Stallion Gate (3 page)

From the dance, Joe cut across the ball field and behind the beauty shop to an area of low, rounded Quonset huts, so-called Pacific hutments designed to be thrown up on tropical islands, not in New Mexico in the winter. This was where the construction workers who built the housing for everyone else were expected to live. He found the fight just by the noise.

The ring was in the dayroom of the central hut. Sergeant Ray Stingo was fighting one of the workers. Like Joe, Ray was a bodyguard and driver with security clearance, and had been a fighter, a heavyweight, before the war. He sported a black spit curl over a beaten-down nose and showed a stomach still hard as a washboard, but he must have had ten years on the kid he was boxing.

Joe edged open the door just enough to see. The hut had the deep, sour reek of stale beer and dead cigarettes. The Hill had recruited and suffered through successions of construction men, each group meaner than the one before, as healthy workers without police records were likely to be drafted. The latest bunch were Texans who labored stripped to the waist but, like a
caste mark, always wore their hats. They’d put on their good Stetsons and shirts for the evening’s entertainment and stood on sofas and chairs to root their boy on. Ray’s backers were MPs, a corps of uniformed thugs who looked nearly civilized next to Texans. Even with helmets and sticks, the MPs usually stayed clear of the huts on Saturday night. Joe saw money passing between the two camps. There was probably $2,000 or $3,000 riding on a fight like this.

The boy was left-handed, fast, aggressive. Not much face: a heavy brow, a spade nose, sandy hair and peg ears. He wore a tank shirt and denim pants; his most distinctive features were his neck and shoulders of fanning muscle. A natural heavyweight. Twenty years old, maybe less.

Ray tried to slip the right jab, but the boy pulled it back and snapped it again, then moved in to a chorus of cowboy hoots. Joe’d always felt it was a combination of the big hats and Texas sun that baked and compressed the Texas brain to the size of a boiled egg. There was a deeper mystery here, though. The Army was drafting men who were missing fingers, toes, other appendages. There was a clerk with two fingers typing in the quartermaster’s office. Joe couldn’t count fingers inside a boxing glove, but this boy seemed exactly the sort of postadolescent maniac who should be gutting Japs on some barren atoll.

Ray kept circling to his left, which was directly into the kid’s jab. In New York he had been a solid, middle-of-the-card fighter, a body puncher. Afraid of nothing
in the world until he came to the Hill and had the safety course on radiation. He paid other drivers to take his place whenever there was a chance of coming within fifty yards of active material. Tonight he looked old, the eyes desperate, the muscles puffy. A painful blush spread on his skin everywhere a punch landed. He circled into a jab, ducked and moved into a straight left and was down, sitting on his ass and gloves, his legs splayed. The kid bounced and motioned Ray to stand.

Joe had already taken a step back into the dark. Through the door the scene looked smaller, like a cockfight, bettors hanging over a pit, some glum, some screaming till their neck cords popped. It depressed him. There was something about war, about murder on the grand scale, that made mere boxing sordid and unnecessary.

The cooling night winds blew. Across the valley, the range of Sangre de Cristo was a spine pointing south to Santa Fe. At his back the Jemez Mountains were a dark volcanic mass. In between, the moon looked ponderous, ready to crash.

Why had he picked on Fuchs? Because he was angry and the German was the first easy target to waltz onto the dance floor. Jesus, how shameless would he get before this war was over?

Since he was supposed to be on 24-hour call to drive Oppy and handle any “native” problems, Joe lived outside the barracks, in his own room in the basement of Theater 2, the enlisted men’s general-purpose hall. The
basement corridor was a black tunnel of volleyball nets and music stands. Without bothering to turn on the light in his room, he went straight to his locker and opened a new bottle of bourbon and a fresh carton of cigarettes. The glow of the match lit a poster for the Esquire All-Stars, featuring Art Tatum and Coleman Hawkins. Hawkins held a tenor sax. The poster was a door to the past and maybe to the future, but it sure as hell wasn’t the present. He blew out the flame; the black men on the wall faded, and he felt as if he were fading himself.

Hanging in the center of the room, next to invisible, was a heavy bag. Joe set his drink and cigarette down, pulled off his tunic and shirt. He tapped the bag with a jab and as much felt as saw it wiggle on its chain. The bag’s name was MacArthur. He hooked it with his left and listened to the satisfying creak of leather and kapok. He hooked again, then crossed with his right and MacArthur jumped. Jabbed, hooked, crossed, bobbed and crossed again. Air popped from the seams. Over the chain, the ceiling groaned. A heavy bag demanded commitment; hit it tentatively and a man could break his wrist. He snapped the bag back, moved in to hit it again and slipped, nearly fell. The bag bounced off his shoulder as he reached to the floor and picked up silk and tulle. The silk had polka dots, like a spotted lily.

