Flight From Snake Thickets
This time of night did strange things to the brush. The moon had not yet risen enough to light fully the trails winding their secretive way through the jealous chaparral, and what vague dim light did seep through the gloom held a reflected, synthetic quality. Most of thevaqueroswere in a drunken stupor when Crawford and the woman left the house, getting one of Rockland's prized copperbottoms and a pinto mare from the corrals without being detected. They rode north from the spread, following one of the ancient game traces which thevaquerosused when working the cattle. In the eerie illumination, the berries ripening on the granjeno bushes formed yellow shadow patches against the velvet backdrop of darkness farther back, and the white filament of the horse-maimer was turned to a sick erubescence where it crouched on a stony ridge. Crawford caught the dim glow of the cactus's silky blossoms, and pulled his reins in a hard jerk against the pinto's neck. The animal shied to the right, away from the horse-maimer.
"Crawford!"
The woman said it softly from behind him, a controlled anger in her voice. She moved the copperbottom up beside him, peering at his face.
"It's all right," he said impatiently.
"Crawford," she said again, in that low, insistent tone.
He tried to relax his legs against the pinto. Just a walk, and they were like that. He felt his shirt sticking to his armpits and knew the sweat was showing on his face. That terrible frustration was biting at him.
"I told you it was all right," he said harshly.
A savagery entered her voice, struggling with that restraint. "Will you quit trying to hide it, Crawford. From me. From yourself. I know all about it now. I've seen it. There's no use being ashamed of it with me. It's there. We both recognize it. Admit it. That's the first thing you've got to do."
"All right. I'm afraid. Every time it moves. Every time it bats an eyelash. Every time it—"
He stopped, realizing how violent the release had been, and it seemed the mocking echoes of his voice were dying down the sombrous lanes of the brush. He turned away from her, feeling a new wave of shame.
"That's better than nothing," she said. The tone of Merida's voice made him turn back to her. She must have been waiting for that, because the movement brought his eyes around to hers. "When you wouldn't meet Quartel back at the bull-tailing," she said, "I condemned you for being a coward. I'll never do it again. You may be afraid, but I'll never condemn you for it. The only thing I'll condemn you for is refusing to face your fear."
He felt his legs relaxing slightly, and for a moment the beat of his heart diminished. He had never talked with anyone about it like this before. He had kept it locked within himself, refusing to look at it, refusing to admit it even to himself.
"Do your legs hurt now?" she said.
"A little." His voice was tight.
"Crawford—"
"All right. A lot. They hurt like hell. I hurt all over. Does that satisfy you?"
"This the river?" she said.
He pulled the pinto to a stop and stepped off stiffly. He stood there a moment with his face into the horse, trembling faintly. When he moved away from the animal, the nebulous pain subsided somewhat in his loins. Yet the animal's very proximity kept the irritation in his consciousness. When he pulled the map from his shirt, his hand twitched spasmodically, and he almost tore the paper. She took the paper from his uncertain hands, moving into the best of the bizarre light. They had ridden north in order to strike the Nueces River where the route on his portion of thederroterostarted. The woman hunkered down on the ground, spreading the paper out. There was something wild about her figure, crouching there like that, her dark head brooding over the chart. She looked up abruptly. It caused him to make a small, involuntary movement, realizing how he had been watching her. He squatted down beside her, seeing the scarlet tip of her finger descend to the words printed in Spanish at one end of the chart.
"Montezuma Embrujada?"
"Yeah," he said. "You can see them right across the river. I don't know why they're called the Haunted Ruins. It's just an old Spanish fort they had here to guard the gold trains coming from the San Saba Mines."
Her finger moved down the line on the paper to the next spot. "Chapotes Platas."
"Silver Persimmons. A bunch of persimmon trees growing about five miles south of here that look silver in the moonlight. I been by there sometimes chousing cattle with Delcazar."
"Tinaja de la Tortuga." Her finger had passed on to the third spot marked on the upper portion of the map.
"Turtle Sink, we call it," he said. "There's the biggest old granddaddy turtle you ever saw living there, but I never saw any water."
"Veredas Coloradas—"
"You got me now," he said. "I told you nobody's seen all of thebrasada. Delcazar knows more about it than anybody else I ever knew, but he can't tell me where Snake Thickets are, or what's in Lost Swamp."
"This is still on the portion of the map you had," she said.
He nodded. "It's new brush to me and thicker'n heel flies in spring. It takes a machete to get through."
Her finger was trailing on down the line, crossing the jagged tear in the paper, marking the spots noted on the second portion of thederrotero. "Llano Sacaguista, Puenta Piedra, Resaca Perdida—you don't know any of these?"
He shook his head. "I told you. I've never been down that way. I've heard of some. Puenta Piedra, for instance. There's supposed to be a natural stone bridge somewhere along the Rio Diablo. And most everybody in the brush has heard the tales about Lost Swamp."
"Puenta Piedra is beyond that thick brush," she said. "Why not skirt that section of thebrasadauntil we strike Rio Diablo? If Puenta Piedra is somewhere along Rio Diablo, we should find it by following the river's course. Then maybe we can follow the chart from Puenta Piedra on down to the Snake Thickets."
"We won't get back before daylight," he said.
"I don't care." She rose with a toss of her head. "Let them know we've been hunting the chest. I told you there wasn't any time left to beat about the bush."
"And what have we got when we do reach Snake Thickets?" he said.
"Don't ask me!" She seemed to allow herself full release for the first time. Her face was flushed and she swung aboard the copperbottom viciously. "All I know is I can't sit around that house and wait for something to happen. The only way to find something is to go out and hunt for it—"
She stopped, as she saw him standing there staring at the pinto. It had a little roan in its black coloring which caused the dark spots to run over into the white patches, giving a sloppy, splotched effect. It stirred faintly, snorting. Merida saw what that did to him.
"Crawford—"
There was a plea in her voice. She sat quiescent, waiting. His lips flattened against his teeth. He moved slowly to the pinto, standing there, staring at the sweaty saddle. The smell of it grew in his nostrils. He was filled with the impulse to turn and run. His body twitched with it.
"Crawford—"
He put his foot in the stirrup and stepped aboard.
Silver Persimmons, Turtle Sink, Rio Diablo. They were names on the chart. They were spots in the brasada. They were names in his head and their reality blended with black letters on faded parchment. He lost all sense of time. His only consciousness was of movement. No telling how long it took them from Haunted Ruins to Silver Persimmons. The weird brush floated past in a sea of mingled pain and trembling and sweating. The stark arms of chaparral supplicated the night on every side. Thecenizo'sashen hue had turned a sick lavender from recent rain, and it reeled biliously into vision and out again. Then Chapotes Platas were gleaming like newly minted coin beneath the risen moon. The woman talked sometimes, watching Crawford, in a low, insistent way.
"My mother was thecuranderaof the village. You have no idea how many plants those herb-women can make medicine from. On Saturday we would go to the river a mile away and gather herbs. I used to enjoy that. It was as far away from home as I got. The rest was mostly work. Nothing very nice to remember. Choking to death in the fumes of the herbs my mother had cooking constantly in the big brass kettle in our jacal. Rubbing my eyes all day in the smoke. She was stone blind from that. Grinding corn on the metate. I must have spent half my waking hours with that metate. Do you blame me for marrying Capitán Mendoza when he asked? I didn't love him. He was brutal and ugly. But he was stationed in Mexico City. I was fourteen at the time—"
Turtle Sink ceased to be inked words on yellowed paper and rose abruptly from the shadowed depths of the brush—a stony water hole with sand white as bleached bones covering its bottom and the scarred, mottled shell of a huge turtle barely visible in the black shadow beneath one end. They were beyond that when the sound of his breathing slid momentarily across the uppermost reaches of his consciousness. It was not as labored, or as harsh. Then it was her voice, floating in again.
