No longer did it wait. No longer did it crouch in passive,
latent malignance. Now the evil coma unsheathed its thorns, like
a knife-thrower drawing his dirks for the first time. Now the
adder-toothed retama struck from beneath the disguise of yellow flowers
which had caused the Mexicans to call it flower of gold. Now the deadly
Spanish dagger of the devil's head thrust and parried and lunged like a
savage fencer.
Ever since Crawford had returned to the Big O, the _brasada_ had
filled him with a strange, inexplicable sense of biding its time,
crouched out there, surrounding them with its sinister, purring,
waiting destruction. And now, as if this was what it had anticipated,
it seemed to leap forth in all its deadly, ruthless malevolence, like
a beast unleashed. Never before had it fought him so, blocking his
way impenetrably, cutting and stabbing and striking every foot of the
way. And Crawford met its challenge, taking a wild, savage delight
in pitting all his skill and strength and experience against the
_brasada's_ violent, cunning, malicious virulence.
And he had a horse! Knowing it would take something more than an
ordinary brush horse to catch Huerta, he had chosen Africano. It had
not been broken to the spade bit yet, but would work with a hackamore,
and the fact that they had first captured it in the _brasada_ indicated
a life of running the thickets, which would make it a good brush horse
even without training. Just how good, Crawford realized the first
thicket they traversed. The _puro negro_ met the brush with a fearless,
consummate skill, something uncanny about the way it could sense
whether the _mogotes_ were actually impenetrable or whether they held
a weak spot which could be run through. It found holes in thickets
Crawford would never have guessed were there, running headlong through
the most dense ramaderos without a moment's hesitation. The kind of
a horse a brush-popper dreamed about. It was a constant battle, and
Crawford fought it with the wild abandon peculiar to the _brasadero_
when he was riding the brush like this, shouting at the horse and
himself and anything else that wanted to listen, and cursing in two
languages at every stabbing, clawing thicket which tried to drag him
off.
And the names passed by, as they had before. Silver Persimmons. Turtle
Sink. Rio Diablo. Chapotes Platas. He had tried to follow Huerta's
trail for a while, but when he had seen the undeviating direction it
was taking he had quit tracking and had let the black out. Finally he
came crashing through the fringe of chaparral into the clearing above
Rio Diablo and swung down off the lathered, heaving horse, and ran
toward the jacal. A man was trying to crawl across the threshold of the
doorway.
"Crawford," he groaned. "I knew it was you. I heard you coming ten
miles off. There never was anybody could match you cussing the brush.
I guess that's 'cause there never was anybody loved it the way you
do." He tried to rise abruptly, his eyes opening in a glazed way as he
stared past Crawford. "_Dios_, Africano!"
Crawford had reached him by then. "What happened, Del? They did this to
you?"
Dried blood darkened the old man's face, and the soles of his bare feet
had a red, blistered look. "You got a hackamore on it," said Delcazar
vacantly, still staring at the black. "You can't ride that killer with
a hackamore. You're loco--"
"Who did it? Tell me who did it!" almost shouted Crawford.
"Merida--"
"She did this!"
"No, no," gasped Delcazar weakly. "Merida come first. She say she
needed help. Say you weren't with her any more for some reason. Had
an idea I knew about Snake Thickets. While she was still here, Huerta
came. Followed her, I guess. He thought I knew about Snake Thickets
too. Those cigarettes of Huerta's. I'm a _viejo_, an old man. I
couldn't stand much. The woman try to stop him. She couldn't do it."
"How do you get in, Delcazar?" Crawford's voice shook with its low
intensity.
Delcazar's eyes widened. "Crawford, you ain't going to try and follow
them. It's suicide. Even if you know how to get in. Those _serpientes_.
You been there. You heard them. Please, you and I been _amigos_ too
long. Let those fools kill themselves after a chest of pesos. Who wants
pesos--"
"How do you get in?"
Crawford's voice held a shrill, driven stridor that stiffened Delcazar.
The old man stared at him a moment, mouth open slightly. Maybe it was
the pale, set look to Crawford's face.
"Rio Diablo. You know how it goes underground about a mile above here.
Nobody's ever been able to find where it comes up again. It comes
from the Nueces past here and then drops out of sight and there ain't
nothing left but the dry bed going on south to Mogotes Serpientes. I'll
tell you where it does come up again. Right inside Snake Thickets.
