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.

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.”

Charley Hoge did not move; Miller grasped his arm and, gently, half pulled him down to the ground. With Charley Hoge walking unsteadily between them, Andrews and Miller went into the hotel.

The wide lobby was almost completely bare; two straight chairs, one of them with a splintered back, stood together against a far wall; a fine patina of dust covered the floor, the walls, and the ceiling. As they walked across to the counter of the desk clerk, their steps left distinct prints on the wood floor.

In the dimness of the enclosing counter an aging man dressed in rough work clothing dozed in a straight chair tilted back against a bare desk. Miller slapped his palm hard on the surface of the counter. The man’s rasping breath caught sharply, his mouth closed, and the chair came forward; for an instant he glowered sightlessly; then he blinked. He got up and came unsteadily to the counter, yawning and scratching at the gray stubble around his chin.

“What can I do for you?” he mumbled, and yawned again.

“We want two rooms,” Miller said evenly, and threw his bedroll across the counter; dust exploded silently upward, and hung in the dim air.

“Two rooms?” the old man said, his eyes focusing upon them. “You want two rooms?”

“How much?” Miller asked. Andrews threw his bedroll down beside Miller’s.

“How much?” The man scratched his chin again; a faint rasping came to Andrews’s ears. The old man, still looking at them, fumbled beneath the counter and brought up a closed ledger. “I dunno. Dollar apiece sound all right?”

Miller nodded and shoved the ledger, which the old man had opened in front of him, to Andrews. Miller said: “We’ll want some tubs and some hot water, and some soap and razors. How much will that be?”

The old man scratched his chin. “Well, now. What’re you fellows used to paying for such a chore?”

“I paid two bits last year,” Andrews said.

“That sounds reasonable,” the old man said. “Two bits apiece. I think I’ll be able to heat up some water for you.”

“What’s the matter with this damn town?” Miller said loudly, and again slapped his palm upon the counter. “Did everybody die?”

The old man shrugged nervously. “I don’t know, mister. I only been here a few days, myself. On my way to Denver, and ran out of money. Man said, you take care of this place good, and you keep what you make. That’s all I know.”

“Then I don’t suppose you’ve heard of a man named McDonald. J. D. McDonald.”

“Nope. Like I said, I only been here—”

“All right,” Miller said. “Where are our rooms?”

The old man handed them two keys. “Right up the stairs,” he said. “The numbers are on the keys.”

“Lead the horses over to the livery stable,” Miller said. “They need taking care of bad.”

“The horses over to the livery stable,” the old man repeated. “Yes, sir.”

Miller and Andrews picked up their bedrolls and went to the stairs. The dust lay smooth and unbroken on the steps.

“Looks like we’re the first customers in a long time,” Andrews said.

“Something’s wrong,” Miller said. With Charley Hoge between them, the three men bumped together going up the stairs. “I don’t like the way things feel.”

Their rooms were side by side, just off the stairs; the number on Andrews’s key was seventeen. As Miller and Charley Hoge started into their room, Andrews said: “If I get through before you do, I’ll be outside. I want to look around a little.”

Miller nodded, and pushed Charley Hoge before him.

When Will Andrews turned his key in the lock and pushed the door inward, a billow of musty air came from the unused room. He left the door half open and went to the muslin-covered window; the cloth in its wooden frame was clogged with dust. He detached the frame from the window, and set it on the floor beside a wooden rain shutter which showed no sign of having been used against the weather. A warm breeze moved sluggishly through the room.

Andrews unrolled the mattress on the narrow rope bed, and sat on the bare ticking. He removed his shoes, fumbling with the strips of buffalo hide that months before had replaced the original thongs; the soles were worn thin, and the leather of the uppers had cracked through. He held one shoe in his hands and gazed at it for several moments; curiously, he pulled against the leather; it ripped like heavy paper. Quickly, he removed the rest of his clothing, and heaped it in a pile beside the bed; he unstrapped his stained and crumpled money belt and dropped it on the mattress. Naked, he rose from the bed and stood in the center of the room in the amber light that came through the window. He looked down at his bare flesh; it was a dirty, grayish white, like the underbelly of a fish. He pushed his forefinger along the hairless skin of his belly; dirt came off in long thin rolls and revealed more dirt beneath. He shuddered, and went to the washstand near the window. He took a dusty towel from the rack, shook it out, and wrapped it around his loins; he went back to the bed and sat, and waited for the old man to come up with his tub and water.

The old man, breathing heavily, came up shortly with two tubs, depositing one in Miller’s and Charley Hoge’s room and the other in Andrews’s room.

Shoving the tub to the center of the floor, the old man looked curiously at Andrews, who remained sitting on the bed.

“By God,” he said. “You men sure got a powerful stink to you. How long since you had a bath?”

Andrews thought for a moment. “Not since last August.”

“Where you been?”

“Colorado Territory.”

“Oh. Prospecting?”

“Hunting.”

“For what?”

Andrews looked at him in tired surprise. “Buffalo.”

“Buffalo,” the old man said, and nodded vaguely. “I think I heared once they used to be buffalo up there.”

