Stallion Gate

  "I need Texas money, from El Paso, from Lubbock. That's a long way to come."

  "I'll make it easy for them. We'll meet in the middle, south of Socorro at the Owl Café. The night of the 15th. Behind the café. Yes or no?"

  At the last moment, Joe thought Hilario would back out.

  "You came here to deal, you big son of a bitch. You came looking for me."

  "Looking towards peacetime, Hilario, same as you."

  "Okay." Hilario nodded to Joe and added a public nod for the other men at the corral. "Okay, you place your bets, Joe. I think you'll be surprised at the good odds you'll be able to get on the famous Chief Joe Peña."

  Feet trussed, the calf tried to swim on the ground. Felix squeezed the sac, clearing the way for the sizzling edge of the knife. It was okay. Hilario would put it together. It wasn't a matter of face, it was a matter of action, of money willing to ride on the only two fighters in the state. The calf's eyes grew.

  Joe walked into the cottonwoods to relieve himself. He was going to have to start taking better care of his kidneys. One more fight. And get some sleep. A blue morning star lay over the river. Jupiter? Venus? What if there were no moon? Men walked around bound by the gravity of the earth, but also lifted by the floating mass of the moon. What if there were no moon, no lift, only the heavy and monotonous chain of the earth? No better light at night than stars that said "We are cold and far away". What if he lost?

  For his alibi's sake, he got the Geiger counter from the jeep and found the pen on the far side. Even in the semi-dark Joe saw the cows were Felix's oldest mavericks from the highest, dryest canyons. The man at the pen was just as unlikely, a short figure in a suit. His back was to Joe because he was patting the steers through the fence – wisely, because the animals were wild enough to stomp him if he went into the pen. Not patting, Joe thought. Combing, and dropping the combed, loose hairs into an envelope.

  The man looked around, surprised. "Chief! Oh! Chief!" He had a swarthy, heart-shaped face, a full lower lip and black hair that was so wavy it was almost marcelled. When he turned, the comb and envelope had vanished. With his double-breasted suit he wore cowboy boots. He took a wobbly step forward and gave Joe a pudgy hand to shake. "I didn't hear you coming. We met at the La Fonda, in the bar. Harry Gold."

  "From New York."

  "I came with Happy."

  "With Hilario. What's going on?"

  A giggle escaped Harry Gold.

  "I lost my new hat."

  Joe peered into the pen. There were five cows, black and brown, a mix of Angus and Hereford, a group of scarred and wary veterans. The meanest-looking cow was standing on a crushed Stetson.

  "You wanted to buy a steer?"

  "I was thinking of having a barbecue."

  "Felix is cutting calves right now. Take one of them."

  "Good idea," Gold agreed.

  "He'll slaughter it and dress it for you. Better than a butcher."

  "These cows looked a little old."

  Not just old. As the light improved, Joe saw that two or three of the animals were mottled around the stomach and flank. Usually a cow grayed at the muzzle first. As he opened the gate, the nearest steer lowered a set of mossy horns a yard wide at the tips and retreated. Joe pushed his way into the middle of the cows and peeled back some of the milky hair. The skin underneath was black. Like the cow he'd killed before.

  "Your hat." Joe came out of the pen with a twisted brim of felt.

  "Thanks," Gold said and backed up into a cowpie. He looked down. "New boots, too."

  "Soak them and leave them on," Joe suggested,

  "I'll try it. Adios."

  "Absolutely."

  The whole time, Joe had been holding the Geiger counter. Someone who didn't know what it was would have asked, Joe thought.

  Harry Gold knew.

  22

  By the time Joe got to Santa Fe, Indian women were spreading their blankets on the portal, the porch of the old Governor's Palace on the north side of the plaza. "Creeps" – FBI agents in plain-clothes and snap-brim hats – were taking their places on benches under the plaza cottonwoods.

  The agents followed scientists from the Hill whenever they came to shop, waiting in the plaza because the Army bus from the Hill let the shoppers off just half a block away on

  Palace Avenue

  and all the shops were around the plaza. At the end of the shopping everyone always headed to La Fonda for cocktails.

  Joe relieved Ray Stingo, who was so excited to hear the fight was on he didn't want to leave for the airport to meet the VIPs arriving for the Trinity test. Only small planes could land at Santa Fe and the ride over the mountains was so rough it was commonly called the "Vomit Comet". Oppy was at the La Fonda with some psychiatrists who had arrived on the morning train at Lamy.

