"Tell Us What Happened."
An adobe banco ran down one side of the cookshack on the inside, forming a bench, and it was upon this that Jacinto had deposited his generous bulk. He was bent in childish concentration over a block of wax from which he carefully peeled thin strips, depositing these with much care into a clay bowl. Small, intimate mutters rumbled up from him with each process.
"Ah, so," he mumbled, slicing off a piece, "ahsí," and sliced off another, and then jumped erect in startled surprise, dropping the block of wax. "Ah, Crawford!"
Crawford stepped on in through the door, sniffing. "Smells like bayberry."
"How—how did you get out?" quavered Jacinto, grunting painfully with the effort it cost him to stoop over and retrieve the wax.
"Nobody stopped me," said Crawford. "They gave me that upstairs bedroom, but I couldn't sleep."
"You better not come in here, Crawford," said the gross cook. "Maybe they're not watching you like they did, but you better get out of here. Why do you think Huerta kept you up at the house this morning? Didn't you see how Quartel looked at you? You're just lucky he didn't get you down here."
There was a dish of cracklings on the table, and Crawford took one, pulling a three-legged stool out to sit on it. "Quartel and the others are out chousing cattle. Making candles?"
"Sí," mumbled Jacinto, lowering himself back on the bench. "Nobody can make them like me. That was bayberry you smelled all right. I didn't have enough sheep tallow. First I make it into blocks and then cut it into small scraps so it melts quick without burning. I put the wax in hot water and scoop the grease off as it comes to the top. Then I strain it through a horsehair cloth to remove whatever dirt I missed in skimming. I am now heating the wax to pour in the molds. Did you ever see such fine molds? My father owned that brass one in El Paso. It holds two dozen candles at one pouring. If you came here to find out what's going on, I can't tell you."
The abrupt transition brought Crawford's head up in surprise. Jacinto set the mold end up in a dishpan, chuckling.
"I am not as stupid as I am corpulent, Crawford. You didn't come here just to eat my cracklings." His great bloodshot eyes slid upward in their pouches till they met Crawford's. "But I can't tell you anything, Crawford. I know something is going on. Huerta and that woman. Something not quite right. Tarant too, somehow. Maybe you can tell me."
"Hyacinth, what did you think of that story about Santa Anna's chests?"
"I—Santa Maria, that wax is hot." Jacinto sat shaking his finger a moment. Then he put it into his mouth. "If Santa Anna lost some chests up here, I guess he lost them, that's all. Mm, you ought to taste that bayberry. I think I'll season mychiles rollenoswith it some time."
"You heard the one about the map?" said Crawford.
"Thederrotero?Sí, I guess there was supposed to be a map. Isn't there always, with something like that?"
"Ever stop to think of Santa Anna's full name?"
"Ciertamente.Everybody knows it. Antonio Lopez de San—" Jacinto stopped, staring at Crawford. Wax dripped from the tin ladle onto the floor. Crawford popped a last crackling into his mouth.
"Would that give her a connection?" he said.
"Lopez is a common name," said Jacinto, almost defensively.
"A woman like that don't trail through this kind of country just for the scenery," said Crawford. He closed his eyes, rolling the name meditatively off his tongue. "Merida Lopez."
It must have been about then the first sound floated in from outside, the creak of saddle leather, a man's hoarse cough. Jacinto jumped across the room, jerking Crawford up out of the chair. "They're back, Crawford, you got to go, you got to get out of here, if Quartel ever gets you alone after Whitehead, he'll—"
He stopped shoving Crawford toward the doorway, and his voice faded into a series of small, choked sounds. Aforismo stood there, sweat streaking the dust in his smooth brown face, holding a belduque in his hands.
"El amante fiel," he said, running his finger down the keen edge, "the Loyal Lover. Did you ever see my knife, Crawford? Truly a remarkable weapon. Handed down in my family for generations. The hilt was once studded with precious stones, but they have long since been picked out by various members of my illustrious house who were in temporary financial destitution." He took a shuffling step toward them. "Look at thebravoson the blade. See this one.Nothing compares with my kiss.Isn't that a delectable motto?"
Jacinto shrank back, staring in fascinated horror at the words cut into that side of the gleaming blade. Through the dog-run, Crawford could hear the thump of a chair in the bunkhouse, the clatter of spoons on the table.
"Please, Aforismo, please," quavered Jacinto. "Let him go.Madre de Dios!let him go out the door before they find him in here. You know what will happen. Quartel would—"
"And this one," Aforismo said, turning the blade over and pointing to another motto cut into that side. "This is my favoritebravoI think.Tripe is sweet but bowels are better.Don't you like that one, Jacinto?" He took another shuffling step toward them with the point almost touching Crawford's belly. "Don't you like thatbravo, Crawford? Tell me you like it. It is my favorite, I think."
"Please, please." Jacinto was cringing behind Crawford, wringing his hands, sweat dribbling down his coarse face. "En el nombre de Dios, Aforismo, let him go, he never did anything to you, he never harmed one little hair of your head, I hate violence so, oh, I do hate violence so, my father he always tell me there are two sins in the world, work and fighting, and—oh,por Dios, Aforismo,Santa Maria, nombre de mi madre, let him go, let him go—"
"They say down in Durango a coyote always howls loudest in the trap," said Aforismo, nudging Crawford gently back with that needle point. "I think maybe we better all go in the bunkhouse, eh? The hands are getting hungry. Tripe is sweet but bowels are better, eh?" Crawford did not step back quickly enough, and that needle point went through his shirt with a soft ripping sound. The stinging bite of steel in the hard muscle of his belly caused his move back to be involuntary. His breath left him in a hoarse gust and he bent forward with the impulse driving through him. That was as far as it went. Aforismo's boots made that bland shuffle on the hard-packed earth, moving forward. His face twisted with frustrated anger, Crawford shifted back into the dog-run, shoving the cringing cook behind him.
"Dios, Aforismo,por Dios, no violence, please, I could not stand the sight of blood, it would make me regurgitate, please—"
Jacinto knocked over a chair backing from the dog-run into the bunkhouse. It made a loud clatter. Then Crawford was in the bunkhouse, still bent forward that way, his breath coming out harsh and swift, and he could see them. Bueno Bailey was seated at the table.
"I was just showing Crawford thebravoson my belduque," said Aforismo. "In Durango they say it is an ignorant man who cannot tell his sons at least onebravo."
"Bueno." Bailey trailed the word out in a pleased, nasal twang, shoving the bench back from the table. "Siddown, Crawford. We was just about to eat."
"I guess you never met Ford Innes, did you, Crawford," said Quartel. "This is Crawford, Ford. He is the one who brought youramigoback this morning."
The redheaded man in the doorway emitted a flat, harsh grunt. He must have just stepped in, for he held his saddle under one arm. The short, square lines of his body held all the lethal threat of a snub-nosed derringer. He had a flat-topped hat set squarely on his head. The bottom of his red beard was dirty from rubbing against the grease daubs on the chest of a buckskin ducking jacket with square tails that hung outside hischivarrasand which were caught up on one side by the wooden handle of his Remington.