Andrews did not speak. After a moment the old man sighed and backed toward the door. “Water’ll be hot in a few minutes. Anything else you need, just let me know.”

Andrews pointed to the heap of clothing on the floor beside the bed. “You might take these out with you, and get me some new ones.”

The old man picked up the clothing, holding it in one hand, away from him. Andrews got a bill from his money belt and put it in the man’s other hand.

“What’ll I do with these?” the old man asked, moving the clothing slightly.

“Burn them,” Andrews said.

“Burn them,” the man repeated. “Any special kind of clothes you want from the dry goods store?”

“Clean ones,” Andrews said.

The old man cackled, and went out of the room; Andrews did not move from the bed until he returned with two buckets of water. He watched as the old man poured them into the tub. From his pockets the old man withdrew a razor, a pair of scissors, and a large bar of yellow soap.

“I had to buy the razor,” he said, “but the scissors is mine. I’ll bring your clothes up directly.”

“Thanks,” Andrews said. “And you might as well be heating up some more water.”

The old man nodded. “I reckoned this wouldn’t get you clean. I’ve already got some started.”

Andrews waited for a few moments after the old man had left the room. Then, holding the soap, he stepped into the lukewarm water and lowered himself. He sloshed water over his upper body and soaped himself vigorously, watching with a kind of ecstasy the dirt fall away in long strips beneath the gritty soap. His body, covered with tiny unhealed insect bites, stung from the strong soap; nevertheless he raked his fingernails roughly across his flesh, working the soap in, and leaving long red welts in crisscrosses on his body. He soaped his hair and beard and watched the black streams of water run back into the tub. His own stench, released by the cleansing he gave himself, rose from the water, and made him hold his breath.

When the old man came back in his room with fresh water, Andrews, naked and dripping grayish water on the bare floor, helped him lug the tub to the open window. They emptied it on the sidewalk below. The water splashed into the street and was immediately absorbed into the dust.

“Whew,” the old man said. “That’s mighty powerful water.” He had brought Andrews’s new clothes with him and had tossed them upon the bed before they emptied the water; now he pointed to them. “Hope they fit; it was the nearest I could get to what you throwed away.”

“They’ll be all right,” Andrews said.

He bathed more leisurely, building suds over his body and watching them float on the surface of the water. At last he stepped from the tub and toweled himself dry, marveling at the whiteness of his skin, and slapping it to see the rosy welts appear there. Then he went to the washbasin, where the old man had left the razor and scissors. He raised his eyes to the mirror that was hung crookedly above the basin.

Though he had seen his face dimly and darkly in the pools and streams where they had watered, from the mountains across the great plain, and though he had grown used to the feel upon his face and beneath his fingers of the long tangled beard and hair, he was not prepared for what he saw in the mirror. His beard, still damp from the bath, lay twisted in light brown cords on the lower half of his face, so that it seemed he peered at himself in a mask that made his face like that of anyone he might imagine. The upper half of his face was a bloodless brown, darker than his beard or hair; it had hardened in the weather, so that he could see no expression and no identity where he looked. His hair grew over his ears, and hung nearly to his shoulders. For a long time he stared at himself, turning his head from side to side; then he slowly took up the scissors from the table and started cutting away at his beard.

The scissors were dull, and the strands of hair that he caught and lifted in one hand slipped between the blades so that he had to angle the scissor blades to his face, half cutting and half hacking at the tough, fine hair. When he had reduced the beard to a long stubble, he soaped his face with the yellow soap he had bathed in and drew the razor in short careful strokes over his skin. When he finished, he rinsed the soap from his face and looked at himself again in the mirror. Where the beard had been his flesh was a dead white, startling against the brown of his forehead and cheeks. He flexed the muscles of his face, retracting the mouth in a mirthless grin, and took the skin along his jaw between a thumb and forefinger; it felt numb and lifeless. His whole face was diminished, and it stared palely at him from its tangle of hair. He took the scissors up again, and began hacking away at the hair that lay in thick ropes about his face.

After several minutes, he stood back from the mirror and surveyed his work. His hair was awkwardly and unevenly cut, but it no longer made his face appear that of a child. He brushed together the tufts of hair that had settled on the table, crushed them in his hands, and dropped them out of his window, where they dispersed in the air and floated slowly to the ground, catching the late sunlight in flashing glints and then disappearing as they settled on the sidewalk and the earth below him.

The clothes that the old man had got for him were rough and ill-fitting, but the coarse clean feel of them gave his body a vitality and a sensation of delicacy that it had not had in many months. He turned the bottoms of the sharply creased black broadcloth trousers up over the tops of his stiff new shoes, and opened the top button of the heavy blue shirt. He went out of his room, and in the hall paused before Miller’s and Charley Hoge’s door. He heard from within the sounds of splashing water. He went down the stairs, through the lobby, and stood on the board sidewalk outside the hotel in the heat and stillness of the late afternoon.

