Martin Smith - Stallion Gate

Oppy began pacing again.

"If it works, he can't touch me."

"You don't have to take the chance."

Oppy stumbled over ropes. Two yellow wands shot across the floor, glittering on the oak planks. Their appearance was so startling they might have been a pair of golden serpents that had climbed from the tower.

"These are from that crazy medicine man. Augustino said you were involved."

"Augustino brought them."

Slowly, as if he were approaching something alive, Oppy stooped and picked up the wands. "The captain hasn't even been up here to the shed. I can't believe it was you."

"You don't understand. And if you weren't so damned clumsy -"

"There is something rich and laughable about you working with me and Harvey and Fermi at the same time you were working with a medicine man." The wands sparkled and twisted in the light of the bulb as he raised them. "Chief Joe Pena. What an incredibly stupid time for you to turn into an Indian."

"Give them back."

"Do you really think I'm going to let the effort of all these good men be endangered by a… tribe?"

"It's not just you, it's Anna, too. Augustino knows she quit the Hill."

"Of course. I told him. The last thing I needed was a certified lunatic threatening the success of the project and whoring with a soldier."

As Oppy tried to slip by, Joe hit him backhanded. It was like slapping a fly. Oppy landed, bent double, on the ropes. The wands flew on to cables, his hat and paperback under the bomb cradle.

"I'm sorry," Joe said.

Oppy clutched his chest and gasped rheumatically for air. Some men go through their lifetimes without being hit, it occurred to Joe. They say anything, do anything, and never expect a fist. But they're willing to blow up the world. "I'm really sorry," Joe said.

He checked the wands. The yellow, micaceous skin was not even chipped. He retrieved Oppy's hat and book from under the bomb cradle, then knelt by Oppy and gently placed the book back in Oppy's jacket.

"You bastard." Oppy looked at the .45 on Joe's belt. "What are you going to do next, shoot me?"

"Listen," Joe said. "Forget the wands. You don't want to tell Groves there is some crazy Indian up here or he'll send up Eberly with a submachine-gun and what'll happen to your precious bomb then?" He pulled Oppy to his feet. He put the hat on Oppy's head and steered him through the door. "Most of all, don't say anything to Augustino. In an hour, the test will be called off and I'll explain everything then."

"I thought you were my friend. Captain Augustino warned me, but I trusted you."

Lightning hit a nearby bunker. Oppy rocked unsteadily on his feet.

"It's Fuchs," Joe said. Through the thunder he doubted that Oppy had heard him. It didn't matter.

As Joe helped Oppy get started down the steps, he could see Groves standing anxiously at the base of the tower. When Oppy reached the ground, he shook off whatever the general was saying and shuffled towards the sedan. As soon as the two men were in the back, the car set off towards South-10,000. The only figure Joe saw among the two jeeps left was Eberly, trudging miserably in the mud, keeping his vigil. Joe returned to the shed and opened his palm. "Harry Gold" said black letters. Putting the book in Oppy's jacket pocket, he'd considered, just for a moment, planting the card. Such moments were short. He laid it on the FM receiver because his trousers were damp from the rain. Another bolt hit close by. The bulb in the shed flashed blue and died.

Rain increased to triple time. Waltz time, Joe thought. Inside the shed it was dark, but all around the tower lightning glowed like the stems of flowers in a black garden. Joe used spare rope from the floor to tie the yellow wands, serpent heads up, to the detonator boxes. The Voice of America had briefly signed off and for the first time the site radio could communicate on a clear frequency. Base Camp asked if anyone had any information about a missing mess tent. Early breakfast was being served and the French toast and powdered eggs were getting wet. Joe felt unexpected pleasure seeing the wands stand on their makeshift altar. As lightning closed in on the tower, the shed seemed to rise and plunge into each crash. The fierce, brief glow at the door made the sphere levitate and the wands jump, bright as gold, to life. The shadow on the wall was a head of coiled hair wearing a crown of wands. A dancer's shadow, kicking up thunder.

Everyone insisted he was Indian. So, why not? Put some finery on the atom, a brace of electric snakes, and let it dance on 100-foot legs. Dance in the desert and shake the earth. He wished he knew the right prayer or song. There had to be some music for this, or something he could improvise. Good music and good religion, he assumed, were both born in times of stress. Too bad Roberto didn't make it up the tower.

It was about seven hours to the Mexican border, staying under the speed limit. Traffic between El Paso and Juarez was an all-night affair. Anna would be putting Ben and Roberto on the trolley for Juarez about now. Or driving them across. It would be safer for her to stay over the border herself. He could picture her in a scrape.

" Thirty minutes to zero hours ," the receiver said. He strapped on his belt and .45 and decided, orders or no orders, it was time to go. "This desert's jumpin'," he hummed. Lightning hit east of the tower, but the flash at the door was blocked by a man in a poncho.

"I didn't hear you come up," Joe shouted over the thunder. "Not in this storm, Sergeant." Captain Augustino squeezed into the shed as it went black again. "I thought you went with Oppy and General Groves."

"Private Eberly drove them." Water dripped as Augustino pulled the poncho's cowl from his head. "You gave Oppenheimer the card, Sergeant?"

The captain hadn't brought the submachine-gun, Joe thought. He would have a regular issue .45 under the poncho. "There's not going to be any Trinity, sir."

"Dr Oppenheimer thinks there is. General Groves thinks there is. I think there is. You didn't give him the card?"

"In his jacket." Joe shifted to block the captain's view of the receiver and the card lying on it even though the shed was dark. "The pocket with the book."

White light flooded through the open door, filling the shed like a well, touching bomb, cradle, wands, cable with a dizzying clarity, and in that shaft of light outside Joe saw not a drop. It wasn't raining any more. As the light faded into sound, the wings of Augustino's poncho spread. Joe drew his .45 but all Augustino held was a cigarette lighter. The captain brought the lighter to the bomb so that the flame reflected dully in the steel sphere and glittered on the wands. He pulled the wands free of the ropes to examine them.

"Magic, Sergeant?"

"I'm down to that, sir."

"We're all down to that. I have just seen scientists literally on their knees in the bunkers praying to this tower. Magic is in the air tonight." He snapped the wands in half. "Why take chances? See, Sergeant, I'm willing to give everyone the benefit of the doubt. Medicine men, physicists, they're all the same to me. I think that as a race we only move from cave to bigger cave, from fire to bigger fire. And, outside, always something to frighten us. By the way, you may not have noticed, but the weather has changed."

Thunder became a receding tide. The last bolts were perfunctory and muffled. On the floor, the broken wands looked dark, dead. "You never gave him Harry Gold's card," Augustino said.

"I saw it."

"That's right, sir." Joe took the damp card from the receiver. He prodded the captain out on to the platform. "Thirty minutes to go. We'll just drive about six miles out and hide behind a camera bunker until the test is over, sir."

Rain had stopped and the wind had shifted. A half-moon sailed from cloud to cloud, and the cloud shadows flowered across the valley. A searchlight reached six miles from West-10,000, but the target light was out again, so the beam was wide of the tower. Suddenly, the receiver in the shed sang, " Oh, say, can you see ?" The question echoed from every direction because the Voice of America was signing back on "… by the dawn's early light" reverberated over cactus and staked cables, to volcanic cones on one side, to the foothills of the Oscura and back, echoes overlapping in the night "… what so proudly we hail ." Joe laughed. At the top of the steps, Augustino smiled and shouted to be heard.