A lot of people approach Blood Meridian as a satire on Manifest Destiny, and there's certainly bits of that here, but I can't help but feel it's a simplistic interpretation of the story. The Glangton carnage is horryfing, but mind you, McCarthy also included a brief fragment of a paper on prehistoric scalping. That is a deep look in the mirror. "The horror", as Kurtz implied...

Rather than a nihilistic darkness, evil in McCarthy's frontier feels like an inhabited space, purposeful in design. And antagony is the ruler of all relation. It is through enemies we unite and Judge Holden respects that law as an essential component of the world's beauty, and lives for that law, and kills for it too. Holden sees nothing in the act of killing other than the very realization of humanity's purpose, a tool to be used and even worshipped.

The fact that Holden never outright confirms to the reader that he is the devil makes the reading all the more frightening. What's worse, living in a godless world where somebody could be demented enough to imitate the devil or to have the devil as the only proof of God's existence?

Blood Meridian is not what you may think at first glance. It is not a story on meaningless violence. The sher beauty of its mystery and nuance should alone make it a classic, not even accounting for its masterful prose or eye for characterization. It's undoubtedly a very demanding masterpiece, but worth the effort.