The Crossing

by Cormac McCarthy

  They halted a few feet out. The older man among them looked them over and nodded. Bueno, he said. Bueno. He was one-armed and his right shirtsleeve was pressed and pinned to his shoulder. He rode his horse with the reins tied and he wore a pistol at his belt and a plain flatcrowned hat of a type no longer much seen in that country and he wore tooled boots to his knees and carried a quirt. He looked at Boyd and he looked again at Billy and at the envelope he was holding.

  Deme sus papeles, he said.

  Dont give him them papers, Boyd said.

  How else is he goin to see em?

  Los papeles, said the man.

  Billy nudged the horse forward and leaned and handed the envelope over and then backed the horse and sat. The man put the envelope in his teeth and undid the tieclasp and then took out the papers and unfolded them and examined the seals and held them to the light. He looked through the papers and then refolded them and took the envelope from his armpit and put the papers back in the envelope and handed the envelope to the rider on his right.

  Billy asked him if he could read the papers for they were in english but the man didnt answer. He leaned slightly to better see the horse that Boyd was riding. He said that the papers were of no value. He said that in consideration of their youth he would not bring charges against them. He said that if they wished to pursue the matter further they could see Senor Lopez at Babicora. Then he turned and spoke to the man on his right and this man put the envelope inside his shirt and he and another man rode forward with their rifles upright in their left hands. Boyd looked at Billy.

  Turn the horse loose, Billy said.

  Boyd sat holding the rope.

  Do like I told you, Billy said.

  Boyd leaned and slacked the noose of the catchrope under Bailey's jaw and pulled the rope off over the animal's head. The horse turned and crossed through the roadside ditch and set off at a trot. Billy stepped down from Nino and pulled the hackamore off and slapped the animal across the rump with it and it turned and set out after the other horse. By now the riders behind them had come up and they set off after the horses without being told. The jefe smiled. He touched his hat at them and picked up the reins and turned his horse sharply in the road. Vamanos, he said. Then he and the four mounted riflemen set off back down the road toward Boquilla from whence they'd come. Out on the plain the young vaqueros had headed the loose horses and were driving them back into the road west again as they had first intended and soon all were lost to sight in the noon heatshimmer and there was only the silence left. Billy stood in the road and leaned and spat.

  Say what's on your mind, he said.

  I aint got nothin to say.

  Well.

  You ready?

  Yeah.

  Boyd shucked his boot backward out of the stirrup and Billy put his foot in and swung up behind him.

  Bunch of damned ignorance if you ask me, Boyd said.

  I thought you didnt have nothin to say.

  Boyd didnt answer. The mute dog had gone to hide in the roadside weeds and now it reappeared and stood waiting. Boyd sat the horse.

  Now what are you waitin on? said Billy.

  Waitin on you to tell me which way you want to go.

  Well what the hell way do you think we're goin?

  We're supposed to be in Santa Ana de Babicora in three days' time.

  Well we might just be late.

  What about the papers?

  What the hell good are the papers without the horse? Anyway you just got done seein what papers are worth in this country.

  One of them boys that left out of here with the horses had a rifle in a boot.

  I seen it. I aint blind.

  Boyd turned the horse and they set out back west along the road. The dog fell in and trotted at the horse's offside in the horse's shadow.

  You want to quit? Billy said.

  I never said nothin about quittin.

  It aint like home down here.

  I never said it was.

  You dont want to use common sense. We come too far down here to go back dead.

  Boyd pressed the horse's flanks with the heels of his boots and the horse stepped out more smartly. You think there is a place that far? he said.

  They picked up the tracks of the two riders and the three horses where they'd returned to the road and an hour later they were back at the place above the lake where they'd first seen the horses. Boyd rode slowly along the side of the road studying the ground underfoot until he saw where horses shod and shoeless had left the road and set out north across the high rolling grasslands.

  Where do you reckon they're headed? he said.

  I dont know, said Billy. I dont know where they come from for that matter.

  They rode north all afternoon. From a rise just at twilight they saw the riders looseherding the horses now some dozen in number before them five miles away on the blue and cooling prairie.

  You reckon that's them? Boyd said.

  Pret near got to be, said Billy.

  They rode on. They rode into the dark and when it was too dark to see they halted the horse and sat listening. There was no sound save the wind in the grass. The evening star sat low in the west round and red like a shrunken sun. Billy slid to the ground and took the bridlereins from his brother and led the horse.

  It's dark as the inside of a cow.

  I know it. It's all overcast.

  That's a damned favorable way to get snakebit.

  I got boots on. The horse dont.

  They crested out on a knoll and Boyd stood in the stirrups.

  Can you see em? said Billy.

  No.

  What do you see?

  I dont see nothin. There aint nothin to see. It's just dark on dark and then more of it.

