The Crossing(4)

Why did we?

I dont know.

It was still dark in the morning when their father came into their room.

Billy, he said.

The boy sat upright in the bed and looked at his father standing framed in the light from the kitchen.

What is the dog loin locked in the smokehouse?

I forgot to let him out.

You forgot to let him out?

Yessir.

What was he loin in there in the first place?

He swung out of the bed onto the cold floor and reached for his clothes. I’ll let him out, he said.

His father stood in the door a moment and then went back out through the kitchen and down the hall. In the light from the open door Billy could see Boyd crumpled asleep in the other bed. He pulled on his trousers and picked up his boots off the floor and went out.

By the time he’d fed and watered it was daylight and he saddled Bird and mounted up and rode out of the barn bay and down to the river to look for the Indian or to see if he was still there. The dog followed at the horse’s heels. They crossed the pasture and rode downriver and crossed through the trees. He pulled up and he sat the horse. The dog stood beside him testing the air with quick lifting motions of its muzzle, sorting and assembling some picture of the prior night’s events. The boy put the horse forward again.

When he rode into the Indian’s camp the fire was cold and black. The horse shifted and stepped nervously and the dog circled the dead ashes with its nose to the ground and the hackles standing along its back.

When he got back to the house his mother had breakfast ready and he hung his hat and pulled up a chair and began to spoon eggs onto his plate. Boyd was already eating.

Where’s Pap? he said.

Dont you even breathe the steam and you aint said grace, his mother said.

Yes mam.

He lowered his head and said the words to himself and then reached for a biscuit.

Where’s Pap.

He’s in the bed. He’s done ate.

What time did he get in.

About two hours ago. He rode all night.

How come?

I reckon cause he wanted to get home.

How long is he goin to sleep?

Well I guess till he wakes up. You ask more questions than Boyd.

I aint asked the first one, Boyd said.

They went out to the barn after breakfast. Where do you reckon he’s got to? said Boyd.

He’s moved on.

Where do you reckon he come from?

I dont know. Them was mexican boots he was wearin. What was left of em. He’s just a drifter.

You dont know what a indian’s liable to do, said Boyd.

What do you know about indians, said Billy.

Well you dont.

You dont know what anybody’s liable to do.

Boyd took an old worn screwdriver from a bucket of tools and brushes hanging from the barn post and he took a rope halter off the hitchrail and opened the stall door where he kept his horse and went in and haltered the horse and led it out. He halfhitched the rope to the rail and ran his hand down the animal’s foreleg for it to offer its hoof and he cleaned out the frog of the hoof and examined it and then let it back down.

Let me look at it, said Billy.

There aint nothin wrong with it.

Let me look at it then.

Go ahead then.

Billy pulled the horse’s hoof up and cupped it between his knees and studied it. I guess it looks all right, he said.

I said it did.

Walk him around.

Boyd unhitched the rope and led the horse down the barn bay and back.

You goin to get your saddle? said Billy.

Well I guess I will if that’s all right with you.

He brought the saddle from the saddleroom and threw the blanket over the horse and labored up with the saddle and rocked it into place and pulled up the latigo and fastened the backcinch and stood waiting.

You’ve let him get in the habit of that, said Billy. Why dont you just punch the air out of him.

He dont knock the air out of me, I dont knock it out of him, Boyd said.

Billy spat into the dry chaff in the floor of the bay. They waited. The horse breathed out. Boyd pulled the strap and buckled it.

They rode the Ibafiez pasture all morning studying the cows. The cows stood their distance and studied them back, a leggy and brocklefaced lot, part mexican, some longhorn, every color. At dinnertime they came back to the house stringing along a yearling heifer on a rope and they put her up in the pole corral above the barn for their father to look at and went in and washed up. Their father was already seated at the table. Boys, he said.

You all set down, their mother said. She set a platter of fried steaks on the table. A bowl of beans. When they’d said grace she handed the platter to their father and he forked one of the steaks onto his plate and passed it on to Billy.

Pap says there’s a wolf on the range, she said.

Billy sat holding the platter, his knife aloft.

A wolf? Boyd said.

His father nodded. She pulled down a pretty good sized veal calf up at the head of Foster Draw.