Cormac McCarthy - The Crossing

Nadie Babe to que le espera en este mundo, said the mozo.

De veras, the boy said.

He nodded and touched his hat and turned and rode back down the darkened street.

HE CROSSED THE BORDER at Columbus New Mexico. The guard in the gateshack studied him briefly and waved him through. As if he saw his like too often these days to be in doubt about him. Billy halted the horse anyway. I'm an American, he said, if I dont look like it.

You look like you might of left some bacon down there, the guard said.

I aint come back rich, that's for sure.

I guess you come back to sign up.

I reckon. If I can find a outfit that'll have me.

You neednt to worry about that. You aint got flat feet have you,

Flat feet?

Yeah. You got flat feet they wont take you.

What the hell are you talkin about?

Talkin about the army.

Army?

Yeah. The army. How long you been gone anyways?

I dont have no idea. I dont even know what month this is.

You dont know what's happened?

No. What's happened?

Hell fire, boy. This country's at war.

He took the long straight clay road north to Deming. The day was cold and he wore the blanket over his shoulders. The knees were out of his trousers and his boots were falling apart. The pockets which had hung by threads from his shirt he'd long ago torn off and thrown awayaEU' and the back of the shirt where it had separated was sewn with agave and the collar of his jacket had separated and the shredded facing stood about his neck like some tawdry sort of lace and gave him the improbable look of a ruined dandy. The few cars that passed gave him all the berth that narrow road afforded and the people looked back at him through the rolling dust as if he were a thing wholly alien in that landscape. Something from an older time of which they'd only heard. Something of which they'd read. He rode all day and he crossed in the evening through the low foothills of the Florida Mountains and he rode on across the upland plain into the dusk and into the dark. In that dark he passed a file of five horsemen riding south back the way he'd come and he spoke to them in spanish and wished them a good evening and they spoke back to him each one in their soft voices as they passed. As if the closeness of the dark and the straitness of the way had made of them confederates. Or as if only there would confederates be found.

He rode into Deming at midnight and rode the main street from one end to the other. The horse's shoeless hooves clapping dully on the blacktop in the silence. It was bitter cold. Nothing was open. He spent the night in the bus station at the corner of Spruce and Gold, sleeping on the tile floor wrapped in the filthy serape with his warbag for a pillow and the stained and filthy hat over his face. The sweatblackened saddle stood against the wall along with the shotgun in its scabbard. He slept with his boots on and he got up twice in the night and went out to see about his horse where he'd left it tethered to a lampstandard by the catchrope.

In the morning when the cafe opened he went up to the counter and asked the woman where you went to join the army. She said that the recruiting office was at the armory on South Silver Street but she didnt think they'd be open this early.

Thank you mam, he said.

You want some coffee?

No mam. I aint got no money.

Set down, she said.

Yes mam.

He sat on one of the stools and she brought him a cup of coffee in a white china mug. He thanked her and sat drinking it. After a while she came from the grill and set a plate of eggs and bacon in front of him and a plate of toast.

Dont tell nobody where you got it, she said.

The recruiting office was closed when he got there and he was waiting on the steps with two boys from Deming and a third from an outlying ranch when the sergeant arrived and unlocked the door.

They stood in front of his desk. He studied them.

Which one of you all aint eighteen, he said.

No one answered.

They's usually about one in four and I see four recruits in front of me.

I aint but seventeen, Billy said.

The sergeant nodded. Well, he said. You'll have to get your mama to sign for you.

I dont have no mama. She's dead.

What about your daddy?

He's dead too.

Well you'll have to get your next of kin. Uncle or whatever. He'll need to get a notarized statement.

I dont have no next of kin. I just got a brother and he's youngern me.

Where do you work at?

I dont work nowheres.

The sergeant leaned back in his chair. Where are you from? he said.

From over towards Cloverdale.

You got to have some kin.

Not that I know of I dont.

The sergeant tapped his pencil on the desk. He looked out the window. He looked at the other boys.

You all want to join the army, he said.

They looked at one another. Yessir, they said.

You dont sound real sure.

Yessir, they said.

He shook his head and swiveled his chair and rolled a printed form into his typewriter.

I want to join the cavalry, the boy from the ranch said. My daddy was in the cavalry in the last war.

Well son you just tell em when you get to Fort Bliss that that's what you want to do.

Yessir. Do I need to take my saddle with me?

You dont need to take a thing in the world. They're goin to look after you like your own mother.

Yessir.

He took their names and dates of birth and next of kin and their addresses one by one and he signed four mealvouchers and gave them to them and he gave them directions to the doctor's office where they were to get their physical examinations and he gave them the forms for that.

You all should be done and back here right after dinner, he said.

What about me? Billy said.

Just wait here. The rest of you all take off now. I'll see you back here this afternoon.

When they'd left the sergeant handed Billy his forms and his voucher.

You look there at the bottom of that second sheet, he said. That's a parental consent form. If you want to join this man's army you better bring it back with your mama's signature on it. If she has to come down from heaven to do it I dont have a problem in the world with that. You understand what I'm tellin you?

Yessir. I guess you want me to sign my dead mama's name on that piece of paper.

I didnt say that. Did you hear me say that? No sir.

Go on then. I'll see you back here after dinner. Yessir.

He turned and went out. There were people standing in the door behind him and they stood aside to let him pass.

Parham, the sergeant said.

He turned. Yessir, he said.

You come back here this afternoon now, you hear?

Yessir.

You aint got noplace else to go.

He walked across the street and untied his horse and mounted up and rode back up Silver Street and up West Spruce, holding the papers in his hand. All the streets east and west were trees, north and south minerals. He tied his horse in front of the Manhattan Cafe cattycorner from the bus station. Next to it was the Victoria Land and Cattle Company and two men in the narrowbrimmed hats and walkingheel boots that landowners wore were standing on the sidewalk talking. They looked at him when he passed and he nodded but they didnt nod back.

He slid into the booth and laid the papers on the table and looked at the menu. When the waitress came he started to order the plate lunch but she said that lunch didnt start till eleven oclock. She said he could get breakfast.

I've done eat one breakfast today.

Well we dont have no city ordinance about how many breakfasts you can eat.

How big of a breakfast can I get?

How big of a one can you eat?

I've got a mealticket from the recruitin office.

I know it. I see it layin yonder.