Violence in the Bunkhouse

The morning sun had not yet warmed the mud walls of the bunkshack through, and the dank reek of adobe filled the dog-run as Crawford passed down its narrow corridor toward the kitchen, still limping with the pain of his ride on Africano the evening before. Coming from the run, he almost knocked over Jacinto, who had been sitting propped against the wall on a three-legged stool, his head bent forward on his fat chest.

"What are you doing?" said Crawford.

The huge cook had barely caught himself from falling, and he blinked sleepy eyes up at Crawford in surprise. "Sitting on a stool."

"You been sitting there all night," Crawford accused him.

Jacinto looked sheepishly at the prodigious butcher knife across his lap. "No—I—I just—" He waved the blade suddenly at the room. "Well, why not, you been sleeping up at the big house, and now you come down here, and after all that about Whitehead, and everything else, sacramento, how is a man to know what might happen—"

Crawford gazed at him soberly. "Gracias, amigo," he said.

Jacinto grinned in embarrassment, turning to shuffle toward the stove. He put the knife down with a clatter and got the big coffeepot to fill it with water at the butt. When he had it on to boil, he took three clay bowls off a shelf and put them on the table. Seating himself at a bench before the bowls, he spoke again.

"You feel all right this morning?"

Crawford was standing in the doorway, staring emptily toward the house. "No," he said. "Beaten to a pulp."

"I'll fix you some Romero steak," said Jacinto. From the dull red clay bowl he fumbled a grain of corn, carefully picking out the black base with his teeth and spitting it into a second, a blue bowl, dropping the remainder of the kernel into the third, a yellow container. He gave Crawford a sidelong glance. "You told Merida she did you a favor last night. How did you mean?"

"Never mind," said Crawford.

Jacinto plucked another grain from the red bowl, picking out the base with his teeth. "You think she put Africano in there?"

"What else?" said Crawford. "Did you see any Rangers around?"

"No," said Jacinto, frowning at him.

"Neither did anybody else," said Crawford. "There weren't any."

Jacinto took out another grain of corn, waving it at Crawford. "You mean you thought you was running from a Ranger?"

Crawford turned away impatiently, pacing toward the door. "That's what she told me."

"Por supuesto," said Jacinto. "Why should Merida do such a thing?"

"Good way to get rid of me as any," said Crawford bitterly.

Jacinto studied him a moment, smiling in a hesitant, puzzled way. Then he tipped the yellow bowl so Crawford could see it was full of pale corn kernels. "Now I have tortillas white as the sand in Arroyo Blanco." Grunting, he bent forward to pull the metate nearer his bench, a large oblong block of pumice stone, hollowed out in the upper surface from countless grindings with the pumice rolling pin they called a mano. He poured the hollowed portion full of the corn kernels. "Why should she want to get rid of you?" he said, without looking up.

"I guess she had a good reason," said Crawford.

Jacinto took up the mano, began to grind the corn, the hulls working to the edge of the metate like scum along the edge of a water hole. "That day of the bull-tailing, when you and Merida went out into the brush. You found what you wanted?"

"Let's not talk about it," said Crawford.

"And maybe you and her was the only ones who knew where it was, then, no?" said Jacinto. With the edge of his fat hand, he shoved the collection of hulls off into the blue bowl, which contained the black bases he had spit out. "You think that's why she did it?"

Crawford's head jerked from side to side. When he spoke, the frustration was evident in his voice. "How do I know? How do I know anything? Sure we found what we were looking for. You know what it was. Everybody knows. Why do you all keep beating around the thicket this way? Mogotes Serpientes. You know that. Maybe she and I are the only ones who know how to get there. And if I was out of the way, she would be the only one to know. It's what she came up here in the first place for, isn't it? She didn't even try to deny she put that killer horse in there. It's the best reason I can think of."

Jacinto poured a little water into the corn left on the metate, began grinding it again with the mano. "Is it?"

Crawford turned sharply from the door. "What do you mean?"

The paste of corn meal and water Jacinto now had was called masa. He began to pat it into thin tortillas. The comal, heating over an open fire, was a large plate upon which he cast the tortillas to bake, without salt, leavening, or grease.

"I am not too astute in affairs of the heart," said the cook, drawing a heavy breath and wiping sweat off his fat face, "but I have had a few, and have drawn some conclusions about women from them, which I think are as accurate as any conclusions about women can be. They will do strange things when they are in love, Crawford, often cruel things, or brutal. Love to them, when they are enmeshed within it, is all of life, is their whole existence. They will fight for it with their last breath. They will go to any extreme for it. Merida is no ordinary woman. You have seen her fire. You know her depths."

"You're riding a pretty muddy creek," said Crawford.

"I'll clear the water," said Jacinto. "Just give me time. Merida came to you for help, didn't she?"