  Maybe they aint had time to build a fire yet.

  Maybe they aim to drive all night.

  They moved on along the crest of the rise.

  Yonder they are, said Boyd.

  I see em.

  They crossed down the far side into a low swale and looked for some sheltered place out of the wind. Boyd got down and stood in the grassy bajada and Billy handed him the reins.

  Find somethin to tie him to. Dont hobble him and dont try to stake him. He'll wind up in their remuda.

  He pulled down the saddle and blankets and saddlebag.

  You want to build a fire? said Boyd.

  What would you build it with?

  Boyd walked off into the night with the horse. After a while he came back.

  There aint nothin to tie him to that I can find.

  Let me have him.

  He looped the catchrope and slid it over the horse's head and dallied the other end to the saddlehorn.

  I'll sleep with the saddle for a pillow, he said. He'll wake me if he gets farthern forty foot.

  I never seen it no darker, said Boyd.

  I know it. I think it's fixin to rain.

  In the morning when they walked out along the crest of the rise and looked off to the north there was no fire nor smoke of fire. The weather had moved on and the day was clear and still. There was nothing at all out there on the rolling grasslands.

  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 dry gulch 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 gullied 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 ? 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 carne 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. The horses bunched and sorted and rolled their eyes and the vaquero riding drag looked at Boyd sitting his horse with the horses among the trees and he raised one hand and made a small tossing motion with his jaw. Adios, caballero, he said. Then he fell in behind the remuda and they all passed on up the road into the mountains.

  IN THE EVENING they watered the horses at an abrevadero masoned up out of hewn limestone. The vanes of the mill turned slowly above them and the long and skewed shadow of the vanes lay turning out on the high prairie in a slow dark carousel. They'd saddled Nino to ride and Billy dismounted and loosed the cinch to let him blow and Boyd slid down from the Bailey horse he'd been riding and they drank from the pipe and then squatted and watched the horses drink.

  You like to watch horses drink, Billy said.

  Yeah.

  He nodded. I do too.

  What would you say that paper's worth?

  On this spread I'd say
it's worth gold.

  And not much off of it.

  No. Not much off of it.

  Boyd pulled a grass stem and put it in his teeth.

  Why do you reckon he let us have the horses?

  Cause he knowed they was ours.

  How did he know it?

  He just knew it.

  He could of kept em anyways.

  Yeah. He could of.

  Boyd spat and put the grass stem back in his teeth. He watched the horses. That was more blind luck, he said. Us runnin up on the horses.

  I know it.

  How much more luck you reckon we got comin?

  You mean like findin the other two horses?

  Yeah. That. Or anything.

  I dont know.

  I dont either.

  You think the girl will be there like she said?

  Yeah. She'll be there.

  Yeah, Billy said. I guess she will be.

  Doves coming in across the drylands to the south veered and flared away from the tank when they saw them sitting there. The water from the pipe ran with a cold metallic sound. The western sun descending under the banked clouds had sucked away the golden light and left the land all blue and cool and silent.

  You think they've got the other horses, dont you? Boyd said.

  Who.

  You know who. Them riders that come out of Boquilla.

  I dont know.

  But that's what you think.

  Yeah. That's what I think.

  He took the paper Quijada had given him from the sweatband of his hat and unfolded it and read it and refolded it and put it back in his hat and put his hat on. You dont like it, do you? he said.

  Who would like it?

  I dont know. Hell.

  What do you think the old man would of done?

  You know what he'd of done.

  Boyd took the stem from his teeth and threaded it through the buttonhole on the pocket of his ragged shirt and looped and tied it.

  Yeah. He aint here to say though, is he?

  I dont know. Someways I think he'll always have a say.

  NOON THE FOLLOWING DAY they rode into Boquilla y Anexas looseherding the horses before them. Boyd stayed with the horses while Billy went into the tienda and bought forty feet of half inch grass rope to make hackamores out of. The woman at the counter was measuring cloth off of a bolt. She held the cloth to her chin and measured down the length of her arm and she cut the cloth with a straightedge and a knife and folded it and pushed it across the counter to a young girl. The young girl doled out coppers and ancient tlacos and pesos and crumpled bills and the woman counted the sum and thanked her and the girl left with the cloth folded under her arm. When she'd left the woman went to the window and watched her. She said that the cloth was for the girl's father. Billy said it would make a pretty shirt but the woman said that it was not to make a shirt but to line his coffinbox with. Billy looked out the window. The woman said that the girl's family was not rich. That she had learned these extravagances working for the wife of the hacendado and had spent the money she was saving for her boda. The girl was crossing the dusty street with the cloth under her arm. At the corner were three men and they looked away when she approached and two of them looked after her when she passed.