Cormac McCarthy - The Crossing

They'd clambered up into the road with half a dozen other horses all of them still dripping water and they trotted and tossed their heads in the cool of the morning. Two riders came into the road behind them and hazed them up out of their cropping at the roadside grass and drove them on.

Billy neckreined the horse to the side of the road and swung his leg over the pommel of the saddle and slid down and handed the reins up to Boyd. The bunched horses advanced curiously, their ears up. Their father's horse tossed its head and let out a long whicker.

Aint this somethin? said Billy. Aint this somethin?

He watched the riders. Young boys themselves. Perhaps his age. They were wet to the knees and the horses they rode were wet. They'd seen the riders and seen them rein to the side and they came on more cautiously. Billy pulled the shotgun from the scabbard and unbreeched it to see that it was loaded and breeched it shut again with a quick upward jerk. The advancing horses stopped in the road.

Shake out a loop, he said. Dont let that Nino by.

He stepped out into the road with the shotgun in the crook of his arm. Boyd boosted himself over the cantle and pulled the lasso tie and paid out the rope in his hands. The other horses had stopped but Nino came on along the edge of the road, his head up, testing the air.

Whoa Nino, Billy said. Whoa boy.

The two riders coming along behind stopped. They sat their horses uncertainly. Billy had crossed the road to head Nino and Nino tossed his head and came back into the road.

Que pass? called the vaqueros.

Drop a loop on that son of a bitch or take the shotgun one, Billy said.

Boyd brought the loop up. Nino had already sized up the space between the man afoot and the man horseback and he bolted forward. When he saw the rope come up he tried to check but he lost footing on the packed clay of the roadway and Boyd swung the loop once and dropped it over his head and dallied the rope to the saddlehorn. Bird turned and planted himself in the road and squatted on his haunches but the Nino horse stopped when the rope hit him and stood and whinnied and looked back at the riders and the horses behind.

Que estan haciendo? the riders called. They were sitting their horses where they'd first stopped. The other horses had turned and taken to grazing by the roadside again.

Pull a piece of that small rope and build me a hackamore, Billy said.

You aim to ride him?

Yes.

I can ride him.

I'll ride him. Make it longer. Longer.

Boyd looped and tied the hackamore and cut the rope with his claspknife and pitched the hackamore to Billy. Billy caught it and walked Nino down along the length of the catchrope talking softly to him. The two riders put their horses forward.

He slipped the hackamore over Nino's head and loosed the catchrope. He talked to the horse and patted it and then pulled the catchrope off over the horse's head and let it fall to the ground and led the horse over to where Boyd sat the other horse. The loop of rope went scurrying over the dirt. The riders stopped again. Que pasa? they called.

Billy pitched the shotgun up to Boyd and then jumped and pulled himself up over the horse's back with both hands and swung a leg over and sat and reached for the shotgun again. Nino stamped in the road and tossed his head.

Dab your twine on old Bailey yonder, Billy said.

Boyd looked out down the road at the two riders. He put the horse forward.

No moleste esos caballos, the riders called.

Billy reined Nino to the side of the road. Boyd advanced upon the horses where they stood leisurely cropping the roadside grass and threw his loop. The throw anticipated the Bailey horse and as he raised his head to move away he raised it into the loop. Billy sat his father's horse watching. I could do that, he told the horse. In about nine tries.

Quienes son ustedes? the riders called.

Billy rode forward. Somos proprietarios de estos caballos, he called.

The vaqueros sat their horses. Behind them a truck had appeared in the road coming from Boquilla. It was too far off to hear but they must have seen the gaze of the other two riders shift for they turned and looked behind them. No one moved. The truck came on slowly in a thin and augmenting gearwhine. The dust from the wheels drifted slowly out over the country. Billy turned his horse out of the road and sat with the shotgun upright on his thigh. The truck came on. It labored past. The driver looked at the horses and at the boy sitting with the shotgun. In the bed of the truck were eight or ten workers all huddled like conscriptees and as the truck passed they sat looking out back down the road through the dust and motorsmoke at the horses and riders with no expression at all.

Billy nudged Nino forward. But when he looked for the vaqueros there was only one of them in the road: The other one was already riding back south across the cameo. He crossed to the standing horses and cut the Tom horse out of the bunch and hazed the rest of the horses up out of the road and turned and looked at Boyd. Let's go, he said.

They advanced upon the lone rider with the loose horse trotting before them and Boyd trailing the Bailey horse behind by the catchrope. The young vaquero watched them come. Then he turned his horse off the road and out onto the grass swales and there he sat watching them pass. Billy looked off across the cameo for the other rider but he had dropped from sight behind a rise. He slowed his horse and called out to the vaquero.

Adonde se fue su compadre?

The young vaquero did not answer.

He put the horse forward again, the shotgun upright against his shoulder. He looked back at the horses grazing by the roadside and he looked again at the vaquero and then he fell in alongside Boyd and they rode on. A quarter mile on when he looked back the vaquero was in the road riding slowly behind them. A little way more he stopped and sat the horse quarterwise in the road with the shotgun on his knee. The vaquero stopped also. When they rode on again he rode as well.

Well we're in it now.

We were in it when we left home, Boyd said.

The other old boy's gone for help.

I know it.

Old Nino aint been rode much, has he.

Not much.

He looked at Boyd. Dirty and ragged with his hat forward against the sun and his face enshadowed. He looked some new breed of child horseman left in the wake of war or plague or famine in that country.

At noon with the low walls of the hacienda at Boquilla shimmering in the distance five riders appeared in the road before them. Four of them had rifles which they carried across the bow of their saddles or held loosely in one hand. They curbed their horses sharply aEU'and the animals stamped and sidled in the road and the riders called loudly back and forth although they were none at any distance from another.

The two brothers checked their horses. The Tom horse went trotting forward with its ears up. Billy turned in the saddle and looked back. There were three more riders in the road behind them. He looked at Boyd. The dog walked over to the edge of the road and sat down. Boyd leaned and spat and looked south across the unfenced grasslands, the shape of the lake in the distance palely blown where it mirrored the cloudcover overhead. Five or six lean duncolored steers had raised their heads to stare at the horses in the road. He looked back at the riders behind and he looked at Billy.

You want to make a run for it?

No.

We got the fresher horses.

You dont know what kind of horses they got. Bird couldnt keep up with Nino anyways.

He studied the advancing horsemen. He handed the shotgun across to Boyd. Put this up, he said. Find the papers.

Boyd reached back and began to unwrap the thong from the rosette on the saddlebag pocket.