Martin Smith - Stallion Gate

"I thought you were at Trinity, sir."

Augustino opened the back door of the nearer Ford. "I thought you were on the Hill. Help me get him into the car." The band could be heard faintly in the lot. He could make out the beat, but not the tune. Two-four time. A whisper of horns.

He gathered Harry Gold in his arms and laid him on the back seat of the car. "What are you going to tell Gold when he wakes up?"

"The concussion will eliminate any short-term memory. I'll tell him he got drunk, fell down and hit his head. He was drunk ."

"He won't believe it. He'll go right to the Russians."

"Of course he won't believe me. But, apart from treason, Harry Gold is a two-bit chemist, a nothing, a zero. The luckiest day of his life was when he became a spy. You think he wants to lose his only interesting quality? Also, even if he realizes I knocked him out, he'll know he's already caught and on the cross. Hope springs eternal even in the breast of pathological scum. He's not going to tell the Russians anything. Tonight never happened."

"Like us, sir. I never saw you, you never saw me."

"Would I stand in the way of romance, Sergeant? When we're on the same team at last?"

On the way back to the Hill they stopped to swim in the Rio where it cut a deep curve in the sandbanks above Santiago. Berry petals passed on the dark surface of the water. There were five days left until Trinity. Minutes seemed to hurry by, as it rushing to a deeper, quicker channel of time.

"A choirboy? I can't believe it," she said.

" We'll go to Harlem an' we'll go struttiri ," he sang to her, " an' there'll be nothln' too good for you ."

She was cool and weightless to the touch and she slipped away from his hand. Something was wrong, although he didn't know what.

"Sometimes I wonder what my father's dreams for me must have been," she said. "A lecturer's chair at the Mathematical Institute. Learned arguments with other professors as we watched Gottingen slip into the dusk."

"Sounds like a travelogue."

"The memory of a refugee is a travelogue. Anyway, a proper husband, also a professor, two children and a villa on the Wilhelrn-Weber-Strasse with windowboxes of clematis. I don't believe my father ever dreamed of the Rio Grande or you. I will miss it."

"Miss it? What do you mean?"

"I will miss this place."

"You're leaving?"

"Everyone will be leaving soon after Trinity. I'm leaving before. I've only told Oppy and you."

"That doesn't mean you have to leave New Mexico."

"Yes, it does."

"What about us?"

"Us? This is your home, and now you have your music here, too. It's not my home, and I don't have my work here."

Though he was floating, he had the sensation he was about to fall through the water.

"You came tonight to say goodbye?"

"Yes."

"No. You asked me to come to Chicago. That's what you were getting at when we were dancing."

"Joe, we've only known each other a month - really, two weeks. This is not the end of a long affair. We were just getting to know each other. I've never seen you happier than you were tonight."

"I thought you were happy, too."

"Not like you. It must be wonderful to be so in love with music."

"You're leaving to make some sort of ethical statement about Trinity, right? You feel forced to go?"

"You could say that."

"Then come back."

"And do what? Sell cigarettes in a nightclub?"

"You wouldn't have to do anything."

"But I do do something. I'm a mathematician, and I work at a certain level. Besides the Hill, there is no such place here for me to work. Could I work with you? You wouldn't know what I was saying. This is not insulting. I'm not asking you to leave your music, to live in Chicago and erase blackboards for me ."

"Then the hell with the club. I'll go with you, once I'm out of the Army."

"Now that I know that the club is what you want most in life? Oh no."

"I love you. There'll always be another Casa Mariana."

"I don't think so. I think this is your chance. For you to give it up and follow me, that would be a small version of Joe Pena. You know, the first time I saw you at the Christmas dance, Klaus Fuchs pointed to you and said, 'There is the Chief, stupid and dangerous and larger than life.' You aren't stupid, but you are the other two and I don't want you to change. I don't want you any smaller than Chief Joe Pena."

"It's beginning to sound as if I've been some sort of conquest for you. Entertainment. Part of your tour of Indian country."

"That's not true."

"It's simple. I love you and I'm willing to go. If you loved me, you'd stay."

She reached out for him. "I do love you. We can make love right now." He wanted to. The water was getting colder and colder. She hovered in it like a flame.

"Then stay." He could only stand her silence so long before he turned. "Then go. Let's get you out of here. Let's get you packed and gone."

She followed him out of the water, so he was the first to see two figures squatting on the sand. "Hello, Joe."

24

In the quarter-moon, Roberto and Ben Reyes showed the fatigue of a chase. Their hair was loose, their necks limp. Sophie Reyes hung back behind a log. Joe picked up Anna's skirt for her. "One's blind. The other's so old it doesn't matter."

"They need your help," Sophie said. "Do they?" Joe asked. He stepped into his trousers. "Well, the lady's in a big hurry. So, excuse us, but we're going."

"It was the Indian Service. They came at sunset," Roberto said. "It was lucky they came from the east. Ben saw them."

"A buckle shone," Ben said. Joe snatched his shirt from the ground. "Really? And you desperadoes slipped away? How many were there?"

"Just two," Ben said. "Those Service riders."

"No one riding drag? You sure are lucky. Two cowboys came straight into the sun. You flush and nobody follows. You came back here to your house?"

"Your house," Roberto said. "We thought they might be watching Ben's."

"Naturally. You could have kept on going." Anna buttoned her shirt. "Joe," she said, "he's blind."

"Blind and crazy."

"Have you climbed the ladder in my dream yet?" Roberto asked Joe. "See what I mean?" Joe asked Anna.

"The Service came by with a Federal warrant," Sophie said. "They were talking about sabotage and the FBI. They said they were watching the bus terminals, so Ben and Roberto should give themselves up."

"You saw the warrant?" Joe asked. "I can read," Sophie said stiffly. "They need your help, Joe," Anna said. "To what? I already gave them two chances to escape, but they wanted to play cowboys and Indians, only now it's getting a little rough. I told them there was a war on, they didn't believe me. What do you care? A minute ago you couldn't get out of here fast enough. Come on, I'll take you back. You're shivering."

"I gathered some sticks there," Sophie said. "We could be warm if you have a match."

"You have to help them, Joe," Anna said. "I don't have to do a damn thing. I'm not responsible for them. Don't tell me what to do. I made a fool of myself for you, but that's over, right? Over, and you're going. I don't want to hear any more about ethical choices from you. All I want is you in the jeep, you on the train and gone."

"Joe," Sophie said. "Please."

In a depression in the sand was driftwood that looked like antlers. He knelt and lit the shavings underneath with his lighter; yellow flames branched from stick to stick. In the glow, Ben's face was dusty and scraped from a fall. Roberto's hands were wrapped in bloody bandages. Joe looked up. Was the entire universe Indian, or were there scattered craters of sanity? Roberto's eyes turned to the heat. "That spy on the cliff. Whatever happened to him?"