Stallion Gate (32 page)

Oppy began pacing again. “If it works, he can’t touch me.”

“You don’t have to take the chance.”

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

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

“Augustino brought them.”

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

“You don’t understand. And if you weren’t so damned clumsy—”

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

“Give them back.”

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

“It’s not just you, it’s Anna, too. Augustino knows she quit the Hill.”

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

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

“I’m sorry,” Joe said.

Oppy clutched his chest and gasped rheumatically for air. Some men go through their whole lifetimes without being hit, it occurred to Joe. They say anything, do anything and never expect a fist, but they’re willing to blow up the world.

“I’m really sorry,” Joe said.

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

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

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

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

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

“It’s Fuchs,” Joe said. Through the thunder he doubted that Oppy heard him. It didn’t matter.

As he helped Oppy start down the steps he could see Groves standing anxiously at the base of the tower. When Oppy reached the ground, he shook off whatever
the general was saying and shuffled toward the sedan. As soon as the two men were in the back, the car set off toward South-10,000. The only figure among the two jeeps left was Eberly, trudging miserably in the mud, keeping his vigil.

Joe returned to the shed and opened his palm. “Harry Gold,” said black letters. Putting the book in Oppy’s jacket pocket, he’d considered, just for a moment, planting the card. Such moments were short. He laid the stub on the FM receiver because his pants were damp from the rain. Another bolt hit close by. The bulb in the shed went blue and died.

Rain increased to triple time. Waltz time, Joe thought. Inside the shed it was dark, but all around the tower lightning glowed like the stems of flowers in a black garden. He used spare rope off the floor to tie the yellow wands, serpent heads up, to the detonator boxes. The Voice of America had briefly signed off, and for the first time the site radio could communicate on a clear frequency. Base Camp asked if anyone had any information about a missing mess tent. Early breakfast was being served, and the French toast and powdered eggs were getting wet.

Joe felt unexpected pleasure seeing the wands stand on their makeshift altar. As lightning closed in on the tower, the shed seemed to rise and plunge into each crash. The fierce, brief glow at the door made the sphere levitate and the wands, bright as gold, jump to life. The shadow on the wall was a head of coiled hair wearing
a crown of wands. A dancer’s shadow, kicking up thunder.

Everyone insisted he was Indian, so, why not? Put some finery on the atom, a brace of electric snakes, and let it dance on hundred-foot legs. Dance in the desert and shake the earth. He wished he knew the right prayer or song; there had to be some music for this, or something he could improvise. Good music and good religion, he guessed, were both born in times of stress. Roberto would be proud.

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

“Thirty minutes to Zero Hour,”
the receiver said.

He strapped on his belt and .45 and decided, orders or no orders, it was time to go. “This desert’s jumpin’,” he hummed. Lightning hit east of the tower, but the flash at the door was blocked by a man in a poncho.

“I didn’t hear you come up,” Joe shouted over the thunder.

“Not in this storm, Sergeant.” Captain Augustino squeezed into the shed as it went black again.

“I thought you went with Oppy and General Groves.”

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

The captain hadn’t brought the submachine gun, Joe thought.

“There’s not going to be any Trinity, sir.”

“Dr. Oppenheimer thinks there is. General Groves thinks there is. I think there is. You didn’t give him the card?”

“In his jacket.” Joe shifted to block the captain’s view of the receiver and the stub lying on it even though the shed was dark. “The pocket with the book.”

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

“Magic, Sergeant?”

“I’m down to that, sir.”

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

Thunder became a receding tide. The last bolts were perfunctory and muffled. On the floor the broken wands looked dead.

“You never gave him Harry Gold’s card,” Augustino said. “I saw it.”

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

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

“We can still put the card on Oppenheimer.” He pocketed his lighter and jumped down a few rungs. “You can still save Anna Weiss. Last chance.”

“Keep your hands in sight, sir.”

Augustino lifted his hand to show a nickel-plated .22. Just the sort of shiny little item an officer would carry, Joe thought.

“While you were boxing, Sergeant, I found your uniform and firearm and emptied your clip.”

Joe aimed at the captain’s eyes and squeezed the trigger. The .45’s hammer slapped an empty breach.

Augustino went on, undisturbed, “Anna Weiss is at the border right now. A phone call can still catch her. You never should have touched Mrs. Augustino.”

He fired. A head shot. Joe’s hair whipped to one side, spewing blood. A heart shot. Joe turned, as if he’d thought to dodge, and dropped.

