All the Pretty Horses

neither.
    What’s he doin? said John Grady.
    Ridin.
    Well come on back down. He might not of seen us.
    He’s stopped, said Rawlins.
    What’s he doin?
    Ridin again.
    They waited for him to arrive if he would. It wasnt long before the horses raised their heads and stood staring downstream. They heard the rider come down into the creek bed, a rattling of gravel and a faint chink of metal.
    Rawlins got his rifle and they walked out down the creek to the river. The kid was sitting the big bay horse in the shallow water off the gravel bar and looking across the river. When he turned and saw them he pushed his hat back with his thumb.
    I knowed you all hadnt crossed, he said. There’s two deer feedin along the edge of them mesquite yon side.
    Rawlins squatted on the gravel bar and stood the rifle in front of him and held it and rested his chin on the back of his arm. What the hell are we goin to do with you? he said.
    The kid looked at him and he looked at John Grady. There wont be nobody huntin me in Mexico.
    That all depends on what you done, said Rawlins.
    I aint done nothin.
    What’s your name? said John Grady.
    Jimmy Blevins.
    Bullshit, said Rawlins. Jimmy Blevins is on the radio.
    That’s another Jimmy Blevins.
    Who’s followin you?
    Nobody.
    How do you know?
    Cause there aint.
    Rawlins looked at John Grady and he looked at the kid again. You got any grub? he said.
    No.
    You got any money?
    No.
    You’re just a deadhead.
    The kid shrugged. The horse took a step in the water and stopped again.
    Rawlins shook his head and spat and looked out across the river. Tell me just one thing.
    All right.
    What the hell would we want you with us for?
    He didnt answer. He sat looking at the sandy water running past them and at the thin wicker shadows of the willows running out over the sandbar in the evening light. He looked out to the blue sierras to the south and he hitched up the shoulder strap of his overalls and sat with his thumb hooked in the bib and turned and looked at them.
    Cause I’m an American, he said.
    Rawlins turned away and shook his head.
    They crossed the river under a white quartermoon naked and pale and thin atop their horses. They’d stuffed their boots upside down into their jeans and stuffed their shirts and jackets after along with their warbags of shaving gear and ammunition and they belted the jeans shut at the waist and tied the legs loosely about their necks and dressed only in their hats they led the horses out onto the gravel spit and loosed the girthstraps and mounted and put the horses into the water with their naked heels.
    Midriver the horses were swimming, snorting and stretching their necks out of the water, their tails afloat behind. They quartered downstream with the current, the naked riders leaning forward and talking to the horses, Rawlins holding the rifle aloft in one hand, lined out behind one another and making for the alien shore like a party of marauders.
    They rode up out of the river among the willows and rode singlefile upstream through the shallows onto a long gravel beach where they took off their hats and turned and looked back at the country they’d left. No one spoke. Then suddenly they put their horses to a gallop up the beach and turned and came back, fanning with their hats and laughing and pulling up and patting the horses on the shoulder.
    Goddamn, said Rawlins. You know where we’re at?
    They sat the smoking horses in the moonlight and looked at one another. Then quietly they dismounted and unslung their clothes from about their necks and dressed and led the horses up out of the willow breaks and gravel benches and out upon the plain where they mounted and rode south onto the dry scrublands of Coahuila.
    They camped at the edge of a mesquite plain and in the morning they cooked bacon and beans and cornbread made from meal and water and they sat eating and looking out at the country.
    When’d you eat last? Rawlins said.
    The other day, said the Blevins boy.
    The other day.
    Yeah.
    Rawlins studied him. Your name aint Blivet is it?
    It’s Blevins.
    You know what a blivet is?
    What.
    A blivet is ten pounds of shit in a five pound sack.
    Blevins stopped chewing. He was looking out at the country to the west where cattle had come out of the breaks and were standing on the plain in the morning sun. Then he went on chewing again.
    You aint said what your all’s names was, he said.
    You aint never asked.
    That aint how I was raised, said Blevins.
    Rawlins stared at