It was September. The shank end of the summer wasn't kind to the little town perched between the big blue Pacific and the greyed out mountains to the east. It was the driest time of the year. Los Angeles wasn't as dry as most places this far south, but it had a weedy, neglected look, as if most of the vegetation had been chewed up and spit out because it had a bad taste. Come to think of it, most of the folks had that same look.

He was here in Los Angeles, with no particular place to go, because the man he'd worked for this summer was none too bright. There was a market for cattle in Los Angeles: there was a small Army outpost, and some Indians plopped down at Twenty-Nine Palms to the east. But there was a hell of a bigger market in San Diego: lots more Army, lots more Indians, Navy victualers.

Of course it cost more to drive the extra miles between Los Angeles and San Diego. Still, it didn't cost fifteen dollars a head to drive those extra miles, and that was the price difference. Heath was the first to admit that his math wasn't the greatest, but even he had enough fingers and toes to figure they'd have done better walking the extra distance to San Diego. He figured he didn't want to spend the winter working for a man he knew for a fact was dumber than he was.

Spencer had paid him off with ill-grace. "You ever settle down," he'd sniped, "you might make a cowboy some day. Settle down, and lose that bad temper of yours."

Heath had taken his pay. It seemed he'd taken the advice, too, because he found himself thinking about it afterwards. Settle down! Fifteen months ago he'd left Spanish Camp, scorched by the collapse of his naive hopes. Since then he'd been in Tijuana (a memory he hastily pushed away); he'd spent the fall logging in Oregon; spent the winter driving a stage from Modesto to San Francisco; in the early spring he'd broken horses for the army; and he'd spent the summer in the southern end of the Central Valley, chasing cattle. Settle down? Tumbleweed was more settled than he was.

In a way it didn't bother him much. He was twenty-two, a young man yet, though his face gave the impression that those twenty-two years had been tumultuous ones. Too young, really, to be settling down. Best that a man did all his roaming first. It was a big world, still a lot of it unseen. And yet--and yet back in Spanish Camp he'd felt certain he could settle. Didn't want to see any more of the world without seeing Sarah right alongside him. Even in the dry stillness of Los Angeles he felt a little chill; had that been his one chance? Was he doomed to roam the west, never quite finding a place?

Well, and what if he was? Maybe he was a roamer by nature. Maybe last year in Spanish Camp he'd just been mistaken, blinded by his foolish desire for a woman who would never, under any circumstances, have taken him. Maybe he was just too restless--and too angry--to live alongside the same folks, year in and year out.

Because he had to admit that part of Spencer's criticism was true. Anger had lived with him, a familiar companion, since he was a schoolboy. But this last year, an uglier edge had crept into his anger, and it took hold of him more often, and more deeply, than in the past. Maybe growing up always meant losing some faith. But his passage had been rockier than most, and, at twenty-two, there wasn't much faith left in him. Life--his life, at least--was just a series of mishaps, some more punishing than the next, but little of it kind or warming. He was beginning to believe that he did wear some brand, some mark of ill-fortune, something deeper than just the illegitimacy. The more deeply he came to believe, the more quickly he lashed out at anyone that suggested the mark was real.

Well, fine. So he was unsettled; so he had a bad temper. That still didn't mean he should spend the winter tending the cows of a many too stupid to add two and two and come up with four. He had the sense that, if he'd hung around Spencer's place, he would have ended up doing a foreman's job on a ranch hand's pay. No thanks.

But that did leave open the question of how he was going to make it through the winter. Since the cattle sale hadn't fetched as much as it might have, his wallet was leaner than usual for this time of year. And he had to find something pretty darn soon, because the mean dry air of Los Angeles was settling into his bones. He didn't want to hang around this place any longer than he had to.

There were still cavalry fellows in town, and Heath hung around for a few nights of poker. Few creatures on this earth hit a town with a greater thirst than a cavalry troop, and few parted with their pay so easily after a few drinks. Keeping in mind his unsettled future, and his meager reserves, he felt justified in skinning a few. Uncle Sam would see that they got three hots and a cot, regardless of how much he took off them.

After the cavalry troop left, and all the other herds were sold off, their crews blown to the winds, Heath found himself with little to do and strangely little motivation. He reminded himself that he still didn't have a job, or quarters, for the coming winter, and that the hay the Gal was eating in the livery stable must have been spun from gold for what they were charging him.

Still, he couldn't quite decide where to go or what to do. Cavalry officer had offered him a job breaking horses; officer had known him from the spring and liked his work. But Heath had had enough of the Army already, and had no desire to get closer to it even as a civilian. Wells Fargo was looking for drivers. One of the routes was into Spanish Camp. That made Heath smile a little, but without mirth or pleasure. Fancy going back to Spanish Camp. None of the other routes, being local, looked interesting. Looked interesting, he thought. Like you can afford interesting! Well, it was something to keep in mind, if nothing else panned out.

The cavalry's absence was noticeable. It was mid-afternoon, but the streets seemed largely deserted. But there was a vague rumble in the air. Not thunder; the sky was blue and clear for miles. He walked in the direction of the noise.

On the outskirts of town he found a revival meeting in full progress. From the fringe of the crowd he watched the show with growing amusement. He'd seen more than his share of sky pilots over the years. This was a particularly shabby crew. The preacher's suit was shiny with age. He had no pump organ or chorus to lend extra gusto to the hymns. Even the shill was third-rate, a round, mustachioed little woman with a thick, puckered scar running the length of her cheekbone.

The crowd around the preacher was made up mostly of Mexicans, sprinkled with a few long-faced Indians. He wondered how many of them could actually understand the sermon. Perhaps 'miracle' was the same in both languages. For the pilot's sake, Heath found himself grinning, he hoped the word 'donation' was, too. Those poor mules looked as if they hadn't had a decent feed in a month.

They were working up to the climax. The scarred shill was rocking bath and forth in ecstasy. Most of the crowd was open-mouthed with suspense; a few had already fallen into trances. Not bad, Heath thought, not bad. But what kind of pickings would you get from this shabby little audience? Even when the scar was miraculously removed, as it no doubt would be momentarily. The preacher was waving, alternately, his hand and his Bible over the offending area.

A cool female voice, just over his shoulder. "Why doesn't he perform a real miracle and remove that mustache?"

The comment was so harsh, and yet so close to his own thoughts, that he was surprised to see it was made by a young woman. She was his age, more or less, tall and blonde but not fair, for her skin was bronzed, nearly as dark as his own. Her only protection from the sun was a battered forage cap. She was tall and well-built, her sturdiness accented by her dark, severe clothes. The only spot of color was provided by a yellow cavalryman's kerchief, loosely knotted around her neck.

"I take it you're not a believer," Heath said.

"Not at all."

"Well, I admit I've seen it done better. But I've seen it done worse. Medicine shows, I mean."

"I've seen this same show done better. Believe me, the scar was much bigger and more puckered in Yuma."

"Wonder how she makes that scar," Heath mused. "Usually it's crutches or an eye patch--something easy."

"I wonder how she looks in the mirror day after day. That mustache is too much." The last was spoken with the confidence of young and unchallenged beauty.

Heath shrugged a little. He disliked the sky pilots as a rule. He didn't hold much with religion, and he held even less this last year or so. The sky pilots were the worst, though, a straight sucker job. At least the regular churches tried to do a little good alongside their hypocrisies. So far he'd never been reduced to shilling, which he thought a small step from stealing. You might yet have to, he thought.

The show was ending, and the outspoken woman was still standing beside him. "Been to Yuma, have you? Been out west long?"

"No, this is my first trip west of the Mississippi. I'm on my way to Tijuana."

"Tijuana?" He was puzzled. From Yuma to Los Angeles to Tijuana was hardly a direct route. Also, what was a woman like this going to do in Tijuana? He shifted his weight, suddenly uncomfortable. Nothing good, he thought. No woman would be headed for Tijuana for any legitimate purpose. "Not that it's any of my business, but what are you after in Tijuana?"

"You're right, it's not your business." But the tone was more amused than angry. "From the way you speak I gather it's not a nice place. Worse than this?"

"Bout a hundred times worse'n this, ma'am. Since you ain't been out this way before. What's taking you to Tijuana, anyway?"

Her chin came up. "I'm a journalist."

"A journalist?" he echoed, his surprise evident.

"Yes, a journalist. I write for Mr. Greeley's New York Tribune."

He frowned. "I didn't know they let girls do that."

She straightened to her full height. "I'm not a girl, I'm a woman."

At that he grinned. "Yes, ma'am, you certainly are." He began to smell a rat, though. "If you're a journalist," he asked, "why're you headed for Tijuana?"

"There's an election coming up," she said. "That's why Mr. Greeley is interested in dispatches from Mexico."

"That may be true. But wouldn't you do better in Mexico City? Tijuana ain't much interested in politics. I bet not more'n one out of twenty folks in Tijuana even know there's an election going on."

Beneath her tan she flushed a little. "Well, yes, of course. Of course I plan to go to Mexico City eventually. I just thought--I just thought Tijuana would be on the way."

"Not hardly. Are you travelin alone, ma'am? Too bad you didn't ride out with that cavalry column. They're on their way to Yuma. That would have put you on the road to Mexico City and get you through the desert with some company."

"The desert." She brushed the thought away. "I crossed it once with no trouble. I believe all this talk about Indians is nonsense."

"Wasn't nonsense year, year and a half ago. In any case, the trip to either Tijuana or Mexico City from here ain't an easy one, ma'am. Good sight harder'n coming from St. Louis or wherever. And it sure ain't one for a woman travelin alone."

She unbent some, her face got a little softer, her tone more pleading. "Oh, I'm sure you're right about that. I was hoping to find--"

The preacher and the shill were arguing; the raised voices drowned out everything nearby. Apparently the take had been bad, and the preacher was giving the mustachioed lady the boot. He caught sight of the two blond Americans and hurriedly came over. "You two! Yes, you two. Either of you. Looking for work? I've got a nice easy berth if you're looking."

"I'm looking," Heath admitted, "but I'm a cowboy, not a con man."

The preacher didn't take offense. "Bad time to be a cowboy," he said. "Herds all sold up. Healin, on the other hand, is a year-round occupation. I'm heading down Mexico way myself for the winter. And blond folks like yourselves--well, we'd pull them Mexicans in like crabs in a trap. Easy work," he wheedled.

"Still not interested," Heath said, but he found it impossible to take offense.

"I'm afraid I'll also have to turn you down," the young woman said. "But I must admit I'm curious. How on earth do you make that scar?"

The preacher's eyes gleamed. "Handsome, ain't it?"

"It was better in Yuma," she said.

"Yuma--yes, you was there, wasn't you! Thought you was familiar, ma'am. Yes, it certainly was. But the silly fool forget to get more glue."

"Glue? That's all it is?"

"That's all it is. You learn to make a pretty impressive looking scar. And of course it peels right off. And the penitent don't have to remember to limp, or act blind, or deaf." He leaned in, conspiratorial. "Now, takin a big ugly scar off a handsome face--like either of you, dearies--that'd be even more striking. I tell you, we'd make a killin down in Mexico."

"No, thanks," Heath said again.

"I'm afraid I'm also going to have to turn you down, Mr.--?"

"Bugby. Homer Bugby. But you change your mind, I'll be working my way south all til January, and then back north." To Heath, he said, "Lots of pretty ladies down south, they'd drop their mantillas for a big blond feller like yourself." Tipping his hat to the young lady, he said hurriedly, "And of course there's plenty of fetchin young ladies here abouts. Of course. Well, mayhap I'll see the one or the both of you this winter."

The young woman watched him go with a smile. "I believe I'll make that my first dispatch." Her chin came up again. "You might want to watch for it in the Tribune."

Heath laughed. "I ain't never seen the Tribune, and I doubt I ever will."

"Well, perhaps some local paper will carry them as well. In any case, you'll see my byline somewhere."

"In Mexico City?" Heath asked dryly. He wasn't buying this any more than he had the first time.

"Wherever." She held out her hand. It was a manly gesture, but deeply feminine just the same. Her confidence staggered him. "Sarah Longstreet."

"Heath," he responded.

She frowned. "Don't you have a last name?"

