"It showed Quartel how to find the aparejos once he was inside Mogotes Serpientes," Merida said. "But not how to find Snake Thickets." Her eyes were on Crawford, and that odd expression still filled her face. She moved her head toward the chest. "Go ahead," she said.
He kept Quartel and Huerta in sight when he knelt. The wood was rotten and someone had torn the lid of one chest away from its brass bindings. He lifted it, and stared at the black gunpowder filling the oak box. The woman's voice sounded far away.
"The Centralists must have done this. They would have done anything to break Santa Anna's power at that time. They knew his men were ready to desert because they hadn't been paid in three months. It was only by the promise of this pay that Santa Anna held them together long enough to fight the battle of San Jacinto. You can imagine their reaction if the train had reached the army and they had found their pay to be nothing more than this." She stared emptily at the case. "Twenty chests of gunpowder. That's ironic, isn't it? All this trouble over twenty chests of gunpowder."
Crawford rose slowly, drawing himself back to present necessities by a distinct effort. "We'd better start thinking about getting out of here."
Huerta's feet made a small, quick shift against the toboso grass. Crawford realized what it was in the man now. That air of infinite ennui was beginning to dissipate before something else; an indefinable tension tightened the little muscles about Huerta's mouth till the soft flesh was furrowed like an old man's. The bluish, veined lower lid of his right eye was twitching noticeably. "We can't go out now," he said, and the strain was palpable in his voice. "Not through all those snakes again. They're awake now."
"This place dries up come daylight," said Crawford. "It won't be any safer than out there. We have to leave sometime before then, and it might as well be now."
He began peeling off his gloves and handing them to Merida; then his heavy denim ducking jacket and the bull-hide chaps. Huerta's breathing became more audible as he watched it.
"No," he said, "no—listen—"
"What's wrong with your gun?" Crawford asked Quartel.
"Merida's horse got hit by a snake about halfway through," said the Mexican. "She got pitched and Huerta wouldn't stop to pick her up. I was following them pretty close and came across her before she'd been caught by the snakes. But they were all waked up in that section and I used my lead up shooting our way on into here. That's why I had to use the rope on you."