The first shot had dug across the cranium and mass of hair. The second penetrated the heavy muscle of the chest and scored the ribs. As he hit the platform, Joe reached and took the captain by the throat, and Augustino fired wide.

“
Oh, say does that star
 …” swelled across the flat as headlights arrived at the base of the tower. It was the arming-party jeep. Engine and headlights stayed on while the men jumped out. There was a hurried rattle of a lock, a sharp creak of door hinges.

As Augustino pressed the bright muzzle of the .22 against his forehead Joe pushed the captain off the steps so that he hung straight out from the platform in Joe’s grip, a hundred feet above the ground.

“Arming lead connected.” Jaworski spoke into the field radio at the “privy.” From the speakers in the dark flowed a tremulous “… 
home of the brave. Good morning and
buenos dias.”

With his free hand, Augustino held on to Joe’s wrist to keep from being strangled.

“… 
Latin American broadcast from Station KCBA in Delano, Cali
—” vanished in a squawk of dials. Over the loudspeakers and from the receiver in the shed, Harvey answered, “
Understand arming lead connected. Check
.”

“Firing switch closed and ready,” Jaworski said.

“
Firing switch closed and ready
,” Harvey answered from the receiver and speakers.

Both Joe and Augustino were quiet. It was a strange pause on the edge of the platform, Joe thought, like two murderers hushing themselves for midwives in the next room.

“There’s another jeep here,” Jaworski said.

“
Everyone’s accounted for
,” Harvey answered.

“Joe?” Jaworski asked.

“
Augustino called in ten minutes ago and said he took him out
,” Harvey said.

“Then why is there a jeep here?” Jaworski demanded.

“There’s no one there
,” a new voice said on the receiver.
Oppy spoke in a wheeze. “
If the firing switch is closed, leave as fast as you can. If you have a breakdown, you’re going to have to run
.”

“Then we’ll take the other jeep, too,” Jaworski said.

“
No
.” Oppy took a moment to decide. “
Leave the jeep. Lock up and leave
.”

A door swung shut. A hasp snapped closed. An engine revved as the jeep reversed and spun in the dirt back to the blacktop, then strained and gained speed toward South-10,000.

Alone, alone, now all alone, Joe thought, the two of us.

“Give me the card,” Augustino said.

“The gun.” Joe reached with his other hand.

Augustino swung himself in to the steps, but as he fired, Joe knocked the barrel up. Both shots went high and into the night. Augustino forced the barrel down to Joe’s head again, but the gun clicked when he tried to fire. It was a small automatic and carried only five rounds. It was like ending a long dialogue with a stutter.

Augustino dropped the gun and clawed at Joe’s hand, breaking free and twisting himself not toward but away from the tower. He stared at Joe with eyes like lamps. He hung in the air so long without support that Joe thought he might fly. Then he fell, turning over once, twice, before he hit the ground.

While Joe climbed down with one numb arm the Voice of America played
The Nutcracker Suite
. The jeep was where Jaworski had left it. As soon as anyone
saw new headlights at the tower, the test would stop. If it didn’t, he still had time to drive clear. More searchlights burned from West-10,000. He worked on what he’d say to General Groves. Excuse me, sir, for the setback of the war effort, the loss of millions of dollars, the death of the captain. It was hard to believe that no one saw him descending the tower, and as if in answer the pilot of a B-29 observer plane broke into the Tchaikovsky to say he couldn’t find Trinity at all. Amplified conversations about gauges and counters went back and forth in the dark across the valley. Anna must be safely in Juarez, though safety in Juarez was a relative matter.

On the final landing of the tower, Joe stopped and felt inside his shirt for the papers from Pollack. The Casa Mañana was there, folded, tucked away. He was more in shock than in pain. The head wound had stopped bleeding and become a mat of damp hair. He could imagine the reaction he’d get when he arrived at the bunker.

Going down the wooden ladder to the ground, he heard a new sound, like a finger stroking the teeth of a comb. Not the lost B-29. Once a year, rains brought a generation of toads. Waking in their desert burrows, gathering around temporary pools, the amphibians sang, mated and spent their whole conscious lives in a single night. This was the night.

Painfully Joe slipped behind the steering wheel of the jeep and with his left hand reached for the key. It wasn’t there. It couldn’t be gone; orders were for keys to be in the ignition at all times. He felt around the floor
under the seat. He got out of the jeep and felt on the ground. No key.