He grinned. "Yes," he said. He tipped his hat and turned away.

Heath ended up taking supper with the preacher Bugby. The take had been poor enough that Homer was planning on hitting the road the next day, so he decided not to waste any efforts in appearing pious. Rather, he was in need of a good square and a few drinks before hitting the road for more profitable pastures further south.

Heath resisted Bugby's further attempts to recruit him for the show, but Homer proved useful after all. He'd seen even more of the west than Heath himself had. Homer quizzed him closely about his skills and his employment needs. Chewing his fried steak thoughtfully, he said, "Hermosillo. That's where you should be headed, lad. Hermosillo."

"Hermosillo? That's not in Baja, is it?"

"No, it's in Mexico proper. But not as far south or east as Mexico City. In Sonora." Homer used his knife to make his points. "Proper Spanish city, not a bug-burg like Tijuana. Tree-lined avenidas. University. Cathedral." Homer frowned. "Plenty of good church-goers--not really my kind of town." Homer winked. "Plenty of hot-blooded little senoritas. Oh, they look demure enough in them mantillas and shawls--but Latin to the core, my friend. If an ugly old man like Homer Bugby can find plenty of lady friends, a big blond gringo like yourself--well, you'll be beatin em off with a stick." Tactfully, Homer added, "Of course you will. That nice little lady friend of yours..."

Heath grimaced. "She's no friend of mine," he said. "I just talked with her a few minutes."

"Fetchin little lady. So you wouldn't mind?"

"Help yourself," Heath said dryly. Then, with a little more concern, he said, "I think she's figurin on goin to Tijuana. If you're headed that way..."

"Oh, I'm headed that way. Tijuana's my kind of town." Homer grinned. "Heap big sinnin, heap big forgiveness. Hell, last year I made enough in TJ to keep me going for near on three months. Reckon I'll do at least as well this year. But, son, Hermosillo's the place for you. Warm enough that the cattle market goes on all year. Three, four big cattle operations. Lots of smaller ones. Vaquez is the big man there. I hear he runs ten thousand head. And he's a modern-type thinker, not hidebound like most of them Spanish. You'll like Hermosillo."

"I don't need to like it if there's work there."

"Young fella like you? You should sound happier'n that. Yes, Hermosillo's the place for you." Homer grinned. "TJ for me. TJ, and the yellow-eyed Lupe."

Heath's head snapped up at that. "Lupe?"

"Yes, Lupe, the jewel of Tijuana. She's--"

"I know," Heath said sourly, and paid for his meal. He was headed for Hermosillo, but just hearing Lupe's name was enough to take all the anticipation out of the trip.

After parting with Homer he'd had a few more than usual, and he was late getting started. There was no sign of either Homer or the mysterious Miss Longstreet. He hoped, for her sake, she'd hooked up with the preacher. Even his protection would be better than none. And Heath had a strong suspicion that Miss Longstreet could learn to play a suffering scar-faced lady very well indeed.

It was late summer. The trail between Los Angeles and Yuma was starting to see more traffic now that the worst heat was over, but on the busiest day you might ride thirty miles without meeting a soul. Heath knew a little bit about this country; he knew enough to know that this country was always more treacherous than it seemed. The Gal's easy motion, along with the heat, made him drowsy, and he fought to stay alert.

Well ahead, he could see that one fellow traveler hadn't been so lucky. A small sulky had broken down. When he drew closer he was surprised to see Sarah Longstreet standing by the sulky, puzzled into immobility. "Having a little trouble?" he asked pleasantly.

"More than a little," she admitted. "Is it hopeless?"

Heath got down, looked over the sulky. The axle was broken. "I'd call it hopeless, yes. This is one sorry-looking rig, ma'am. Hope you didn't pay too much for it."

She grimaced. "Most of what I had," she said, "so you could say it was too much. It looked sound enough to me."

It looked older than Noah to him. But the horse wasn't too bad. But of course the horse was in harness, and there was no spare saddle about. They were a good fifteen miles or more from Los Angeles. Memory made him frown. "Aren't you headed for Tijuana?"

"Yes, I am."

Heath hid a smile. "Well, ma'am, I reckon you could get there on this path, but it'll about double your trip."

Sarah bit her lip. "Of course with my carriage broken down I don't imagine I'll be getting much of anywhere."

Heath sighed. It was her problem, of course, but he realized it was already his, too. "Whyn't you go with Homer?"

"Homer?"

"The preacher. He's headed for Tijuana. I asked him to take you along."

"I didn't see him this morning."

"Pity." He shook his head over the busted rig. "With your take from the medicine show you coulda bought yourself a real ride."

"I don't need that medicine show," she said hotly.

"Oh, that's right, you're writin for some New York paper," he said dryly. "Listen here, Miss Longstreet. We're not too far from Puente. You can ride the Gal, and I'll get this horse of yours there. In Puente you can get a proper saddle and head back to Los Angeles."

"I'm not heading back." She watched while he efficiently unharnessed her horse. "Where are you headed?"

"Hermosillo."

She thought a bit. "Isn't that on the way to Mexico City?"

"It's on the way," he admitted, "but I ain't goin to Mexico City."

"What's in Hermosillo?"

"Work," he said simply.

He pulled a carpetbag out of the sulky. "This really all you're carryin?"

"That's all."

Her modest baggage impressed him a little. He boosted her onto the Gal, and told her to go easy on the little pony. He swung up on the harness horse and led the way into Puente.

It was nightfall by the time they got there. Heath found the livery stable and was able to get a much-worn saddle for less than ten dollars. He gave it to Sarah Longstreet and wished her good luck. But as he was turning to go she caught his arm. "Hermosillo," she said. "Could I go with you?"

He had known this was coming, but he didn't know how to respond. She was an interesting woman. Pretty, too, if not his type, exactly. But a liar, for sure. And unpredictable. Why make life complicated?

On the other hand, could he leave her to go wandering through this country alone? "It's a pretty long trip," he warned.

"Longer than Tijuana?"

"A lot longer."

"But closer to Mexico City," she smiled. "And didn't you think I should go to Mexico City?"

Her coquettishness took him wrong. "Look," he said roughly, "I don't mind you ridin with me. But I'd appreciate the truth first. You ain't no lady journalist and you ain't writin for no New York paper. Now why are you here, and why are you so hellfire bent on Mexico?"

She twisted the ends of the cavalry kerchief. With a tiny smile, she said, "Well, I'd like to be a journalist. And maybe in Mexico I could be."

When he said nothing, she continued, "It's not a very surprising story. Or an interesting one. My husband was a cavalry officer--in the troop that rode out ahead of us. I came all the way from Missouri to join him out here. He died two days after I got here." She shrugged, her face grave and shadowed. "After--after coming all the way out here I don't want to go back to Missouri--alone. And I don't want to stay in Los Angeles. And I have to do something." She blinked back tears. "Louis didn't leave much, I'm a thousand miles from anyone I know. Why not Mexico?"

"Ain't you got kin back in Missouri?"

"His, not mine. And they don't like me. In any case, I have to earn myself a living now. Couldn't I do it as easily in Mexico?"

He frowned. "But if he's an officer--ain't there a pension for you?"

Impatiently, she said, "It will take months and months to come through. And the Army will send it on to me in Mexico. Right now--right now I need to do something. Go somewhere. Mexico's close." She bit her lip, smiled a little sheepish smile. "I just--I just like the sound of it. I always wanted to see Mexico. It sounds--it sounds romantic. I suppose that sounds silly."

Strangely, it didn't. When he was a boy he'd been consumed with the thought of Mexico, envisioning it as all heat and color and finger-snapping, heart-drumming music. Even though he knew better, the country still exerted its fascination. She could not have chosen a better reason, or one more likely to catch his sympathy.

He looked at her, hard. Was that the truth? Closer to it, he figured. But not quite the whole truth? What the hell, he thought. Close enough. And what choice did he have, really? If he let her go on alone, anything might happen to her. "You can ride with me as far as Hermosillo."

"Perhaps to Mexico City," she added hopefully.

"Hermosillo," he repeated firmly.

She was less trouble than he expected. She was as sturdy as she looked, and comfortable enough in the saddle to last a full day without complaining. To save money they bunked down outside the small towns on the southeastern trail, and they ate what he could catch or, sparingly, from a small horde of tinned foods. She didn't seem comfortable skinning a rabbit but she seemed comfortable enough with routine cooking. He started to believe her story--her latest story--was true.

On the fifth night, at the edge of the San Bernardino mountains, a moonlit darkness came quickly and with it, a pleasant coolness. He cleaned up the remains of dinner, tamped down their fire, made sure the horses were hobbled. When he came back, Sarah stood to meet him, her blouse in her hands. The level look in her eyes was unmistakable.

Carefully, he said, "I ain't askin. You don't have to do this."

"I know," she said. But she didn't put her blouse back on.

He said: "I ain't lookin for a wife, Sarah."

"I'm not looking for a husband." She met his glance unwaveringly. "I'm just suggesting."

He hesitated. Somewhere inside a voice told him this wasn't a good idea. But--he was young, he was human. For a year or more, his feelings had been on the raw. And while he felt like a cad, having said his terms so straight out, he felt she understood him plain enough. It was the same fatal acceptance that had come over him when she'd asked to go with him. Why the hell not?

Sarah understood that it hadn't been asked of her, and she'd seen enough of him these last few days to know he might be rough but he wasn't the sort to use force. She could probably get all the way to Hermosillo without any trouble from him. As she saw it, though, this was the only weapon given to a woman in a hard man's world, the only way she was sure to make sure of some protection from the wind. He might not take it from her by force, but he'd look after her better if she gave it. And it wasn't bad, compared with her other experiences. No, she understood it hadn't been asked of her. But he took it just the same, and she thought a little worse of him for it.

When they reached Yuma Heath turned as if to go into town. "Why are you turning here?" Sarah asked.

"It's the last big city that I know about between here and Hermosillo."

"You don't need to stop for me. I'm not tired."

Heath raised an eyebrow. "You look tired to me. Sarah, it's more'n three hundred miles to Hermosillo from here. Ten days at least. This is your last chance to sleep in a real bed, get your clothes washed proper. I need it, and hell, if I need it, you must too."

"It's a dull town," Sarah warned. "It was dull with the medicine show. Think how much worse it'll be now. Let's just push on."

"It's not just a matter of restin up, Sarah. I'm a little short of scratch. This is the last chance to pick up some cash before we turn south for good."

"It's an Army post and you're not in the Army. What kind of work can you find for a day or two? Besides, I've still got some money."

"I said I was short, not you, Sarah, and I'm already tired of jawin about this." To take the sting out of his words, he said, "Maybe you can write one of them dispatches while we're here."

"I think you've already decided I'm not a journalist," she said, suddenly wan, "and I've already decided there's nothing here worth writing about."

But she had apparently decided it wasn't worth fighting about, and he found a hotel on the edge of town that was clean enough and cheap enough. He left her there and made his way into the army encampment.

Yuma was a major camp in the southwest, acting as the Quartermaster for most of the territory. It was a bustling place, with wagon trains coming and going almost daily. Heath was right, he had little trouble finding work to do.

"Them damn cavalry fellas," a major complained. "They come down from Los Angeles with a big mess of ponies. None broken, of course. Do they take the trouble to properly pen em up, much less break em? Of course not. They let them damn ponies get loose, and then the damn troop goes out huntin Indians which I personally know ain't within smoke signal distance of this here camp. Now it's my job to both round up them ponies and get em broke so that when that troop finally crawls back in with busted-down mounts and none so much as a feather from a real live Yuma, they got fresh horses to ride. Those fellas over there is willin to help the roundin up, but not the breakin. You do both?"

"I do both," Heath said.

So he spent a strangely pleasant week around Yuma, rounding up the cavalry's wayward horses and then breaking them. Rounding them up was fairly easy. There was only one source of water in these parts, and they found them strung along the river. They were safely back in camp and penned up within three days.

Breaking them was another matter. They were tough little animals, truly wild. He'd broken horses before, but this was some of the toughest work he'd ever done. The men who had been willing to help round up the animals but not break them formed a respectful audience. Respectful, Heath thought, but he was the one regularly biting the dust. But he was proud of the work. Each night he made his way back into town, glad that he was resting his weary bones on a thin hotel mattress rather than the hard ground.