“I’ll give you a hint. It isn’t Eleanor Roosevelt.”

Mrs. Augustino lit her own cigarette. She had a silver lighter and a silver cigarette case and that was all. The
captain’s wife luxuriated, naked, on the cot. Even in winter she had a two-piece-bathing-suit tan and she was a genuine blonde. She snapped the lighter shut, but Joe wouldn’t have been surprised if her whole body glowed again like a neon sign. An Army wife was a dangerous thing. He could almost hear a neon sizzle.

“You shouldn’t be here.” He still breathed hard from hitting the bag.

“Try and throw me out, Sergeant, and I’ll scream rape so loud they’ll hear me in Santa Fe.”

“Go ahead, scream.” Mostly what he could see was the glint of her blue eyes.

“Rape,” she said softly.

“Mrs. Augustino—”

“Call me Celeste.”

“Mrs. Augustino—”

“I’m young, attractive, married to a captain. Here I am, waiting hours for a sergeant to come to bed.”

“I didn’t ask you. I hardly know you.”

“Hardly anybody knows me, Sergeant. This is an Army post and I should be at the top of the social pinnacle. Instead, with all these foreigners and scientists, I’m treated like some ignorant hillbilly, like an intellectual embarrassment. I looked around that dance tonight for one man who didn’t give a damn for all these geniuses and tin gods and I only found one, Sergeant, and it was you.”

He found himself interested. “You think so?”

“I saw you talking to Fuchs. You hate them.”

“I may dislike Fuchs.”

“And the German girl with him.”

“She’s not my type.”

“That’s my point.
I’m
your type, Sergeant.”

Well, there was a little bit of truth there. She sat up. His eyes had adjusted to the tiny beacon of her cigarette. Light freckles covered her breasts.

“I’m flattered, Mrs. Augustino. Really, but …”

“It’s cold out there. Could a lady at least have a drink before she goes off in humiliation?”

Joe brought her the bourbon he’d poured for himself. Tin gods and geniuses? And the occasional sergeant, the onetime fighter who now steers clear of trouble, a man in a long, dry spell of good conduct. Looking at it that way, in a desert she was an oasis of sin.

“Where is the captain?” Joe asked.

“Who knows?”

There was a victrola against the wall and 78s arranged neatly underneath; he took better care of his records than of anything else and didn’t need light to set a disc on the turntable and let the arm down. “Mood Indigo” whispered from the needle.

“Then maybe we have time for one dance.” He took the empty glass from her.

In her bare feet, Mrs. Augustino didn’t come to his chin.

“Ready for the dip?” Joe pulled her close.

As they bumped into the heavy bag it wiggled on its chain.

“Was that General Groves?” She laughed.

“No, that’s General MacArthur.”

“That’s a terrible name for a punching bag. He’s the greatest American alive.”

“That’s the one.”

Snow had fallen like a fine dust during the night. Mrs. Augustino stepped delicately through it into the early morning dark.

When Joe went back to his room, it was rank with free-floating lust and stupidity. As he picked up the blanket her cigarette case fell out, wet and cool to the touch, and he knew he didn’t want to see her again. Case in hand, he rushed through the basement hall, knocking aside volleyball nets, up the stairs and across the theater pews that would be turned around in a few hours for Sunday morning services, and threw open the side door she had left by. Too late: nothing but snow and the cold night air. He wore only shorts and icy sweat. Storm clouds had cleared. Directly across the road was Military HQ, an E-shaped building. Its roofs were white rhomboids floating on black.

Between two arms of the E, an engine started and tires rolled. A vehicle crossed the dim gloaming of the road and stopped ten feet in front of Joe. Headlights went on, blinding him. Its engine raced with the clutch
in, then shifted into neutral. Captain Augustino stepped out of the weapons carrier and gave a visible crystallized sigh.

“Excellent tracking snow, Sergeant.” The captain considered the thin sheet-white snow that lay over the road and the prints of a woman’s shoes leading from the door.

“For hunting, sir?” Joe held the cigarette case behind his back.

“Just what I was thinking. Better get your clothes on, Sergeant, we don’t want to miss the dawn.”