"After Mendoza died, riding with Diaz, I got a job entertaining in a cafe near Collegio Militar. It was there I first met Huerta. He taught me to speak English, gave me my first taste of what money can do. Tarant had known Huerta before, and when Rockland sent him down to look into the Delcazar papers, Tarant contacted Huerta to help him. Huerta was there when Tarant came across the portion of thederroteroDelcazar's uncle had possessed. That's how Huerta knew Rockland would have it. When Huerta told me about it, I showed him the portion of the map I had—"
Now it was his legs. First it had been his breath, now it was his legs. He realized they were hanging free against the stirrup leathers. He was sitting a horse without tension for the first time since Africano had rolled him. He turned toward Merida. Maybe it was in his face.
"Your legs don't hurt now, do they?"
He was almost afraid to speak. "No," he said, with a strange, husky wonder in his voice. "No."
He had never seen her smile with such rich sincerity, and her voice trembled with a strange, joyful excitation. "Then we can, Crawford, we can!"
He stared at her, unable to answer. Then he averted his head, lips thin against his teeth. Could they? He was afraid to answer it. Yet the pain was gone. He could sit there with the movement of the horse beneath him and its sweaty fetor reaching his nostrils in vagrant waves and feel no pain. And with the cessation of his pain, the other things became more vivid in his consciousness.
He caught the faint honeyed odor of white brush from a draw to his right, and drank in its full sweetness for the first time in months. The woman saw that, and her lips lifted faintly. They reached Rio Diablo and turned northward on its banks. It was the best water between the Nueces and the Rio Grande, yet it was no more than a stream, its mucky course following a sandy bottom that wandered in lazy loops through thebrasada.
"We're crossing Delcazar's old spread now," Crawford told her. "You can see how much better watering you'd get here than where Rio Diablo turns into Rockland's holdings. That's why Rockland wanted to get hold of this stretch. When Rockland's dad first got the Big O, they say the river was bank full from one end of his pastures to the other. Couple more years and it will be completely dry there."
They passed the borders of what had once belonged to Pio Delcazar and came across a grass-grown pile of stones on a clay bank while it was still dark, a broken, hand-hewn timber thrusting its jagged end skyward from the rubble. Crawford dismounted and moved about the area, bending now and then to squint at certain spots. Then he stared across the river to where another heap of stones stood on the far bank.
"Puenta Piedra," he mused, tugging idly at his scraggly black beard. "I wonder if those stories about a natural stone bridge could have started from one the Spaniards built on the route south from San Antonio."
"How does this line up with Tinaja de la Tortuga?"
He looked upward, turning his head till he found Lucero, and raised his hand to it. "There's the Shepherd's Star. And the one the Mexicans call La Guía. They're always fixed in relation to each other. That leaves us almost due south of Turtle Sink."
"That tallies with the map," she said, spreading the parchment out against her horse's neck. "Red Trails must be right in the middle of that thicket we skirted. And this is the Puenta Piedra they mean. We have to turn east a little now to strike Llano Sacaguista."
He got onto the pinto without hesitation this time, and led down into the brown muck of the shallow water and up the other bank. Llano Sacaguista proved to be a vast open flat covered with greening sacaguista grass. He had never traversed these particular flats, and beyond this was a stretch of brush entirely foreign to him. They left Rio Diablo for a mile or so and then struck it again. A block in the river caused by some ancient upheaval rendered the land boggy here. The hollow boom of bullfrogs mingled with the other night sounds. A 'gator bellowed somewhere from the depths of the exotic brush.
"Looks more like East Texas," Crawford muttered. "I wonder if this could be Lost Swamp."
He could see the glow of excitement in the woman's eyes now. They pushed on southward with the false dawn dropping an eerie light through the brush. The boggy section fell behind, and the natural aridity of thebrasadareturned. They were still following the river, though it was nothing but a dry bed now, the trickle of water having ceased where it ran into Lost Swamp. A true dawn was bringing light to the sky in the east when they heard the first sound. It was a thin sibilation, reminiscent of the mesquite sighing in a light breeze. Crawford moved his pinto over beside Merida's copperbottom, halting both horses, to sit there, listening. Then he touched a heel to the pinto's flank, moving it carefully down into the very center of the river bed. The brush on either bank grew more dense as they moved on up the dry bed, and began to gather here in the bottoms now. The sound increased, too. The faint hissing was veritably ceaseless now, rising and falling in a sibilant tide. Finally the brush was so thick in the river bed they were having to force their way through. The pinto was beginning to fiddle nervously. It shied, finally, and Crawford jerked it to a stop, a vagrant wave of the old panic gripping him. He sat there a moment, trying to control his breathing.
"You wanted to know where Snake Thickets was," he said. "It looks like we're sitting right on the edge of it."
There was a vague awe in her voice. "It sounds as if all the snakes in Texas had gathered here. Crawford—"
"Don't be loco," he said, seeing it in her eyes. "We wouldn't last two minutes beyond this spot. If those Mexicans cached anything, it sure couldn't have been inside here."
"If?" Her tone was sharp; the excited glow fled her eyes, leaving them narrow and speculative as she looked at him. "You still don't believe there is any money."
"I told you I was skeptical to begin with," said Crawford.
"But the part of thederroteroyou had—" she moved her hand in a vague, defensive way—"coming all this way, putting up with all that back there—Quartel, Huerta, Whitehead—surely—" She stopped as it must have struck her. A reserve crossed her face, tightening the planes of her cheek, and that speculation deepened in her eyes, accentuating, somehow, the oblique tilt of her brow. "Maybe I was right the first time," she said finally. She leaned toward him slightly. "I guess I should have seen it before this. You're hardly the type, are you? Money wouldn't mean enough to you to put up with that." She stopped again, studying him, and then a faint smile stirred her lips. "Which one of us do you think murdered Otis Rockland?"
He met her eyes for a moment, almost sullenly. Then a vague unrest seeped through him. His saddle creaked as he shifted on the pinto, and he turned his head upward, sniffing. She must have taken it for a discomfort arising from her scrutiny, for that smile on her lips spread perceptibly.
"I didn't think you were that righteous," she said.
He brought his eyes back to hers with an effort, staring a moment before he comprehended. "Look," he said, then, with a careful deliberateness. "I don't give a damn about Rockland being killed. It's me, see. It's purely a selfish motive. I told you. A man gets tired after a while. He gets tired jumping like a jack rabbit every time a tree toad chirps. He gets tired running the brush all day and all night to keep one jump ahead of those badge-packers. He gets tired living on raw meat because he's afraid to build a fire, and sleeping in a bunch of mesquite because he can't get near enough a house to get a blanket, and scratching his face off because he hasn't even got so much as a knife to shave with."
"Then why didn't you leave?"
He opened his mouth to say it. Then he closed it again, staring at her. Finally he shrugged sullenly. "It's my country, that's all."
