One of the things that happened was that, while Belle serviced the drunken deputy behind his desk (We dont want thet wild desperado gittin over-roused, do we, she said with a wink his way, pushing the ugly man down out of sight), he picked up his boots and crawled out of the cell window, which turned out to be a story higher in the back than out front; he could see the horse waiting for him down below with his gunbelt over its rump, so he just let go and dropped, slapping into the saddle like a ball into a leather glove. It hurt but not as much as he’d feared, though probably the most recent punishments he’d endured had set new standards. But if the horse, a shapely coal-black thoroughbred, was willing to play catch with him, she was less inclined to take him anywhere, impassively ignoring his most desperate urgings. He wheedled, kneed her, clucked his tongue in her ear, snapped the reins, commanded her in a barking whisper to giddyup, smacked her haunches, and cursed her like the black devil she was, but she only turned her head and looked at him wistfully, or else in reproach or disappointment.
Over at the saloon meanwhile a brawl had broken out, a fight over the reward money as best he could make out, or maybe they’d been gambling for it and someone had cheated, and it was now spilling out into the street. There were fistfights and gunfire and thrown bottles and chairs and the shattering of windows and mirrors and, mixed in with it all, a drunken agitation for a lynching boiling up: It’s thet goddamn hoss-thievin ex-sheriff whut’s fucked us up! Lets go drag the mizzerbul whelp outa thar’n string him up! Yo! He’s ruint this town! C’mon! Lets git the sumbitch! But still, even as the turmoil spread ominously in his direction, the mare just stood there, stock-still, eyeing him melancholically over her shoulder, and he began to wonder if maybe the saloon chanteuse, more embittered by her thwarted wedding party than she was letting on, had set him up for something even more harrowing than a legal hanging. Git goin, damn yu! he cried, but the contrary thing wouldn’t. He felt like braining her with something, but she was all he had so he gritted his teeth and leaned forward and stroked her sleek black neck and begged her earnestly to fetch him out of this hellatious dusthole before it was too late, whispering in her erected ear that it was just the two of them now, his fate was in her hands — or hoofs, better said — and if she wanted to stay and get killed like a damfool, well, he could abide by that, for him it was better to get shot up out here in the street than to swing like sausage from a rope, but there was no need for her to suffer such grievous shit, no need for either of them to, because there was still time and plenty, but they had to step lively — and pronto! — and as he talked she began to paw the ground and snort and toss her head and he told her she was the most beautiful horse he’d ever seen but he wouldn’t care if she were the ugliest whangdoodle in all creation, he’d still love her, if only she would kick up her heels and hightail her sweet arse out of here, and the next thing he knew they were miles away, streaking through the desert night so fast it was all he could do to hold his seat, his eyelids pinned back, teeth bared behind blown-open lips, the new hole in his ear whistling, his clothes ripping in the wind. Then, as suddenly, they stopped and he somersaulted right on over the mare’s head with his forward momentum, landing where he lies now, flat on his back, staring up at the indifferent stars, hatless, bootless, unarmed, and unable to imagine ever rising again, the mercurial black mare long since vanished into the night, as though, having brought him this far and dropped him, her job was done.
Well, he’s been thrown off horses before. Breaking broncs is part of who he is, what he does. Or used to be, do, best he can recollect, his memory about this residing mostly at the base of his spine and now freshly jogged. But it’s been awhile. That mustang he rode in here was probably the last one he broke. If he ever really did. Wasn’t easy. It had been living wild and had acquired fixed notions about anybody sitting upon it. Which, not caring to be sat upon himself, he could respect, but only up to the point where it started to hurt. That horse would stand still as stone and then would suddenly unwind like a clock spring, throwing a body every which direction, no two of its feet hitting the grit at the same time. It whirled, sunfished, high-dived, and back-flipped; it was like riding the end of a whip or trying to cling to a cliff face in an earthquake. With the cheeks of your backside. He got bucked into mud holes, cactus patches, manure wagons, and bonfires, once even up a tree. And he got mad. Goddammit, it was either him or the horse. He had himself lashed to the stirrups and saddle with the intention of riding it all day and all night for as long as it took. How long that was he can’t say, but it seemed like a lifetime, a bone-breaking nightmare that would never end. He came to one day at the bottom of a ravine in a pile of brambles, still tied to the busted tack and the horse quietly grazing on the hillside overhead.
The horse had bested him but they got on after that. Partners of a sort. Neither of them went back to where they’d been; he wouldn’t have known how to find his way back had he wanted to. Instead, they just kept moving, a pair of fiddle-footed ramblers, following the wind, until that drifting brought them out here. To the desert. Where now, somewhere, a coyote yaps and a lone wolf howls. A not too subtle reminder. That he’s meat. And the desert’s dry belly on which he lies is hollow and full of a restless insatiable hunger. Even now he feels that belly rumbling faintly beneath him, hears it: some animal stealthily approaching. He has no weapons, not even his bowie knife, but whatever it is will not get a free meal. He lies deadly still, trying to estimate how far away it is and just where it’s coming from, sniffing the air for a clue, gazing fixedly up at the night sky, wishing it were a mirror. No movement up there tonight, the stars are all nailed in their places, but they are flickering as if they might be loose and could easily fall out. He concentrates on them, as though he might unplug one with his gaze alone. And then, to his startlement (he cries out) he does, or seems to, but it misses his predator and lands on him instead. But: not a star. No. He’s been hit in the face with a boot, his own boot. Standing over him is the black mare. She’s come back. Her coat is wet with sweat and there is foam at the corners of her mouth. She drops the other boot, his hat, his gunbelt, the sheathed knife.
He lies back, staring up at this giant of a horse above him, her black body blotting out the stars, but her own eyes luminous as moons, and he feels suddenly more attached to the earth than he’s ever felt before. It’s as though the horse, whom he has sorely misjudged, without explaining anything (he’s as ignorant as he ever was), has given him a reason for being, and a desire for it too, and he knows now they will survive this night. She bends down, rubs her broad nose against his, nuzzles his chest as if to encourage him to get on with it. Yes, he knows they have to keep moving, they’ve probably followed her here, but the harmonious view he has of the universe at this moment is so compelling he wants to hold on to it for a moment longer. He feels that he is gazing, gazing up at the horse and the sky, upon truth itself, the core and essence of it. Ineffable of course, like the smelly old fellow said, aghast at what he saw, but his heart, his most unexercised organ, is touched. He reaches up in gratitude to stroke the mare’s neck, but she flinches and jerks back. What—? Blood! She’s been wounded! They’ve shot at her, those vicious yellow-livered cab-bageheads! The rage that wells up in him serves a purpose: it stirs him to sit up and don the gunbelt and the other things she’s brought him. He’s ready to take them all on! She watches patiently, nosing the ground as if to graze there, though there’s nothing to eat. The boots are the hardest. He doesn’t bend well and his strength is gone. She sets a foot by his to give him something to push against. That much done, he tries to rise, holding on to her shoulder, gets as far as his knees, but cannot seem to manage the rest. If he plants one foot on the ground, the other gives way. She solves this problem too. She picks him up with her teeth by the seat of his pants and lifts him up onto her back, which he clumsily falls upon, spread out on his belly and legs adangle. So much for taking on the world. She whinnies softly. He hugs her neck, and together they gallop away from there.