The Glory Game (45 page)

“I have no quarrel with any of your mother's statements. You did leave the goal undefended. However, you committed a greater error when you hit the ball,” Raul stated. “Where did you intend it to go?”

Rob hesitated, not certain what the right answer was. “Up-field.”

“But to no one in particular?”

“No,” he admitted.

“That is your error. A player should never indiscriminately hit the ball. Either it should be a pass to a teammate or an attempt at a goal. When you hit the ball, you must always aim it. Know where your teammates are and pass to them. Always try to get the ball to a teammate. Possession and control of the ball are the best way to defend a goal.”

“You're right.” Rob appeared disgusted with himself for not seeing something that now sounded so obvious.

At the same time, Luz realized that she'd been put in her place. What she'd said had been correct—as far as it went. And Raul had subtly made it clear her knowledge was limited.

“You have come here to learn, Rob,” he reminded him, then touched a blunt spur to his horse's side, sending it forward.

Her gaze followed him across the stableyard. She was stinging slightly from the encounter although fully aware Raul had not belittled her in any way. Still, he made her advice sound if not wrong, then incomplete.

Then Luz saw Trisha catch the reins of his horse near the bridle and stop him. She laughingly said something to him which Luz couldn't hear. Raul dismounted and loosened the cinch of his saddle. The sight of the two of them together, no matter how aloof to Trisha Raul appeared, was more than she could stand. She turned.

“I'm going to the house,” she said to Rob.

“I'll see you there later.” He moved off in the direction of his fellow students, now able to face them after his enlightening talk with Raul. And Luz felt a vague resentment at the importance he was gaining in Rob's eyes.

The bonfires on the back lawn continued to blaze long after the meat was roasted, warding off the early-evening chill and throwing light at the encroaching shadows. Sitting at the long table placed outside, Luz looked at the plate in front of her, still mounded with food. It didn't appear as though she'd eaten a bite, but her stomach knew better. She shook her head ruefully. The ends of her hair, falling loose about her shoulders, brushed against the collar of her French linen jacket striped in pencil-thin lines of dusty rose and pink alternating with bands of parchment.

“I honestly can't eat any more,” she declared, wiping her hands on the cloth napkin. “There is enough food on my plate for four people.”

“We try to fatten you up.” Hector sat across from her, his white teeth gleaming beneath his mustache. “Did you like
el asado?”

“Muy bueno
. Did I say that right?”

“Sí.”
The wavering motion of his hand suggested it was
perhaps not exactly correct, but that it didn't matter. A young boy from the kitchen staff whisked her plate away, and Luz laid her napkin in its place.

“This is damned good stuff.” Duke Sovine occupied the chair on her right. He sawed his knife across the roasted meat and glanced down the table at his Mexican neighbor. “Miguel, I always thought that
cabrito
you Mexicans cook was the best thing I ever tasted, but this beats it all to hell.” He forked a piece into his mouth and chewed, his head moving from side to side in appreciation of its savory flavor. “I gotta find out how they do this so I can tell Angie. Angie's my wife,” he explained to Luz.

The drawling, loquacious Texan was the oldest of the group at thirty-two, the son of one of the big independent oil producers in the state. There was a big gold ring on his finger designed in the shape of Texas with a two-carat diamond in the center to symbolize the Lone Star State. Polo was a hobby to him, but like most, he was hooked on it.

“That woman throws some of the biggest and best barbecues Houston has ever seen. She loves to have parties.” He talked as he ate. “She wanted to come with me, but her schedule's worse than mine. She's so involved in fundraisers, the arts, and the country club, not to mention our three kids.” He stopped and laid his silverware down to reach into his back hip pocket. “Gotta show ya a picture of the little ones.”

Luz looked at the snapshot he removed from his wallet, wondering if he realized that in describing his wife's life, he had given an apt description of her own before the divorce. The photo showed two boys and a girl, ranging in age from three to seven, all towheads.

“They're lovely.”

