Best Roper in the World

The throng about the large cedar-post corral was oddly subdued. Some of the vaqueros had dragged the blue bull over to the cooking fire for Jacinto to spit, but the gross cook had left the carcass lying on the ground. He stood with the middle bar of the fence making a deep indentation in the incredible protuberance of his stomach as the crowding vaqueros pressed in from behind.

"Madre de Dios, Crawford, why do you let him do this thing?" wailed the cook, running his fat hands nervously up and down the rail. "I don't want to see a man die."

"Then why watch?" said Crawford.

"Please, Crawford, you take such a brutal attitude. Don't you know this is the way Oro Peso died down in Mexico? He was the greatest roper in the world, Quartel's boasting to the contrary. Oro Peso used to go around making this same bet. Then somebody took him up on it. The third bull pulled him from his horse. His neck was broken like you'd snap a switch of mesquite. Please—"

"Hola, compadres!" shouted Quartel, from outside the corral, and they saw that he had stripped his trigueÑo of its saddle. Indita dropped the bar and Quartel trotted the animal in, laughing as the bulls bunched up on the other side, bawling. "You see, already they are afraid of me. Who is going to put the blindfold on? Merida, will you honor me?"

"Why not?" The woman's voice held a savage undertone that surprised Crawford. She caught his eyes on her and turned toward Crawford. When she saw the look on his face, she threw her head back that way, to laugh. It held a rich, wild mockery. "What's the matter, Crawford? Don't you like that in a woman? Maybe you haven't known the right women."

Still laughing, she reached through the bars to tie the bandanna behind Quartet's head as the man slipped off the trigueÑo and turned his back to her. Then he swung aboard again, and tied one end of the rope he was carrying about his thick neck in a noose, too small to slip over his head. Merida's face was flushed excitedly as she watched him prance the trigueÑo away, and her eyes flashed in frank anticipation. Huerta pulled out his cigarette case and put a smoke into his jade holder. His motions were as languid as ever, but Crawford thought his fingers pinched the holder more tightly than was necessary.

"Hola!" shouted Quartel, wheeling his trigueÑo in the middle of the corral and kicking its flanks with his heels. The horse charged toward the bulls, and the animals strung out along the fence. Quartel was an uncanny judge of distance; when his horse was but half a length from the fence, he made a quarter turn and raced along the bars after the last bull in the running bunch.

"Andale!" yelled the man, and made his toss.

The loop snaked about the forefeet of that last bull as it turned at the corner of the corral, and as Quartel felt the rope snap taut, he let go completely with his hands, pulling his thick neck down into his shoulders to set it and jerking back with his torso at the last moment. The bull turned a flip, its shoulder striking the rump of the running animal in front, and as the falling bull struck, Quartel shoved his reins hard against the trigueÑo's neck to wheel inward and give himself slack on the rope. He clutched for the slackening rawhide and sent a flirt down the rope that lifted the loop off the bull's forelegs, and when he turned away, he was pulling the line in.

"Viva Quartel, viva!" shouted the vaqueros, shoving Crawford up against the fence with their shifting press and deafening him with their cheers. Grinning, Quartel kicked the trigueÑo after the bulls again. It started them off once more, bawling and running. Quartel's hearing was as uncanny as his judgment of distance; he rode with his head lifted, and when a scarred brindle bull broke from the others, running along the fence and cutting across the middle of the corral, Crawford could see Quartel's head turn after the animal. The Mexican reined his trigueÑo over that way, kicking it into a dead run that closed the space between himself and the bull in a swift instant.