"You might call it that."

"All right. But she knew you could never be much help in the state you were in. You told me she tried to aid you in conquering it that day you left the bull-tailing."

"So what. Huerta acted like he wanted to help me once too. It was only part of the game he was playing."

"LÁstima de Dios," cried Jacinto, clapping fat hands to his brow. "Pity of God. Now I know you must be as loco about Merida as she is about you. Only a man in love could be that blind. Can't you see what she did? That day you and she rode into the brasada must have made Merida realize, finally, that the only way you could conquer your fear was to ride Africano again. And she wanted to see you conquer your fear, Crawford. More than anything else. More, even, than finding what she came up here for. More, even, than having you live. She didn't want a half-man. She didn't want a coward. She wanted you, the way you used to be, the way she knew you must have been whenever those little flashes of your old self would show themselves."

Crawford had turned around, staring at Jacinto, now. It was beginning to grow in him. The first dim realization of it. An understanding he couldn't name, yet. It prickled the hair on the back of his neck.

"Yes." Jacinto could see the strange wonder in his eyes. "You are beginning to see, no? It took you long enough. There are not many women with that kind of gravel in their craw. Not many women could have done it that way."

It was starting to blossom in Crawford now, a strange, dim exaltation. "Do you realize what it did to me? To come out on the porch that morning and see you standing there beside Whitehead's body, knowing what it meant?" Suddenly he knew how she must have felt. "It doesn't happen to a person often in her life." Suddenly he knew what she had been talking about. "That sort of feeling."

That sort of feeling. He looked around at Jacinto, his eyes wide.

"SÍ," said Jacinto. "You understand now. It would take a lot of man to accept it, Crawford, even when he understood. It would take her kind of man. Admittedly she took a big chance on killing you. Maybe she'd rather have you dead than a coward. That's the kind she is. Not many men could take her. Not many men could realize she sent them out deliberately that way, and still take her."

"Hyacinth," Crawford said almost inaudibly, "Hyacinth—"

"SÍ, sÍ." The gross cook began to chuckle excitedly, for he must have seen what was in Crawford. "You better go to her now, Crawford, before it's too late. She thinks you're through with her, after what you told her last night. She thinks you're not enough of a man to take it that way. But you just didn't understand. Now you do. Go on, Crawford. You won't get a woman with that kind of guts twice in your life. It's almost as good as owning a vinegar roan. I owned a vinegar roan once—"

But Crawford had stopped hearing the cook. It held him completely now. It lifted him so high he didn't feel his feet hit the floor when he started to walk. He moved past Jacinto with a dazed, twisted expression on his face, not even seeing the fat Mexican. The only thing within his awareness was that sweeping, tingling sense of exaltation, so strong and poignant it approached a nausea. The kitchen door faced away from the house, and it was more direct to go through the dog-run and out the bunkhouse; he must have gone that way unconsciously, not remembering his passage through the covered run.

"Where you going?" It penetrated only dully. He kept on walking. Then somebody was in front of him. "I said where you going?"

Innes! The singular odor of sweaty leather reached Crawford from the red-bearded man's buckskin ducking jacket.

"The house," he said, trying to get around the man. Ford Innes shifted again, and this time Crawford was brought up against the man's body. It was like walking into an oak tree.

"Not right now," said Innes.

It was the other things, then, brought in with a clarity almost painful. Bueno Bailey. Sitting at the table. Filing the sear on the trigger of his gun. Aforismo. Sitting on the upper bunk to Crawford's right. His legs dangling over the sideboard.

"Did you ever see the dichos on my belduque?" he asked, seriously. "I like the one on this side best. Tripe is sweet but bowels are better. Don't you like that one best?"

The contraction of Crawford's muscles began with his calves. They twitched faintly, stiffening up, and the tightening ran up the inside of his legs and pervaded his belly and crossed his chest. His whole body was taut as he took the step back away from contact with Innes.

"That's it," said the red-bearded man.

Bueno's gun was an old 1848 percussion Dragoon, converted to handle cartridges. Rubbing his finger delicately across the sear, Bailey nodded his head approvingly.

"Bueno," he said. "I'll bet the pull isn't more than half a pound on that now."

"Where is Quartel?" asked Crawford.

"If you don't blow your foot off, you'll blow your head off," Innes told Bailey. "I never heard of anybody filing a hair trigger down below a pound."

"Where is Quartel?"

Tongue between his teeth, Bailey slipped the mainspring into the butt of his Dragoon, tightening the strain screw against it carefully. "You don't think that's too much of a hair trigger, do you? I knew a Mexican up in San Antonio that used to carry an old Remington filed down to a quarter-pound pull."

"All right," said Crawford, through his teeth. "I am going up to the house, Innes. Will you get out of my way?"

