The Crossing(93)

There aint no use in that, Billy said.

One of the vaqueros turned and looked at him. Cómo? he said.

Es inútil, said Billy. Se quebró el espinazo.

Mánde?

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 Niño’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.

Niño’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.