That's why nobody ever found it. You know how water in a place like
Turtle Sink dries up during the day. Then, come night, it rises to the
surface again. That's what happens inside Mogotes Serpientes. During
the day, the part of Rio Diablo that surfaces inside the thickets is
all dried up. Then when evening sets in, it comes up again. That's how
you get in. You got to run a short stretch of the thicket before you
reach water. That's why you have to time it right. The snakes sleep
during the day, and start to stir around at sundown. That's about the
same time the water starts rising. If you start in just a few minutes
before the sun sets, you can run that stretch of thicket between the
outside and the water while the snakes are still asleep. Naturally
you'll wake them, but you got a bigger chance of reaching the water
than if they were already wide-awake and waiting for you. Once you're
in the bog, you're safe. The snakes will come down to drink, but
rattlers like dry land too much to go swimming in that muck. Time it
wrong by one minute either way and you're done. If you go in too early
and the water ain't risen yet, you're setting right in the middle of a
million rattlers. And if you go in too late and the snakes are stirring
around, they'll probably get you before you reach water. I found it out
from an old Comanche a long time ago, Crawford. I was afraid to tell.
I was afraid to go in myself and I was afraid somebody would make me
show them the way if I tell, and I couldn't do that, Crawford, nobody
could. It's suicide. Maybe those Mexicans do it once, with the chests.
It couldn't be done again in a million years."
"Still got those cavalry boots?"
"Crawford, please, you ain't going to--"
"I'll want your batwings too."
Delcazar began to cry without sound, and the words came between his
lips with a resigned audibility. "In the jacal. Under my bunk."
Crawford stepped past the man, the decision hard and crystallized in
him now, permitting no other considerations. He hauled out the old pair
of jack boots someone in Delcazar's family had worn with Diaz, and
unhooked a tattered pair of batwing chaps from the bunk post, a rarity
in this border section where most men preferred _chivarras_. He pulled
the ancient Chimayo from the bunk and began cutting it in strips with
the bowie. Then he wound the strips about his legs like puttees, up
to his crotch, till they formed three or four layers; he had trouble
pulling the jack boots on over this thickness.
"_Pechero?_" he said, swiftly buckling the bull-hide chaps on.
Delcazar was huddled against the doorframe, watching him hopelessly.
"Had one somewhere. Maybe under the bunk too."
The _pechero_ was a buckskin shield used by the _brasaderos_ for
popping the heaviest brush; it fitted around the front of the horse's
chest, tying over its withers and behind its front legs. The black was
too weary for any objection as Crawford lashed the _pechero_ on.
"Gloves," Delcazar was motioning vaguely toward the fireplace,
"gloves--"
They were on one of the shelves above the estufa, thick buckskin gloves
with flaps as long as the forearm. Crawford pulled them on his hands
and stepped past the old man. He stopped there a moment, staring down
at Delcazar. His mouth twisted open as if he would speak. No words
came. A torn look crossed his face momentarily. Then he turned and
swung aboard the black and jerked the hackamore against its neck and
the animal wheeled and broke into a gallop down toward the brush lining
the river--
The sun was low and he forced the flagging _puro negro_ down Rio Diablo
until the water ceased and they were running the dry bed. The mesquite
became thicker in the bottom lands, interspersed by cottonwoods turning
sear with the heat of oncoming summer. Finally the _pechero_ was
rattling and scraping constantly against the brush as Crawford forced
his way through. He was riding at a walk now, head cocked to listen,
eyes roving the terrain restlessly, whole body tense with waiting for
the first sign that he had reached Mogotes Serpientes. The sun was
almost down now, and he was filled with a growing, trembling sense of
urgency. Maybe it was the incessant clash of brush against the buckskin
shield which hid the other sound at first. Suddenly he pulled the black
to a halt. It came from ahead of him, a faint, barely perceptible
hissing sound. He sat there a moment, letting the thought of Merida in
there harden the resolve within himself till it was so sharp and clear
it hurt. The black had begun fretting at the sound, and Crawford pulled
in the _mecate_ on the hackamore, bending forward.
"All right," he said, "we're going through!"
