The Crossing

  What's got into you? he said.

  What?

  Askin her to ride.

  What's wrong with that?

  Boyd put his horse forward and rode beside his brother. What are you doin? he said.

  Walkin my horse.

  What the hell's wrong with you?

  Aint nothin wrong with me.

  Well what are you doin?

  I'm just walkin my horse. Like you're ridin yours.

  The hell you are.

  Are you scared of girls?

  Scared of girls?

  Yeah.

  He looked up at Boyd. But Boyd just shook his head and rode on.

  The girl's small figure receded into the darkness ahead. Doves were still coming into the fields to the west of the road. They could hear them cross overhead even after it was too dark to see. Boyd rode on, he waited in the road. After a while Billy caught him up. He was riding again and they went on side by side.

  They passed out of the irrigated land and they passed in a grove of roadside trees a jacal of mud and sticks where the faint orange light of a slutlamp burned. They thought it must be the place where the girl lived and were surprised to come upon her in the road before them once again.

  When they overtook her now it was black of night and Billy slowed the horse beside her and asked her if she had far to go and she hesitated for a moment and then said that she did not. He offered that he would carry her bundle behind him on the horse and she could walk beside but she refused politely. She called him senor. She looked at Boyd. It occurred to him that she could have hidden in the roadside chaparral but she had not done so. They wished her a good evening and rode on and a short while later they encountered two horsemen on the road riding back the way they'd come who spoke to them briefly out of the darkness and passed on. He halted his horse and sat watching after them and Boyd halted beside him.

  Are you thinkin what I am? Billy said.

  Boyd sat with his forearms crossed over the withers of his horse. You want to wait on her?

  Yeah.

  All right. You think they'll bother her?

  Billy didnt answer. The horses shifted and stood. After a while he said: Let's just wait here a minute. She'll be along in a minute. Then we can go.

  But she wasnt along in a minute and she wasnt along in ten minutes or in thirty.

  Let's go back, Billy said.

  Boyd leaned and spat slowly into the road and turned his horse.

  They'd gone no more than a mile when they saw a fire somewhere ahead of them through the iron shapes of the brush. The road turned and the fire swung slowly off to the right. Then it swung back. A half mile further and they halted their horses. The fire was burning in a small grove of oaks off to the east. The light of it was caught under the dark canopy of the leaves and shadows moved and moved back and a horse nickered from the dark beyond.

  What do you want to do? said Boyd.

  I dont know. Let me think.

  They sat their horses in the darkened road.

  You thought yet?

  I guess there aint nothin to do but just ride on in.

  They'll know we backtracked em.

  I know it. It caint be helped.

  Boyd sat watching the fire through the trees.

  What do you want to do? said Billy.

  If we're goin to go on in there then let's just do it.

  They got down and led the horses. The dog sat in the road and watched them. Then it got up and followed.

  When they entered the clear ground under the trees the two men were standing on the far side of the fire watching them approach. Their horses were not in sight. The girl was sitting on the ground with her legs tucked under her and clutching the bundle in her lap. When she saw who it was she looked away and sat staring into the fire.

  Buenas noches, called Billy.

  Buenas noches, they said.

  They stood holding the horses. They had not been invited forward. The dog when it struck the circle of light stopped in its tracks and then backed away slightly and stood waiting. The men were watching them. One of them was smoking a cigarette and he raised it to his lips and sucked thinly at it and blew a thin stream of smoke toward the fire. He made a circling motion with his arm, his finger pointed down. He told them to take their horses around and into the trees behind them. Nuestros caballos estan alla, he said.

  Esta bien, said Billy. He stood.

  The man said that it was not all right. He said that he did not want their horses soiling the ground on which they were to sleep.

  Billy looked at him. He turned slightly and looked at his horse. He could see curved like a dark triptych in a glass paperweight the figures of the two men and the girl burning in the fugitive light of the fire at the black center of the animal's eye. He passed the reins behind him to Boyd. Take them out yonder, he said. Dont unsaddle Bird and dont loose the latigo and dont put them with their horses.