  Instead of shooting and burning the cows, Joe had chased them up Santiago Creek and hoped they'd find their way back up the canyon. Sweaty, dirty and tired, he strolled to the shadow of the obelisk in the center of the plaza, where he could watch La Fonda. He took out a cigarette. Put it back in the packet. No more smoking. He'd thought he hated boxing. Even exhausted, though, he felt his body lift at the prospect of a fight, as if he'd deprived it of worthy adversaries. The first few tourists were up, making their way to the portal. No soldiers yet. Joe saw Hilario drop Harry Gold in front of La Fonda.

  Hilario drove on and Gold went into the hotel. In the plaza, the "creeps" concentrated on their newspapers; the morning headline was that Truman had arrived in Berlin.

  A spy? After all this time, a real spy? It took more evidence than a few hairs from a hot cow.

  A man with an aureole of silver hair approached the obelisk. It took Joe a moment to recognize Santa because the Hill psychiatrist was covered with white blisters and his hands were in cotton gloves.

  "Hives," he explained to Joe. "Purely psychosomatic, nothing contagious. Ever since we took that ride through the mountains with the you-know-what."

  "Yes." Joe whispered, "I'm supposed to be with Oppy right now briefing our teams. We have some excellent men. Jungians, alienists, some strict Freudians. General Groves has written some press releases and we're going over them for psychological impact. Of course, if the bomb is a dud, there won't be any release. If the bomb makes a big bang, then we'll report that an ammunition dump exploded without loss of life. If we blow up the desert and everyone in it, then we have to come up with a different story. The main thing is to avoid panic. And send our teams, most of which will be stationed well away from the blast, to those cities that will be most affected by runaway fallout. I feel I can confide in you."

  "Yes?"

  "In that instance, a press release would choose an alternative, assimilable emergency. 'Epidemic', 'tainted water', 'chemical warfare'. I say we ought to say 'chemical warfare' right at the start because people are never going to believe 'epidemic'. The Freudians want 'tainted water', naturally."

  Gold walked out of La Fonda in shoes instead of boots, wearing a fedora in place of his late Stetson, smoking a cigar and holding a newspaper folded under one arm. He crossed the street to the smaller pseudo-adobe building on the opposite corner, the ticket office of the Santa Fe Railroad.

  "You're wondering," Santa said, "if all this is going on inside, why am I out here?"

  "Yes?" Joe mumbled, distracted.

  "They're picking volunteers for the team for Trinity. Do you think I'm cowardly?"

  "What do you think?"

  Santa laughed in a whisper. "I knew you'd say that."

  Gold emerged from the ticket office, stood at the corner, looked at his wristwatch and looked at the public clock, a giant pocket watch on a column outside a jewelry store on the south side of the plaza. He started back across the street to La Fonda, changed his mind and continued to the south side, past the curio shop, the jeweler’s, a haberdasher's and into Woolworth's, and sat at the counter.

  "But it's good to have someone to talk to," Santa said. "Excuse me."

  W
hen Joe saw a waitress bring Gold a coffee, he left the obelisk for the ticket office. The clerk was a grandmotherly Spanish woman who told Joe he had just missed the friend he described, but she could sell him a ticket on the same train going to Kansas City and New York on the 17th. Joe said he didn't know if he could go then, but not to tell his friend if he returned to the office because Joe wanted it to be a surprise.

  As Joe went back to the plaza, he saw Santa vanishing in the opposite direction, moving stiffly like a man in a body cast. In Woolworth's, Gold was still nursing his cup. Although he had a newspaper –the New Mexican judging by the eagle on the masthead– Gold didn't bother reading it. He sat looking at plaster sundaes, his lower lip pendulous with thought. He tapped the crystal of his watch, dropped change on the counter and walked out.

  The plaza was coming to life, tourists not so much wandering in as suddenly appearing as skirts on the portal, as kids with pistols running around the bandstand. The bank on the east side of the plaza opened its doors. Mail trucks rolled from the post office, a block away and across from the cathedral. There were no traffic lights; cars and trucks ran counter-clockwise round the plaza and sorted themselves out at the corners.

