Cormac McCarthy - The Crossing

He was up in the morning at daylight sorting through the jars on the shelves in the pantry. He found some stewed tomatoes and ate them and he walked out to the barn and found a brush and led the horse out into the sun and stood brushing him for a long time. Then he led him back into the barn bay and saddled him and mounted up and rode out through the standing gate and took the road north toward the SK Bar.

When he rode into the yard old man Sanders was sitting on the porch much as he'd left him. He didnt know the boy. He didnt even know the horse. He called for him to get down anyway.

It's Billy Parham, the boy called. The old man didnt answer for a minute. Then he called into the house. Leona, he called. Leona.

The girl came to the door and shaded her eyes with one hand and looked at the rider. Then she came out and stood with her hand on her grandfather's shoulder. As if it was the rider had come with bad news for the old man.

WHEN HE GOT BACK to the house again it was past noon. He left the horse saddled and standing in the yard and walked in and took off his hat. He walked through all the rooms. He thought the old man was crazy but he couldnt account for the girl. He walked into his parents' room and stood. He stood for a long time. He saw how the ticking of the mattress bore the rusty imprint of the springcoils and he looked at that for a long time. Then he hung his hat on the doorknob and walked over to the bed. He stood beside it. He reached down and got hold of the mattress and dragged it off the bed and stood it up and let it fall over backwards in the floor. What came to light beneath was an enormous bloodstain dried near black and soaked so thick it cracked and splintered like some dark ceramic glaze. A faint sour dust rose. He stood there. His hands reached about in the air and finally he took hold of the bedpost and gripped it for support. After a while he looked up and after a while he walked over to the window. Where the noon light lay over the fields. Over the new green of the cottonwoods along the creek. Bright on the Animas Peaks. He looked at it all and he fell to his knees in the floor and sobbed into his hands.

When he rode through Animas the houses seemed deserted. He stopped at the store and filled his canteen from the spigot at the side of the building but he didnt go in. He slept that night on the plains north of the town. He'd nothing to eat and he made no fire. He woke all night and at each waking the signature of Cassiopeia had swung further about the polestar and at each wakening all was as it had been and would forever be. At noon the following day he rode into Lordsburg.

THE SHERIFF LOOKED up from his desk. He pursed his thin lips.

My name's Billy Parham, the boy said.

I know who you are. Come on in. Set down.

He sat in a chair opposite the sheriffs desk and put his hat on his knee.

Where have you been, son?

Mexico.

Mexico.

Yessir.

What caused you to run off?

I didnt run off.

Were you havin trouble at home?

No sir. Pap never allowed it.

The sheriff leaned back in his chair. He tapped his lower lip with his forefinger and contemplated the ragged figure before him. Pale with road dust. Thin to emaciation. A rope holding up his trousers.

What were you doin in Mexico?

I dont know. I just went down there.

You just got a wild hair up your ass and there wouldnt nothin else do but for you to go off to Mexico. Is that what you're tellin me?

Yessir. I reckon.

The sheriff reached and pushed a stapled set of papers from the edge of the desk and squared them with this thumb. He looked at the boy.

What do you know about this business, son?

I dont know nothin about it. I come here to ask you.

The sheriff sat watching him. All right, he said. If that's your story you'll be held to it.

It aint a story.

All right. We took trackers down there. There was six horses left out of there. Mr Sanders says he thinks that's all the horses there was on the place. Is that right?

Yessir. There was seven countin mine.

Jay Tom and his boy said that there was two of em and that they left out with the horses about two hours before daylight.

They could tell that?

They could tell that.

They showed up down there on foot.

Yes.

What does Boyd say?

Boyd dont say nothin. He run off and hid. He laid out in the cold all night and walked up to Sanders' the next day and they couldnt get no sense out of him. Miller had to get in the truck and drive down there and find that mess. They'd been shot with a shotgun.

Billy looked past the sheriff out to the street. He tried to swallow but he couldnt. The sheriff watched him.

First thing they done was they caught the dog and cut its throat. Then they set and waited to see would anybody come out. They waited there long enough that one of em went to take a leak. They waited to see that everbody was asleep again after the dog quit barkin and all.

Were they Mexicans?

They was Indians. Or Jay Tom says they was Indians. I reckon he would know. The dog never died.

What?

I said the dog never died. Boyd's got it. It's mute as a stone. The boy sat looking at the greasestained hat cocked on his knee.

What kind of guns did they get? the sheriff said.

There wasnt any to get. The only gun on the place was a fortyaEU'four forty carbine and I had that with me.

It wasnt much use to em, was it?

No sir.

We got nothin to go on. You know that.

Yessir.

Have you?

Have I what?

Do you know anything you aint told me.

Have you got jurisdiction in Mexico?

No.

Then what difference does it make?

That aint much of a answer.

No it aint. It's about like yours.

The sheriff watched him for a while.

If you think I dont care about this, he said, you're wrong as hell.

The boy sat. He put the back of his forearm to one eye and then the other and turned and looked out the window again. There was no traffic in the street. Out on the sidewalk two women were talking in Spanish.

Could you give me a description of the horses?

Yessir.

Was any of em branded?

One of em was. That Nino horse. Pap bought him off of a Mexican.

The sheriff nodded. All right, he said. He leaned down and pulled out a drawer in his desk and took out a tin deedbox and put it on top of the desk and opened it.

I dont guess I'm supposed to give you this stuff, he said. But I dont always do what I'm told. You got any place to keep it?

I dont know. What's in there?

Papers. Marriage license. Birth certificates. There's some papers on horses in here but most of em goes back a few years. Your mama's weddin ring is in here.

What about Pap's watch?

There wasnt no watch. There's some household effects out at the Websters'. If you want I'll put these papers in the bank. They aint even appointed a conservator so I dont know what else to do with em.

There ought to be papers on Nino and on that Bailey horse.

The sheriff turned the box around and slid it across the desk. The boy began to thumb through the documents.

Who's Margarita Evelyn Parham? the sheriff said.

My sister.

Where is she at?

She's dead.

How come her to have a Mexican name?

She was named after my grandmother.

He pushed the deedbox back on the desk and refolded the two papers he'd removed from it along their three lines and slid them inside his shirt.

Is that everthing you want? the sheriff said.

Yessir.

He closed the lid on the box and put it back in the drawer of his desk and shut the drawer and leaned back in his chair and looked at the boy. You aint fixin to go back down there are you? he said.

I aint decided what all I'm goin to do. First thing I got to do is go get Boyd.