“Yeah, I'm kinda proud of ‘em myself.” Duke Sovine returned the snapshot to its plastic packet in his wallet and shoved it back in his pocket. “Lance, the oldest, has the makings of a polo player. He played in his first Little Britches game last spring. Didn't do bad.”

“Rob was about that age when he started playing, too,” Luz recalled.

“Ya know, Luz, I find it real hard to believe you're their mother. I figured you were an older sister. I swear, I'm just not sayin' that. You're a lovely woman,” he insisted, a smile
widening his square-jawed face, open and warm like the state he hailed from.

“Thank you.” It was nice to hear that compliment again, although it wasn't quite as reassuring as it once had been.

“You're Jake Kincaid's daughter, aren't you?”

“That's right.”

“I heard he was quite a wheeler-dealer in his day.” When he leaned back from the table, nothing was left on his plate. He rubbed a hand over his stomach and glanced at the other guests sitting at the long table, their faces lighted by the candle flames burning in glass wells dotted down its length. “It's quite a group we got here.”

“Very diverse.” Luz avoided looking at the head of the table where Raul sat, aware that Trisha had taken a chair at that end as well.

“I don't know,” Duke said, partly disagreeing. “We got Mexican oil, Argentine oil, Arab oil, and Texas oil, not to mention horsebreeders and ranchers.” He rested his hands on the edge of the table, preparing to push his chair back. “‘Scuse me, would you, Luz? I think I'll have a word with Hanif an' see if he can't give me a clue about OPEC's price plans for this winter.”

“Go ahead.” She smiled as he straightened, grabbed his beer glass, and sauntered over to the Arab's chair. Two robed figures stood like statues in the background, watching.

Behind her, Luz heard the strum of a guitar and half turned to glance over her shoulder. Three men, garbed in some native costume, stood near the outer edge of the firelight, guitars slung from their shoulders. They began softly to play a Spanish folk song.

“We have entertainment this evening,” Hector said, observing her interest. “They are local musicians, but it is nice, no?”

“It is very nice,” Luz agreed.

Nearly everyone at the table was finished eating, and people began to shift places, striking up conversations and getting acquainted, despite the various language barriers. Tired of sitting, Luz stood up and wandered over to Rob's chair. He was talking to Hanif about his recent visit to England and the polo matches at Windsor. She listened for a while, then spoke to the German, Gregor, about horseracing. There was a gradual gravitation away from the table toward the twin bonfires as
they stood around in small clusters, talking and smoking their cigars or cigarettes.

“Luz.” Trisha touched her arm, claiming her attention away from Hector and a young Argentine player. “Did you notice the clothes those men are wearing?”

“Yes.” But she looked again, remembering no more than that they appeared to be wearing some sort of native costume.

“That is the traditional gaucho dress,” Hector explained.

“I love it,” Trisha declared. “Look at those baggy pants. They look like bloomers.”

“Those are called
bombachas.”
Hector paused to call to one of the musicians, in Spanish, and motioned him to join them.

The man came over, shifting his guitar to hang behind his back, and stood indifferently while Hector pointed out the details of his costume. The
chiripá
, a scarf which resembled a diaper, was strung through his legs, and the buckle of his wide belt, called a
rostra
, was made from silver coins fastened to chains. Hector asked him something, and the guitarist reached behind his back and pulled out a tarnished silver scabbard which was tucked inside his belt at the small of his back.

“This is his
facón.”
Hector removed the double-edged dagger. “This was his only tool and his only weapon. He killed with it and ate with it.”

“They don't still dress this way, do they?” Trisha asked doubtfully.

“Only for the tourists,” Raul said dryly, wandering over to stand behind Hector. Luz could smell the pungent smoke from his small black cigar.

“The bombachas
and the
chiripá
, they are like your cowboy boots and jeans. They still have utility, so they are worn by many of the gauchos who work on cattle
estancias,”
Hector explained. “But the
hotas de potro
, they no longer wear. They were the gaucho's boots, made from the hide of a colt's hind leg. They pulled them on while the hide was still damp. When they dry, they fit tight.”

