Cities of the Plain (19 page)

The loop being so small had no weight to it and he doubled it and swung it over his head
and then caught it and doubled it again. When the horse saw the rope loft past its left
ear it laid back its ears and came hauling down upon the running cur with its mouth open
like some terrible vengeance.

The dog had no experience as quarry. It did not check or swerve but ran on and John Grady
cranked the loop and leaned over the pommel of the saddle. He looked for the dog to cut
back but the dog seemed to think it could outrun the horse. The coiled rope sailed out and
the loop swiveled out of its turnings. The dun horse tossed up its head and set its
forefeet in the gravel and squatted and John Grady dallied the home end of the rope about
the polished leather of the pommel and the rope popped taut and the dog snapped into the
air mutely. It cartwheeled soundlessly and landed on the gravel with a soft dead whump.

By now three more dogs had started across the plain with Travis and Joaquin after them.
They passed a hundred feet out riding hard and John Grady punched the dun forward and set
out after them with the yellow dog bouncing behind over the rocks and through the creosote
at the end of the thirtyfive foot maguey rope. Other hounds and riders had come out of the
rocks to the west and were lined out upon the floodplain and he rode on dragging the dog a
ways and then hauled the horse up short and jumped down and ran back to get his rope off
of the dog. The dog was limp and bloody and it lay in the gravels grinning with its eyes
half started from their sockets. He stood on it with his boot and pulled off the loop and
trotted back to the waiting horse coiling the rope as he went.

By this time it was good daylight and there were already four riders out on the plain
before him riding in a long sweep and he mounted up and slung the coiled rope over his
shoulder and set out after them at a handgallop.

When he passed Joaquin the Mexican shouted something after him but he couldnt hear what it
was. He quirted the horse on with the loop end of the rope, following Travis and JC and
Travis's hounds. He almost ran over one of the outlaw dogs. It had crawled up and hidden
in a clump of greasewood and he would have ridden past it had it not lost its nerve at the
last moment and bolted. He reined the horse around so hard he nearly lost a stirrup. Billy
came up on his right and passed him and the dog cut back and tried to cross in front of
his horse and as it did so Billy rode it down and leaned and roped it and the horse
squatted and slid to a stop in a boil of dust and the dog went sailing and bounced and
skidded and then scrambled up and stood looking about. Billy turned his horse and pulled
the dog down but it got up again and began to run at the end of the rope. When John Grady
went past the dog was standing and twisting and pawing at the rope but Billy put his heels
to the horse and the dog was snatched away. Out on the floodplain Joaquin was sawing his
horse about and whooping and the dogs were scattered and baying and fighting. Travis rode
up swinging his loop and John Grady reined to one side but the dog he was after cut in
front of the horse and suddenly appeared in front of him. He put the horse after it and
the dog tried to cut back but he swung his loop and dallied and reined the horse to the
right. The dog spun in the air and landed and rose running and turned and was snatched up
again. John Grady spurred the dun forward and the dog went bouncing and slamming mutely in
a wide arc and then went dragging through the brush and gravel behind him.

He came back trailing the empty rope, paying it up and recoiling it as he rode. Travis and
Joaquin and Billy were sitting the horses and letting them blow. The second cast of hounds
were now tracking the dogs along the lower end of the floodplain, running them down among
the boulders and scree and fighting and going on again. Joaquin was grinning.

I hogged your all's dog, I reckon, John Grady said.

Plenty of dogs, Joaquin said.

Watch JC, Billy said. Watch him now. He looks like he's fightin bees.

How many of these damn dogs are there?

I dont know. Archer started up a whole other bunch yonder where that big wash comes out.

Have they caught any?

I dont think so. Troy's afoot up in them rocks.

Two hounds appeared out of the chaparral and circled and sniffed the ground and stood
uncertainly.

Hyeah, called Travis. Hunt em up.

Well pardner if your horse aint bottomed out completely why dont we ride on down there
where the fun's at?

Billy booted his horse forward. You aint waitin on me, he said.

You all go on, said Travis. I'll catch you up.

Dogropers, called Billy. I knew it'd come to this.