The odd lengths of scrap wood that constituted the sidewalk had warped during the winter, and many of them curved upward from their width, so that Andrews in his new shoes had to walk carefully upon them. He looked up and down the street. To the left of the hotel, east of town, a broad square of packed grassless earth shone in the late rays of the sun. After a moment of thought, Andrews recalled that this was the site of the large army tent that had been the establishment of Joe Long, Barbar. Andrews turned, and walked slowly in the other direction, past the hotel. He walked past a half-dugout that was deserted and crumbling in upon itself, and did not pause until he reached the livery stable. In the dimness of the large stable, the two horses that had brought them into Butcher’s Crossing munched slowly over a trough of grain. He started to go into the stable, but he did not. He turned slowly and walked back toward the hotel. He leaned against the door-frame and surveyed that part of the town he could see, and waited for Miller and Charley Hoge to come down to join him.

The sun had gone down, and the diffused tremendous light from the west caught the dusty haze that hung over the town, softening the hard outlines of the buildings, when Miller and Charley Hoge came out of the hotel and joined Andrews where he stood waiting on the sidewalk. Miller’s face, shorn of its black beard, was heavy and white on his massive shoulders; Andrews looked at him with some surprise; except for his torn and filthy clothing, he looked precisely as he had months before, when Andrews had first walked up to him at the table in Jackson’s Saloon. It was Charley Hoge who had undergone the most marked change in appearance. His long beard had been clipped as closely as possible with the scissors, though evidently Miller had not risked using a razor; beneath the gray stubble, Charley Hoge’s face had lost its lean craftiness; now it was gaunt and vague and drawn; the cheeks were sunken deeply, the eyes were cavernous and wasted, and the mouth had gone slack and loose; the lips moved unevenly over the broken, yellow teeth, but no sound came. Charley Hoge stood inertly beside Miller, his arms hanging at his sides, the stump of his right wrist protruding from his sleeve.

“Come on,” Miller said. “We’ve got to find McDonald.”

Andrews nodded, and the three men went off the board sidewalk into the dust of the street, angling across it toward the low long front of Jackson’s Saloon. One by one, Miller first and Andrews last, they went into the narrow, low-ceilinged barroom. It was deserted. Only one of the half-dozen or so lanterns that hung from the sooty rafters was lighted, and its dim glow met the light from outside that came through the front door and cast the room into great flat shadows. On the planked bar stood a bottle of whisky, half empty; beside it was an empty glass.

Miller strode to the bar and slapped his hand heavily upon it, causing the empty glass to jump and teeter on its edge. “Hey!” Miller called, and called again: “Hey, bartender!” No one answered his call.

Miller shrugged, took the bottle of whisky by its neck, and poured the glass nearly full. “Here,” he said to Charley Hoge, and pushed the glass toward him. “It’s on the house.”

Charley Hoge, standing beside Andrews, looked for a moment without moving at the drink of whisky. His eyes turned to Miller, and back to the drink again. Then he seemed to fall forward toward the bar, his feet moving just quickly enough to keep the balance of his body. He took the drink unsteadily, sloshing it over his hand and wrist, and put it thirstily to his lips, leaning his head back and taking it in long noisy gulps.

“Take it slow,” Miller said, grasping his crippled arm and shaking it. “You ain’t had any in a long time.”

Charley Hoge shook his arm as if Miller’s hand were a fly upon bare skin. He set the glass down empty; his eyes were streaming and he gasped as if he had been running a long distance. Then his face tightened, and paled; he held his breath for an instant; almost nonchalantly, he leaned across the bar and retched upon the floor behind it.

“Too fast,” Miller said. “I told you.” He poured only an inch of whisky into the glass. “Try her again.”

Charley Hoge drank it in a single gulp. He waited for a moment, and then nodded to Miller. Miller filled the glass again. The bottle was almost empty. He waited until Charley Hoge had drunk some more of the whisky; then he emptied the bottle into his glass, and tossed the bottle behind the bar.

“Let’s see if there’s anybody in the other room,” he said.

Again one by one, with Miller in the lead, the three men went through the door that led into the large room next to the bar. The room was dim, lighted only by the flowing dusk that seeped through the narrow windows set high in the walls. Only two of the many tables were occupied; at one of them, across the room, sat two women, who glanced up as the three men walked through the door. Andrews took a step toward them, peering at them through the dimness; they returned his stare dully; he looked away. At the other table were two men, who glanced at them and then returned to a low-voiced conversation. One of the men wore a white shirt and an apron; he was very small and fat with large moustaches and a perfectly round face that glistened in the dimness. Miller clumped across the rough floor and stood beside the table.

“You the bartender?” he asked the small man.

“That’s right,” the man said.

“I’m looking for McDonald,” Miller said. “Where’s he staying?”

“Never heard of no McDonald,” the bartender said, and turned back to his companion.

“Used to be the hide buyer around here,” Miller said. “His place is just out of town, by the creek. Name of J. D. McDonald.”

The bartender had not turned again while he was speaking. Miller let his hand fall on the man’s shoulder. He squeezed and pulled the man around to face him.

“You pay attention when I’m talking to you,” Miller said quietly.

“Yes, sir,” the bartender said. He did not move beneath Miller’s grasp. Miller loosened his hand.

“Now, did you hear what I said?”

