Butcher's Crossing by John Williams Read Free Book Online

to talk about, Mr. Andrews?” Miller asked.
    Andrews looked uncomfortably at Francine and Charley Hoge. He smiled. “You put it kind of abruptly,” he said.
    Miller nodded. “I figured to.”
    Andrews paused, and said: “I guess I just want to know the country. I’ve never been out here before; I want to know as much as I can.”
    “What for?” Miller asked.
    Andrews looked at him blankly.
    “You talk like you’re an educated man, Mr. Andrews.”
    “Yes, sir,” he said. “I was three years at Harvard College.”
    “Well,” Miller said, “three years. That’s quite a spell. How long you been away from there?”
    “Not long. I left to come out here.”
    Miller looked at him for a moment. “Harvard College.” He shook his head. “I learned myself to read one winter I was snowed in a trapper’s shack in Colorado. I can write my name on paper. What do you think you can learn from me?”
    Andrews frowned, and suppressed a tone of annoyance he felt creep into his voice. “I don’t even know you, Mr. Miller,” he said with a little heat. “It’s like I said. I want to know something about this country. Mr. McDonald said you were a good man to talk to, that you knew as much about this country as any man around. I had hoped that you would be kind enough to converse with me for an hour or so, to acquaint me with—”
    Miller shook his head again, and grinned. “You sure talk easy, son. You do, for a fact. That what you learn to do at Harvard College?”
    For a moment, Andrews stared at him stiffly. Then he smiled. “No, sir. I reckon not. At Harvard College, you don’t talk; you just listen.”
    “Sure, now,” Miller said. “That’s reason enough for any man to leave. A body’s got to speak up for his self, once in a while.”
    “Yes, sir,” Andrews said.
    “So you came out here. To Butcher’s Crossing.”
    “Yes, sir.”
    “And when you learn what you want to learn, what’ll you do? Go back and brag to your kinfolk? Write something for the papers?”
    “No, sir,” Andrews said. “It’s not for any of those reasons. It’s for myself.”
    Miller did not speak for several moments. Then he said, “You might buy Charley another glass of whisky; and I’ll have a glass myself this time.”
    Francine rose. She spoke to Andrews: “Another beer?”
    “Whisky,” Andrews said.
    After Francine left their table, Andrews was silent for some time; he did not look at either of the two men at the table with him.
    Miller said: “So you didn’t tie up with McDonald.”
    “It wasn’t what I wanted.”
    Miller nodded. “This is a hunt town, boy. If you stay around, there ain’t much choice about what you do. You can take a job with McDonald and make yourself some money, or you can start yourself some kind of little business and hope that the railroad does come through, or you can tie up with a party and hunt buffalo.”
    “That’s about what Mr. McDonald said.”
    “And he didn’t like the last idea.”
    Andrews smiled. “No, sir.”
    “He don’t like hunters,” Miller said. “And they don’t like him either.”
    “Why?”
    Miller shrugged. “They do the work, and he gets all the money. They think he’s a crook, and he thinks they’re fools. You can’t blame either side; they’re both right.”
    Andrews said, “But you’re a hunter yourself, aren’t you, Mr. Miller?”
    Miller shook his head. “Not like these around here, and not for McDonald. He outfits his own parties, and gives them fifty cents a head for raw hides—summer hides, not much more than thin leather. He has thirty or forty parties out all the time; he gets plenty of skins, but the way it’s split up, the men are lucky if they make enough to get through the winter. I hunt on my own or I don’t hunt at all.” Miller paused; Francine had returned with a quarter-filled bottle and fresh glasses and a small glass of beer for herself. Charley Hoge moved quickly toward the glass of whisky she set before him; Miller took