He’d reloaded the rifle and he carried it across the bow of the saddle and rode with the serape over his shoulders and looseherded the riderless horses before him. He rode all day and the day clouded before him and a cool wind was coming downcountry. In the morning he saddled Redbo and driving the other two horses before him he rode up from the ravine and turned north along the mesa. He sat listening as they rode up out of the ravine and then they were gone. The man who’d given him his serape turned at the outer edge of the light and touched the brim of his hat. Then he turned and they passed on out of the firelight to where their horses were standing in the dark with other companions, other horses. The man loosed the blanket from his own shoulders and swung it in a slow veronica and handed it to him. The man carrying the rifle levered the action open and when he saw that the gun was empty stood it against a rock. When they came past with the captain the captain’s hands were cuffed behind him. He walked back to the others and they talked. The man studied his eyes in the firelight.

They freed the captain and the one carrying the rifle came back.Ĭuáles de los caballos son suyos? he said. He and one of the other men walked over to where the captain sat chained to the saddle at the far side of the fire. He reached into his pocket and took out the keys and handed them up. The man with the rifle snapped his fingers and held out his hand. The fire was burning from brush they’d piled on it but he was very cold and he had no way to know how long he’d been sleeping. They wore serapes over their shoulders and one of them was holding the empty rifle and all of them wore pistols. When he woke there were three men standing over him. Finally what he saw in his dream was that the order in the horse’s heart was more durable for it was written in a place where no rain could erase it. In his sleep he could hear the horses stepping among the rocks and he could hear them drink from the shallow pools in the dark where the rocks lay smooth and rectilinear as the stones of ancient ruins and the water from their muzzles dripped and rang like water dripping in a well and in his sleep he dreamt of horses and the horses in his dream moved gravely among the tilted stones like horses come upon an antique site where some ordering of the world had failed and if anything had been written on the stones the weathers had taken it away again and the horses were wary and moved with great circumspection carrying in their blood as they did the recollection of this and other places where horses once had been and would be again. 2023 PEN America Literary Awards Ceremony.

All the pretty horses full book