"That Mex would still be alive if he didn't have the cussed habit of jumping off his horse when it stopped," said Bueno Bailey, slipping the trigger down through the frame and screwing the trigger stud into its proper hole. "But I don't jump off my nag. I get off real easy all the time."

"Please, Innes." It was Jacinto's voice, from behind Crawford. "Let him through this time. It ain't the same as before. Please. It's different. He's different. Don't you know? En el nombre de mi madre. Can't you see—"

"This bravo's pretty good," said Aforismo, swinging his legs. "Nothing compares with my kiss. But I guess I like the other dicho better. Which do you like best, Crawford?"

"Oh, Dios." Jacinto's voice was quavering now. "Please, Innes. I hate violence so. Let him go. I was not born for such as this. Wassail and song, Innes. Can't we all have wassail and song—"

"Bueno," said Bailey, as he finished tightening the hammer stud and started putting on the metal side plates.

"CompaÑeros, can't you hear me? Wassail and song. No violence. Oh, carajo—"

"I'll ask you once more." Crawford's voice was flat. "Get out of my way."

"You're not going any place," said Innes, pulling his buckskin jacket up off the handle of his own gun. "Why don't you sit down?"

"Yeah." Bailey had the walnut grips screwed on. He reached for the barrel, fitting it in place. "Why don't you sit down?"

Crawford stooped over to grab the hilt of Delcazar's bowie in his boot and lunged forward at the same time. He struck Ford Innes doubled over. The red-bearded man expelled his air in a gasp and went down. Crawford let himself go with Innes, rolling off the man as they struck. He came face up with the knife in his hand. It happened so fast that Aforismo only had time to pull his belduque back for the throw. Crawford's position prevented an over-the-shoulder throw such as Aforismo's.

"All right, Del," he grunted, and heaved the bowie from his hip, point foremost, while he was still in the act of rolling off Innes.

"Chingado!" he heard Aforismo scream. Bailey's body blocked the view in that same moment. Crawford did not see the blow coming. He shouted hoarsely with the pain of Bueno's Dragoon barrel slashing across his head. Stunned, the most he could do was let his knee fly up. It caught Bailey in the crotch. The man's explosive grunt held a sick agony.

Crawford was still sprawled partly across Innes, the redheaded man had been striving to free his gun without wasting time trying to get from beneath Crawford. He had it out now and was twisting to bring it in line. Blinded by Bailey's blow, Crawford squirmed around, launching a wild kick at Innes. It caught the redhead's fist as he pulled the trigger, knocking the gun up. The Remington's boom filled the room, and the slug knocked a rain of the whitewash they called yeso off the ceiling.

"LÁstima de Dios!" Aforismo's voice came from somewhere after the shot, "come and pull it out, you chile, come and get it out—"

Crawford struggled to his feet, striving to jerk free o£ Bailey. But the man had him about the waist, head buried against Crawford's belly, hair hanging in greasy yellow streamers, groaning with the pain of that knee Crawford had given him in the groin.

Innes still had his Remington. He gripped it with his left hand too, now, rolling back with the weapon in both fists to line it up on Crawford. Struggling with Bailey, Crawford could do only one thing. He threw the weight of his whole body toward Innes. Bailey tried to jerk him back, but not soon enough. Before Innes got that Remington turned in the right direction, Crawford was close enough to lift his leg above the man's face. He saw Innes's eyes open wide with the realization. Then he felt flesh and bone crunch beneath his stamping boot.

Lifting his leg robbed Crawford of his balance, and he fell backward with Bailey's next lunging jerk. They struck the wall so hard the whole building shook, and another rain of yeso spattered down over them.

"Cristo, will somebody take it out? Oh, please, somebody come and take it out—"

Bailey rose up, straddling Crawford. Before the man could strike, Crawford doubled in beneath him and got his legs twisted around so he could heave. Bailey went back with a cry, stumbling into the bench. The plank splintered beneath his body, and the bench collapsed with him. Innes was getting to his feet, hoarse, desperate sobs rending him. He pawed blindly at his mutilated face with his free hand, blinking his eyes as he tried to find Crawford. He must have caught Crawford's movement against the wall. He whirled that way with the Remington coming up.

Crawford jumped toward him, catching the gun in both hands. Still unable to see, Innes clung desperately to the six-shooter. When Crawford yanked the gun around, it pulled Innes too, swinging him against the wall. Unable to tear the Remington free, Crawford let go with one hand and lurched in close to sink his right fist deep into Innes's square belly.

"That for your three-quarter-pound pull, you pordiosero," shouted somebody from behind Crawford, "that for your bacon grease—"

Innes sagged against the wall with a pitiful sob, still trying to pull the gun against Crawford. Crawford brought that fist in again.