"Ford just got back from taking Wallace Tarant into San Antonio," said Quartel. "As many times as that shyster's been back and forth between here and town, he still can't find his way through the brush himself."
The leather rigging clattered against the hard earthen floor when Innes dropped his pack. His bushy bleached brows formed a reddish dominance above shrewd little eyes that had not left Crawford's face since he entered. He moved over and sat down across from Bailey.
"So you brought Whitehead back." His voice held the same lack of intonation as his grunt.
"Ford had been Whitehead's saddle mate for a long time," said Quartel. "I guess he'd like to know how it happened to Whitehead."
"Get us some grub, Jacinto," said Aforismo. With his belduque he indicated a place beside Bailey. "An empty seat there, Crawford. Sit down."
Crawford looked at the knife. He sat down.
The table groaned as Aforismo lowered himself onto it and put his feet on the bench, running a finger up and down his belduque. Ford Innes began playing with his spoon on the table. Jacinto came from the dog-run with a dish of beans. He fumbled the plate at the last moment and almost tipped it onto the table. His fat jowls were trembling with his chin.
"Please, please, let's not have any—"
"So Whitehead broke his neck out in the thicket," said Innes.
"Have some beans, Glenn," said Bailey, ladling them onto a plate he had shoved before Crawford.
"They call themnacionalesdown in Durango, because so many Mexicans eat them," said Aforismo. "It is said of one who is weak that he lacksnacionales."
"How did it happen to Whitehead?" said Innes.
"We don't know," said Bailey, helping the man to beans. "Crawford just brought him back over his horse with his neck broke and said he found him out in the brush that way."
"How did it happen?" Innes asked Crawford.
"There was eleven shots gone from Whitehead's carbine," said Quartel.
Innes began eating in a slow, mechanical way, his jaws working steadily beneath his red beard, looking at Crawford. "Where's your iron?"
"Whitehead took away Crawford's rifle when he first came," said Aforismo.
Innes's bleached eyebrows raised, and he ceased chewing for a moment. Quartel was standing behind Crawford to one side, and Crawford caught the sly grin spreading the man's pawky lips.
"There was no other marks on Whitehead's body," Quartel said.
"Well," said Innes, still looking at Crawford that way. Finally he went back to spooning up the beans, his eyes never leaving Crawford's face. "What happened?" he said again, around a mouthful.
"Yeah." Bailey nudged Crawford on the shoulder with his spoon. "What happened?"
Crawford could hear his own breathing now. It held a harsh, driven sound. He looked from Innes to Bailey, from Bailey to Quartel, from Quartel to Aforismo. There was a patent brutal intent in all their faces. He was hunched over so far now the heat of the beans in his plate penetrated his shirt and warmed his chest.
"Where's the sorrel?" said Bailey.
"What sorrel?" said Innes.
"The horse he took out," said Quartel. "He never brought him back."
"Coffee?" It was Jacinto again, waddling in with a big pot. He set it down, looking around at the men. He wrung his great fat hands together, speaking in a small, strained voice. "Please,señores, please. Violence. I cannot stand it. You won't do this. Tell me you won't do this. My father, he say—"
Aforismo turned toward him, lifting the belduque. "Would you like my Loyal Lover to see inside the sack?"
"No." Jacinto backed out, lugubrious tears forming at the corners of his eyes. "No,lástima de Dios, tears of God, no—"
"You ain't told us what happened yet," said Innes, still eating.
"Yeah." Quartel shoved Crawford from behind. "How did you lose the sorrel? You could ride any horse I could, remember?"
Crawford's hands were clasped desperately between his knees. There was a taut, set expression to his features. Sweat had begun trickling down his cheeks into his beard. His whole body was trembling.
"So you brought Whitehead in with a broken neck," said Innes.
"Yeah." Bueno poked Crawford with the spoon again. "How did it get broke?"
"Yeah." Aforismo pricked him from the other side with the knife. "What happened?"
"How did it get broke?"
"How did you lose the sorrel?"
"What happened?"
Crawford jerked away as Aforismo bent forward with that belduque again. It carried him against Bueno, sitting on his other side. Bueno pushed him back roughly. Quartel shoved him from behind so hard his chest struck the table. A small, strangled sound escaped him.
"Tell us what happened."
"Sí, tell us, Crawford."
"What happened, Crawford?"
"Talk, damn you." Bueno's shove was harder.
"Tell us, Crawford." The knife prick was deeper. He jerked away from it. Bailey caught him and shoved him back brutally. He made a spasmodic effort to rise. Quartel put both hands on his shoulders and forced him back down. He tried to twist around. Aforismo's belduque was in his face. He jerked back the other way into Bailey. His hands knotted and writhed between his knees underneath the table. His whole body was shuddering now.
"Where's the sorrel?"
"How'd he break his neck?"
"Talk, damn you!"
"Tell us, Crawford."
"What happened?"
"Gentlemen!" It came from the doorway, and it stopped them abruptly. Huerta stood there, bent forward slightly, and those bluish lids were almost closed over his eyes.
"I think we all know what happened to Whitehead," he said, "don't you?" He stood there a moment, but no one answered. He dropped his eyes to the jade cigarette holder he held in one hand, tapping it to knock the ash from the cigarette, and still looking down that way, spoke again. "I think it would be wise, now, Crawford, for you to come with me, up to the house, don't you?"
Sunday Celebration
It was the odor at first. Crawford lay there, staring up at the ceiling, groping up through the remnants of a sleep so heavy it left him filled with an oppressive nausea. The hangings had been removed from the bed and the four reeded mahogany posts reached up through the semi-gloom to support the bare tester frame above him. He realized where he was, then. Huerta had stopped them? Yes, Huerta had stopped them last night, and brought him to the big house to sleep. Strange, the influence Huerta had over them. Without actually doing anything. Those eyes? Maybe that was it.
Crawford sat up abruptly, the heavy chintz coverlet falling away from him. He held out his hand, staring at the fingers. They were trembling. He sniffed the air. He pulled the coverlet completely off, swinging his bare feet out of the bed. His levis were on the russet wing chair and he grabbed them up and stepped into the legs. It was that sensation again, stirring within him. It was hard for him to breathe. He sat on the bed a moment, hands clutching the covers, staring at the wall. Why? Here. Why?
He turned his head from side to side, searching the room. It was day, but the overdrapes had been pulled across the window, and he could make out the furniture only dimly in the semi-gloom. And still, down inside him, rising, growing. He bent down to pull on his boots with swift, desperate tugs, then rose. He looked like a hounded animal, the forward thrust of his rigid body imparting that narrowness to his shoulders, his eyes shifting furtively in a gaunt face. Then, on one of those shallow, indrawn breaths, it came to him, unmistakable.
Slowly, his whole body so tense it was trembling now, he turned about, sniffing. He stepped away from the bed, toward the windows, and it faded. He moved back toward the bed, and he could smell it again. With a muttered curse he bent down and tore the coverlet off. The dirty, fetid horse blanket had been laid out flat beneath the chintz spread.
"Huerta!"
