Blood Meridian or The Evening Redness in the West

Get your hands off the horse, said Glanton.

He spoke no english but he did as he was told. He com­menced to put forth his case. He gestured, he pointed back to­ward the others. Glanton watched him, who knows if he heard at all. He turned and looked at the boy and at the two women and he looked down at the man again.

What are you? he said.

The man held his ear toward Glanton and looked up with mouth agape.

I said what are you? Are you a show?

He looked back toward the others.

A show, said Glanton. Bufones.

The man's face brightened. Si, he said. Si, bufones. Todo. He turned to the boy. Casimero! Los perros!

The boy ran to one of the burros and began to tug among the packings. He came up with a pair of bald and bat-eared animals slightly larger than rats and pale brown in color and he pitched them into the air and caught them on the palms of his hands where they began to pirouette mindlessly.

Mire, mire! called the man. He was fishing about in his pockets and soon he was juggling four small wooden balls in front of Glanton's horse. The horse snorted and lifted its head and Glan-ton leaned over the saddle and spat and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand.

Aint that the drizzlin shits, he said.

The man was juggling and calling back over his shoulder to the women and the dogs were dancing and the women were turning to in preparation of something when Glanton spoke to the man.

Dont start no more of that crazy shit. You want to ride with us you fall in in the back. I promise you nothin. Vamonos.

He rode on. The company clanked into motion and the juggler ran shooing the women toward the burros and the boy stood wide-eyed with the dogs under his arm until the man spoke to him. They rode out through the rabble past great cones of slag and tailings. The people watched them go. Some of the men stood hand in hand like lovers and a small child led forth a blind man on a string to a place of vantage.

At noon they crossed the stony bottom of the Casas Grandes River and they rode along a benchland above the gaunt rill of water past a place of bones where Mexican soldiers had slaughtered an encampment of Apaches some years gone, women and children, the bones and skulls scattered along the bench for half a mile and the tiny limbs and toothless paper skulls of in­fants like the ossature of small apes at their place of murder and old remnants of weathered basketry and broken pots among the gravel. They rode on. The river led a limegreen corridor of trees down out of the barren mountains. To the west lay the ragged Carcaj and to the north the Animas peaks dim and blue.

They made camp that night on a windy plateau among pifion and juniper and the fires leaned downwind in the darkness and hot chains of sparks raced among the scrub. The jugglers un­loaded the burros and began to set up a large gray tent. The canvas was scrawled with arcana and it flapped and lurched, stood towering, luffed and wrapped them about. The girl lay on the ground holding to one corner. She began to drag through the sand. The juggler took small steps. The woman's eyes were rigid in the light. As the company watched the four of them all clutched to the snapping cloth were towed mutely from sight beyond the reach of the firelight and into the howling desert like supplicants at the skirts of some wild and irate goddess.

The pickets saw the tent lumber horribly away into the night. When the family of jugglers returned they were arguing among themselves and the man went again to the edge of the firelight and peered out upon the wrathful blackness and spoke to it and gestured with his fist nor would he return until the woman sent the boy to fetch him. Now he sat staring at the flames while the family unpacked. They watched him uneasily. Glanton watched him also.

Showman, he said.

The juggler looked up. He put one finger to his chest.

You, said Glanton.

He rose and shuffled forward. Glanton was smoking a slender black cigar. He looked up at the juggler.

You tell fortunes?

The juggler's eyes skittered. Como? he said.

Glanton put the cigar in his mouth and mimed a deal of cards with his hands. La baraja, he said. Para adivinar la suerte.

The juggler tossed one hand aloft. Si, si, he said, shaking his head with vigor. Todo, todo. He held up one finger and then turned and made his way to the trove of shoddy partly off­loaded from the burros. When he returned he was smiling affably and manipulating the cards very nimbly.

Venga, he called. Venga.

The woman followed him. The juggler squatted before Glan­ton and spoke to him in a low voice. He turned and looked at

the woman and he riffled the cards and rose and took her by the hand and led her over the ground away from the fire and seated her facing out into the night. She swept up her skirt and composed herself and he took from his shirt a kerchief and with it bound her eyes.

Bueno, he called. Puedes ver?

No.

Nada?

Nada, said the woman.

Bueno, said the juggler.

He turned with the deck of cards and advanced toward Glanton. The woman sat like a stone. Glanton waved him away.

Los caballeros, he said.

The juggler turned. The black was squatting by the fire watching and when the juggler fa

The juggler looked up at him. He folded the cards and fa

Bueno, said the juggler. Bueno. He admonished caution with a forefinger to his thin lips and took the card and held it aloft and turned with it. The card popped once sharply. He looked at the company seated about the fire. They were smoking, they were watching. He made a slow sweep before him with the card outheld. It bore the picture of a fool in harlequin and a cat. El tonto, he called.

El tonto, said the woman. She raised her chin slightly and she began a singsong chant. The dark querent stood solemnly, like a man arraigned. His eyes shifted over the company. The judge sat upwind from the fire naked to the waist, himself like some great pale deity, and when the black's eyes reached his he smiled. The woman ceased. The fire fled down the wind.

Quien, quien, cried the juggler.

She paused. El negro, she said.

El negro, cried the juggler, turning with the card. His clothes

snapped in the wind. The woman raised her voice and spoke again and the black turned to his mates.

What does she say?

The juggler had turned and was making small bows to the company.

What does she say? Tobin?

The expriest shook his head. Idolatry, Blackie, idolatry. Do not mind her.

What does she say Judge?

The judge smiled. With his thumb he had been routing small life from the folds of his hairless skin and now he held up one hand with the thumb and forefinger pressed together in a gesture that appeared to be a benediction until he flung something un­seen into the fire before him. What does she say?

What does she say.

I think she means to say that in your fortune lie our fortunes all.

And what is that fortune?

The judge smiled blandly, his pleated brow not unlike a dolphin's. Are you a drinking man, Jackie?

No more than some.

I think she'd have you beware the demon rum. Prudent counsel enough, what do you think?

That aint no fortune.

Exactly so. The priest is right.

The black frowned at the judge but the judge leaned forward to regard him. Wrinkle not thy sable brow at me, my friend. All will be known to you at last. To you as to every man.

Now a number of the company seated there seemed to weigh the judge's words and some turned to look at the black. He stood an uneasy honoree and at length he stepped back from the fire­light and the juggler rose and made a motion with the cards, sweeping them in a fan before him and then proceeding along the perimeter past the boots of the men with the cards outheld as if they would find their own subject.