"Ahora," he shouted, "now," and tossed. His rope caught the bull's hind feet instead of its forefeet, and as a strange sighing sound rose from the crowd, Quartel must have sensed something was wrong, for he spurred the trigueÑo brutally, and its frenzied leap into a headlong run gave him slack enough in the rope for that last moment to send a flirt down its length that carried the loop off the bull's hind feet before it could draw closed. The bull stumbled into the other animals as they turned the corner and milled down this side of the corral. By that time Quartel had his rope coiled, and he maneuvered the bawling, excited animals so that they strung out down the fence once more, and then ran his horse up behind the last one. This time it was the forefeet, and he dropped the animal, breaking its neck as before. The end of the rope about Quartel's neck was not a slip noose, but Crawford could see the rawhide dig into the thick brown flesh of Quartel's neck as he jerked back, till the skin showed a white ridge above and below the lasso. He watched in undeniable fascination as the Mexican flirted in the rope and turned his horse after them once more. Shouting, Quartel closed the gap between himself and another bull and made his toss. He released the lasso with his hand as soon as it was in the air. The instant that loop caught on the running bull's forefeet, Quartel reined his trigueÑo in a quarter turn that wheeled it away from the running bull. The bull's own forward motion would draw the noose tight about its legs, and the turning maneuver of the horse would stretch the rope taut between them as soon as that noose was completely closed. In that instant, with the bull hitting the end of the rope and flipping, Quartel had to wheel his horse back or be pulled off. He had already turned the trigueÑo away from the bull, and the noose was making its singing sound closing on those churning forefeet, when a big hosco golondrino cut away from the other animals running along the fence and turned out into the corral, directly across the head of the trigueÑo. Quartel's huge neck sank into his shoulders, and he put the reins against the trigueÑo's neck to swerve it back as he felt the rope snapping taut. But the turn would have run the horse head-on into the hosco golondrino. It was the first time Crawford had seen that trigueÑo fight the bit; its head turned in and its neck arched, it lurched in the opposite direction from Quartel's reining.

"Crawford," screamed Merida, and then the full weight of the falling bull hit the end of that rope with Quartel going in the wrong direction to take the shock. He made a small, choked sound as he was snapped off the trigueÑo's rump. Crawford was not conscious of going through the bars. He found himself on the inside of the corral, with someone climbing through the rails on his left. He did not realize who it was till he had started running toward Quartel where he was rolling across the ground. Then from the corner of his eye, Crawford caught the white flutter of Merida's fichu.

"Get back, you crazy fool," he screamed at her, diving headlong at her as a couple of crazed bulls charged by. He struck her with his arms around her waist and carried her back against the bars as a third animal crashed past where she had been standing. He rolled to his feet, leaving her there huddled up against the fence, and dodged through another pair of the bawling, frenzied animals, coughing in the dust.

The bull Quartel had thrown was scrambling to its feet, the reata still caught around one foreleg. Crawford saw the slack rope hiss taut as the animal broke into a stumbling gallop, and knew he could never reach it in time. If Quartel's neck were not already broken, his head would be pulled from his body now. Another bull went past behind Crawford, its shoulder sending him spinning, and he threw himself bodily toward the rope where it lay tautening across the ground, in a last desperate effort to try and get it before the bull had stretched it completely.

But even as he did so, he saw Quartel had risen to his hands and knees. Still blindfolded, the man must have heard the sing of the rope and known what was occurring. He gave his head one dazed shake and jumped to his feet, sinking his neck in that way and throwing himself backward. His body was at a three-quarter angle when the rope snapped taut; he would have fallen completely if the line had not caught him. The impetus of his jerking back that way and the weight of his body combined to upset the bull once more. The ground shuddered to the falling animal. Crawford heard the crack of its broken neck.

"How's that, Huerta?" laughed Quartel, running forward to slacken the rope so he could flirt the loop free. "I told you I wouldn't pull on it by hand. Did you see that? I didn't touch it with my hands, did I? I'll bet you never saw a roper could do that down around Mexico City. Even Oro Peso. Did you think I was finished? Not with a neck like that. I could throw ten bulls all at once. Where's my horse? Bring me that trigueÑo. I'm not through yet. Not with a neck like that."

