“No, but I’ll let you geniuses find your own way down.”

“Stay,” Harvey begged.

“Yes, tell us more fascinating Indian experiences,” Anna said. “Lift more cars. Play more waltzes.”

On the road to the Hill, deer dashed in front of Joe’s headlights. They were mule deer, five or six of them. He braked and skidded right to the edge before he stopped. His lights picked out the scribbling flight of moths, the dart of a nightjar, and then faded over the long drop to the canyon floor.

The world was full of victims, all too eager to take you with them.

11

Light lay in the blue shutters and between the threshold and the door. The house had two rooms, a kitchen with a wood-burning stove and a larger room for everything else. The adobe walls were whitewashed with kaolin. There were a cot, maple bureau, enamel-topped table and chairs, dusty pails, an open carton of pots and a corner fireplace that was black and empty. On the walls were a crucifix, the Virgin, Saints Michael and Christopher (wading through water, the Christ child on his shoulders), and photos of Rudy in his confirmation suit, dressed in feathers and bells for a dance, in his uniform and garrison cap.

Joe had heard that Rudy was dead. The B-17s at Clark Field had been loaded with fuel and lined up in rows when the Japs came over. Each bomber blew up the next one, and the last B-17, trying to take off, rolled over a gun battery before exploding. No bodies were found.

He sat on the hard bed and smoked, using a pail as an ashtray. He was aware that he didn’t look up, and knew it was out of fear that Dolores would come in from the kitchen with a dishcloth in her hand. Or that Rudy would be standing at the foot of the bed, whining, wanting to box. It was the first time he had been in the house in years, and it was just as bad as he’d thought it would be. Smaller. There was nothing so claustrophobic as memory.

Rudy could still be alive. Hiding out in the jungle. In a prison camp. In Japan.

Of course, Fuchs was right. If the bomb worked, all the Rudy Peñas in the world wouldn’t measure up to a single Oppy, Harvey or Fuchs.

It was goddamn Harvey who’d sent Joe to the house. Little Harvey and his need for approval. Why tell a sergeant that you’re leaving the war? Joe hadn’t gone back to the Hill. He’d picked up a couple of bottles at a bar and gone out target shooting, looking for unlucky coyotes. He’d figured he’d wake up in a motel in Esperanza, the Spanish town across the river from Santiago. Instead, he woke up in Santiago, in this house.