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blows over it. I
     never told you that. It was bad. I never saw him alive again. I should of just kept out of
     it. Anybody in the state he was in you cant talk to em noway. No use to try even.
    Troy watched him. You told me, he said.
    Yeah. I guess I did. I dont dream about him anymore. I used to all the time. I'd have
     these conversations with him.
    I thought you was goin to get off the subject.
    All right. It still seems like about the only subject there is, though. Dont it?
    He rose heavily from the chair with bottle and glass in hand. Let's walk out to the barn.
     I'll show you the foal that Jones mare throwed you never did think much o£ Just bring your
     all's glasses. I got the bottle.
    *Ê*Ê*
    THEY RODE ALL MORNING through the open juniper country, keeping to the gravelly ridges. A
     storm was making up over the Sierra Viejas to the west and over the broad plain that ran
     south from the Guadalupes down around the Cuesta del Burro range and on to Presidio and
     the border. They crossed the upper reaches of the creek at noon and sat among the yellow
     leaves and watched leaves turn and drift in a pool while they ate the lunch that Rachel
     had packed for them.
    Look at this, said Troy.
    What is it?
    A tablecloth.
    Damn.
    He poured coffee from a thermos into their cups. The turkey sandwiches they ate were
     wrapped in cloth.
    What's in the other thermos?
    Soup.
    Soup?
    Soup.
    Damn.
    They ate.
    How long has he been manager down here?
    About two years.
    Billy nodded. Did he not offer to hire you on before now?
    He did. I told him I didnt mind workin with him but I wasnt all that sure about workin for
     him.
    What made you change your mind?
    I aint changed it. I'm just thinkin about it.
    They ate. Troy nodded downcountry. They say there's been a white man ambushed ever mile of
     this draw.
    Billy studied the country. Looks like they'd of learned to stay out of it.
    When they'd done eating Troy poured the rest of the coffee into their cups and screwed the
     cap back on the thermos and laid it by with the soup and the sandwich cloths and the still
     folded tablecloth to pack back in the saddlebags. They sat sipping the coffee. The horses
     standing downstream side by side looked up from their drinking in the creek. They had wet
     leaves stuck to their noses.
    Elton's got his own notions about what happened, Troy said. Johnny if he hadnt of found
     that girl would of found somethin else. You couldnt head him. Elton says he changed. He
     never changed. He was four years older than me. Not a lot of years. But he walked ground
     I'll never see. Glad not to see. People always said he was bullheaded, but it wasnt just
     that. He fought Daddy one time he wasnt but fifteen. Fistfought him. Made the old man
     fight him. Told him to his face that he respected him and all but that he wasnt goin to
     take what he'd said. Somethin the old man had chewed him out over. I cried like a baby. He
     didnt cry. Kept gettin up. Nose all busted and all. The old man kept tellin him to stay
     down. Hell, the old man was cryin. I hope I never see nothin like it again. I can think
     about it now and it makes me sick. And there was nothin any mortal man could of done to of
     stopped it.
    What happened?
    The old man finally walked off. He was beat and he knew it. Johnny standin there. Couldnt
     hardly stand up. Callin to him to come back. The old man wouldnt even turn around. He just
     went on to the house.
    Troy looked into the bottom of his cup. He slung the dregs out across the leaves.
    It wasnt just her. There's a kind of man that when he cant have what he wants he wont take
     the next best thing but the worst he can find. Elton thinks he was that kind and maybe he
     was. But I think he loved that girl. I think he knew what she was and he didnt care. I
     think it was his own self he was blind to. I think he was just lost. This world was never
     made for him. He'd outlived it before he could walk. Get married. Hell.