"The chaps saved Merida," said Quartel. "And that Chimayo on you was a good idea. The only thing you got is that hand. I don't think it will cause you too much trouble, the way she fixed it."
"Why did you come back?" said Crawford.
Quartel shrugged. "For the same reason you gave me those shells back in the bog when you didn't know for sure whether I'd use them on you or the snakes, I guess." He sat there looking at Crawford a while. "I'm sort of glad it was Huerta that killed Rockland," he said finally. He laughed, at the look Crawford gave him. "Sí. You could have heard that Huerta yelling up in San Antone. My horse went down just as I got out, and I was lying here in the sand when Huerta cut loose. He really cracked up good, didn't he? It sort of finishes my job out here."
Merida came over and lowered herself to her knees beside Crawford, and he sat up, staring at Quartel. "Your job?"
That pawky grin was on the Mexican's face. "Sí. Like I said I knew one who pinned it to his undershirt. Me, I couldn't even do that. Only a damn fool would come into the brasada with a badge. But I got a commission back in San Antonio from the federal government."
Crawford continued to stare at the man a long time, and it all went through his head, before he said it. "Marshal Quartel?"
"That's right," said the Mexican. "Maybe I look like I should be a rurale, but I'm a citizen of the States and my father was before me. They sent me out to get you a couple of weeks after Rockland was killed. Other lawmen had been given the job without meeting much success. I guess you know about that. I figured you'd turn up at your old corral sooner or later, so I had the Nueces Cattle Association recommend me to Tarant as qualified to rod the roundup he was managing for Rockland's estate. By the time you'd showed up at the Big O, I'd been there long enough to find out that, whether you murdered Rockland or not, there was more to the whole business than just the personal trouble between you and him. That derrotero for instance. I'd gotten a third of it from Whitehead. He'd found it many years ago on the body of one of the Mexican muleteers, who had been shot in the brush by Houston's men but apparently had gotten away from them to die. It was the section of the map which showed Snake Thickets, and how to find the chests once you got inside the thickets, but not how to find the thickets themselves. When you finally arrived, I had to choose between nabbing you then, or staying on and trying to find out what was really behind the murder."
"Then, those other lawmen—"
"The ones I told you about when I found you at Delcazar's?" Quartel giggled slyly. "I'm the only lawman I seen in the brasada since I came. You were pretty jumpy, Crawford. I thought if I cinched the girth up tight enough it might squeeze out some interesting things."
There was no apology in his voice for how he had used Crawford. The elemental brutality of the man was in his greasy, thick-featured face, and the courage, too. And it would take that kind, thought Crawford, to come into a place like this. I can cuss better and ride better and rope better than any hombre in the world.