“Yes, sir,” the bartender said. He licked his lips, and put one hand to his shoulder and rubbed it. “I heard you. But I never heard of him. I only been here a month or maybe a little more. I don’t know anything about any McDonald or any hide buyer.”

“All right,” Miller said. He stepped back from the man. “You go in the bar and bring us back a bottle of whisky and some eats. My friend here—” he pointed to Charley Hoge—”threw up behind your counter. You’d better clean it up.”

“Yes, sir,” the bartender said. “All I’ll be able to get for you is some fried side meat and warmed-up beans. That be all right?”

Miller nodded and went to a table several feet away from that of the two men. Andrews and Charley Hoge followed behind him.

“That son-of-a-bitch McDonald,” Miller said. “He’s run out on us. Now we probably won’t be able to get any money for those hides we left until we can deliver them.”

Andrews said, “Mr. McDonald probably just got tired of the paper work, and took off for a while. There are too many hides back at his place for him just to leave them.”

“I don’t know,” Miller said. “I never trusted him.”

“Don’t worry,” Andrews said, and looked restlessly about him. One of the two women whispered something to her companion, and got up from the table; she fixed a smile on her face and walked loosely across the floor toward them. Her face was swarthy and thin, and her sparse black hair was fluffed in wisps about it.

“Honey,” she said in a thin voice, looking at all of them, her lips pulled back over her teeth, “can I get anything for you? Do you want anything?”

Miller leaned back in his chair, and looked at her with no expression on his face. He blinked twice, slowly, and said: “Sit down. You can have a drink when the man brings the bottle.”

The woman sighed and seated herself between Andrews and Miller. Quickly, expertly, she looked them over with small black eyes that moved stiffly behind puffed eyelids. She let the smile loosen on her face.

“Looks like you boys ain’t been in town for a long time. Hunters?”

“Yeah,” Miller said. “What’s wrong around here? This town die?”

The bartender came in with a bottle of whisky and three glasses.

“Honey,” the woman said to him, “I left my glass on the other table, and these gentlemen have asked me to have a drink with them. Get it for me, will you?”

The bartender grunted, and got her glass from the other table.

“Do you want my friend to join us?” the woman said, jerking her thumb in the direction of the table where the other woman waited torpidly. “We could made up a little party.”

“No,” Miller said. “This is all right. Now, what’s happened to this town?”

“It’s been pretty dead the last few months,” the woman said. “No hunters at all. But you wait. Wait till fall. It’ll pick up again.”

Miller grunted. “Hunting go bad?”

She laughed. “Lord, don’t ask me. I don’t know anything about that.” She winked. “I don’t do much talking with the men; that ain’t my line.”

“You been here long?” Miller asked.

“Over a year,” she said, and nodded sadly. “This little town’s been good to me; I hate to see it slow down.”

Andrews cleared his throat. “Are—many of the same girls still here?”

When she did not smile, the skin hung in loose folds on her face. She nodded. “Some. Lots of them have pulled out, though. Not me. This town’s been good to me; I aim to stay around for awhile.” She drank deeply from the glass of whisky she had poured.

“If you’ve been around a year,” Miller said, “you must have heard of McDonald. The hide buyer. Is he still around?”

The woman coughed and nodded. “Last I heard, he still was.”

“Where’s he staying?” Miller asked.

“He was at the hotel for a while,” she said. “Last I heard, he was staying in the old bunkhouse, out back.”

Miller pushed his barely tasted glass of whisky in front of Charley Hoge. “Drink it,” he said, “and let’s get out of here.”

“Ah, come on,” the woman said. “I thought we was going to have a little party.”

“You take what’s left of this bottle,” Miller said, “and you and your friend can have a party. We got business.”

“Ah, come on, honey,” the woman said, and put her hand on Miller’s arm. Miller looked at her hand for a moment, and then casually, with a flick of his fingers, brushed it off, as if it were an insect that had dropped there.

“Well,” the woman said, and smiled fixedly, “thanks for the bottle.” She took its neck in her bony fingers and got up from the table.

“Wait,” Andrews said as she started to move away. “There was a girl here last year—her name was Francine. I was wondering if she was still around.”

“Francine? Sure. She’s still around. But not for long. She’s been packing the last few days. You want me to go up and get her?”

“No,” Andrews said. “No, thank you. I’ll see her later.” He leaned back in his chair, and did not look at Miller.

“For God’s sake,” Miller said. “Schneider was right. You have had that little whore on your mind. I’d almost forgot about her. Well, you can do what you want about her; but right now we got more important things.”

“Don’t you want to wait for our food?” Andrews said.

“You can eat later if you want,” Miller said. “Right now, we get this McDonald business settled.”

They roused Charley Hoge from his contemplation of the empty glass, and went out of the saloon into the dusk. No lights cut through the growing dark. The men stumbled over the board sidewalks as they went up the street. Beyond Jackson’s Saloon they turned to their right and made their way past the outdoor staircase that led to the upper floor of Jackson’s. As they walked, Andrews looked up at the dark landing and the darker rectangle of the door, and continued looking upward as they passed the building. At the back he saw through a window the faint glow of a lamp; but he could see no movement in the room from which the light came. He stumbled in the thick grass that grew in the open field over which they walked; thereafter he looked before him and guided Charley Hoge beside him.