"Is it?" she said. "Or maybe I'm wrong again. Maybe Quartel was closer to the truth than any of us. Where do you pin the badge? On your undershirt?"
"I didn't think you'd understand," he said.
"It would be the most logical reason for your staying, through all that," she said, studying him. "If you really are hoping to find Rockland's murderer, that would be the most logical reason."
"Let's close the poke," he said.
"And maybe that about your legs is wrong, too," her voice probed relentlessly. "That would be a pretty good blind. Who would suspect them of sending in a lawman who couldn't even sit a horse?"
She must have meant it to sting him. He saw some strange satisfaction in her face as he stiffened perceptibly.
"No—Merida—" He held out his hand, losing for a moment all sense of the heavy antipathy which had fallen between them. Then it was that restlessness, coming again, through the consciousness of her mocking eyes on him. The pinto began to fiddle around in the sand, and the woman's copperbottom raised its head, delicate nostrils fluttering. Merida looked at the animals, frowning.
"What is it?" she said.
A puff of wind ruffled Crawford's ducking jacket against his ribs. He turned in the saddle, staring northward. It was light enough with dawn now for him to discern the blackening clouds on the horizon, above the pattern of brush. The breeze whipped through thebrasadaanew, strong enough now to drown out the incessant hissing which emanated from Mogotes Serpientes. Mesquite rattled mournfully to the wind. A mule deer broke from chaparral with a clatter behind the horses, bounding across the river bed in frightened leaps. The pinto snorted and began fighting the bit, whirling in the sand.
The woman shivered with the sudden chill, calling again, a vague fear tinging her voice. "What is it?"
He could hardly answer. The plunging, rearing pinto had filled him again with that panic, and he was gripping frantically with his legs, blood thickening in his throat, choking him up, sweat breaking out on his face.
"Norther." He finally got it out. "Hits like this sometimes in the spring. Better get to shelter quick as we can. It looks like hell is going to pop its shutters. Delcazar used to have an old jacal on the Diablo. It's south of us somewhere along the bottoms. He and I used to hole up there when we were hunting—"
He was fighting the pinto all the time he shouted, and he could hold it no longer. Frothing at the mouth from battling the bit, the horse wheeled wildly, tossing its head, and bolted up the bank of the river. The wind had risen to a veritable gale already, and the ducking jacket whipped about his torso with a dull slapping sound as the pinto burst through the first growth of chaparral. A hackberry rose ahead. Crawford reined the horse aside desperately, sliding off on one flank to get beneath the branches. He was shaking with panic now, and the pain was in his tense, quivering legs.
"Crawford, Crawford—"
It was Merida's voice behind him. Her animal made a hellish clatter going through amogote. Then that was drowned in the howl of the rising gale. Crawford was dimly aware of his own choked sobbing as he fought to stay on the frenzied pinto and turn it southward toward Delcazar's jacal. His consciousness of the norther was only secondary to the terrible animal panic in him. The black clouds had risen like a pyre of smoke over the northern horizon and were descending on the near brush like an awesome, clutching hand. Already rain was beginning to pelt the thickets. The howling wind tore a pendent bunch of mesquite berries off its bush as Crawford raced by, carrying it into his face. He shouted aloud at it, clawing wildly at the blinding mass. But mostly it was the horse beneath him. The writhing heat of its frenetic movement beating against his legs. The dank smell of its wet body sweeping him. The coarse black hair of its mane whipping into his face. The awful demoralizing consciousness of its uncontrollable run carrying him along.
He could hear his own choked, incoherent cries. The fear held him in a shaking, writhing vise now. Nopal clawed his face. A post-oak branch struck his head with stunning force. He clung to the horse, bawling insanely, no longer trying to rein it, torn off one side by raking chaparral, beaten at by the trunk of a hackberry, scratched and ripped by mesquite.
"Let go, Crawford." It was Merida, calling shrilly from behind him somewhere. "Jump, Crawford, please, let go, oh please—"
"No! no!"
Had he screamed it? Someone was screaming. His head rocked backward to a blow. Sensations spun in a kaleidoscope about him. The towering dominance of a cottonwood reeled around its orbit above him. Mesquite swept into his vision and out again. Sound and sight and feel became a confused pattern. Red-topped nopal swam past. The crash of chaparral dinned in his ears. The gnarled curve of a post oak reeled up and blotted out his vision with a stunning blow in the face. His own hoarse scream of agony. The drum of hoofs somewhere beneath him. The shrieking wind. White brush. Green toboso grass. Brown hackberries. Agony in his legs. The horse whinnying. White brush. Pain. Grass. Screaming. Trees. Shouting. Blood. Nopal—
"Crawford!"
He did not know he had left the horse till he found himself crouched there in a thicket of mesquite, his face against the wet, earthy smell of dampened grama grass, making small, incoherent sounds. He seemed in a void, only dimly aware of sound sweeping around him, his awesome fear the only real thing to him. It clutched his loins and knotted the muscles across his belly. His legs were still rigid and trembling with that pain. He was sobbing in a hoarse, choked way. He heard the creak behind him but didn't know what it was till the woman's voice came through the haze of primal panic.
"Crawford—"
"There. That's it. You've seen it now. All of it. Can we? Hell. How do you like it? Isn't it pretty?"
"You should have jumped." She had dropped to her knees before him and pulled his face up off the ground. The rain had soaked her clothes and when she drew his head into her arms he felt the soft, wet contour of her breast through the damp silk shirt. He was still shaken with that animal fright, and he had no control over his choked, guttural sobbing, or his words.
"I couldn't jump. It's always like that. I'm so scared I want to puke and the only thing I want to do is leave the horse and I can't." His voice sounded muffled against the supple heat of her body. He had never let it out like this before, and with the panic and pain and fear robbing him of all control, he heard all the agony and anguish and frustration of the last months flooding from him in a wild release. He was still crouched on the ground, bent into her lap, his face against her breast, his fingers clutching spasmodically at the grass on either side of her.
She soothed him like a child, stroking his head. Finally, the pain began to die in his legs. The knotted muscles across his belly began to twitch spasmodically, and then relaxed. It was no longer his hoarse, sobbing words against her body. It was only his labored breathing. The full realization of what had happened struck him, and he forced his head back in her arms till he was far enough away to see her face. The flush of a sudden shame swept darkly into his cheeks. She saw it, and her eyes widened with a tortured compassion.
"No, Crawford, no, please," she said, in a husky voice, and put her palms against his cheeks and pulled his head to one side. Her position gave weight to the leverage of her hands, and he found himself lying with his back on the ground, with his knees twisted beneath him and Merida bending over from her sitting position.
He had thought about it, before, enough times. A man did, with such a woman. But none of it had equaled this. All the shame was swept away. The sounds of the storm were blotted out. His whole consciousness was of the straining tension of her body against him and the moist resilience of her lips meeting his. Finally she lifted her head, and he could see that her eyes were closed. She sat that way a moment, without opening them, her blouse caught wetly across the curving rise and fall of her breast. He lay staring up at her, and it was not the fear or the pain or the shame any longer in him, or even the passion which had swept him in that brief, violent moment. Opening her eyes, she must have seen it in his twisted, wet face.
"Crawford," she said in a strained voice. "Crawford, what is it? What do you want?"
