The tent stood in the empty courtyard. The motel cabins were dark because their occupants were the MPs who were on the highway monitoring traffic, chasing the losers back to Texas, ushering fresh truckloads of GIs toward Trinity. The only vehicle left in the court was Joe’s jeep, its top up to the rain. Raiding parties of lightning and thunder moved under a half-moon. There was no sign of any jalopy or pickup truck, and it occurred to Joe that Ben and Roberto might not show. No. It was Joe Peña’s night, he thought, and as if in answer, the rain briefly let up. Joe Peña’s Casa Mañana. As he walked across the courtyard to the jeep, the drops seemed to part like a curtain, as if the world were opening up just for him.

Joe dropped into the jeep. In the dark, on the seat next to him was a muted yellow glitter with the shape of snakes. Two lightning wands.

“The boy didn’t have a chance, Sergeant,” Captain Augustino said from the rear seat. “You suckered him. That boy didn’t know who he was fighting.”

“You saw the fight, Captain?” They looked like Roberto’s wands.

“I didn’t need to.”

“Lost some money?”

“No, I bet on you.”

“You found the medicine men you were looking for?”

“No. I found the wands where they were hiding. Magic.” Augustino tapped a cigarette on a silver case. It looked like the same case the captain’s wife had had, and he tapped on it the same way his wife had. The match flame made the wands glow from the seat; otherwise, the flame cast a soft, confidential light within the jeep, an illusion of golden warmth against the water that laced the windshield.

Augustino leaned forward, his sallow face lit by a smile of mutual understanding, his eyes full of something close to admiration. “I’m not going to put the Army in the position of saying that a medicine man can call fire down from the sky. Even if it is attempted sabotage, a medicine man doesn’t know any better.”

“I have to go look for Mescaleros. Groves’ orders.”

A car with its lights out turned into the courtyard and stopped by the cafe on the other side of the tent. A Plymouth two-door.

“Sergeant, I find amusing something so puny as a boxing match on a night like this, but I suspect the general would call it a dereliction of duty.”

Augustino saw the car as well as Joe. He knew the cars from the Hill as well as Joe, and this was Teller’s car. There seemed to be only one person inside. Her white hands held the steering wheel.

“You’d have to arrest half the MPs on the site. You’re not going to do that.”

“True, I do have other matters in mind.”