In a daze, Crawford picked himself off the ground, seeing Indita run out to corner the trigueÑo and lead him over to the sweating, roaring Quartel. Stumbling back to the fence, Crawford watched the whole crazy performance begin once more. It was a nightmare of shouting vaqueros and bawling bulls and singing ropes and clouds of acrid russet dust obscuring the whole pattern every time the animals broke into a run. Quartel took three casts to nail the seventh bull, and it was obvious he was tiring.

"Three more," Crawford heard Jacinto mumbling beside him. "Three more. Oh, madre de Dios, let him get over with this, will you, and I'll never forget to say my rosary again. Three more, three more—"

Two more. One more. "Hola!" shouted the Mexican, "ahora," and the rope spun, and caught, and tautened, and the ground shook as the last bull broke its neck. Coiling in the rope, Quartel spurred the trigueÑo to the gate, ripping off his blindfold. They were all running that way, Aforismo catching the man as he slid off the lathered, quivering horse, pounding him on the back. Even Merida had lifted her skirts to run that way, drawn by the excitement. Quartel came through the crowd, sweating and grinning and pounding himself on the chest with his hairy fist. "I told you. The best roper in the world. What do you think of it, Huerta? Have you ever seen better? Was Oro Peso better?" Then a thought seemed to strike him, and he sobered, looking around at the vaqueros. "When I was pulled off the horse. Someone was in the corral. I heard them."

The hubbub sank until there was only the muffled sound of stirring bodies, and Quartel saw the direction their glances had taken, one after another. He stared at Crawford in disbelief.

"You—"

Crawford shrugged, sullenly. "It was automatic, I guess. I didn't think."

"Yes." Huerta allowed twin streamers of gray smoke to escape his nostrils. "I wonder what would have happened if you had stopped to think."

Crawford flushed, turning toward him, but Quartel came forward, clapping his hand on Crawford's shoulder. "Huerta, I'm surprised at you. After all, he saved my life. And how about you. A talega of pesos."

"I made no wager," said Huerta, tapping ash from his cigarette.

The blood swept into Quartel's face, and he stepped forward to grab the lapels of Huerta's coat with one huge hand, jerking the man toward him. "Huerta, I bet you a talega of pesos—"

"I made no wager." Huerta had not moved his hands. One of them still held the cigarette holder at his side; the other rested in the pocket of his coat. But he was looking into Quartel's eyes, and his own eyes had opened wider. The veined dissolution of his heavy bluish lids had lifted until the whole pupil was visible.

"That's right, that's right," said Jacinto nervously. "Huerta didn't take up your bet, Quartel. You was so busy shouting and all you didn't wait to see if he'd made the bet with you."

"If he had, he'd pay me," said Quartel, still looking into Huerta's eyes, an indefinable puzzlement drawing a faint furrow through his brow, and something else. Abruptly he turned around, raising his voice. "Caramba, if I ain't going to get a talega of pesos, I should get some kind of reward. You don't see a rodeo like that every day. How about it, Merida? I want a reward—"

He had shoved through the crowd toward her, catching her around the waist. Apparently not divining his intent at first, she had been smiling, her face still flushed with that excitement. But as he caught her and bent his face to hers, the smile twisted into a grimace. She threw her forearm across his neck and tried to lever him away.

"Vayase con la mÚsica a otra parte," she cried, anger causing her to break into Spanish. "Tu barrachon, largo de aqui, tu chile, no puedo sufrir su insolencia—"

"My insolence?" laughed Quartel, grasping her wrist and tearing it from between them. The force of it drew a gasp of pain from Merida; she began writhing more violently in his embrace, and tried to scratch his face with the other hand. But he caught that too, and forced both her hands behind her until he had her wrists crossed with his arms about her waist. In that last moment, he quit grinning. Crawford had seen the same expression in the man's face before, when he looked at Merida, but never so palpable, never so clearly recognizable. His voice came from deep in his throat, husky and sensual and demanding.

"Besame, querida," he said, and lowered his sweating face to hers.

"Let her go, Quartel!"

