Martin Smith - Stallion Gate

Ray got in the jeep.

"Christ, there are only eight hours to go to the fight. Turns out your old pal Hilario's insisting on a minimum $1,000 bet from every spectator just to hold down the traffic. That's a Texas crowd, Chief."

"That's good. It helps the odds. What are they now?"

"Still two to one. There's a lot of confidence in the boy. I don't like the crowd, Chief."

"We'll cover the bets. Don't worry about the crowd, we have the MPs."

Ray watched Oppy coming back through the brush.

"I'm so fucking nervous I could piss a marble."

"That tent over the picnic tables where they had church this morning," Joe said. "You think you can appropriate that for the fight?"

"Sure. Why?"

"It's going to rain."

As Oppy went by the tank, it made a ninety-degree turn, rolled over an ironwood tree and headed for him. Ray was gawking up at the sky. Joe was caught on the other side of the jeep by Ray. Oppy turned and watched in a defenceless stupor as the tank clattered, dipped, rose. Joe was prepared to save Oppy from nuclear mishap, not a de-fanged, albino Sherman tank. As it looked over Oppy, it stopped. A hatch popped open and a head wearing a white cotton cap and goggles peered out.

"From this crude lab that spawned a dud," the tanker declaimed with a heavy Italian accent, "their necks to Truman's axe uncurled. Lo, the embattled savants stood and fired the flop heard round the world."

The ditty of gloom was popular on the Hill. The tanker pulled his goggles and cap to reveal cheerful eyes and dark, receding hair. It was Fermi.

"Actually, I would estimate the chances of igniting the entire atmosphere at one in three thousand. Acceptable. The chances of incinerating New Mexico at thirty to one. The bomb will work." He tapped his bald spot. "The problem is suntan lotion.

Teller bought the last bottles so he wouldn't burn from watching the blast. Edward really thinks the bomb will work." Fermi pulled down his goggles and cap. "Now I play with my new toy."

The hatch closed. As the tank rolled into reverse, Ray ran to catch up.

At four in the afternoon, three hours before the fight and twelve hours before Trinity was scheduled, Oppy and Joe climbed the tower. Leads coiled round the gray sphere of the bomb to two detonator boxes. Extra wires, crates and pulley ropes crowded the shed. Joe slipped out on to the platform. A pair of artillery spotter's binoculars hung on the hoist and Joe used them to scan the test site.

Oppy followed Joe out.

"I feel as if we're two men mounting the gallows together," he said. "Everyone else is so confident. Did you see the standing orders for today? 'Look for four-leaf clovers.' "

Joe could see woolly patches of buffalo grass, rabbit brush and yucca spears. Also, manmade burrows where crusher gauges had been buried and standing pipes with crystal gauges and threaded stakes of electrical wire running from South-10,000 to the tower base. No clover.

Down at the ranch house where the core had been assembled, a man was swimming in the cistern. It was a concrete cistern with double tanks for the cattle that used to run on the ranch. The man swam back and forth tirelessly, disappearing under the brackish water and surfacing at the other end. He climbed out, dried himself and dressed in white coveralls, cap, short boots and gloves, then got into a Dodge coupe. Joe watched Harvey drive to the tarmac road and turn to South-10,000.

Everywhere Joe looked, vehicles and men on foot were quitting the six-mile radius of the tower. On the West road, a jeep with four flat tyres carried a full load of GIs. Further in that direction, darkening clouds rose over the tents of volcanic peaks. Against them and against the mist of the Oscura, Trinity was a last lit, golden strand. But dust devils were moving in, spinning around abandoned instruments, and thunder was becoming more regular.

"There's an invisible world out there. A new map, a cartology of Geiger counters, seismographs, radiosondes and gauges. Joe, I've been thinking about those Mescaleros. If you start chasing them, you might not come back for a day or two. You and I have been through so much, it would be tragic if we didn't share this climactic moment."

Joe wished the tower were higher, the glasses stronger, and he could see Hilario rolling down from Santa Fe. The lieutenant-governor probably had a state trooper driving. The crowd would be coming from the Texas line, cowmen with fist-sized wads of money. Pollack would just about be sliding into his Cadillac.

"I'll make sure I'm back on time."

Oppy leaned on the rail.

"The future is here, tonight. The world will revolve round us. You don't think the MPs will be able to watch for Apaches?"

"MPs don't know where to look."

Joe imagined Roberto and Ben hiding in a Model T. Maybe a pickup truck poking along the highway, with Felix at the wheel, a couple of cows in the back. Anna might be in Chicago already, among the concrete towers rising by the lake.

"That's their problem. I want you with me," Oppy said. "Until the test is over. Forget the Indians; you're staying with me."

Joe scanned the range. "I don't think so."

"What do you mean?" Oppy asked, as if he'd heard Joe wrong.

"I'll tell you what I see here. I see dirt, brush, rats, snakes. In the real world, in New York, the future is already happening. A warm blue evening. Someone noodling on the keyboard, scratching on sheet music. The horn section is spitting. Ever hear a horn section spit? Mezzo forte. The bass man is tightening his pegs. Same in Philly, Kansas City. Even Albuquerque. Everywhere but here… I see Groves."

Through the binoculars, Joe had found Harvey's Dodge again. Coming the other way was a convoy of jeeps. The lead vehicle had a flag with a single star. Brigadier General Leslie Groves had arrived at Trinity and Joe and Oppy had to climb down immediately to greet him at Ground Zero.

"You think the crackpots have finally pulled it together, Sergeant?" Groves answered Joe's salute.

"Yes, sir."

Groves had the familiar leaden voice, the same slow, stoop-shouldered walk, but he had become sleek since winter. There was more silver in his wavy hair and moustache, a more certain angle to his gray eyes. He hadn't been to the test site since he chose it and he was too heavy to scale the steps and inspect the bomb in its shed, but he led Oppy and Joe and a dozen colonels and majors round the tower base with the confidence of an engineer whose blueprints had merely been followed.

"Looks like a privy." Groves eyed an eight-foot wooden crate that stood on end at the tower base.

"That's what the men call it." Oppy pointed to the cable running into the top of the "privy". "It protects the firing switch. We wanted to keep dust out. There -"

"You mean rain," Groves said. "The weathermen have let us down. I brought VIPs from Washington, that reporter from the Times . I hope they can see something."

"They will."

"My other concern is tower security."

"At this hour people are staying away from the tower," Oppy said.

"Obviously, you're a scientist, not a security officer. This is exactly the opportunity a trained saboteur would be waiting for. I want a light on the tower and some men down here with submachine-guns. Security and secrecy are our first priorities from here on." Groves turned to his aides. "Can you think of anything else?"

"Mescaleros, sir," Joe said. "The local Apaches."

"I remember. We saw some when we came in December. I thought you were going to take care of that, Sergeant."

"Yes, sir. If I could be detailed a couple of men of my choosing, sir, I think I could keep the site secure from at least that threat. Mescaleros like to come down from the hills around dusk. I should get started now, sir."

"Then get moving. I'll assign someone else to the Director." Oppy caught up with Joe at the jeep. He spoke in a low voice, his back to the officers. "What are you up to?" Joe started the engine.