Butcher's Crossing

by John Williams

  He saw Charley Hoge more frequently. Usually their conversations were brief and perfunctory. But once, casually, in a remote connection, he mentioned that his father was a lay minister in the Unitarian Church. Charley Hoge’s eyes widened, his mouth dropped incredulously, and his voice took on a new note of respect. He explained to Andrews that he had been saved by a traveling preacher in Kansas City, and had been given a Bible by that same man. He showed Andrews the Bible; it was a cheap edition, worn, with several pages torn. A deep brownish stain covered the corners of a number of the pages; Charley explained that this was blood, buffalo blood, that he had got on the Bible just a few years ago; he wondered if he had committed, even by accident, a sacrilege; Andrews assured him that he had not. Thereafter Charley Hoge was eager to talk; sometimes he even went to the effort of seeking Andrews out to discuss with him some point of fact or question of interpretation about the Bible. Soon, almost to his surprise, it occurred to Andrews that he did not know the Bible well enough to talk about it even on Charley Hoge’s terms—had not, in fact, ever read it with any degree of thoroughness. His father had encouraged his reading of Mr. Emerson, but had not, to his recollection, insisted that he read the Bible. Somewhat reluctantly, he explained this to Charley Hoge; Charley Hoge’s eyes became lidded with suspicion, and when he spoke to Andrews again it was in the tone of evan-gelicism rather than equality.

  As he listened to Charley Hoge’s exhortations, his mind wandered away from the impassioned words; he thought of the times, short months before, when he had been compelled to be present each morning at eight at King’s Chapel in Harvard College, to listen to words much like the words to which he listened now. It amused him to compare the crude barroom that smelled of kerosene, liquor, and sweat to the austere dark length of King’s Chapel where hundreds of soberly dressed young men gathered each morning to hear the mumbled word of God.

  Listening to Charley Hoge, thinking of King’s Chapel, he realized quite suddenly that it was some irony such as this that had driven him from Harvard College, from Boston, and thrust him into this strange world where he felt unaccountably at home. Sometimes after listening to the droning voices in the chapel and in the classrooms, he had fled the confines of Cambridge to the fields and woods that lay southwestward to it. There in some small solitude, standing on bare ground, he felt his head bathed by the clean air and uplifted into infinite space; the meanness and the constriction he had felt were dissipated in the wildness about him. A phrase from a lecture by Mr. Emerson that he had attended came to him: I become a transparent eyeball. Gathered in by field and wood, he was nothing; he saw all; the current of some nameless force circulated through him. And in a way that he could not feel in King’s Chapel, in the college rooms, or on the Cambridge streets, he was a part and parcel of God, free and uncontained. Through the trees and across the rolling landscape, he had been able to see a hint of the distant horizon to the west; and there, for an instant, he had beheld somewhat as beautiful as his own undiscovered nature.

  Now, on the flat prairie around Butcher’s Crossing, he regularly wandered, as if seeking a chapel more to his liking than King’s or Jackson’s Saloon. On one such sojourn, on the fifth day after Miller had left Butcher’s Crossing, and on the day before he returned, Andrews went for the second time down the narrow rutted road toward the river, and on an impulse turned off the road onto the path that led to McDonald’s shack.

  Andrews walked through the doorway without knocking. McDonald was seated behind his littered desk; he did not move as Andrews came into the room.

  “Well,” McDonald said, and cleared his throat angrily, “I see you’ve come back.”

  “Yes, sir,” Andrews said. “I promised I would tell you if—”

  McDonald waved his hand impatiently. “Don’t tell me,” he said, “I already know....Pull up a chair.”

  Andrews got a chair from the corner of the room and brought it up beside the desk.

  “You know?”

  McDonald laughed shortly. “Hell, yes, I know; everybody in town knows. You gave Miller six hundred dollars, and you’re off on a big hunt, up in Colorado, they say.”

  “You even know where we’re going,” Andrews said.

  McDonald laughed again. “You don’t think you’re the first one that Miller has tried to get in on this deal, do you? He’s been trying for four years, maybe more—ever since I’ve known him, anyway. By this time, I thought he’d have stopped.”