It came out of him in a strangled, guttural rage, and he bent to clutch the horse blanket. He had it lifted off the bed before he released it, throwing it back down and whirling to the door. His boots made a hard thump down the stairway and into the entrance hall. He had almost passed the living-room when, through the open door, he caught sight of Huerta, seated in one of the willow chairs by the window. The doctor had been reading, and he lowered the book, leaning forward in the chair.
"You must have slept well, Crawford," he said. "It's nearly noon."
Crawford started to take a step forward, opening his mouth to speak. Then he closed it again, his fists clenched tight. There was a faint, waiting mockery on Huerta's face. Crawford whirled and stamped on out the front door. As he went down the front steps, he saw the crowd out by the corrals, and was drawn toward it. He made out Bueno Bailey and Innes among the men, but the others were new faces to him. There were half a dozen riders cavorting their horses around in the open flats, and a big Chihuahua cart was creaking out of the brush, piled high with onions and apricots and baskets of blue corn meal and squealing Mexican children and a fat Mexican peon driving. Crawford was part way across the compound when he saw the woman coming toward him. He had a momentary impulse to turn away, and stifled that. She held her heavy green satin skirt up out of the dust with one hand, and the wind ruffled the throat of her white Antoinette fichu. Her eyes, big and dark and searching, were held to his face until she reached him, and it did something to Crawford.
"They said it was a bull-tailing," she told him, coming to a stop. "I don't exactly understand."
"About the only celebration thebrasaderosget," he said, watching her warily. "A bunch of them gather almost every Sunday somewhere to eat and drink and tail the bull. I think they're celebrating Cinco de Mayo today. Commemorating some battle at Puebla—"
He trailed off, because he could see it in her face, and he didn't particularly want to talk about the bull-tailing either. When she spoke again, her voice was husky and strained, and it must have been what was really on her mind, from the first.
"They were trying to kill you," she said. "Jacinto told me. They got you in there, and started in on you, and they meant to drive you till you cracked and fought back, and then they were going to kill you. How did you stand it so long, Crawford? Jacinto said no other man could have. Pushing you and shoving you and beating you like that. How did you stand it?"
"I'm still here, ain't I?" he said.
She drew in a breath, staring up at him. "Why did you come back with Whitehead?" she said finally. "You could have escaped."
"Maybe a man gets tired running," he said.
She caught his arm, coming in close enough for him to catch a hint of her perfume. "Crawford, I want to help you."
His whole body was rigid now, with that wariness. "I never saw a cow yet that wanted to get back inside a corral when it was outside."
"You're so suspicious," she flamed. Then she leaned toward him farther, looking up into his face. "I guess you have a right to be. You've been fighting all of them, haven't you, ever since this started. I don't blame you, Crawford. I know how you feel. I'm in the same position. I need your help as much as you need mine."
It had been a long time since a woman stood this close to him, with her hair shining like that, and her eyes. He felt a weakness seep through him. He stared at the soft red curve of her lip, and his voice was hardly audible.
"What are you talking about?"
"Have you ever heard of Mogotes Serpientes?" she said.
"Snake Thickets? I guess so. It's supposed to be somewhere west of Rio Diablo in that stretch of bad brush."
"You've never actually been there?" Her voice was tense.
"I don't know who has," he said. "There's a lot of thebrasadanobody's ever seen, white manorIndian. There's a stretch due south from here just above the Rio Grande called Resaca Espantosa. Nobody's ever been through it. I don't know why they call it Haunted Swamp."
"But there is a good reason for the name Mogotes Serpientes?"
"So they say. It's supposed to be so full of snakes no man could stay alive in there more than a few—" He trailed off as he realized how far he had let her allure carry him, and pulled roughly away from her, his mouth twisting down at one corner.
"Crawford," she said, trying to get in close again. "Please. Don't. I mean it. You've got to believe me. If you believe in anything, you've got to—"
"Huerta made me a proposition too," said Crawford. "It didn't pack such a wallop, but it was along the same lines."
She flushed, stepping back from him violently. "You fool," she said, in a bitter, intense whisper. "You fool."
They were still standing that way, staring at each other, when Huerta came out on the porch. The woman saw him and turned away, moving back toward the corrals.
"Hola, Quartel," someone over by the pens shouted. "When are you letting thetorosout? I got a twenty-dollar pot for the first man to tail a bull."
"It's mine." Quartel's bellow came from somewhere in the crowd, and then he appeared, running in that stiff, saddle-bound stride of his toward the horses. "Aforismo, let that blue out. He ought to give us a good run."
Used to working the wild, savage cattle of the brushland, the Mexicans trained their horses to spin away from the side on which a man mounted as soon as he lifted a foot to the stirrup. Though this saved many avaquerofrom being gored by a ringy bull which he had just released after throwing and branding the beast, it took a good man to get on one of these horses. Each rider had a string of animals, and from his bunch Quartel had saddled a brown horse they called atrigueño. He knocked the reins loose of the corral post and snapped them over thetrigueño'shead. Then he checked the animal, pulling the nigh rein in till it twisted thetrigueño'shead down toward its shoulder so that the horse's action would be inhibited long enough for him to mount. As soon as Quartel raised his left foot, thetrigueñotried to whirl, but that checking action held him long enough for Quartel to jam his foot in the stirrup and swing aboard in one violent movement. Then he released the tight rein and allowed the animal to spin toward the right.
From outside the cedar-post corral, Aforismo and several othervaqueroshad goaded and prodded a blue bull until it was separated from the other bulls within the enclosure. As it neared the gate, Aforismo let down the drop bar.
In their natural state, running the brush, these cows were among the wildest animals of the world, and the several days this cut of bulls had spent penned up had put them in a frenzied rage. The blue stood there a moment, glaring suspiciously at the opening, pawing the ground. His great long curving horns had been scored and ripped and punched by the brush until it looked as if someone had hacked them over with a knife, and a pattern of scars formed a network across the gleaming lathered hide of his forequarters. From the side, he looked deceptively heavy, his length so extended that his back swayed, but as he lashed his tail and shifted around to display a rear view, his narrow hips and cat hams and ridgepole back became apparent. Abruptly, with a hoarse bellow, he lowered his head, and swinging it from side to side, galloped out of the gate.
Quartel yelled something, dug in with his Chihuahuas and whacked his quirt against thetrigueño'srump at the same time. The brown horse burst into a headlong run, followed by most of the othervaqueros, shouting and yelling and snapping their quirts against leatherchivarrasand fancycharropants. The blue bull had spotted an opening in the brush across the compound, and he shook the ground tearing for it. But the horsemen swiftly closed up on the animal. Quartel and anothervaquerowere bunched together in the lead. Quartel raked histrigueñowith those huge Chihuahua guthooks, and the horse spurted ahead, drawing up beside the bull. Quartel leaned out of the saddle and made a grab for that lashing tail. But the blue bull jammed its forefeet into the ground and came to a jarring halt, plowing twin furrows in the earth. Quartel was several lengths on by before he could swing back in the saddle and pull his horse around; by that time the bull had turned in a half circle and cut for the brush.
