"Let go, please, for God's sake, let go."
"What's the matter, Crawford?"
"Leggo, leggo, leggo—"
He stopped screaming. It took him a long time to comprehend he was no longer being held against the horse. He crouched there on his knees where he had fallen when Quartel had stepped back, releasing him. The movement of the animal behind him raised a flurry of dirty brown dust. Coughing in it, Crawford stared up at Quartel. The rage had disappeared from Quartel's face. His lips were spread in that pawky smile.
"Sure," he said, "I'll let you go. What will you do if I let you go?"
Aforismo had pulled the trigueño out from behind him now, and Crawford crouched there on his hands and knees, black hair falling dankly over his feverish eyes. He looked like a trapped animal, his breath escaping him in hoarse gasps, his head turning in quick jerks as his wild glance leaped from one person to another. First it was Merida. There was a desperate plea in the way she bent toward him, her bosom rising and falling, her red lower lip dropped away from the shadowed white line of her teeth, glistening damply. Then Huerta, managing to convey a bored amusement without actually expressing anything in his face, as he studied Crawford distantly. And Jacinto, great, lugubrious globules of sweat sliding down his brown face, wringing his fat hands, making small, unintelligible sounds of pain.
A vagrant anger swept Crawford and he tried to collect it and hold it in him, bitter and acrid and violent. But it held no strength, and a shift of the wind swept the fetor of the trigueño to him once more, and the anger disappeared. There was none of the spasm of panic now. It was heavy and oppressive in him, holding him down like a physical weight, robbing him of all resolve, dominating all other emotion. He was still shaking violently, and the salty tears blinded him. He felt a dim impulse to move twitch at his legs, and he knew a moment there when he thought he could rise. Then he heard the guttural, frustrated sound he made, and knew he was still on the ground, and felt an overpowering impulse to give way and cry.
"I thought so," said Quartel, and turned to take the reins from Aforismo. He checked the animal to prevent its whirling away from him, and jumped onto its back. He released the rein, and the trigueño's head came around with a snap as it spun to trot off toward the fires. The other vaqueros followed one by one, in an uncomfortable silence. Huerta patted a yawn.
"They've got some cane chairs over under those coma trees," he said. "I think I'll watch the proceedings from there. Coming, Merida?"
She did not answer. She was looking at Crawford, her face pale. Huerta shrugged, moved languidly across the dusty compound. Then it was just the two of them, with Crawford finally gaining his feet, unable to meet her eyes. Merida's weight had settled back onto her high heels slowly. That ripe lower lip had contracted against her teeth till her mouth was twisted across them faintly. Her husky voice was barely audible.