Butcher's Crossing (18 page)

Schneider skillfully ran the blade over the stone, whipping it back and forward so swiftly that Andrews could hardly see it. Schneider turned the blade over and showed Andrews the angle at which he held it to the stone.

“You get a long cutting edge like this,” Schneider said. “It’ll last you near a full day’s skinning without sharpening again. You make your cut too narrow, you’ll ruin your knife.” He handed the knife butt-first to Andrews. “Try it.”

Andrews touched the blade to his thumb; he felt a hot little pain. A thin line of red appeared diagonally across the ball of his thumb; he watched it dumbly as it widened, and as the blood ran irregularly in the tiny whorls of his thumb.

Schneider grinned. “That’s the way a knife should cut. You got a good set of knives.”

Under Schneider’s supervision, Andrews sharpened the other knives. As he sharpened each knife of a different shape or size, Schneider explained its use to him. “This one here’s for long work,” Schneider said. “You can slit a bull from throat to pecker without taking it out of the skin.” And: “This one’s for close work, around the hooves. This one’s good for dressing your meat down, once the bull’s skinned. And this one’s for scraping the skin, once she’s off.”

When at last Schneider was satisfied with the knifes, Andrews returned them to their cases. From the new movement to which he had been introduced, his arm was tired; from the tightness with which he had held the knives while sharpening them, his right hand was numb. A chill wind blew from the pass; Andrews shivered, and moved closer to the fire.

Miller’s voice came from the darkness behind the three men who sat silently around the campfire. “Everything ready for tomorrow?” The men turned. The firelight caught the buttons on Miller’s shirt and the fringes of his opened buckskin jacket, and glinted on his heavy nose and forehead; his dark beard blended into the darkness so that Andrews had the momentary impression of a head floating above the merest suggestion of a body. Then Miller came up to them and sat down.

“Everything’s ready,” Schneider said.

“Good.” Miller drew a bullet from one of the bulging pockets of his jacket. On a flat rock near the fire he marked with the lead tip a long irregular oval that curved nearly into a semicircle.

“Near as I can remember,” Miller said, “this is the shape of the valley. We only saw a little bit of it this afternoon. A few miles on, around this first bend, it widens out to maybe four, five miles across; and it goes on twenty or twenty-five miles. It don’t look like a lot of ground, but the grass is thick and rich, and it grows back almost as fast as it’s cropped; it’ll feed a hell of a lot of buffalo.”

In the fire, a burned-through log fell and sent into the air a shower of sparks that glowed and died in the darkness.

“Our job is easy,” Miller went on. “We start our kill with the little herd we saw this morning, and then we work down the valley. Nothing to worry about; there ain’t no way out of this canyon except the way we came through. Least-ways, there’s no way for buffalo. Mountains steepen around the first bend; lots of places there’s nothing up but sheer rock.”

“This’ll be the main camp?” Schneider asked.

Miller nodded. “As we work down the valley, Charley’ll follow us with the wagon to pick up the hides; we’ll bale them back here. We might have to make a few camps away from here, but not many; when we get to the end of the valley, if there are any buffalo left, we can herd them back up toward here. In the long run, it’ll save us time.”

“Just one thing,” Schneider said. “Start us off easy. Mr. Andrews, here, is going to need a few days before he’ll be much help. And I don’t want to have to skin stiff buffalo.”

“The way this is set up,” Miller said, “there’s no hurry. If we had to, we could stay here all winter picking them off.”

Charley Hoge threw another log on the already blazing fire. In the intense heat, the log flared instantly into flame. For that moment, the faces of the four men gathered around the fire were lighted fully, and each could see the other as if in daylight. Then the outer bark of the log burned away, and the firelight died to a steady flame. Charley Hoge waited for several minutes; then, with a shovel, he banked the flames with dead ashes, so that in the yellow light of the lantern the men could see only the whitish-yellow smoke struggling upward through the ashes. Without further words, they turned into their bedrolls.

