The Crossing(140)

He reined the horse. The riders sat silently. The dark animals they rode raised their noses as if to search him out on the air. Beyond the trees the bright flat shape of the river lay like a knife. He studied the men. He’d not seen them move yet they seemed closer. They sat divided before him on the track two and two.

Qué tiene allá? they said.

Los huesos de mi hermano.

They sat in silence. One of the riders detached himself and rode forward. He crossed the track in his riding forward and then crossed it back. Riding erect, archly. As if at some sinister dressage. He halted the horse almost within armreach and he leaned forward with his forearms crossed on the pommel of his saddle.

Huesos? he said.

Sí.

The new light in the east was behind him and his face was a shadow under the shape of his hat. The other riders were darker figures yet. The rider sat upright in the saddle and looked back towards them. Then he turned to Billy again.

Abralo, he said.

No.

No?

They sat. There was a flash of white beneath his hat as if he’d smiled. What he’d done was to seize his horse’s reins in his teeth. The next flash was a knife that had come from somewhere in his clothing and caught the light in turning for just a moment like a fish deep in a river. Billy dropped down from the offside of his horse. The bandolero caught up the packhorse’s leadrope but the packhorse balked and squatted on its haunches and the man booted his horse forward and made a pass at the hitchropes with his knife while the packhorse sawed about on the end of the lead. Some among his companions laughed and the man swore and he hauled the packhorse forward and dallied the leadrope to his saddlehorn again and reached and cut the ropes and pulled the soogan of bones to the ground.

Billy was trying to undo the tie on the flap of the saddlebag to get to his pistol but Niño turned and stamped and backed away sawing his head. The bandolero undallied and cast off the leadrope and stepped down. The packhorse turned and went trotting. The man bent above the shrouded form on the ground and unseamed with a single long pass of the knife ropes and soogan all from end to end and kicked aside the coverings to reveal in the graying light Boyd’s poor form in the loosely fitting coat with his hands crossed at his chest, the withered hands with the bones imprinted in the leather skin, lying there with his caven face turned up and clutching himself like some fragile being fraught with cold in that indifferent dawn.

You son of a bitch, said Billy. You son of a bitch.

Es un engaño? said the man. Es un engaño?

He kicked at the poor desiccated thing. He turned with the knife.

Dónde está el dinero?

Las alforjas, called out one of the riders. Billy had swung under Niño’s neck and he reached again for the flap of the saddlebag on the horse’s offside. The bandolero cut open the bedroll under his feet and kicked it apart and trod in it with his boots and turned and then reached and seized Niño’s bridlereins. But the horse must have begun to see the loosening of some demoniac among them for he reared and backed and in his backing trod among the bones and he reared again and pawed and the bandolero was snatched off balance and one forehoof caught his belt and ripped it from him and tore open the front of his trousers. He scrambled from under the horse and swore wildly and made a grab again for the swinging reins and the men behind him laughed and before anyone would have thought of such a thing occurring he plunged his knife into the horse’s chest.

The horse stopped and stood quivering. The point of the blade had bedded itself in the animal’s breastbone and the bandolero stepped back and threw out his hands.

Goddamn you to hell, Billy said. He held the trembling horse by the throatlatch and took hold of the handle of the knife and pulled the blade from the horse’s chest and flung it away. Blood welled, blood ran down the front of the horse. He snatched off his hat and pushed it against the wound and looked wildly back at the mounted men. They sat their horses as before. One of them leaned and spat and jerked his chin at the others. Vámonos, he said.

The bandolero was demanding that Billy go fetch the knife. Billy didnt answer. He held his hat against the horse’s chest and tried once more to reach back and unfasten the saddlebag pocket but he could not reach it. The bandolero reached and got hold of the tiestraps and pulled down the saddlebags onto the ground and dragged them from under the horse.

Vámonos, called the rider.

But the bandolero had already found the pistol and he held it up to show to them. He dumped the bags out and kicked Billy’s possibles over the ground, his spare clothes, his razor. He picked up a shirt and held it up and then draped it across his shoulder and he cocked the pistol and spun the cylinder and let the hammer down again. He stepped across the wreckage of the bones unshrouded from out of the soogan and cocked the pistol and put it to Billy’s head and demanded his money. Billy could feel his hat going warm and sticky with blood where he held it to the horse’s chest. The blood was seeping through the felt and running on his arm. You go to hell, he said.