"It's got to be more than trust now," she said. "We're in it together, Crawford. If I'm to help you, you've got to help me. Will you?"
"Haven't I proved that?" he said, trying to pull her toward him with that hand. "Anything, Merida—"
She held back, calculation hardening the planes of her face. "Perhaps I should have said, can you?"
Just the feel of her wrist in his fingers that way, soft and satiny, started it up again in him, and he quit trying to pull her in, and took a step in toward her. "What horse you on now?"
"I mean, maybe you can't. Maybe you're incapable of it. You can't do much the way you are now, Crawford. You're only half a man. It's not just the horses any more. It's your whole life. Everything you do is affected by it. I've thought of trying to get you a gun. A dozen times. It would be hard, but I might be able to do it. To stay unarmed here, like this—" She put her free hand against his chest to stop him. "What good would it do, Crawford? If you'd had a gun, would you have used it today? Quartel carries one. Would you have pulled yours on him?"
No woman had ever affected him so violently before. Hardly aware of what she was saying, the blood pounding through his head, he sought to force her hand aside and bend his face to hers, wanting only to feel her against him again.
"Merida," he said, the blood so thick in his throat it made him sound strangled, "I told you—anything—"
She took a deep, ragged breath, and he could not tell whether she was fighting him or herself, now. "No, Crawford. It wouldn't be any different with a gun. Not the way you are now. A gun wouldn't do you any more good than your bare hands. Quartel wanted you to fight him with your hands. You wouldn't even do that. Nothing will do you any good until you can step on a horse again without feeling that pain in your legs—that fear." She forced herself away, saying it in a cold tone, "Africano?"
It was like throwing ice water on a fire. All his ardor disappeared before the abrupt clutch of fear that word engendered in him. He stiffened for a moment, still holding that one hand. Then he dropped it and stepped back, his mouth twisted. Just the word, like that. Just the name.
"Yes." The heavy rise and fall of Merida's breast abated as she studied him, the candor gone from her face now, a cold, critical speculation filling her eyes as she studied him. "Perhaps I was wrong, Crawford. Perhaps you can't help me. Perhaps I can't help you."