Butcher's Crossing

by John Williams

  Charley Hoge unyoked the oxen and let them join the horses at the edge of the bank. The animals touched their muzzles delicately upon the surface of the rushing water and flung their heads upward as the spray hit their eyes and nostrils.

  On the rock, Schneider half crawled and half slid past Andrews and Miller. He knelt beside the river, cupped his hands into the water, and drank noisily from the streaming bowl of his hands. Andrews went across the rock and sat beside him. After Schneider had finished drinking, Andrews let his legs slide over the rock into the river; the force of the water caught him unprepared, and swung his lower body halfway around before he could stiffen his legs against the cold sharp thrust. The water broke in swirls and white riffles around his legs, just below the knees; the cold was like needles, but he did not move his legs. Little by little, holding to the rock behind him, he let his body into the stream; his breath came in gasps from the shock of the cold. Finally, his feet found the rocky bottom of the stream, and he leaned away from the bank toward the water that rushed at him, so that he stood free of the bank, balanced against the force of the river. He found a knobby protuberance on the rock to his right; he grasped the knob, and let his body fully down into the water. He squatted, submerging himself to his shoulders, holding his breath at the intense cold; but after a moment the cold left him and the feel of the water flowing about his body, washing at the accumulated filth of a winter, was pleasant and soothing, and almost warm. Still tightly grasping the rock with his right hand, he let his body be carried with the rushing of the stream, until at last it lay loose and straight in the course of the water, held near the foaming surface by the river’s flow. Nearly weightless, holding to the knob of rock, he lay for several moments in the water, his head turned to one side and his eyes closed.

  Above the roar of the water, he heard a noise. He opened his eyes. Schneider squatted on the rock above and to one side of him, grinning widely. His hand cupped, and went into the water; it came up suddenly, and pushed water into Andrews’s face. Andrews gasped and drew himself out, bringing his free hand up quickly as he did so, splashing water at Schneider. For several moments, the two men, laughing and sputtering, dashed water toward each other as if they were playing children. Finally Andrews shook his head and sat panting on the rock beside Schneider. A light breeze chilled his skin but there was sunlight to warm him. Later, he knew, his clothes would stiffen on his body; but now they were loose and comfortable to his skin, and he felt almost clean.

  “Jesus God,” Schneider said, and stretched to lie on the sloping rock. “It’s good to be down off that mountain.” He turned to Miller. “How long you think we’ll be, getting back to Butcher’s Crossing?”

  “Couple of weeks at the most,” Miller said. “We’ll go back quicker than we came.”

  “I ain’t hardly going to stop,” said Schneider, “except to get my belly full of greens and wash it around with some liquor, and then see that little German girl for a bit. I’m going straight on to St. Louis.”

  “High living,” Miller said. “St. Louis. I didn’t know you liked it that high, Fred.”

  “I didn’t either,” Schneider said, “until just a minute ago. Man, it takes a winter away from it to give you a taste for living.”

  Miller got up from the rock and stretched his arms out and up from his sides. “We’d better find our way across this river before it starts getting dark.”

  While Miller gathered their horses from around the banks where they were cropping at the lush grass, Andrews and Schneider helped Charley Hoge round up the oxen and yoke them to the wagon. By the time they finished, Miller had brought their horses up near them, and, mounted on his own, had found what looked like a crossing. The other men stood side by side on the bank and watched silently as Miller guided his horse into the swift water.

  The horse was reluctant to go in; it advanced a few steps into the graveled bed of a shallow eddy and halted, lifting its feet, one by one, and shaking them delicately just above the surface. Miller patted the animal on its shoulder, and ran his fingers through its mane, leaning forward to speak soothingly in its ear. The horse went forward; the water flowed and parted whitely around its fetlocks, and as it advanced the water rose upward, until it flowed around the shanks and then around the knees. Miller led the horse in a zigzag path across the river; when it slipped on the smooth underwater rocks, Miller let it stand still for a moment and soothed it with small pats, speaking softly. In the middle of the river, the water rose above Miller’s stirruped feet and submerged belly of the horse, parting on its shoulder and thigh. Very slowly, Miller zigzagged to shallower water; in a few minutes, he was across the river and on dry land. He waved, and then pushed his horse back into the water, zigzagging again so that the lines of his return intersected the lines of his going.

