Cormac McCarthy - The Crossing

This is some country, said Billy.

You reckon they've done skeedaddled?

We'll find em.

They rode out and began to cut for sign a mile to the north. They found the cold dead fire and Billy squatted and blew into the ashes and spat into the coals but there was no faintest hiss to them.

They never built a fire this mornin.

You reckon they seen us?

No.

No tellin how early they might of left out of here.

I know it.

What if they're laid up somewheres fixin to drygulch us?

Drygulch us?

Yeah.

Where'd you hear that at?

I dont know.

They aint laid up noplace. They just got a early start is all.

They mounted up and rode on. They could see the trace of the horses where they'd gone through the grass.

We need to be careful and not top one of these rises and just come up on em, Boyd said.

I thought about that.

We could lose their track.

We wont lose it.

What if the ground turns off hard and rocky? You thought about that?

What if the world ends, said Billy. You thought about that?

Yeah. I thought about it.

Midmorning they saw the riders entrained along a ridge two miles to the east driving the horses before them. An hour later they came into a road running east and west and they sat the horse in the road and studied the ground. In the dust were the tracks of a large remuda of horses and they looked out down the road to the east the way the remuda had gone. They turned east along the road and by noon they could see before them the sometime haze of dust drifting off the low places in the road where the horses had gone. An hour later and they came to a crossroads. Or they came to a place where a Bullied rut ran down out of the mountains from the north and crossed and continued on over the rolling country to the south. Sitting in the road astride a good american saddlehorse was a small dark man of indeterminate age in a John B Stetson hat and a pair of expensive latigo boots with steeply undershot heels. He'd pushed the hat back on his head and he was quietly smoking a cigarette and watching them approach along the road.

Billy slowed the horse, he studied the terrain about for other horses, other riders. He halted the horse at a small distance and thumbed back his own hat. Buenos dias, he said.

The man studied them briefly with his black eyes. His hands were folded loosely over the pommel of his saddle before him and the cigarette burned loosely between his fingers. He shifted slightly in the saddle and looked off down the rutted track behind him where the faint dust of the driven remuda yet hung lightly in the air like a haze of summer pollen.

What are your plans? he said.

Sir? said Billy.

What are your plans. Tell me your plans.

He raised the cigarette and drew slowly upon it and blew the smoke slowly before him. He seemed not to be in a hurry about anything.

Who are you? said Billy.

My name is Quijada. I work for Mr Simmons. I am superintendent of the Nahuerichic.

He sat his horse. He drew slowly on the cigarette again.

Tell him we're huntin our horses, Boyd said.

I'll be the judge of what to tell him, Billy said.

What horses? the man said.

Horses stole off our ranch in New Mexico.

He studied them. He jutted his chin at Boyd. Is that your brother?

Yes.

He nodded. He smoked. He dropped the cigarette in the road. The horse looked at it.

You understand this is a serious matter, he said.

It is to us.

He nodded again. Follow me, he said.

He reined the horse about and set off up the road. He did not look back to see if they would follow but they did follow. Nor did they presume to ride beside him.

By midafternoon they were full in the dust of the driven horses. They could hear them on the road ahead although they could not see them. Quijada reined his horse off the road and out through the pine trees and reentered the road ahead of the remuda. The caporal was riding point and when he saw Quijada he raised one hand and the vaqueros rode forward and headed the herd and the caporal came up and he and Quijada sat their horses and talked. The caporal looked back at the two boys doubled on the bony horse. He called to the vaqueros. The horses in the road were bunching and milling nervously and one of the riders had gone back down the line hazing horses out of the trees. When the horses had all come to rest and stood contained in the road Quijada turned to Billy.

Which are your horses? he said.

Billy turned in the saddle and looked over the remuda. Some thirty horses standing or shifting sullenly from foot to foot in the road, lifting and ducking their heads in the golden dust where it shimmered in the sun.

The big bay, he said. And that lightcolored bay with him. The one with the blaze. And that speckled horse at the back. The tigre.

Cut them out, said Quijada.

Yessir, Billy said. He turned to Boyd. Get down.

Let me do it, said Boyd.

Get down.

Let him do it, said Quijada.

Billy looked at Quijada. The caporal had turned his horse and the two men sat side by side. He swung his leg over the fork of the saddle and slid to the ground and stepped back. Boyd boosted himself into the saddle and took down the rope and began to build a loop, putting the horse forward with his knees and riding back along the edge of the remuda. The vaqueros sat smoking, watching him. He rode slowly and he did not look at the horses. He rode with the loop hanging down the near side of the horse and then he swung it low along the roadside balk of pines and brought up a hoolihan backhanded over the heads of the now stirring horses and dropped the loop over Nino's neck and raised his arm aloft to carry the slack rope off of the backs of the interim horses all in one gesture and dallied and began to cluck to the roped horse and talk him gently out of the bunch. The vaqueros watched, they smoked.

Nino came forward. The Bailey horse followed, the two of them shouldering their way haltingly and wide of eye out through the strange horses. Boyd brought them close in behind him and continued on along the edge of the road. He undallied and fashioned a jimsaw loop from the home end of the rope and when he reached the rear of the bunch he dropped the loop over the head of the Tom horse without even looking at it. Then he led the three horses back up along the edge of the road past the remuda and stopped with the horses pressed up against Bird and against each other, raising and ducking their heads.

Quijada turned and spoke to the caporal and the caporal nodded. Then he turned and looked at Billy.

Take your horses, he said.

Billy reached and took the bridlereins from his brother and stood in the road holding the horses. I need you to write. me a paper, he said.

What kind of paper.

A quitclaim or a conducta or a factura. Some kind of a voucher with your name on it till I can get these horses off of this range.

Quijada nodded. He turned and unfastened the flap on his saddlebag and rummaged through his possibles and came up with a small black leather notebook. He opened it and took a pencil from the binding and sat writing.

What is your name? he said.

Billy Parham.

He wrote. When he was done he tore the page from the notebook and put the pencil back in the binding and closed the book and handed the paper down to Billy. Billy took it and folded it without reading it and took off his hat and put the folded paper inside the sweatband and put the hat back on again.

Thank you, he said. I appreciate it.

Quijada nodded again and spoke again to the caporal. The caporal called to the vaqueros. Boyd leaned down and took the reins and walked the horse out into the dusty roadside pines and turned and sat the horse and he and the horses watched while the vaqueros hazed the remuda into motion again. They passed.