The girandole candelabra on the mantel looked like a brooding ghoul in the evening gloom which the living-room of Otis Rockland's house. The French windows at the front extended completely to the floor, double-hung sashes forming the upper half, paneled gates of unpolished oak being the lower section. The damask hangings had been pulled across during the afternoon to shut out the sun, but the windows themselves were partly ajar, allowing the sounds from the corrals to enter the room. Someone was playing a guitar over there where they were still roasting the bulls that had been killed. A woman's laugh came dimly.  
Crawford raised his head a moment where he sat in a chair by the window; then he lowered it once more into his hands. His face was and empty. He did not know how long it was since he had come here, unable to face them out there.
 
When the creak of the porch came mutedly to him, he gave no sign. Then there was more sound, louder, more recognizable. His head lifted as the noise terminated with a crash.
 
"Crawford!"
 
Just once like that, and cracked. He got to his feet and ran to the door, tearing it open. It was the side table in the entrance hall which had made the crash. Merida must have pulled it over, falling. The marble top had smashed, and a piece of it lay on the floor beside her. The front door stood open wide.
 
"Merida?" he said, dropping to one knee. "You fell?"
 
"No." She stirred feebly, rising to one elbow with his help, hanging her head over against his knee a moment. The kitchen door opened, and her maid padded down the hall in bare feet, a small, Indian, so dark she looked negroid, dressed in nothing more than a white cotton shift.
 
"It's all right, Nexpa," Merida told her. "A little accident. Crawford will help me to my room."
 
She allowed him to help her up the stairs, leaning heavily on his arm. The warmth of her body flowed through Crawford, and when they reached the second floor he was breathing heavily. Beyond the last step, Merida pulled away from him, her eyes meeting his in a swift, unreadable way.
 
She turned and moved toward her room, halting a moment outside Huerta's closed door, as if listening. Then she opened the door of her bedroom. He had kept from asking by an effort, but now he followed her in hesitantly, speaking.
 
"Huerta came up?"
 
She closed her door softly. "He wasn't at the corrals when I left."
 
"Maybe he got hungry for his red beans." Her face lifted to him, eyes widening, and he . "Jacinto said something about dope."
 
She pursed her lips, moving around him toward the table. "Couldn't you see it? when we were in Mexico City. Peyote now."
 
"Those beans."
 
"Yes. You've heard it. The Indians call it raíz diabólica. Devil weed. They've been using it for centuries in Mexico. Even the Aztecs knew of it. They called it peyotl. It's effect isn't as marked as opium. He seems capable of eating those beans all day. They make a drink of it that's more ."
 
"He said something about a complaint," Crawford told her.
 
Her mouth twisted somewhat. "Maybe he has an old wound. He's been around. He'd take dope anyway. That's just the kind he is. You saw the kind. Dissolute? I don't know. Whatever you want." She had got a punk off the table and was the candles in the candelabra supported by oak wall brackets. Then she saw how he was looking at her, and turned part way. "What is it?"
 
He looked away. "Nothing."
 
She caught his arm, turning him back.
 
"No," she said. "It is something. Huerta?"
 
Crawford pulled away from her hand, uncomfortable, somehow. "I just can't see you with him. You're not the type."
 
"What type do you think I am?"
 
He started to answer. Then he moved his shoulders again, letting out a muted, rueful sound. "I guess I don't know, really, do I?"
 
"Don't you?" She was meeting his glance with a wide, demand in her eyes.
 
"Santa Anna's chests?" he said.
 
She drew in a long, slow breath, and nodded, finally. "You do know, then," she murmured, almost inaudibly. "You have known, all along." She hesitated, studying him. When she again, her voice was stronger. "That's inconceivable to you, isn't it?"
 
"No—"
 
"Yes!" She blew out the punk with the word. "You've lived in the brasada most of your life. Money to you represents no more than a barren, lonely like this and a of cattle to support it. You have no conception of what riches can really mean. Not just the horses, the servants, the jewels. The grace, Crawford, the ease, the beauty, the way of life." An had gripped her voice, and her face was flushed. "Do you know what it is to be a peon in Mexico? No. You've never seen it, have you? You've seen the women in the brush here, living like animals in a one-room mud house with nothing but a cotton sheet for a dress. That's nothing. They're rich. They're hidalgos compared with a real peon. I should know. I was one, Crawford. I won't be one again. I'd rather steal and lie and cheat. I'd rather murder. Can you understand that? I will, if it's necessary. I—"
 
She broke off, breathing deeply, looking wide-eyed up at him. Then a short bitter laugh escaped her, and she turned away, the line of her shoulders bowing faintly. Light drew a soft glow from the rich black hair tightly across the back of her head. With a new understanding of the woman, he stepped in behind her.
 
"All right," he said.
 
The simple acceptance of that drew her around. They were so close her breast touched his when it stirred faintly to her breathing.
 
"You were going to tell me what happened downstairs," he murmured.
 
"Derrotero?" she said, watching his face narrowly.
 
It was an effort to keep it expressionless. "The map?"
 
"It's why Huerta wanted to keep you here in the first place," she said. "Quartel and Tarant were against it, but Huerta thought you had some reason for coming here. He was right, Crawford. Nothing else could make you take what they've been doing. You've got part of the derrotero, and you think one of us has the rest. Well, one of us has!"
 
She turned around and did something with the waist of her dress, beneath the fichu. When she turned back, she held a piece of torn, yellowed paper in her hand.
 
"There are three pieces to the map," she said. "This is one of them."
 
"Lopez?" he asked.
 
"Yes," she muttered. "Santa Anna had many wives. My mother was one. You will recall that the captain of the train sent one third of the map to Santa Anna himself. It was about all my mother got out of Santa Anna's estate ............