"You've never actually been there?" Her voice was tense.
"I don't know who has," he said. "There's a lot of the brasada nobody's ever seen, white man or Indian. There's a stretch due south from here just above the Rio Grande called Resaca Espantosa. Nobody's ever been through it. I don't know why they call it Haunted Swamp."
"But there is a good reason for the name Mogotes Serpientes?"
"So they say. It's supposed to be so full of snakes no man could stay alive in there more than a few—" He trailed off as he realized how far he had let her allure carry him, and pulled roughly away from her, his mouth twisting down at one corner.
"Crawford," she said, trying to get in close again. "Please. Don't. I mean it. You've got to believe me. If you believe in anything, you've got to—"
"Huerta made me a proposition too," said Crawford. "It didn't pack such a wallop, but it was along the same lines."
She flushed, stepping back from him violently. "You fool," she said, in a bitter, intense whisper. "You fool."
They were still standing that way, staring at each other, when Huerta came out on the porch. The woman saw him and turned away, moving back toward the corrals.
"Hola, Quartel," someone over by the pens shouted. "When are you letting the toros out? I got a twenty-dollar pot for the first man to tail a bull."
"It's mine." Quartel's bellow came from somewhere in the crowd, and then he appeared, running in that stiff, saddle-bound stride of his toward the horses. "Aforismo, let that blue out. He ought to give us a good run."