Arizona Scenes: Post 20

"They sat in the floor of a long room with a high ceiling and smokestained vigas while a woman and a girl brought bowls of guisado made from goat and a clay plate heaped with blue tortillas and they were served bowls of beans and coffee and a cornmeal porridge in which sat little chunks of raw brown peloncillo sugar. Outside it was dark and the snow swirled down. There was no fire in the room and the food steamed ponderously. When they had eaten they sat smoking and the women gathered up the bowls and after a while a boy came with a lantern and led them out." —Cormac McCarthy, 'Blood Meridian'