  Gold stood on the curb, poised to dash through the traffic directly across the plaza and towards the obelisk and Joe. A milk truck went by. A carload of Navajos. Now Gold was walking up the streets, under the pocket watch, past the Indian drums in the curio shop windows and, again, to the ticket office on the far corner. Then he appeared to make a decision to take his time. He strolled past the office, past Thunderbird Curios and the bank's Ionic columns to a Territorial style building that housed Guarantee Shoes, crossed

  Palace Avenue

  and made a detour down a side street to Maytag's. Joe didn't know why he was following Gold. Curiosity? A sense that everything about Gold was wrong? He seemed carried by the wake of the fat little man. Maytag's sold washing machines on one side of the store and music on the other. Gold scrutinized the Hit Parade list taped to the inside of the window. At last, he came back up the street to the plaza and Santa Fe's central attraction, the Indians on the portal.

  The portal was a shaded arcade. Women from the pueblos of the Rio Grande valley sat against the cool adobe wall. In front of each was a blanket or rug displaying red San Juan pots, black pots from Santiago, or Santa Clara's double-necked wedding pots, turquoise jewelry from Santo Domingo, or Navajo beaten-silver concho belts. A few women wore the single-shoulder dress; most wore cotton dresses, aprons and sweaters. They yawned or read movie magazines or gossiped, paying cursory attention to the Anglos who stooped or knelt to fondle or disparage the wares exhibited. This being a holiday event, the would-be buyers dressed like dudes and browsed with intensity.

  Gold joined a trio of sergeants who were studying a blanket of earrings, bracelets and hairpins. The crown of Gold's fedora came to the shoulders of the soldiers. One sergeant admired a hairpin with a peacock tail of silver and jet. Joe slipped between the cars parked diagonally along the curb of the portal. The adobe overhang was supported by massive posts of ponderosa pine worn smooth by generations of tourists, and Joe could look at an angle through the colonnade without being seen himself. Some of the women selling pots he recognized. Almost in front of him was a sleek and chubby girl with black bangs, a teenage cousin of his named Polly, for Paulina. She'd put down a copy of Modern Screen to show one of Sophie Reyes' smooth, obsidian-dark pots to a kneeling man in a panama. Gold moved closer, his eyes jumping from blanket to blanket. He stopped to pick up and examine a silver cigar holder. He seemed genuinely to want it, and he replaced it on the blanket with regret. He joined two nuns in the examination of silver crucifixes, falling into the spirit of friendly reverence. Gold seemed to suffer from boosterism, enthusiastically entering into whatever mood he encountered. Good-naturedly he let himself be talked into trying a clip on his tie. The clip looked like a silver bomber. His tie had hand-painted palm trees. He gave the clip back and bent over the next blanket, Polly's.

  "For fruit?" Gold lifted a bowl with an embossed serpent around the rim.

  Polly shrugged, but the man in the panama said, "Would you put fruit on a Rubens? That's a bowl by Sophie Reyes."

  "She's famous?" Gold was impressed.

  "To collectors."

  "You collect these?" Gold turned the bowl round.

  "I collect Dolores. She's dead and her pieces are very hard to find."

  "Like art?"

  "It is art." The man in the panama looked up as he took the bowl from Gold and Joe saw that the collector was Captain Augustino in civvies. "The pots are an expression of the native concept of the earth, and man's emergence from the earth, each pot both earth and womb. A beautiful, powerful concept."

  "The decoration–"

  "There is no decoration," Augustino cut Gold off. "There is representation. The snake is the never-ending cycle of the world. It's a representation of lightning. Lightning brings rain. Rain brings corn. You see the contradictions of violence and fruitfulness married in this symbol. The bowl is a vision of primitive harmony. Although not quite as fine as a Dolores."

  "That's the one you collect?"

  "I can show the collection to you, if you'd like."

  "Thanks, but I'm in Santa Fe for only a day…"

  Harry Gold worked his way past the last blankets and out of the portal to the corner, where he checked his wristwatch again. An open tour bus was at the corner and the guide was saying something unintelligible through a megaphone. Cameras leaned out of the bus. If Gold took the tour, there was no way Joe could stay near without being seen. At the same time, Joe was wondering about Augustino. The captain was supposed to be 200 miles south at Trinity.