  Boyd passed in front of him leading the horses and went on past the men and into the dark of the trees. Billy came forward and nodded to them and pushed his hat back slightly from his eyes. He stood before the fire and looked down into it. He looked at the girl.

  Como esta, he said.

  She didnt answer. When he looked across the fire the man who was smoking had squatted on his heels and was watching him through the warp of heat with eyes the color of wet coal. On the ground at his side stood a bottle stoppered with a corncob.

  De donde viene? he said.

  America.

  Tejas.

  Nuevo Mexico.

  Nuevo Mexico, the man said. Adonde va?

  Billy watched him. He had his right arm folded across his chest and held in place with the elbow of his left so that his left forearm stood vertically before him holding the cigarette in a pose strangely formal, strangely delicate. Billy looked at the girl again and he looked again at the man across the fire. He had no answer to his query.

  Hemos perdido un caballo, he said. Lo buscamos.

  The man didnt answer. He held the cigarette between his forefingers and dipped his wrist in a birdlike motion and smoked and then raised the cigarette aloft again. Boyd came out of the trees and circled the fire and stood but the man did not look at him. He pitched the butt of the cigarette into the fire before him and wrapped his arms around his knees and began to rock back and forth in a motion barely perceptible. He jutted his chin at Billy and asked if he had followed them in order to see their horses.

  No, said Billy. Nuestro caballo es un caballo muy distinto. Lo conoceriamos en cualquier luz.

  As soon as he'd said it he knew that he'd given up his only plausible answer to the man's next question. He looked at Boyd. Boyd knew it too. The man rocked, he studied them. Que quieren pues? he said.

  Nada, said Billy. No queremos nada.

  Nada, said the man. He formed the word as if tasting it. He gave his chin a slight sideways turn as a man might in pondering likelihoods. Two horsemen who meet two others on a dark road and pass on and thereafter meet also a traveler afoot know that those riders have overtaken the foot-traveler and passed on. That was what was known. The man's teeth shone in the firelight. He picked something from between them and examined it and then ate it. Cuantos anos tiene? he said.

  Yo?

  Quien mas.

  Diecisiete.

  The man nodded. Cuantos anos tiene la muchacha?

  No lo se.

  Que opina.

  Billy looked at the girl. She sat staring into her lap. She looked to be maybe fourteen.

  Es muy joven, he said.

  Bastante.

  Doce quizas.

  The man shrugged. He reached and took up the bottle from the ground and pulled the stopper and drank and sat holding the bottle by the neck. He said that if they were old enough to bleed they were old enough to butcher. Then he held the bottle up over his shoulder. The man behind him stepped forward and took it from him and drank. Out in the road a horse was passing. The dog had stood to listen. The rider did
not stop and the slow clop of the hooves on the dried mud of the roadway faded and the dog lay down again. The man standing drank a second time and then handed the bottle back. The other man took it and pushed the cob back into the neck of the bottle with the heel of his hand and then weighed the bottle.

  Quiere tomar? he said.

  No. Gracias.

  He weighed the bottle in his hand again and then pitched it underhand across the fire. Billy caught it and looked at the man. He held the bottle to the light. The smoky yellow mescal rolled viscously inside the glass and the curled form of the dead gusano circled the floor of the bottle in a slow drift like a small wandering fetus.

  No quiero tomar, he said.

  Tome, the man said.

  He looked at the bottle again. The greaseprints on the glass shone in the firelight. He looked at the man and then he twisted the cob out of the neck.

  Get the horses, he said.

  Boyd stepped behind him. The man watched him. Adonde vas? he said.

  Go on, said Billy.

  Adonde va el muchacho?

  Esta enfermo.

  Boyd crossed and went on toward the trees. The dog stood up and looked after him. The man turned and looked at Billy again. Billy raised the bottle and began to drink. He drank and lowered the bottle. Water ran from his eyes and he wiped them with his forearm and looked at the man and raised the bottle and drank again.

