Joe swung off the road and stopped the car, its nose pointed at barbed-wire fence and white flakes. The fence posts were split pine as gray as bones, spaced eight feet apart and leaning by habit away from the wind. There was no proper crossarm or hinges, just a section with two strands of barbed wire stretched to a stick hung by plain wire to the far post, so stick and section could simply be unhung and dragged out of the way. Inside the fence was meager grazing land, chamiza and sage flattened by the headlights. Yucca spines dipped and waved in the snow.

“Stallion Gate,” Joe announced.

“There’s no one here.” Groves looked up and down the road. “There’s supposed to be a half-track and two jeeps waiting for us.”

“Yes, sir. They would have come through the gate.”

“You’re sure this is it?”

“Yes, sir.” Joe pointed to the slightly whiter double track of an access road that ran under the bottom wire. “I’ll see if I can raise them.”

The field radio was a prewar crank model with a range in good weather of forty miles, and the answer, when it came, hovered on static. The party from the Alamogordo base had lost a track and lost time, but would still meet them at the fence.

As Groves slumped back in his seat the entire car moved on its springs. “I’m supposed to be in Washington tomorrow and here we are twiddling our thumbs at a barbed-wire gate.”

“Joe, you’re the only one who’s ever been here before,” Oppy said. “What’s your advice?”

“The weather’s getting worse. I suggest we wait.”

“Sergeant, I have never accomplished anything by standing still.” Groves sat forward, decision made. “There’s no more than an inch on the ground. We’ll meet them en route.”

It took ten minutes for Joe to put chains on the rear tires, untie the gate, drive through and, for etiquette’s sake, tie it back up. Back in the car, slapping flakes from their coats, they started off on the faint trail that wandered across the field.

Joe drove in second gear, trying to keep his lights on the ruts without getting his wheels into them. Fuchs studied a grazing service map.

“How do you think they lost a track?” Oppy asked.

“Link pins,” Groves said. “Tanks, half-tracks, bulldozers—same thing. If they had trouble with a drive wheel, they’d be stopped dead.”

Joe shifted to low as the road vanished.

“We’re almost in Mexico. How much snow can there be?” Fuchs wiped condensation from the windshield. “They said they were coming to meet us, yes? We should be seeing them any minute.”

After a long silence Joe said, “We should have seen them half an hour ago.”