Blood Meridian: Part I - The Definitive Audiobook
Theworldwarmaster for Ben 'Expriest' Tobin
(Rugged, sophisticated tone of voice)
A member of the Glanton Gang, Tobin is often called 'Expriest', but he later tells The Judge that he was merely “a novitiate to the order.” To some extent, he and The Judge compete with one another for spiritual influence over 'The Kid'.
Indeed, after the Yuma massacre Tobin and 'The Kid' informally ally themselves against The Judge while all of them are destitute in the desert - but though Tobin repeatedly tells 'The Kid' that he must kill The Judge, 'The Kid' declines for whatever reason to do so.
Shot by The Judge while bearing a makeshift cross, Tobin nonetheless escapes with 'The Kid' to San Diego where he seeks medical attention. His fate is unknown.
*Recurring appearances*
- texan
- male adult
- male senior
1. You've done this afore? No? Well you've the knack. More so than me. There's little equity in the Lord's gifts. 2. (Speaking to 'The Kid' sitting around the gang's campfire) That's so. Look around you. Study the judge ... Mayhaps he aint to your liking, fair enough. But the man's a hand at anything. I've never seen him turn to a task but what he didnt prove clever at it ... He speaks dutch. He does for I heard him do it. We cut a parcel of crazy pilgrims down off the Llano and the old man in the lead of them he spoke right up in dutch like we were all of us in dutchland and the judge give him right back. Glanton come near fallin off his horse! We none of us knew him to speak it. Asked where he'd learned it, you know what he said? Said off a dutchman!
3. At night when the horses are grazing and the company is asleep, who hears them grazing? Aye. And if they cease their grazing who is it that wakes? Aye ... Every man.
4. (Speaking about The Judge) Every man in the company claims to have encountered that sootysouled rascal in some other place ... He saved us all, I have to give him that. We come down off the Little Colorado we didnt have a pound of powder in the company. Pound. We'd not a dram hardly. There he set on a rock in the middle of the greatest desert you'd ever want to see. Just perched on this rock like a man waitin for a coach. Brown thought him a mirage. Might have shot him for one if he'd had aught to shoot him with.