Old Friends Reunited
The Mexicans constructed the roofs of their jacals by laying willow shoots in a herringbone pattern across the bare vigas which formed the rafters, and then piling a foot or so of earth atop the shoots. It was this pattern Crawford saw when he first opened his eyes. Then it was the estufa, built of adobe, in one corner of the room, with a raised hearth and a cone-shaped opening in front, the hood rounding from the center to each wall with two mantels terraced back toward the chimney. It was over this oven that the old man stood.
"Delcazar!"
Crawford's voice turned the aged Mexican, a rusty black frying pan still held in one gnarled fist. His face was seamed like an ancient satchel, and he squinted with the effort of focusing his rheumy eyes on Crawford. His soiled white cotton shirt hung slack from stooped, bony shoulders, and the inevitablechivarraswere on his skinny legs, glistening with daubs of grease. They gazed at each other in an uncomfortable silence, and finally Delcazar made a vague movement with the frying pan.
"Hard to know what to say," he mumbled. "After such a long time, and all that's happened."
"Yeah." Crawford put the rotting bayeta blanket off him, moving his arms and legs tentatively, grimacing with the pain it caused him. Hail had come after that first downpour of rain, and the white skin of his shoulders was marked with small purple bruises. He sat up, swinging his legs off, watching the Mexican. "I remember we had a terrible time in that storm. Last I recollect is trying to build a fire beneath some coma trees."
"That must have been a long time before I find you," said Delcazar. "I was in my jacal here when I hear somebody yelling my name. You was carrying Merida across your shoulder. Both near froze to death. I put you to bed like that time in Austin when the red-eye got you." He saw how Crawford was looking around the dim room, and Delcazar grinned hesitantly. "She's out getting water for the coffee."
They were still watching one another that way, waiting, and Crawford waved his hand around the room. "I didn't think you'd hide out here."
Delcazar bent toward him, squinting. "Hide out? How do you mean?"
"A lot of people know about it," said Crawford. "I should think it would be the first place they'd look."
"They?" Then Delcazar seemed to understand. He pointed at himself with a thumb. "You think—that I—I—" He halted with a confused grunt, staring at Crawford. "Then—you didn't?"
"Don't you know?" said Crawford.
"Dios, no," said Delcazar. "How could I know? Bueno told me how you threaten Rockland after Africano rolled you. I thought—" he gave a short, rueful laugh—"I guess I even hoped—"
He trailed off, shrugging hopelessly again, and Crawford bent toward him. "Del, are you trying to tell me you didn't kill Rockland?"
"Trying!" The old man bristled. "Trying to tell you? You doubt my—" He broke off, staring at Crawford. When he spoke again, it was simply, without vehemence. "No, Crawford. I didn't. I thought you did. You're on Bible Two. There was a couple of Rangers in the brush. Torbirio spoke with them. He tell me they had you on the fugitive list."
His face darkened, and he turned away from Crawford, setting the frying pan down. From one of the terraced shelves he took a grease-soaked paper, unwrapping it from about the piece of bacon, rubbing the meat sparingly across the frying pan.
"Isn't that the same piece of side meat you had when we were here last?" said Crawford.
Delcazar tried to smile. "Almost, I guess. Some day I have a hog of my own and we grease the pan with a fresh piece every morning."
"You said you hoped I had killed Rockland," Crawford murmured, watching Delcazar's back. "Why?"
"Nada," said Delcazar. "Nada."
Crawford's levis had been drying over the fire, and he rose to get them. "Because if I had done it, the whole thing could have been nothing more than the quarrel between me and Rockland?"
The old man pulled a pot of boiled beans out and dumped them into the frying pan. "Frijolesfritos, Crawford. You always like them."
"But if it wasn't me who did it," said Crawford, pulling on his damp levis, "there would have to be some other reason for Rockland being murdered. Santa Anna's chests, for instance." He saw Delcazar's whole body stiffen. The beans started to hiss as the flames licked at the bottom of the frying pan. "What do you know, Del?" said Crawford.
"Nada, nada." The old man turned around, rising with effort. "I don't know nothing."
"Your uncle was thecapitánof that mule train," said Crawford.
"My mother tell me that," said Delcazar. "I never seen him. He died in Mexico City when I was a littleniño."
"Then why are you so het-up if you don't know anything about it?"
"It's dangerous, Crawford," said Delcazar, catching at his arm. "It's the most dangerous thing ever hit this brush. You better get out of it while you're still alive. It's got the wholebrasadagoing now. No telling how many are mixed up in it now. The Mexican government has an agent up here somewhere."
"Huerta?"
"The man at Rockland's?" said Delcazar. "I don't think so."
"Huerta was the one who told me about your uncle," said Crawford. "Funny nobody has come hunting you. You're a logical link."
"They have," said Delcazar. "I wasn't here to greet them."
"Who?"
"That ramrod Tarant hired to clean out the brush," said Delcazar. "Him and his wholecorrida."
"Quartel?" Crawford's eyes narrowed, staring past Delcazar. "I hadn't thought of him."
"You better think of him. You better think about everybody, Glenn. No telling who's in it, now, and who ain't. No telling who's going to come up behind you next. I hear they take your Henry away—" He turned and squatted by the mess of saddle rigging and blankets in the corner, rummaging around till he came up with a wooden-handled bowie—"Here, it's all I have. I know it seems silly, but you got to have something. I wish I had a gun. That old Remington I owned blew up." He stopped again, clutching Crawford's arm. "Glenn, you ain't going back?"
"Why else did you give me the knife?"
The old man let his hand slide off.
"I guess so. I know you." He sniffled, rubbing peevishly at his coffee-colored nose with a calloused index finger. "I guess there ain't any use trying to keep you from it. They couldn't keep you from it with Whitehead. What are you after there, Glenn?"
Puntalesof peeled cedar formed the doorframe. Crawford hefted the bowie in his hand, flipped it into the cedar post with a deft twist of his hand. He walked across the room and pulled it free.
"We found Snake Thickets before the norther hit, Del," he said.
The old man grunted. "You're doing it wrong for a short throw like that. Let me show you."
Crawford had been holding the bowie by the tip of its blade and throwing it from back over his shoulder, allowing it to flip over once in the air before it struck. Delcazar palmed the heavy knife with the hilt against his wrist and the blade on his fingers. He threw it from his hip, point foremost. It struck with a dull thud. Crawford went over to the post. The blade was embedded half an inch deeper than his throws had sent it in. Standing there in the doorway, he turned back to the old man, squinting at him. Delcazar sniffled that way again, rubbing his nose, not meeting Crawford's eyes.
"I told you, Glenn, I never even seen Mogotes Serpientes. If you find it, okay. But I never even seen it. I thought it was just a story, like Resaca Perdida."
"We saw Lost Swamp too," said Crawford. "Snake Thickets was the most interesting, though. You should have heard it. Sounded like those beans, only ten times as much. Must be a million snakes in thosemogotes." He paced back to Delcazar, palming the knife as the old man had this time, throwing it with a grunt. With the blade quivering in the cedar post, he turned part way to the Mexican. "I guess you know what the woman came from Mexico for. She thinks it's somewhere in Snake Thickets."