The othervaquerohad pulled up shorter than Quartel, and was in a position to run down the bull on its quarter. He was a tall, supple youth on a short-coupled horse they called abayo coyote, its coat a buckskin color with a black line running down the spine, with a black mane and tail. Quartel spurred and quirted histrigueñoin a last desperate effort to reach the bull first, but just at the edge of brush, the othervaqueropulled up beside the blue and leaned out to grab for that tail.
He caught its hairy end, and dallied it around his saddle horn, clapping the guthooks to hisbayo coyoteat the same time. The buckskin gave a spurt that pulled it ahead of the blue bull, and just as the horse smashed into the first thicket, the tail of the bull snapped taut, yanking its hind feet from beneath it. Thevaquerotore the tail off his horn and hunched forward with his arm before his face all at the same time, and as he disappeared into the thicket the ground shook with the bull's falling. Huerta had come down from the house, and he moved in behind Crawford.
"I understand a good man can break the bull's neck every time," he said. "Why don't you try it, Crawford?"
Crawford's hands closed tightly, and he did not look at Huerta. The inside of his mouth was dry and cottony as he watched thevaquerocome back through the mesquite into the open, prancing hisbayo coyoteproudly.
"You better go back to herding dogies, Quartel," thevaquerogrinned, "and leave the grown ones to men."
"If you're a man, let's see yourreata," roared Quartel, wheeling histrigueñotoward the man and unlashing his 40-foot rope from his saddle.
The rider fought his excited buckskin around in a circle as he tore his own rope from the saddle, and when he had completed the circle, the rope was free and the two riders were facing each other about a hundred yards apart.
"Vamanos, Indita," shouted Quartel, his huge cart-wheel spurs gouging the brown into a headlong run toward the other man.
"Are they crazy?" said Huerta.
"Stay around the border much and you'll get used to it," Merida told him. "Thevaquerosused to do the same thing on the rancho where I was born. They'd rather rope than eat."
"Duello," said Crawford.
"With ropes?" It caused Huerta distinct effort to evince even the dim incredulity.
"Lot of 'em would rather fight with ropes than guns," Crawford told him. "More than one lawman has been dragged to death here in the brush."
It had taken that long for the two riders to meet, passing one another not 10 feet apart. At the last moment Quartel made a pass with his rope arm. Indita's own throw caused him a hoarse exhalation that turned into a shout of triumph as he saw his loop settling over Quartel's head. Then it happened. As much as he had handled horses, Crawford did not think he had ever seen one turn so fast. One instant thetrigueñowas racing past thebayo coyote, the next it was facing in the opposite direction, Quartel's own involuntary grunt still hanging in the air to tell what a vicious effort he had put into the reining. The motion had carried Quartel from beneath Indita's loop in that last moment, and now he sat thetrigueñoperfectly still, facing after Indita's retreating buckskin.
Quartel's first pass had been a feint, and he still retained his rope. It was so slight a flirt of his hand that Crawford barely caught it. He did not spin the loop above his head. He tossed it underhand, the way he had thrown it with Africano in the corral. It was a hooley-ann, spinning flatly out above Indita, seeming to hover above him an instant, no bigger than the brim of his sombrero; then it was taut about his shoulders, and he was pulled over the back of his horse with a resounding thump.
"I ought to drag you for your presumption," said Quartel, shifting his horse forward so he could get enough slack in his rope to flirt it off Indita as the man rose. Then, pulling the rawhide clothesline in with a series of quick, skillful snaps, he turned thetrigueñoto prance it over toward them, grinning at Merida. "How do you like that,señorita?"
"I have seen it done before," said Merida.
Quartel's face darkened. "You don't think I am any good?"
"I didn't say that."
"Listen," he shouted, thumping his chest, "I am the best goddam roper in the world. I am the best goddam rider in the world. I am—"
"Don't be a boor," said Huerta, in faint disgust.
"A what?" Quartel wheeled the horse around in a growing rage, the sweat greasing his coarse face. "I'll show you." He started pounding his chest again. "I'll show you who's good. I'll make you a bet. I'll bet you atalegafull of gold pesos that I can, blindfolded, with one end of thereatatied to my own neck and not to be touched by my hands, riding a bareback horse of your own choosing, forefoot each of any ten bulls we got in a pen, and break their necks."
Huerta shrugged, smiling in a faint, vague dismissal. Quartel reined thetrigueñoin closer. "I mean it," he bellowed. "Are you afraid to make the bet? Could anybody where you come from do it?"
"Frankly, I don't think anyone can do it," said Huerta, disinterestedly.
"I can," yelled Quartel. "I'm the best—"
"Don't be a fool, Quartel," the woman told him.
"You'll kill yourself. One mistake with that rope around your neck and you'll be dead."
That was the final impetus. "Hijo de la chingada," shouted Quartel, whirling histrigueñoaway from them. "How many bulls you got in that corral, Aforismo? Seven? Get me three more. Get me three more from that holding pen across the arroyo. I'll show you what roping really is, Merida. You're going to see a performance tonight you'll never forget!"
Best Roper in the World
The throng about the large cedar-post corral was oddly subdued. Some of thevaqueroshad dragged the blue bull over to the cooking fire for Jacinto to spit, but the gross cook had left the carcass lying on the ground. He stood with the middle bar of the fence making a deep indentation in the incredible protuberance of his stomach as the crowdingvaquerospressed in from behind.
"Madre de Dios, Crawford, why do you let him do this thing?" wailed the cook, running his fat hands nervously up and down the rail. "I don't want to see a man die."
"Then why watch?" said Crawford.
"Please, Crawford, you take such a brutal attitude. Don't you know this is the way Oro Peso died down in Mexico? He was the greatest roper in the world, Quartel's boasting to the contrary. Oro Peso used to go around making this same bet. Then somebody took him up on it. The third bull pulled him from his horse. His neck was broken like you'd snap a switch of mesquite. Please—"
"Hola,compadres!" shouted Quartel, from outside the corral, and they saw that he had stripped histrigueñoof its saddle. Indita dropped the bar and Quartel trotted the animal in, laughing as the bulls bunched up on the other side, bawling. "You see, already they are afraid of me. Who is going to put the blindfold on? Merida, will you honor me?"
"Why not?" The woman's voice held a savage undertone that surprised Crawford. She caught his eyes on her and turned toward Crawford. When she saw the look on his face, she threw her head back that way, to laugh. It held a rich, wild mockery. "What's the matter, Crawford? Don't you like that in a woman? Maybe you haven't known the right women."
Still laughing, she reached through the bars to tie the bandanna behind Quartet's head as the man slipped off thetrigueñoand turned his back to her. Then he swung aboard again, and tied one end of the rope he was carrying about his thick neck in a noose, too small to slip over his head. Merida's face was flushed excitedly as she watched him prance thetrigueñoaway, and her eyes flashed in frank anticipation. Huerta pulled out his cigarette case and put a smoke into his jade holder. His motions were as languid as ever, but Crawford thought his fingers pinched the holder more tightly than was necessary.
"Hola!" shouted Quartel, wheeling histrigueñoin the middle of the corral and kicking its flanks with his heels. The horse charged toward the bulls, and the animals strung out along the fence. Quartel was an uncanny judge of distance; when his horse was but half a length from the fence, he made a quarter turn and raced along the bars after the last bull in the running bunch.
