He got onto the pinto without hesitation this time, and led down into the brown muck of the shallow water and up the other bank. Llano Sacaguista proved to be a vast open flat covered with greening sacaguista grass. He had never traversed these particular flats, and beyond this was a stretch of brush entirely foreign to him. They left Rio Diablo for a mile or so and then struck it again. A block in the river caused by some ancient upheaval rendered the land boggy here. The hollow boom of bullfrogs mingled with the other night sounds. A 'gator bellowed somewhere from the depths of the exotic brush.
"Looks more like East Texas," Crawford muttered. "I wonder if this could be Lost Swamp."
He could see the glow of excitement in the woman's eyes now. They pushed on southward with the false dawn dropping an eerie light through the brush. The boggy section fell behind, and the natural aridity of the brasada returned. They were still following the river, though it was nothing but a dry bed now, the trickle of water having ceased where it ran into Lost Swamp. A true dawn was bringing light to the sky in the east when they heard the first sound. It was a thin sibilation, reminiscent of the mesquite sighing in a light breeze. Crawford moved his pinto over beside Merida's copperbottom, halting both horses, to sit there, listening. Then he touched a heel to the pinto's flank, moving it carefully down into the very center of the river bed. The brush on either bank grew more dense as they moved on up the dry bed, and began to gather here in the bottoms now. The sound increased, too. The faint hissing was veritably ceaseless now, rising and falling in a sibilant tide. Finally the brush was so thick in the river bed they were having to force their way through. The pinto was beginning to fiddle nervously. It shied, finally, and Crawford jerked it to a stop, a vagrant wave of the old panic gripping him. He sat there a moment, trying to control his breathing.
"You wanted to know where Snake Thickets was," he said. "It looks like we're sitting right on the edge of it."
There was a vague awe in her voice. "It sounds as if all the snakes in Texas had gathered here. Crawford—"
"Don't be loco," he said, seeing it in her eyes. "We wouldn't last two minutes beyond this spot. If those Mexicans cached anything, it sure couldn't have been inside here."
"If?" Her tone was sharp; the excited glow fled her eyes, leaving them narrow and speculative as she looked at him. "You still don't believe there is any money."
"I told you I was skeptical to begin with," said Crawford.
"But the part of the derrotero you had—" she moved her hand in a vague, defensive way—"coming all this way, putting up with all that back there—Quartel, Huerta, Whitehead—surely—" She stopped as it must have struck her. A reserve crossed her face, tightening the planes of her cheek, and that speculation deepened in her eyes, accentuating, somehow, the oblique tilt of her brow. "Maybe I was right the first time," she said finally. She leaned toward him slightly. "I guess I should have seen it before this. You're hardly the type, are you? Money wouldn't mean enough to you to put up with that." She stopped again, studying him, and then a faint smile stirred her lips. "Which one of us do you think murdered Otis Rockland?"
He met her eyes for a moment, almost sullenly. Then a vague unrest seeped through him. His saddle creaked as he shifted on the pinto, and he turned his head upward, sniffing. She must have taken it for a discomfort arising from her scrutiny, for that smile on her lips spread perceptibly.