All the Pretty Horses

house and in a few minutes she returned. Un ratito, she said.
    John Grady nodded. Gracias, he said.
    The man rose and folded the newspaper and crossed the kitchen and came back with a wooden rack of butcher and boning knives together with an oilstone and set them out on the paper. At the same moment Don Héctor appeared in the doorway and stood looking at John Grady.
    He was a spare man with broad shoulders and graying hair and he was tall in the manner of norteños and light of skin. He entered the kitchen and introduced himself and John Grady shifted his hat to his left hand and they shook hands.
    María, said the hacendado. Café por favor.
    He held out his hand palm upward toward the doorway and John Grady crossed the kitchen and entered the hall. The house was cool and quiet and smelled of wax and flowers. A tallcase clock stood in the hallway to the left. The brass weights stirred behind the casement doors, the pendulum slowly swept. He turned to look back and the hacendado smiled and extended his hand toward the diningroom doorway. Pásale, he said.
    They sat at a long table of english walnut. The walls of the room were covered with blue damask and hung with portraits of men and horses. At the end of the room was a walnut sideboard with some chafingdishes and decanters set out upon it and alongthe windowsill outside taking the sun were four cats. Don Héctor reached behind him and took a china ashtray from the sideboard and placed it before them and took from his shirtpocket a small tin box of english cigarettes and opened them and offered them to John Grady and John Grady took one.
    Gracias, he said.
    The hacendado placed the tin on the table between them and took a silver lighter from his pocket and lit the boy’s cigarette and then his own.
    Gracias.
    The man blew a thin stream of smoke slowly downtable and smiled.
    Bueno, he said. We can speak english.
    Como le convenga, said John Grady.
    Armando tells me that you understand horses.
    I’ve been around em some.
    The hacendado smoked thoughtfully. He seemed to be waiting for more to be said. The man who’d been sitting in the kitchen reading the paper entered the room with a silver tray carrying a coffee service with cups and creampitcher and a sugarbowl together with a plate of bizcochos. He set the tray on the table and stood a moment and the hacendado thanked him and he went out again.
    Don Héctor set out the cups himself and poured the coffee and nodded at the tray. Please help yourself, he said.
    Thank you. I just take it black.
    You are from Texas.
    Yessir.
    The hacendado nodded again. He sipped his coffee. He was seated sideways to the table with his legs crossed. He flexed his foot in the chocolatecolored veal boot and turned and looked at John Grady and smiled.
    Why are you here? he said.
    John Grady looked at him. He looked down the table where the shadows of the sunning cats sat in a row like cutout cats all leaning slightly aslant. He looked at the hacendado again.
    I just wanted to see the country, I reckon. Or we did.
    May I ask how old are you?
    Sixteen.
    The hacendado raised his eyebrows. Sixteen, he said.
    Yessir.
    The hacendado smiled again. When I was sixteen I told people I was eighteen.
    John Grady sipped his coffee.
    Your friend is sixteen also?
    Seventeen.
    But you are the leader.
    We dont have no leaders. We’re just buddies.
    Of course.
    He nudged the plate forward. Please, he said. Help yourself.
    Thank you. I just got up from the breakfast table.
    The hacendado tipped the ash from his cigarette into the china ashtray and sat back again.
    What is your opinion of the mares, he said.
    There’s some good mares in that bunch.
    Yes. Do you know a horse called Three Bars?
    That’s a thoroughbred horse.
    You know the horse?
    I know he run in the Brazilian Grand Prix. I think he come out of Kentucky but he’s owned by a man named Vail out of Douglas Arizona.
    Yes. The horse was foaled at Monterey Farm in Paris Kentucky. The stallion I have bought is a half brother out of the same mare.
    Yessir. Where’s he at?
    He is enroute.
    He’s where?
    Enroute. From Mexico. The hacendado smiled. He has been standing at stud.
    You intend to raise racehorses?
    No. I intend to raise quarterhorses.
    To use here on the ranch?
    Yes.
    You aim to breed this stallion to your mares.
    Yes. What is your opinion?
    I dont have a opinion. I’ve known a few breeders and some with a world of experience but I’ve noticed they were all pretty short on