Part 11

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 that _puro negro_ in 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. The _puro negro_ stumbled 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. The _puro negro_ caught 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 the _puro negro_ into 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. A _big_ favor."

_Chapter Thirteen_

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 have _tortillas_ white 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 thin _tortillas_. The _comal_, heating over an open fire, was a large plate upon which he cast the _tortillas_ to 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 the _brasada_ must 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 wanted _you_, 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 take _her_ kind 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?"

Innes! The singular odor of sweaty leather reached Crawford from the red-bearded man's buckskin ducking jacket.

"The house," he said, trying to get around the man. Ford Innes shifted again, and this time Crawford was brought up against the man's body. It was like walking into an oak tree.

"Not right now," said Innes.

It was the other things, then, brought in with a clarity almost painful. Bueno Bailey. Sitting at the table. Filing the sear on the trigger of his gun. Aforismo. Sitting on the upper bunk to Crawford's right. His legs dangling over the sideboard.

"Did you ever see the _dichos_ on my belduque?" he asked, seriously. "I like the one on this side best. _Tripe is sweet but bowels are better._ Don't you like that one best?"

The contraction of Crawford's muscles began with his calves. They twitched faintly, stiffening up, and the tightening ran up the inside of his legs and pervaded his belly and crossed his chest. His whole body was taut as he took the step back away from contact with Innes.

"That's it," said the red-bearded man.

Bueno's gun was an old 1848 percussion Dragoon, converted to handle cartridges. Rubbing his finger delicately across the sear, Bailey nodded his head approvingly.

"_Bueno_," he said. "I'll bet the pull isn't more than half a pound on that now."

"Where is Quartel?" asked Crawford.

"If you don't blow your foot off, you'll blow your head off," Innes told Bailey. "I never heard of anybody filing a hair trigger down below a pound."

"Where is Quartel?"

Tongue between his teeth, Bailey slipped the mainspring into the butt of his Dragoon, tightening the strain screw against it carefully. "You don't think that's too much of a hair trigger, do you? I knew a Mexican up in San Antonio that used to carry an old Remington filed down to a quarter-pound pull."

"All right," said Crawford, through his teeth. "I am going up to the house, Innes. Will you get out of my way?"

"That Mex would still be alive if he didn't have the cussed habit of jumping off his horse when it stopped," said Bueno Bailey, slipping the trigger down through the frame and screwing the trigger stud into its proper hole. "But I don't jump off my nag. I get off real easy all the time."

"Please, Innes." It was Jacinto's voice, from behind Crawford. "Let him through this time. It ain't the same as before. Please. It's different. _He's_ different. Don't you know? _En el nombre de mi madre._ Can't you see--"

"This _bravo's_ pretty good," said Aforismo, swinging his legs. "_Nothing compares with my kiss._ But I guess I like the other _dicho_ better. Which do you like best, Crawford?"

"Oh, _Dios_." Jacinto's voice was quavering now. "Please, Innes. I hate violence so. Let him go. I was not born for such as this. Wassail and song, Innes. Can't we all have wassail and song--"

"_Bueno_," said Bailey, as he finished tightening the hammer stud and started putting on the metal side plates.

"_Compañeros_, can't you hear me? Wassail and song. No violence. Oh, _carajo_--"

"I'll ask you once more." Crawford's voice was flat. "Get out of my way."

"You're not going any place," said Innes, pulling his buckskin jacket up off the handle of his own gun. "Why don't you sit down?"

"Yeah." Bailey had the walnut grips screwed on. He reached for the barrel, fitting it in place. "Why don't you sit down?"

Crawford stooped over to grab the hilt of Delcazar's bowie in his boot and lunged forward at the same time. He struck Ford Innes doubled over. The red-bearded man expelled his air in a gasp and went down. Crawford let himself go with Innes, rolling off the man as they struck. He came face up with the knife in his hand. It happened so fast that Aforismo only had time to pull his belduque back for the throw. Crawford's position prevented an over-the-shoulder throw such as Aforismo's.

"All right, Del," he grunted, and heaved the bowie from his hip, point foremost, while he was still in the act of rolling off Innes.

"_Chingado!_" he heard Aforismo scream. Bailey's body blocked the view in that same moment. Crawford did not see the blow coming. He shouted hoarsely with the pain of Bueno's Dragoon barrel slashing across his head. Stunned, the most he could do was let his knee fly up. It caught Bailey in the crotch. The man's explosive grunt held a sick agony.

Crawford was still sprawled partly across Innes, the redheaded man had been striving to free his gun without wasting time trying to get from beneath Crawford. He had it out now and was twisting to bring it in line. Blinded by Bailey's blow, Crawford squirmed around, launching a wild kick at Innes. It caught the redhead's fist as he pulled the trigger, knocking the gun up. The Remington's boom filled the room, and the slug knocked a rain of the whitewash they called _yeso_ off the ceiling.