Perhaps it was the tone of his voice. The horse ceased all movement
abruptly, stiffening beneath him. Then the man flapped his legs out
wide and brought his spurs in against the sweating black flanks with
a hoarse shout. The _puro negro_ leaped forward like a startled buck,
breaking into a headlong gallop straight into the brush thickening in
the river bottom ahead of them. Crawford rode as if he were bareback,
gripping the animal from his thighs down, heels turned in hard against
the horse. They crashed headlong through the first thicket of mesquite,
Crawford bent forward with his free arm thrown in front of his face,
the branches ripping at his cheeks and tearing his levi ducking jacket
half off his back. A post oak loomed before them as they tore free of
the mesquite. He reined the black viciously to one side and the animal
reacted with a violence that would have unseated Crawford but for that
grip of his legs, wheeling so sharply the man's torso was snapped to
one side like the flirt of a rope. Crawford jerked himself back in
time to bend down off one side as they passed beneath the branches.
Then they were racing at a thicket of chaparral and huisache entwined
together so thickly it formed a solid mat before them. Crawford felt
the confidence of the horse beneath him and gave the animal its head,
and they crashed headlong through the hole Africano had spotted with
his uncanny instinct. Filled with the wild excitement of it, Crawford
had begun shouting and swearing that way again, adding his own hoarse
obscenities to the roar of popping brush. But even all this sound
did not obliterate the noise. It came through his bellow and the
crash of brush with an insidious, sinister insistence, that constant
menacing hiss, like the threat of escaping steam. It filled him with
an excitation which did not come from the mad ride. And as he burst
through the chaparral into the open, the first snake struck.
It happened so fast his own reaction did not come till the snake had
gone again. He had a dim sense of a sudden writhing shape leaping
from the last of the chaparral they were coming out of, and the sharp
snapping thud somewhere in front of him, and the horse's leap sideways,
screaming. Again his terrible grip was the only thing that kept the man
in the saddle, and they were tearing forward once more with a vague
impression of that writhing shape slithering off into the brush. They
were crashing into the next _mogote_ before Crawford realized the snake
must have struck that _pechero_ on the horse's chest. Now more of them
were in sight. Fast as he was going, he could still see the sleepy
torpidity of the awakening snakes. He spotted what he thought was a
root lying in the thickness of a _mogote_, but as the black jumped it,
the root came alive, jerking in a surprised, sluggish way, and then
one end began to curl inward. But by the time the serpent had awakened
fully and snapped into its coil, Africano was by.
Another one ahead woke faster. Crawford did not see it till a flashing
motion filled the lower corner of his vision. Again he heard the sharp
thump of the snake striking that _pechero_, and saw the frustrated
serpent drop away from the shield in a stunned way. The horse was
in a veritable frenzy now, lather foaming its mouth, screaming and
whinnying and fighting the hackamore madly without actually trying to
change its direction. It was no longer only the hissing all about them.
It was the movement. On every side the thickets seemed to have come
alive. Writhing, slithering shapes undulating in dim spasms through the
pattern of brush. But the fact that they were still awakening and the
speed at which Crawford was going aborted the greater part of their
efforts. Time and again he saw a snake strike after he was already
by. Twice more one of them reached the horse, only to batter its head
against that stiff shield of cowhide. Then, beneath him, Crawford heard
a thick, slopping sound, and the black stumbled, and almost went down.
With his spurs he forced the animal farther on into the muck. It was
not very deep and there were patches of dry ground, but there was no
more of that nightmarish movement about him now. Only the incessant
sinister sibilation to his rear.
His body was drenched with perspiration, and for the first time he
realized he was panting in a choked, rasping way. The horse was heaving
beneath him, still fighting the hackamore and fiddling around wildly.
He suddenly felt as if he were going to collapse. He bent forward,
gripping the saddle horn, realizing it was only reaction. Then,
as strength returned in slow, undulating waves, the black stopped
abruptly, head raised, ears stiffened. Crawford automatically put his
heels into the animal. The _puro negro_ stood adamant. Then Crawford
heard it, and stopped trying to force Africano ahead. Suddenly the
horse threw up its head and let out a shrill, wild whinny.
"Damn you," snarled Crawford in a guttural voice. "I ought to--"
He stopped at the answering whinny from farther in the brush.
"Crawford?" asked someone from there.
Crawford felt his body straighten involuntarily in the saddle. "Yes,
Quartel," he said.
_Chapter Fifteen_