The Night Does Not End: Episode II

His Immense and Terrible Flesh

1. “That was the Judge the first ever I saw him”—The Origins of Holden¹

In 1849, a twenty-year-old army deserter named Samuel E. Chamberlain joined John Joel Glanton’s gang of scalp hunters. Born in New Hampshire, raised in Boston, Chamberlain had run away from home at the age of fifteen and traveled west—much like the teenage runaway of McCarthy’s novel—eventually joining a volunteer unit and traveling to Texas where he enlisted with the 1st US Dragoons. Heading south to serve in the war currently raging between the United States and Mexico, he fought in the Battle of Buena Vista and a few other engagements, but went AWOL, and finally ended up with Glanton’s Gang.

Years after his experience in the American southwest, Chamberlain wrote a memoir entitled My Confession: The Recollections of a Rogue. This account would serve as the basis for Blood Meridian and was where McCarthy first encountered Judge Holden.

According to Chamberlain, who joined up with the scalp hunters in Frontreras, Mexico, Judge Holden was “second in command” of Glanton’s Gang. Chamberlain provides the following description of the Judge:

“In charge of the camp was a man of gigantic size called ‘Judge’ Holden of Texas. Who or what he was no one knew but a cooler villain never went unhung; he stood six feet six in his moccasins, had a large fleshy frame, a dull tallow colored face destitute of hair and all expression. His desires was [sic] blood and women, and terrible stories were circulated in camp of horrid crimes committed by him when bearing another name, in the Cherokee nation [now, the state of Oklahoma] and Texas; and before we left Frontreras a little girl of ten years was found in the chaparral, foully violated and murdered. The mark of a huge hand on her little throat pointed him out as the ravisher² as no other man had such a hand, but though all suspected, none charged him with the crime” (271).

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I would like to return to the Reverend Green’s revival tent for a moment and stand McCarthy’s description of his fictional Judge next to Chamberlain’s historical one. From pages 6 & 7 of Blood Meridian:

“An enormous man dressed in an oilcloth slicker had entered the tent and removed his hat. He was bald as a stone and he had no trace of beard and he had no brows to his eyes nor lashes to them. He was close onto seven feet in height […] His face was serene and strangely childlike. His hands were small. He held them out.”

McCarthy has made a few changes to his Holden—he’s several inches taller; his hands are smaller—but mostly, Chamberlain and McCarthy’s Judge are the same godless, godlike man.

In My Confession, Chamberlain turns to the Judge’s other qualities:

“Holden was by far the best educated man in northern Mexico; he conversed with all in their own language, spoke in several Indian lingos, at a fandango would take the Harp or Guitar from the hands of the musicians and charm all with his wonderful performance, and out-waltz any poblana of the ball. He was ‘plum centre’ with the rifle or revolver, a daring horseman, acquainted with the nature of all strange plants and their botanical names, great in Geology and Mineralogy, in short another Admirable Crichton.³ " (271-72)

McCarthy sprinkled these details of the historical Holden throughout Blood Meridian: we think of Tobin telling the Kid about the many languages that the Judge speaks, about the Judge being “the greatest fiddler I ever heard,” about the Judge’s skill as a dancer and how he’s able to “shoot a rifle, ride a horse” (129). We think about the Judge’s lectures on geology—his claims that God “speaks in stones and trees, the bones of things.” McCarthy will have his Judge extemporize about the earth’s actual age, just as Chamberlain’s Holden does:

“Judge Holden mounted a rock for a rostrum and gave us a scientific lecture on Geology. The Scalp Hunters, grouped in easy attitudes, listened to the ‘Literati’ with marked attention. The whole formed an assemblage worthy of the pencil of Salvator Rosa. Holden’s lecture was very learned, but hardly true, for one statement he made was that ‘millions of years had witnessed the operation producing the result around us.’” (My Confession, 276)

Here is how McCarthy renders that scene in Blood Meridian:

“In the afternoon [the Judge] sat in the compound breaking ores samples with a hammer […] holding an extemporary lecture in geology to a small gathering who nodded and spat. A few would quote him scripture to confound his ordering up of eons out of the ancient chaos and other apostate supposings.” (122)

The historical Glanton was killed by Yuma warriors at the ferry crossing he and his Gang seized; McCarthy fashions a similar fate for his fictional Glanton. In his novel, the Kid and Tobin are able to fight their way out of the Yuma massacre, but in My Confession, Chamberlain and Tobin simply luck out and are gathering firewood when the attack occurs.

