Butcher's Crossing

Williams intensifies the novel’s critique of westward expansion by placing the expedition in sustained conflict with the land itself. The journey into the Colorado Territory exposes the fragility of human control, the falseness of frontier mythology, and the gradual erosion of Will Andrews’s idealism. Andrews observes a change when the men leave the last trace of established travel: “Another strangeness was waiting for him when they left the trail and went into the Colorado Territory” (72). This “strangeness” is a growing instability, as the land resists the meanings that Andrews has projected onto it. The bedraggled family that the hunters pass on the trail foreshadows the dangers ahead. Miller’s grim assertion that they won’t make it establishes his hard-earned knowledge of the wilderness, which contrasts with Andrews’s lingering idealism. The family’s exhaustion and vulnerability mirror the fate that nearly overtakes the hunting party itself, reinforcing the novel’s portrayal of the frontier as indifferent to human hope or resolve. Through this brief encounter, Williams signals that westward movement isn’t a story of progress or renewal, but one of attrition, in which survival is uncertain and optimism is often fatally misplaced.

Through The Deconstruction of the American Frontier Myth, Williams thematically dismantles the belief that the West is abundant and renewable. Rather than encountering a pristine wilderness, the men move through a scarred landscape littered with dead buffalo, abandoned routes, and the railroad’s intrusion. The tracks reveal that human development has already altered the wilderness beyond recovery, as buffalo avoid the noise and disturbance of industrial progress. Even Miller’s authority as a seasoned guide begins to erode when the land fails to match his memory. His admission, “It seems like the country has changed […] It seems like everything is different from what it was” (108), exposes the flawed assumption that the West is fixed and can be reclaimed through will or knowledge. Although the hidden valley filled with buffalo appears to confirm the fantasy of an untouched West, its isolation underscores how rare such spaces have become. The men’s immediate response of manufacturing bullets reveals that their practices don’t separate discovery from exploitation. The valley isn’t a sanctuary; it’s a resource awaiting destruction.

The expedition’s near-fatal dehydration thematically foregrounds Human Arrogance Versus Nature’s Indifference. Miller’s decision to abandon the Smoky Hill Trail reflects confidence born from experience and pride, yet the plains offer no forgiveness. Without water, the men experience the land as an impersonal force that strips them of agency and coherence. Andrews experiences this erosion acutely: “Day by day the numbness crept upon him until at last the numbness seemed to be himself. He felt himself to be like the land, without identity or shape” (77-78). Rather than mastering nature, Andrews is depleted by it, losing individuality as his physical limits are exposed. Survival comes by accident, reinforcing the land’s indifference to human intention. The episode demonstrates how easily confidence collapses when confronted with environmental reality.

The suffering of the horses and oxen, driven beyond their limits to satisfy the men’s pride and misplaced confidence, foreshadows the violence to come in the valley. Treated as expendable instruments rather than living creatures, these animals bear the consequences of human arrogance long before the buffalo do. Exhaustion and injury put them close to death, anticipating how the same logic of domination later justifies the mass slaughter of the buffalo herd. In this way, Williams establishes a pattern in which human ambition first manifests itself against the vulnerable and dependent, suggesting that the valley’s apparent abundance will inspire repetition of the same destructive impulse.

This lesson continues during the steep, exhausting, and dangerous ascent into the mountains, during which Andrews collapses as he quickly learns that the landscape demands endurance, not domination. As his body changes under strain, Andrews reflects on this: “He felt a leanness and a hardness creep upon his body; he thought at times that he was moving into a new body, or into a real body that had lain hidden beneath layers of unreal softness and whiteness and smoothness” (86). Though this journey brings transformation, it’s born from deprivation rather than insight. Andrews’s education is physical and corrective, not transcendent. The land reshapes him through suffering rather than revelation.

In this section, the theme of Disillusionment and the Loss of Idealism emerges, particularly through Andrews’s experience. His Emersonian expectations of spiritual clarity give way to silence and uncertainty as the journey progresses. He increasingly withdraws during disputes between Miller and Schneider, unsure of his own authority or purpose. However, his idealism doesn’t vanish entirely. When the men reach the mountains, Andrews is overwhelmed by awe. The sight briefly restores his belief that suffering leads to meaning, that nature rewards endurance. This moment reveals that the frontier myth persists because it provides flashes of beauty that seem to justify the immense cost. Andrews’s rapture exists alongside his growing awareness that the land isn’t benevolent, that memory is untrustworthy, and that mastery is an illusion. The valley’s apparent purity is fragile, and the men’s presence signals its end. Andrews’s idealism survives the journey, but it’s already compromised. By allowing Andrews to glimpse transcendence even after he nearly dies, Williams makes the eventual collapse of that belief inevitable and more devastating.