  Back on the bank where the others waited, Miller got down from his horse and walked over to them; his water-filled boots squished with each step, and water streamed behind him, darkening the rock.

  “It’s a good crossing,” Miller said. “Nearly flat all the way, and straight across. It’s a little deep right in the middle, but the oxen can make it all right; and the wagon’s heavy enough to weight itself down.”

  “All right,” Schneider said. “Let’s get going.”

  “Just a minute,” Miller said. “Fred, I want you to ride alongside the lead team and guide them across. I’ll go in front, you just follow along behind me.”

  Schneider squinted at him for a few moments, and then shook his head.

  “No,” he said, “I think maybe I’d better not do it. I never have liked oxen, and they ain’t too fond of me. Now if it was mules, I’d say all right. But not oxen.”

  “There’s nothing to it,” Miller said. “You just ride a little downstream from them; they’ll go right straight across.”

  Schneider shook his head again. “Besides,” he said, “I don’t figure it’s my job.”

  Miller nodded. “No,” he agreed, “I guess it ain’t, rightly speaking. But Charley ain’t got a horse.”

  “You could let him have yours,” Schneider said, “and you could double up with Will, here.”

  “Hell,” Miller said, “there ain’t no use making a fuss over it. I’ll lead them across myself.”

  “No,” Charley Hoge said. The three men turned to him in surprise. Charley Hoge cleared his throat. “No,” he said again. “It’s my job. And I don’t need no horse.” He pointed with his good hand to the off-ox in the lead team. “I’ll ride that one acrost. That’s the best way to do it, anyhow.”

  Miller looked at him narrowly for a moment. “You feel up to it, Charley?” he asked.

  “Sure,” Charley Hoge said. He reached into his shirt and pulled out the warped and stained Bible. “The Lord will provide. He’ll turn my steps in the right path.” He contracted his stomach and thrust the Bible inside his shirt under his belt.

  Miller looked at him for another moment, and then abruptly nodded. “All right. You follow straight along behind me, hear?” He turned to Andrews. “Will, you take your horse across now. Go just like I did, only you go straight across. If you find any big rocks, or any big holes, stop your horse and yell out so we can see where they are. It won’t take a very big jolt to turn this wagon over.”

  “All right,” Andrews said. “I’ll wait for you on the other side.”

  “Now be careful,” Miller said. “Take it slow. Let your horse set her own speed. That water’s mighty fast.”

  “I’ll be all right,” Andrews said. “You and Charley just take care of the hides.”

  Andrews walked to his horse and mounted. As he turned toward the river, he saw Charley Hoge pull himself up on one of the oxen. The beast moaned and pulled away from the strange weight, and Charley Hoge patted it on the shoulder. Schneider and Miller watched Andrews as he set his horse into the first shallow.

  The horse shuddered beneath him as the water climbed above its fetlocks and swirled about its knees. Andrews set his eyes upon the
wet and trampled earth across the river where Miller had emerged, and kept his horse pointed straight toward it. Beneath him he felt the uncertainty of the horse’s footing; he tried to make himself loose and passive in the saddle, and slackened the reins. In the middle of the river, the water, sharply cold, came midway between his ankle and his knee; the heavy thrust pressed his leg against the horse’s side. As the animal stepped slowly forward, Andrews felt for brief instants the sickening sensation of weightlessness as he and the horse were buoyed and pushed aside by the swift current. The roaring was intense and hollow in his ears; he looked down from the point of land that dipped and swayed in his sight, and saw the water. It was a deep but transparent greenish brown, and it flowed past him in thick ropes and sheeted wedges, in shapes that changed with an incredible complexity before his gaze. The sight dizzied him, and he raised his eyes to look again at the point of earth toward which he aimed.

