The Goat Pen

Two thick ropes of dark blood and two slender rose like snakes from the stump of his neck and arched hissing into the fire. The head rolled to the left and came to rest at the expriest's feet where it lay with eyes aghast. Tobin jerked his foot away and rose and stepped back. The fire steamed and blackened and a gray cloud of smoke rose and the columnar arches of blood slowly subsided until just the neck bubbled gently like a stew and then that too was stilled. He was sat as before save headless, drenched in blood, the cigarillo still between his fingers, leaning toward the dark and smoking grotto in the flames where his life had gone.

Pardon if I repeat myself, but Cormac McCarthy is a Vol for Life.

And he's working like heck to get better.

hedge wrote:The black looked once more across the flames at Glanton and then he moved away in the dark. The white man uncocked the revolver and placed it on the ground before him. Two of the others came back to the fire and stood uneasily. Jackson sat with his legs crossed. One hand lay in his lap and the other was outstretched on his knee holding a slender black cigarillo. The nearest man to him was Tobin and when the black stepped out of the darkness bearing the bowieknife in both hands like some instrument of ceremony Tobin started to rise. The white man looked up drunkenly and the black stepped forward and with a single stroke swapt off his head.

I guess the white hadn't heart of the 21 step rule.

10ac wrote:

hedge wrote:The black looked once more across the flames at Glanton and then he moved away in the dark. The white man uncocked the revolver and placed it on the ground before him. Two of the others came back to the fire and stood uneasily. Jackson sat with his legs crossed. One hand lay in his lap and the other was outstretched on his knee holding a slender black cigarillo. The nearest man to him was Tobin and when the black stepped out of the darkness bearing the bowieknife in both hands like some instrument of ceremony Tobin started to rise. The white man looked up drunkenly and the black stepped forward and with a single stroke swapt off his head.

I guess the white hadn't heart of the 21 step rule.

It's "21 feet" - 21 steps is 56 feet, which is far enough to put 2 or 3 bullets into you.

White Jackson was drunk, whilst black Jackson used the night to cloak his intent. It was a poor combination for white Jackson. Here's another scene involving black Jackson:

By noon the company had moved on to an eatinghouse. There were three or four men inside when they entered and they got up and left. There was a mud oven in the lot behind the building and the bed of a wrecked wagon with a few pots and a kettle on it. An old woman in a gray shawl was cutting up beefribs with an axe while two dogs sat watching. A tall thin man in a bloodstained apron entered the room from the rear and looked them over. He leaned and placed both hands on the table before them.

Gentlemen, he said, we dont mind servin people of color. Glad to do it. But we ast for em to set over here at this other table here. Right over here.

He stepped back and held out one hand in a strange gesture of hospice. His guests looked at one another.

What in the hell is he talkin about?

Just right over here, said the man.

Toadvine looked down the table to where Jackson sat. Several looked toward Glanton. His hands were at rest on the board in front of him and his head was slightly bent like a man at grace. The judge sat smiling, his arms crossed. They were all slightly drunk.

He thinks we're niggers.

They sat in silence. The old woman in the court had commenced wailing some dolorous air and the man was standing with his hand outheld. Piled just within the door were the satchels and holsters and arms of the company.

Glanton raised his head. He looked at the man.

What's your name? he said.

Name's Owens. I own this place.

Mr Owens, if you was anything at all other than a goddamn fool you could take one look at these here men and know for a stone fact they aint a one of em goin to get up from where they're at to go set somewheres else.

Well I caint serve you.

You suit yourself about that. Ask her what she's got, Tommy.

Harlan was sitting at the end of the table and he leaned out and called to the old woman at her pots and asked her in Spanish what she had to eat.

She looked toward the house. Huesos, she said.

Huesos, said Harlan.

Tell her to bring em, Tommy.

She wont bring you nothin without I tell her to. I own this place.

Harlan was calling out the open door.

I know for a fact that man yonder's a nigger, said Owens.

Jackson looked up at him.

Brown turned toward the owner.

Have you got a gun? he said.

A gun?

A gun. Have you got a gun.

Not on me I aint.

Brown pulled a small fiveshot Colt from his belt and pitched it to him. He caught it and stood holding it uncertainly.

You got one now. Now shoot the nigger.

Wait a goddamn minute, said Owens.

Shoot him, said Brown.

Jackson had risen and he pulled one of the big pistols from his belt. Owens pointed the pistol at him. You put that down, he said.

You better forget about givin orders and shoot the son of a bitch.

Put it down. Goddamn, man. Tell him to put it down.

Shoot him.

He cocked the pistol.

Jackson fired. He simply passed his left hand over the top of the revolver he was holding in a gesture brief as flintspark and tripped the hammer. The big pistol jumped and a double handful of Owens's brains went out the back of his skull and plopped in the floor behind him. He sank without a sound and lay crumpled up with his face in the floor and one eye open and the blood welling up out of the destruction at the back of his head. Jackson sat down. Brown rose and retrieved his pistol and let the hammer back down and put it in his belt. Most terrible nigger I ever seen, he said. Find some plates, Charlie. I doubt the old lady is out there any more.

These men's casual use of the N word is abhorrent, but I guess when you consider their even more casual attitude towards larceny, rape and murder, their blatant racism is the least of their crimes...

you obviously didnt go get shadow of mordor or you wouldnt be on a posting spree right now you'd be trying to slay the black hand

This heady brew of violence and racism is like JD's posts put to prose fiction in the style of Hemingway.

heh Pretty sure you meant IB instead of JD.

A woman ruined Scott [Fitzgerald]. It wasn't just Scott ruining himself. But why couldn't he have told her to go to hell? Because she was sick. It's being sick makes them act so bloody awful usually and it's because they're sick you can't treat them as you should. The first great gift for a man is to be healthy and the second, maybe greater, is to fall in with healthy women. You can always trade one healthy woman in on another. But start with a sick woman and see where you get. Sick in the head or sick anywhere. But sick anywhere and in a little while they are sick in the head

Anyway, let's leave the subject. If you leave a woman, though, you probably ought to shoot her. It would save enough trouble in the end even if they hanged you.
-E.H. to his editor Maxwell Perkins, 1943

[youtube]Fx4UOPSuVB8[/youtube]

I love Justified.

AlabamAlum wrote:I love Justified.

Agreed. Sorry this is the last season.

Ditto.

U.S. Payrolls Beat Forecasts Along With Wages - Bloomberg

Employers in the U.S. added more jobs than forecast in January, capping the biggest three-month gain in 17 years, and worker' earnings jumped.

http://www.msn.com/en-us/money/markets/ ... id=U142DHP

The speed at which this new GOP-majority Congress is crafting these miracles is dizzying. Truly a gift from God.

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http://www.gallup.com/opinion/chairman/ ... yment.aspx

That's no worse than the PAH lying about coming under sniper fire and she's running for president.