man himself. Two spectators were standing in the hallway. The door was completely afire and part of the wall and ceiling. They went out and down the hall. The clerk was coming up the steps two at a time.
Toadvine you son of a bitch, he said.
Toadvine was four steps above him and when he kicked him he caught him in the throat. The clerk sat down on the stairs. When the kid came past he hit him in the side of the head and the clerk slumped over and began to slide toward the landing. The kid stepped over him and went down to the lobby and crossed to the front door and out.
Toadvine was running down the street, waving his fists above his head crazily and laughing. He looked like a great clay voodoo doll made animate and the kid looked like another. Behind them flames were licking at the top corner of the hotel and clouds of dark smoke rose into the warm Texas morning.
He’d left the mule with a Mexican family that boarded animals at the edge of town and he arrived there wildlooking and out of breath. The woman opened the door and looked at him.
Need to get my mule, he wheezed.
She looked at him some more, then she called toward the back of the house. He walked around. There were horses tethered in the lot and there was a flatbed wagon against the fence with some turkeys sitting on the edge looking out. The old lady had come to the back door. Nito, she called. Venga. Hay un caballero aqui. Venga.
He went down the shed to the tackroom and got his wretched saddle and his blanketroll and brought them back. He found the mule and unstalled it and bridled it with the rawhide hackamore and led it to the fence. He leaned against the animal with his shoulder and got the saddle over it and got it cinched, the mule starting and shying and running its head along the fence. He led it across the lot. The mule kept shaking its head sideways as if it had something in its ear.
He led it out to the road. As he passed the house the woman came padding out after him. When she saw him put his foot in the stirrup she began to run. He swung up into the broken saddle and chucked the mule forward. She stopped at the gate and watched him go. He didnt look back.
When he passed back through the town the hotel was burning and men were standing around watching it, some holding empty buckets. A few men sat horseback watching the flames and one of these was the judge. As the kid rode past the judge turned and watched him. He turned the horse, as if he’d have the animal watch too. When the kid looked back the judge smiled. The kid touched up the mule and they went sucking out past the old stone fort along the road west.
II
Across the prairie – A hermit – A nigger’s heart – A stormy night – Westward again – Cattle drovers – Their kindness – On the trail again – The deadcart – San Antonio de Bexar – A Mexican cantina – Another fight – The abandoned church – The dead in the sacristy – At the ford – Bathing in the river.
Now come days of begging, days of theft. Days of riding where there rode no soul save he. He’s left behind the pinewood country and the evening sun declines before him beyond an endless swale and dark falls here like a thunderclap and a cold wind sets the weeds to gnashing. The night sky lies so sprent with stars that there is scarcely space of black at all and they fall all night in bitter arcs and it is so that their numbers are no less.
He keeps from off the king’s road for fear of citizenry. The little prairie wolves cry all night and dawn finds him in a grassy draw where he’d gone to hide from the wind. The hobbled mule stands over him and watches the east for light.
The sun that rises is the color of steel. His mounted shadow falls for miles before him. He wears on his head a hat he’s made from leaves and they have dried and cracked in the sun and he looks like a raggedyman wandered from some garden where he’d used to frighten birds.
Come evening he tracks a spire of smoke rising oblique from among the low hills and before dark he hails up at the doorway of an old anchorite nested away in the sod like a groundsloth. Solitary, half mad, his eyes redrimmed as if locked in their cages with hot wires. But a ponderable body for that. He watched wordless while the kid eased down stiffly from the mule. A rough wind was blowing and his rags flapped about him.
Seen ye smoke, said the kid. Thought you might spare a man a sup of water.
The old hermit scratched in his filthy hair and looked at the ground. He turned and entered the hut and the kid followed.
Inside darkness and a smell of earth. A small fire burned on the dirt floor and the only furnishings were a pile of hides in one corner. The old man shuffled through the gloom, his head bent to clear the low ceiling of woven limbs and mud. He pointed down to where a bucket stood in the dirt. The kid bent and took up the gourd floating there and dipped and drank. The water was salty, sulphurous. He drank on.
You reckon I could water my old mule out there?
The old man began to beat his palm with one fist and dart his eyes about.
Be proud to fetch in some fresh. Just tell me where it’s at.
What ye aim to water him with?
The kid looked at the bucket and he looked around in the dim hut.
I aint drinkin after no mule, said the hermit.
Have you not got no old bucket nor nothin?
No, cried the hermit. No. I aint. He was clapping the heels of his clenched fists together at his chest.
The kid rose and looked toward the door. I’ll find somethin, he said. Where’s the well at?
Up the hill, foller the path.
It’s nigh too dark to see out here.
It’s a deep path. Foller ye feet. Foller ye mule. I caint go.
He stepped out into the wind and looked about for the mule but the mule wasnt there. Far to the south lightning flared soundlessly. He went up the path among the thrashing weeds and found the mule standing at the well.
A hole in the sand with rocks piled about it. A piece of dry hide for a cover and a stone to weight it down. There was a rawhide bucket with a rawhide bail and a rope of greasy leather. The bucket had a rock tied to the bail to help it tip and fill and he lowered it until the rope in his hand went slack while the mule watched over his shoulder.
He drew up three bucketfuls and held them so the mule would not spill them and then he put the cover back over the well and led the mule back down the path to the hut.
I thank ye for the water, he called.
The hermit appeared darkly in the door. Just stay with me, he said.
That’s all right.
Best stay. It’s fixin to storm.
You reckon?
I reckon and I reckon right.
Well.
Bring ye bed. Bring ye possibles.
He uncinched and threw down the saddle and hobbled the mule foreleg to rear and took his bedroll in. There was no light save the fire and the old man was squatting by it tailorwise.
Anywheres, anywheres, he said. Where’s ye saddle at?
The kid gestured with his chin.
Dont leave it out yonder somethin’ll eat it. This is a hungry country.
He went out and ran into the mule in the dark. It had been standing looking in at the fire.
Get away, fool, he said. He took up the saddle and went back in.
Now pull that door to fore we blow away, said the old man.
The door was a mass of planks on leather hinges. He dragged it across the dirt and fastened it by its leather latch.