“How awful.” Trisha grimaced.

“And now, since wild cattle are no longer killed and slaughtered on the spot for their hides, the gaucho has no need for his lance. He uses the
boleadoras
, the thongs with balls tied at the ends, to bring down the cattle.”

“I want to buy an outfit like that before I go home. I think it would look sensational,” Trisha stated decisively.

“It would sure look better on you than on him,” Duke Sovine said, joining them as more gathered around to see what was happening.

“You're only going to be here ten more days,” Rob warned. “You'd better start looking.”

“Don't remind me,” she retorted.

“Won't you be remaining here with your brother?” Hanif inquired, the Oxford accent sounding foreign to his swarthy dark looks, as foreign as his ascot and blazer appeared compared to the flowing robes of his watchdogs.

“Unfortunately, no.”

“Surely there is no need to leave so soon. Can't you postpone your departure and remain here at the
estancia
with us?” he suggested.

“Perhaps,” Trisha replied, then tilted her head toward Raul. “But I haven't been invited.”

Stealing a sideways glance, Luz watched Raul take a drag on the slim cigar he held to his mouth, squinting his eyes against the smoke. The action seemed designed to cover his silence.

“I'm sure we can change that,” Hanif stated confidently.

“Ah.” Hector made an approving sound and shifted on his crutches. “Everyone, we have something for you.” He motioned the hovering servants forward with their trays of gourds. “It is
maté
, served the traditional way that the gaucho drank it. He brewed his tea in a gourd and sipped it through a silver straw.”

As the servants passed among them, Luz took one of the gourds from the tray, then deliberately drifted to the outer fringes of the group to sip the hot herbal drink. The gauchoclad musician rejoined his partners to lend the sound of his guitar to theirs. Trisha, instead of playing up to Raul as Luz expected, began dividing her attention among the other guests, laughing, talking, flirting, gathering them around her like hummingbirds to a bright flower. It was an obvious attempt to make Raul jealous.

Confused, Luz turned away and idly sipped the tea through the short silver tube. She wondered if they had quarreled, yet she hadn't detected any hostility between them. As a matter of fact, she couldn't recall anything loverlike in Raul's attitude
toward Trisha, although knowing her disapproval, he might have concealed it when she was around.

More wood was added to the bonfires, sending up a shower of sparks. The flames crackled and blazed higher. The babble of laughter, talking voices, and the resonance of guitar music seemed to press against her. She gazed into the quiet of the gathering night and the silent shimmer of stars in a dark violet sky. She gave the tea gourd to a passing servant who was bringing drinks for some of the guests, then moved away from the fires onto the darkened lawn, slipping her hands into the slash pockets of her pink trouser-pleated pant skirt.

As she strolled aimlessly across the grass, the noise of the barbecue receded and the evening quiet settled onto her. Luz didn't try to sort through her troubled thoughts and make sense of them. She just walked. A breeze stirred in the branches of the trees that formed a windbreak around the massive house and its grounds. She wandered toward them. It was cooler away from the fires, but Luz didn't mind the nip in the air.

The shadows grew thicker along the windbreak. Luz strolled into them, idly studying the star-studded heavens above her. The ground was too flat to make her be concerned about what was in front of her. She sensed a movement, a faint rustle of sound close to the trees. Luz half expected to hear the flap of wings.

Suddenly, a man's figure loomed in front of her. She stopped abruptly, drawing back in startled alarm. “Señora.” There was a low, earnest tone to the voice.
“Porfavor.”
When he extended his hand to her, palm up, Luz thought he was begging for money, then she caught the metal flash of a rifle barrel across his poncho.

Cold fear shot through her as she backed up a step, then turned to run. But she came up against a solid wall of flesh, and a pair of hands gripped her arms. She started to struggle blindly.

“It is all right.” She recognized Raul's voice with relief, her hands relaxing to rest against his jacket. As she half turned to look over her shoulder at the dark figure, Raul said something in Spanish and the man melted into the shadows.

“I am sorry if Eduardo alarmed you.”