All The Pretty Horses (The Border Trilogy, #1)

by Cormac McCarthy

So he thought about horses and they were always the right thing to think about.

They were saddened that he was not coming back but they said that a man leaves much when he leaves his own country. They said that it was no accident of circumstance that a man be born in a certain country and not some other and they said that the weathers and seasons that form a land form also the inner fortunes of men in their generations and are passed on to their children and are not so easily come by otherwise.

The horse had a good natural gait and as he rode he talked to it and told it things about the world that were true in his experience and he told it things he thought could be true to see how they would sound if they were said. He told the horse why he liked it and why he’d chosen it to be his horse and he said that he would allow no harm to come to it.

No. I dont hate her. But she tells me I must be my own person and with every breath she tries to make me her person.

Son, I’m fixin to ask you three questions and if you can answer em the horse is yours. Yessir. I’ll try. Well you’ll either know em or you wont. The trouble with a liar is he cant remember what he said. I aint a liar. I know you aint. This is just for the record. I dont believe anybody could make up the story you just now got done tellin us.

Son, he said, you strike me as somebody that maybe tends to be a little hard on theirselves. I think from what you told me you done real well to get out of there with a whole hide. Maybe the best thing to do might be just to go on and put it behind you. My daddy used to tell me not to chew on somethin that was eatin you.

I dont know as I did change it. I just saw a lot of injustice in the court system and I saw people my own age in positions of authority that I had grown up with and knew for a calcified fact didnt have one damn lick of sense. I think I just didnt have any choice. Just didnt have any choice.

This is still good country. Yeah. I know it is. But it aint my country. He rose and turned and looked off toward the north where the lights of the city hung over the desert. Then he walked out and picked up the reins and mounted his horse and rode up and caught the Blevins horse by its halter. Catch your horse, he said. Or else he’ll follow me. Rawlins walked out and caught the horse and stood holding it. Where is your country? he said. I dont know, said John Grady. I dont know where it is. I dont know what happens to country. Rawlins didnt answer. I’ll see you old pardner, said John Grady. All right. I’ll see you. He stood holding his horse while the rider turned and rode out and dropped slowly down the skyline. He squatted on his heels so as to watch him a little while longer but after a while he was gone.