  Andrews was silent for a moment. Finally, he said: “It doesn’t make any difference.”

  “You’ll lose your tail, boy. Miller saw them buffalo, if he saw them at all, ten, eleven years ago. There’s been a lot of hunting since then, and the herds have scattered; they don’t all go where they used to go. You might find a few old strays, but that’s all; you won’t get your money back.”

  Andrews shrugged. “It’s a chance. Maybe I won’t.”

  “You could still back out,” McDonald said. “Look.” He leaned across the table and pointed a stiff index finger at Andrews. “You back out. Miller will be mad, but he won’t make trouble; you can get four, five hundred dollars back on the stuff you’ve laid out for. Hell, I’ll buy it from you. And if you really want to go out on a hunt, I’ll fix you up; I’ll send you out on one of my parties from here. You won’t be gone more than three or four days, and you’ll make more off of those three or four days than you will off the whole trip with Miller.”

  Andrews shook his head. “I’ve given my word. But it’s kind of you, Mr. McDonald; I thank you very much.”

  “Well,” McDonald said after a moment. “I didn’t think you’d back out. Too stubborn. Knew it when I first saw you. But it’s your money. None of my business.”

  They were silent for a long while. Andrews said at last, “Well, I wanted to see you before I left. Miller will be coming back tomorrow or the next day, and I won’t know when we’ll take off from here.” He got up from the chair and put it back in its corner.

  “One thing,” McDonald said, not looking at him. “That’s rough country you’re going up into. You do what Miller tells you. He may be a son-of-a-bitch, but he knows the country; you listen to him, and don’t go thinking you know anything at all.”

  Andrews nodded. “Yes, sir.” He went forward until his thighs pressed against McDonald’s desk and he was bent a little above McDonald’s disheveled face. “I hope you do not think I am ungrateful in this matter. I know that you are a kind man, and that you have my best interests in mind. I am truly indebted to you.” McDonald’s mouth had slowly opened and now it hung incredulously wide, and his round eyes were watching Andrews. Andrews turned from him and walked out of the little shack into the sunlight.

  In the sunlight he paused. He wondered if he wished to go back to the town just now. Unable to decide, he let his feet carry him vaguely along the wagon tracks to the main road; there he hesitated for a moment, to turn first one way and another, as the needle of a compass, slow to settle, discovers its point. He believed—and had believed for a long time—that there was a subtle magnetism in nature, which, if he unconsciously yielded to it, would direct him aright, not indifferent to the way he walked. But he felt that only during the few days that he had been in Butcher’s Crossing had nature been so purely presented to him that its power of compulsion was sufficiently strong to strike through his will, his habit, and his idea. He turned west, his back toward Butcher’s Crossing and the towns and cities that lay eastward beyond it; he walked past the clump of cottonwoods toward the river he had not seen, but which had assumed in his mind the proportions of a vast boundary that lay between himself and the wildness and freedom that his instinct sought.

  The mounded banks of the river rose abruptly up, though the road ascended less steeply in a gradual cut. Andrews left the road and went into the prairie grass, which whipped about his ankles and worked beneath his trouser legs and clung to his skin. He paused atop the mound and looked down at the river; it was a thin, muddy trickle over flat rocks where t
he road crossed it, but above and below the road deeper pools lay flat and greenish brown in the sun. He turned his body a little to the left so that he could no longer see the road that led back to Butcher’s Crossing.

  Looking out at the flat featureless land into which he seemed to flow and merge, even though he stood without moving, he realized that the hunt that he had arranged with Miller was only a stratagem, a ruse upon himself, a palliative for ingrained custom and use. No business led him where he looked, where he would go; he went there free. He went free upon the plain in the western horizon which seemed to stretch without interruption toward the setting sun, and he could not believe that there were towns and cities in it of enough consequence to disturb him. He felt that wherever he lived, and wherever he would live hereafter, he was leaving the city more and more, withdrawing into the wilderness. He felt that that was the central meaning he could find in all his life, and it seemed to him then that all the events of his childhood and his youth had led him unknowingly to this moment upon which he poised, as if before flight. He looked at the river again. On this side is the city, he thought, and on that the wilderness; and though I must return, even that return is only another means I have of leaving it, more and more.

