- John, Rawlins, and their captors head up north to the land they crossed into four months ago. The trip is harsh and John Grady's wrists are turning green from the cuffs. Rawlins still won't look him in the eye.
- They eventually arrive in the town of Encantada again. John convinces a couple of little girls to get him a cigarette, despite Rawlins' skepticism of his ability to do so.
- And then the two old friends have a somewhat passive-aggressive back-and-forth over whether this could have been prevented, and who may or may not be to blame.
- In the end, Rawlins admits that he would not abandon John Grady, and John is satisfied with that.
- They're taken to a prison that looks like an old abandoned school, and they're thrown into a dark jail cell with an old man and another person with a familiar voice: Jimmy Blevins.
- When he sees their old traveling companion, Rawlins' face twists up in pain. You can't really blame him. He hates the kid.
- Rawlins says they wouldn't have gone after him and John if Blevins hadn't done something other than steal his horse back. Blevins dodges repeated questioning, and he won't fess up to whatever it was he did that got them there.
- Eventually, they ask an old man who's also in the cell, and the man reveals that Blevins killed three men. That's a lie, Blevins says—only one of 'em died.
- Blevins relates the story of what happened: he staked out the man who had taken his pistol, then snuck up on him, took it from him, and fired when the man came at him. When others came after him, Blevins shot another man off his horse, and then ran out of shells.
- Rawlins mentions that Blevins is probably going to be killed, and he's worried.
- When asked if they get let out to walk around, Blevins says that he doesn't know, because his feet were broken.
- That night, John Grady has a dream about horses, moving together like there was nothing else in the world, running "in that resonance which is the world itself and which cannot be spoken but only praised" (2312).
- The next morning Rawlins gets taken away to a man the narrator calls "the captain." The captain checks his ID, then asks Rawlins to pull down his pants.
- When he asks why, a guard hits him over the head and he collapses. So he gets up and promptly complies.
- The captain asks Rawlins questions about his height, weight, and place of origin. When Rawlins answers correctly, the captain says he has a good memory.
- He then asks Rawlins where the man named Rawlins is. The captain doesn't believe Rawlins' assertions that he is who he says he is.
- The captain asks Rawlins how many horses he has stolen and how many people he has killed, and what Blevins' true name is. Rawlins denies the accusations and says that he doesn't know Blevins. The captain then asks him why he wants to have these troubles.
- The narration abruptly shifts to Rawlins being thrown back into the cell. John Grady swears at the guards, and they call for him to come.
- Rawlins says to just tell them what they want to hear, because it doesn't matter. Rawlins says he told them they were horse thieves and murderers, and that John will, too. John is then led to the captain.
- John Grady asserts that they don't know anything about Blevins and that Lacey Rawlins is a good man. The captain says his name is Smith, not Rawlins. Under questioning about their whereabouts and activities for the last few months, John Grady continues to tell the truth.
- The captain says that John has the opportunity to tell the truth, and that in three days he will go to Saltillo and then will not have that opportunity. "We can make the truth here," he says, "Or we can lose it. But when you leave here it will be too late" (2549).
- The captain says that this is a quiet town, and asks why Blevins came there as this quiet boy and killed people. He says that Blevins never was a quiet boy, and that he was this other, violent boy all the time. The captain is basically an armchair psychologist before such a thing even existed.
- The guards take John Grady back and then take Blevins away.
- In answer to Rawlins' questions, John says that nothing happened to him, and that he was not taken to the shower room.
- John Grady suspects that the captain wants to make a deal with them, so he can kill Blevins and have them keep quiet about it.
- Blevins returns and asks the other two boys what they said about him. Rawlins asks if it would make any difference, and Blevins said he could have at least put in a good word for him. Rawlins begins cursing Blevins and is on the verge of tears when John calms him down.
- Three days later Blevins, Rawlins, and John Grady are led into a flatbed truck and driven out of town, towards Saltillo.
- During the trip, they stop and take only Blevins out of the truck. As he's being led away, Blevins fishes a wad of pesos out of his boot and gives it to John Grady. The captain and another man lead Blevins away out of view.
- The narrator remarks that there seemed not enough substance to Blevins to make him the object of someone's hatred, or to fuel anything at all.
- After a while, Rawlins says that they just can't take him out there and shoot him. When John Grady looks back at Rawlins, two flat-sounding shots ring out in the distance. So, yes, they can.
- The captain returns carrying only the handcuffs, and they get back on the road to Saltillo.
- They arrive at the prison in Saltillo after midnight.
- They're led into a room, and the captain enters. He says the man he took out to shoot Blevins, and who had paid money for the privilege of killing him, had lost his nerve, and that the man's brother had died at Blevins' hands.
- The captain tells them that they must make other arrangements, and that if they stay there they will die, or their papers will get lost and people will forget they are even there in the prison.
- When Rawlins tells the captain that he didn't have to shoot Blevins, the captain tells him a story from his childhood, involving a woman that had been "had" by several others of his friends, but refused the captain. The captain says he couldn't have left things like that.
