The Crossing

by Cormac McCarthy

  THEY SAT in the shade of a whitewashed mud wall and ate tacos off of greasy brown papers that they'd bought from a streetvendor. The dog watched. Billy balled the empty paper and wiped his hands on his jeans and got his knife out and measured a length of rope between his outstretched arms.

  Are we goin to set here? said Boyd.

  Yeah. Why? You got a appointment somewheres?

  Why dont we go over yonder and set in the alameda?

  All right.

  How come do you reckon they never branded the horses?

  I dont know. They probably been traded all over the country.

  Maybe we ought to brand em.

  What the hell you goin to brand em with?

  I dont know.

  Billy cut the rope and laid the knife by and looped the bosal. Boyd put the last corner of the taco in his mouth and sat chewing.

  What do you reckon is in these tacos? he said.

  Cats.

  Cats?

  Sure. You see how the dog was lookin at you?

  They aint done it, said Boyd.

  You see any cats in the street?

  It's too hot for cats in the street.

  You see any in the shade?

  There could be some laid up in the shade somewheres.

  How many cats have you seen anywheres?

  You wouldnt eat a cat, Boyd said. Even to get to watch me eat one.

  I might.

  No you wouldnt.

  I would if I was hungry enough.

  You aint that hungry.

  I was pretty hungry. Wasnt you?

  Yeah. I aint now. We aint eat no cats have we?

  No.

  Would you know it if we had?

  Yeah. You would too. I thought you wanted to go over in the alameda.

  I'm waitin on you.

  Lizards now, Billy said. You caint tell them from chicken hardly.

  Shit, said Boyd.

  They hazed the horses across the street and under the shade of the painted trees and Billy tied hackamores with trailing rope ends for the horses to walk on if they took a mind to quit them and Boyd lay in the parched and ratty grass with the dog for a pillow and his hat over his eyes and slept. The street was empty all through the afternoon. Billy put the hackamores on the horses and tied them and walked over and stretched out in the grass and after a while he was asleep too.

  Toward evening a solitary rider on a horse somewhat above his station stopped in the street opposite the alameda and looked them over where they slept and looked their horses over. He leaned and spat. Then he turned and rode back the way he'd come.

  When Billy woke he raised up and looked at Boyd. Boyd had turned on his side and had his arm around the dog. He reached and picked his brother's hat up out of the dust. The dog opened one eye and looked at him. Coming up the street were five riders.

  Boyd, he said.

  Boyd sat up and felt for his hat.

  Yonder they come, said Billy. He rose and stepped into the street and cinched up the latigo on Bird and undid the reins and stepped up into the saddle. Boyd pulled on his hat and walked out to where the horses were standing. He untied Nino and walked him past one of the little ironslatted benches and stood onto the bench and forked one leg over the animal's bare back all in one motion without even stopping the horse and turned and rode past the trees and out to the street. The riders came on. Billy looked at Boyd. Boyd was sitting his horse leaning slightly forward with his hands palm down on the horse's withers. He leaned and spat and wiped his mouth with the back of his wrist.

  They approached slowly. They didnt even look at the horses standing under the trees. Save for the one-armed rider they were all of them young men and they did not appear to be carrying guns.

  Yonder's our buddy, said Billy.

  The jefe.

  I dont believe he's all that much of a jefe.

  Why is that?

  He wouldnt be here. He'd of sent somebody. You recognize any of them others?

  No. Why?

  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 his horse 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 m
ane 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.

  There's got to of been water here at one time, Billy said.

  Maybe the fire dried it up.

  A spring or a seep. Somethin.

  There aint no grass. There aint nothin.

  It's a old burn. Years old.

  What do you want to do?

  Let's just tough it out. It'll be daylight directly.

  All right.

  Get your soogan. I'll watch for a while.

  I wish I had a soogan.

  Outlaws travel light.

  They staked the horses and Billy sat with the shotgun in the dark ruin of trees about. The moon long down. No wind.

  What was he goin to do with Nino's papers and no horse? Boyd said.

  I dont know. Find a horse to fit them. Go to sleep.

  Papers aint worth a damn noways.

  I know it.

  I'm a hungry son of a bitch.

  When did you take to cussin so much?

  When I quit eatin.

  Drink some water.

  I did.

  Go to sleep.

  It was already growing light in the east. Billy stood and listened.

  What do you hear? said Boyd.

  Nothin.

  This is a spooky kind of place.

  I know it. Go to sleep.