  He turned. Butcher’s Crossing lay small and unreal before him. He walked slowly back toward the town, on the road, his feet scuffing in the dust, his eyes watching the puffs of dust that his feet went beyond.

  V

  Late on the sixth day following his departure from Butcher’s Crossing, Miller returned.

  In his room, Andrews heard shouts on the street below him and heard the thump of heavy feet; above these sounds, muffled by the distance, came the crack of a whip and the deep-throated howl of a driver. Andrews came to his feet and strode to the window; he leaned out over the ledge and looked toward the eastern approach to the town.

  A great cloud of dust hung upon the air, moved forward, and dissipated itself in its forward movement; out of the dust plodded a long line of oxen. The heads of the lead team were thrust downward, and the two beasts toed in toward each other, so that occasionally their long curving horns clashed, causing both beasts to shake their heads and snort, and separate for a few moments. Until the team got very near the town—the lead oxen passing Joe Long’s barber shop—the wagon was scarcely visible to the townspeople who stood about the sidewalks and to Will Andrews who waited above them.

  The wagon was long and shallow, and it curved downward toward the center so that it gave the fleeting appearance of a flat-bottomed boat supported by massive wheels; faded blue paint flecked the sides of the wagon, and the vestiges of red paint could be seen on the slow-turning spokes near the centers of the scarred, massive wheels. A heavy man in a checked shirt sat high and erect on a wagon box seat clipped near the front; in his right hand was a long bull-whip which he cracked above the ears of the lead team. His left hand pulled heavily against an upright hand brake, so that the oxen, which moved forward under his whip, were restrained by the heavy weight of the wagon above its half-locked wheels. Beside the wagon, slouched in his saddle, Miller rode a black horse; he led another, a sorrel, which was saddled but riderless.

  The procession passed the hotel and passed Jackson’s Saloon. Andrews watched it go beyond the livery stable, beyond the blacksmith’s shop, and out of town. He watched until he could see little but the moving cloud of dust made brilliant and impenetrable by the light of the falling sun, and he waited until the dust cloud stopped and thinned away down in the hollow of the river. Then he went back to his bed and lay upon it, his palms folded beneath the back of his head, and stared up at the ceiling.

  He was still staring at the ceiling, at the random flickerings of light upon it, an hour later when Charley Hoge knocked at his door and entered without waiting for a reply. He paused just inside the room; his figure was shadowy and vague, enlarged by the dim light that came from the hall.

  “What are you laying here in the dark for?” he asked.

  “Waiting for you to come up and get me,” Andrews said. He lifted his legs over the side of the bed and sat upright on its edge.

  “I’ll light the lamp,” Charley Hoge said. He moved forward in the darkness. “Where is it?”

  “On the table near the window.”

  He pulled a match across the wall beside the window; the match flared yellow. With the hand that held the match, he lifted the smoked chimney from the lamp, set it down on the table, touched the match to the wick, and replaced the chimney. The room brightened as the wick’s burning grew steadier, and the flickerings from the out-of-doors were submerged. Charley Hoge dropped the burnt match to the floor.

  “I guess you know Miller’s back in town.”

  Andrews nodded. “I saw the wagon as it came past. Who was with him?”

  “Fred Schneider,” Charley Hoge said. “He’s going to be our skinner. Miller’s worked with him before.”

  Andrews nodded again. “I suppose Miller got everything he needed.”

  “Everything’s ready,” Charley Hoge said. “Miller and Schneider are at Jackson’s. Miller wants you to come over so we can get everything settled.”

  “All right,” Andrews said. “I’ll get my coat.”

  “Your coat?” Charley Hoge asked. “Boy, if you’re cold now, what are you going to do when we get up in the mountains?”