- Then he cryptically says that a man cannot set out to do something and then go back, that a man does not change his mind. He was afraid his friends would laugh at him, but when he returned from the company of that woman, no one was laughing.
- The boys are led to a cell and go to sleep. When the prison guards call out the roll the next morning, their names are not on the list. Whatever that means, it can't be good.
- They spend their days fighting off the other inmates, and they spend their nights sleeping bloody and exhausted.
- Apparently, the prison had an elaborate barter system, and a single value lay under the widespread depravity: every man was equally judged by his willingness to kill. Lovely.
- They fight some more and Rawlins can't even chew anymore. He says they're going to kill them in there; John Grady tells him not to let them think that they won't have to, and that he won't take nothing less himself.
- Although they are both badly beat up, John spots a big man watching them and tells Rawlins that he's going to go over and hit him in the mouth.
- After John says that, the narration suddenly skips ahead a few days, at which point they get beat up some more and they manage to buy soap and tomato soup with Blevins' money. Rawlins says that they might make it after all.
- The narrator points out a cinderblock house built into the side of the prison wall, which came complete with a cook and a bodyguard. The boys surmise that a big shot lives in there—or "papazote," as the term is in Spanish (also a great band name).
- Two days later the papazote calls for them. He introduces himself as Emilio Pérez, and remarks that they like to fight. He also mentions that Americans don't stay long, and that life isn't good for them here. He mentions that he can get them out of the prison.
- When asked why he doesn't get himself out, Pérez responds that he has political enemies. He tries to gauge how much money he can squeeze out of the boys for the favor of releasing them, but they have none. No dice.
- The next morning, Rawlins gets cut across the stomach by a man wielding a knife that seems too fancy for a prison yard. He gets taken to another room and eventually someone hands him a towel to stop the bleeding.
- The next few days John tries not too move too much around the prison, worried about the knife-wielding man. He has a few friends among the other prisoners, and they all agree that Pérez has power that can only be guessed at. None of the guards will answer John's questions about how Rawlins is doing. Things pretty much stink at this point.
- John eventually goes back to Pérez, whom he asks about Rawlins. Pérez unsuccessfully tries to pry into John's background, hinting that he must at least have a rich relative.
- Pérez hints that even if they find no evidence of John committing a crime, they'll assign one to him, and that all the people in the prison want to know is whether he has cojones.
- And then they can decide his price. When John asks about people who don't have a price, Pérez says that those people die.
- Pérez reveals that Rawlins is still alive, and still tries to bend John Grady into his service. Pérez says that Americans think there are good things and bad things, and that this is because they are godless. Mexicans, on the other hand, know where good and evil come from, and it is not from things. No, it's never the things.
- John Grady leaves, with Pérez expressing interest in what will happen to him next, as no one can know or truly control what goes on in the prison.
- John buys a knife with the remaining money from Blevins. Probably a wise move at this point.
- The evening after he gets the knife, John picks out a seat at a table with a tattooed boy barely older than him. As John sits down, however, he realizes why the boy is eating alone. The latch to the mess hall clicks shut, and the servers and guards appear to have gone. John takes the knife out of his pocket and puts it on his waist.
- The mess hall goes quiet; the boy gets up and walks toward John carrying his tray. He slices the tray at John's eyes, and John rolls away. They pull their knives and fight each other with knives and cafeteria trays like good school-age kids.
- As they fight, the boy says nothing, moving precisely and without anger. John assumes this is because he was hired. He looks into the depths of the boy's eyes and sees a whole history of evil.
- John gets cut across the chest and drops his tray before he realizes it. The other boy tries to block his view with his own tray. John backs away and slumps against the wall. The boy puts down the tray, then pulls John's hair in preparation to slit his throat, but John quickly raises his own knife up and stabs the boy in the heart.
- John stumbles out of the mess hall, bleeding heavily, and Pérez's bodyguard ends up carrying him to the house at the side of the prison.
- John wakes up in a room smelling of disinfectant, as often happens to us after a party. He lays there and convalesces for a few days, thinking about his father and horses, but avoiding thinking about Alejandra because he did not yet know how bad things would get, and he thought to save that for a particularly bad moment.
- A doctor visits in a military uniform. Later, John is brought to a room with the prison's commandant, who gives him and envelope with cash and tells him Rawlins is waiting outside, and they take the bus into town, savoring the quiet.
- They get a fancy dinner with John's new money. John mentions that Alfonsa has paid them out of prison, and that she gave them the money, but he does not know why she did so. They both figure Alfonsa did it for Alejandra's sake.
- Rawlins says he's going to go home, while John Grady says he plans to go back to the ranch for the horses and Alejandra.
- As they leave the restaurant, a kid is selling papers. This reminds him of Rawlins, who is torn up about Blevins getting executed and can't stop thinking about it. John offers Rawlins half of Alfonsa's money, but he refuses.
- Rawlins reveals that he knew what happened in the mess hall when John killed another boy. They talk about how John was more or less forced to do it, but John is still uneasy.
- The next morning they buy new clothes and John sees Rawlins off on a bus heading north. John hangs around town for another week to get his stitches removed, and then hitches a ride on a truck heading north out of Saltillo.