For a long time after he had bedded down, Will Andrews listened to the silence around him. For a while the acrid smell of the smothered pine log’s burning warmed his nostrils; then the wind shifted and he could no longer smell the smoke or hear the heavy breaths of the sleeping men around him. He turned so that he faced the side of the mountain over which they had traveled. From the darkness that clung about the earth he lifted his gaze and followed the dim outlines of particular trees as they rose from the darkness and gradually gained distinctness against the deep blue cloudless sky that twinkled with the light of the clear stars. Even with an extra blanket on his bedroll, he was chilled; he could see the gray cloud of his breath as he breathed the sharp night air. His eyes closed upon the image of a tall conical pine tree outlined blackly against the luminous sky, and despite the cold he slept soundly until morning.

When Andrews awoke, Charley Hoge was already up and dressed; he huddled over the fire, adding twigs to the coals that had been kept overnight by the banking. Andrews lay for a moment in the comparative warmth of his bedroll, and watched his breath fog the air. Then he flung the blankets aside, and, shivering, got into his boots, which were stiff and hard from the cold. Without lacing them, he clumped over to the fire. The sun had not yet come over the mountain against which their camp was set; but on the opposite mountain, at the top, a mass of pine trees was lighted by the early sun; a patch of turning aspen flamed a deep gold in the green of the pines.

Miller and Schneider arose before Charley Hoge’s coffee began to boil. Miller beckoned to Andrews; the three men trudged out of their cover of trees onto the level valley, where a hundred yards away their hobbled horses were grazing. They led the animals back to the camp and saddled them before the coffee, the side meat, and the fried mush were ready.

“They ain’t moved much,��� Miller said, pointing through the trees. Andrews saw the thin black line of the herd strung out around the bend of the valley. He drank his coffee hurriedly, scalding his mouth. Miller ate his breakfast calmly, slowly. After he finished, he went a little way into the forest and from a low branch selected a forked bough and chopped it off about two feet from the fork; with his knife, he trimmed the fork so that the two small branches protruded from the main branch about six inches; then he sharpened the thick base of the main branch. From his pile of goods beside his bedroll, he got his gun and unwrapped the oilskin which protected it from the night dampness. He inspected the gun carefully, and thrust it into the long holster attached to his saddle. The three men mounted their horses.

In the open valley, Miller pulled his horse up and spoke to the two men on either side of him. “We’ll go straight to them. Point your horses behind mine, and don’t let them swerve out. As long as we keep straight at them they won’t scare.”

Andrews rode behind Miller, his horse at a slow walk. His hands ached; he looked at his knuckles; the skin was stretched white across the bones. He relaxed his grip on the reins, and let his shoulders slump; he was breathing heavily.

By the time they had gone halfway across the width of the valley, the herd, slowly grazing, had rounded the bend. Miller led the two men up near the base of the mountain.

“We’ll have to go easy from here,” he said. “You never know how the wind will be blowing in these mountains. Tie your horses up; we’ll go on foot.”

Walking one behind the other with Miller in the lead, the men made their way around the blunt rocky base of the mountain. Miller halted suddenly, and held up one hand. Without turning his head, he spoke to those behind him in the normal tones of conversation: “They’re just ahead, not more than three hundred yards away. Go easy, now.” He squatted and ripped off a few blades of grass and with his hand held high let them fall to the ground. The wind carried the blades back toward him. He nodded. “Wind’s right.” He rose and went forward more slowly.

Andrews, carrying over one shoulder the bag containing Miller’s ammunition, shifted his burden; and as he shifted it, he saw a movement in the herd in front of him.

Again without turning his head, Miller said: “Just keep walking straight. As long as you don’t move out of the line, they won’t get scared.”

Now Andrews could see the herd clearly. Against the pale yellow-green of the grass, the dark umber of the buffalo stood out sharply, but merged into the deeper color of the pine forest on the steep mountainside behind them. Many of the buffalo were lying at ease upon the soft valley grass; those were mere humps, like dark rocks, without identity or shape. But a few stood at the edges of the herd, like sentinels; some were grazing lightly, and others stood unmoving, their huge furry heads slumped between their forelegs, which were so matted with long dark fur that their shapes could not be seen. One old bull carried thick scars on his sides and flanks that could be seen even at the distance where the three men walked; the bull stood some-what apart from the other animals; he faced the approaching men, his head lowered, his upward curving ebony horns shining in the sunlight, bright against the dark mop of hair that hung over his head. The bull did not move as they came nearer.

