Butcher's Crossing Read Online Free PDF Page B

Massachusetts, just to get mixed up with trash.”
    “Who should I talk to, Mr. McDonald?” Andrews asked.
    “What?”
    “Who should I talk to?” Andrews repeated. “I ought to talk to someone who knows his business, and you told me to keep away from your men.”
    McDonald shook his head. “You don’t listen to a word a man says, do you? You got it all figured out.”
    “No, sir,” Andrews said. “I don’t have anything figured out. I just want to know more about this country.”
    “All right,” McDonald said tiredly. He closed the ledger that he had been fingering and tossed it on a pile of papers. “You talk to Miller. He’s a hunter, but he ain’t as bad as the rest of them. He’s been out here most of his life; at least he ain’t as bad as the rebels and the hard Yankees. Maybe he’ll talk to you, maybe he won’t. You’ll have to find out for yourself.”
    “Miller?” Andrews asked.
    “Miller,” McDonald said. “He lives in a dugout down by the river, but you’ll more likely find him in Jackson’s. That’s where they all hang out, day and night. Ask anybody; everybody knows Miller.”
    “Thank you, Mr. McDonald,” Andrews said. “I appreciate your help.”
    “Don’t thank me,” McDonald said. “I’m doing nothing for you. I’m giving you a man’s name.”
    Andrews rose. The weakness had gone into his legs. It is the heat, he thought, and the strangeness. He stood still for a moment, gathering his strength.
    “One thing,” McDonald said. “Just one thing I ask you.” He appeared to Andrews to recede into the dimness.
    “Of course, Mr. McDonald. What is it?”
    “Let me know before you go out, if you decide to go. Just come back here and let me know.”
    “Of course,” Andrews said. “I’ll be seeing you often, I hope. It’s just that I want to have a little more time before I decide anything.”
    “Sure,” McDonald said bitterly. “Take all the time you can. You got plenty.”
    “Goodbye, Mr. McDonald.”
    McDonald waved his hand, angrily, and turned his attention abruptly to the papers on his desk. Andrews walked slowly out of the shack, into the yard, and turned on the wagon trail that led to the main road. At the main road, he paused. Across from him and some yards to his left was the clump of cottonwoods; beyond that, intersecting the road, must be the river; he could not see the water, but he could see the humped banks clustered with low-growing shrub and weed winding off into the distance. He turned and went back toward the town.
    It was near noon when he arrived at the hotel; the tiredness that had come upon him in McDonald’s shack remained. In the hotel dining room he ate lightly of tough fried meat and boiled beans, and sipped bitter hot coffee. The hotel clerk, who limped in and out of the dining room, asked him if he had found McDonald; he replied that he had; the clerk nodded and said nothing more. Soon Andrews left the dining room, went up to his room, and lay on his bed. He watched the cloth screen at his window billow softly inward until he was asleep.

III
    When he awoke his room was dark; the cloth screen at his window let in a flickering brightness from the street below. He heard distant shouts beneath the querulous murmur of many voices, and the snorting of a horse and the clop of hooves. For a moment he could not remember where he was.
    He got up abruptly and sat on the edge of his bed. The mattress rustled beneath him; he relaxed, and ran his fingers through his hair, down over the back of his head and neck, and stretched his head backward, welcoming the soreness that warmed pleasantly up between his shoulder blades. In the darkness he walked across his room to the small table, which was outlined dimly beside the window. He found a match on the table and lit the lamp beside the washbasin. In the mirror his face was a sharp contrast of yellow brightness and dark shadow. He put his hands in the lukewarm water of the basin and rinsed his face. He