"Oh, madre, madre, please come and get it out—"

"That for your hair trigger, you lÉpero, I hope it gives you corajes, I hope it gives you worse than fits of the spleen—"

Innes was slumped halfway down the wall now, still making those horrible sobbing sounds as he refused to give up. Crawford shoved the gun clear back against the adobe, and hit him again. The redheaded man slid completely to the floor, dropping the Remington. Crawford whirled around, wondering why Bueno had not come back in. Then he saw who had been yelling.

Bueno Bailey was huddled in a corner, and standing over him, beating at him with the broken end of the bench, was the fat cook. "That for your bacon grease, you rumbero," squealed Jacinto, and the bench made a crunching sound striking Bueno, "that for your—"

Crawford leaped across the room and grabbed the bench before Jacinto could strike again. The huge Mexican fought him crazily, trying to tear loose and get back at Bueno. "Just one more, Crawford, please, just one more. He deserves it. Did you see what they were trying to do with you? Barba del diablo, just one more. Look at the scabby pordiosero—"

"Who was it didn't like violence?" shouted Crawford.

Jacinto stopped abruptly, looking at Bailey, crouching dazedly against the wall. He stared around at the carnage of the room, the smashed table, Innes sprawled out against the wall clutching his face.

"A fe mÍa," he said in a hollow voice. "Upon my word. It looks like they turned a toro loose." Then his popping eyes came back to Bailey. "I did—that—" he waved an incredulous hand at the man. "No, Crawford, tell me I didn't." Jacinto turned around to clutch at him. "Violencia. Caramba, I couldn't, not me, not little Hyacinth of the River. My father would be desecrated. Please, tell me I didn't do it—"

"Dios, somebody, come and pull it out, damn you, Crawford, somebody, you chingados, come and help me, come and get this cuchillo, damn you—"

It was Aforismo's voice, breaking in on Jacinto's plea. Jacinto turned toward the man, where he still sat up in the bunk. Aforismo must still have had his right hand held back over one shoulder to throw his belduque when Crawford's knife struck him, for the bowie was up to its hilt through his palm, pinning the hand to the adobe wall. With the inconsistency of a child, the tortured look left Jacinto's sweating face, and he began to chuckle.

"Look at him. Aphorisms? Hah! What good are they now? Proverbios. Why don't you give us a saying now, Aforismo?" He had begun to drag the table toward the bunk. "Dichos? What right have you got to dichos? Tripe is sweet? Hah! How does that belduque know?" With a great effort he had managed to climb on the table and bend over the bunk to grab the hilt of Crawford's bowie. "Nothing compares with my kiss. That makes me laugh. That belduque never kissed anything but the inside of your belt—"

"Madre," howled Aforismo, "take it easy, will you?"

Jacinto tugged more violently in his effort to pull the knife from Aforismo's hand. "Dios, Crawford, how did you throw it so hard? No wonder he couldn't get it out. I'll bet it goes clear through the wall into—Crawford, where you going?"

He was almost out the door, and he threw it over his shoulder. "To the house." Crawford ran all the way across the compound and up the steps and through the close, suffocating heat of the entrance hall, glancing through the door of the living-room.

"Merida?" The echo of his voice held a frightening ring, farther down the hall. "Merida?" he called again, and whirled to take the stairway up, knocking off a mahogany riser with his boot heel, leaping the whole elliptical landing where the stairway turned, halfway up. It was recognizable, now, a woman's sobbing, coming from Merida's bedroom. This door was open, too, and he stumbled in. Nexpa was crouched at the foot of the bed with her face in her hands. He grabbed her shoulders, pulling her upward.

"DÓnde esta Merida?" he shouted.

The maid turned a face up to him so dark it looked negroid, her eyes wide and terrified. "No sabe, no sabe," she gasped.

"What have they done to her?" he cried hoarsely, shaking Nexpa. "You know. Where is she? Did they take her? What happened?"

"No sabe," sobbed the maid again. "Huerta, Huerta—"

"Huerta took her," shouted Crawford. "What are you talking about? Where? DÓnde, dÓnde?"

"En su cuarto. Merida eo puso alli, en su cuarto!"

"My room?" he said, and dropped her roughly against the footboard and wheeled to run down the hall to the chamber he had occupied, tearing open the door. The reeded mahogany posts supporting the bare tester frame formed a skeleton pattern in the gloom.

"Merida?" he called. He could not see enough in the semidarkness, and he ran to the windows, yanking the heavy overdrapes of dark blue velure away from the window. Noon sunlight flooded the room, turned the damask covering on the wing chair to a gleaming china blue, caught brazenly on the brass fixtures of the Franklin stove in the small fireplace. Then, blinking his eyes, Crawford saw it, and realized what the maid had meant. "In your room. Merida put it there."

On the chintz coverlet of the bed lay his rifle.