And he was glad to have the days away from Sarah. Everything he'd done so far--taking her along, laying with her--had been done by impulse, with little thought to the future. Away from her unpredictable moods he tried to puzzle her out. From what she said she was his age, no more. But she seemed much older, he thought, and more sure of herself. Certainly she came to his bed with a matter-of-factness that he found difficult to square. She was no innocent virgin, and she took his attentions calmly, even coldly. She was no Lupe. But there was something in her that, even as she prompted desire, somehow blunted tenderness.

He'd never had a woman like this, regular and available and willing and belonging, at least for now, to him. Their physical intimacy grew apace, and there were times when he thought, surprised, that she felt some desire for him, too. But it did not bring any greater sympathy or understanding. Even in their most passionate moments they did not yield. Her forwardness unnerved him a little. Perhaps, he thought, it was understandable, her being a widow.

It was the name, too, he admitted. Impossible to think of this woman--tall, sturdy, self-possessed, disturbing in her physical proximity--alongside his other Sarah. His Sarah, plain but lovely in her calm conviction. Radiant and innocent. Lost to him now, but he had loved her with a boy's intensity, and the loss troubled him still. Losing Sarah he had lost hope, and in the year since he hadn't regained the strength or the sureness he'd had in Spanish Camp. This expedition, this liaison with this other Sarah--it was a mockery, a hollow echo of what should have been. It showed him just how far he'd fallen since losing Sarah, and how little he cared to try and regain that lost ground. It was hardly her fault, but it seemed cruel or mischievous that this woman had been given the same name. In lovemaking he could not bring himself to say it.

In the clear light of Yuma, while he was exhausting himself in bone-jarring work, it would come to him that the only solution was to break with her. This was wrong, he thought, and he, of all men, should know it. No wonder he was taking this route, no wonder he had avoided Spanish Camp. What would Frank Sawyer think if he saw his former deputy, whom he'd treated as a son, trailing this widow? He'd know in a glance what the real facts were, and he'd know what to think. What if the other Sarah could see it? That was unbearable.

And yet--at the end of the day he went back to the hotel on the edge of the city, where this Sarah was waiting. And his resolution would falter. Some new hardness, some indifference had entered his heart, and he could not or would not dislodge it. So he was not offering love; neither was she. She wasn't so bad. In this transient, dusty life, moving from town to town, job to job, this was as good as it was likely to get. Take it for what it is, he told himself irritably, and stop fussin over what it isn't. Who it isn't.

Sarah's initial annoyance had given way to boredom. When she saw how great a toll the work took, she suggested that he'd done enough and they should move on. Stubbornly, he insisted on staying until the work was finished. Finally, one afternoon, he said, "You're so all-fired to get out of town? I've only got a few more horses left. Not even a mornin's worth if I'm lucky. Come with me and we'll leave for Hermosillo by dinner time."

She hesitated. "Come into the camp?"

"Sure. You're allowed." He remembered the yellow kerchief. Awkwardly, he said, "That cavalry unit--your husband's?--they're still out. You won't have to see no one that might give you bad memories. If you're worried about it."

"How kind of you to think of that." He had been roughly drying his hair with a towel. She took it from him and finished the job. Mingled in with his irritation--for they had had this same conversation for days, and her inability to leave off an argument exasperated him--there was a note of boyish pride in his suggestion; she realized he wanted her to see him at this difficult job. She didn't think it would be very interesting, but out of curiosity she gave in. How much more appealing that boyishness might be, compared to his usual wariness.

Sarah knew that his attitude toward her fluctuated. She sensed that hardness and casualness were new, still a little foreign to him, that some the remains of a softer, younger, more idealistic man still struggled for survival in an increasingly hostile environment. She wondered what had happened to that younger man, what had driven him so far below the surface. He had told her virtually nothing. But then she had told him virtually nothing meaningful about herself, either.

She wondered what it might be like to see more of that gentler man, to see his mouth soften into a true smile. His hair was dry now. His neatness surprised her. Even on the trail he kept himself shaven, and in town he'd taken advantage of the hotel's facilities. She had never known a man who kept himself so neatly.

He had been watching her in the mirror, waiting for her reaction. Had she looked up a moment sooner, she would have seen that gentler man looking at her. But he had just given up, and looked away, when she finally looked into the mirror. "All right," she said. "To the camp we go. I expect quite a show."

Take it for what it is, he reminded himself. "Just breakin some horses," he muttered.

It took most of the morning. Sarah hadn't seen real bronc-busting before, and she found it both exhilarating and frightening. The horses were as wild as any she'd ever seen, and as stubborn as mules. Yet his strength and his stubbornness was even greater, and one by one each of the animals yielded.

The busting sessions had been drawing a larger crowd every day, and this morning the fences were thronged with fresh arrivals. When a particularly vicious animal finally dropped his head and quit bucking, there were more than a few cheers. Heath's movements were economical and untheatrical, but even across the ring Sarah could capture his satisfaction. This was hard work, and it required little but fearlessness and stubbornness and brute strength. Those qualities he had in abundance. Whatever else he had or did not have, he had those things. As a woman she felt a tingling, primitive warmth. He was hers, at least for now, and he was as fine a protector as she was likely to find.

It was almost suppertime. He made his way across the empty ring to her. "Major's gettin my pay," he said briefly, still catching his breath. "We can eat here, or just hit the road."

"Let's hit the road," she said, smiling. "I'm afraid they'll try and hang onto you here."

He smiled. "I ain't staying with the Army for nothin," he said, but he was pleased with himself, and with her smile.

The major came back. "Quite a show, young fella, quite a show. You sure you ain't interested in stayin here permanent?"

"Sure," Heath said.

The major fell into step alongside Heath and Sarah as they headed for their horses. "Pity. Although we don't have wild horses all that often these days. Here's your money. And a letter, too, of reference, case you ever want to work at some other Army post. I've seen some bronc ridin in my time, and you're the finest. You ought to come back next spring for the Carne Rodeo. Biggest rodeo in the southwest--the world, maybe."

Heath shook his head. "I ride broncs for work, not for show. I ain't much for rodeos."

"Quite a payday if you win. You keep it in mind. It's just over the border in Mexico. Quite a show. Hey, Colonel McMahon," the major shouted. "Come on over here. Meet the young fella that rounded up your lost horses and broke em, too. Good luck. Stop by here again if you get up this way."

The colonel was still wiping dust from his blouse. "Many thanks, young man. That's one pesky crew of critters. Drivin em down from Los Angeles I thought they had the devil in em. Told my adjutant we'd never get em here in one piece, and if we did, we'd never get em broke. Nice work. I suppose the major's already made the recruitin pitch."

"He has. Sorry, but we're movin on."

"We?" The colonel's gaze fell on Sarah. "Well, I'd certainly hate to inconvenience a lady..." The colonel frowned, then grinned. "Say--ain't you that little lady we picked up in Tucumcari? Old Louis give you the drop in Los Angeles, did he? Well--" His eyes moved from Sarah to Heath and back. "Glad to see you found some other--companionship. Though more'n a few in the troop would have been happy to keep you around." His grin broadened and he winked. "Me, for example. A woman like you--"

He got no further. Heath moved with a suddenness and fury that disconcerted Sarah. A few blows and the colonel was on the ground, blood trickling from his mouth, gushing from his nose.

Heath grabbed Sarah roughly, pushed her toward her horse. "Hurry," he said. "I don't want to be here when the provost marshall gets here. Hurry."

They rode away from Yuma at breakneck speed, not stopping until the camp was only a speck on the horizon. The speed and the violence with which he'd reacted had startled her and frightened her. She'd long ago decided that he might be rough but not dangerous. The bronc-busting, and the beating he'd given the colonel, made her reconsider. As did the dark, drawn look on his face, the way he urged the horses along long after it was clear that no one from the camp was after them.

They finally stopped to let the horses recover, drink. Warily, she said quietly, "What he said..." Her voice trailed off. Trying another tack, she said gently, "You didn't have to do that for me."

"I didn't do it for you," he said roughly. Without further words, he mounted up and started down the road. After a long moment she struggled to mount without his help and followed him.

The next two days they rode hard and fast, covering more than forty miles each day. They did not speak. The few times Sarah found the courage to look at him directly, his expression was dark, thunderous. Again she remembered her easy assumption that he wouldn't use force on her. There was more anger behind that bland blond facade than she would have guessed. He'd fallen on that colonel with real savagery, and he had used his fists with skill and economy. What could those fists do to her? His familiar body seemed shadowed by menace.

After two solid days of jouncing, and so long under the cloud of his uncertain temper, she had passed the breaking point. Over the campfire, she said, "I'll go back to Yuma tomorrow."

She could see him struggling. When he spoke, his tone was gentler than she expected. "You can't go back," he said. "Road ain't safe for a woman travelin alone."

"Even a woman like me?" She forced a laugh. "Even a--a camp follower? A whore?"

"I didn't say that," he said.

"But that's what that Colonel meant. You know it."

He was making coffee and kept his eyes firmly on his task. "You wouldn't be the first one in the world, Sarah."

Her voice rising, she said, "I'm not like that. It's not like he said. It's not."

Heath sighed. "Does it matter, Sarah?"

"It matters to me. I don't want you to think--" She bit her lip. "You've been--kind to me. I thought--I don't want to leave here with you thinking..."

"You don't know what I think." His voice had dropped; it was scarcely more than a whisper. "You don't know what I think. Go ahead and tell me, Sarah, what you want to tell me. But this time, try tellin the truth. However bad it is. I'd rather have that."

She settled down, filled her cup. "The colonel was right. I joined the cavalry troop in Tucumcari. We--my family and I and some others, about thirty of us--we'd been all over the southwest, the Indian territory, Texas. Not exactly missionaries, though my father was always trying to convert whatever Indians or Mexicans we came across. Just--a very odd religion. More their own personal invention than anything specific."

She sipped. The nights were getting a little cooler, and the warm cup felt good in her hands. "I suppose I was stupid to believe him. I suppose a girl who had seen more of the world wouldn't have. He said he would marry me when we got to Los Angeles." She gave a short bark of laughter, wholly shorn of any mirth. "When we got to Los Angeles new orders were waiting for him. To go to San Francisco." Her voice flattened out. "Where his wife was waiting."

Over the fire their eyes met; Heath nodded a little. "But why did you go with him, Sarah? You could have left Tucumcari on your own."

She shrugged. "It's so hard to explain. My people--Heath, they were so strict. No music except hymns. No books but religious ones. No papers--not that we ever saw newspapers, out in those God-forsaken places. No dancing. No nothing." She leaned in. "Can you imagine growing up believing that nothing, nothing in this world is ever meant to give pleasure? To give happiness? And then the cavalry came through." She sighed, played with the ends of her yellow kerchief. "I'd seen so little of the world--hardly even imagined what the rest of the world was like. And they came through. In a town like Tucumcari they seemed glamorous, exciting. My ticket to the real world."

Heath looked into his coffee. It was a long speech for her. She could be argumentative, but she had rarely said so much about herself. The glamor of the cavalry: she'd chosen to tell her story to one man who could understand. At fourteen he'd been just as dazzled by the crisp blue uniforms, the shiny buttons, the promise of glory. His fling with the Army had ended even worse than hers.

"Why did you want to leave, Sarah? Specially if that's all you knew."

She shrugged. "It was all I knew. But, Heath, I always, always knew I didn't fit in there. I wasn't like them. I didn't know what the rest of the world was really like--how could I know? But I knew I didn't fit in there. And I couldn't stay--I couldn't stay, not one more day--" Her voice was choked off by a barely-swallowed sob.

He looked into the fire, avoiding her eyes. He knew she was seeking his gaze, he knew that a level and honest look would meet his. Of course she had looked level and honest before. But this--this had more of a ring of truth. And those last words: I knew I didn't fit...I couldn't stay...Yes, he understood only too well. How much of his life, how much of these last eight years had been driven by just those feelings? He could not stay in Strawberry, he could not accept the limited and lowly station meted out to him. And how many other times, how many other places, had he fled for just those same reasons?