  He sat and cradled the shotgun in his lap. He could hear the horses cropping grass out on the prairie.

  You asleep? he said.

  No.

  I got the papers back.

  Nino's papers?

  Yeah.

  Bullshit.

  No, I did.

  Where'd you get em from.

  They were in the mochila. When I went to put his pistol back they were in the mochila.

  I'll be damned.

  He sat holding the shotgun and listening to the horses and to the silence of the world beyond. After a while Boyd said: Did you put the pistol back?

  No.

  How come?

  I just didnt.

  Have you got it?

  Yeah. Go to sleep.

  When it was light he rose and walked out to see what sort of country it was that they were in. The dog rose and followed. He walked out to the top of the rise and squatted and leaned on the shotgun. A mile away on the plain a band of palecolored rangecattle were grazing toward the north. Otherwise nothing. When he got back to the trees he stood looking down at his sleeping brother.

  Boyd, he said.

  Yeah.

  Are you ready to ride?

  His brother sat up and looked out at the country. Yeah, he said.

  We could head back north to the hacienda. The old lady would hide us out.

  Till what?

  I dont know.

  We're supposed to meet her tomorrow.

  I know it. It caint be helped.

  How long would it take to ride to the hacienda?

  I dont know. Let's go.

  They set out north and rode till they came in view of the river. There were cattle grazing along the edge of the trees at the river breaks. They sat the horses and looked back across the rolling high prairie to the south.

  Could you kill a cow with a shotgun? said Boyd.

  Get close enough. Yeah.

  What about with a pistol?

  You'd have to get close enough to where you could hit it.

  How close would you have to get?

  We aint shootin no cow. Come on.

  We got to eat somethin.

  I know it. Come on.

  When they reached the river they crossed through the shallows and looked for a road on the other side but there was no road. They followed the river north and in the early afternoon they rode into the pueblito of San Jose, a clutch of low and gray looking mud hovels. As they passed along the rutted track with their string of horses a few women peered warily from out of the low doorways.

  What do you think's wrong here? said Boyd.

 
; I dont know.

  Maybe they think we're gypsies.

  Maybe they think we're horsethieves.

  A goat watched them from a low roof with its agate eyes.

  Ay cabron, said Billy.

  This is a hell of a place, said Boyd.

  They found a woman to feed them and they sat on a mat of woven rushes on the clay floor and ate cold atole out of homemade bowls of unfired clay. When they wiped the bottoms of the bowls their tortillas came up gritty and stained with mud. They tried to pay the woman but she would take no money. Billy offered again for the ninos but she said there were no ninos.

  They camped that night in a grove of cottonwoods by the river and staked out the horses in the river grass and they stripped off and swam in the river in the dark. The water was cold and silky. The dog sat on the bank and watched them. In the morning Billy rose before daybreak and walked out and unstaked Nino and led him back to camp and saddled him and mounted up with the shotgun.

  Where you goin? said Boyd.

  See if I can rustle us up somethin to eat.

  All right.

  Just stay here. I wont be gone long. Where would I go? I dont know.

  What am I supposed to do if somebody comes? There wont nobody come. What if they do?

  Billy looked at him. He was crouched with his blanket around his shoulders and he was so thin and ragged. He looked at him and he looked out past the pale boles of the cottonwoods and over the rolling desert grassland emerging in the gray dawn light.

  I guess what it is is you want me to leave you the pistol.

  I think it might be a good idea.

  Do you know how to shoot it?

  Yes, damn it.

  It's got two safeties.

  I know it.

  All right.

  He took the pistol out of the bag and handed it down to him.

  There's one in the chamber.

  All right.

  Dont shoot it. That and what's in the clip is all the shells we got for it.

  I aint goin to shoot it.

  All right.

  How long will you be gone?

  I wont be gone long.

  All right.

  He rode off downriver with the shotgun across the bow of the saddle. He'd taken the buckshot shell from the chamber and rummaged through the shells in the bag and come up with a couple of number five shot and loaded the gun with one of them and buttoned the other into the pocket of his shirt. He rode slowly and he watched the river through the trees as he rode. A mile down he saw ducks on the water. He dismounted and dropped the reins and took the shotgun and began to stalk them through the shore willows. He took off his hat and laid it on the ground. The horse whinnied behind him and he looked back and swore at it under his breath and then raised up and looked out down the river. The ducks were still there. Three dark scaup motionless on the pewter calm of the tailwater. The mist rising off the river like smoke. He made his way carefully through the willows, crouching as he went. The horse nickered again. The ducks flew.