All the Pretty Horses

coffee. What’ll you boys have? he said.
    Go ahead, said Rawlins.
    He ordered three eggs with ham and beans and biscuits and Rawlins ordered the same with a sideorder of hotcakes and syrup.
    You better load up good.
    You watch me, said Rawlins.
    They sat with their elbows propped on the table and looked out the window south across the plains to the distant mountains lying folded in their shadows under the morning sun.
    That’s where we’re headed, said Rawlins.
    He nodded. They drank their coffee. The man brought their breakfasts on heavy white crockery platters and came back with the coffeepot. Rawlins had peppered his eggs till they were black. He spread butter over the hotcakes.
    There’s a man likes eggs with his pepper, said the proprietor.
    He poured their cups and went back to the kitchen.
    You pay attention to your old dad now, Rawlins said. I’ll show you how to deal with a unruly breakfast.
    Do it, said John Grady.
    Might just order the whole thing again.
    The store had nothing in the way of feed. They bought a box of dried oatmeal and paid their bill and went out. John Grady cut the paper drum in two with his knife and they poured the oatmeal into a couple of hubcaps and sat on the picnic table and smoked while the horses ate. The Mexican came over to look at the horses. He was not much older than Rawlins.
    Where you headed? he said.
    Mexico.
    What for?
    Rawlins looked at John Grady. You think he can be trusted?
    Yeah. He looks all right.
    We’re runnin from the law, Rawlins said.
    The Mexican looked them over.
    We robbed a bank.
    He stood looking at the horses. You aint robbed no bank, he said.
    You know that country down there? said Rawlins.
    The Mexican shook his head and spat. I never been to Mexico in my life.
    When the animals had eaten they saddled them again and led them around to the front of the cafe and down the drive and across the highway. They walked them along the bar ditch to the gate and led them through the gate and closed it. Then they mounted up and rode out the dirt ranch road. They rode it for a mile or so until it veered away to the east and they left it and set out south across the rolling cedar plains.
    They reached the Devil’s River by midmorning and watered the horses and stretched out in the shade of a stand of black-willow and looked at the map. It was an oilcompany roadmap that Rawlins had picked up at the cafe and he looked at it and he looked south toward the gap in the low hills. There were roads and rivers and towns on the American side of the map as far south as the Rio Grande and beyond that all was white.
    It dont show nothin down there, does it? said Rawlins.
    No.
    You reckon it aint never been mapped?
    There’s maps. That just aint one of em. I got one in my saddlebag.
    Rawlins came back with the map and sat on the ground and traced their route with his finger. He looked up.
    What? said John Grady.
    There aint shit down there.
    They left the river and followed the dry valley to the west. The country was rolling and grassy and the day was cool under the sun.
    You’d think there’d be more cattle in this country, Rawlins said.
    You’d think so.
    They walked doves and quail up out of the grass along the ridges. Now and then a rabbit. Rawlins stepped down and slid his little 25-20 carbine out of the bootleg scabbard he carried it in and walked out along the ridge. John Grady heard him shoot. In a little while he came back with a rabbit and he reholstered the carbine and took out his knife and walked off a ways and squatted and gutted the rabbit. Then he rose and wiped the blade on his trouserleg and folded shut the knife and came over and took his horse and tied the rabbit by its hind legs to his bedroll strap and mounted up again and they went on.
    Late afternoon they crossed a road that ran to the south and in the evening they reached Johnson’s Run and camped at a pool in the otherwise dry gravel bed of the watercourse and watered the horses and hobbled them and turned them out to graze. They built a fire and skinned out the rabbit and skewered it on a green limb and set it to broil at the edge of the fire. John Grady opened his blackened canvas campbag and took out a small enameled tin coffeepot and went to the creek and filled it. They sat and watched the fire and they watched the thin crescent moon above the black hills to the west.
    Rawlins rolled a cigarette and lit it with a coal and lay back against his saddle. I’m goin to tell you somethin.
    Tell