Rough castings of high explosive were trimmed with bronze saws to minimize sparks. Joe hosed a casting while a machinist delicately cut the riser tabs left from the mold. Both men noticed the spark at the same moment. Joe hosed the casting furiously until he was sure only a single crystal of Baratol had sparked and didn’t propagate. The machinist was soaked through. “What I like about this job,” he told Joe, “is I can piss my pants and no one knows.”

Afternoon. A basalt canyon topped with cedars. Below, a stream, moss, violets and a single Apache willow. Joe watched Shapiro balance anxiously on a twelve-year-old mare named Dixie.

“That’s much better,” Joe said, and walked around the horse and rider. “The secret is, Dixie’s not going to fall down. She’s just going to follow the horse ahead of her. You never go first, you never go last. She’s happy carrying a sack. You are her sack. Be a sack for her.”

Shapiro frowned. “Oppenheimer, he gallops, he jumps his horse.”

“His horse’s name is Crisis. You want to ride a horse with a name like that? You get friendly with Dixie. Take her carrots, apples, sugar cubes every day.”

Shapiro sagged in the saddle a little more confidently. “Back in Brooklyn, my brother kept pigeons,” he said.

Joe got an image of Shapiro in a rooftop pigeon cote, feathers and blood on his hands.

“Nice. Well, you get friendly with Dixie like that.”

Overhead, the cedars were a gallery of cut-outs against the sky. Joe thought he saw something watching from above. Could have been a crow.

“Chief, you want to do me a real favor, you’ll help me fight. You see Ray Stingo fight the kid from Texas?”

“Yeah.”

“I’m fighting the kid.”

“He’ll kill you.”

“It’s southpaws.” There was agony in Shapiro’s voice, as if he were talking about an incurable disease. “The first thing I ever learned was to circle off the jab and counter with the right. That moves me square into a leftie’s cross. I don’t see it coming, I never see it coming.”

“Maybe you have a chance.”

“Augustino’s behind it. He’s betting on the kid. Those fucking Texans stick together.”

“Get down.”

“I really appreciate this, Chief.”

Shapiro dismounted. Both men removed their caps, web belts and .45’s and assumed boxing stances.