  Andrews smiled. “I’m not cold. I’m just in the habit of wearing it.”

  “A man loses lots of habits in time,” Charley Hoge said. “Come on, let’s go.”

  The two men left the room and went down the stairs. Charley Hoge went a few steps in front of Andrews, who had to hurry to keep up with him; he walked with quick, nervous strides, and his thin, drawn-in shoulders jerked upward with his steps.

  Miller and Schneider were waiting at the long narrow bar of Jackson’s. They stood at the bar with glasses of beer in front of them; a light mantle of dust clung about the shoulders of Schneider’s red-checked shirt, and the ends of his straight, bristling brown hair visible beneath a flat-brimmed hat were caked white with trail dust. The two men turned as Charley Hoge and Will Andrews came down the room toward them.

  Miller’s flat thin lips curved upward in a tight smile. A precise swath of black beard shadowed the heavy lower half of his face. “Will,” he said softly. “Did you think I wasn’t coming back?”

  Andrews smiled. “No. I knew you’d be back.”

  “Will, this is Fred Schneider; he’s our skinner.”

  Andrews extended his hand and Schneider took it. Schneider’s handclasp was loose, indifferent; he shook Andrews’s hand once with a quick pumping motion. “How do,” he said. His face was round, and though the lower part was covered with a light brown stubble, the whole face gave the appearance of being smooth and featureless. His eyes were wide and blue, and they regarded Andrews from beneath heavy, sleepy lids. He was a man of medium height, thickly built; he gave the immediate impression of being at all times watchful, alert, and on his guard. He wore a small pistol in a black leather holster hung high on his waist.

  Miller drained the last of his beer from his glass. “Let’s go in the big room where we can sit down,” he said, wiping a bit of foam from his lips with a forefinger.

  The others nodded. Schneider stood aside and waited for them to pass through the side door; then he followed, closing the door carefully behind him. The group of four men, with Miller in the lead, went toward the back of the room. They took a table near the stairs; Schneider sat with his back to the stairs, facing the room; Andrews sat in front of him. Charley Hoge was at Andrews’s left, and Miller was at his right.

  Miller said, “On my way back from the river, I stopped in and saw McDonald. He’ll buy our hides from us. That’ll save us packing to Ellsworth.”

  “How much will he pay?” asked Schneider.

  “Four dollars apiece for prime hides,” Miller said. “He’s got a buyer for prime hides back east.”

  Schneider shook his head. “How much for summer hides? Y
ou won’t find any prime skins for another three months.”

  Miller turned to Andrews. “I haven’t made any arrangements with Schneider, and I haven’t told him where we’re going. I thought I ought to wait till we all got together.”

  Andrews nodded. “All right,” he said.

  “Let’s have a drink while we talk,” Miller said. “Charley, see if you can find somebody to bring us back a pitcher of beer and some whisky.”

  Charley Hoge scraped his chair back on the floor, and went swiftly across the room.

  “Did you make out all right at Ellsworth?” Andrews asked.

  Miller nodded. “Got a good buy on the wagon. Some of the oxen haven’t been broken in, and a couple of them need to be shod; but the lead team is a good one, and the rest of them will be broke in after the first few days.”

  “Did you have enough money?”

  Miller nodded again, indifferently. “Got a little left over, even. I found you a nice horse; I rode it all the way back. All we need to pick up here is some whisky for Charley, a few sides of bacon, and—Do you have any rough clothes?”

  “I can pick some up tomorrow,” Andrews said.

  “I’ll tell you what you need.”

  Schneider looked sleepily at the two men. “Where are we going?”

  Charley Hoge came across the room; behind him, carrying a large tray with a pitcher, bottle, and glasses upon it, Francine weaved among the tables. Charley Hoge sat down, and Francine put the bottle of whisky and the pitcher of beer in the center of the table and put the glasses in front of the men. She smiled at Andrews, and turned to Miller. “Did you bring me what I asked for from Ellsworth?”

  “Yeah,” Miller said. “I’ll give it to you later. You set at another table for awhile, Francine. We got business to talk over.”