  He reached the shallows without coming across a hole or rock that was likely to cause difficulty for the wagon. When his horse clambered upon dry land, Andrews dismounted and waved to the men who waited on the opposite bank.

  Miller, small in the distance that was intensified by the water rushing across it, raised his arm in a stiff response and then let it drop to his side. His horse started forward. After he had gone fifteen or twenty feet into the river, he turned and beckoned to Charley Hoge, who waited astride one of the lead oxen, his oxgoad held high in his good left hand. He let the goad down lightly upon the shoulder of the lead ox, and the team lumbered forward into the shallows. The load of skins swayed as the wagon wheels came off the tiny drop of the bank into the river.

  On the bank upstream from the wagon, Schneider waited on his horse, watching intently the progress of the wagon as it went deeper in the swirling river. After a minute, he too turned his horse and followed the wagon, eight or ten yards upstream from it.

  When the lead oxen sank to their bellies in the heavy stream, the oxen farthest back, next to the wagon, still had not gone above their knees. Andrews then understood the safety of the crossing; by the time the farthest oxen were insecure and had the struggle to maintain their footing, the other oxen would be in the shallows and could pull the main weight of the wagon; and when the wagon was sunk to its bed, and the sides would receive the full force of the river, all the oxen would be in shallower water, and could maintain a steady pull upon it. He smiled a little at the fear he had not known he had until the instant he lost it, and watched Miller, who had pulled many yards ahead of the lead oxen, hurry his horse through the shallows and up on dry land. Miller dismounted, nodded curtly to Andrews, and stood on the riverbank, guiding Charley Hoge toward him with quick beckoning gestures of both hands.

  When the lead oxen were in the shallows within ten feet of the bank, Charley Hoge slipped off the bull he had ridden across and sloshed in the knee-deep water beside them, looking back at the wagon, which was nearing the deepest part of the river. He slowed the oxen and spoke soothingly to the lead team.

  Miller said: “Easy, now. Bring them in easy.”

  Andrews watched the wagon dip toward the hollow in the center of the river. He turned his head a little, and saw that Schneider, still upstream, had pulled up even with the wagon. Water curled about the belly of his horse; Schneider’s eyes intently watched the water before him, between the ears of his slowly moving horse. Andrews looked away from Schneider, swinging his gaze upriver, following the dense line of trees that in some spots grew so close to the bank that their trunks were darkened halfway up by the flung spray. But suddenly his gaze fixed itself upon the river. For an instant paralyzed, he raised himself as tall as he could and looked intently at that point that had caught his eye.

  A log, splintered at the downstream end, nearly as thick as a man’s body and twice as long, bobbed like a matchstick and hurtled forward, half in and half out of the swirling water. Andrews ran to the edge of the bank and shouted, pointing upstream:

  “Schneider! Look out! Look out!”

  Schneider looked up and cupped his ear toward the faint voice that came across the roaring of the water. Andrews called again, and Schneider leaned forward a little in his saddle, trying to hear.

  The splintered end of the log thrust into the side of Schneider’s horse with a ripe splitting thud that was clearly audible above the roar of the water. For an instant the horse struggled to keep upright; then the log tore away, and the horse gave a short high scream of agony and fear, and fell sideways toward the wagon; Schneider went into the water as the horse fell. The horse turned completely over, above Schneider, and for an instant the great gaping hole that had been its belly reddened the water around it. Schneider came up between the fore and hind legs of the horse, facing the men who stood on the bank. For an instant, the men could see his face quite clearly; he was frowning a little, as if vaguely puzzled, and his lips were twisted in a slight grimace of annoyance and contempt. He put out his left hand, as if to push the horse away from him; the horse turned again and one of its hind hooves thudded heavily high on Schneider’s head. Schneider stiffened to his full length and quivered as if in a chill; his expression did not change. Then the blood came down solidly over his face like a red mask, and he toppled slowly and stiffly into the water beside his horse.