Joaqu’n grinned and pressed his horse into a lope and raised one fist over his head.
Adelante, muchachos, he called.

Perreros.

Tonteros.

Travis watched them go. He shook his head and leaned and spat and turned his horse to ride
up toward where he'd last seen Archer.

Where they came up off the desert parkland there were great boulders fallen from the mesa
above and they rode up the slope among them until John Grady halted his horse and held up
his hand. They stopped to listen. John Grady stood in the saddle and scanned the slope
above them. Billy rode up.

I think they're headed up towards the top of the mesa.

I do too.

Can they get up there?

I dont know. Probably. They seem to think so.

Can you see them?

No. There was one big yellow son of a bitch and another kindly spotted one. There may be
three or four of em.

I guess they've thrown the dogs, aint they?

It looks like it.

You think we can get up there?

I think I might know a way.

Billy squinted up at the stone ramparts. He leaned and spat. I'd hate to get a horse half
way up that draw and not be able to go either way.

So would I.

Plus I dont know how much good we're goin to do runnin these varmints without dogs. Do you?

We just need to get up there before they get gone. It's pretty open country up on top.

Well, lead on then.

All right.

Let's not get in too big a hurry.

All right.

Let's just cover the ground in front of us. Let's not get in a jackpot up here.

All right.

He followed John Grady back down the way they'd come and they rode for the better part of
a mile and then turned up along the wash. The way grew steep, the path more narrow. They
dismounted and led the horses. They crossed gray bands of midden soil from ancient
campsites washed down out of the arroyo that carried bits of bone and pottery and they
passed under pictographs upon the rimland boulders that bore images of hunter and shaman
and meetingfires and desert sheep all picked into the rock a thousand years and more. They
passed beneath a band of dancers holding hands like paper figures scissored out by
children and stenciled on the stone. Under the caprock was a running shelf and they turned
and looked back down over the floodplain and the desert. Troy was riding out toward Travis
and JC and Archer and they were crossing toward the truck with most of the dogs in tow.
They couldnt see Joaqu’n anywhere. In the distance they could see the highway through a
gap in the low
hills fifteen miles
away. The horses stood blowing.

Where to now, cowboy? said Billy.

John Grady nodded toward the country above them and set out again leading the horse.

The shelf narrowed upward to a break in the strata of the rock and they led the horses
into a defile so narrow that Billy's horse balked and would not follow. It backed and
jerked at the bridlereins and skittered dangerously on the shales. Billy looked up the
narrow passageway. The sheer rock walls rose up into the blue sky.

Bud are you real sure about this?

John Grady had dropped the reins on the blue horse and he peeled out of his jacket and
made his way back to Billy.

Take my horse, he said.

What?

Take my horse. Or Watson's. He's been through here before.

He took the reins from Billy and calmed the horse and tied the jacket by the sleeves over
the horse's eyes, leaning against the animal with his whole body. Billy worked his way up
to where the dun horse stood and took up the reins and led it on up through the rocks, the
horse scrabbling in the shale, the loose spurs clinking off the stone. At the top of the
defile the horses lunged and clambered up and out onto the mesa and stood trembling and
blowing. John Grady pulled the jacket off the horse's head and the horse blew and looked
about. A mile away on the mesa three of the dogs were loping and looking back.

You want to ride that good horse? said John Grady.

Let me ride this good horse.

Well yonder they go.

They set off across the open tableland with their ropes popping and loud cries, leaning
low in the saddle, riding neck and neck. In a mile they'd halved the dogs' lead. The dogs
kept to the mesa and the mesa widened before them. If they'd kept to the rim they might
have found a place to go down again where the horses could not follow but they seemed to
think they could outrun anything that cared to follow and run they did, two of them side
by side and the third behind, their long dogshadows beside them in the sun racing brokenly
over the sparse taupe grass of the tableland.

Billy overhauled them on the dun horse before they could separate and leaned and roped the
hindmost dog. He didnt even dally the rope but just caught two turns about his wrist and
gave a yank and snatched the dog from the ground and rode on dragging it behind the horse
with the rope in one hand.

