"The way it works in you," said Huerta. "You're conscious of it all the
time, Crawford, whether in the proximity of horses or not."
"I don't know what you're talking about," said Crawford, getting up
from the chair with such violence that he pulled one of the rich blue
pillows off with him. He paced across the room in swift, inhibited
strides. Huerta watched him a moment, putting the jade holder languidly
to his lips. He did not smile, but the heavy blue lids, narrowing
across his eyes with a feline torpidity, managed to convey a certain
condescending amusement. His pale, pinched nostrils fluttered, emitting
twin streamers of smoke.
"Did it ever occur to you," he said, "that the legs might not really be
completely healed?"
Crawford turned to look at him a moment. "Sure," he said, finally.
"Sure it occurred to me. I went to more than one doctor. They all said
I was okay."
"It's not like an ordinary fracture, you realize," said Huerta. "Not
like you'd take a stick and snap it, or a leg. Mashed. Not a clean
severance. Crushed, Crawford, like you'd take a handful of meal and
grind it beneath--"
"All right. Mashed. Crushed. All right."
Huerta allowed him to finish, then inclined his head apologetically.
"It does things to the nerves. Physically, I mean. They get crushed
too. Displaced. Pinched. All manner of derangement. Your bones may
knit--the flesh, the skin. But the nerves. That's different. It would,
ah, take a man skilled in that type of work, now, a man with experience
in such things--"
"You've had a vast experience, I suppose."
Huerta shrugged. "Why don't you let me look at them. Maybe we do you an
injustice. Perhaps you have sound reason for feeling the pain."
Crawford studied the man's dissolute face, trying to read what lay
in the ironic twist of the lips, the narrow occultation of the eyes,
wondering if this was just another variation in the game. Yet, the
possibility of sincerity--
"Shall we go into the kitchen?" said Huerta. "The parlor is not exactly
the place for such an examination."
Crawford knew a hesitation. Then, with a decisive abruptness he
turned out into the entrance way and down the hall past the stairs.
The fireplace was of stone rather than the adobe found in the Mexican
dwellings; it ran almost the length of one wall. Jacinto had left a
pot of soup simmering over one of the smaller pot fires to one side of
the main spit. There was a plain Gothic dining-set, and Huerta pulled
one of the butternut chairs from beneath the bare table, indicating
that Crawford should remove his pants. That wary inhibition was in
Crawford's movements.
"You might sit on the table," said Huerta. When Crawford was seated,
the doctor moved closer and bent slightly, reaching out one pale
hand. It was like a woman's hand, satiny, boneless. "Can't you relax,
Crawford? What's the matter? Feel any pain?"
Crawford stared in a strange fascination at the slender, spatulated
fingers spidering his hairy calves. "No. No pain."
"Then why so stiff?" Huerta pressed a spot just below his knee. The
strength of his grip was surprising. Then, still holding the kneecap
between thumb and forefinger, he looked up. It was the same thing,
again, those eyes. The pupils took on an oblique felinity, and the
odd little lights flaring beneath the surface. And he began to talk,
in that soft, bored, insinuating tone. "Nerve ends, you understand.
Pressures. As I said, deranged. Nucleus. So on. Hm? Pain?"
"No--no--"
Perhaps it was the gusty vehemence in Crawford's voice which caused
Huerta to look up. For a moment their glances met. Huerta's pupils
seemed to dilate slightly. _Sure_, thought Crawford, _go ahead, make
it good_, and he tried to feel the sarcasm, but somehow he couldn't,
because the effect of those eyes was real, distinct, eerie.
"No pain?
"No. No pain. No!"
Those eyes again. Contracting. Little lights flaring and dying. Just
for an instant. The probing fingers. That sibilant, insistent voice.
"Here, perhaps? The flesh looks rather badly healed. Feel that? Pain?"
"No!"
"Take it easy, Crawford. I'm trying to help. Here?"
"No. I told you. I don't feel pain, damn it, I told you--"
"Here then. Pain?"
"No--"
"Here?"
"No, damn you, no, I--"
"Pain?" Huerta's head raised abruptly. "What's the matter, Crawford?"
Crawford stood where he had stepped off the table, pulling on his faded
old levis with swift, tense jerks. "Nothing. Forget it."
Huerta leaned back against the table, studying Crawford through the
twin streamers of smoke he emitted. "Why does it disturb you so much,
Crawford, if you feel no pain?" he asked softly.
Crawford stood there facing him, breathing heavily. "What are you
trying to do, Huerta?"
"Give you, shall we say, an illustration," said Huerta. "Don't you
think I know what is the matter with you, Crawford? Ever since I first
saw you watching Africano out in the corral. Perhaps the others are
still groping. They sense something not quite right in you, Crawford.
But they don't know for sure, yet. I know, Crawford." He said the last
softly, positively, watching Crawford. He took a drag on the cigarette.
"It must be a terrible thing to live with constantly. It makes two
personalities out of you, really, Crawford. In these flashes of bitter
defiance, I see what you must have been before. The strength. The
courage. But the other is always there, isn't it, working beneath,
stirring in you, weakening you, tearing at you. The pain that comes
whenever you get near a horse. And the fear, Crawford. And more and
more, not just when you're near a horse. All the time. That lack of
confidence, that constant indecision. It won't lessen. It will grow,
Crawford, until you are that way completely, until these flashes
of your former self cease to come. I told you about that miner in
Monterrey--"
"You told me!" Crawford choked off the shout, staring sullenly at
Huerta. He spoke finally, again, controlling it with hoarse effort.
"Think I don't know."
"You _do_ know," said Huerta. "However, it is not hopeless. For most
diseases, there is a cure, even for those of the mind. Doctors are only
human beings. They can only cure what they have the knowledge to cure.
If the men you went to were not experienced in this type of thing, it
does not mean there is no hope."
"Are you suggesting--that you--"
"Why not?" shrugged Huerta. "I've had experience in such cases. Is it
inconceivable to you?"
"Why?" said Crawford.