Delcazar was shorter than Crawford, and he had to turn his head up to meet the younger man's eyes. "Listen, Glenn," he said soberly, "I don't know what you're in this for. I've heard a lot of reasons. Quartel thinks you got a badge tacked on you somewhere. That might be. A man can get a new job in the time you been away from the brush. Bueno Bailey said something about trying to clear yourself of Rockland's murder. That may be, too. If you didn't kill Rockland, maybe the man who did is at the Big O spread. Personally, I no care whether you killed Rockland or not or why you're here. I just no want to see you messed up in it, that's all. I know you before, and I no want to see you messed up in it. Take my advice as anamigo. Forget Mogotes Serpientes. Forget the whole thing. Get out of it. Get out of it right now."
Crawford scratched his beard, squinting into the old man's eyes thoughtfully. "You know, Del, it just strikes me. Two men can be friends for a long time, and not really know each other very well."
"Ah,carajo," growled Delcazar, shuffling back to hunker over the fire.
Crawford watched him stir the steaming beans. "Is there a way into Snake Thickets, Del?"
"Nada," grumbled the old man. "I don't know. I don't know nothing."
There was a muffled sound from outside, and then Merida was standing silhouetted in the doorway, staring at Crawford. All his weight lay in his chest and shoulders, and below the line of dark sunburn that covered his face and neck, the skin was pale and white and so thin as to gleam almost translucently over the musculature lying quilted across his upper back. He became aware of how long Merida had gazed at him like that, without speaking, and turned farther toward her. The myriad striations that formed the heavy roll of muscle capping his shoulders were clearly defined, and the abrupt movement caused a faint ripple beneath the skin, like the stir of a sleepy snake. Merida smiled strangely as she entered with a big clay jug of water.
"Cimarrón," she said.
"What?" he asked.
"Cimarrón," she said. "Ladino.I never could quite think of what you reminded me of. Now I know. One of those wild outlaw cattle Quartel brings in from the brush. Sullen, like them. Bitter. Even built like them. Their weight all up in their shoulders, running the brush so constantly they melt the beef off till—"
She stopped short, a strange, indulgent smile catching at her mouth as she saw the puzzled expression in his face. He turned to pull his shirt off the estufa. Merida moved after him, till she stood close behind. Delcazar was across the room, pulling a twist of chili from where he had hung it on a viga. Merida spoke in a low tone that the old man would not hear.
"What was it out there, Glenn?"
"When do you mean?" he said, without turning around.
"You know when I mean," she said. "After I'd kissed you. The way you looked. That expression on your face."
"Nothing," he said stiffly. He couldn't tell her, somehow, if she didn't know. It just wasn't in him to express his own terrible incapacity again, to her. For that was what it had been, out there, after the kiss. The bitter, unutterable realization that no matter how much he wanted her, he was completely unworthy of such a woman, and could never have her.
"It was something," said Merida, tensely, trying to turn him around, "tell me, Crawford, tell me—"
"Hola, Delcazar!" shouted someone, from outside, halting Merida. The old man whirled about, dropping the chili. Quartel had come into view, outside, across the clearing from the doorway, moving into the open from the brush in stiff, tentative steps, his Chihuahuas tinkling softly. He was leading his owntrigueñoand the copperbottom Merida had ridden. Crawford made an abortive move toward the door, but Delcazar caught him.
"Buenos días," said Delcazar, stepping then into view.
"I found Merida's horse down in the bottoms," Quartel told him. "I thought they might—ah, the flash rider himself."
He must have seen them behind Delcazar. Crawford pushed past the old man into the open, and saw the morning sunlight catch Quartel's white teeth in that pawky grin. The brush held a torn, rended look after the norther, great holes ripped in the mesquite thicket behind Quartel, mesquite berries littering the ground. The copperbottom shifted wearily, rattling its bridle.
"How did you find us?" said Crawford.
"I trailed you," said Quartel.
"That's some trailing."
Quartel shrugged. "Believe it or not. I don't care. There was someone at the Big O looking for you."
"Yeah?"
"Sí.I misjudged you, Crawford. Let me apologize for thinking you were a lawman." Merida made a small strained sound from behind Crawford, and Quartel grinned at her. "Sí, Merida. This man looking for Crawford don't pin it on his undershirt, either. He has it right out where everybody can see. He's hunting Crawford all right. He says he's got orders to shoot him on sight."
Conqueror and Conquered
It was twilight of the same day that Quartel had found them at Delcazar's jacal. Crawford and Merida had ridden double on the copperbottom back to the Big O, where Merida had gone up to her room to change, while Crawford washed up in the kitchen. No one was in evidence when Crawford returned to the living-room for a drink, feeling exhausted and battered from that night in the storm and the long ride back. He was no connoisseur, his experience with good liquor limited to the few times he had drunk Rockland's potables here, and he was at a loss to choose from the array of glittering bottles and decanters in the sideboard. He sampled one labeledcuraçaoand found it too sweet for his taste. Finally he settled on some armagnac, pouring himself a stiff jolt and moving toward the French windows. He had meant to sit down in one of the willow chairs, but the strange silence outside caught his attention.
It was unnatural for this time of day. There was no wind, and the mesquite berries hung in motionless clusters from drooping trees. Dusk clouded farther thickets, and only the nearest growths took form. The low mats of chaparral crouched like waiting cats in the gloom. The warped dead hackberry by the wagon road thrust skeleton arms skyward. It seemed to be waiting for something too. That oppressive sense of expectancy bore in on Crawford, and he emptied half the glass at one gulp, squinting his eyes as the brandy burned his throat. It did not help. Waiting. The sickish sweet scent of thelluvia de orotwining itself through the lattice of the front porch was so oppressive in the hot, still air that it nauseated him. Waiting—
The sound of someone rushing down the stairs caused him to turn toward the door. It was Merida, and he was surprised to see she had not changed from the torn, dirty leggings she had ridden in. Then he saw the expression on her face.
"Where's Quartel?" she cried.
"He went down to the bunkhouse I guess," Crawford told her, frowning. "What is it?"
"He was right."
"Who was right?"
"Quartel," she said, coming across the room in still, tense steps, her eyes fixed to his face. "Nexpa saw him."
"Quartel?"
"No," she said. "Crawford, don't you understand? Nexpa saw him from an upstairs bedroom. He's out in the brush and he's coming back."
It struck him, then, whom she meant, and his fingers tightened involuntarily around the glass. "The lawman?" She stared at him without answering, her mouth working faintly. He realized his fingers ached, and he eased his grip on the glass. "That's crazy, Merida. No badge-packer would come in here like that. Even Sheriff Kenmare was afraid to follow me this far. Nexpa must be mistaken." She shook her head, the planes of her face taut and strained-looking, her eyes glued in that wide, frightened way to his. He made a small, frustrated motion with the glass, his voice growing hoarse. "She must be, Merida. No lawman. Not even a Texas Ranger." She shook her head again, emitting a small, sobbing sound. He bent toward her tensely, his chest moving perceptibly with the breath passing through it. He was remembering what Delcazar had said. Bible Two? "Itisa Ranger?" Crawford almost whispered.
She caught his arm, the words torn from her. "You've got to get out, Crawford. Before he reaches here."
"Ranger," he muttered, almost to himself, turning to get past her toward the door. "It can't be—"
"Too much time, Crawford," she said swiftly, blocking him from that direction. "Can't you understand? He's coming back. You won't even be able to cross the compound before he's here. You won't even be able to reach the brush. You'll never make it on foot, Crawford."
