more than back inside the house before new dogs were muttering at the spits.
By the small hours of the morning most of the lamps within the hostel had smoked out and the rooms were filled with drunken snoring. The sutlers and their carts were gone and the blackened rings of the burnedout fires lay in the road like bomb-craters, the smoldering billets dragged forth to sustain the one last fire about which sat old men and boys smoking and exchanging tales. As the mountains to the east began to shape themselves out of the dawn these figures too drifted away. In the yard at the rear of the premises the surviving dogs had dragged the bones about everywhere and the dead dogs lay in dark shingles of their own blood dried in the dust and cocks had begun to crow. When the judge and Glanton appeared at the front door in their suits, the judge in white and Glanton in black, the only person about was one of the small hostlers asleep on the steps.
Joven, said the judge.
The boy leaped up.
Eres mozo del caballado?
Sí señor. A su servicio.
Nuestros caballos, he said. He would describe the animals but the boy was already on the run.
It was cold and a wind was blowing. The sun not up. The judge stood at the steps and Glanton walked up and down studying the ground. In ten minutes the boy and another appeared leading the two horses saddled and groomed at a nice trot up the street, the boys at a dead run, barefoot, the breath of the horses pluming and their heads turning smartly from side to side.
XV
A new contract – Sloat – The massacre on the Nacozari – Encounter with Elias – Pursued north – A lottery – Shelby and the kid – A horse lamed – A norther – An ambush – Escape – War on the plains – A descent – The burning tree – On the track – The trophies – The kid rejoins his command – The judge – A desert sacrifice – The scouts do not return – The ogdoad – Santa Cruz – The militia – Snow – A hospice – The stable.
On the fifth of December they rode out north in the cold darkness before daybreak carrying with them a contract signed by the governor of the state of Sonora for the furnishing of Apache scalps. The streets were silent and empty. Carroll and Sanford had defected from the company and with them now rode a boy named Sloat who had been left sick to die in this place by one of the gold trains bound for the coast weeks earlier. When Glanton asked him if he were kin to the commodore of that name the boy spat quietly and said No, nor him to me. He rode near the head of the column and he must have counted himself well out of that place yet if he gave thanks to any god at all it was ill timed for the country was not done with him.
They rode north onto the broad Sonoran desert and in that cauterized waste they wandered aimlessly for weeks pursuing rumor and shadow. A few small scattered bands of Chiricahua raiders supposedly seen by herdsmen on some squalid and desolate ranch. A few peons waylaid and slain. Two weeks out they massacred a pueblo on the Nacozari River and two days later as they rode toward Ures with the scalps they encountered a party of armed Sonoran cavalry on the plains west of Baviácora under General Elias. A running fight ensued in which three of Glanton’s party were killed and another seven wounded, four of whom could not ride.
That night they could see the fires of the army less than ten miles to the south. They sat out the night in darkness and the wounded called for water and in the cold stillness before dawn the fires out there were still burning. At sunrise the Delawares rode into the camp and sat on the ground with Glanton and Brown and the judge. In the eastern light the fires on the plain faded like an evil dream and the country lay bare and sparkling in the pure air. Elias was moving upon them out there with over five hundred troops.
They rose and began to saddle the horses. Glanton fetched down a quiver made from ocelot skin and counted out the arrows in it so that there was one for each man and he tore a piece of red flannel into strips and tied these about the footings of four of the shafts and then replaced the counted arrows into the quiver.
He sat on the ground with the quiver upright between his knees while the company filed past. When the kid selected among the shafts to draw one he saw the judge watching him and he paused. He looked at Glanton. He let go the arrow he’d chosen and sorted out another and drew that one. It carried the red tassel. He looked at the judge again and the judge was not watching and he moved on and took his place with Tate and Webster. They were joined finally by a man named Harlan from Texas who had drawn the last arrow and the four of them stood together while the rest saddled their horses and led them out.
Of the wounded men two were Delawares and one a Mexican. The fourth was Dick Shelby and he alone sat watching the preparations for departure. The Delawares remaining in the company conferred among themselves and one of them approached the four Americans and studied them each in turn. He walked past them and turned and came back and took the arrow from Webster. Webster looked at Glanton where he stood with his horse. Then the Delaware took Harlan’s arrow. Glanton turned and with his forehead against the ribs of his horse he tightened the girthstraps and then mounted up. He adjusted his hat. No one spoke. Harlan and Webster went to get their animals. Glanton sat his horse while the company filed past and then he turned and followed them out onto the plain.
The Delaware had gone for his horse and he brought it up still hobbled through the wallowed places in the sand where the men had slept. Of the wounded indians one was silent, breathing heavily with his eyes closed. The other was chanting rhythmically. The Delaware let drop the reins and took down his warclub from his bag and stepped astraddle of the man and swung the club and crushed his skull with a single blow. The man humped up in a little shuddering spasm and then lay still. The other was dispatched in the same way and then the Delaware raised the horse’s leg and undid the hobble and slid it clear and rose and put the hobble and the club in the bag and mounted up and turned the horse. He looked at the two men standing there. His face and chest were freckled with blood. He touched up the horse with his heels and rode out.
Tate squatted in the sand, his hands dangling in front of him. He turned and looked at the kid.
Who gets the Mexican? he said.
The kid didnt answer. They looked at Shelby. He was watching them.
Tate had a clutch of small pebbles in his hand and he let them drop one by one into the sand. He looked at the kid.