  When he lowered the bottle it was all but empty. He sucked in air and looked at the man but the man was looking at the girl. She'd stood and was looking toward the trees. They could feel the ground shudder. The man rose and turned. Behind him the second man had stepped away from the fire and went trotting holding up his arms in silent exhortation. He was trying to head the horses where they came out of the trees tossing their heads and trotting sideways to keep from treading on the trailing stakeropes.

  Demonios, said the man. Billy dropped the bottle and pitched the cob stopper into the fire and reached and grabbed the girl by the hand.

  Vamonos, he said.

  She bent and scooped up her bundle. Boyd came out of the trees at a gallop. He was bent low over Keno's neck and he was holding the bridlereins of Billy's horse in one hand and the shotgun in the other and he carried the reins of his own horse in his teeth like a circus rider.

  Vamonos, hissed Billy, but she was already clutching his arm.

  Boyd rode the horses almost through the fire and pulled Keno up stamping and wild-eyed. He caught the reins in his teeth again and pitched the shotgun to Billy. Billy caught it and took the girl by the elbow and swung her toward the horse. The other two horses had vanished out on the darkened plain to the south of the camp and the man who'd pitched him the bottle of mescal was coming back out of the darkness carrying in his left hand a long thin knife. Other than the sound of the horses blowing and stamping all was silence. No one spoke. The dog circled nervously behind the horses. Vamonos, said Billy. When he looked the girl was already seated on the horse's crupper behind saddle and blanketroll. He grabbed the reins from Boyd and swung them over the horse's head and cocked the shotgun in one hand like a pistol. He didnt know whether it was loaded or not. The mescal sat in his stomach like some unholy incubus. He stepped into the stirrup and the girl flattened herself expertly along the horse's flank and he swung his leg over her and sawed the horse around. The man was already upon him and he pointed the shotgun at the man's chest. The man made a lunge for the bridle but the horse shied and Billy shucked his boot out of the stirrup and kicked at the man and the man ducked and passed the blade of the knife across the outside of Billy's leg cutting through his boot and trouser both. He hauled the horse around and dug his heels in and the man lunged at the girl and got a handful of her dress but the cloth ripped away and then they were pounding out across the low grass swale and out onto the roadway where Boyd sat his stamping horse in the starlight waiting for them. He pulled the horse up squatting and tossing its head and spoke to the girl over his shoulder. Esta bien? he said.

  Si, si, she whispered. She was leaning forward over her bundle with both arms around his waist.

  Let's go, said Boyd.

  They set out south down the road side by side at a hard gallop with the dog behind them losing ground by the yard. There was no moon but the stars in that country were so many that the riders cast shadows on the road anyway. Ten minutes later Boyd sat holding Billy's horse by the reins while Billy stood at the roadside and gripped his knees and vomited into the roadside grass. The dog came wheezing up out of the dark and the horses looked at Billy and stamped in the road. Billy looked up and wiped his weeping eyes. He looked at the girl. She sat the horse half naked, her bare legs hanging down the side of the horse's haunches. He spat and wiped his mouth on the back of his sleeve and looked at his boot. Then he sat in the road and pulled the boot off and looked at his leg. He pulled the boot back on again and got up and picked the shotgun up out of the road and walked back to the horses. The leg of his jeans flapped about his ankle.

  We need to get off this road, he said. It aint goin to take them all that long to catch their horses.

  Are you cut?

  I'm all right. Let's go.

  Let's listen a minute.

  They listened.

  You caint hear nothin for the damn dog pantin.

  Listen a minute.

  Billy took the reins and raised them over the horse's head and put his boot in the stirrup and the girl ducked and he swung up into the saddle. A crazy man, he said. I got a crazy man for a brother.

  Mande? said the girl.

  Listen a minute, Boyd said.

  What do you hear?

  Nothin. How do you feel?

  About like you'd expect.

  She dont speak no english, does she?

  Hell no. How would she speak english?

  Boyd sat looking off up the road into the darkness. You know they're goin to follow us.

