All the Pretty Horses

was etched by years of sand trod into them and the windowsalong both walls had missing panes of glass replaced with squares of tin all cut from the same large sign to form a broken mozaic among the windowlights. At a gray metal desk in one corner sat a stout man likewise in khaki uniform who wore about his neck a scarf of yellow silk. He regarded the prisoners without expression. He gestured slightly with his head toward the rear of the building and one of the guards took down a ring of keys from the wall and the prisoners were led out through a dusty weed yard to a small stone building with a heavy wooden door shod in iron.
    There was a square judas-hole cut into the door at eye level and fastened across it and welded to the iron framing was a mesh of lightgauge rebar. One of the guards unfastened the old brass padlock and opened the door. He took a separate ring of keys from his belt.
    Las esposas, he said.
    Rawlins held up his handcuffs. The guard undid them and he entered and John Grady followed. The door groaned and creaked and thudded shut behind them.
    There was no light in the room save what fell through the grate in the door and they stood holding their blankets waiting for their eyes to grade the darkness. The floor of the cell was concrete and the air smelled of excrement. After a while someone to the rear of the room spoke.
    Cuidado con el bote.
    Dont step in the bucket, said John Grady.
    Where is it?
    I dont know. Just dont step in it.
    I caint see a damn thing.
    Another voice spoke out of the darkness. It said: Is that you all?
    John Grady could see part of Rawlins’ face broken into squares in the light from the grid. Turning slowly. The pain in his eyes. Ah God, he said.
    Blevins? said John Grady.
    Yeah. It’s me.
    He made his way carefully to the rear. An outstretched leg withdrew along the floor like a serpent recoiling underfoot. He squatted and looked at Blevins. Blevins moved and he could see his teeth in the partial light. As if he were smiling.
    What a man wont see when he aint got a gun, said Blevins.
    How long have you been here?
    I dont know. A long time.
    Rawlins made his way toward the back wall and stood looking down at him. You told em to hunt us, didnt you? he said.
    Never done no such a thing, said Blevins.
    John Grady looked up at Rawlins.
    They knew there were three of us, he said.
    Yeah, said Blevins.
    Bullshit, said Rawlins. They wouldnt of hunted us once they got the horse back. He’s done somethin.
    It was my goddamn horse, said Blevins.
    They could see him now. Scrawny and ragged and filthy.
    It was my horse and my saddle and my gun.
    They squatted. No one spoke.
    What have you done? said John Grady.
    Aint done nothin that nobody else wouldnt of.
    What have you done.
    You know what he’s done, said Rawlins.
    Did you come back here?
    Damn right I come back here.
    You dumb shit. What did you do? Tell me the rest of it.
    Aint nothin to tell.
    Oh hell no, said Rawlins. Aint a damn thing to tell.
    John Grady turned. He looked past Rawlins. An old man sat quietly against the wall watching them.
    De qué crimen queda acusado el joven? he said.
    The man blinked. Asesinato, he said.
    El ha matado un hombre?
    The man blinked again. He held up three fingers.
    What did he say? said Rawlins.
    John Grady didnt answer.
    What did he say? I know what the son of a bitch said.
    He said he’s killed three men.
    That’s a damn lie, said Blevins.
    Rawlins sat slowly on the concrete.
    We’re dead, he said. We’re dead men. I knew it’d come to this. From the time I first seen him.
    That aint goin to help us, said John Grady.
    Aint but one of em died, said Blevins.
    Rawlins raised his head and looked at him. Then he got up and stepped to the other side of the room and sat down again.
    Cuidado con el bote, said the old man.
    John Grady turned to Blevins.
    I aint done nothin to him, said Blevins.
    Tell me what happened, said John Grady.
    He’d worked for a German family in the town of Palau eighty miles to the east and at the end of two months he’d taken the money he’d earned and ridden back across the selfsame desert and staked out the horse at the selfsame spring and dressed in the common clothes of the country he’d walked into town and sat in front of the tienda for two days until he saw the same man go by with the Bisley’s worn guttapercha grips sticking out of his belt.
    What did you do?
    You aint got a cigarette have you?
    No. What did you do?
    Didnt think you did.
    What did you