The Mexican stopped, with his lips not quite touching Merida. The woman's body ceased to writhe; she stood there in his arms, bent backward like a bow, looking up at him. Without releasing her, Quartel raised his head and turned it over his shoulder till he could see Crawford. It had taken Crawford that long to get through the laughing, shouting crowd; they were no longer making any noise, and they had spread away from him. He stood there with his boots spread a little on the hard-packed dirt and the weight of his shoulders thrown forward, the bitter intensity of his face only accentuating its gauntness.

"Oh." The word came out softly, slyly on Quartel's breath. "Maybe you'd rather be the one to kiss her. First he saves my life, then he wants to take my woman away."

"Your woman?" gasped Merida.

"Take your hands off, damn you—"

"Don't swear at me, Crawford." The hurt tone of Quartel's voice held that pawky mockery. "I thought we were amigos. I thought you saved my life in the corrals."

"Quartel—"

"SÍ?" The man had released Merida and wheeled to face Crawford. For a moment he stood there, his heavy chest rising and falling gently with his breathing. The mockery faded from his face, leaving a heavy, deliberate intent. His shift to the side was unhurried, but Crawford's effort to keep facing the man came in a swift, spasmodic reaction. Then Quartel stood there again. "Nobody swears at me, Crawford," he said, and then, moving with incredible speed for such a bulky man, he leaped forward. Crawford had been waiting for something, but it came so fast his move to block it was aborted. Quartel had him by the shoulders, knocking him off balance, and Crawford had to stumble backward to keep from falling. "Do you understand that?" Quartel was shouting it now, hoarsely, allowing his ebullience to escape finally. "I'm amansador, here, I'm foreman, and nobody swears at me or tries to stop me whatever I'm doing. I rod this outfit and I can do anything I want and nobody can stop me, do you hear?"

It was then Crawford realized what he had brought up against. Stumbling backward, he had lurched into the trigueÑo and it had kept him from falling. He was held against it now by Quartel's hands gripping his shoulders. The animal heat of it penetrated through his shirt, and something else clawed at him, somewhere way down in his vitals.

In a new spasm, Crawford tried to lurch free of Quartel's grip; but the man had still managed to keep him off balance, and he was held there, with his knees bent and his body pushed off to one side so that he had no leverage. He was shoved back hard against the horse again, and the hot, living, hairy, animal resilience of it against his back intensified that vague alarm inside him.

"Do you hear me, Crawford, do you hear me—"

Quartel's voice came through to him as if the man were far away. Crawford was writhing from side to side, trying to escape, but he was still held at that disadvantage. He had his hands on the man's arms, tearing at them. The effort rocked Quartel from side to side, but failed to loosen his grip. Crawford's face was twisted, and he was gasping hoarsely, because it was growing in him now, raking at him insistently with its subtle, insidious nails. His legs were beginning to tremble and the muscles across his belly were twisting up into little involuntary knots.

"Let go, let go—"

The violent movement and their shouting had excited the horse, and it began to shift around behind Crawford. It had been standing there against the fence where Quartel left it when he slid off. Crawford had it pinned up against the bars, and the animal whinnied nervously, trying to get from between him and the fence. Aforismo moved from the crowd to grab the trigueÑo's reins and pull its head down.

"What's the matter, Juarez?" he said. "Crawford, don't do that, you're spooking this horse."

"Yeah, quit shouting!" roared Quartel. "Can't you see what you're doing to my trigueÑo? Hasn't he been through enough today? Quit jumping around like that."

He realized what they were doing. That had been the intent in Quartel's face. It didn't help him now to understand. Nothing helped him now. It had its grip on him. His struggles had become a blind, frenetic effort to escape. Not from Quartel, now. It was the horse. The shrill sound of the trigueÑo's whinny and the rising turbulence of the beast's nervous movement against him drove Crawford to a new violence in his attempts at escape. It was no longer small or vague in him. It filled his whole consciousness. It spread through his legs and lower body in a clutching, stabbing pain that caused his knees to tremble and jerk. It filled his chest with a terrible constriction. And as before, the pain was rapidly turning to something else.

