"You better think of him. You better think about everybody, Glenn. No telling who's in it, now, and who ain't. No telling who's going to come up behind you next. I hear they take your Henry away—" He turned and squatted by the mess of saddle rigging and blankets in the corner, rummaging around till he came up with a wooden-handled bowie—"Here, it's all I have. I know it seems silly, but you got to have something. I wish I had a gun. That old Remington I owned blew up." He stopped again, clutching Crawford's arm. "Glenn, you ain't going back?"
"Why else did you give me the knife?"
The old man let his hand slide off.
"I guess so. I know you." He sniffled, rubbing peevishly at his coffee-colored nose with a calloused index finger. "I guess there ain't any use trying to keep you from it. They couldn't keep you from it with Whitehead. What are you after there, Glenn?"
Puntales of peeled cedar formed the doorframe. Crawford hefted the bowie in his hand, flipped it into the cedar post with a deft twist of his hand. He walked across the room and pulled it free.
"We found Snake Thickets before the norther hit, Del," he said.
The old man grunted. "You're doing it wrong for a short throw like that. Let me show you."
Crawford had been holding the bowie by the tip of its blade and throwing it from back over his shoulder, allowing it to flip over once in the air before it struck. Delcazar palmed the heavy knife with the hilt against his wrist and the blade on his fingers. He threw it from his hip, point foremost. It struck with a dull thud. Crawford went over to the post. The blade was embedded half an inch deeper than his throws had sent it in. Standing there in the doorway, he turned back to the old man, squinting at him. Delcazar sniffled that way again, rubbing his nose, not meeting Crawford's eyes.
"I told you, Glenn, I never even seen Mogotes Serpientes. If you find it, okay. But I never even seen it. I thought it was just a story, like Resaca Perdida."
"We saw Lost Swamp too," said Crawford. "Snake Thickets was the most interesting, though. You should have heard it. Sounded like those beans, only ten times as much. Must be a million snakes in those mogotes." He paced back to Delcazar, palming the knife as the old man had this time, throwing it with a grunt. With the blade quivering in the cedar post, he turned part way to the Mexican. "I guess you know what the woman came from Mexico for. She thinks it's somewhere in Snake Thickets."