Butcher's Crossing Read Online Free PDF

have known it. I ought to have known it when you first came.”
    “I just want to talk to some of them,” Andrews said.
    “Sure,” McDonald said bitterly. “And the first thing you know, you’ll be wanting to go out.” His voice became earnest. “Listen, boy. Listen to me. You start going out with those men, it’ll ruin you. Oh, I’ve seen it. It gets in you like buffalo lice. You won’t care any more. Those men—” Andrews clawed in the air, as if for a word.
    “Mr. McDonald,” Andrews said quietly, “I appreciate what you’re trying to do for me. But I want to try to explain something to you. I came out here—” He paused and let his gaze go past McDonald, away from the town, beyond the ridge of earth that he imagined was the river bank, to the flat yellowish green land that faded into the horizon westward. He tried to shape in his mind what he had to say to McDonald. It was a feeling; it was an urge that he had to speak. But whatever he spoke he knew would be but another name for the wildness that he sought. It was a freedom and a goodness, a hope and a vigor that he perceived to underlie all the familiar things of his life, which were not free or good or hopeful or vigorous. What he sought was the source and preserver of his world, a world which seemed to turn ever in fear away from its source, rather than search it out, as the prairie grass around him sent down its fibered roots into the rich dark dampness, the Wildness, and thereby renewed itself, year after year. Suddenly, in the midst of the great flat prairie, unpeopled and mysterious, there came into his mind the image of a Boston street, crowded with carriages and walking men who toiled sluggishly beneath the arches of evenly spaced elms that had been made to grow, it seemed, out of the flat stone of sidewalk and roadway; there came into his mind the image of tall buildings, packed side by side, the ornately cut stone of which was grimed by smoke and city filth; there came into his mind the image of the river Charles winding among plotted fields and villages and towns, carrying the refuse of man and city out to the great bay.
    He became aware that his hands were tightly clenched; the tips of his fingers slipped in the moisture of his palms. He loosened his fists and wiped his palms on his trousers.
    “I came out here to see as much of the country as I can,” he said quietly. “I want to get to know it. It’s something that I have to do.”
    “Young folks,” said McDonald. He spoke softly. Flat lines of sweat ran through the glinting beads of moisture that stood out on his forehead, and ran into his tangled eyebrows, which were lowered over the eyes that regarded Andrews steadily. “They don’t know what to do with themselves. My God, if you’d start now—if you had the sense to start now, by the time you’re forty, you could be—” He shrugged. “Ahhh. Let’s get back out of the sun.”
    They re-entered the dim little shack. Andrews discovered that he was breathing heavily; his shirt was soaked with perspiration, and it clung to his skin and slid unpleasantly over it as he moved. He removed his coat and sank into the chair before McDonald’s table; he felt a curious weakness and lassitude descend from his chest and shoulders to his fingertips. A long silence fell upon the room. McDonald’s hand rested on his ledger; one finger moved aimlessly above the page but did not touch it. At last he sighed deeply and said:
    “All right. Go and talk to them. But I’ll warn you: Most of the men around here hunt for me; you’re not going to have an easy time getting into a party without my help. Don’t try to hook up with any of the men I send out. You leave my men alone. I won’t be responsible. I won’t have you on my conscience.”
    “I’m not even sure I want to go on a hunt,” Andrews said sleepily. “I just want to talk to the men that do.”
    “Trash,” McDonald muttered. “You come out here all the way from Boston,