Some two hundred yards from the rear of Jackson’s Saloon, across the field in a westerly angle, the low flat-roofed sleeping house rose vaguely in the dark.

“There’s somebody in there,” Miller said. “I can see a light.”

A weak glow came from the half-opened door. Miller went a few steps ahead of the others, and kicked it open. The three men crowded in; Andrews saw a single huge room, low-raftered and perfectly square. Twenty or thirty beds were scattered about the room; some were overturned, and others were placed at random angles to each other. None of these held mattresses, and none was occupied. At the far end of the room, in a corner, a dim lantern burned, throwing into shadow the shape of a man who sat on the edge of a bed, hunched over a low table. At the sound of the men entering, he lifted his head.

“McDonald!” Miller called.

The figure rose from the bed, and backed out of the light. “Who’s that?” he asked in a vague, querulous voice.

The three men advanced toward him, moving through the scattered bed frames. “It’s us, Mr. McDonald,” Andrews said.

“Who?” McDonald lowered his head and peered out of the light. “Who’s that talking?”

The men came into the dim mass of light cast by the lantern hung from a hook in one of the corner rafters. McDonald came close to them, and peered from one of their faces to another, blinking slowly as his protuberant blue eyes took them in.

“My God!” he said. “Miller. Will Andrews. My God! I’d given you up for dead.” He came to Andrews, and grasped both his arms with thin, tight hands. “Will Andrews.” His hands trembled on Andrews’s arms, and then his whole body began trembling.

“Here,” Andrews said. “Sit down, Mr. McDonald. I didn’t mean to give you a shock.”

“My God!” McDonald said again, and sank upon the edge of the bed; he stared at the three men and shook his head from side to side. “Give me a minute to get over it.” After a moment, he straightened. “Wasn’t there another one of you? Where’s your skinner?”

“Schneider,” Miller said. “Schneider’s dead.”

McDonald nodded. “What happened?”

“Drowned,” Miller said. “When we were crossing a river on our way back.”

McDonald nodded again, vacantly. “You found your buffalo, then.”

“We found them,” Miller said. “Just like I told you we would.”

“Big kill,” McDonald said.

“A big one,” Miller said.

“How many hides did you bring back?”

Miller breathed deeply, and sat on the edge of a bed facing McDonald. “None,” he said. “We lost them in the river, same time Schneider was killed.”

McDonald nodded. “The wagon, too, I guess.”

“Everything,” Miller said.

McDonald turned to Andrews. “Got cleaned out?”

Andrews said, “Yes. But it doesn’t matter.”

“No,” McDonald said. “I guess not.”

“Mr. McDonald,” Andrews said. “What’s the matter here? Why are you staying in this place? We stopped by your office on the way in. What’s happened?”

“What?” McDonald said. He looked at Andrews and blinked. Then he laughed dryly. “It takes a lot of telling. Yes, sir. A lot of telling.” He turned to Miller. “So you got nothing to show for your trip. You got snowed in the mountains, I guess. And you got nothing to show for a whole winter.”

“We got three thousand hides, winter prime, cached away up in the mountains. They’re just waiting. We got something to show.” Miller looked at him grimly.

McDonald laughed again. “They’ll be a comfort to you in your old age,” he said. “And that’s all they’ll be.”

“We got three thousand prime hides,” Miller said. “That’s better than ten thousand dollars, even after our expense of bringing them back down.”

McDonald laughed, and his laughter choked in a fit of coughing. “My God, man. Ain’t you got eyes? Ain’t you looked around you? Ain’t you talked to anyone in this town?”

“We had an agreement,” Miller said. “You and me. Four dollars apiece for prime hides. Ain’t that right?”

“That’s right,” McDonald said. “That’s dead right. Nobody would argue with that.”

“And I aim to hold you to it,” Miller said.

“You aim to hold me to it,” McDonald said. “By God, I wish you could.” He got up from the bed and looked down at the three men who sat opposite him. He turned completely around, and, facing them again, lifted his hands and ran his bony fingers through his thinning hair. Then he held his hands, palms up, out toward the three men. “You can’t hold me to nothing. Can’t you see that? Because I got nothing. Thirty, forty thousand hides down at the pits that I bought and paid for this last fall. All the money I had. You want them? You can have them for ten cents apiece. You might be able to make a little profit on them—next year, or the year after.”

Miller lowered his head and swung it before him, slowly, from side to side.

“You’re lying,” he said. “I can go to Ellsworth.”

“Go on,” McDonald shouted. “Go on to Ellsworth. They’ll laugh at you. Can’t you look at it straight? The bottom’s dropped out of the whole market; the hide business is finished. For good.” He lowered his head and thrust it close to Miller’s. “Just like you’re finished, Miller. And your kind.”

“You’re a liar!” Miller said loudly, and moved back away from him. “We had an agreement, man to man. We worked our guts out for them hides, and you ain’t going to back out now.”

