On the second of April David Brown with Long Webster and Toadvine set out for the town of San Diego on the old Mexican coast for the purpose of obtaining supplies. They took with them a string of packanimals and they left at sunset, riding up out of the trees and looking back at the river and then walking the horses sideways down the dunes into the cool blue dusk.

They crossed the desert in five days without incident and rode up through the coastal range and led the mules through the snow in the gap and descended the western slope and entered the town in a slow drizzle of rain. Their hide clothing was heavy with water and the animals were stained with the silt that had leached out of them and their trappings. Mounted U S cavalry passed them in the ud of the street and in the distance beyond they could hear the sea boom shuddering on the gray and stony coast.

Cormac McCarthy, Blood Meridian

Related posts:

The First Noel Nobody Else Around Tax Season