"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—"