McDonald moved back and looked at him levelly. His voice was cool; “I don’t rightly see how I can keep from it. You can’t squeeze juice out of a rock.” He nodded. “Funny thing. You’re just about seven months too late. If you had got back when you was supposed to, you would have got your money. I had it then. You could have helped ruin me.”

“You’re lying to me,” Miller said, more quietly. “It’s some trick of yours. Why, just last year, prime hides—prime hides—”

“That was last year,” McDonald said.

“Well, what could go wrong in one year? In just one year?”

“You remember what happened to beaver?” McDonald asked. “You trapped beaver once, didn’t you? When they stopped wearing beaver hats you couldn’t give the skins away. Well, it looks like everybody that wants one has a buffalo robe; and nobody wants any more. Why they wanted them in the first place, I don’t know; you never can really get the stink out of them.”

“But in just a year,” Miller said.

McDonald shrugged. “It was coming. If I’d been back east, I would have knowed it....If you can wait four or five years, maybe they’ll find some way to use the leather. Then your prime hides will be just about as good as easy summer skins. You might get thirty, forty cents apiece for them.”

Miller shook his head, as if he had been dazed by a blow. “What about the land you own around here?” he asked. “By God, you can sell off some of that and pay us.”

“You don’t listen to me, do you?” McDonald said. Then his hands started shaking again. “You want the land? You can have that too.” He turned and began scrabbling in a box that lay under his bed. He drew out a sheet of paper and laid it on the table and started scribbling on it with the stub of a pen. “Here. I turn it over to you. You can have it all. But you better set yourself to be a dry-land farmer; because you’ll have to keep it; or give it away, like I’m giving it to you.”

“The railroad,” Miller said. “You used to say when the railroad came through, the land would be like gold.”

“Ah, yes,” McDonald said. “The railroad. Well, it’s coming through. They’re laying the tracks now. It’ll come through about fifty miles north of here.” McDonald laughed again. “You want to hear a funny thing? The hunters are selling buffalo meat to the railroad company—and they’re letting the hides lay where they skin them, to rot in the sun. Think of all the buffalo you killed. You could have got maybe five cents a pound for all that meat you let lay for the flies and the timber wolves.”

There was a silence.

“I killed the timber wolves,” Charley Hoge said. “I killed them with strychnine poison.”

As if drugged, Miller looked at McDonald, and then at Andrews, and back to McDonald again.

“So you’ve got nothing now,” Miller said.

“Nothing,” McDonald said. “I can see it gives you some satisfaction.”

“By God, it does,” Miller said. “Except that when you ruin yourself, you ruin us too. You sit back here, and we work our guts out, and you say you’ll give us money, like that means anything. And then you ruin yourself and take us down with you. But by God, it’s almost worth it. Almost.”

“Me ruin you?” McDonald laughed. “You ruin yourself, you and your kind. Every day of your life, everything you do. Nobody can tell you what to do. No. You go your own way, stinking the land up with what you kill. You flood the market with hides and ruin the market, and then you come crying to me that I’ve ruined you.” McDonald’s voice became anguished. “If you’d just listened—all of you. You’re no better than the things you kill.”

“Go back,” Miller said. “Get out of this country. It doesn’t want you.”

Breathing heavily, McDonald stood slouched tiredly beneath the lantern; his face was cast in a deep shadow. Miller got up from the bed and pulled Charley Hoge up with him. He walked a few steps away from McDonald, pulling Charley Hoge beside him.

“I’m not through with you yet,” he said to McDonald. “I’ll see you again.”

“All right,” McDonald said wearily, “if you think it’ll do any good.”

Andrews cleared his throat. He said to Miller, “I think I’ll stay here and talk to Mr. McDonald for a while.”

Miller looked at him impassively for a moment; his black hair blended into the darkness behind him, and his heavy pale face was thrust broodingly out of it.

“Do whatever you want,” he said. “It makes no difference to me. Our business is finished.” And he turned and walked into the darkness, out the door.

After Miller and Charley Hoge had gone, there were several minutes of silence. McDonald reached up to the lantern and raised the wick so that the light about the two men sharpened and made their features more distinct. Andrews moved the bed on which he had been sitting a little closer to the one upon which McDonald slumped.

“Well,” McDonald said, “you had your hunt.”

“Yes, sir.”

“And you lost your tail, just like I said you would.”

Andrews did not speak.

“That was what you wanted, wasn’t it?” McDonald asked.

“Maybe it was, in the beginning,” Andrews said. “Part of it, at least.”

“Young people,” McDonald said. “Always wanting to start from scratch. I know. You never figured that someone else knew what you was trying to do, did you?”

“I never thought about it,” Andrews said. “Maybe because I didn’t know what I was trying to do myself.”

“Do you know now?”

Andrews moved restlessly.

“Young people,” McDonald said contemptuously. “You always think there’s something to find out.”

“Yes, sir,” Andrews said.

