Treasure of the Brasada

by Les Savage

It was these sounds, one by one, which impinged on Glenn Crawford's consciousness. Then the fetid odor of the mold beneath him. His face felt stiff and painful. It caused him a great effort to reach up to his cheek. The rips and tears made great gaps in his beard and his whole face was covered with dried blood. Finally he sat up, shaking his head dully. Three hours? Four hours? What time had it been? It was hard to think. He shook his head again. Early afternoon anyway. And this was—

That brought him up straight. They hadn't found him? It was strange. It was wrong, somehow. They hadn't found him. Wrong. They were better trackers than that. All of them. If Quartel could ride like that he could track like that.

He got up with great difficulty and fell down again. His head was spinning. When he got to his knees once more, the shreds of his ducking jacket bound his arms, and when he fell that second time, he went full on his face, unable to get his hands in front of him. In a fit of anger he tore the remains of the jacket off. The third time he managed to remain upright. As he stood there, the first thought of the horse came to him. He felt that pain begin in his loins. Just the thought of it!

With a sobbing curse he broke into a stumbling run at the first thicket of brush. He halted himself before he had reached the mogote. He was breathing heavily and his lips were pinched. He held out his hand before him. It shook visibly. He closed his eyes a moment, face twisted. Then he took a deep breath and opened them again, staring about the clearing. There was a great torn place in one thicket on the other side. He moved over there at a deliberate walk. The hole in the brush was big enough to walk through; beyond that was another open patch and then a second small thicket torn asunder by the passage of a heavy body. It was full night by the time he found the sorrel that way, following the trail it had made bursting through the brush. The animal stood in a clearing, head hanging wearily, dried lather forming dirty yellow patterns on its freshly scarred hide.

Crawford was about to step into the open when he caught himself. There was a dim rustling in the brush to his left. His face turned that way sharply. The noise ceased after a moment. He shook his head and went out to get the horse.

"Stand still, you crazy fool," he said, "stand still now, I'm not going to hurt you, just stand still, that's it, hold it."

The animal had started to shift away, but his soothing voice quieted it. He moved in close and ran his hand reassuringly along its rump and down its side. Then, as he stood with his face toward it that way, close enough so that the heat of its body reached his belly, it began to come again. That insidious, stirring, prickling sensation deep in his loins. That hollow sickness growing in his stomach till it approached nausea; the sweat breaking out on his face and beneath his armpits.

The curse had a strangled sound in his throat, as he bent to get the trailing reins. He wouldn't walk back to the spread. No matter what else, he wouldn't give them that satisfaction. He stopped, with his hand not yet touching the end of the reins. Even in the dark, bending over like that, he could see the footprints. The sorrel's hoofs had made their dim impression all over the decaying vegetation covering the gound. But here and there, where the horse had not blotted it out, was a smaller, deeper imprint, like that of a boot heel. He remained stooped over it for a moment that way. Then, slowly, he started to lift the reins. They were caught on something. He reached down and found the ends tied about a long stake of wood embedded deeply beneath the rotting brush.

Crawford slipped the reins off the stick and rose beside the horse. Slowly he put his weight against its neck. His breath had a small, swift sound. The horse gradually shifted around under that pressure until it stood broadside between Crawford and the direction that small rustling had come from when he first entered the thicket.

"Now." He spoke to the horse softly, sliding his hands up the reins till they were directly beneath the bit, and pulling gently forward. "Let's go. Let's go. Take it easy. Let's go."