"Let go, damn you, let go—"

He was screaming it now, in animal panic, his face contorted, his whole body writhing and struggling in a blind frenzy that only excited the horse further. He felt it rear up, and would have fallen backward beneath it had not Aforismo yanked it down hard with his grip on the reins. The hot hide was wet with nervous sweat against Crawford's back, and he could feel the ripple of its muscle with every movement it made, and every ripple sent a new wave of panic through him. All reason was gone from his mind and he was sinking into a dark vortex of that terrible panic like a cow sinking into a black bog.

"What's the matter, Crawford? Are you afraid of the horse?"

"Let go, please, for God's sake, let go."

"What's the matter, Crawford?"

"Leggo, leggo, leggo—"

He stopped screaming. It took him a long time to comprehend he was no longer being held against the horse. He crouched there on his knees where he had fallen when Quartel had stepped back, releasing him. The movement of the animal behind him raised a flurry of dirty brown dust. Coughing in it, Crawford stared up at Quartel. The rage had disappeared from Quartel's face. His lips were spread in that pawky smile.

"Sure," he said, "I'll let you go. What will you do if I let you go?"

Aforismo had pulled the trigueÑo out from behind him now, and Crawford crouched there on his hands and knees, black hair falling dankly over his feverish eyes. He looked like a trapped animal, his breath escaping him in hoarse gasps, his head turning in quick jerks as his wild glance leaped from one person to another. First it was Merida. There was a desperate plea in the way she bent toward him, her bosom rising and falling, her red lower lip dropped away from the shadowed white line of her teeth, glistening damply. Then Huerta, managing to convey a bored amusement without actually expressing anything in his face, as he studied Crawford distantly. And Jacinto, great, lugubrious globules of sweat sliding down his brown face, wringing his fat hands, making small, unintelligible sounds of pain.

A vagrant anger swept Crawford and he tried to collect it and hold it in him, bitter and acrid and violent. But it held no strength, and a shift of the wind swept the fetor of the trigueÑo to him once more, and the anger disappeared. There was none of the spasm of panic now. It was heavy and oppressive in him, holding him down like a physical weight, robbing him of all resolve, dominating all other emotion. He was still shaking violently, and the salty tears blinded him. He felt a dim impulse to move twitch at his legs, and he knew a moment there when he thought he could rise. Then he heard the guttural, frustrated sound he made, and knew he was still on the ground, and felt an overpowering impulse to give way and cry.

"I thought so," said Quartel, and turned to take the reins from Aforismo. He checked the animal to prevent its whirling away from him, and jumped onto its back. He released the rein, and the trigueÑo's head came around with a snap as it spun to trot off toward the fires. The other vaqueros followed one by one, in an uncomfortable silence. Huerta patted a yawn.

"They've got some cane chairs over under those coma trees," he said. "I think I'll watch the proceedings from there. Coming, Merida?"

She did not answer. She was looking at Crawford, her face pale. Huerta shrugged, moved languidly across the dusty compound. Then it was just the two of them, with Crawford finally gaining his feet, unable to meet her eyes. Merida's weight had settled back onto her high heels slowly. That ripe lower lip had contracted against her teeth till her mouth was twisted across them faintly. Her husky voice was barely audible.

"I had hoped Huerta was wrong."

He stared at her, wanting to turn and run, unable to, somehow, and finally it came from him, guttural, hardly recognizable. "Whadda you mean?"

"About that fellow in the mine," she said.

"Whaddaya mean?" Had that been him? Shrill, and cracked, like that?

"You know what I mean," she said. "Not only pain. Fear. And not only fear of what originally caused the pain."

"No—"

"Yes!" she said thinly. "Yes! It's not just the horses any more. It's everything. You're a coward, Crawford. You're a coward!"