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It was evening of the following day when they entered San Diego. The expriest turned off to find them a doctor but the kid wandered on through the raw mud streets and out past the houses of hide in their rows and across the gravel strand to the beach.
Loose strands of ambercolored kelp lay in a rubbery wrack at the tideline. A dead seal. Beyond the i
He sat watching while the sun dipped hissing in the swells. The horse stood darkly against the sky. The surf boomed in the dark and the sea's black hide heaved in the cobbled starlight and the long pale combers loped out of the night and broke along the beach.
He rose and turned toward the lights of the town. The tide-pools bright as smelterpots among the dark rocks where the phosphorescent seacrabs clambered back. Passing through the salt grass he looked back. The horse had not moved. A ship's light winked in the swells. The colt stood against the horse with its head down and the horse was watching, out there past men's knowing, where the stars are drowning and whales ferry their vast souls through the black and seamless sea.
XXII
Under arrest — The judge pays a call — An arraignment — Soldier, priest, magistrate — On his own recognizance — He sees a surgeon — The arrowshaft removed from his leg — Delirium — He journeys to Los Angeles — A public hanging — Los ahorcados — Looking for the expriest — Another fool — The scapular — To Sacramento — A traveler in the west — He abandons his party — The penitent brothers — The deathcart — Another massacre — The eldress in the rocks.
Going back through the streets past the yellow windowlights and barking dogs he encountered a detachment of soldiers but they took him for an older man in the dark and passed on. He entered a tavern and sat in a darkened corner watching the groups of men at the tables. No one asked him what he wanted in that place. He seemed to be waiting for someone to come for him and after a while four soldiers entered and arrested him. They didnt even ask him his name.
In his cell he began to speak with a strange urgency of things few men have seen in a lifetime and his jailers said that his mind had come uncottered by the acts of blood in which he had participated. One morning he woke to find the judge standing at his cage, hat in hand, smiling down at him. He was dressed in a suit of gray linen and he wore new polished boots. His coat was unbuttoned and in his waistcoat he carried a watchchain and a stickpin and in his belt a leathercovered clip that held a small silvermounted derringer stocked in rosewood. He looked down the hallway of the crude mud building and do
Well, he said. How are you?
The kid didnt answer.
They wanted to know from me if you were always crazy, said the judge. They said it was the country. The country turned them out.
Where's Tobin?
I told them that the cretin had been a respected Doctor of Divinity from Harvard College as recently as March of this year. That his wits had stood him as far west as the Aquarius Mountains. It was the ensuing country that carried them off. Together with his clothes.
And Toadvine and Brown. Where are they?
In the desert where you left them. A cruel thing. Your companions in arms. The judge shook his head.
What do they aim to do with me?
I believe it is their intention to hang you.
What did you tell them?
Told them the truth. That you were the person responsible. Not that we have all the details. But they understand that it was you and none other who shaped events along such a calamitous course. Eventuating in the massacre at the ford by the savages with whom you conspired. Means and ends are of little moment here. Idle speculations. But even though you carry the draft of your murderous plan with you to the grave it will nonetheless be known in all its infamy to your Maker and as that is so so shall it be made known to the least of men. All in the fullness of time.
You're the one that's crazy, said the kid.
The judge smiled. No, he said. It was never me. But why lurk there in the shadows? Come here where we can talk, you and me.
The kid stood against the far wall. Hardly more than a shadow himself.
Come up, said the judge. Come up, for I've yet more to tell you.
He looked down the hallway. Dont be afraid, he said. I'll speak softly. It's not for the world's ears but for yours only. Let me see you. Dont you know that I'd have loved you like a son?
He reached through the bars. Come here, he said. Let me touch you.
The kid stood with his back to the wall.
Come here if you're not afraid, whispered the judge.
I aint afraid of you.
The judge smiled. He spoke softly into the dim mud cubicle. You came forward, he said, to take part in a work. But you were a witness against yourself. You sat in judgement on your own deeds. You put your own allowances before the judgements of history and you broke with the body of which you were pledged a part and poisoned it in all its enterprise. Hear me, man. I spoke in the desert for you and you only and you turned a deaf ear to me. If war is not holy man is nothing but antic clay. Even the cretin acted in good faith according to his parts. For it was required of no man to give more than he possessed nor was any man's share compared to another's. Only each was called upon to empty out his heart into the common and one did not. Can you tell me who that one was?
It was you, whispered the kid. You were the one.
The judge watched him through the bars, he shook his head. What joins men together, he said, is not the sharing of bread but the sharing of enemies. But if I was your enemy with whom would you have shared me? With whom? The priest? Where is he now? Look at me. Our animosities were formed and waiting before ever we two met. Yet even so you could have changed it all.
You, said the kid. It was you.
It was never me, said the judge. Listen to me. Do you think Glanton was a fool? Dont you know he'd have killed you?
Lies, said the kid. Lies, by god lies.
Think again, said the judge.
He never took part in your craziness.
The judge smiled. He took his watch from his waistcoat and opened it and held it to the failing light.
For even if you should have stood your ground, he said, yet what ground was it?
He looked up. He pressed the case shut and restored the instrument to his person. Time to be going, he said. I have errands.
The kid closed his eyes. When he opened them the judge was gone. That night he called the corporal to him and they sat on either side of the bars while the kid told the soldier of the horde of gold and silver coins hid in the mountains not far from this place. He talked for a long time. The corporal had set the candle on the floor between them and he watched him as one might watch a glib and lying child. When he was finished the corporal rose and took the candle with him, leaving him in darkness.
He was released two days later. A Spanish priest had come to baptize him and had flung water at him through the bars like a priest casting out spirits. An hour later when they came for him he grew giddy with fear. He was taken before the alcalde and this man spoke to him in a fatherly ma