“Now, sir?”

“No better day.”

“I don’t have a rifle, sir.”

“I brought one for you. Better get your clothes on.”

“I’m supposed to pick up the Director at eleven.”

“We’ll be done by then.”

While Joe went in for his clothes and jacket he realized his own taste for the expedition. Who was fooling who? If Mrs. Augustino was in his bed, could Captain Augustino ever be far behind? Her invitation to Joe became, as soon as he was between her legs, his invitation to the captain. There was a pure and shining inevitability to the situation that appealed to the blood, as if it were rising with the moon. He felt his self-contempt rise, bright and shining. If nothing else, his career as an informer was coming to an end. Still, mulling a different set of ethics, he should stay away from
officers’ wives. MacArthur jiggled as Joe passed. He deserved to be shot.

The weapons carrier climbed west to the Valle. The snow was deeper in the mountains, and the pines made a luminous tunnel in front of the headlights. Captain Augustino’s face had its own lunar glow, the intensity of a husband who had not slept during the night’s snowfall.

“It’s illegal, you know, Sergeant.”

“What, sir?”

“Hunting. This is an Army preserve now. Of course, Indians still hunt here.”

“Do they, sir?”

“Sneak up here and hunt. Hard for your friends to break old habits.”

“Yes, sir.”

“It’s poaching now, just like in Robin Hood’s time. This is like Sherwood Forest now.”

“Really, sir.”

“You’re not a student of history, Sergeant.”

“Not really, sir.”

“History repeats itself, the first time as tragedy, the second time as farce. It was not an Indian who said that.”

“Not a Pueblo?”

“Karl Marx. You never heard of him?”

“From New Mexico, sir?”

“No.”

“From Texas?”

“No.”

“Musician?”

“Maybe the violin in his parlor. You never heard of
Das Kapital
or
The Communist Manifesto
?”

“I’m going to develop my mind sometime, sir.”

Pines rose like snow-bearing shadows. Augustino was a skillful driver, swinging the weapons carrier wide on a curve without losing momentum or control. A Marlin and a Winchester, both lever actions, rattled on the backseat along with a box of .30-.30’s.

“At any rate, Sergeant, you don’t mind doing something illegal?”

“Not with the right person, sir.”

“That’s what I thought. You said you were a neck shot or a heart shot?”

“I don’t recall, sir.”

“I like the spine shot myself. I like to see a big animal drop where he stands, so he doesn’t run for a mile and make me chase him. Ever shoot a deer in the ass, Sergeant?”

“No, sir, but I understand it’s called a Texas heart shot.”

Augustino laughed appreciatively. “Well, Mrs. Augustino’s father shot a Mexican in the ass once and chased him ten miles up the Bravo before he nailed him.”

“In Brownsville?”

“Outside Brownsville by the time he caught him. Maybe it was a New Mexican. You see, Sergeant, our
attitude is that New Mexicans are basically Mexicans on the wrong side of the border. Also, it is an idea dear to our hearts that Indians are basically red niggers. That’s why they lust so after white women; that’s what proves the point. Anyway, I’m a much better shot than Mrs. Augustino’s father.”

They left the weapons carrier by the road and trudged up a sloping meadow. A pre-dawn grayness filled the Valle, and in the distance the higher peaks of the Jemez were flagged with mist. Joe had the Winchester and a pocket of rounds; the captain had chosen the Marlin. In spite of himself, the crisp air and snow excited Joe; it was a perfect morning for a hunt. And daybreak, the perfect hour. Ridiculous as it seemed, he saw an identical eagerness in Augustino. They moved quickly upwind to the black edge of the tree line and crouched. Elk would be more likely to cross the meadow; mule deer were louder moving through trees. Joe worked his way along the tree line, further upwind, and Augustino followed as naturally as if he’d hired Joe as a guide. They stopped where the trees formed a spit on the edge of the meadow, commanding 100 degrees of white slope and another tree line facing them only sixty yards away. Their disadvantage was that they’d be in sunlight before the opposite tree line, but they couldn’t have everything.

The Winchester’s sights were set for one hundred and fifty yards. He’d aim low on deer coming out of the trees. He might hit nothing; he’d never fired the rifle before and didn’t know whether it pulled right, left, up
or down. Augustino pointed to faint dimples in the snow at their feet. Joe knelt and blew the loose flakes away, exposing impressions the shape of dragging double crescents. “Heifer?” Augustino mouthed. “Elk,” Joe mouthed back. No more than an hour before.