Her reasons for leaving rang true enough. Her behavior since then? He wasn't so sure. That colonel and his leering certainty...Perhaps she had seen more of the troop than she was willing to admit. But here he stopped. Whore: it was the easiest word to fling at a woman, the one most likely to stick. His own mother...Those purse-lipped, self-important women from town, tightly bonneted and rigid with disapproval. Asking his mother to kindly refrain from polluting their precious church grounds. Asking his mother to kindly keep her hell-spawn from polluting the Sunday school class. Oh, they hadn't used the word. Those sort wouldn't admit they even knew the word, or quite what it meant. But it was the echo behind all their clipped little speeches, it was the starch in those bonnets and in the lift of their chin. Whore. Who were they to judge? And who was he, now? If other men in that troop had taken advantage of her desperate need to flee--well, he thought, hadn't he?

She saw his face changing in the firelight, settling into a down-turned mouth, something like melancholy. She realized he would be too kind to cast her off, but that was it. Suddenly she found that she couldn't continue with him under those terms. After that brief spark of hope in Yuma, she couldn't see him grow kind and distant and proper. It was not love; nor was it not the intoxication that had propelled her out of Tucumcari. But it had been something, and she was not willing to ride alongside its corpse all the way to Hermosillo.

So she repeated her earlier words. "I'll go back to Yuma."

He looked up then. How different she was from Leah, or from his other Sarah. Those two women had both been small and fair with luminous dark eyes. Both had worn an air of innocence and fragility--Leah had kept hers, even after those church women had dared to cast her out. This woman--she was not innocent, not really, and she certainly wasn't fragile. Even now there was something bold and challenging to her. She would ride back to Yuma alone. "Do you want to go back to that colonel?" he asked.

Her mouth dropped in surprise, hurt, and then, fury. She stood up quickly, flung the remains of her coffee in his face. "How dare you! I never--I wouldn't--"

Heath stood too. Was that what he'd meant? Jealous and small? She wasn't good enough for him, but he didn't want her racing back to the dubious protection of that colonel?

She was fumbling with her horse. He grabbed hold of her hands, which were shaking with fury. "You say the colonel was wrong, you're not like that. But, Sarah, if you go back to Yuma, that's what you're going back to. Folks say something often enough, it's as good as true. You won't never live it down." He let her hands go, stepped back. "That's all that's waitin back there. Leastwise down here you got a chance to start fresh."

Her eyes narrowed. "And why do you need to start fresh? All the way down in Hermosillo?"

"I just need a job," he said, but they both knew now he was not telling the full truth.

She hesitated. What he said was right: there was nothing back up that road for her. Yuma or Los Angeles or Tucumcari--or anywhere. Right now the best she had was the promise of Hermosillo--and him. At the last moment he had decided he wanted her along after all. He had not said it directly; perhaps he didn't even realize it yet. But whatever had turned him in her favor tonight would work on him until things were just as they'd been. She did not know what it was, what made him suddenly softer and more understanding. All she understood was that she wasn't out of the running yet, that her weapons of courage and beauty and desire had been a little blunted, but not lost. Somewhere between here and Hermosillo she would find an opening, repair the damage. By the time they reached Hermosillo everything would be all right again.

And perhaps he understood, too. The same fatalism had fallen over him as before. He had the sense that they belonged together somehow, that she was not like the other Sarah but perhaps she could understand, better than the other ever had, the darker corners in his nature. God knew this Sarah had her own darknesses. Whether it sprung from kindness or desire, from weakness or strength, he knew he would not take her back to Yuma. Knew he wouldn't cast her off in Hermosillo, either. In keeping her beside him he felt more reckless than he'd ever felt in his life.

In Hermosillo Heath had no trouble finding Vaquez, the rancher mentioned by Homer Bugby. Indeed, it would have been hard to miss Vaquez's place, which lay just outside Hermosillo proper and ended--well, it wasn't possible to tell just where it ended.

As luck had it Vaquez himself was in. Vaquez spoke fluent, lightly accented English, but he switched to Spanish to see if the gringo could really function. Heath's Spanish wasn't always grammatical, and his drawl would keep him from every attaining a proper Castilian lisp, as his prospective employer had. But it was good enough for ranch work.

Vaquez listened to Heath's brief sell politely. At the end, he said, "But why do you come here, sir? You are a very long way from home. Why not work in Texas, or the Indian country?"

"It's winter," Heath explained. "Crews get cut down after the herd's sold off."

"So in the spring you would wish to return to America."

"Not if the job here is right."

Vaquez shrugged. "It is true, we could use help. With horses especially. My men--they only want to be vaqueros, they want to work at the rope all day, they dream of being heroes at the rodeo. Breaking horses is hard work, not glamorous like the rope work."

"I can break horses," Heath said hurriedly.

"So you say. So all young men think, I find. A day in the ring generally changes the mind. And it is not just a manner of breaking, my friend, but training, too. It is a large spread and I hire the best vaqueros. They deserve proper mounts. I don't know you, gringo, and I don't know anyone who can vouch for you."

"I got a letter," Heath said.

Vaquez's lips turned up in a faint smile of disbelief. "You have a reference, senor? Attesting to your capabilities with horses?"

"Sure do," he said, and handed the major's letter. Good thing he'd gotten that letter before he'd busted that colonel.

Vaquez read it over, then began to laugh. "I have lived to see everything. Jaime--Jaime? Juan, where is that scamp?"

An older man, slowly sweeping the enclosure, said, "I have not seen the senor."

"Ah, well--I will have to tell him of this later. Truly, senor, never have I seen a bronc rider with a proper reference. I do not know this major, but I know the gringo troops are very hard on horses. If you can manage those animals you can certainly manage ours. But you will also have to do other work with the cattle. This is acceptable to you?"

"Sure," Heath said. "You name it, I done it."

Vaquez named a price. It seemed more than generous to Heath, though he was a little shaky on the value of the peso these days. They shook hands on the deal. Then, Vaquez said, "My nephew Jaime is learning to manage the herd. He is just out of the Polytecnico this past spring. Someday the herd will be his. Right now he is the typical young man--eager to try all new things and hard of hearing when his elders try to give advice. Properly it should be his place to show you about. But I will do the honors. I would remind you, too, that the herd is not yet Jaime's, and final decisions are still mine." Vaquez chuckled. "Though how much longer that will be true...Come, senor, let me show you the ranch. I am sure it is as fine--finer--than anything you have seen in your North America."

On the whole it was a damned fine place. All the adobe buildings were freshly white washed, all the red clay roof tiles in place. Fences were wood and sturdy, not barbed wire. The horses were different from what Heath expected; they were generally small, and they had the pointed ears and small, intelligent head of the Barb. As if in response to the more elegant and exotic appearance of the little horses, the few cowboys he saw were handsomely turned out, with big silver conchos on their saddles, fine shiny boots, colorful vests, graceful wide-brimmed somberos. It was more like a painting than any ranch Heath had seen before.

The cattle were familiar, though. They were long-legged, skinny longhorns, the ubiquitous cattle of the great Texas desert, their coats dun and rust. "How many head?"

"Ten thousand," Vaquez said proudly.

Heath whistled. "Ten thousand after you sold up? That's something else."

"We did not sell up this year. We are building up the herd. The acreage around here can support many more cattle per acre than it has. We have no plans to sell up for at least another year or two. By that time the Vaquez herd will be the largest in Sonora--perhaps all of Mexico. Our beef already travels down the river to the Bahia Kino and from there, across the Golfe or up and down the coast. In Oaxaca, senor, they will eat Vaquez beef. Oaxaca! Do you know how far south that is? But it will happen. Here, you seem a knowledgeable fellow. Let me show you my newest treasure."

The two of them hiked up to a separate paddock, well away from the longhorns. The pen held a number of thinned-out cattle; they looked as if they'd been driven a hundred miles or more without water. Still, the animals were husky. Their legs were short but muscular, and their coats were all light and solid. "Never seem them before," Heath admitted.

"Charolais. From France. All the way from France! Right now they are perhaps a little worse for the wear. But see how sturdy they are, even after such a long voyage. When they've been properly grazed and watered, you'll see what handsome animals they are. Crossed with our longhorns, we will have a bigger beef cow that can still live in this climate." Vaquez leaned over and stroked the milky coat of one of the Charolais. "I have been tempted to keep the Charolais pure. The beef of the animal is magnificent. But the Charolais came here before, with the French, and cannot thrive here. They must be interbred."

Heath listened without comment. He'd never seen or heard of Charolais before. To his eye the animals were distinctly unimpressive. They looked tired and lethargic, their milky coats loose over their flesh. But that was no wonder; they had come a long, long way. It sounded like a good idea. The longhorn were beautifully adapted to the harsh arid conditions of southern Texas and northern Mexico. Long legs made the animal particularly graceful and sure-footed, a bonus when trying to evade predators--or vaqueros. They also had the reputation of being independent and difficult to control. As far as Heath had heard, the longhorns hadn't interbred well so far. But this looked like a pretty good idea, if those Charolais perked up some.

But no sell off? He'd never heard of such a thing. Every herd got thinned at the right time of the season. It wasn't just question of selling the beeves for cash--well, that was the main reason, but certainly not the only one. You needed to regularly thin out a herd, get rid of the subpar critters, keep them from reproducing. He wondered just how much land Vaquez had under control.

Not, Heath thought lazily, that it really mattered. Vaquez or Jaime or whoever could manage or mismanage the herd as they would. It wouldn't be his responsibility. On the whole this looked like about the best set-up he'd fallen into for a long time.

Vaquez kindly advanced him a little of his wages and pointed him toward the bunkhouse. "You will practice your Spnaish there, senor. Also your cards, during the siesta. Good luck."

"If it's all the same to you," Heath said, "I reckon I'll stay in town."

Vaquez stiffened a little. "You do not care to share a room with your fellow vaqueros?"

Heath flushed a little. "There's someone in town," he muttered.

The stiffness vanished. "Ah, a lady," Vaquez grinned. "Well, by all means. What is done for the comfort of the lady is done well. We will see you tomorrow, then, at first light. Go now and assure your friend that her bronc rider will be bringing home many pesos. And of course bring her the compliments of the house of Vaquez."

Their first months in Hermosillo were good ones.

For anyone who had seen Mexico City--much less Spain herself--Hermosillo was not an impressive place. Plans had been laid for a cathedral, but no work had begun. The Carmen Chapel was a simple, white-washed fraud behind its romanesque facade. The Palacio de Gobierno and Plaza dos Tres Pueblos, the main public spaces of the town, were unimaginative, nondescript, and could have been lifted from any other middling-size Spanish settlement. The city boasted no university, only a poor little polytecnico, scarcely more than a finishing school for the rising merchant class of Hermosillo.

Hermosillo was flat, plain, and unpretentious. It was a great commercial gear, turning between the fishing industry down in the Golfe, the mining industries to the east, and blessed, in the surrounding plains, with more water and a gentler climate than most of Sonora. Hermosillo might not be pretty, but Hermosillo did not care, for it was busy, and on its way to being rich, and that seemed good enough. To be sure, the city was riven by the same distinctions of race and class that divided most of Mexico. The successful merchants were Spaniards, generally the younger or more practical sons of the great families who had dominated Mexico City; mestizos and Indians were at the bottom of the rung, working as drovers or farm laborers. Even in the swirl of wealth that was thickening around Hermosillo, few rose above the level of menial laborers. But there was hope in the air, along with the fertile smell of new-caught fish and freshly-dressed beef and just-dug ore.

To sophisticated travelers, then, Hermosillo held few attractions. One might pause to enjoy the view, with looming purple mountains in the east, and, on clear days, a thin line of blue--the Golfe--in the west. But that same view could be obtained all up and down this plain, and the one from Hermosillo wasn't special.

Both Heath and Sarah had seen a goodly little chunk of the southwest. But though they might have covered large areas of land, neither of them had seen much variety. Sarah had never spent much time in any city of any size. For Heath, Hermosillo came much closer to his boyish, romantic ideas of Mexico--far closer than Tijuana or any of the Baja towns. There were, as Homer Bugby had promised, tree-lined avenidas. They were short, and the trees were dusty palms, but it was a lovely sight just the same. To eyes accustomed to the flat, flimsy towns of the southwest, the buildings of Hermosillo had a reassuring solidity and sobriety. Unlike lawless Tijuana, Hermosillo was a God-fearing, church-going town, and the church bells were regular presences. Religious holidays, such as the Day of the Dead, were lavishly and massively celebrated.