  The horse and the log hit the wagon broadside at almost the same instant. The wagon was pushed sideways over the rocks; the high load swayed, and pulled the wagon; water gathered over the feebly threshing horse, and piled upon the bottom of the wagon bed. With a great groan, the wagon toppled on its side.

  As it toppled, Charley Hoge jumped out of the way of the oxen, which were being pulled back into the river by the weight of the overturned wagon. For a moment, the wagon drifted lazily at the middle of the river, held to some stability by the weight of the near oxen, which threshed against their yokes and beat the water to a froth; then, caught more firmly, the wagon scraped against the rock bottom of the river, and swung lazily around, dragging the oxen with it. As the oxen’s footholds on the river bed were loosened, the wagon drifted more swiftly away and began to break up on the heavier rocks downstream. The lashing that held the load broke, and buffalo hides exploded in all directions upon the water, and were rapidly borne out of sight. For perhaps a minute, the men who stood on the bank could see the oxen struggling head over heels in the water, and could see the smashed wagon turning and drifting into the distance. Then they could see nothing, though they stood for several minutes more looking downstream where the wagon had disappeared.

  Andrews dropped to his hands and knees and swung his head from side to side like a wounded animal. “My God!” he said thickly. “My God, my God!”

  “A whole winter’s work,” Miller said in a flat dead voice. “It took just about two minutes.”

  Andrews raised his head wildly, and got to his feet. “Schneider,” he said. “Schneider. We’ve got to—”

  Miller put his hand on his shoulder. “Take it easy, boy. Won’t do no good to worry about Schneider.”

  Andrews wrung his hands; his voice broke. “But we’ve got to—”

  “Easy,” Miller said. “We can’t do anything for him. He was dead when he hit the water. And it would be foolish to try to look for him. You saw how fast them oxen was carried down.”

  Andrews shook his head numbly. He felt his body go loose, and felt his legs shamble away from Miller. “Schneider,” he whispered. “Schneider, Schneider.”

  “He was a blasphemer,” Charley Hoge’s voice cracked high and thin. Andrews stumbled over to him, and looked blearily down at his face.

  Charley Hoge looked unseeingly down the river; his eyes blinked rapidly, and the muscles of his face twitched uncontrolled, as if his face were falling apart. “He was a blasphemer,” Charley Hoge said again, and nodded rapidly. He closed his eyes, and clutched at his belly, where his Bible was still strapped. He said in a high thin singsong voice: “He lay with scarlet women and he fornicated and he blasphemed and he took the name of the Lord in
vain.” He opened his eyes and turned his unseeing face toward Andrews. “It’s God’s will. God’s will be done.”

  Andrews backed away from him, shaking his head as Charley Hoge nodded his.

  “Come on,” Miller said. “Let’s get out of here. Nothing we can do.”

  Miller led Charley Hoge up to his horse and helped him to mount behind the saddle. Then he swung himself up and called back to Andrews: “Come on, Will. The sooner we get away from here, the better it’ll be.”

  Andrews nodded, and stumbled toward his horse. But before he mounted he turned and looked again at the river. His eye was caught by something on the opposite bank. It was Schneider’s hat, black and sodden and shapeless, caught and held by the water between two rocks that jutted out from the bank.

  “There’s Schneider’s hat,” Andrews said. “We ought not to leave it there.”

  “Come on,” Miller said. “It’s going to get dark soon.”

  Andrews mounted his horse and followed Miller and Charley Hoge as they rode slowly away from the river.

  PART THREE

  I

  On a bleak afternoon late in May, three men rode in an easterly direction along the Smoky Hill Trail; a northern wind slanted a fine, cold rain upon them so that they huddled together, their faces turned down and away. For ten days they had come in nearly a straight line across the great plains, and the two horses that carried them were tired; their heads drooped downward, and their bony sides heaved at the exertion of walking on level ground.