Miller paused again. “No need for all of us to go on. Fred, you wait here; Will, you follow me; we’ll have to try to skirt them. Buffalo always face downwind; can’t get a good shot from this angle.”

Schneider dropped to his knees and let himself down to a prone position; with his chin resting on his folded hands, he regarded the herd. Miller and Andrews cut to their left. They had walked about fifteen yards when Miller raised his hand, palm outward; Andrews halted.

“They’re beginning to stir,” Miller said. “Go easy.”

Many of the buffalo at the outer edges of the herd had got to their feet, raising themselves stiffly on their forelegs, and then upon their hind legs, wobbling for a moment until they had taken a few steps forward. The two men remained still.

“It’s the moving that stirs them up,” Miller said. “You could stand right in front of them all day and not bother them, if you could get there without moving.”

The two men began again their slow movement forward. When the herd showed another sign of restlessness, Miller dropped to his hands and knees; Andrews came up behind him, awkwardly dragging the sack of ammunition at his side.

When they were broadside to the herd and about a hundred and fifty yards away from it, they stopped. Miller stuck into the ground the forked branch he had been carrying, and rested his gun barrel on the fork. Andrews crawled up beside him.

Miller grinned at him. “Watch the way I do it, boy. You aim just a little behind the shoulder blade, and about two-thirds of the way down from the top of the hump; that is, if you’re shooting from behind, the way we are. This is the heart shot. It’s better to get them a little from the front, through the lights; that way, they don’t die so quick, but they don’t run so far after they’re shot. But with a wind, you take a chance, trying to get in front of them. Keep your eye on the big bull, the one with the scars all over him. His hide ain’t worth a damn, but he looks like the leader. You always try to pick out the leader of a herd and get him first. They ain’t apt to run so far without a leader.”

Andrews watched intently as Miller lined his gun upon the old bull. Both of Miller’s eyes were open along the sights of his gun barrel. The stock was tight against his cheek. The muscles of his right hand tensed; there was a heavy
crrack
of the rifle; the stock kicked back against Miller’s shoulder, and a small cloud of smoke drifted away from the mouth of the gun barrel.

At the sound of the gun, the old bull jumped, as if startled by a sharp blow on his rump; without hurry, he began loping away from the men who lay on their bellies.

“Damn,” Miller said.

“You missed him,” Andrews said; there was amazement in his voice.

Miller laughed shortly. “I didn’t miss him. That’s the trouble with heart-shot buffalo. They’ll go a hundred yards sometimes.”

The other buffalo began to be aroused by the movement of their leader. Slowly at first, a few raised themselves on their thick forelegs; and then suddenly the herd was a dark mass of moving fur as it ran in the direction its leader had taken. In the closely packed herd, the humps of the animals bobbed rhythmically, almost liquidly; and the roar of the hooves came upon the two men who lay watching. Miller shouted something that Andrews could not distinguish in the noise.

The buffalo passed their wounded leader, and ran beyond him some three hundred yards, where their running gradually spent itself, and where they stood, milling uneasily about. The old bull stood alone behind them, his massive head sunk below his hump; his tail twitched once or twice, and he shook his head. He turned around several times, as another animal might have done before sleeping, and finally stood facing the two men who were more than two hundred yards away from him. He took three steps toward them, and paused again. Then, stiffly, he fell on his side, his legs straight out from his belly. The legs jerked, and then he was still.

Miller rose from his prone position and brushed the grass off the front of his clothing. “Well, we got the leader. They won’t run so far the next time.” He picked up his gun, his shooting stick, and a long wire-handled cleaning patch that he had laid beside him. “Want to go over and take a look?”

“Won’t we scare the rest of them?”

Miller shook his head. “They had their scare. They won’t be so spooky now.”

They walked across the grass to where the dead buffalo lay. Miller glanced at it casually and scuffed its fur with the toe of his boot.

“Ain’t worth skinning,” he said. “But you have to get the leader out of the way, if you’re going to do any good with the rest of them.”