Crawford turned to look at him a moment. "Sure," he said, finally. "Sure it occurred to me. I went to more than one doctor. They all said I was okay."
"It's not like an ordinary fracture, you realize," said Huerta. "Not like you'd take a stick and snap it, or a leg. Mashed. Not a clean severance. Crushed, Crawford, like you'd take a handful of meal and grind it beneath—"
"All right. Mashed. Crushed. All right."
Huerta allowed him to finish, then inclined his head apologetically. "It does things to the nerves. Physically, I mean. They get crushed too. Displaced. Pinched. All manner of derangement. Your bones may knit—the flesh, the skin. But the nerves. That's different. It would, ah, take a man skilled in that type of work, now, a man with experience in such things—"
"You've had a vast experience, I suppose."
Huerta shrugged. "Why don't you let me look at them. Maybe we do you an injustice. Perhaps you have sound reason for feeling the pain."
Crawford studied the man's dissolute face, trying to read what lay in the ironic twist of the lips, the narrow occultation of the eyes, wondering if this was just another variation in the game. Yet, the possibility of sincerity—
"Shall we go into the kitchen?" said Huerta. "The parlor is not exactly the place for such an examination."
Crawford knew a hesitation. Then, with a decisive abruptness he turned out into the entrance way and down the hall past the stairs. The fireplace was of stone rather than the adobe found in the Mexican dwellings; it ran almost the length of one wall. Jacinto had left a pot of soup simmering over one of the smaller pot fires to one side of the main spit. There was a plain Gothic dining-set, and Huerta pulled one of the butternut chairs from beneath the bare table, indicating that Crawford should remove his pants. That wary inhibition was in Crawford's movements.
"You might sit on the table," said Huerta. When Crawford was seated, the doctor moved closer and bent slightly, reaching out one pale hand. It was like a woman's hand, satiny, boneless. "Can't you relax, Crawford? What's the matter? Feel any pain?"