There's been a long-standing theory about the ending of Blood Meridian that the ending scene in the jakes, where the judge "overtakes" the kid, is actually a very loosely, metaphorically written scene of the kid raping and murdering the lost little girl.

In my opinion, the most compelling aspect of this theory is how much ink is spent on the little girl in the final paragraphs before the kid's apparent death. McCarthy specifically mentions that the crowd looking for her was getting farther away, their shouts getting quieter in the distance, right before the kid opens the jakes and sees "the judge."

Now that our understanding of McCarthy as a human is a bit clearer, can we start treating this theory with the seriousness it deserves? I've posted about this before and mostly gotten responses of derision, but after that AF article I'm really thinking there's something to it.

the judge is the devil or at least a representation of him. The Kid avoids him at all costs, and cannot kill him at short distances in the creek, after showing he can hit indians at 100 yards with the pistol. The judge is at the center of depravity throughout. He is in the hut watching the naked imbecile and a young girl, etc. Two other times in the book a young girl goes missing in a town where the Kid is encamped with the gang. I at first thought it was the black Jackson, as he was late to rejoin the gang the first time, but after the ending I think different. I think the Kid is the sexual predator, the one responsible for the girls disappearing. I think he has been running from himself the whole time. The judge calls him out as the only one not being truthful in his depravity and violence, like he fashions himself better than the rest. I think at the end, he finds the young girl in the outhouse hiding and crying because of the bear, and "the judge" overtakes him. The devil gets him one more time and he kills her. It is the Kid that is the unnamed man who tells the onlookers not to go inside. They open and see what has been done, that is the horror. The Judge is vindicated and dances at the stage, saying that he will never die, as no matter how men try to outrun him, they cannot, and he lives within them forever. It's also implied in the scene before that he attempted to engage a dwarf prostitute in her services, but that he couldn't 'perform'. Why would this scene and the others with missing children (especially the last at the end) be there if they didn't have any significance?

Keep in mind, the ending of Blood Meridian is ambiguous, and we really don't know what happened in the jakes or what "horror" was discovered there.