A death vigil serves as the opening scene in All the Pretty Horses. It is the year 1949, and John Grady Cole has returned to the ranch for the wake of his grandfather. It is dark and cold in the early morning when he learns from the housekeeper that his mother is also in the house. Wearing a black suit, John Grady walks down a hallway where portraits of his ancestors hang. A candle lights the room where his grandfather is laid in funeral cloth. The only sounds are a clock ticking and the whistle of a train. He goes to the kitchen and has coffee with Luisa.
At the funeral John Grady sees his father. A storm is brewing, with spits of snow and lots of wind, which cause the preacher's words to be lost. That evening John Grady saddles his horse for a ride near the old Comanche road, which comes down from the Kiowa country on the western section of the ranch. He returns in the dark.
McCarthy provides John Grady's family history, and we finally learn the protagonist's name. The house in which John Grady grew up was built in 1872. The original 1866 ranch had 2,300 acres; the first house was one room made of sticks and wattle. The grandfather was the oldest of eight boys, the only one to live past the age of 25 and the first to die in the house. The Grady surname dies with the old man.
John Grady meets his father in the lobby of a hotel in town, and they go to the Eagle Cafe to eat. His father has little appetite and smokes too much, according to his son, who chastises him for the habit. They arrange a horseback ride for Saturday. In the next scene John Grady and his friend Rawlins have returned from a ride and are discussing John Grady's mother, who has a boyfriend only two years older than John Grady. He rubs down his horse and goes to the kitchen for coffee. Then John Grady enters the study of his grandfather. His mother comes down the stairs and asks him what he is doing and he replies, "Settin."
