Butcher's Crossing (32 page)

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.

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.

Shortly past midafternoon, the sun broke through the slatelike clouds, and the wind died. Steam rose from the mud through which their horses stumbled, and the wet heat stifled the men who sat lethargically on their saddles. On their right were still visible the low-lying trees and bushes that lined the banks of the Smoky Hill River. For several miles they had been off the trail, cutting across the flat country toward Butcher’s Crossing.

“Just a few more miles,” Miller said. “We’ll be there before dark.”

Charley Hoge, sitting behind Miller, eased his buttocks on the bony rump of the horse; his good hand was hooked into Miller’s belt, and the stump of his right wrist hung loosely at his side. He looked across at Andrews, who rode abreast of Miller; but there was no recognition in his eyes. His lips moved silently, and every now and then his head bobbed quickly, nervously, as if he responded to something that the others did not hear.

A little more than an hour later they were in sight of the humped bank of the narrow stream that cut across the road to Butcher’s Crossing. Miller dug his heels into his horse’s sides; the horse jumped forward, trotted for a few moments, and then settled into its usual slow gait. Andrews raised himself in his saddle, but he could not see the town above the high banks of the stream. Where they rode now, the rain had not fallen; and the dust of the road, stirred by the slow shuffle of their horses’ hooves, rose about them and clung to their damp clothing, and streaked their faces where the sweat ran.

They came up the road over the hump of river bank, and Andrews got a quick glimpse of Butcher’s Crossing before they descended into the narrow gulley where the shallow stream ran. It was little fuller than it had been last fall; the water that trickled along its bed was a thick, muddy brown. The men let their horses halt in the middle and drink of the muddy water before they urged them on.

They passed on their left the clump of cottonwoods, scrawny and bare in new leafage; again, Andrews strained his eyes eastward toward Butcher’s Crossing. In the late afternoon sun the buildings were ruddy where they were not sharply cast in shadow. A lone horse grazed between themselves and the town; though several hundred yards distant, it raised its head at their approach and trotted away in a short burst of speed.

“Let’s turn in here for a minute,” Miller said, and jerked his head in the direction of the wagon-track road to their right. “We got things to talk over with McDonald.”

“What?” Andrews said. “What do we need to talk to him about?”

“The hides, boy, the hides,” Miller said impatiently. “We still got better’n three thousand hides waiting for us where we left them.”

“Of course,” Andrews said. “For a minute I forgot.”

He turned his horse and rode beside Miller upon the twin tracks of earth worn bare by passing wagons. Here and there in the wagon tracks, small tufts of new grass sprouted and spread to the level stretch of grass that covered the prairie.

“Looks like McDonald had a good winter,” Miller said. “Look at them hides.”

Andrews looked up. Bales of buffalo hides were piled about the tiny shack that served McDonald as an office, so that as the men rode up they could see only a small section of the warped roof. The bales spread out from the immediate area of the shack and lay irregularly about the edges of the fenced brining pits. Scattered among the bales were a dozen or more wagons; some, upright, blistered and warped in the heat; their wheels were sunk in the earth and grass grew green and strong above their rims. Others were overturned, the metal bands about the spoked wheels showing brilliant spots of rust in the afternoon sun.

Andrews turned to Miller and started to speak, but the expression on Miller’s face stayed him. Beneath the black curly beard, Miller’s mouth was loose with puzzlement; his large eyes narrowed as they surveyed the scene.

“Something’s wrong here,” he said, and dismounted from his horse, leaving Charley Hoge seated slackly behind the saddle.

Andrews got off his horse and followed Miller as he threaded his way among the bales of hides toward McDonald’s shack.

The door of the shack was loose on its rusted hinges. Miller pushed it open and the two men went inside. Papers lay scattered on the floor, opened ledgers had spilled from untidy piles, and the chair behind McDonald’s desk was overturned. Andrews stooped and picked up a sheet of paper from the floor; the writing had been washed away, but the print of a heel mark still showed upon it. He picked up another, and another; all showed the ravages of neglect and weather.

“Looks like Mr. McDonald hasn’t been here for some time,” Andrews said.

For several moments Miller looked somberly about the room. “Come on,” he said abruptly, and turned and clumped across the floor, his feet grinding into the scattered papers. Andrews followed him outside. The men mounted their horses and rode away from the shack toward Butcher’s Crossing.

The single street that bisected the group of shacks and buildings that made up the town was nearly deserted. From the blacksmith shop on their right came the slow light clank of metal striking metal; in the light shadows of the open shelter there was the vague slow movement of a man’s body. On the left, set back from the road, was the large sleeping house that lodged many of the hunters during their brief stays in town; the muslin covering of one of the high windows was torn, and it sagged outward and moved sluggishly in the light hot breeze. Andrews turned his head. In the dimness of the livery stable two horses drowsed, standing upright over empty feed troughs. As they passed Jackson’s Saloon, two men, who had been sitting on the long bench beside the doorway of the saloon, got slowly up and walked to the edge of the board walk and watched the three men on their two horses. Miller looked closely at the men and then shook his head at Andrews.

“Looks like everybody’s asleep or dead,” he said. “I don’t even recognize them two.”

They stopped their horses in front of Butcher’s Hotel, and wrapped their reins loosely around the hitching post set several yards away from the walk in front of the building. Before they went inside, they loosened the cinches under the bellies of their horses and untied their bedrolls from behind their saddles. During all this Charley Hoge sat motionless on the rump of Miller’s horse. Miller tapped him on the knee and Charley Hoge turned dully.

“Get down, Charley,” Miller said. “We’re here.”