He stared down at her twisted face. "What are you saying?"
"There's one in the small corral," she said. "Nexpa told me. It's one of Jacinto's, so it won't be spooky."
It took him a moment to comprehend what she meant, and then it escaped him in a strangled way. "Think I can do it that way?"
"You've got to." She was close to crying now, the tears glistening in her eyes. "There isn't any other way, Crawford. Can't you understand? You've got to. Right now. You'll never make it to the brush. It's twice as far as the corral. You'd be out there in the open, and you'd be a clay pigeon. Your only chance is the corral."
"No!" He tried to break free of her grip on his arm. "I can't. You know I can't. You saw, out there in the storm, with that pinto."
"You can!" she cried. "You've got to, Crawford, you've got to."
He stared down into her twisted, pale face. Then, with a guttural, inarticulate sound, he whirled to the French windows, opening one farther, and stepped out onto the porch. He stood a moment behind the screen of yellowlluvia de orocovering the lattice. The silence lay across the compound so thick it almost gagged him. Waiting. There it was again. His shoulders hunched forward, and his whole tense body had taken on the look of a hunted animal. He stared furtively down the length of the porch. His shirt was wringing wet with sweat now.
"Crawford—"
It came from Merida, standing in the window behind him. Without turning around, he moved down the steps, his boots making a clatter in the silence. Then he was moving across the ground in an urgent, shuffling gait, his narrow, dark head turning ceaselessly from side to side. He realized he was still holding the glass, and threw it from him with a muffled curse. With every step nearer the corral, something seemed to be contracting about his heart. He was fighting for breath, and sweat had turned his beard soggy when he reached the fence. In the semi-gloom, he could barely make out the shape of the horse. This was the corral they broke broncs in, built in three sections, the largest section on this side, with a chute at the other end, and beyond that, a small, tight holding corral not much bigger than a stall, where they held the animals before putting them into the chute to be saddled. It had been Otis Rockland's boast that this smaller section was built so hog-tight and bull-tight it would hold the wildest bronc that ever double-shuffled. The heavy, reinforced cedar bars were so close together a man could not crawl between them but had to go through the gate. This gate itself was built so that it would close automatically, a rawhide rope run from its frame through a pulley on the overhead structure with a bucket of sand hanging at its end. Whenever the gate was open the weight of the sand bucket pulled it closed again, and the drop bar fell automatically into its sockets on the outside.
Crawford stopped at this gate, glancing from one side to another at the brush. There was a small crackle behind the bunkhouse. With a startled abruptness, he pulled the rope that hoisted the drop bar from its sockets and lifted it above the top of the gate, allowing the portal to swing open. The bar would not drop back into position as long as the gate was ajar. Holding the gate open, Crawford found a rock large enough to wedge beneath the bottom bar and keep the sand bucket's weight from pulling the gate closed when he let go. The horse inside snorted softly. Crawford stiffened by the gate post. Then, his whole body so tense the muscles ached, he took a forced, jerky step toward the animal. The horse snorted again, louder. It had been hitched to the corral and, as Crawford drew near, the animal began tugging at the reins nervously.
"Easy, boy, easy." Crawford tried to make his voice soft and reassuring, but it came out tight, harsh. "You're going to break your headstall. Easy, you jughead."
But as he drew near, the horse's efforts to get free became wilder. It whinnied shrilly and reared up. The sound halted Crawford in the middle of the corral, his whole body a rigid line. The reins pulled free of their half hitch on the cedar-post bar, and the animal wheeled away from Crawford toward the far corner of the small corral. Crawford's movements were forced, now, as he moved to catch the animal in that corner. He bent forward slightly to peer at the lines of the beast. The darkness revealed only a hazy impression of broad rump and viciously churning hind legs and a roached mane. The stirrup leathers flapped loosely as the animal moved down the fence, trapped in the corner now by Crawford's advance. He was close to it when the horse wheeled with a strangled, screaming sound and broke toward him in a rush.
"No!"
It escaped Crawford in a hoarse shout. He stood there a moment longer, staring at the horse, his whole face contorted. Then he threw himself to one side, and the animal galloped past. It saw the partly open gate and was in a dead run by the time it reached that side. But in its frantic rush, the beast struck the opening partly broadside, rump crashing against the gate, head slamming into the fence post. The horse reeled back, screaming in rage, and wheeled to go through headfirst. But the blow of its body had jarred loose the rock Crawford had wedged beneath the gate, and the heavy bucket of sand descended with a rush to the ground, slamming the gate shut before the horse reached it. The drop bar outside fell into its sockets with a thud, about the same time the charging horse struck the gate once more. The whole corral shuddered with the impact, but the gate held firm. The dazed horse staggered away from the fence, making thwarted, guttural sounds of pain.
Crawford realized he was trembling now. Pain swept up his legs, and the muscles across his belly began to jump and knot. Still dazed, the horse wheeled about wildly. It caught sight of him again, and all its enraged bestial instincts must have pinned the cause of its pain on Crawford, for the animal screamed once more and rushed him.
"No," shouted Crawford, again, his voice choked with the terrible reasonless fear that inundated him. He whirled and leaped to the high fence, trying to climb it. But he heard the pound of the animal's hoofs behind, and realized he would never make the top in time, and threw himself off. As he rolled to the ground, the animal crashed into the fence where he had been a moment before. Crawford stumbled to his feet, starting in a wild run for the gate which led into the chute. But he saw before he reached it that it was shut tight too. He turned to the other gate, his whole consciousness filled with the sound of the panting, whinnying, snorting animal behind him. At the portal, he tried to reach through and lift the drop bar from its sockets, but the cedar-post log was too heavy. He grabbed the gate, heaving at it madly. The horse was trotting back and forth on the other side of the small corral in a dazed way, shaking its head, snorting. Crouched weakly on his knees by the gate, trembling and shuddering, Crawford tried to keep his voice down, hoping he would not arouse the horse again.
"Jacinto," he called. "I'm in the corral. The bar's dropped on this gate in the corral and I'm trapped inside with Africano. Jacinto, come and get me out—"
There was no sound from outside. He sagged there, panting, the pain clutching at him spasmodically, clenching his teeth in a desperate battle against the fear.
"Merida! Can't you hear me? Somebody. Jacinto! Come and let me out. The bar's dropped and Africano's in here. That killer's in here and I can't get out. Merida." His voice rose and he began shaking at the gate again. "Someone hear me! Merida! Jacinto! I'm locked in with that black killer—" He was screaming now, throwing himself bodily at the door like a frenzied animal—"Damn you, come and get me out, damn you, Merida, you put thatpuro negroin here, you knew I'd be trapped in here with Africano, someone, come and let me out, for God's sake, Jacinto, let me out, Aforismo, can't you hear me, you can hear me, damn you, oh, God damn you—"
He stopped, huddled against the door, sobbing uncontrollably, realizing his own screams had set the black off again. Crawford jumped away as the horse came at him, stumbling and rolling in the dirt, bawling like a baby, too far gone to realize clearly what he was doing. He tried to claw up the fence again. But that pain in his legs and his terrible fear robbed him of much control. His boots beat a futile tattoo on the bars, seeking the openings in between. His bloody hands clawed blindly for holds. And the fence was too high for him to reach the top before the horse crossed the small corral. Over his shoulder he could see the animal coming.