  The tour bus pulled away without Gold. Gold was walking fast, trousers flapping around short legs. Joe looked back. Augustino had disappeared from the portal. Joe had to trot across the plaza flagstones to see Gold head toward Woolworth's, where he'd started out, then make a right past Rexall Drugs, left on Don Gaspar Street, which wasn't much larger than an alley, and hurry past the bars and the pawn shops. Joe stayed a block behind, but Gold seemed unconscious of the possibility that he might be followed.

  Two blocks from the plaza, along the avenue called the Alameda, the Santa Fe river resembled either a dried-up open sewer or a creek. Rocks, brambles and rusted cans filled the bed, although cottonwoods grew luxuriantly on the near bank, tapping the dampness below. A concrete span called the CastilloBridge led to an opposite bank of poplars and, beyond, the white dome and cupola of the state capitol building in the distance. In the middle of the bridge's walkway, Klaus Fuchs smoked a cigarette and contemplated a scooter abandoned or carried away by some past flood. The tires were gone, perhaps gathered in one of the war's rubber drives. Fuchs rested his foot on the middle of the three iron pipes that served as guardrails. A folded newspaper was tucked under an arm. Joe stopped in the shadows of the cottonwoods to watch.

  As Gold walked on to the bridge, he began feeling his jacket pockets, trouser pockets, shirt. A cigarette dangled from his mouth. He reached Fuchs. Fuchs fumbled through his own pockets, found a match and lit Gold's cigarette. He didn't wait for a thank you before leaving, a grim kewpie doll marching off the bridge and up the Alameda. Gold assumed the same stance Fuchs had had on the bridge, foot on the rail, gazing at the scooter on the dry rocks underneath the span.

  Up the Alameda, Fuchs got into his Buick. He hadn't come in the bus. He'd avoided the plaza completely. No more than two words could have been said on the bridge, Joe thought. Gold pondered the river, the branches overhead, and through the screen of poplars the faraway cupola on the state dome. He smiled at two girls on bikes. The tour bus rolled by, heads swiveling, leaving a trail of muffled facts and dates. Gold snapped a look over his shoulder in Joe's direction, but out of fleeting caution and not because he'd seen Joe move. Gold relaxed and finished his cigarette, stifled a gaping yawn that closed into a smile of relief, flipped the butt and left the bridge.


  Gold walked down the Alameda, turned on Guadalupe and again on San Francisco, making a loop back towards the plaza. The Lensic Theatre had stucco walls and Moorish trim. Gold stopped to read a playbill for Here Come the Co-eds with Abbott and Costello. He saw his reflection and rubbed the blueness of his cheek. Passing a moment later, Joe saw his own reflection, a sergeant in a rumpled uniform, hair lank, face ominous.

  The plaza was busier now. Tourists spilled out of Woolworth's to stop Indians and ask them to pose. Like a man breasting waves, Cleto, the necklace vendor from Santo Domingo, stood in the middle of the pavement, arms of turquoise necklaces outstretched. Cleto's gray braid had come undone, the belly of his shirt was spotted with chili, and still he maintained an expression of majestic contempt. Gold sidestepped the crowd around Cleto and then had to wait for Army trucks to pass. Across the street, at La Fonda's loading station, porters in mariachi vests shuffled suitcases.

  Joe slipped by Cleto. Once in the hotel, Gold would be out of reach. Something had happened on the bridge, though Joe didn't know what. Gold stepped up on the curb, newspaper held tightly under his arm. It was the Albuquerque Journal. Gold had had the New Mexican when he went to the bridge. In his mind, Joe watched again as Gold, cigarette stuck to his lips, feeling his pockets for a match, walked to the center of the bridge and joined Klaus Fuchs, who handed his folded newspaper to Gold the better to, without a word, find a match in his jacket, brusquely light a stranger's cigarette, take back his newspaper and leave Gold to a solitary view of the Santa Fe river. Not his newspaper, though. Gold's paper. They'd switched.

  At the loading station, Joe grabbed Gold, who gave an involuntary hop of surprise.

  "I was hoping I'd see you again," Joe said. The blood rushed so quickly from Gold's face, Joe thought the man was going to swoon.

  "You were?"

  More cars were parking, more suitcases were being unloaded. Joe encircled Gold with an arm and started to lead him out of the way.

  "I was thinking how you lost your Stetson. A friend of mine has a shop around the corner. Come on– we'll pick you a new hat."