  Billy jammed the shotgun into the scabbard. Hell yes I know it, he said.

  Dont be cussin in front of her.

  What?

  I said dont be cussin in front of her.

  You just now got done sayin she dont speak no english.

  That dont make it not cussin.

  You dont make no sense. And what made you think them sumbucks back yonder didnt have pistols in their clothes somewheres?

  I didnt think it. That's why I thowed you the shotgun.

  Billy leaned and spat. Damn, he said.

  What do you aim to do with her?

  I dont know. Hell. How would I know?

  They turned the horses off of the road and set out upon a treeless plain. The flat black mountains in the distance made a jagged hem along the lower reach of the heavens. The girl sat small and erect with one hand holding on to Billy by his belt. Trekking in the starlight between the dark boundaries of the mountain ranges east and west they had the look of storybook riders conveying again to her homeland some stolen backland queen.

  They made camp in the dry country on a rise where the night sank about them in an infinite deep and they staked the horses and left Bird saddled. The girl had yet to speak. She walked out in the darkness and they saw her no more till morning.

  When they woke there was a fire on the ground and she was pouring water from the canteen and setting it to heat, moving quietly about in the gray light. Billy lay in his blanket watching her. She must have found more clothes among her possessions for she was wearing a skirt again. She stirred the water in the tin, though what she stirred he could not guess. He closed his eyes. He heard his brother say something in Spanish and when he looked out from his blanket Boyd was squatting by the fire crosslegged and drinking from his tinware cup.

  He turned out and rolled his bedding and she brought him a cup of hot chocolate and went back to the fire. She'd browned tortillas in their small skillet and spooned them full of beans and they sat by the fire and ate their breakfast while the day paled about them.

  Did you unsaddle Bird? Billy said.

>   No. She did.

  He nodded. They ate.

  How bad are you cut? Boyd said.

  It's just a scratch. He cut through my boot pretty good.

  This country's hell on clothes.

  It's gettin that reputation with me. What possessed you to run their horses off thataway?

  I dont know. I just took a notion to do it.

  Did you hear what he said about her? Yeah. I heard it.

  By sunup they'd broke camp and were set out once more across the gravel and creosote plain south. They nooned at a well in the desert where oak and elder grew clumped in the flats and they turned the horses out and slept on the ground. Billy slept with the shotgun cradled in his arm and when he woke the girl was sitting watching him. He asked her if she could ride caballo en pelo and she said that she could. When they set out again she rode behind Boyd so as to spell the horses. He thought Boyd would have something to say about it but he didnt. When he looked back the girl was riding with both arms around his waist. When he looked back later her dark hair was spilled over his brother's shoulder and she was sleeping against his back.

  In the evening they reached the hacienda of San Diego sited on a hill overlooking the tilled lands that ran on to the Casas Grandes River and to the Piedras Verdes. A windmill turned on the plain below them like a chinese toy and dogs barked in the distance. In the long steep light the raw umber mountains stood deeply shadowed in their folds and in the sky to the south a dozen buzzards turned in a slow crepe carousel.

  III

  IT WAS ALL BUT DARK when they rode past the main house and along the drive, past the porticoes with their slender carved iron posts, past the white plaster walls quoined with red sandstone blocks and the terracotta filigree along the upper parapets. The front of the house was faced with three stone arches and above them were carved the words Hacienda de San Diego in letters arched over the initials L.T. The tall palladian windows were shuttered and the shutters were weathered and broken and paint and plaster were flaking from the walls and the portico ceiling was no more than bare wood lath all waterstained and buckled. They went on across the yard toward what looked to be the domicilios where smoke was rising against the evening sky and rode through the standing wooden gates into the courtyard and sat the horses side by side.

  In one corner of the enclosure stood the carcass of an antique Dodge touring car long stripped of wheels and axles, of glass and seats. At the far end of the compound a cookfire burned on the ground and by its light they could see two gaudy caravan wagons with wash hung between them and passing back and forth before the fire both men and women in robes and kimonos who appeared to belong to a circus.