In Chamberlain’s account, Judge Holden survives the Yuma attack (just as he does in Blood Meridian), but Chamberlain’s story differs with regards to the aftermath. Fleeing through the desert with Tobin, Chamberlain sees a number of Native warriors attacking a white man and rides to the man’s aid. From My Confession:

“As I neared the scene I recognized the gigantic form of Judge Holden who had been brought to bay by about a dozen yelling Yumas, who appeared to by armed only with their short clubs. Holden was resting, leaning on his heavy rifle, which he had been using as a war club, with effect, for one savage lay brained at his feet, while the rest were seated on their haunches around him like a pack of prairie wolves around a fagged Buffalo Bull. Neither Holden or [sic] the bucks showed the least sign of being aware of my approach until I raised the old yell of the Dragoons, when the Yumas, with their strange sharp war cry like the bark of a Coyote, started off on a run. I charged on one who wore a shirt that I recognized as belonging to a Mexican of our party, and rode him down, but my gallant stead stumbled on him, throwing me over his head.

“I was not hurt and was on my feet at once, just as Holden dashed out the brains of the red devil with the butt of his rifle. ‘Just in time, Jack!’⁴ he said, 'I owe you one,' and held out his huge hand." (291-92)

For readers of Blood Meridian, it is inconceivable that the Kid would ever come to the Judge’s rescue like this: the most McCarthy’s Kid will ever do is pass up the opportunity to put a pistol ball through the naked and unarmed Holden.

After saving Judge Holden’s life, Chamberlain and his companions make their way across the desert, steering west, taking turns riding Chamberlain’s horse, Soldano. When Holden’s turn arrives, he sees an opportunity and takes off on the horse, turning when at a safe distance to yell, “You cursed robbers and murderers, I go to denounce you in the settlements! You shall hang in California!” (293)

But Holden doesn’t get far. Soldano throws him and Chamberlain and the other survivors of the Yuma raid sprint up and hold their weapons on the embarrassed Judge. Then they bind Holden’s arms and legs and lash him to the remains of an old wagon bed, meaning to abandon the Judge to death-by-exposure.

But after they’ve traveled on a short distance, Chamberlain has second thoughts. He turns to his companions and says, “He is a white man […] and I’ll be damned if he shall go under in that fashion!” (293)

Chamberlain makes his way back to Holden and cuts the Judge free. Then, he sets off in search of his companions who have gone on ahead, the Judge on foot behind him.

Alone, in the desert, Chamberlain gets turned around. His horse, Soldano, tires and when night falls, Chamberlain lies down to sleep.

He awakens the following morning in a panic. He is without food or water and only has a few cubes of sugar which he gives to Soldano. He steers for the mountains in the distance which he decides must be California. Here, he hopes, he’ll be able to find his companions and water.

Soldano collapses that evening and Chamberlain is forced to abandoned him. He walks on himself until he can go no farther. Then he lies down and prepares himself for death.

He’s discovered by several Native men who give him water and help him get to their village. One of these men goes out to rescue Soldano.

The villagers care for Chamberlain and he is delighted to find his companions waiting for him here. The Natives are known as Cristianos and that evening, one of them leads Soldano into the village, reuniting him with Chamberlain.

But a less welcome reunion occurs on Chamberlain’s second night with the Cristanos:

“It was toward morning when a shout from Ben Tobin awoke us, and the sight that greeted us caused us to seize ours arms. Seated crosslegged by the fire, broiling raw meat, was the gaunt spectre of the Judge! The old scoundrel acted as cool as if nothing unpleasant had ever happened! On being interrogated, we found to our great indignation that when he reached Vallecita, guided by the light of our fire, he had, in the dark, stumbled onto our animals, killed one of the mules (Ben Tobin’s), and cut out a chunk which he was now eating. On the desert when he was about dead, some Indians had come across him and given him some water and parched acorns.” (296)

Chamberlain’s narrative ends with him making the Judge promise that he will remain in camp for at least a day. Then Chamberlain and his three companions set out, hoping Judge Holden honors this agreement.

2. A Great Shambling Mutant

When inventing the Judge that readers of Blood Meridian have been obsessing over for the past thirty-seven years, McCarthy took Chamberlain’s Holden—essentially, a sociopathic scoundrel in buckskin—and ran him through several filters.

