In the middle of the Hill, squeezed between the Main Drive and the mesa’s southern rim, the Tech Area held twenty-six nondescript buildings. Each structure was labeled with a placard from “A” to “Z,” but this was the only sense of order to them. Half were white Army clapboard, half green Army sheetrock. They were at all angles to one another and shared a military style that decreed that every side look like the back.

A transformer was burning. In some ways the fire was well located: at the back of the Tech Area, away from the gas stocks, cyclotron and particle accelerator, near the fire station and close to hydrants. But it had taken time to cut power to the transformer, and by the time Joe and Oppy arrived, both power poles, cables, switching equipment and the high wooden fence around the transformer were throwing flames and creosote-black smoke into the afternoon. Because of the fence, firemen couldn’t get their hoses as close to the transformer as they wanted.

Watching the firemen and the fire was the whole population of the Tech Area: physicists from the cyclotron shack, soldiers from the boiler house, doctors from the medical labs, office clerks and, in front, the Indians who swept every building. A truckload of construction workers rolled up to join the spectators.

Oppy stared at the fire. “No, no, no,” he insisted.

His prayer was answered. The Texans leaped from the flatbed of the truck. As soon as they were off, the driver honked and moved toward the fire. The truck was an old Reo with a girder for a bumper, and as fire fighters ran from its path, the truck accelerated until it rammed through the burning fence and into the concrete barrier around the transformer. The truck backed up, lurched forward again and crashed into the burning gate of the fence. The driver rammed the fire a final time, taking out the other fence posts and shoveling more rubble into the transformer and around the base of the power poles. He backed into the clear, kicked open the cab door and hopped down like a rider who had just busted a cow in record time. He was big, in a blue work shirt and jeans, the only construction man in a shirt. He was young, with a fair crew cut and the fluid, arrogant grace of an athlete. A hero. He thrust his left fist into the air. A southpaw.

While technicians swarmed around Oppy, as if the truck had been a manifestation of his will, Joe stood aside and was joined by Felix Tafoya. On the Hill, with his khaki work clothes and push broom, Felix was invisible; in Santiago, he was the calf cutter and brander, an honored figure. His nose had been kicked askew by a hoof years before.

“That tejano,” he told Joe, “that’s Hilario’s fighter.”

“Seen Hilario lately?”