"No! no! no—"
His wild bellow was cut off as the animal spun broadside against him. He heard his own crushed roar of pain, and he fell off into the dirt, his arms instinctively going over his head to protect them from flailing hoofs as he rolled away. The horse was as wild and frenzied as Crawford now. Two beasts filled the narrow confines of the corral with their crazed screams, forming shadowy, thundering, pounding, running shapes back and forth between the fences, the whole structure shuddering as one or the other smashed into the sides. Crawford did not try again to climb the fence. Hands bloody, clothes covered with dirt, shirt torn, all his wild concentration was on avoiding the mad, blind rushes of the killer horse. He found himself backed up against the door leading into the chute, facing the charging horse. He threw himself bodily aside, and the animal crashed into the door. Panels cracked and splintered, and corral posts groaned with the strain. Thepuro negrostumbled back, blood streaming from its head, eyes showing their whites in the gathering darkness, foam dripping from its jaw.
Crawford had rolled across the short space to the side fence. And crouching there now, watching the horse wheeling and circling, seeking him, a terrible blinding anger swept him, blotting out for a moment the awful fear and pain. They thought they could do this to him? They thought they could lock him in a stall with a killer? The hell—
He dove aside again as the horse rushed, feeling no pain in his legs as he landed, feeling no panic, feeling only that utter rage, scalding, vitriolic, cleansing.
"You think you can do this to me?" he found himself shouting. "Merida? You think you can lock me in here like this? Damn you, Merida!" He moved in front of the door to the chute, yelling crazily at the animal. "Come on, Africano, here I am, you bastard, here I am, come on, see me, damn you, come on—"
Dirt spurted beneath the churning hoofs as the horse charged and reared above the man. Crawford waited till the last moment, jumped aside. Panels cracked and split again as twelve hundred pounds of horseflesh crashed against the gate. The horse staggered off, whirled back to Crawford.
Gasping, Crawford pawed sweat from his eyes, dodged aside. Thepuro negrocaught itself before plunging into the fence there, whirling on one hind foot and changing its lead in mid-air to rush Crawford again with a frenzied scream. He put himself in front of the chute door again.
Once more it was the horse's wild scream and the leap aside and the maddened animal shaking the whole corral as it crashed into the door. Another panel cracked, and hinges creaked, and the door sagged outward. Blood covering its head, the black whirled and came at Crawford sideways. It didn't give him enough room on either side, and the black's shoulder caught him as he tried to jump away from the rear fence. He went down, rolling up against the side with a force that stunned him.
The horse had smashed into the rear fence, and it backed away, shaking its head. Sensing Crawford at its side, the animal turned, shifting its weight to kick.
Crawford saw the movement and knew what it meant, and not even hearing his own shout, he clawed up the fence and threw himself directly at the horse's rump. His weight struck the black hocks, and, without leverage, all the kick did was throw him bodily back against the cedar logs. With almost human cunning, Africano jumped forward to clear the space between them so it could catch Crawford with the full force of its kick. He rolled under the hoofs as they lashed out. One of them caught his shoulder and he screamed in agony. Then he was up against the door again.
He didn't know how many more times he drew the black into that door before the portal collapsed. It was all a wild haze of choking dirt and soggy sweat and salty blood and lashing hoofs. Time and time again he waited there at the gate till the last moment, and then jumped free, allowing the horse to batter on into it. And finally, with the whole corral shuddering with the impact, the black crashed through the portal, tearing its lower half clear out and carrying the upper portion of the gate about its head and neck as it stumbled on into the chute. The opposite door to the chute had been left open, and the horse went on through into the larger corral.
Pawing blood and sweat off his face, drawing in a great gulp of air, Crawford staggered out after the animal. It was logical that Merida should have taken this long to hear the racket from the house, but the men from the bunkhouse should have reached the corrals long ago. Jacinto was at the fence with Merida, and Quartel was coming up in his hard-heeled run, followed by Aforismo and the others.
"Crawford," cried Jacinto, "get out between the bars! You can do it now. While Africano's still fighting the door. Are you loco? He's a killer. He'll run you down. You can get away now."
"No," gasped Crawford, "no," and ran on toward the horse where it had dragged the chute door clear out into the middle of the corral. He wasn't finished yet. He knew he had to do it now or never, while the anger still blotted out his fear. He worked thepuro negrointo a corner and got close enough to jerk the shattered door off its neck. The horse tried to break away, but Crawford threw himself in front of it, getting the frenzied, lathered animal back against the fence. One of the hands was belatedly climbing the fence with a rope. Crawford did not wait; he moved in toward the horse.
Screaming like a woman, Africano charged straight at him. There hadn't been enough room between them for the beast to gain much momentum, however. Crawford met it almost head-on, throwing himself partly aside only at the last moment, grabbing the roached mane with one hand and hooking his other arm around beneath the neck and letting the horse's shoulder slam into his hip, throwing him up and over.
"Crawford," he heard Jacinto scream, "oh, you fool, Crawford."
He didn't hear any more, then, except the horse's wild, frenzied sounds and the horse's drumming hoofs. He didn't see any more except the black devil beneath him, doing everything within the scope of its vicious cunning to get him off.
It bucked, and he took every jarring drop screaming triumphantly at the agony it caused him. It rolled, and instead of stepping clear off and waiting till the horse came up again, he rode its belly around, eyes open wide, dodging the death in its flailing legs. There was an insane frustration in the black's eyes as it came onto its feet again and found the man had never left it. The horse rolled again, directing its kicks this time. Still Crawford was on when it came up.
He rolled it from one side of the corral to the other, until it had enough of that, and began going over backward. A man stepping off then would have ultimately lost his touch with the horse too. But Crawford rode its neck when it twisted onto its hips and rode its head when it put its rump into the ground and rode its belly while it was upside down.
The horse rose into a veritable orgasm of mad bucking, pin-wheeling, sunfishing, humping up and coming down with all four feet planted, and knocking most of the consciousness from Crawford every time it landed. Crawford was bleeding at the nose and ears, face covered with blood and sweat, clothes black with dirt. His whole world was one of shocking, jarring pain and a grim, terrible concentration on finishing this.
The horse began rolling again, trying desperately to get the man under its black body, and Crawford went with it, crying openly now, pawing blindly for holds, head rocking as a hoof caught him, lying over the animal's back with his nose streaming blood on its dirty hide.
Finally he felt the animal come to a stop beneath him, legs trembling, barrel heaving, lather dripping off it white as snow. Crawford slumped over, hearing his own sobbing, not knowing whether the wet on his face was sweat or blood or both. He waited for the animal to gather itself again. It didn't. Finally Crawford slid off and his legs collapsed beneath him; he grabbed the horse's cannon bone and pulled himself to his knees, then the mane and pulled himself erect. He bent over and was sick. Choking weakly, he saw them coming from the corral.
"Get away, stay away. I'm taking this horse back in. You wanted him for cow work? You got him." Merida swam into his vision, and he spat out blood and teeth before he could speak again. "And maybe you don't know it, Merida, but you did me a big favor. Yeah. Abigfavor."
Violence in the Bunkhouse
The morning sun had not yet warmed the mud walls of the bunkshack through, and the dank reek of adobe filled the dog-run as Crawford passed down its narrow corridor toward the kitchen, still limping with the pain of his ride on Africano the evening before. Coming from the run, he almost knocked over Jacinto, who had been sitting propped against the wall on a three-legged stool, his head bent forward on his fat chest.
