Martin Smith - Stallion Gate

"We're fine," Harvey said. "Nothing really happened."

"Nothing really happened," Oppy agreed.

They looked at Joe with twin scientific detachment, a sudden, palpable line between them and him. He stared back, for the first time his mind fully engaged. It was obvious that Oppy had won. What was interesting was Harvey's surrender, his relief about it.

"You know," Harvey said and turned to Oppy, "it occurs to me that the bomb would probably be flown to Japan. What if the plane crashed? Maybe I should run the Dragon in salt water."

Even his Southwestern tonalities seemed to change subtly, to ape unconsciously Oppy's Eastern croak. His stance shifted, his enthusiasm grew.

The effort of winning Harvey back had taken a toll on Oppy. Each crisis appeared to take an ounce of flesh, and now he looked cadaverous and more determined than ever. He nodded proudly, encouraging the flow of ideas that was purely Harvey, until Harvey asked, "You really wanted me to count down

Trinity?"

"I wanted an American physicist to do it," Oppy answered, "and my first thought was you. An American voice."

"Listen." Joe broke the mood.

Oppy snapped, "What?"

"Just listen."

Omega was hidden in tall pines, amid the calls of jays and canyon wrens, the wind tugging at treetops. It took a moment to hear the siren.

"Fire," Harvey said.

They counted the blasts together. Oppy wore an ironic smile, as if disaster were only to be expected.

"Tech Area," said Joe.

In the middle of the Hill, squeezed between the Main Drive and the mesa's southern rim, the Tech Area held twenty-six nondescript buildings. Each structure was labelled with a placard from "A" to "Z", but this was the only sense of order to them. Half were white Army clapboard, half green Army sheetrock. They were at all angles to one another and shared a military style that decreed that every side look like the back.

A transformer was burning. In some ways the fire was well located: at the back of the Tech Area, away from the gas stocks, cyclotron and particle accelerator, near the fire station and close to hydrants. But it had taken time to cut power to the transformer, and by the time Joe and Oppy arrived, power poles, cables, switching equipment and the high wooden fence around the transformer were all throwing flames and creosote-black smoke into the afternoon. Because of the fence, firemen couldn't get their hoses as close to the transformer as they wanted.

Watching the firemen and the fire was the whole population of the Tech Area: physicists from the cyclotron shack, soldiers from the boiler house, doctors from the medical labs, office clerks and, in front, the Indians who swept every building. A truckload of construction workers rolled up to join the spectators.

Oppy stared at the fire. "No, no, no," he insisted.

His prayer was answered. The Texans leapt from the flatbed of the truck. As soon as they were off, the driver honked and moved toward the fire. The truck was an old Reo with a girder for a bumper, and as fire fighters ran from its path, the truck accelerated until it rammed through the burning fence and into the concrete barrier around the transformer. The truck backed up, lurched forward again and crashed into the burning gate of the fence. The driver rammed the fire a final time, taking out the other fence posts and shovelling more rubble into the transformer and around the base of the power poles. He backed into the clear, kicked open the cab door and hopped down like a rider who had just busted a cow in record time. He was big, in a blue work shirt and jeans, the only construction man in a shirt. He was young, with a fair crew cut and the fluid, arrogant grace of an athlete. A hero. He thrust his left fist into the air. A southpaw.

While technicians swarmed around Oppy, as if the truck had been a manifestation of his will, Joe stood aside and was joined by Felix Tafoya. On the Hill, with his khaki work clothes and push broom, Felix was invisible; in Santiago, he was the calf cutter and brander, an honoured figure. His nose had been kicked askew by a hoof years before.

"That tejano ," he told Joe, "that's Hilario's fighter."

"Seen Hilario lately?"

"I'm cutting tomorrow. Hilario's bringing someone who wants to see a real old-fashioned cutting."

The fire chief led Oppy and Joe around the remains of the transformer. He was a civilian named Daley. Smoke had turned to a film of ash on his face, rubberized coat and boots. He coughed up phlegm dark as tar. Both high-voltage poles were charred and iridescent. Burned cables and wire floated on mud. Joe imagined that Daley was conducting the tour out of professional habit, as if they were stepping through the smoking bricks of a tenement.

"This is really what I wanted to show you and the sergeant." Daley picked out of the mud a carved zigzag, half blistered gold, half blackened wood.

"The dancers had those at the pueblo," Oppy said.

"It's a lightning wand. It's supposed to bring lightning," Joe explained. "Did it?"

"People saw the bolt hit," Daley said.

Oppy looked impatiently in the direction of his office. When he glanced back, he was smiling. "Joe, arson by Indian wand is your department. You handle this. I can walk from here."

"Before you do," Joe said quickly, "I heard some calves are being cut in Santiago tomorrow. I ought to be there in case any of them are hot."

"Cows and wands are definitely your crucial responsibility. Just make sure you're at the La Fonda by eleven. We have visitors coming."

Oppy stepped out of the mire, slapped soot off his hat and headed in the direction of the administration building.

"Arson is what Captain Augustino says," Daley told Joe. "He's got a dozen of these sticks from different fires. Brush fires. He'd be here now, but he's down at Trinity."

"This is not an incendiary device," Joe said and took the wand. "It's a stick. Someone threw it in the fire. You have a lot of Indians up here."

"They really think they can bring lightning?"

"They think they make the world go round."

Joe noticed that the paint that remained on the wooden head had a micaceous glitter, a fancy Taos touch.

"If you say so." Daley spat, grinned and wiped his chin. "Hell, you should know."

20

Three hours of riding brought Joe to the far side of Santiago Canyon. There the foothills between the canyon and the mountains rose in swells of yellow rabbit brush. He had taken Oppy's horse, the tall bay called Crisis. The stallion hadn't been taken out for a month and it ate up the distance with an eager lope.

While Joe dismounted to water Crisis at a tank, he saw the Indian Service riders crossing the rise ahead of him. Al and Billy halted to stand in their stirrups and examine the tank through binoculars, then moved on. Joe waited another minute in the shadow of the tank until a second pair of Service officers riding drag followed. When they were out of sight, he swung up on Crisis and started again towards the Jemez.

Though he rode in warm, glassy sunlight, a rare rain fell in the Jemez, covering the peaks with a gray as faint as waves in a stone. As the trail ascended, it reached ponderosas, cedars, cattle bones, and a new profusion of wild flowers, shooting stars, scarlet gilia. On the last ride of the canyon before it folded into the mountain was a small, battleship mesa. Joe had to kick the horse up a steep path of loose stones to the top.

The mesa was not a mile long and less than a hundred yards across at its widest point. Cedar and juniper huddled over dwarf sage. The cedar was twisted and vigorous, meaning half dead and half alive. The same with the cholla Joe saw, half green stem and half empty lattice. A trick of survival in the high desert was to bloom and die at the same time. Cedar made good firewood. A dead cedar branch could last for years if it didn't touch the ground. He tied Crisis to a live bough and went the rest of the way on foot.