He turned his head from side to side, searching the room. It was day, but the overdrapes had been pulled across the window, and he could make out the furniture only dimly in the semi-gloom. And still, down inside him, rising, growing. He bent down to pull on his boots with swift, desperate tugs, then rose. He looked like a hounded animal, the forward thrust of his rigid body imparting that narrowness to his shoulders, his eyes shifting furtively in a gaunt face. Then, on one of those shallow, indrawn breaths, it came to him, unmistakable.
Slowly, his whole body so tense it was trembling now, he turned about, sniffing. He stepped away from the bed, toward the windows, and it faded. He moved back toward the bed, and he could smell it again. With a muttered curse he bent down and tore the coverlet off. The dirty, fetid horse blanket had been laid out flat beneath the chintz spread.
"Huerta!"
It came out of him in a strangled, guttural rage, and he bent to clutch the horse blanket. He had it lifted off the bed before he released it, throwing it back down and whirling to the door. His boots made a hard thump down the stairway and into the entrance hall. He had almost passed the living-room when, through the open door, he caught sight of Huerta, seated in one of the willow chairs by the window. The doctor had been reading, and he lowered the book, leaning forward in the chair.
"You must have slept well, Crawford," he said. "It's nearly noon."
Crawford started to take a step forward, opening his mouth to speak. Then he closed it again, his fists clenched tight. There was a faint, waiting mockery on Huerta's face. Crawford whirled and stamped on out the front door. As he went down the front steps, he saw the crowd out by the corrals, and was drawn toward it. He made out Bueno Bailey and Innes among the men, but the others were new faces to him. There were half a dozen riders cavorting their horses around in the open flats, and a big Chihuahua cart was creaking out of the brush, piled high with onions and apricots and baskets of blue corn meal and squealing Mexican children and a fat Mexican peon driving. Crawford was part way across the compound when he saw the woman coming toward him. He had a momentary impulse to turn away, and stifled that. She held her heavy green satin skirt up out of the dust with one hand, and the wind ruffled the throat of her white Antoinette fichu. Her eyes, big and dark and searching, were held to his face until she reached him, and it did something to Crawford.
"They said it was a bull-tailing," she told him, coming to a stop. "I don't exactly understand."
"About the only celebration the brasaderos get," he said, watching her warily. "A bunch of them gather almost every Sunday somewhere to eat and drink and tail the bull. I think they're celebrating Cinco de Mayo today. Commemorating some battle at Puebla—"
He trailed off, because he could see it in her face, and he didn't particularly want to talk about the bull-tailing either. When she spoke again, her voice was husky and strained, and it must have been what was really on her mind, from the first.
"They were trying to kill you," she said. "Jacinto told me. They got you in there, and started in on you, and they meant to drive you till you cracked and fought back, and then they were going to kill you. How did you stand it so long, Crawford? Jacinto said no other man could have. Pushing you and shoving you and beating you like that. How did you stand it?"