"Andale!" yelled the man, and made his toss.
The loop snaked about the forefeet of that last bull as it turned at the corner of the corral, and as Quartel felt the rope snap taut, he let go completely with his hands, pulling his thick neck down into his shoulders to set it and jerking back with his torso at the last moment. The bull turned a flip, its shoulder striking the rump of the running animal in front, and as the falling bull struck, Quartel shoved his reins hard against thetrigueño'sneck to wheel inward and give himself slack on the rope. He clutched for the slackening rawhide and sent a flirt down the rope that lifted the loop off the bull's forelegs, and when he turned away, he was pulling the line in.
"Viva Quartel, viva!" shouted thevaqueros, shoving Crawford up against the fence with their shifting press and deafening him with their cheers. Grinning, Quartel kicked thetrigueñoafter the bulls again. It started them off once more, bawling and running. Quartel's hearing was as uncanny as his judgment of distance; he rode with his head lifted, and when a scarred brindle bull broke from the others, running along the fence and cutting across the middle of the corral, Crawford could see Quartel's head turn after the animal. The Mexican reined histrigueñoover that way, kicking it into a dead run that closed the space between himself and the bull in a swift instant.
"Ahora," he shouted, "now," and tossed. His rope caught the bull's hind feet instead of its forefeet, and as a strange sighing sound rose from the crowd, Quartel must have sensed something was wrong, for he spurred thetrigueñobrutally, and its frenzied leap into a headlong run gave him slack enough in the rope for that last moment to send a flirt down its length that carried the loop off the bull's hind feet before it could draw closed. The bull stumbled into the other animals as they turned the corner and milled down this side of the corral. By that time Quartel had his rope coiled, and he maneuvered the bawling, excited animals so that they strung out down the fence once more, and then ran his horse up behind the last one. This time it was the forefeet, and he dropped the animal, breaking its neck as before. The end of the rope about Quartel's neck was not a slip noose, but Crawford could see the rawhide dig into the thick brown flesh of Quartel's neck as he jerked back, till the skin showed a white ridge above and below the lasso. He watched in undeniable fascination as the Mexican flirted in the rope and turned his horse after them once more. Shouting, Quartel closed the gap between himself and another bull and made his toss. He released the lasso with his hand as soon as it was in the air. The instant that loop caught on the running bull's forefeet, Quartel reined histrigueñoin a quarter turn that wheeled it away from the running bull. The bull's own forward motion would draw the noose tight about its legs, and the turning maneuver of the horse would stretch the rope taut between them as soon as that noose was completely closed. In that instant, with the bull hitting the end of the rope and flipping, Quartel had to wheel his horse back or be pulled off. He had already turned thetrigueñoaway from the bull, and the noose was making its singing sound closing on those churning forefeet, when a bighosco golondrinocut away from the other animals running along the fence and turned out into the corral, directly across the head of thetrigueño. Quartel's huge neck sank into his shoulders, and he put the reins against thetrigueño'sneck to swerve it back as he felt the rope snapping taut. But the turn would have run the horse head-on into thehosco golondrino. It was the first time Crawford had seen thattrigueñofight the bit; its head turned in and its neck arched, it lurched in the opposite direction from Quartel's reining.
"Crawford," screamed Merida, and then the full weight of the falling bull hit the end of that rope with Quartel going in the wrong direction to take the shock. He made a small, choked sound as he was snapped off thetrigueño'srump. Crawford was not conscious of going through the bars. He found himself on the inside of the corral, with someone climbing through the rails on his left. He did not realize who it was till he had started running toward Quartel where he was rolling across the ground. Then from the corner of his eye, Crawford caught the white flutter of Merida's fichu.
"Get back, you crazy fool," he screamed at her, diving headlong at her as a couple of crazed bulls charged by. He struck her with his arms around her waist and carried her back against the bars as a third animal crashed past where she had been standing. He rolled to his feet, leaving her there huddled up against the fence, and dodged through another pair of the bawling, frenzied animals, coughing in the dust.
The bull Quartel had thrown was scrambling to its feet, thereatastill caught around one foreleg. Crawford saw the slack rope hiss taut as the animal broke into a stumbling gallop, and knew he could never reach it in time. If Quartel's neck were not already broken, his head would be pulled from his body now. Another bull went past behind Crawford, its shoulder sending him spinning, and he threw himself bodily toward the rope where it lay tautening across the ground, in a last desperate effort to try and get it before the bull had stretched it completely.
But even as he did so, he saw Quartel had risen to his hands and knees. Still blindfolded, the man must have heard the sing of the rope and known what was occurring. He gave his head one dazed shake and jumped to his feet, sinking his neck in that way and throwing himself backward. His body was at a three-quarter angle when the rope snapped taut; he would have fallen completely if the line had not caught him. The impetus of his jerking back that way and the weight of his body combined to upset the bull once more. The ground shuddered to the falling animal. Crawford heard the crack of its broken neck.
"How's that, Huerta?" laughed Quartel, running forward to slacken the rope so he could flirt the loop free. "I told you I wouldn't pull on it by hand. Did you see that? I didn't touch it with my hands, did I? I'll bet you never saw a roper could do that down around Mexico City. Even Oro Peso. Did you think I was finished? Not with a neck like that. I could throw ten bulls all at once. Where's my horse? Bring me thattrigueño. I'm not through yet. Not with a neck like that."
In a daze, Crawford picked himself off the ground, seeing Indita run out to corner thetrigueñoand lead him over to the sweating, roaring Quartel. Stumbling back to the fence, Crawford watched the whole crazy performance begin once more. It was a nightmare of shoutingvaquerosand bawling bulls and singing ropes and clouds of acrid russet dust obscuring the whole pattern every time the animals broke into a run. Quartel took three casts to nail the seventh bull, and it was obvious he was tiring.
"Three more," Crawford heard Jacinto mumbling beside him. "Three more. Oh,madre de Dios, let him get over with this, will you, and I'll never forget to say my rosary again. Three more, three more—"
Two more. One more. "Hola!" shouted the Mexican, "ahora," and the rope spun, and caught, and tautened, and the ground shook as the last bull broke its neck. Coiling in the rope, Quartel spurred thetrigueñoto the gate, ripping off his blindfold. They were all running that way, Aforismo catching the man as he slid off the lathered, quivering horse, pounding him on the back. Even Merida had lifted her skirts to run that way, drawn by the excitement. Quartel came through the crowd, sweating and grinning and pounding himself on the chest with his hairy fist. "I told you. The best roper in the world. What do you think of it, Huerta? Have you ever seen better? Was Oro Peso better?" Then a thought seemed to strike him, and he sobered, looking around at thevaqueros. "When I was pulled off the horse. Someone was in the corral. I heard them."
The hubbub sank until there was only the muffled sound of stirring bodies, and Quartel saw the direction their glances had taken, one after another. He stared at Crawford in disbelief.
"You—"
Crawford shrugged, sullenly. "It was automatic, I guess. I didn't think."
"Yes." Huerta allowed twin streamers of gray smoke to escape his nostrils. "I wonder what would have happened if you had stopped to think."
