All the Pretty Horses

bitch.
    See him lookin over here?
    I see him.
    What do you think I’m fixin to do?
    I got no idea in this world.
    I’m goin to get up from here and walk over there and bust him in the mouth.
    The hell you are.
    You watch me.
    What for?
    Just to save him the trip.
    By the end of the third day it seemed to be pretty much over. There were both half naked and John Grady had been blindsided with a sock full of gravel that took out two teeth in his lower jaw and his left eye was closed completely. The fourth day was Sunday and they bought clothes with Blevins’ money and they bought a bar of soap and took showers and they bought a can of tomato soup and heated it in the can over a candlestub and wrapped the sleeve of Rawlins’ old shirt around it for ahandle and passed it back and forth between them while the sun set over the high western wall of the prison.
    You know, we might just make it, said Rawlins.
    Dont start gettin comfortable. Let’s just take it a day at a time.
    How much money you think it would take to get out of here?
    I dont know. I’d say a lot.
    I would too.
    We aint heard from the captain’s buddies in here. I guess they’re waitin to see if there’s goin to be anything left to bail out.
    He held out the can toward Rawlins.
    Finish it, said Rawlins.
    Take it. There aint but a sup.
    He took the can and drained it and poured a little water in and swirled it about and drank that and sat looking into the empty can.
    If they think we’re rich how come they aint looked after us no better? he said.
    I dont know. I know they dont run this place. All they run is what comes in and what goes out.
    If that, said Rawlins.
    The floodlights came on from the upper walls. Figures that had been moving in the yard froze, then they moved again.
    The horn’s fixin to blow.
    We got a couple of minutes.
    I never knowed there was such a place as this.
    I guess there’s probably every kind of place you can think of.
    Rawlins nodded. I wouldnt of thought of this one, he said.
    It was raining somewhere out in the desert. They could smell the wet creosote on the wind. Lights came on in a makeshift cinderblock house built into one corner of the prison wall where a prisoner of means lived like an exiled satrap complete with cook and bodyguard. There was a screen door to the house and a figure crossed behind it and crossed back. On the roof aclothesline where the prisoner’s clothes luffed gently in the night breeze like flags of state. Rawlins nodded toward the lights.
    You ever see him?
    Yeah. One time. He was standin in the door one evenin smokin him a cigar.
    You picked up on any of the lingo in here?
    Some.
    What’s a pucha?
    A cigarette butt.
    Then what’s a tecolata?
    Same thing.
    How many damn names have they got for a cigarette butt?
    I dont know. You know what a papazote is?
    No, what?
    A big shot.
    That’s what they call the dude that lives yonder.
    Yeah.
    And we’re a couple of gabachos.
    Bolillos.
    Pendejos.
    Anybody can be a pendejo, said John Grady. That just means asshole.
    Yeah? Well, we’re the biggest ones in here.
    I wont dispute it.
    They sat.
    What are you thinkin about, said Rawlins.
    Thinkin about how much it’s goin to hurt to get up from here.
    Rawlins nodded. They watched the prisoners moving under the glare of the lights.
    All over a goddamned horse, said Rawlins.
    John Grady leaned and spat between his boots and leaned back. Horse had nothin to do with it, he said.
    That night they lay in their cell on the iron racks like acolytes and listened to the silence and a rattling snore somewhere in theblock and a dog barking faintly in the distance and the silence and each other breathing in the silence both still awake.
    We think we’re a couple of pretty tough cowboys, said Rawlins.
    Yeah. Maybe.
    They could kill us any time.
    Yeah. I know.
    Two days later the papazote sent for them. A tall thin man crossed the quadrangle in the evening to where they sat and bent and asked them to come with him and then rose and strode off again. He didnt even look back to see if they’d rise to follow.
    What do you want to do? said Rawlins.
    John Grady rose stiffly and dusted the seat of his trousers with one hand.
    Get your ass up from there, he said.
    The man’s name was Pérez. His house was a single room in the center of which stood a tin foldingtable and four chairs. Against one wall was a small iron bed and in one corner a cupboard and a shelf with some dishes and a threeburner gas-ring. Pérez was