“Well, there’s nothing,” McDonald said. “You get born, and you nurse on lies, and you get weaned on lies, and you learn fancier lies in school. You live all your life on lies, and then maybe when you’re ready to die, it comes to you—that there’s nothing, nothing but yourself and what you could have done. Only you ain’t done it, because the lies told you there was something else. Then you know you could of had the world, because you’re the only one that knows the secret; only then it’s too late. You’re too old.”

“No,” Andrews said. A vague terror crept from the darkness that surrounded them, and tightened his voice. “That’s not the way it is.”

“You ain’t learned, then,” McDonald said. “You ain’t learned yet....Look. You spend nearly a year of your life and sweat, because you have faith in the dream of a fool. And what have you got? Nothing. You kill three, four thousand buffalo, and stack their skins neat; and the buffalo will rot wherever you left them, and the rats will nest in the skins. What have you got to show? A year gone out of your life, a busted wagon that a beaver might use to make a dam with, some calluses on your hands, and the memory of a dead man.”

“No,” Andrews said. “That’s not all. That’s not all I have.”

“Then what? What have you got?”

Andrews was silent.

“You can’t answer. Look at Miller. Knows the country he was in as well as any man alive, and had faith in what he believed was true. What good did it do him? And Charley Hoge with his Bible and his whisky. Did that make your winter any easier, or save your hides? And Schneider. What about Schneider? Was that his name?”

“That was his name,” Andrews said.

“And that’s all that’s left of him,” McDonald said. “His name. And he didn’t even come out of it with that for himself.” McDonald nodded, not looking at Andrews. “Sure, I know. I came out of it with nothing, too. Because I forgot what I learned a long time ago. I let the lies come back. I had a dream, too, and because it was different from yours and Miller’s, I let myself think it wasn’t a dream. But now I know, boy. And you don’t. And that makes all the difference.”

“What will you do now, Mr. McDonald?” Andrews asked; his voice was soft.

“Do?” McDonald straightened on the bed. “Why, I’m going to do what Miller said I should do; I’m going to get out of this country. I’m going back to St. Louis, maybe back to Boston, maybe even to New York. You can’t deal with this country as long as you’re in it; it’s too big, and empty, and it lets the lies come into you. You have to get away from it before you can handle it. And no more dreams; I take what I can get when I can get it, and worry about nothing else.”

“I wish you good luck,” Andrews said. “I’m sorry it turned out for you the way it did.”

“And you?” McDonald asked. “What about you?”

“I don’t know yet,” Andrews said. “I still don’t know.”

“You don’t have to,” McDonald said. “You come back with me. We could do all right together; we both know the country now; away from it, we could do something with it.”

Andrews smiled. “Mr. McDonald, you talk like you’re putting your faith in me, now.”

“No,” McDonald said. “It’s not that at all. It’s just that I hate paper work, and you could take some of it off my hands.”

Andrews got up from the bed. “I’ll let you know when I’ve had a little more time,” he said. “But thanks for asking me.” He gave his hand to McDonald; McDonald shook it limply. “I’ll be staying at the hotel; don’t leave without looking me up.”

“All right, boy.” McDonald looked up at him; the lids came down slowly over his bulging eyes, and raised. “I’m pleased you came through it alive.”

Andrews turned quickly away from him, and went away from the thinning circle of light into the darkness of the room and into the wide darkness that waited outside. A thin new moon hung high in the west, giving the dry grass that rustled under his feet a faint, almost invisible glow. He walked slowly over the uneven ground toward the low dark bulk of Jackson’s Saloon; the yellow blob of a lighted lamp still showed in a high window near the center of the building.

He had walked past the long upward angling sweep of the stairs, had stepped upon the board sidewalk, had turned, had even made a few steps down the sidewalk beyond the opening of the stairs, before he knew that he was going to walk up them. He stopped on the sidewalk and turned slowly to walk back to where the stairs began. A weakness came into his legs and rose to his upper body, so that his arms hung loosely at his sides. For several moments he did not move. Then, as if beyond his volition, one of his feet rose to find the first step. Slowly, his hands not touching the bannister on his left nor the wall on his right, he went up the stairs. Again, at the landing at the top of the stairs, he paused. He breathed deeply of the warm, smoky air that hung about the town, until the weakness of his body was gathered into his lungs and breathed out upon the air. He fumbled for the door latch, lifted it, and pushed the door inward. He walked through the doorway and closed the door behind him. A hot still air enclosed him and pressed upon his flesh; he blinked his eyes and breathed more heavily. It was several moments before he realized the depth of the darkness in which he stood; he could see nothing; he took a blind step forward to keep his balance.

He found the wall on his left, and let his hand slide lightly over it as he groped his way forward. His hand went over the recesses of two doorways before he came to a door beneath the sill of which a thin line of yellow light seeped. He stood for a moment close to the door, listening; he heard a rustle of movement from within the room, and then silence. He waited for a moment more, and then stood back from the door and closed his loose hand into a fist and rapped upon it, twice. He heard another rustle of clothing and the light bare pad of feet. The door opened a few inches; he could see nothing but the yellow light, which he felt upon his face. Very slowly, the door opened wider, and he saw Francine, a shape against the glow of the lamp behind her, one hand upon the edge of the door and the other clasped at the collar of a loose wrapper that hung nearly to her ankles. He stood stiff and unmoving and waited for her to speak.