Crawford flushed, turning toward him, but Quartel came forward, clapping his hand on Crawford's shoulder. "Huerta, I'm surprised at you. After all, he saved my life. And how about you. Atalegaof pesos."
"I made no wager," said Huerta, tapping ash from his cigarette.
The blood swept into Quartel's face, and he stepped forward to grab the lapels of Huerta's coat with one huge hand, jerking the man toward him. "Huerta, I bet you atalegaof pesos—"
"I made no wager." Huerta had not moved his hands. One of them still held the cigarette holder at his side; the other rested in the pocket of his coat. But he was looking into Quartel's eyes, and his own eyes had opened wider. The veined dissolution of his heavy bluish lids had lifted until the whole pupil was visible.
"That's right, that's right," said Jacinto nervously. "Huerta didn't take up your bet, Quartel. You was so busy shouting and all you didn't wait to see if he'd made the bet with you."
"If he had, he'd pay me," said Quartel, still looking into Huerta's eyes, an indefinable puzzlement drawing a faint furrow through his brow, and something else. Abruptly he turned around, raising his voice. "Caramba, if I ain't going to get atalegaof pesos, I should get some kind of reward. You don't see a rodeo like that every day. How about it, Merida? I want a reward—"
He had shoved through the crowd toward her, catching her around the waist. Apparently not divining his intent at first, she had been smiling, her face still flushed with that excitement. But as he caught her and bent his face to hers, the smile twisted into a grimace. She threw her forearm across his neck and tried to lever him away.
"Vayase con la música a otra parte," she cried, anger causing her to break into Spanish. "Tu barrachon, largo de aqui, tu chile, no puedo sufrir su insolencia—"
"My insolence?" laughed Quartel, grasping her wrist and tearing it from between them. The force of it drew a gasp of pain from Merida; she began writhing more violently in his embrace, and tried to scratch his face with the other hand. But he caught that too, and forced both her hands behind her until he had her wrists crossed with his arms about her waist. In that last moment, he quit grinning. Crawford had seen the same expression in the man's face before, when he looked at Merida, but never so palpable, never so clearly recognizable. His voice came from deep in his throat, husky and sensual and demanding.
"Besame, querida," he said, and lowered his sweating face to hers.
"Let her go, Quartel!"
The Mexican stopped, with his lips not quite touching Merida. The woman's body ceased to writhe; she stood there in his arms, bent backward like a bow, looking up at him. Without releasing her, Quartel raised his head and turned it over his shoulder till he could see Crawford. It had taken Crawford that long to get through the laughing, shouting crowd; they were no longer making any noise, and they had spread away from him. He stood there with his boots spread a little on the hard-packed dirt and the weight of his shoulders thrown forward, the bitter intensity of his face only accentuating its gauntness.
"Oh." The word came out softly, slyly on Quartel's breath. "Maybe you'd rather be the one to kiss her. First he saves my life, then he wants to take my woman away."
"Your woman?" gasped Merida.
"Take your hands off, damn you—"
"Don't swear at me, Crawford." The hurt tone of Quartel's voice held that pawky mockery. "I thought we wereamigos. I thought you saved my life in the corrals."
"Quartel—"
"Sí?" The man had released Merida and wheeled to face Crawford. For a moment he stood there, his heavy chest rising and falling gently with his breathing. The mockery faded from his face, leaving a heavy, deliberate intent. His shift to the side was unhurried, but Crawford's effort to keep facing the man came in a swift, spasmodic reaction. Then Quartel stood there again. "Nobody swears at me, Crawford," he said, and then, moving with incredible speed for such a bulky man, he leaped forward. Crawford had been waiting for something, but it came so fast his move to block it was aborted. Quartel had him by the shoulders, knocking him off balance, and Crawford had to stumble backward to keep from falling. "Do you understand that?" Quartel was shouting it now, hoarsely, allowing his ebullience to escape finally. "I'mamansador, here, I'm foreman, and nobody swears at me or tries to stop me whatever I'm doing. I rod this outfit and I can do anything I want and nobody can stop me, do you hear?"
It was then Crawford realized what he had brought up against. Stumbling backward, he had lurched into thetrigueñoand it had kept him from falling. He was held against it now by Quartel's hands gripping his shoulders. The animal heat of it penetrated through his shirt, and something else clawed at him, somewhere way down in his vitals.
In a new spasm, Crawford tried to lurch free of Quartel's grip; but the man had still managed to keep him off balance, and he was held there, with his knees bent and his body pushed off to one side so that he had no leverage. He was shoved back hard against the horse again, and the hot, living, hairy, animal resilience of it against his back intensified that vague alarm inside him.
"Do you hear me, Crawford, do you hear me—"
Quartel's voice came through to him as if the man were far away. Crawford was writhing from side to side, trying to escape, but he was still held at that disadvantage. He had his hands on the man's arms, tearing at them. The effort rocked Quartel from side to side, but failed to loosen his grip. Crawford's face was twisted, and he was gasping hoarsely, because it was growing in him now, raking at him insistently with its subtle, insidious nails. His legs were beginning to tremble and the muscles across his belly were twisting up into little involuntary knots.
"Let go, let go—"
The violent movement and their shouting had excited the horse, and it began to shift around behind Crawford. It had been standing there against the fence where Quartel left it when he slid off. Crawford had it pinned up against the bars, and the animal whinnied nervously, trying to get from between him and the fence. Aforismo moved from the crowd to grab thetrigueño'sreins and pull its head down.
"What's the matter, Juarez?" he said. "Crawford, don't do that, you're spooking this horse."
"Yeah, quit shouting!" roared Quartel. "Can't you see what you're doing to mytrigueño? Hasn't he been through enough today? Quit jumping around like that."
He realized what they were doing. That had been the intent in Quartel's face. It didn't help him now to understand. Nothing helped him now. It had its grip on him. His struggles had become a blind, frenetic effort to escape. Not from Quartel, now. It was the horse. The shrill sound of thetrigueño'swhinny and the rising turbulence of the beast's nervous movement against him drove Crawford to a new violence in his attempts at escape. It was no longer small or vague in him. It filled his whole consciousness. It spread through his legs and lower body in a clutching, stabbing pain that caused his knees to tremble and jerk. It filled his chest with a terrible constriction. And as before, the pain was rapidly turning to something else.
"Let go, damn you, let go—"
He was screaming it now, in animal panic, his face contorted, his whole body writhing and struggling in a blind frenzy that only excited the horse further. He felt it rear up, and would have fallen backward beneath it had not Aforismo yanked it down hard with his grip on the reins. The hot hide was wet with nervous sweat against Crawford's back, and he could feel the ripple of its muscle with every movement it made, and every ripple sent a new wave of panic through him. All reason was gone from his mind and he was sinking into a dark vortex of that terrible panic like a cow sinking into a black bog.
"What's the matter, Crawford? Are you afraid of the horse?"
"Let go, please, for God's sake, let go."
"What's the matter, Crawford?"
