Crawford's levis had been drying over the fire, and he rose to get them. "Because if I had done it, the whole thing could have been nothing more than the quarrel between me and Rockland?"
 
The old man pulled a pot of boiled beans out and dumped them into the frying pan. "Frijoles fritos, Crawford. You always like them."
 
"But if it wasn't me who did it," said Crawford, pulling on his damp levis, "there would have to be some other reason for Rockland being murdered. Santa Anna's chests, for instance." He saw Delcazar's whole body . The beans started to as the flames licked at the bottom of the frying pan. "What do you know, Del?" said Crawford.
 
"Nada, nada." The old man turned around, rising with effort. "I don't know nothing."
 
"Your uncle was the capitán of that train," said Crawford.
 
"My mother tell me that," said Delcazar. "I never seen him. He died in Mexico City when I was a little niño."
 
"Then why are you so het-up if you don't know anything about it?"
 
"It's dangerous, Crawford," said Delcazar, at his arm. "It's the most dangerous thing ever hit this brush. You better get out of it while you're still alive. It's got the whole brasada going now. No telling how many are mixed up in it now. The Mexican government has an agent up here somewhere."
 
"Huerta?"
 
"The man at Rockland's?" said Delcazar. "I don't think so."
 
"Huerta was the one who told me about your uncle," said Crawford. "Funny nobody has come hunting you. You're a logical link."
 
"They have," said Delcazar. "I wasn't here to greet them."
 
"Who?"
 
"That ramrod Tarant hired to clean out the brush," said Delcazar. "Him and his whole corrida."
 
"Quartel?" Crawford's eyes narrowed, staring past Delcazar. "I hadn't thought of him."
 
"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 by the mess of saddle rigging and blankets in the corner, 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 at his coffee-colored nose with a 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 formed the doorframe. Crawford hefted the bowie in his hand, it into the cedar post with a twist of his hand. He walked across the room and pulled it free.
 
"We found Snake before the norther hit, Del," he said.
 
The old man . "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 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 , point foremost. It struck with a dull thud. Crawford went over to the post. The blade was half an inch deeper than his throws had sent it in. there in the , he turned back to the old man, 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 . 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."
 
Delcazar was shorter than Crawford, and he had to turn his head up to meet the younger man's eyes. "Listen, Glenn," he said soberly, "I don't know what you're in this for. I've heard a lot of reasons. Quartel thinks you got a badge on you somewhere. That might be. A man can get a new job in the ............