Martin Smith - Stallion Gate

"The first asshole in the water, the captain said," Gruber reminded him.

"You taught Dr Oppenheimer how to ride, you can teach me to ride," Shapiro told Joe. "Tomorrow's Sunday. My life is in your hands."

"I'm working tomorrow."

"Chief, I'll make it up to you. Anything you want. You'll see."

"Maybe in the afternoon."

The Hudson still hadn't crossed the plaza. It seemed to have just disappeared. As if Mrs Quist had gone straight to heaven to buy from Dolores direct.

12

Sunday morning. While Oppy was in Washington, Joe was assigned to the workshops on Two Mile Mesa. They were nail-bright sheetrock structures; inside was a general sense of panic over the one-month deadline of the Trinity test. In the casting building, the commercial sugar kettles in which high explosives were melted had broken down, the stirring ladles clogged with a brown "fudge" of Baratol, a TNT derivative.

Cast 200-pound wedges of explosive were carted in red Radio Flyer wagons designed for small children. When axles collapsed, everyone jumped. Replacement wagons were in a stockroom called FUBAR, for Fucked Up Beyond All Repair. Besides a shortage of wagons, there was a shortage of Bar Top varnish. To prevent them from chipping, castings were always painted with Bar Top; there was nothing more fragile than explosive.

Rough castings of high explosive were trimmed with bronze saws to minimize sparks. Joe hosed a casting while a machinist delicately cut the riser tabs left from the mould. Both men noticed the spark at the same moment. Joe hosed the casting furiously until he was sure only a single crystal of Baratol had sparked and didn't propagate. The machinist was soaked through. "What I like about this job," he told Joe, "is I can piss my pants and no one knows."

Afternoon. A basalt canyon topped with cedars. Below, a stream, moss, violets and a single Apache willow. Joe watched

Shapiro anxiously balance on a twelve-year-old mare named Dixie.

"That's much better," Joe said and walked around the horse and rider. "Here's the secret. Dixie's not going to fall down. She's just going to follow the horse ahead of her. You never go first, you never go last. She is the sweetest, slowest horse in the MP stable. From now on, she is your horse. You are her sack. Be a sack for her."

Shapiro frowned. "Oppenheimer, he gallops, he jumps his horse."

"His horse's name is Crisis. You want to ride a horse with a name like that? You get friendly with Dixie. Take her carrots, apples, sugar lumps every day."

Shapiro sagged in the saddle a little more confidently.

"Back in Brooklyn, my brother kept pigeons," he said.

Joe got an image of Shapiro in a rooftop pigeon cote, feathers and blood on his hands.

"Nice. Well, you get friendly with Dixie like that."

Overhead, the cedars were a gallery of cut-outs against the sky. Joe thought he saw something watching from above. Could have been a crow.

"Chief, you want to do me a real favour, you'll help me fight. You see Ray Stingo fight the kid from Texas?"

"Yeah."

"I'm fighting the kid."

"He'll kill you."

"It's southpaws." There was agony in Shapiro's voice, as if he were talking about an incurable disease. "The first thing I ever learned was to circle off the jab and counter with the right. That moves me square into a leftie's cross. I don't see it coming, I never see it coming."

"Maybe you have a chance."

"Augustine's behind it. He's betting on the kid. Those fucking Texans stick together."

"Get down."

"I really appreciate this, Chief."

Shapiro dismounted and both men removed their caps, web belts and .45s. They assumed boxing stances. Joe put his right foot forward as if he were a left-hand boxer.

"Your right hand is low. Better. Let me see you move." Joe hung out a lazy, open-handed jab in the air to see Shapiro's reaction. "Don't move that way. Duck and move to your left. Keep the right up. Again. Now, hook with your left." Shapiro bored in, hands pumping like a maddened milkmaid. Joe put out another slow-motion jab. "Duck, move and hook." Joe caught Shapiro's hook on the arm. The moss was springy, dappled by sun that broke through the willow.

"You think I have a chance, Chief?"

"Let's see."

Joe shot a right jab more at full speed and slapped Shapiro's chin. Reflexively, the MP moved to his right and into a slap from Joe's left hand. Joe slipped a couple of Shapiro's jabs, then slapped Shapiro's chin and cheek again. As soon as he saw anything coming his way, Shapiro locked into his old habit, moving counter-clockwise into another slap. Joe blocked two hooks, ducked a jab and slapped Shapiro again. The MP's right cheek turned from blue to stinging pink.

"Forget it." Joe grabbed Shapiro's wrists.

"Forget it?" Shapiro's muscles bulged with frustration.

"You can't win. Sorry."

"Help me."

"How many rounds is it?"

"Six."

"Kid's an amateur, basically. He's probably never fought longer than three rounds. I hear he knocks everyone in two."

"Swell."

"That means if you can get to the fourth round, this kid is punched out. You can count to four? Good. So, don't move left, don't move right, don't move back because you're not fast enough. Just move in. You'll get hit on the way in, but you take it. Then you wrestle. Catch my arm, come on. Lean on it, yank it. That wears down the shoulders. Keep moving in." Joe backed away, slipping to one side and then the other. "Three rounds is nine minutes. You wrestle him for eight of those minutes, he's only killing you for one. When you grab him, don't butt. You've got scar tissue, like me. You'll cut before he does. Move in, move in." Joe was disgusted with himself because he was enjoying the trickle of sweat down his ribs, the concentration, the peripheral dance of boxing. Ducking a branch, slipping a jab. When Shapiro stood still, Joe waved him in again. "You dumb palooka, move."

Shapiro looked over Joe's shoulder. Joe turned and saw someone standing outside the shade of the willow. He had to squint because she was so dark against the sun.

"Klaus is climbing a mountain," she said. "It was boring watching him climb a mountain, so I left."

He had to take her from the edges in. Back-lit trim of short-sleeved white shirt and trousers. Hair cut in a page boy, ink-black and straight. Gray eyes making a study of him. No lipstick, but full lips. And the expression of a person looking into a bear pit.

"The Chief was teaching me how to ride," Shapiro said.

"An old Indian method?" Anna Weiss asked Joe.

Sun, white-hot, edged her cheek.

"At least with the Indian method, nobody gets bored," he said.

Where basalt had broken off in storeys of black columns, wrens darted head first into the canyon rim, into their nests.

Far below and behind, Shapiro rode alone in the opposite direction, letting his horse follow the stream back to the Hill.

"I told you," Joe said, "some of the land here is still used by the local people. Which mountain was he climbing?"

"Not so much a mountain as the next valley."

"Canyon?"

"I forgot. You have no valleys here, only canyons. And gulches."

At the top, through the fringe of cedars, the Jemez spread out ahead. High peaks surrounded by pines, the range smoother to the south and building like an ocean swell to the north. Anna turned, exhilarated by the climb, taking in mountain meadows coloured extravagant purple by mariposa lilies. She turned the way children turned, Joe thought, as if the world turned round her.

"You'd think you could see anything from here," she said.

"You're going back to Chicago?"

"Soon." As Joe stepped in front of her, she asked, "Shouldn't the lady be first?"

"Rattlesnakes." Joe nodded to the rocks along the path.

She fell in behind him. "So, Sergeant, these mountains are your home."