They found a place near the Palacio, convenient to the market. They rented the bottom floor of a small hacienda from a widow, who kept possession of the upper floor. This Senora Montego was helpful to Sarah, guiding her through the market and the profusion of ripe-looking but unfamiliar vegetables--did Mexico grow nothing but peppers, she wondered?--helping her master the money, teaching her to deal with fishmongers and beefsellers to greater advantage.

There were only two rooms, but they had the use of a courtyard in back as well. It was winter, and cooler, but still very warm, though the thick hacienda walls kept the rooms both cool and dark. Sarah found running a household in a strange country to be a full-time occupation. Even this late in the year sleep was impossible without mosquito netting. Bugs of every size came through the open windows of the hacienda, along with little snakes and salamanders. She thought she spoke enough Spanish to manage, but the gaps in her command of the language showed early and were hard to mend. Here shopping was done every day, for there were no coolers or iceboxes. There was no pump in the hacienda, so water had to be hauled from a stream or from the local pump. With unfamiliar vegetables--and seafood! In all her life she had never dreamed so many things that could be eaten lived in the sea--to deal with, her early efforts at cooking were uneven at best. At least there were no money problems. Vaquez fancied himself a great hidalgo, and he paid his men handsomely. Heath's salary was enough to keep them both tolerably comfortably.

But she was lonely. Heath came home most nights, but he would be gone for days at time, when fences needed to be repaired or herds needed to be brought in from distant pastures. She hated venturing out into the market place without Senora Montego. The men here were different--like that colonel, but worse. Their dark eyes met hers insolently, suggestively. In a place like Hermosillo, where there were few north Americans and even fewer north American women--and most of those were missionaries or religious--she stood out. They both stood out. No doubt it was common knowledge in their quarter that the two blond north Americans lived together without marriage. No doubt that was what made the men so bold. It frightened her a little.

Heath, without understanding her isolation, did what he could to make her life easier. Whenever he could he hauled all the water. He removed the snakes and the salamanders. He tore into her sometimes strange meals and even complimented her now and then. He gave her most of his salary and asked no questions about where it went.

But it was on Sunday that he did the most for her spirits. With no work, they spent their Sundays exploring Hermosillo, or just promenading along the Palacio in their Sunday best, along with the rest of Hermosillo. Alongside him she felt safe, even when the town's foreignness threatened to overwhelm her. The morbid intensity of the Day of the Dead might have been enough to send her back to Yuma, but he seemed calm enough, though the whole ritual puzzled him.

Walking beside him, she could not help thinking what a handsome couple they made, and how they stood out, even amongst Hermosillo's Sunday finery. Tall, blond, healthy, burnished and full--they looked like gods among mortals. She saw disapproval in dark eyes, but far more often she saw envy, appreciation. With Heath beside her she could take the insolent stares of Mexican men as tribute; she knew no one would bother her while Heath was beside her.

Heath sensed the envy and appreciation, too. Well, fair enough--he'd always admitted she was a handsome woman. Regular possession had not yet dimmed his awareness of that. He was touched by her efforts to make a proper home, and if he hadn't quite relinquished his unease, if he still did not quite trust her, his attitude toward her softened. You couldn't live with a woman day in and day out, you couldn't lie beside her at night, without feeling more gentle towards her. You came to think that a full belly, even if it was full with a meal you hadn't quite wanted, was better than an empty one. She could be argumentative, she could be bossy about having her own way. But she could be quiet, too, and he was a man that had limited toleration for pointless chatter. Too, she didn't nag him about going to church on Sunday. For a girl in flight from a strict family she seemed to have swung to the opposite pole, for she seemed to have no interest in religion at all. Of course she wasn't popish, but he'd offered to find a protestant church for her, an offer she'd quickly, and harshly rebuffed. Fine with him; he wasn't in any great hurry to re-acquaint himself with religion. Religion had been associated with mindless bigotry from an early age, and losing the first Sarah to God hadn't made Heath eager to take on regular church-going. Sarah's equal disdain buttressed his own.

Nor did she speak of marriage. When they had reached Hermosillo, when he'd gotten a job with Vaquez, there had been a brief discussion about her moving on to Mexico City. Her suggestion had sounded half-hearted, but, even so, his reasons for her staying sounded flimsy. He'd pointed out that she knew no one in Mexico City; she could not travel alone, she could not afford to travel by stage; and what would she do in Mexico City? As of yet her Spanish was probably too poor to get her any but the most menial of jobs. And what skills did she have? In Mexico City she would be alone and destitute. Here--here he could take care of her until she was ready to move on. That was their agreed-on story: she would stay until she was ready to move on, until she had learned enough Spanish, until she had learned some skill, until...

In this discussion Heath realized how little Sarah wished to go; Sarah realized how little he wished her to go also, but also the limits as to what he would do to keep her. It was not a difficult decision. A good man with a good job in a solid town like Hermosillo? A fair enough bargain. Better, really, than she might have expected on leaving Tucumcari. At night, when the mosquito netting had been pulled down, the last light put out, when he slept heavily beside her after a full day's work, she was satisfied.

Heath found he liked working for Vaquez. The spread was confusingly large, and the hands spent an enormous amount of time shuffling herds from one pasture to another, with little discernible planning or cause. But the working conditions were first-class, especially for Mexico. The bunkhouse was spacious and clean, the chuck wagon offered big helpings of tasty food--though of course there was a monotonous amount of beef.

The time on Vaquez's ranch improved Heath's skills. The Spanish horses were small, but they were canny and tough and dangerous before properly trained. It took less brute strength to break them, but a great deal more tact and intelligence to train them. He'd never enjoyed working with horses more.

The other hands on Vaquez's ranch took to him fairly quickly. They were amused by the big gringo, who was taller and heavier than most of them, who was so foolish as to work right through the siesta, until his shirt was black with sweat. The vaqueros tried to teach him the proper way to work a rope. His throwing became a good deal more effective, but he never caught the style or the grace for which the other hands aimed. Cattle work was work to him, and he was proud to do it well, but the way the Mexicans fussed over the most beautiful angle at which the wrist should be cocked before throwing--it made him laugh, out loud.

Nor did he take to the Mexican style of dress. He kept to his denim and his chambray, his unadorned low-heeled boots, his untrimmed saddle. More than once the vaqueros tried to persuade him to adopt their more colorful style. He could only shake his head. Those narrow little high-heeled boots--the vaqueros preened like girls, showing off the high arches of their little feet. Apparently small hands and small feet were great tokens of gentility. Heath would roll his eyes, retelling this to Sarah at night. If they were so darned genteel, what were they doing running cattle in the first place?

His name posed a problem, though. For a long time he had just called himself Heath. When asked for a surname he generally just shrugged. (Not so long ago he had been a deputy and folks had called him Mr. Thomson, as if it was as good a name as any. A long time ago.) His first name was difficult for most Mexicans to say, and outloud it sounded ridiculous. So they just called him Rubio (blond).

The only real fly in the ointment was the nephew, Jaime. Behind his back the hands called him the Boy, and their inflection made it clear the word was an insult. The nephew was perhaps nineteen or twenty and only come to Hermosillo in the last two years, after Vaquez's only son died. He had studied at the polytecnico, though, as the hands grumbled, it was clear they had taught him nothing about managing cattle.

The nephew was the subject of a great deal of gossip at siesta, which Heath mostly missed. Even the bits he caught he rarely understood. But it was clear that the other men liked the nephew as little as Heath did. It was also clear that, for some reason, the nephew had singled Heath out for a particular dislike.

One warm afternoon, when Jaime had sent Heath to inventory the hay bales--a hot job up in the loft--the topic of conversation turned, as it often did, to the nephew. Pedro watched Jaime from the bunkhouse; Jaime was watching his gringo hand count bales of hay. "They say strange things about him in town."

Miguel, another hand, looked up and said sharply, "In town they say strange things about lots of people."

Pedro heard the warning tone, but he ventured on. "They say when he goes into town on Saturday nights he gets in fights."

Ernesto, another hand, was dealing out a hand of solitaire. "Lots of men fight on Saturday night. I've seen you draw a blade, Pedro."

"I fight with men," Pedro said. He jerked his heard toward Jaime. "This one, he prefers to fight with whores."

Miguel said, "Shh. Little pitchers have big ears."

"Let me guess, Miguel, you're the boy's big ears, aren't you? Is this time for you to run to your master?"

"He's not my master," Miguel said irritably. "Well, actually, he is. Or will be. I like it here, Pedro. So do you. I'd like to stay here. So I watch my mouth."

"Have you noticed that?" Pedro said. "Vaquez, he talks about the Boy inheriting the herd. But not the property. Why is that?"

Miguel said carefully, "I don't notice that. It means nothing, Pedro."

"It does. He'll only inherit the herd because he can't inherit the land. He's--"

"Sh," Miguel said again. "Even if it's true it's not good to say Pedro."

Pedro was still looking out the window. Heath had come down form the loft and was exchanging a few sharp words with the nephew. "Why's the Boy hate Rubio so much?"

"What makes you think he hates him?" Miguel asked.

"The chores he puts him to. Counting hay bales! Old Papa Che could do that."

"Vaquez likes him," another hand said. "That's why the Boy hates him."

"Maybe he's jealous," Ernesto said. "Maybe he's seen that woman of Rubio's and he's jealous."

Pedro laughed. "I don't think he'd be jealous of a woman."

At that an uncomfortable silence fell. The truth was they'd all heard strange stories about the nephew; there had been a few about his uncle, Vaquez, too. Here on the ranch, throughout Mexico, little pitchers really did have big ears. Under Juarez the warrantless arrests were supposedly over; supposedly a man couldn't be thrown into jail on the whimsy of a grandee. Supposedly. Yet few in the bunkhouse really believed those bad old days were over, or that they would be over for long. They said Juarez was ill, Juarez would die soon, who knew what could happen?

So they let this fascinating thread of conversation die, and just in time, too, for the Boy sauntered past the bunkhouse just then. The boy was young, but already his heavy lips had a cruel set. He wasn't a big man, yet he gave off an air of dangerous menace, to the extent that even vaqueros with ropes and guns were unwilling to push their luck.

Rubio had brought a half-broken horse into the ring for a little work. The Boy came back to watch. Lazily, Pedro said, "He doesn't want to go to the rodeo."

"Who, the Boy? All the better."

"No, Rubio."

Miguel shrugged. "He breaks horses well. But his work with the rope is dull."

"He should go," Ernesto said. "I bet he's the best bronc rider in all of Mexico."

"So his lady friend says," Pedro snickered.

Miguel huffed. "As if you've ever spoken to the lady. Leave it go. If he don't want to go to the rodeo, fine. It means more chances for the rest of us."

"The Boy certainly enjoys watching," Pedro said.

"Are we back on this?" Miguel sighed.

"Yes, Miguel, we are. You know who I think the Boy is? He's Vaquez's son."

Miguel rolled his eyes. "Vaquez's son died last year with the typhus in Mexico City. You know that."

"His proper son died. This one--this one is from his little family."

"I thought he was a nephew," Ernesto said.

"A nephew!" snorted Pedro. "I ask you, my friends, when did Vaquez have a sister marry a man named Chavez? She's married to a big hidalgo over by Guadalupe, not some nobody named Chavez in Rio Blanco."

"You're dreaming," Miguel said.

"No, it fits. No one hears of the boy until the Vaquez son dies. Now Vaquez lets him run the herd. If he's Vaquez's proper heir, why did he just go to that lousy polytecnico? Why didn't he go to school in Mexico City?"

"That's enough," Miguel said. He pushed up from the table, reached around Pedro and closed the shutters. "You must have the heat stroke to talk this way. All of you," he added. "A little siesta. Apparently Rubio's the only one who can work without one. No more gossip now. You especially, Pedro."

"I don't like the idea of working for some man's bastard."

