Martin Smith - Stallion Gate

"He means Fuchs," Joe told Anna. "So far, Roberto, he seems to be getting away, which is more than I can say for you. A Federal warrant? That means another country, at least until this thing blows over."

"Smokes?" Ben asked. Joe gave him his Luckies. "Keep the pack."

"I prefer Chesterfields," Ben said, but pocketed the cigarettes. "What do you mean, 'another country'?"

"Mexico's the nearest one. You can be another Pancho Villa, Uncle."

"I don't like Mexico. They do something funny to their beans."

"Yeah, they mash them into shit and pour flies over them. That's why they have such good beer. Uncle, are you listening? Mexico's your only chance. The war'll be over soon, people will calm down and then you can come back here."

"You'll take them?" Anna asked.

"Well, this really has nothing to do with you, does it?" Joe said. "You'll be in Chicago or somewhere. We will be a fond memory. You'll look at your pot or your silver pin and you'll always think of us. And, Lord knows, you'll always be grateful for your short but fascinating sojourn in Santiago."

"Stop it, Joe," she said.

"The Indian mysteries revealed, the firing of the clay."

"Please stop."

"The exotic nights with an authentic chief."

"I'm sorry."

"Joe, will you take them?" Sophie asked. "Yeah. Okay, okay. It's not that hard. It means going to El Paso and taking the trolley into Juarez. We'll put some sunglasses on Roberto and a scrape on Ben. Easy. But I won't be able to take them through until Sunday night."

"That's the night of the test," Anna said carefully. "That's the night you're fighting."

"Test of what?" Roberto asked. "The weapon," Joe said. "The gourd of ashes?"

"That's the one."

"And the ladder? You're going to climb it to the gourd?"

"I'm not climbing anything. I'm not even going to be there for the blast. The general wants me to drive around and make sure no wild Apaches wander on to the test range. That's why I can get away and fight. After the fight, we'll go down to the border. The trick is for you to hide out until then. and for you to get to the fight with a car."

"A scrape?" Ben muttered. He already had the manner of an emperor going into exile. "Where are you going to fight?"

"Below Socorro is a little town called Antonio. There's just one cross-street. Make a left and go half a mile to the Owl Cafe. At the back of the cafe is a motel. The fight will start in the motel courtyard at 8 pm. By nine it should be over and the cars cleared out. That's when you show up."

"What if you can't go?" Anna asked. "What if there's a problem?"

Joe talked to Ben and Roberto.

"Park in the courtyard and put out your lights. Wait five minutes, no more. There'll be MPs all over the place. If I can't join you in five minutes, that means there's a real problem. There won't be, don't worry, but in case there is, tell the driver to just go back to the highway and turn south to El Paso and then put you on the trolley car. When you find a place in Juarez, call the Casa Mariana in Albuquerque and leave a message where you're staying. If there's a change in plan before then, I'll tell Felix Tafoya, who seems to be just as good being a clown or tossing lightning wands as he is pushing a broom."

"Good." Roberto grinned. "You figured that out."

"Yeah. And Ben, your former brother Hilario told me the other day he'd never missed a dance in Santiago. I didn't see him at the dance when they came for Roberto, but let's assume Hilario was absent-mindedly telling the truth about his perfect attendance. He fingered Roberto and left. He'll be at the fight, so keep your head down."

Sophie came out of the dark, taking off the blanket she wore as a shawl. Joe thought she was finally joining the circle at the fire, but she threw the blanket over the flames, smothering them as she stomped on the blanket. "Indian Service," Joe told Anna. "You're sure I can keep the cigarettes?" Ben asked. "Yes. Get out of here," Joe said.

"That's good of you," Ben said in Tewa. "You're a good boy."

All the dogs on the east side of the pueblo were, by now, barking the alarm. Sophie and Ben led Roberto up the river-bank and around a screen of thimbleberries. Joe and Anna climbed to the jeep and pulled on their shoes.

"This is, you know, much more interesting than a walk round Gottingen," she said.

"Very few cowboys in Gottingen," Joe said.

He started the jeep. Headlights out, they rolled past cottonwoods and watertanks and on to a dirty road between the pueblo and fields of barley and sorghum. Over peach trees was a glimpse of the church's low brow. The air stirred the smell of roasted chillies. Joe drove along an irrigation ditch towards the wooden planks that bridged a cross-ditch. The planks coughed as the jeep passed over.

"There!" Anna said.

Fifty yards ahead, the two Service riders were on horseback. Al, the older one, waved both arms for Joe to stop. Billy seemed to have acquired a handgun with a long, bright barrel.

Joe turned behind a windbreak of sunflowers. If he was stopped, he was AWOL. Anna was breaking security. At the same time, he could see what the riders were up to. Sophie, Ben and Roberto had taken to the ditch and Billy and Al were waiting for them to come up. The fields were a maze of ditches, all fed by the mother ditch at the north end, along the highway. If the fugitives reached the corn fields, where the rows of stalks were shoulder-high, the riders would never catch them.

Joe eased through the sorghum, the grass beating against the wheels. The riders paid no attention. The jeep rolled into the corn, mowing a row as it went. The stalks bent, broke. Red corn, blue corn, black corn, beaded corn, Indian corn. At the end of the row, he stopped.

To his right, about twenty yards down the dirt road, Al was shouting, "Open her up, Billy."

To Joe's left, thirty yards up the road, Billy was leaning out of his saddle to turn the wheel that would raise the wooden gate of the ditch. Roberto, Sophie and Ben were neatly trapped. The flood of water would drown them or drive them back to Al.

"Get out," Joe told Anna. "I'll come back for you."

"I want to go with you," she said.

"I don't want you with me and I don't have time to argue. I want you waiting here until I come back and drive you nice and slowly to the Hill, so you don't miss your train in the morning."

Anna clutched the back of the seat.

"No."

"Okay," Joe said.

He slipped the jeep on to the road, turned and stood on the accelerator. Billy was still leaning from his horse and yanking the gate wheel when he heard the engine approach. Twenty feet from Billy, Joe hit his headlights. The cowboy wore a gold sateen shirt and an expression of astonishment. His horse reared and toppled backwards out of the glare. Joe heard man and mount hit the water of the mother ditch, then the jeep was across the planks of the ditch and on to the highway, heading north.

A hundred yards up the highway, Joe spun around because he had to come back down the highway and along the mother ditch to get to the Hill. Billy was screaming he couldn't swim. Al had ridden up to the ditch and in the wan moonlight sat patiently on his horse, aiming his gun with both hands. A speckled Colt, Joe remembered. There was no way the cowboy would really shoot, he thought. Not an Army jeep.

As he passed in front of Al, Joe changed his mind, turned off his headlights, slammed on the brakes. The gun flashed, bobbed, flashed again. He floored the accelerator. The third shot was over-corrected, rushed, behind the jeep. The shots after that sounded like a tin pail being futilely kicked.

For miles, Joe and Anna drove without lights and without saying a word, as if the dark and quiet sustained the moment of escape and delayed the saying of goodbye. He and she were so different, he thought, that any words divided them. It proved how strange the Hill was that they'd met at all. Let the last little triumph roll as long as possible, for ever if possible.