"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—"