Cormac McCarthy - The Crossing

I just wondered how big of a outfit it is that we're dealin with here.

The same man in the same tooled boots and the same flat hat turned hishorse slightly sideways before them as if he might be going to ride past. Then he turned the horse back. Then he halted the horse in front of them and nodded. Bueno, he said.

Quiero mis papeles, Billy said.

The young men behind looked at each other. The manco studied the two boys. He asked them if they might perhaps be crazy. Billy didnt answer. He took the paper from his pocket and unfolded it. He said that he had a factura for the horses.

Factura de donde? said the manco.

De la Babicora.

The man turned his head and spat into the dust of the street without taking his eyes off Billy. La Babicora, he said.

Si.

Firmado por quien?

Firmado por el senor Quijada.

He sat without expression. Quijada no es alguacil, he said.

Es gerente, said Billy.

The manco shrugged. He dropped the loop of the reins over the saddlehorn and held out his one hand. Permitame, he said.

Billy folded the paper and put it in his shirtpocket. He said that they had come for the other two horses. The man shrugged again. He said that he could not help them. He said that he could not help the young Americans.

We dont need your help, Billy said.

Como?

But Billy had already reined his horse to the right and put the horse forward into the middle of the street. Stay there, Boyd, he said. The jefe turned to the rider on his right. He told him to take the horses in charge. Te los encargo, he said.

No toque esos caballos, said Billy.

Como? said the jefe. Como?

Boyd rode out from under the trees.

Stay there, said Billy. Do like I said.

Two of the riders had advanced upon the tied horses. The third moved to head Boyd's horse but Boyd booted past him and put his horse out into the street.

Stay back, said Billy.

The rider reined his horse about. He looked at the jefe. Nino had begun to roll his eyes and to stamp in the street. The manco had taken the reins of his horse in his teeth and he had reached across and was in the act of unbuttoning the flap on the holster of his sidearm. Nino's rolling eye must have communicated some unwelcome intelligence to the other horses in the street for the jefe's horse also had begun to skitter and to jerk its head. Billy snatched off his hat and booted his horse forward and hazed his hat in front of the eyes of the jefe's horse and the jefe's horse stood bolt upright and squatted and took two steps backward. The jefe grabbed the great flat pommel of his saddle and when he did so the horse stepped again and made a quarter turn and fell backwards in the street. Billy sawed his horse about and the horse stepped in the jefe's hat and turned and sent it skittering. In turning Billy saw Nino stand and saw Boyd standing with his bootheels in the horse's flanks. The jefe's horse was on its knees scrabbling and it struggled and lunged up and set off down the street with the looped reins hanging and the stirrups flapping. The jefe lay in the road. His eyes moved from side to side taking in the rancorous movements of the horses all about him. He looked at his hat crushed in the road.

The pistol lay in the dirt. Of the riders in the jefe's party two were trying to snub down the horses under the trees where they lunged and jerked at their hackamore leads and one had dismounted and was coming to the assistance of the fallen man. The fourth rider turned and looked at the pistol. Boyd slid from his horse and swung the reins down over the horse's head all in one movement and kicked the pistol out into the middle of the street. Nino tried to rear again and snatched him half off the ground but he pulled the horse down and stepped in front of the mounted rider and cut him off where he had already turned and he ran two fingers up the nostrils of the man's horse which set it to backing and fighting its head. Then he trotted Nino out into the street behind him and bent and picked up the pistol and jammed it into his belt and grabbed a handful of mane and swung himself up and pulled the horse around.

Billy was standing in the street. One of the other vaqueros had also dismounted and now two of them were kneeling in the dust trying to get the jefe to sit up. But the jefe couldnt sit. They raised him up but he sloughed bonelessly to one side and fell over into their arms. They must have thought him only addled because they kept talking to him and patting his cheeks. Out in the street a collection of onlookers had begun to assemble. The other two riders stepped down and dropped their reins and came running.

There aint no use in that, Billy said.

One of the vaqueros turned and looked at him. Como? he said.

Es inutil, said Billy. Se quebro el espinazo.

Mande?

His back's broke.

THEY LEFT THE ROAD a mile north of the town and traveled west till they came to the river. Boyd had hazed the other horses off while the riders were kneeling in the street and they now had all the horses with them. It was almost dark. They sat on a gravel bar and watched the horses standing in the water against the cooling sky. The dog walked into the water and drank and raised its head and looked back at them.

You got any ideas now? Boyd said.

No. I aint.

They sat looking at the horses, nine in number.

They probably got some old boy can track a lizard across a rockslide.

Probably.

What are we goin to do with their horses?

I dont know.

Boyd spat.

Maybe if they get their own horses back they'll leave us be. Bullshit.

They aint goin to wait till in the mornin.

I know it.

You know what they'll do to us?

I got a pretty good notion.

Boyd threw a stone into the water. The dog turned and looked at the place where it had gone.

We caint looseherd these horses across this country in the dark, he said.

I dont intend to.

Well why dont you tell us what you do intend.

Billy rose and stood looking at the drinking horses. I think we ought to cut out their horses and drive em out to that rise yonder and chouse em back towards Boquilla. They'll get there sooner or later.

All right.

Let me have the pistol.

What do you aim to do with it?

Put it in the man's mochila it belongs to.

You think he's dead?

If he aint he will be.

Then what difference does it make?

Billy looked at the horses in the river. He looked down at Boyd. Well, he said, if it dont make no difference then just let me have it.

Boyd pulled the pistol out of his belt and handed it up. Billy stuck it in his own belt and waded out into the river and mounted Bird and cut the five Boquilla horses out and hazed them up from the river.

Dont let our horses foller, he said.

They aint goin to foller.

Dont entertain no company while I'm gone.

Go on.

Dont build no fires nor nothin. Go on. I aint a idjit.

He rode out and disappeared over the rise. The sun was down and the long cool evening of the high country had set in. The other three horses came up out of the river one by one and began to graze in the good grass along the bank. It was dark by the time Billy got back. He rode directly in off the plain to their camp.

Boyd stood. You must of give him his head, he said. I did. Are you ready.

Just waitin on you.

Well let's go.

They sorted out the horses and drove them across the river and set out upcountry. The plains about them blue and devoid of life. The thin horned moon lay on its back in the west like a grail and the bright shape of Venus hung directly above it like a star falling into a boat. They kept to the open country clear of the river and they rode all night and toward the morning they made a dry camp in a quemada of burned trees clustered dead and black and ragged on a slight rise a mile west of the river. They dismounted and looked for some sign of water but there was none.