He overtook the dogs again and rode past so as to head them. The running dogs looked up,
their eyes lost, their tongues lolling. Their dead companion came sliding up beside them
at the end of the trailing rope. Billy looked back and reined the horse to the right and
dragged the dead dog in front of them and headed them in a long running arc. John Grady
was coming hard across the mesa and Billy brought the dun horse to a halt in a series of
hops and jumped down and freed his noose from the dog and rewound it on the run and
mounted up again.

He reached the dogs first and snapped his loop around the big yellow dog in the lead. The
speckled dog cut back almost under the horse's legs and headed toward the rim. The yellow
dog rolled and bounced and got up again and continued running with the noose about its
neck. John Grady came riding up behind Billy and swung his rope and heeled the yellow dog
and quirted the horse on with the doubled rope end and then dallied. The slack of Billy's
catchrope hissed along the ground and stopped and the big yellow dog rose suddenly from
the ground in headlong flight taut between the two ropes and the ropes resonated a single
brief dull note and then the dog exploded.

The sun was not an hour up and in the flat traverse of the light on the mesa the blood
that burst in the air before them was as bright and unexpected as an apparition. Something
evoked out of nothing and wholly unaccountable. The dog's head went cartwheeling, the
ropes recoiled in the air, the dog's body slammed to the ground with a dull thud.

Goddamn, said Billy.

There was a long whoop from down the mesa. Joaqu’n was riding toward them with three of
the blueticks. He'd seen them heel and head the dog and he waved his hat laughing. The
hounds loped beside the horse. They still hadnt seen the spotted dog making for the rim of
the mesa.

Ayeee muchachos, called Joaqufn. He whooped and laughed and leaned and hazed his hat at
the heeling dogs.

Damn, said Billy. I didnt know you was goin to do that.

I didnt either.

Son of a bitch. He hauled his rope toward him, coiling it as it came. John Grady rode out
to where the dog's headless body lay in the bloodstained grass and dismounted and freed
his rope from the animal's hindquarters and mounted up again. The hounds came up circling
the carcass and sniffing at the blood with their hackles up. One of them circled John
Grady's horse and then backed and stood baying him but he paid it no mind. He coiled his
rope and turned and dug his heels into the horse's flanks and set out across the mesa
after the lone remaining dog. Joaquin by now had also seen the dog and he came riding
after it, quirting his horse with the doubled rope and shouting to the dogs. Billy sat
watching them go. He coiled the rope and tied it and wiped the blood from his hands on the
leg of his jeans and then sat watching the race head out along the edge of the mesa. The
spotted dog seemed to see no way down from the tableland and it looked to be tiring as it
loped along the rim. When it heard the hounds it turned upcountry again and crossed behind
Joaquin and Joaquin brought his horse around and in a flat race overtook it and roped it
in less than a mile of ground. Billy rode out to the rimrock and dismounted and lit a
cigarette and sat looking out over the country to the south.

They came riding back across the mesa with the hounds at the horses' heels. Joaquin
trailed the dead dog through the grass at the end of his rope. The dog was bloody and half
raw and its eyes were glazed and its lolling tongue was stuck with chaff and grass. They
rode up to the rimrock and Joaquin dismounted and retrieved his rope from the dead dog.

Got some pups here somewhere, he said.

Billy walked up and stood looking at the dog. It was a bitch with swollen teats. He walked
over and got his horse and mounted up and looked back at John Grady.

Let's take that long way back. Crawlin through them rocks gives me the fidgets.

John Grady had taken off his hat and set it in the fork of the saddle before him. His face
was streaked with blood and there was blood on his shirt. He passed the back of his sleeve
across his forehead and picked up his hat and put it on again. That's all right by me, he
said. Joaquin? Sure, said Joaquin. He eyed the sun. We'll be back for dinner. You think we
got em all? Hard to say. I'd say we broke a few of em of their habits. I'd say we did too.
How many of Archer's dogs come up here with you? Three. Well we aint got but two. They
turned in their saddles and scanned the mesa. Where do you reckon he's got to? I dont
know, said Joaquin. He could of gone down the far side yonder. Joaquin leaned and spat and
turned his horse. Let's go, he said. He could be anywheres. There's always one that dont
want to go home.