"Fine," Miguel said. "You win that big prize at the Carne rodeo and get your own spread. Until then, it's not your business if he's Vaquez's son or his trained poodle, he's the boss. You think he's rough on Rubio? Just see how rough he could be on you. No more gossip."

Pedro, bad tempered but aware that Miguel was right, sidled away from the window.

December was a packed month. Before even the Christmas festivities, there were two important religious holidays: the Immaculate Conception of the Virgin Mary, and, more importantly, the feast day of Our Lady of Guadalupe, the patroness of Mexico. Of the two, the latter was certainly the more important day, and talk began of the festivities as soon as those for the Day of the Dead were over.

Vaquez gave all of his hands both days off. Heath had heard a little talk of this Guadalupe thing, and he wasn't sure he wanted to be around for it. There was a lot of talk about roses and eyes, and while his first inclination was to not take any of it too literally, after the morbid exhibitions on the Day of the Dead he wasn't so sure. In any case he felt pretty comfortable passing up the chance to see the Guadalupe feasting up close. Too, he'd gotten the impression that Sarah was growing a little bored with the routine. She did little but tend the house and shop with Senora Montego. For all her alleged boldness she seemed uncomfortable venturing away from the house without either him or Senora Montego for company.

He had heard that Kino Bay--or Bahia Kino, as the locals called it--was a pretty place, with a snug harbor and fine views of the Golfe. Other than the fishing fleet and the view there wasn't much in Kino, but it sounded like it would make a nice change, and the trip would fit neatly into the five days between the 8th and the 12th.

Sarah was pleased with the idea of the expedition. They had planned on taking a barge down the river to the bay, but the barges weren't really intended for travelers, and, even empty, they reeked of old fish. So they rode. It took nearly two days to cover the distance to Kino Bay, which would leave scarcely a day to enjoy it before they needed to head back to Hermosillo.

That first night they found a meal and a room in a little cantina. Kino received a few visitors, mainly in the spring months, but caring for travelers was a small part of the routine of town life, and the accomodations were spartan at best. The food, though, was magnificent: they had their first taste of caguamanta, a chowder made from marine turtles. Sarah asked for the recipe, but first she lost track of the many ingredients, and then she lost heart when she heard how few turtles made it to Hermosillo. The hostess helpfully explained that manta ray could be used in place of the turtle, but the idea of the ray made Sarah wrinkle her nose in distaste. Those she had see at the market, and she hadn't mustered the nerve yet to touch one.

Breakfast was eggs with pepper and shrimp. Heath bought some line and some hooks in case they found a likely fishing spot, and they set off.

The town had little to offer. It was a typical squat Mexican town. There had been fishing here for a hundred years or more, since Padre Kino had found the protected bay. Yet the town still had a ramshackle, improvised air to it, as if all the inhabitants might vanish tomorrow. Too, the docks were rough, like the docks in any other town. They soon struck out south, guiding their horses along the rim of the bay until they were on a stretch of beach fronting the Golfe proper.

The beach, several miles from town, was deserted. No house or building could be seen with the naked eyes, and dunes matted with grass heightened the sense of isolation. This was more of what they had hoped to find in Kino.

The day was mild for December. The white sand was warm, though the blue water of the Golfe was pleasantly chilly. Heath took off his shirt and rolled up his pants. Sarah, emboldened by the sense of privacy, took off her dress and her stockings and strolled along the beach in just her chemise and her pantalets.

Sarah had briefly glimpsed blue water in Los Angeles, but this was her first close-up experience. The Golfe looked huge to her; in vain did Heath try to persuade her that Baja was no farther away than Hermosillo. She loved the feel of the water foaming around her legs, the feel of sand eroding around her feet as the waves drew back. She waded out until the water was up to her waist, entranced by the sensuous tug of the waves. Longingly she looked out to the darker blue water. "Can you swim?" she asked.

"Not hardly," he laughed. "So if you're wanderin any further out, you're on your own."

With regret, then, she came out of the water. After they had had a little dinner they walked down the beach for much of the afternoon, never encountering so much as a shadow of another human being. The tide was going out, and she was enchanted by the shells left in its wake. She was less enchanted when she found out that most of the shells were already inhabited by bristly-legged little animals, whose flailings made her drop them with a little squeak. She did find a few abandoned ones that were pretty enough to take home.

Late in the afternoon Heath finally turned his attention to catching something for supper. He cast a line out into the surf and, even though it was going out, soon had a few small fish. The water was clear enough that shrimp could just be scooped out. There were clams, too, exposed by the outgoing tide. He built a small fire, and they had a fine meal, though Sarah thought that shrimp were perhaps more work than they were worth, and she had to screw her eyes shut before she could bring herself to try the clams. To her surprise they were wonderful: they tasted just the way the cold saltwater smelled.

They walked again, the sand now hard-packed and drying with the outgoing tide. Sarahwas surprised at how different the sand was from the way it had been earlier in the day, during high tide. In the twilight the blue water turned black, and the sand was a dull tan.

Back at camp, Heath said reluctantly, "I guess we should get back to Kino."

"Do we have to?" Sarah asked. She wrinkled her nose. "I think there were fleas in that cantina."

Heath grinned. "I don't see no bites on you." He looked around. "I suppose we could stay here, if you've a mind. If they ain't see us yet, they won't see us now."

She thought for a moment. She felt vaguely as though they were trespassing. But on whose property? They were as alone as Adam and Eve had been. There was something so rhythmic, so comforting about the sound of the water, endlessly moving up and down the beach. It would be lovely to fall asleep to that sound. "Let's stay here," she said at last. "Even if that cantina didn't have fleas--it's not have as nice as this."

"Sand'll be pretty hard," Heath reminded her gently.

"We've both slept on harder," she said, and it was true.

The moon rose. It was nearly fully and so bright that no stars could be seen. Heath had never seen it so big or so close. They sat quietly, not touching, watching the rising moon spread a white coat over the dark water. In profile, in the soft glow of the campfire and the reflected light of the moon, she looked younger, softer, less certain. A small smile, devoid of irony, a child's smile, lingered at the corner of her mouth.

He spread out the bedrolls, and they settled back down. Heath felt tired, but in a pleasant way. It occurred to him that the sea was nearly as mysterious to him as it clearly was to Sarah. He'd certainly never spent a day as he had today, just--well, playing was the only word that fit their activities. And he found himself glad that Sarah had been here too, Sarah who was as clearly captivated as he was, who was as clearly out of her normal routine as he was. Her wonder and enjoyment had magnified his own.

She said, "This has been the most beautiful day I can remember."

"It's a mightly fine place," he agreed. Then, impulsively, he asked, "You happy, Sarah?"

Some of the softness went out of her profile, and a sadness came in. "I don't know," she said finally. She forced a smile. "You know--I'm not quite sure I know what happiness feels like."

He sat up, but he didn't move any closer to her. He could understand her not feeling happy as she was grown. He'd gathered just enough of her past to understand how colorless and joyless, how suffocating it had been. But never to have felt happy? "Not even as a kid? Christmas, maybe?"

She thought, then shook her head. "Christmas was religious, not for gifts." She sighed. "There were so many children in our family. I don't know whether it was just because my mother worked so hard, or whether she felt showing emotion was wrong--or maybe she just didn't have any for us." That sounded terribly bleak, even to her ears. She traced a pattern in the hard sand with her toe. "But you were happy as a kid, weren't you?" Something in the tone of her voice had given her that much.

"Yes," he said slowly. "Yes, I was, I reckon."

"What was the best?"

What was the best? Hannah's hymns, as rhythmic and regular as the tide? The good clean smell of fresh laundry? The icy clear water of the stream, so cold it made you gasp, so clear you could see right to the bottom? The bright lights and the noise from downtown? "Winter," he said finally. "The blankets not just warm but heavy. Goin to sleep with the lamp still on. Mama had this little song about Jack Frost..." His voice trailed off. He was embarrassed.

Sarah could see it in her mind's eye, a little room, a heap of quilts. She wondered what his mother had looked like. "You had no brothers or sisters?"

"No," he said shortly, and she realized she would get no more answers.

The moon was nearly at its apex now, and most of the water coming in was two shades of white, foam and moonlight. "What about later?" she asked. "Since you were older. When were you happiest?"

Spanish Camp, and Sarah. There were no other contestants. And yet, he thought now, there had been something insubstantial to that happiness. Not a true happiness, more of an anticipation. A happiness built on air, on plans that would never bear fruit. "Not happy, really," he said, "but on the brink of it. Feelin I was just one step away from it."

Just one step away, she thought. Is this just one step away? The moon and the water; the delicious prick of cooling air, laden with salt, balanced by the warmth from the fire. How kind of him to have thought of this. There was so much good here, even if there was still so little trust, so many guarded corners. If it was not all she might hope for, it was so much more than she had had. She smiled. "Yes," she said. "I'm happy. This has been the best day."

"I'm glad," he said, and he was. He didn't quite believe her; even now there was a little something sad, a little something tense in her. But he realized that she was as happy as she could be now, and he had been the one to give that happiness to her. It was a strange and powerful feeling. Only for a brief time, those heady months in Spanish Camp, had it occurred to him that he might be a man who could not only serve but could please, too. Not that he had gotten the chance. The idea was sweet, and humbling. When he reached for her at last, as the moon was finally beginning to recede, it was with more tenderness than he had ever shown before, and she turned to him with more warmth than she had ever shown before.

On the Sunday after Christmas, they went to the corrida.

The season had started nearly two months earlier. Late on Sundays they sometimes caught the distant refrain of cheers or catcalls, though they were not particularly close to the corrida. In all the time he'd been in Mexico Heath had never attended a bullfight, though he had never been far from a town with a ring. The ring in Hermosillo was larger and better kept than the miserable ring in Tijuana, but he still wasn't tempted. Once the season started, that week's fights replaced Hermosillo's whores as the prime topic of conversation among the vaqueros, and much time was wasted in trying to recapture the poetry of one particular veronica, or in debating whether the picadors were doing too much of the matador's work these days.

Heath ignored most of the talk. It seemed as foolish to him as the rodeo. There were practical things that needed to be done in this world--horses needed to be broken, cattle needed to be caught and branded. Sometimes bulls needed to be brought down. But why all the fuss?

At first Sarah wasn't interested either. But Senora Montego was an aficianado and went nearly every Sunday. She talked about the fights nearly as much as the vaqueros did. It was the one topic that truly animated the lonely old woman. In the markets, too, that week's fights provided conversation among many odd groups of people. Sarah began to understand that in the corrida, even more than in church, all the different groups in Hermosillo--the remnants of the aristocracy, the successful merchant class, the downtrodden Indians--came together. She didn't understand much of Senora Montego's descriptions, sprinkled as they were with technical terms, but she caught the drift of enough to spark her interest. She wanted to see the crowd; she wanted particularly to see the march that began the festivities; she wanted to see the matadors in their beautiful suits.

Heath gave in more easily than she'd expected. "If we're goin native," he said, "we might as well go whole hog."

His remark referred to their new clothes. For Christmas Heath had found Sarah a child's grammar book and a battered dictionary. Her spoken Spanish had improved a little, but he thought the books might speed her along some, and maybe she could even learn to read the language, which he could scarcely manage. At the last minute, though, it occurred to him that she might be offended by the fact that they were really children's books. Hell, any woman would probably be annoyed to get anything so practical for Christmas. And, remembering how little Christmas had meant to her as a child, he thought it would be nice to see that she had proper presents at least this one time. So he found a black lace mantilla and dark tortoiseshell combs to hold it in place. Even to him, unfamiliar with feminine folderol, the mantilla seemed wonderful. It was made of soft, pliable lace, with an intricate pattern of flowers and butterflies with a great deal of open work. The whole mantilla weighed no more than a feather.

By coincidence, Sarah's own thoughts for Christmas had turned to clothes. In short, he had none. None, that is, that were presentable outside the confines of a corral. Not that they truly had any need for finer clothes. It was not as if they--two hardscrabble gringos, living in flagrant sin--were lightly to go calling on the fine families who lived on the hills behind the Palacio. The very thought made her grin. But--perhaps they would go the corrida. Perhaps someday they would eat at one of the fine cantinas near the Tres Pueblos. In any case a man should have some proper clothes, and he would look handsome to boot.