It’s easy to reach into the Western Literary Canon and seize hold of the Judge’s forebears (even Harold Bloom manages it). When British Romantic poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge was attempting to explain what made Iago tick, he spoke of the “motiveless malignancy” that animates the villain of Othello. But Iago is enthralling not because his vow of revenge lacks a motive—some would argue it actually doesn’t: Iago claims that Othello bedded his wife, Emilia—Iago charms us with the very exuberance of his evil. His sublimity might be negative, but it is, when all is said and done, sublime. He is the first intelligent and capable character in all of Literature who actually delights in evil (though Chaucer’s Parson certainly gives it a whirl).

Someone reading this is already thinking, But what about Satan? Allow me to express my antipathy for the Devil and point out that the Satan of the Hebrew Bible is more of a prosecuting attorney than he is a fallen angel. His name means “adversary,” or “accuser.” In truth, there is no biblical basis for Satan being a fallen angel at all (Chapter 14 of Isaiah is discussion the King of Babylon, not the Devil).

It isn’t until 1667 when Milton gets his hands on Satan and puts his Shakespearean spin on him that we get the fully-formed myth of a war in heaven and Satan leading an angelic insurrection against God.

And what a myth it is! Applying the striving ambition and tactical genius of Iago to the Devil produces a character who can rattle off lines in blank verse like this: “Better to reign in hell than to serve in heaven.”

It is precisely this non serviam of both Iago and Satan that Melville draws on when constructing his own malignancy: a whaling captain named Ahab. The monomaniacal captain isn’t exactly motiveless; he lost his leg to a “dumb brute” (Starbuck’s formulation). But does that really explain the lengths Ahab is willing to go to just to put the tip of his satanic spear in Moby Dick? Surely, considering that the price of his revenge means his life and the lives of his entire crew (excepting Ishmael), the juice isn’t worth the squeeze.

The interiority of McCarthy’s Judge is constructed out of these three characters: Iago, Satan, and Ahab. Chamberlain’s account of the historical Judge Holden provides the character’s exterior facets.

Of course, the narrator of Blood Meridian warns his audience against exactly the kind of analysis I’ve been performing here. Toward the end of the novel, the Kid is undergoing surgery in San Diego and is given ether by his doctor. The Judge visits him in a dream and we get the following passage:

“In that sleep and sleeps to come the Judge did visit. Who would come other? A great shambling mutant, silent and serene. Whatever his antecedents he was something wholly other than their sum, nor was there system by which to divide him back into his origins for he would not go. Whoever would seek out his history through what unraveling of loins and ledgerbooks must stand at last darkened and dumb at the shore of a void without terminus or origin and whatever science he might bring to bear upon the dusty primeval matter blowing down out of the millennia will discover no trace of any ultimate atavistic egg by which to reckon his commencing.” (322)

TRANSLATION: Readers cannot unravel the mystery that is the Judge.

But they can grab hold of his “antecedents” just as I have done.

I’m struck by McCarthy’s use of the word mutant in the above-quoted passage. A mutant is a new type of organism that has undergone some radical change. Speaking as part of a culture that’s been bombarded with superheroes over the past decade, I know that mutants are the result of experiments where several different materials are mixed—human and inhuman.

To mutate Chamberlain’s Holden into the Judge of Blood Meridian, McCarthy exposes that historical figure to the radioactive material of Iago, Satan, and Ahab: Shakespeare, Milton, and Melville. The result is that “vast abhorrence” who walks into the Reverend Green’s tent, bedevils the Kid throughout the novel, and haunts readers’ imaginations.

On the next episode of The Night Does Not End, I’ll explore the various interactions between the Kid and Judge Holden, how their animosities were formed and waiting before the two of them ever met, and how their relationship could only have ended one way: in an outhouse in Fort Griffin with the “stars falling across the sky myriad and random, speeding along brief vectors from their origins in night to their destinies in dust and nothingness” (347).

1. The first two paintings are taken from Samuel Chamberlain’s My Confession. In additional to being a soldier and writer, Chamberlain was an amateur painter. The painting at the top of the page is of Judge Holden giving a lecture on geology. The final image is from George Catlin. (These paintings are now in the public domain and not subject to copyright).

2. Throughout McCarthy’s novel, the Judge is implicated in a number of violent crimes against children—there are suggestions of sexual violence on his part as well. At the end of Blood Meridian, right before he murders the Kid in the outhouse, the Judge will be responsible for yet another child going missing: the bear-wrangling girl from the saloon.

3. The Scottish polymath, James Crichton.

4. Judge Holden calls Chamberlain “Jack” throughout the latter’s time with Glanton’s scalp hunters.