"Never mind, Glenn, you'd never do it in time," said the man standing there. He waited a moment, grinning, and then spoke again with a deliberate, slow irony. "If you'll drop that Henry, we'll be able to talk comfortably."
Crawford let the rifle slip reluctantly from stiff fingers, and then straightened his legs out until he was standing, faced toward the man they called Cabezablanca for his head of pure white hair. His face was as smooth and unlined as a coffee bean, and he wore a pair of tight buckskin leggings they called chivarras this near the border, and a blue cotton shirt, and Crawford had never seen him without the Winchester he carried now.
"It's been a long time since you busted broncs for the Big O, Glenn," said Cabezablanca. "Ain't you going to say something? Buenos días, for an old amigo, or how are things?" He waited a moment, the smile slipping from his thin, beardless lips. "You better be civil to me, Glenn. I'm a very dangerous man." He halted again, and when he realized Crawford would not answer, a sullen anger tightened his lips. "Very well, let us go and see what they want to do with you."
Crawford turned around, moving from the screen of brush in stiff, catty steps, the tense forward thrust of his shoulders giving them that narrow appearance. He was aware that Cabezablanca stooped to pick up the Henry as he followed. Crawford had been watching the crew working a bunch of horses in the corrals, and now, as he drew near, he saw that they had pulled a new animal into the tight chute between the smaller pen where the animals were held and the larger one where they were worked. It was a big black animal the Mexicans called a puro negro, throwing itself crazily against the bars of the chute, the whole structure shuddering with its violent struggles. Crawford was not aware that he had stopped till Cabezablanca came up beside him.
"Yeah, Crawford," said the white-headed man, watching him narrowly. "Africano. Sort of brings back things, doesn't it? That black devil's still rolling them, and nobody's broke it yet."
A man threw a dally rope over the top of the chute, noosing the black animal's neck and pulling it tight against the bars. The beast fought wildly a moment, banging its skull against the cedar poles. The corrals shook again, and yellow dust rose about that section, obscuring the horse. When the dust settled, the puro negro had quit battling, and stood with its forelegs stiff, breathing heavily through its nose. A tall, slat-limbed Mexican climbed to the top of the chute, and the men below handed him up a double-rigged Porter. He dropped the heavy saddle on the horse, and a man below reached through the bars to get the front girth, pulling the latigo through the cinch rings and yanking the girth tight. Africano squealed shrilly, trying to jerk away again. Then another Mexican climbed up the bars of the chute and stood at the top, pulling his belt up. He was so broad he appeared short, his close-cropped hair beginning to gray at the temples. His great shoulders bunched like sides of beef beneath the strained wool of a faded charro jacket with a few tattered remnants of what might have been gold embroidery on its lapels. He wore a pair of tight rawhide leggings, and the rolling muscles of his thighs had burst the seams in several places between hip and knee.
Crawford licked dry lips. "Who is it?"
"Quartel," said Cabezablanca. "When you killed Rockland in San Antonio, a lot of the Big O crew drifted. Bueno Bailey and me are about the only ones left of the old bunch. Rockland didn't have no heirs. So his lawyer was given the job of cleaning up the estate. There's a lot of cattle to be choused out of that brush and Tarant had to get a new ramrod. And Quartel's him."
"But—" Crawford moved his hand vaguely toward the horse—"Africano—"
"The nigger sort of fascinates Quartel, I guess," grinned the other. "He's been trying to break it ever since he got here. That black devil almost stove him up a couple of times."