All the Pretty Horses

long relict here for the desert stretched away on every side.
    La Purísima was one of very few ranches in that part of Mexico retaining the full complement of six square leagues of land allotted by the colonizing legislation of eighteen twenty-four and the owner Don Héctor Rocha y Villareal was one of the few hacendados who actually lived on the land he claimed, land which had been in his family for one hundred and seventy years. He was forty-seven years old and he was the first male heir in all that new world lineage to attain such an age.
    He ran upwards of a thousand head of cattle on this land. He kept a house in Mexico City where his wife lived. He flew his own airplane. He loved horses. When he rode up to the gerente’s house that morning he was accompanied by four friends and by a retinue of mozos and two packanimals saddled with hardwood kiacks, one empty, the other carrying their noon provisions. They were attended by a pack of greyhound dogs and the dogs were lean and silver in color and they flowedamong the legs of the horses silent and fluid as running mercury and the horses paid them no mind at all. The hacendado halloed the house and the gerente emerged in his shirtsleeves and they spoke briefly and the gerente nodded and the hacendado spoke to his friends and then all rode on. When they passed the bunkhouse and rode through the gate and turned into the road up-country some of the vaqueros were catching their horses in the trap and leading them out to saddle them for the day’s work. John Grady and Rawlins stood in the doorway drinking their coffee.
    Yonder he is, said Rawlins.
    John Grady nodded and slung the dregs of coffee out into the yard.
    Where the hell do you reckon they’re goin? said Rawlins.
    I’d say they’re goin to run coyotes.
    They aint got no guns.
    They got ropes.
    Rawlins looked at him. Are you shittin me?
    I dont think so.
    Well I’d damn sure like to see it.
    I would too. You ready?
    They worked two days in the holdingpens branding and earmarking and castrating and dehorning and inoculating. On the third day the vaqueros brought a small herd of wild three year old colts down from the mesa and penned them and in the evening Rawlins and John Grady walked out to look them over. They were bunched against the fence at the far side of the enclosure and they were a mixed lot, roans and duns and bays and a few paints and they were of varied size and conformation. John Grady opened the gate and he and Rawlins walked in and he closed it behind them. The horrified animals began to climb over one another and to break up and move along the fence in both directions.
    That’s as spooky a bunch of horses as I ever saw, said Rawlins.
    They dont know what we are.
    Dont know what we are?
    I dont think so. I dont think they’ve ever seen a man afoot.
    Rawlins leaned and spat.
    You see anything there you’d have?
    There’s horses there.
    Where at?
    Look at that dark bay. Right yonder.
    I’m lookin.
    Look again.
    That horse wont weigh eight hundred pounds.
    Yeah he will. Look at the hindquarters on him. He’d make a cowhorse. Look at that roan yonder.
    That coonfooted son of a bitch?
    Well, yeah he is a little. All right. That other roan. That third one to the right.
    The one with the white on him?
    Yeah.
    That’s kindly a funny lookin horse to me.
    No he aint. He’s just colored peculiar.
    You dont think that means nothin? He’s got white feet.
    That’s a good horse. Look at his head. Look at the jaw on him. You got to remember their tails are all growed out.
    Yeah. Maybe. Rawlins shook his head doubtfully. You used to be awful particular about horses. Maybe you just aint seen any in a long time.
    John Grady nodded. Yeah, he said. Well. I aint forgot what they’re supposed to look like.
    The horses had grouped again at the far end of the pen and stood rolling their eyes and running their heads along each other’s necks.
    They got one thing goin for em, said Rawlins.
    What’s that.
    They aint had no Mexican to try and break em.
    John Grady nodded.
    They studied the horses.
    How many are there? said John Grady.
    Rawlins looked them over. Fifteen. Sixteen.
    I make it sixteen.
    Sixteen then.
    You think you and me could break all of em in four days?
    Depends on what you call broke.
    Just halfway decent greenbroke horses. Say six saddles. Double and stop and stand still to be saddled.
    Rawlins took his tobacco from his pocket and pushed back his hat.
    What you got in mind? he