Senora Montego told her that her former husband had been a big man, too, just Heath's size, and she still had many of the late senor's good clothes. After going through them Sarah reached the conclusion that Senor Montego had been just about as tall as Heath, but a good deal more round. She would have a load of altering to do to make them fit properly. But the price the Senora wanted was less than a second-hand clothes dealer in the market would want, and the clothes were clean. She was disappointed that she didn't have enough for boots, for Heath's worn cowboy boots would surely spoil the effect. Nor did she have enough for a proper dress hat. But, again grinning, she realized he would never have worn the hat, no matter how proper or how fashionable it might have been. So the last days before Christmas were crammed with sewing.

She was vastly pleased with the effect. "Stop tugging like that," she said.

"It's tight," he grumbled. "I don't know how a man's supposed to move in this rig."

"It's supposed to be tight. In fact, it's supposed to be even tighter. And all you're supposed to do is escort me to the corrida and applaud politely. You're not supposed to rope cattle or break horses."

"Tighter?" he said, amazed. "I swear, these Mexican fellas are vainer than a cattle car full of city women."

She was pleased and surprised by her gifts--the books as much as the mantilla. The mantilla was beautiful, lovelier in its airiness than even Senora Montego's Sunday best. But the books touched her in a different way. They were a more personal gift, somehow; many men would give women something to make them look pretty, because the prettier the woman, the better it made them look in the eyes of other men. But the books--the books were something she wanted and yet would do nothing to boost his standing. She had come a long way from those first days out of Los Angeles, when she had reckoned that his protection for her body was a fair enough barter, or Yuma, when his angry violence had shaken her. She still didn't know his last name, or much of his history. But she knew he was basically kind, and generous, and they were not qualities she had expected to find in a man.

They had gone native; but the native clothes just made their differences more obvious. Sarah had been right to think that Heath would look handsome in the ruffled shirt and the tight black trousers; he would look even handsomer when he lost his self-consciousness. The black trousers emphasized his height and his long legs. There was nothing feminine about the ruffled shirt, at least not on him; rather it made his bulk more noticeable. He looked tall and strong and healthy and bronzed, different from the smaller, slighter, darker men around him.

Her native clothes did much the same for her. The simple, severe black dress and mantilla made her look even taller than she was. From beneath the mantilla her fair hair shone silvery-blonde, and the black lace emphasized the golden hue of her skin, the blue of her eyes. A handsome couple, she thought. She had heard the words rubia and rubio whispered around them. At first she had thought they were talking about rubies, and she'd been puzzled. Now she knew what the word meant. Yet somehow ruby seemed right. In their fancy clothes they seemed as rare, as surprising, as costly as a fine gem.

He was a man used to feeling separate from those around him, and as they made their way through the crowds to the corrida, they were separate. Sarah was conscious of the looks and the whispers as they passed, their strides longer and quicker than those of the Mexicans. As usual, when he was with her, it didn't bother her. Today she felt intoxicated with it all: the big crowd, the excitement, even the glances they attracted. Today she felt young and beautiful and strong and excited. They were in Mexico; they were finally tasting the real country, much as they had tasted the sea down in Kino.

At first it went well. The notes of the paso doble rolled over the corrida, the marching beat in time with her own heart. The magnificent procession, the picadors on their horses, and the matadors in their magnificent suits. Senora Montego's powers of description had been inadequate to the task of describing this pageant. In the slanting afternoon sunlight the silver and gold threads caught fire, sparkled. The matadors were theatrical and romantic in their bold gestures. She tugged on his sleeve. "I should have gotten you a suit like that instead."

He grinned. "You'd never get me in such a rig. Less you had a bottle of tequila--and a gun, too."

But after that the corrida got serious. The first four matches passed quickly. The matadors were novilleros, the bulls were young, and the kills were messy but quick. The crowd grew restless and angry. The last matador on the bill was young Abruzzo, who had begun here in Hermosillo but in the last year had begun making a name for himself in Mexico City. His return home had been the subject of much speculation and excitement. Now there was a growing suspicion that poor matches had been scheduled so that Abruzzo would look even better in front of his home crowd.

At last Abruzzo came out. His first bull was also a disappointment. The bull was clumsy and slow-moving, and Abruzzo's work with the muletta was largely wasted. He killed the bull with as little interest or concern as a man might swat a fly.

But the second bull--the crowd gasped with anticipation. He was massive, and he had the wily, small eyes of a survivor. He and Abruzzo felt each other out. The bull responded only to the most daring of the veronicas, and he obliged Abruzzo by staying in close quarters with the matador. Sighs of pleasure rippled around the whole corrida.

Now the picadors came out. This was the part that Heath had dreaded. He'd heard horses got gored, and he hated the thought. These were tough little horses, all Barb, sturdy feathered legs ending in tough little hooves. Horses you could imagine floating over the desert. It seemed wrong to bring them in at such close range to the bull, and then deliberately anger the bull. For the matadors and picadors he didn't feel the same sympathy; they, after all, had chosen to be there. The horses had no choice. But Heath could sense the horses' own intelligence as they danced about the ring, swooping in to the bull, darting back.

The picadors and badilleros were dressed nearly as gaily as the matadors. The bandilleras were brightly painted, trimmed with colorful feathers. Yet the magic had been drained out of the day. She was aware, suddenly, of the great press of humanity in the stands, the smell of too many people, none of them very clean, all of them too close. Overlaying that was the smell of the tamales and the tequila and the beer being hawked. And yet--just under all that the smell of blood was in the air. Literally in the air. For now, the bull had finally been goaded into real action. He had chased the banderillos out of the ring; the last one had just barely been able to leap over the fence. He had come close to goring one of the horses. Blood ran down the bull's sides, now beginning to heave like great bellows. Yet the bull and the matador remained locked together.

Sarah felt a suddent distaste and anger wash over her. How could they all just sit and watch this--even applaud? The bright golden costume of the matador, his graceful movements meant nothing to her. It seemed cruel, unnecessary. The bull had done nothing; he had been dragged into this place and tormented into defending himself, and hundreds would cheer when the sword was finally plunged between those great shoulders. All they would ask, she realized, was that the sword be wielded elegantly. If the bull died, if the matador died--it was all worthwhile.

She looked over at Heath. His eyes were narrowed against the late-afternoon sun. He had the tense alertness of a hunting animal on the scent. Even he, she thought disgustedly, disjointedly, even he who seemed kind enough, he was enjoying this. Men--they were all men--what wouldn't they hunt and kill? Nothing brave about that matador, not when he had all of those others to help him.

The bull's head was down now. He had made some furious charges, but his strength and control were waning now. His sides were slick with blood, there were dark pools in the sand. The matador was still immaculate. In a moment--in a moment the sword would flash, it would be buried in the bull's back, it would be over. They would cheer...The heat, the noise, the smell--the terrible metallic smell of blood--it overwhelmed her. She opened her mouth to protest, but no sound came out. She fainted.

The disturbance in the stands did not, after all, ruin the kill. Abruzzo dispatched his magnificent adversary with a blow so swift, so sure, so striking, that it would be discussed for years. He was disappointed, after the kill, to look into the stands and realize the rubia was gone. He'd heard about the beautiful norte Americana, and he'd been pleased to see her in the audience. He had planned on giving her an ear as a token of his admiration.

Heath got her out with some difficulty. She came to fairly quickly, but he insisted she stay down. He'd found a bench just outside the corrida. In the setting sun this side was now heavily shadowed. Night, with a distinct cooling, was coming quickly. There was a faint scent of juniper in the air.

They stayed quietly in their alcove as the crowd streamed out and away. They were both struck by a sense of having transgressed, of having ventured too far into a country not their own, into a place whose customs and dangers they only dimly perceived. Finally, dully, she said, "I'm sorry. I made you miss the big finale."

"I don't mind," he said gently.

"You were enjoying it," she said.

There was something almost accustory in her tone. "Not really," he said. It was true. He had understood, viscerally, the attraction of the ring. Something elemental and earthy in facing that bull. He knew what a relief it could be sometimes to face fear squarely. That, not the fancy gestures, was the beautiful part to him. But it was all so unnecessary, wasting courage on something meaningless. Haltingly, he said, "It's strange--takin something ugly, or hard, and tryin to make it all fancy."

He wasn't eloquent, but his words came close enough. "That's Mexico," she said, thinking of the strangeness of this town, with its well-tended market places and its slums, the Carmen Chapel with its elaborate facade and humble backing, the rich merchants and their little families, the impassive faces of starving Indians.

But then it occurred to her how much more appropriate the words were to her own past. Something ugly or hard, that no amount of dressing up could quite hide. She began to cry quietly. Something ugly or hard. The poor bull. She knew how the bull felt, what it was like to be driven, goaded beyond endurance. What am I doing here? She wondered. Why am I still here?

Her silent weeping moved him. At the beginning he had thought her hardened, selfish, determined. The longer he lived beside her the more he appreciated that there was something beneath her determination. She was a woman, after all, and Hermosillo--well, in the end, Hermosillo wasn't all that much better than Tijuana. "I'm sorry," he said softly. "This ain't no fit place for you. I oughtn't to have brought you. Or I ought not have let you stay. You're wasting your life here."

She shook her head. His kindness, now, somehow made things worse. "Where else do I belong?"

"Some place nicer than this," he said awkwardly, not quite knowing what he meant.

Wearily she rubbed her eyes. "Why do I belong some place nicer?" she asked. "Why not you? Why is this good enough for you?"

"I'm just a cowboy," he said quietly.

"Why? Who told you that was all you could be?" She realized how that could sound to a man as touchy as he, and she sighed. "I don't mean to slight you. Just--oh, just that we're so much the same, I think. It's a strange country. We don't belong here. But I've never belonged anywhere else. Somehow I don't think you have, either. I don't know why, but I think I'm right."

Of course she was right, he thought. He didn't belong anywhere. It occurred to him that there was still so much he didn't know about her. Since Kino an intimacy had strengthened between them. Yet it was an intimacy with little root or foundation. They were still strangers, even if their thoughts sometimes ran on the same track. He knew what kept him from belonging. What was her real story? There was more, he knew, more than she'd told. The old suspicion came over him, only to be batted away. What did it matter? She was here, she was his responsibility now. He had taken her on lightly, scarcely imagining the consequences. Too late, far too late, to be having second thoughts.

Often in these last months he'd been aware of the irony of his situation. He, of all men, was the last who should have been trifling with a woman. Some man had used his mother--perhaps he'd cared for her, perhaps she'd been no more than a momentary convenience. And then he'd left her, and her child, to make their way without his protection. From the beginning Heath had had to evade his conscience on this matter. The very way she'd approached him had made it easier. The woman was no innocent, she was worldly and coarse, even, she knew what she was about. Since then he'd understood that she was not quite worldly, and coarse was an even poorer choice. Yet--yet somehow she had failed to rouse him at a deeper level. The other Sarah--how innocent she had been, how naive in an ugly town like Spanish Camp. How desperately he'd wanted to protect her, to protect her in the way that his father had never protected his mother. He had told himself that this woman was different--she was not asking for that sort of protection, she did not need it. The vulnerability she had shown since then, at Kino, now, had struck at the very heart of his uneasy justification. What if she did need him that way? How badly he'd failed her already...

He put his arm around her, drew her head down onto his shoulder. The mantilla had been torn in the process of getting out of the corrida, and one of the combs was lost. Her hair tumbled loose and disordered, and he tried to smooth it down. "Sarah," he said quietly. "Is there something more I can do? Do you want to leave? Do you..."

She hesitated. She thought: he would marry me now, if I asked. When they had first come together it had been the farthest thing from his mind. Even at Kino he wouldn't have done it. But she knew, now, that he would do it if she asked. The thought heartened her a little. But she would not ask. Not now, she thought. Perhaps...she let her thoughts go no farther. Surely she wasn't so foolish to dream of a day when he would ask on his own, when it would be something more than duty or pity. Surely she wasn't so foolish. But she lay still against him, and let him stroke her hair, until all that was left was exhaustion.