"Leggo, leggo, leggo—"
He stopped screaming. It took him a long time to comprehend he was no longer being held against the horse. He crouched there on his knees where he had fallen when Quartel had stepped back, releasing him. The movement of the animal behind him raised a flurry of dirty brown dust. Coughing in it, Crawford stared up at Quartel. The rage had disappeared from Quartel's face. His lips were spread in that pawky smile.
"Sure," he said, "I'll let you go. What will you do if I let you go?"
Aforismo had pulled thetrigueñoout from behind him now, and Crawford crouched there on his hands and knees, black hair falling dankly over his feverish eyes. He looked like a trapped animal, his breath escaping him in hoarse gasps, his head turning in quick jerks as his wild glance leaped from one person to another. First it was Merida. There was a desperate plea in the way she bent toward him, her bosom rising and falling, her red lower lip dropped away from the shadowed white line of her teeth, glistening damply. Then Huerta, managing to convey a bored amusement without actually expressing anything in his face, as he studied Crawford distantly. And Jacinto, great, lugubrious globules of sweat sliding down his brown face, wringing his fat hands, making small, unintelligible sounds of pain.
A vagrant anger swept Crawford and he tried to collect it and hold it in him, bitter and acrid and violent. But it held no strength, and a shift of the wind swept the fetor of thetrigueñoto him once more, and the anger disappeared. There was none of the spasm of panic now. It was heavy and oppressive in him, holding him down like a physical weight, robbing him of all resolve, dominating all other emotion. He was still shaking violently, and the salty tears blinded him. He felt a dim impulse to move twitch at his legs, and he knew a moment there when he thought he could rise. Then he heard the guttural, frustrated sound he made, and knew he was still on the ground, and felt an overpowering impulse to give way and cry.
"I thought so," said Quartel, and turned to take the reins from Aforismo. He checked the animal to prevent its whirling away from him, and jumped onto its back. He released the rein, and thetrigueño'shead came around with a snap as it spun to trot off toward the fires. The othervaquerosfollowed one by one, in an uncomfortable silence. Huerta patted a yawn.
"They've got some cane chairs over under those coma trees," he said. "I think I'll watch the proceedings from there. Coming, Merida?"
She did not answer. She was looking at Crawford, her face pale. Huerta shrugged, moved languidly across the dusty compound. Then it was just the two of them, with Crawford finally gaining his feet, unable to meet her eyes. Merida's weight had settled back onto her high heels slowly. That ripe lower lip had contracted against her teeth till her mouth was twisted across them faintly. Her husky voice was barely audible.
"I had hoped Huerta was wrong."
He stared at her, wanting to turn and run, unable to, somehow, and finally it came from him, guttural, hardly recognizable. "Whadda you mean?"
"About that fellow in the mine," she said.
"Whaddaya mean?" Had that been him? Shrill, and cracked, like that?
"You know what I mean," she said. "Not only pain. Fear. And not only fear of what originally caused the pain."
"No—"
"Yes!" she said thinly. "Yes! It's not just the horses any more. It's everything. You're a coward, Crawford. You're a coward!"
Still in the Throes of Fear
The girandole candelabra on the mantel looked like a brooding ghoul in the evening gloom which shrouded the living-room of Otis Rockland's house. The French windows at the front extended completely to the floor, double-hung sashes forming the upper half, paneled gates of unpolished oak being the lower section. The damask hangings had been pulled across during the afternoon to shut out the sun, but the windows themselves were partly ajar, allowing the sounds from the corrals to enter the room. Someone was playing a guitar over there where they were still roasting the bulls that had been killed. A woman's laugh came dimly.
Crawford raised his head a moment where he sat in a willow chair by the window; then he lowered it once more into his hands. His face was bleak and empty. He did not know how long it was since he had come here, unable to face them out there.
When the creak of the porch came mutedly to him, he gave no sign. Then there was more sound, louder, more recognizable. His head lifted as the noise terminated with a muffled crash.
"Crawford!"
Just once like that, shrill and cracked. He got to his feet and ran to the door, tearing it open. It was the side table in the entrance hall which had made the crash. Merida must have pulled it over, falling. The marble top had smashed, and a piece of it lay on the floor beside her. The front door stood open wide.
"Merida?" he said, dropping to one knee. "You fell?"
"No." She stirred feebly, rising to one elbow with his help, hanging her head over against his knee a moment. The kitchen door opened, and her maid padded down the hall in bare feet, a small, wizened Indian, so dark she looked negroid, dressed in nothing more than a white cotton shift.
"It's all right, Nexpa," Merida told her. "A little accident. Crawford will help me to my room."
She allowed him to help her up the stairs, leaning heavily on his arm. The warmth of her body flowed through Crawford, and when they reached the second floor he was breathing heavily. Beyond the last step, Merida pulled away from him, her eyes meeting his in a swift, unreadable way.
She turned and moved toward her room, halting a moment outside Huerta's closed door, as if listening. Then she opened the door of her bedroom. He had kept from asking by an effort, but now he followed her in hesitantly, speaking.
"Huerta came up?"
She closed her door softly. "He wasn't at the corrals when I left."
"Maybe he got hungry for his red beans." Her face lifted to him, eyes widening, and he shrugged. "Jacinto said something about dope."
She pursed her lips, moving around him toward the table. "Couldn't you see it? Opium when we were in Mexico City. Peyote now."
"Those beans."
"Yes. You've heard it. The Indians call itraíz diabólica. Devil weed. They've been using it for centuries in Mexico. Even the Aztecs knew of it. They called it peyotl. It's effect isn't as marked as opium. He seems capable of eating those beans all day. They make a drink of it that's more potent."
"He said something about a complaint," Crawford told her.
Her mouth twisted somewhat. "Maybe he has an old wound. He's been around. He'd take dope anyway. That's just the kind he is. You saw the kind. Dissolute? I don't know. Whatever you want." She had got a punk off the table and was lighting the candles in the porcelain candelabra supported by oak wall brackets. Then she saw how he was looking at her, and turned part way. "What is it?"
He looked away. "Nothing."
She caught his arm, turning him back.
"No," she said. "It is something. Huerta?"
Crawford pulled away from her hand, uncomfortable, somehow. "I just can't see you with him. You're not the type."
"What type do you think I am?"
He started to answer. Then he moved his shoulders again, letting out a muted, rueful sound. "I guess I don't know, really, do I?"
"Don't you?" She was meeting his glance with a wide, candid demand in her eyes.
"Santa Anna's chests?" he said.
She drew in a long, slow breath, and nodded, finally. "You do know, then," she murmured, almost inaudibly. "You have known, all along." She hesitated, studying him. When she spoke again, her voice was stronger. "That's inconceivable to you, isn't it?"
"No—"
"Yes!" She blew out the punk with the word. "You've lived in thebrasadamost of your life. Money to you represents no more than a barren, lonely ranch like this and a herd of cattle to support it. You have no conception of what riches can really mean. Not just the horses, the servants, the jewels. The grace, Crawford, the ease, the beauty, the way of life." An intensity had gripped her voice, and her face was flushed. "Do you know what it is to be a peon in Mexico? No. You've never seen it, have you? You've seen the women in the brush here, living like animals in a one-room mud house with nothing but a cotton sheet for a dress. That's nothing. They're rich. They're hidalgos compared with a real peon. I should know. I was one, Crawford. I won't be one again. I'd rather steal and lie and cheat. I'd rather murder. Can you understand that? I will, if it's necessary. I—"
She broke off, breathing deeply, looking wide-eyed up at him. Then a short bitter laugh escaped her, and she turned away, the line of her shoulders bowing faintly. Light drew a soft glow from the rich black hair drawn tightly across the back of her head. With a new understanding of the woman, he stepped in behind her.
