The Crossing(129)

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HE’D NOT GOT CLEAR of the town before a drop of rain the size of a middle taw landed in the brim of his hat. Then another. He looked up into a cloudless sky. The visible planets burning in the east. There was no wind nor smell of rain in the air yet the drops fell the more. The horse wanted to stop in the road and the rider looked back at the dark town. The few small window squares of dim and reddish light. The smack of the rain falling on the hard clay of the road sounded like horses somewhere in the darkness crossing a bridge. He was beginning to feel drunk. He halted the horse and then turned and rode back.

He rode the horse through the first door he came to, dropping the packhorse’s rope and leaning low along his horse’s neck to clear the doorbeam. Inside he sat the animal in the selfsame rain and he looked up to see the selfsame stars above him. He reined the horse about and rode out again and entered another doorway and at once the muted clatter of the raindrops on the crown of his hat ceased. He got down and stomped about in the dark to see what was underfoot. He went out and brought in the packhorse and untied the diamondhitch and pulled his soogan off onto the ground and unbuckled and pulled down the packframe and hobbled the animal and drove it back out into the rain. Then he pulled loose the latigo on his saddlehorse and pulled off the saddle and saddlebags and stood the saddle against the wall and knelt down and felt out the ropes on the soogan and untied and unrolled it and sat and pulled off his boots. He was feeling drunker. He took off his hat and lay down. The horse walked past his head and stood looking out the door. Dont you step on me damn you, he said.

When he woke in the morning the rain had stopped and it was full daylight. He felt awful. He’d risen sometime in the night and staggered out to vomit and he remembered casting about with his weeping eyes for some sign of the horses and then staggering in again. He might not have remembered it except that when he sat up and looked around for his boots they were on his feet. He picked up his hat and put it on and looked toward the door. Several children who had been crouched there watching him stood up and backed away.

Dónde están los caballos? he said.

They said that the horses were eating.

He stood too fast and leaned against the doorjamb holding his eves. He was afire with thirst. He raised his head again and stepped out through the door and looked at the children. They were pointing down the road.

He walked out past the last of the row of low mud dwellings with the children following behind and walked the horses down in a grassy field on the south side of the town where a small stream crossed the road. He stood holding Niño’s reins. The children watched.

Quieres montar, he said.

They looked at one another. The youngest was a boy of about five and he held both arms straight up in the air and stood waiting. Billy picked him up and set him astride the horse and then the little girl and lastly the oldest boy. He told the oldest boy to hold on to the younger ones and the boy nodded and he picked up the reins again and the packhorse’s trailing rope and led both horses back up toward the road.

A woman was coming along from the town. When the children saw her they whispered among themselves. She was carrying a blue pail with a cloth over it. She stood by the side of the road holding the pail by the bailwire in both hands before her. Then she started down through the field towards them.

Billy touched his hat and wished her a good morning. She stopped and stood holding the pail. She said that she had been looking for him. She said that she knew he’d not gone far because his bed and his saddle were where he’d left them. She said that the children had told her that there was a horseman asleep in the caídas at the edge of town who was sick and she had brought him some menudo hot from the fire and if he would eat it he would then have strength for his journey.

She bent and set the pail on the ground and lifted away the cloth and handed the cloth to him. He stood holding it and looking down at the pail. Inside sat a bowl of speckled tinware covered with a saucer and beside the bowl were wedged some folded tortillas. He looked at her.

Ándale, she said. She gestured toward the pail.

Y usted?

Ya comí.

He looked at the children aligned upon the horse’s back. He handed up the reins and the catchrope to the boy.

Toma un paseo, he said.

The boy reached forward and took the reins and he handed the end of the catchrope to the girl and then handed the half rein over the girl’s head and booted the horse forward. Billy looked at the woman. Es muy amable, he said. She said for him to eat before it grew cold.

He squatted on the ground and tried to lift out the bowl but it was too hot. Con permiso, she said. She reached down and took the bowl from the pail and lifted off the saucer and set the bowl in the saucer and handed it to him. Then she reached down and took out a spoon and handed him that.