"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."