She sat up, finally, dabbed at her eyes once more. She pulled out the comb, folded the wrecked mantilla over her arm. She found a little smile. "Don't ever let me talk you into the corrida again."

"I won't." He didn't smile in return, but kissed her forehead very gently. Some moment had passed. Apparently she wanted nothing more. He could not be disappointed. Could he?

He helped her up. The streets were deserted now. How different their walk home was. The triumph and intoxication she had felt were gone. But the day had not defeated her. For her, today had been a reminder that it was a strange place, and there was much for her to learn. They were in Hermosillo, and they were likely to stay in Hermosillo; it was time she made more of it. For Heath the day was a reminder that Hermosillo was another place he did not belong.

In January Heath started to worry about drought.

Hermosillo was well-situated between two rivers, and in general its climate was better than that of northern Mexico. Between the warm waters of the Golf and the barrier of the Sierra Madre to the east, Hermosillo tended toward heat and humidity with a reasonable amount of rainfall.

The rainiest months typically fell between January and April. The preceding months of November and December had been somewhat dry, but few were worried, since the rainy season was still in the offing. But come January, rain remained scarce. Grass, which usually came around green and luxurious under the winter rains, began to turn brown, and cropped pastures, even when left fallow, didn't come back.

To make matters worse, the unchecked breeding on the Vaquez ranch was leading to a bumper crop of calves. This was typically a good time for birthing, given the winter's usual wetness and more temperate weather. But this year the calves were increasingly born already skinny and fragile, and the rate of births increased throughout January. A high percentage of the calves died, but enough survived to increase the pressure on the shrinking pasturage.

Vaquez owned a huge spread, but its carrying capacity was more limited than might be expected. The property south of the river wasn't nearly as rich as that land that lay between the two rivers. And the land in the foothills of the Sierra Madre was surprisingly barren--back in California, where Heath had done most of his cattle running, the foothills were typically some of the best pasturage around. Not so here.

Nor was there sufficient feed on hand to eke out the waning grass. Of course there was fodder, but the vaqueros were used to feeding their horses, not their cattle, and in any case, there certainly wasn't enough to sustain a herd of ten thousand cattle or more through a drought of any length. By mid-January, Heath realized, even a short drought could devastate the herd. In the long run a good thinning of the herd would probably be beneficial, but thinning by starvation and thirst was bad business. Better now to sort through the herd, weed out the weakest animals, and dispose of them now, before they could cause any more trouble.

Instead they went on rounding up the new calves and branding them. Heath had heard before that Mexicans hated to castrate either their cattle or their horses. He knew the bit about horses was true, since he'd broken enough ornery horses that would have been a hell of a lot more useful after gelding. Apparently it was true about cattle, too, at least on this ranch, even when the range was already dangerously overloaded. A goodly numberof these calves probably wouldn't live long enough to be sires anyway, but why take the chance?

With some difficulty Heath got an opportunity to speak with Vaquez. The owner had been less and less involved in recent weeks, and his nephew's word was law. The very thought of trying to straight out Jaime Chavez was laughable. Maybe Chavez just didn't like gringos, or maybe it was personal with him, but the Boy wasn't likely to believe the time if it came from Heath.

He found Vaquez strangely passive. "The herd is Jaime's," Vaquez shrugged. "Perhaps you are right, my friend. Perhaps you are wrong. But I have given the herd to Jaime, and whatever he does, he does."

Incredulously, Heath said, "You'd let ten thousand head go down? Just like that?"

"I doubt the whole herd will go down. But if it does, it does. The Vaquez have been here for many generations, Rubio. I have many interests. A few cattle more or less will change nothing for me." A small smile played over his lips. "For Jaime it is a different matter. He will rise or fall with that herd. I can do no more for him."

"You could try talkin to him," Heath said. "It's not just the cattle. You got more'n few hands here. What'll happen to them?'

"What always happens to vaqueros. They will move on to another place. You don't need to worry, Rubio. I will go on to other interests, but I will still have horses. What Jaime will do--well, I don't know. But it is out of my hands, Rubio."

Heath walked away, amazed. Mexico, he thought. It was more than strange, worse than strange. How could anyone stand by and watch such an investment be wrecked? See twenty or thirty men lose their jobs? Was it possible you could really be so rich that things like that didn't move you? Oh, Heath had seen his share of hard-hearted bosses. Vaquez had seemed different, he liked to think of himself as generous and open-handed with his men. But apparently he, too, cared no more for his men than most bosses. And his nephew--it came over Heath that Vaquez didn't care any longer if his nephew failed. Perhaps now he wanted to see the nephew fail. At best he was indifferent. Well, Heath figured, if he'd had to live at close range with Jaime Chavez it was no wonder. Perhaps blood wasn't thicker than water after all.

With the drought came unusual heat for winter. One still, airless morning they worked all morning branding calves. Heath, on his Buffalo Gal, was doing the cutting. Both the calves and their mothers were so listless it was hardly challenging; he probably could have cut them out on foot.

At siesta he rode into town. Uneasy himself, he had still noticed that Sarah had been moody since Christmas. At times he thought she was happy enough in Hermosillo. Other times she seemed distracted. Not angry, just not easy. She worked with her copybook and her dictionary but found it hard going. He had come into town to see if he could find a teacher for her.

The politecnico was in the main area of town, near the Palacio. Inside, the clerk was openly contemptuous. "You are too old to be a student here," he sneered.

"I don't want to be a student," Heath said. "I just want the name of a teacher, if you've got one. One who could teach reading and writing in Spanish. To someone who already knows it in English." Heath didn't bother mentioning the tutor was for a woman; he couldn't imagine what would happen to that clerk's face if he tried to express any more contempt. He'd probably break something.

"We are not a referral service," the clerk hissed.

"But you must know someone. One of your teachers..."

A better dressed man had appeared behind the clerk. "You wish a private tutor?"

"Yes. For Spanish."

"Literature?"

That sounded a bit fancy, but he nodded just the same. The man wrote out a name and an address in the fancy neighborhood above the Palacio. Just by the address Heath doubted it would be within their limited finances, but he tucked the paper away in his vest. At least she could find out.

When he got back siesta was just ending, but he got hot words from the Boy just the same. As punishment he was taken away from cutting and demoted to just holding down the calves. It was hot, miserable work in the dusty air, and you were a hell of a lot more likely to get kicked. As a cowboy, he knew he was one of the best cutters on the ranch, and he knew he owned the best cutting horse. She was a one-rider mount, though, and she, too, looked sullen while other horses did what she did best. It'd been a long time since he was on this end of the chore. And he knew it was just out of spite.

He was hot, and dusty, and smelly, and out of sorts. Yet he decided to try to talk to Chavez after all. After just a few words Chavez flushed. He said, "You know nothing of ranching in Mexico. Do you know that, not fifty years ago, Alma de Coronado had over one hundred thousand head of cattle? Do you even know how much that is?"

"Do you know how much pasturage he had? I'm bettin he had a hell of a lot more than you do. Look at them calves. Half of em, or more, won't be yearlings. We're wasting our time branding them. Most of em should be put down. And you need to start castratin a lot more. To keep the breed sound."

The flush darkened, Chavez's eyes narrowed. "So says the great gringo. We poor Mexicans should be grateful, that the great gringo has come to share his wisdom with us. The gringo wants us to keep the breed sound, and keep all those poor calves from breeding." He looked Heath up and down with undisguised contempt. "But the great gringo is just a cowboy. Just a horse wrangler. Why should I take the word of a landless gringo?"

The two men stood eye to eye for a long moment. The urge to wipe that expression from Chavez's face was nearly overwhelming. But, Heath realized, that was just what Chavez wanted. Why? Grounds to fire him? Did Chavez actually hope the other hands would rescue him? Or was he just spoiling for a fight? Heath decided against giving him the satisfaction and controlled himself with difficulty.

Chavez said, "Take those calves to the south pasture. And don't be wasting the siesta on your own whims. Work or rest, but don't leave the ranch."

They herded the freshly branded calves and their mothers down into a pasturage already worn thin. Maybe these special Mexican cattle could eat dust, Heath thought angrily. But then he felt bad. They were just dumb animals, dependent on the men around them for food and water. He hated to see any animal suffer, even cows. And suffer they would. And he was just as powerless to protect them as he'd been at that bullfight, watching those brave little Barb horses. Mexico. He thought: the longer I'm here the less I understand.

It was in that mixture of moods--tired, disgusted, puzzled, and not a little angry, still--that he made his way home. He found Sarah frowning over her copybook. He told her a little of his trouble, though she was still looking over a page in the copybook. "I could manage that herd a damned sight better," he muttered.

"You?" That made her look up. "Manage ten thousand head? It will never happen."

To her surprise she saw the same fury wash over him that she'd seen back in Yuma. For a brief moment she was actually afraid. He pulled a piece of paper out of his vest and through it down on the table. Then he turned on his heel and left, giving the door a good slam on his way out.

His reaction surprised her. She had not seen him angry since Yuma. Since then, and especially since Kino, she'd gotten comfortable, feeling that she understood him much better. Apparently, she thought, she was wrong. All she had meant was that they were poor people; no one was going to give him ten thousand head of cattle to play with, and they would never accumulate the kind of money it would take to build up that kind of a herd.

At first she was amused, in an angry sort of way. Is this what men were really like? She had known, certainly since Yuma, that he was proud of his skills, proud that, as cowboys went, he could command a top wage, even in a foreign country. Watching him break horses she'd understood that the struggle spoke to something dissatisfied in him, that little else in life had offered that sense of mastery and control. But then, what in life--most lives--did offer any sense of control? Most folks were small pieces, liable to be moved about at other people's wills. She knew that all too well herself.

No, the best that could be hoped for was getting by, and getting by without getting too far under anyone else's thumb. Managing a big herd--those were the sort of dreams that just chewed up time and what little resilience you had. You had to learn to set your sights on dreams that could be reached. In Tucumcari escape had been the whole extent of her plans. Here in Hermosillo it was just survival, and she hoped that some pleasantness could be worked in, too. So far she hadn't been disappointed.

What had made him so touchy? Surely, she thought, he knew who he was, he knew their place in the world. In Mexico the world was even more stratified than back home. Their place was anomalous, to be sure--but it would never change, either. What was the point of getting angry, or stalking away and missing a perfectly good supper? Perhaps--here her limited experience operated against her--perhaps his father had not done well. Perhaps he was used to hearing his mother's complaints? She couldn't think of anything else.

But as the night worn on and he didn't come home, her amusement and her anger both gave way to fear. What if he didn't return? He certainly wasn't obligated. He had kept her, and kept her well, for months. How many other girls in Hermosillo would be willing to take her place? Not just willing, but happy. There were plenty of girls, just in from the country, who wouldn't mind shacking up here, keeping the house and the bed for the big blond gringo. She'd seen them herself, looking him over with dark bold eyes. No doubt they wouldn't trouble him, they wouldn't be restless, they wouldn't be moody.

What would happen to her? It was just the night air coming in, but she felt chilled. She was a stranger in a very strange country. She remembered the bold, almost contemptuous looks of the men in the marketplace. He was a good-looking gringo with money in his pocket; she would be a rejected harlot. Nothing would be too low...

The night passed slowly, and terribly. He did not come back. He'd never done this before. Work had kept him, sometimes nights in a row, but he'd never voluntarily spent the night away from her. Perhaps he was never coming back.

In the morning, sleepless, she got up, resolute. He would come back, he had to come back, if only to get his things. She knew him well enough to know how to keep him there. She could make things all right.

And then she found the little square of paper, the unfamiliar handwriting. A name and address, "professor of literature." Her eyes stung. He had thought of that for her. Now remorse overtook resolution. Of course he would come home, and he would stay, because he was kind, because he cared for her. He had shown that to her again and again, at Kino, at the bullfight. Even last night. Another man might have stayed and vented his anger with his fists. Instead he had taken himself away.

A good supper, she thought. A good hearty supper, of his favorite things. She would have red wine on the table instead of beer. Warm water for his bath. It occurred to her that, in some sense, she was dissatisfied because she was safe. Well, she would take it for granted no more. Tonight she would make a good homecoming for him, and tomorow she would go find that professor, and all would be well in the house again.