[Chapter Fifteen]
Treasure Hunt Climax
Perhaps it was the sound. The constant, incessant, unrelenting sound of those snakes. Standing in this narrow strip of bog formed by the rising muck of the underground river, the hissing was audible on both sides now. There was something infinitely evil about it that clutched at a man's vitals. It filled Crawford with a vague, primal panic, akin to the fear he had known of Africano before, yet different, in a subtle, insidious way.
"I knew it was you." Quartel's voice startled him, coming from an entirely different direction than before. "I heard you coming. I wish I could cuss the way you can, Crawford." It was getting on Crawford's nerves. The black was becoming unmanageable beneath him. Under other circumstances he would have been willing to play the game. But the thought of Merida somewhere in there drove all the conditioned wariness from him. Suddenly the black raised its head again; he pulled on the hackamore to stifle the whinny in its throat, but he saw which direction it was turned in. He flapped his legs out wide and brought the heels in hard, bolting the black into the mesquite. They crashed through the mogote. Crawford had the Henry in his right hand as they burst into the open, keeping it free of brush with the lever down. A vague, blurred impression of Quartel sitting that trigueño leaped into Crawford's vision. With one motion he was jerking the hackamore against the left side of the black's neck to wheel it toward the man, and then releasing the hackamore completely to have both hands for his rifle, bringing the Henry up into line with his right hand and slapping his left palm against the barrel at the same time. In that last instant, as fast as he had moved, he had time to see why Quartel had been doing it this way. The man had no gun in his hand. Even as Crawford wheeled and brought his Henry up, Quartel was leaning forward with a grunt, his arm snapping out.
Crawford tried to duck the rope and fire at the same time. He heard his bullet clatter through brush, after the thunder of the shot, and knew he had missed. Then the edge of the loop struck his hand and slid down his arm and closed over the gun. It was either let go the Henry or be jerked from his horse.
The rifle bounced along the ground, and for a moment it looked as if Quartel were going to be able to pull it to him. Then it slipped from the noose. The Mexican wheeled his trigueño toward the rifle, and his intent was patent. Crawford turned the black and quartered in on a line that would bring him between Quartel and the Henry. Seeing how he would be blocked off from reaching the gun, Quartel reared his horse to a stop, flirting in his rope and catching it up in loops. Crawford, realizing that if he turned to approach the Henry his back would be to Quartel and the man would have him with that rope, halted his black too. For a moment, the two men sat there facing each other across the open ground. It must have struck Quartel how it had to be, now, about the same time the realization came to Crawford. The Mexican let out a hoarse, violent laugh.
"All right," he said. "I am the best roper in the world, Crawford."
He sat there, grinning, allowing Crawford to unlash the 40-foot rawhide lasso from the black's rig. A picture formed in Crawford's mind that filled him with a growing tension. A picture of Quartel blindfolded on that trigueño in the corral with one end of a rawhide dally tied about his neck and ten snorting, stamping, vicious ladinos tearing up the turf and the strange sighing sound rising from the crowd of sweating, stinking vaqueros every time he threw the bull. It didn't help a man. It didn't help a man while he unhitched the rawhide lashing on the saddle skirt from about the dally and shook out the loops and watched the braided hondo slide down the slick rope. His motions were stiff, jerky. He hadn't roped in a long time.
"Hola!" bellowed Quartel, and those great Chihuahua spurs rolled down the flanks of his brown animal like cart wheels digging ruts in a road. Crawford jabbed his own guthooks into the black, and Africano jumped into a dead run. The brown horse seemed to come at Crawford in a surge that left no space for conscious thought. He knew what a mistake it would be for him to make the first pass, and he bent forward in the saddle, watching Quartel's hand.