Chapters (12)
The trees are shorter the higher we go. Five days. Six. The Kid doesn’t need a horse yet. Walking is still fine. He tried for the red jenny but mules are wily. Walking is dandy. It builds his strength in body and mind. Simple facts everyone should know. Females tend to be bigger, wider hips, mammary glands. This does not make them stronger but the opposite. Ella’s are bigger, fuller, her glands. She bathes every day in the creek. A ritual. As the Beast steals from their camp at night, Ella walks in her nightgown, a flowy thing, nothing. Two women cleaning themselves, thinking secret thoughts, lurking. She appears always on the fat man’s watch, the donkey man. The Kid arrives well before, easy stealth on the First Watch, since the man is too confident, the man is a dolt. The Kid creeps among the mules on Saul’s watch. He absorbs their heat, eats their grain by the handful as they look on, envious, at his fingers. He will shit whole oats out later until his innards adjust to the fibrous diet.
THE KID (cont’d): In the mountains, for food, the struggle is to learn. The Kid eats wisdom. Wisdom drops from the sky, scatters like cake crumbs.
THE CAMERA: Sounds far-fetched. Wisdom does not fill the belly.
THE KID: What’s unlikely is this so-called hunt. I scratch my young fresh head.
They’re slow. Doesn’t seem like any real hunt to the Kid. She’s walking that cob. No chases. And the posse walk their horses instead of really riding. Why? They could catch her if they went faster. The mules slow them down but it all seems planned. There’s something wrong with the whole thing.
Look at that wide shot, kids! Blue mountains with our injured hero. The toothy chain is wrapped about his waist now. The jaws of its mouth hang like tassels. Then rise! Move, fly, look again! There! Look at the cob grazing by a placid lake on the ridge as she goes to watch the ambush of the sap below, the Deputy, that fool. The sun burns out the last of the world, then drops away when done. The world is gone. Fatigue sets in.
This is the only world: the cob rummaging sweet shoots by the lake.
Also: people at the fire telling stories. The red dog, a sweet companion, but none of that loyalty there that dogs are so famous for. Who is the red dog? He’d find the cob grazing alone at some point, inevitable, since a horse can eat most any plant, a wonderfully adaptive digestive tract.
THE CAMERA: Beautiful.
THE KID: Thank you.
THE CAMERA: What are you after? Why do you keep going? In other words, Kid, what’s your motivation?
THE KID: That’s easy: the Cowboy is always after the horse and rifle.