"All right," he said.
The simple acceptance of that drew her around. They were standing so close her breast touched his when it stirred faintly to her breathing.
"You were going to tell me what happened downstairs," he murmured.
"Derrotero?" she said, watching his face narrowly.
It was an effort to keep it expressionless. "The map?"
"It's why Huerta wanted to keep you here in the first place," she said. "Quartel and Tarant were against it, but Huerta thought you had some reason for coming here. He was right, Crawford. Nothing else could make you take what they've been doing. You've got part of thederrotero, and you think one of us has the rest. Well, one of us has!"
She turned around and did something with the waist of her dress, beneath the fichu. When she turned back, she held a piece of torn, yellowed paper in her hand.
"There are three pieces to the map," she said. "This is one of them."
"Lopez?" he asked.
"Yes," she muttered. "Santa Anna had many wives. My mother was one. You will recall that the captain of the mule train sent one third of the map to Santa Anna himself. It was about all my mother got out of Santa Anna's estate when he died."
"Who was it downstairs?" he asked.
"He came from behind. It was dark. I did not see."
He stared at the section of paper a long time, scratching his dirty beard with a thumbnail. "Huerta's been trying to find out all along if I have thederrotero. The fact that he doesn't know for sure has kept him from making any definite move, one way or another. What would he do if he found out, for sure, one way or another?"
"Why should he find out?" she said.
"You're with Huerta."
"Am I?" she said, moving in close again. "Maybe Iwas."
"You tried that before," he said.
"No," she said hotly. "Will you never trust me, Crawford? I want to help you. Not just the map. That doesn't matter, now. Out there, with thetrigueño. I'm sorry for what I called you."
"Maybe you were right," he said, bitterly.
"No! You're not a coward, intrinsically. Can't you see what they were doing? Maybe Huerta was the first to see how it was—about your legs. Now they all know. They're using it, Crawford. Quartel used it today. He shoved you up against the horse and held you there till you were half-crazy with panic. He knew you wouldn't fight him in that state. It wasn't fear of him that demoralized you. It was horrible to watch." She reached up to grasp his elbows with her hands, lifting her weight toward him. "But I've seen what you used to be, too. When you brought Whitehead back. No coward could have done that. Come back, with Whitehead that way, knowing what you would have to face, here. Do you realize what it did to me? To come out on the porch that morning and see you standing there beside Whitehead's body, knowing what it meant. It doesn't happen to a person often in her life, Crawford. That sort of feeling. Let me help you, Crawford. I want to. I can't if you don't trust me."
She was up against him now, almost sobbing it, and his hands had slid around her waist, the flesh hot and silken against his palm through her gown. For one last moment he tried to fight it. But he had fought so long, so alone, without anyone, and the warm resilience of her body against him filled Crawford with a giddy weakness.
"Merida," he muttered thickly, bending her back, "Merida—"
She pulled away, her face flushed. "I can't—if you don't trust me—"
He held her that way, breathing heavily, her back arched away from him by the pressure of her hands against his chest. He searched her wide, dark eyes, and found no guile there. Still filled with that desire and driven by it, he made a guttural, inarticulate sound, releasing her, and took one step to the bed, lowering himself on the embroidered muslin coverlet. He bent to take off his right Justin. The fancy stitching across the top of the boot unknotted, and he pulled it away from half a dozen eyelets in the leather, revealing a double thickness which formed a pocket.
"Used to keep my money here," he said, pulling out the piece of parchment Rockland had given him. The woman's hand trembled as she took it from him, laying it on the bed beside her piece, fitting them together. Then her pale finger crossed the map until it reached a word printed on his section. Her voice was no more than a whisper.
"Mogotes Serpientes."
"Yeah," he said, watching her. "Yeah. I never got around to using the map. Kenmare was on my tail a lot since I left San Antonio. I didn't take too much stock in the story anyway. Del never told me anything about it, and it was his uncle supposed to have been captain of that mule train. How did Rockland get hold of this portion?"
"Delcazar's uncle escaped to Mexico City, where he died, his effects being turned over to the family lawyer down there," she said. "Rockland originally wanted the Delcazar land up here for the water. He sent Tarant down to Mexico City to make sure there was nothing in the Delcazar papers which would prevent having clear title to the land when he got hold of it. Tarant found this part of the chart when he was going through those papers." She straightened slowly, allowing her gaze to reach his face. "Do you know who has the other piece, Crawford?"
"No," he said.
Her eyes grew blank; and he stood swiftly, grasping her hand. "I've trusted you, Merida. Now you've got to trust me. I don't know."
"It's got to be more than trust now," she said. "We're in it together, Crawford. If I'm to help you, you've got to help me. Will you?"
"Haven't I proved that?" he said, trying to pull her toward him with that hand. "Anything, Merida—"
She held back, calculation hardening the planes of her face. "Perhaps I should have said,canyou?"
Just the feel of her wrist in his fingers that way, soft and satiny, started it up again in him, and he quit trying to pull her in, and took a step in toward her. "What horse you on now?"
"I mean, maybe you can't. Maybe you're incapable of it. You can't do much the way you are now, Crawford. You're only half a man. It's not just the horses any more. It's your whole life. Everything you do is affected by it. I've thought of trying to get you a gun. A dozen times. It would be hard, but I might be able to do it. To stay unarmed here, like this—" She put her free hand against his chest to stop him. "What good would it do, Crawford? If you'd had a gun, would you have used it today? Quartel carries one. Would you have pulled yours on him?"
No woman had ever affected him so violently before. Hardly aware of what she was saying, the blood pounding through his head, he sought to force her hand aside and bend his face to hers, wanting only to feel her against him again.
"Merida," he said, the blood so thick in his throat it made him sound strangled, "I told you—anything—"
She took a deep, ragged breath, and he could not tell whether she was fighting him or herself, now. "No, Crawford. It wouldn't be any different with a gun. Not the way you are now. A gun wouldn't do you any more good than your bare hands. Quartel wanted you to fight him with your hands. You wouldn't even do that. Nothing will do you any good until you can step on a horse again without feeling that pain in your legs—that fear." She forced herself away, saying it in a cold tone, "Africano?"
It was like throwing ice water on a fire. All his ardor disappeared before the abrupt clutch of fear that word engendered in him. He stiffened for a moment, still holding that one hand. Then he dropped it and stepped back, his mouth twisted. Just the word, like that. Just the name.
"Yes." The heavy rise and fall of Merida's breast abated as she studied him, the candor gone from her face now, a cold, critical speculation filling her eyes as she studied him. "Perhaps I was wrong, Crawford. Perhaps you can't help me. Perhaps I can't help you."
"No? Let me show you," he said desperately.