“Is it you?” she asked after a long moment. “Is it Will Andrews?”

“Yes,” he said, still stiff and unmoving.

“I thought you were dead,” she whispered. “Everybody thought you were dead.” Still she did not move from the doorway. Andrews stood awkwardly before her and shifted his weight. “Come in,” she said. “I didn’t mean to keep you standing outside.”

He walked into the room, past Francine, and stood near the edge of the thin carpet; he heard the door close behind him. He turned but he did not look directly at her.

“I hope I didn’t disturb you,” he said. “I know it’s late, but we only got in a few hours ago and I wanted to see you.”

“You’re all right?” Francine asked, coming closer and looking at him in the light. “What happened to you?”

“I’m all right,” he said. “We got snowed in; we had to stay in the mountains all winter.”

“And the others?” Francine asked.

“Yes,” Andrews said. “All except Schneider. He got killed on the way back, while we were crossing a river.”

Almost reluctantly, he raised his eyes and looked at her. Her long yellow hair was pulled in a tight braid so that it lay flat against her head; a few thin lines of tiredness ran from the corners of her eyes; her pale lips were parted over her rather large teeth.

“Schneider,” she said. “He was the big man that spoke German to me.”

“Yes,” Andrews said. “That was Schneider.”

Francine shivered in the heat of the room. “I didn’t like him,” she said. “But it’s not good to think that he’s dead.”

“No,” Andrews said.

She moved about the room, her fingers trailing along the carved wood that framed the back of the sofa and restlessly rearranging the knickknacks on the table beside it. Every now and then she looked up at Andrews and gave him a quick, puzzled smile. Andrews watched her movements closely, not speaking, hardly breathing.

She laughed low in her throat, and came across the room to him, where he stood near the door. She touched his sleeve.

“Come over in the light so I can see you better,” she said, and pulled gently on the cloth of his shirt sleeve.

Andrews let himself be led near to the table beside the red couch. Francine looked at him closely.

“You haven’t changed much,” she said. “Your face is browner. You’re older.” She caught his forearms in both her hands, and lifted them, turning his palms upward. “Your hands,” she said sadly, and ran her fingers lightly over one of his palms. “They’re hard now. I remember, they were so soft.”

Andrews swallowed. “You said they would be hard when I got back. Do you remember?”

“Yes,” she said. “I remember.”

“That was a long time ago.”

“Yes,” Francine said. “All winter I’ve thought you were dead.”

“I’m sorry,” he said. “Francine—” He paused, and looked down at her face. Her pale blue eyes, wide and transparent, waited for whatever he had to say. He closed his fingers around her hand. “I’ve wanted to tell you—All winter, while we were snowed in, I thought about it.”

She did not speak.

“The way I left you that night,” he continued. “I wanted you to know—it wasn’t you, it was me. I wanted you to understand about it.”

“I know,” Francine said. “You were ashamed. But you shouldn’t have been. It wasn’t as important as you thought. It is—” She shrugged. “It is the way some men are with love, at first.”

“Young men,” Andrews said. “You said I was very young.”

“Yes,” Francine said, “and you became angry. It is the way young men are with love....But you should have come back. It would have been all right.”

“I know,” Andrews said. “But I thought I couldn’t. And then I was too far away.”

She looked at him closely; she nodded. “You are older,” she said again; there was a trace of sadness in her voice. “And I was wrong; you have changed. You have changed so that you can come back.”

“Yes,” he said. “I have changed that much, at least.”

She moved away from him, and turned so that her back was to him, her body outlined sharply by the lamplight. For a long moment there was silence between them.

“Well,” Andrews said. “I wanted to see you again, to tell you—” He paused, and did not finish. He started to turn away from her, toward the door.

“Don’t go,” Francine said. She did not move. “Don’t go away again.”

“No,” Andrews said; he stood still where he had turned. “I won’t go away again. I’m sorry. I wasn’t trying to make you ask me. I want to stay. I should have—”

“It doesn’t matter. I want you to stay. When I thought you were dead, I—” She paused, and shook her head sharply. “You will stay with me for a while.” She turned, and shook her head sharply; and the reddish-gold light from the lamp trembled about her hair. “You will stay with me for a while. And you must understand. It’s not like it is with the others.”

“I know,” Andrews said. “Don’t talk about it.”

They looked at each other without speaking for several moments, making no move toward each other. Then Andrews said: “I’m sorry. It’s not the same as it was, is it?”

“No,” Francine said. “But it’s all right. I’m glad you came back.”

She turned away from him and leaned over the lamp. She lowered the wick; still leaning, she looked back over her shoulder at Andrews, and for a long moment studied his face; she did not smile. Then she blew sharply into the lamp chimney and darkness cut across the room. He heard the rustle of Francine’s clothing and caught a glimpse of her dim shape as she walked before the window. He heard the rustle of bedclothing being turned back and heard the heavier sound of a body sliding upon sheets. For a while he did not move. Then he fumbled at the buttons of his shirt as he moved across the room to where Francine waited in the darkness.