All the Pretty Horses

what it’s like.
    You’ll get drowned settin there.
    That’s all right. I aint never been drowned before.
    You aim to just set there?
    That’s what I aim to do.
    John Grady put his hands on his knees. Well, he said. I’ll say no more.
    A long rolling crack of thunder went pealing down the sky to the north. The ground shuddered. Blevins put his arms over his head and John Grady turned the horse and rode back up the arroyo. Great pellets of rain were cratering the wet sand underfoot. He looked back once at Blevins. Blevins sat as before. A thing all but inexplicable in that landscape.
    Where’s he at? said Rawlins.
    He’s just settin out there. You better get your slicker.
    I knowed when I first seen him the son of a bitch had a loose wingnut, said Rawlins. It was writ all over him.
    The rain was coming down in sheets. Blevins’ horse stood in the downpour like the ghost of a horse. They left the road and followed the wash up toward a stand of trees and took shelter under the barest overhang of rock, sitting with their knees stuck out into the rain and holding the standing horses by the bridlereins. The horses stepped and shook their heads and the lightning cracked and the wind tore through the acacia and paloverde and the rain went slashing down the country. Theyheard a horse running somewhere out in the rain and then they just heard the rain.
    You know what that was dont you? said Rawlins.
    Yeah.
    You want a drink of this?
    I dont think so. I think it’s beginnin to make me feel bad.
    Rawlins nodded and drank. I think it is me too, he said.
    By dark the storm had slacked and the rain had almost ceased. They pulled the wet saddles off the horses and hobbled them and walked off in separate directions through the chaparral to stand spraddlelegged clutching their knees and vomiting. The browsing horses jerked their heads up. It was no sound they’d ever heard before. In the gray twilight those retchings seemed to echo like the calls of some rude provisional species loosed upon that waste. Something imperfect and malformed lodged in the heart of being. A thing smirking deep in the eyes of grace itself like a gorgon in an autumn pool.
    In the morning they caught up the horses and saddled them and tied on the damp bedrolls and led the horses out to the road.
    What do you want to do? said Rawlins.
    I reckon we better go find his skinny ass.
    What if we just went on.
    John Grady mounted up and looked down at Rawlins. I dont believe I can leave him out here afoot, he said.
    Rawlins nodded. Yeah, he said. I guess not.
    He rode down the arroyo and encountered Blevins coming up in the same condition in which he’d left him. He sat the horse. Blevins was picking his way barefoot along the wash, carrying one boot. He looked up at John Grady.
    Where’s your clothes at? said John Grady.
    Washed away.
    Your horse is gone.
    I know it. I done been out to the road once.
    What do you aim to do?
    I dont know.
    You dont look like the demon rum’s dealt kindly with you.
    My head feels like a fat lady’s sat on it.
    John Grady looked out at the morning desert shining in the new sun. He looked at the boy.
    You’ve wore Rawlins completely out. I reckon you know that.
    You never know when you’ll be in need of them you’ve despised, said Blevins.
    Where the hell’d you hear that at?
    I dont know. I just decided to say it.
    John Grady shook his head. He reached and unbuckled his saddlebag and took out his spare shirt and pitched it down to Blevins.
    Put that on before you get parboiled out here. I’ll ride down and see if I can see your clothes anywheres.
    I appreciate it, said Blevins.
    He rode down the wash and he rode back. Blevins was sitting in the sand in the shirt.
    How much water was in this wash last night?
    A bunch.
    Where’d you find the one boot at?
    In a tree.
    He rode down the wash and out over the gravel fan and sat looking. He didnt see any boot. When he came back Blevins was sitting as he’d left him.
    That boot’s gone, he said.
    I figured as much.
    John Grady reached down a hand. Let’s go.
    He swung Blevins in his underwear up onto the horse behind him. Rawlins will pitch a pure hissy when he sees you, he said.
    Rawlins when he saw him seemed too dismayed to speak.
    He’s lost his clothes, said John Grady.
    Rawlins turned his horse and set off slowly down the road. They followed. No one spoke. After a while John Grady heard something drop into the road and he looked back and saw Blevins’ boot lying