"What are you doing?" said Crawford.
The huge cook had barely caught himself from falling, and he blinked sleepy eyes up at Crawford in surprise. "Sitting on a stool."
"You been sitting there all night," Crawford accused him.
Jacinto looked sheepishly at the prodigious butcher knife across his lap. "No—I—I just—" He waved the blade suddenly at the room. "Well, why not, you been sleeping up at the big house, and now you come down here, and after all that about Whitehead, and everything else,sacramento, how is a man to know what might happen—"
Crawford gazed at him soberly. "Gracias, amigo," he said.
Jacinto grinned in embarrassment, turning to shuffle toward the stove. He put the knife down with a clatter and got the big coffeepot to fill it with water at the butt. When he had it on to boil, he took three clay bowls off a shelf and put them on the table. Seating himself at a bench before the bowls, he spoke again.
"You feel all right this morning?"
Crawford was standing in the doorway, staring emptily toward the house. "No," he said. "Beaten to a pulp."
"I'll fix you some Romero steak," said Jacinto. From the dull red clay bowl he fumbled a grain of corn, carefully picking out the black base with his teeth and spitting it into a second, a blue bowl, dropping the remainder of the kernel into the third, a yellow container. He gave Crawford a sidelong glance. "You told Merida she did you a favor last night. How did you mean?"
"Never mind," said Crawford.
Jacinto plucked another grain from the red bowl, picking out the base with his teeth. "You think she put Africano in there?"
"What else?" said Crawford. "Did you see any Rangers around?"
"No," said Jacinto, frowning at him.
"Neither did anybody else," said Crawford. "There weren't any."
Jacinto took out another grain of corn, waving it at Crawford. "You mean you thought you was running from a Ranger?"
Crawford turned away impatiently, pacing toward the door. "That's what she told me."
"Por supuesto," said Jacinto. "Why should Merida do such a thing?"
"Good way to get rid of me as any," said Crawford bitterly.
Jacinto studied him a moment, smiling in a hesitant, puzzled way. Then he tipped the yellow bowl so Crawford could see it was full of pale corn kernels. "Now I havetortillaswhite as the sand in Arroyo Blanco." Grunting, he bent forward to pull the metate nearer his bench, a large oblong block of pumice stone, hollowed out in the upper surface from countless grindings with the pumice rolling pin they called a mano. He poured the hollowed portion full of the corn kernels. "Why should she want to get rid of you?" he said, without looking up.
"I guess she had a good reason," said Crawford.
Jacinto took up the mano, began to grind the corn, the hulls working to the edge of the metate like scum along the edge of a water hole. "That day of the bull-tailing, when you and Merida went out into the brush. You found what you wanted?"
"Let's not talk about it," said Crawford.
"And maybe you and her was the only ones who knew where it was, then, no?" said Jacinto. With the edge of his fat hand, he shoved the collection of hulls off into the blue bowl, which contained the black bases he had spit out. "You think that's why she did it?"
Crawford's head jerked from side to side. When he spoke, the frustration was evident in his voice. "How do I know? How do I know anything? Sure we found what we were looking for. You know what it was. Everybody knows. Why do you all keep beating around the thicket this way? Mogotes Serpientes. You know that. Maybe she and I are the only ones who know how to get there. And if I was out of the way, she would be the only one to know. It's what she came up here in the first place for, isn't it? She didn't even try to deny she put that killer horse in there. It's the best reason I can think of."
Jacinto poured a little water into the corn left on the metate, began grinding it again with the mano. "Is it?"
Crawford turned sharply from the door. "What do you mean?"
The paste of corn meal and water Jacinto now had was called masa. He began to pat it into thintortillas. Thecomal, heating over an open fire, was a large plate upon which he cast thetortillasto bake, without salt, leavening, or grease.
"I am not too astute in affairs of the heart," said the cook, drawing a heavy breath and wiping sweat off his fat face, "but I have had a few, and have drawn some conclusions about women from them, which I think are as accurate as any conclusions about women can be. They will do strange things when they are in love, Crawford, often cruel things, or brutal. Love to them, when they are enmeshed within it, is all of life, is their whole existence. They will fight for it with their last breath. They will go to any extreme for it. Merida is no ordinary woman. You have seen her fire. You know her depths."
"You're riding a pretty muddy creek," said Crawford.
"I'll clear the water," said Jacinto. "Just give me time. Merida came to you for help, didn't she?"
"You might call it that."
"All right. But she knew you could never be much help in the state you were in. You told me she tried to aid you in conquering it that day you left the bull-tailing."
"So what. Huerta acted like he wanted to help me once too. It was only part of the game he was playing."
"Lástima de Dios," cried Jacinto, clapping fat hands to his brow. "Pity of God. Now I know you must be as loco about Merida as she is about you. Only a man in love could be that blind. Can't you see what she did? That day you and she rode into thebrasadamust have made Merida realize, finally, that the only way you could conquer your fear was to ride Africano again. And she wanted to see you conquer your fear, Crawford. More than anything else. More, even, than finding what she came up here for. More, even, than having you live. She didn't want a half-man. She didn't want a coward. She wantedyou, the way you used to be, the way she knew you must have been whenever those little flashes of your old self would show themselves."
Crawford had turned around, staring at Jacinto, now. It was beginning to grow in him. The first dim realization of it. An understanding he couldn't name, yet. It prickled the hair on the back of his neck.
"Yes." Jacinto could see the strange wonder in his eyes. "You are beginning to see, no? It took you long enough. There are not many women with that kind of gravel in their craw. Not many women could have done it that way."
It was starting to blossom in Crawford now, a strange, dim exaltation. "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?" Suddenly he knew how she must have felt. "It doesn't happen to a person often in her life." Suddenly he knew what she had been talking about. "That sort of feeling."
That sort of feeling. He looked around at Jacinto, his eyes wide.
"Sí," said Jacinto. "You understand now. It would take a lot of man to accept it, Crawford, even when he understood. It would takeherkind of man. Admittedly she took a big chance on killing you. Maybe she'd rather have you dead than a coward. That's the kind she is. Not many men could take her. Not many men could realize she sent them out deliberately that way, and still take her."
"Hyacinth," Crawford said almost inaudibly, "Hyacinth—"
"Sí, sí." The gross cook began to chuckle excitedly, for he must have seen what was in Crawford. "You better go to her now, Crawford, before it's too late. She thinks you're through with her, after what you told her last night. She thinks you're not enough of a man to take it that way. But you just didn't understand. Now you do. Go on, Crawford. You won't get a woman with that kind of guts twice in your life. It's almost as good as owning a vinegar roan. I owned a vinegar roan once—"
But Crawford had stopped hearing the cook. It held him completely now. It lifted him so high he didn't feel his feet hit the floor when he started to walk. He moved past Jacinto with a dazed, twisted expression on his face, not even seeing the fat Mexican. The only thing within his awareness was that sweeping, tingling sense of exaltation, so strong and poignant it approached a nausea. The kitchen door faced away from the house, and it was more direct to go through the dog-run and out the bunkhouse; he must have gone that way unconsciously, not remembering his passage through the covered run.
"Where you going?" It penetrated only dully. He kept on walking. Then somebody was in front of him. "I said where you going?"