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

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

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

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

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

“Now, sir?”

“No better day.”

“I don’t have a rifle, sir.”

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

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

“We’ll be done by then.”

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

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

“It’s illegal, you know, Sergeant.”

“What, sir?”

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

“Do they, sir?”

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

“Yes, sir.”