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?"