Blood Meridian Chapter 13 Summary

  • For the first time in months, Glanton and his men get to enjoy themselves. They go to some public baths and get pampered with all kinds of nice stuff—new clothes, shaves, haircuts, the whole shebang. And all they had to do was murder a bunch of innocent people…
  • They meet with Governor Trias, the same man who first hired them to kill the Apaches.
  • That first night, Glanton and his men sit down for a great feast with the governor.
  • The governor tries to make a speech, but the roughriders are all being too loud and rude to let him speak. This is pretty much par for the course from this point on. Glanton and his men get drunk and spend the next few days totally trashing the town and doing whatever they want. Some of the Mexicans living there start to grumble that they were better off when the Apaches were attacking.
  • Finally, Glanton and his men ride back out. Governor Trias and the people of Chihuahua aren't sad to see them go. It doesn't take long for Glanton and his men to take over a new town and trash it.
  • The next place Glanton's boys arrive is Coyanne. This village has been pillaged by a guy named Gómez and his band of Apaches for years now, so Glanton's crew is greeted by the town as a bunch of liberators. When the men ride out three days later, there's barely anything left of the town.
  • Back in the desert, Glanton and his men look for more Apaches to kill.
  • It's not long before the crew descends on a group of peaceful Tiguas (another type of Aboriginal people) and kills them all. Now they're blindly killing anyone they can find out in the desert.
  • The next time the men ride into a city, a group of a hundred soldiers escorts them back out. It looks like word about Glanton's crew has gotten around.
  • In the next town, some of the men (including the kid) get into an argument with a surly local. The local stabs one of them in the back and the judge shoots him (the local) through the head.
  • A big fight breaks out through the town. Glanton's men kill more than half a dozen dudes and take their scalps. They're pretty much taking anyone's scalp these days. Then they ride out to look for a new town to plunder.
  • Now it's clear that people know about Glanton's gang. The next time the gang enters a town, people run for their lives. Glanton's men kill them all and scalp them.
  • At this point, Glanton's group starts to attack groups of Mexican soldiers. They massacre one group, but some of the soldiers escape and flee to tell others about Glanton. Glanton and his men try to run them down in the desert before they can reach the next city. They catch the soldiers just before they reach the next city and kill them all, stripping off their uniforms and burning them so no one will be able to identify them.
  • This time, there's a price for Glanton's head when he and his men leave the city.