"What was it out there, Glenn?"
"When do you mean?" he said, without turning around.
"You know when I mean," she said. "After I'd kissed you. The way you looked. That expression on your face."
"Nothing," he said stiffly. He couldn't tell her, somehow, if she didn't know. It just wasn't in him to express his own terrible incapacity again, to her. For that was what it had been, out there, after the kiss. The bitter, unutterable realization that no matter how much he wanted her, he was completely unworthy of such a woman, and could never have her.
"It was something," said Merida, tensely, trying to turn him around, "tell me, Crawford, tell me—"
"Hola, Delcazar!" shouted someone, from outside, halting Merida. The old man whirled about, dropping the chili. Quartel had come into view, outside, across the clearing from the doorway, moving into the open from the brush in stiff, tentative steps, his Chihuahuas tinkling softly. He was leading his own trigueño and the copperbottom Merida had ridden. Crawford made an abortive move toward the door, but Delcazar caught him.
"Buenos días," said Delcazar, stepping then into view.
"I found Merida's horse down in the bottoms," Quartel told him. "I thought they might—ah, the flash rider himself."
He must have seen them behind Delcazar. Crawford pushed past the old man into the open, and saw the morning sunlight catch Quartel's white teeth in that pawky grin. The brush held a torn, rended look after the norther, great holes ripped in the mesquite thicket behind Quartel, mesquite berries littering the ground. The copperbottom shifted wearily, rattling its bridle.
"How did you find us?" said Crawford.