They go on through floating dust into the master bedroom, where a fire smolders in the big fireplace. The high winds outside are creating a downdraft; wisps of smoke lick over the mantel. Henry adds wood to the flames and as he does so something heavy rattles down the chimney, ricocheting from side to side, and crashes into the ashes. Another fragment of brick. They stoop and attempt to peer up inside the flue but can see only soot, the turbulent smoke. Should check out that chimney, Henry. First thing in the morning, Henry says.

From beyond the door leading to the gallery comes the sound of the El Culito string band and a labored wheezing of accordion—Vigil, Peralta and Apodaca at work.

You should buy this place, Henry, it’s a ruin but you should buy it. Why?—I’m the caretaker. How many acres go with it? Fifteen, I think. What’s the asking price? Twelve thousand dollars. And how far from town? Twenty miles. Buy it, Henry; ten years from now this place will be worth a cool million; in twenty years three million. Who cares? Albuquerque’s growing, my friend, this will become a ritzy suburb; that old mission church across the plaza will make this place a big draw someday—you’ll have millionaire trustfunder R. C. Bohemes from Boston, Chicago, New York genuflecting to your dog for a chance to live here. Ain’t got a dog, ain’t got the twelve thousand dollars, and anyhow I’m a fucking anti-reductionist natural empiric pancreatic philosopher not a fucking real estate developer. What’s the difference, Henry? Outlook and insight, that’s the difference. Insight maybe, but not much foresight; if you don’t buy it I will. You’re kidding, Henry says.

They rejoin the party. The dancing has begun. Myra and her friends are waltzing around the room to the creaky but jaunty strains of “La Varsuviana”:

Put your little foot

Put your little foot

Put your little foot right out…

Straight from the sixteenth-century ballrooms of Old Castile. The existential blonde, aloof and amused, stands alone by the table, so beautiful she intimidates the boys. Van Hoss and Henry bear down upon her but van Hoss gets there first and sweeps her into the ragged quadrille. Henry and old friends Morton Bildad and Jack Roggoway go into the backyard to dig up the goat: time to eat.

Another party, offshoot of the first, is under way outside. Somebody has set fire to Henry’s shithouse by dropping a cigarette into the bumhole. A circle of drunken savages, encouraged by bongo drums, prances around the pillar of flames. The blazing shack subsides into its fiery cavity. The dancers leap through the flames, howling with joy. Chaos and old night descend on El Culito.

By the glare of the fire Henry and friends excavate the scapegoat, knock off the hot earth and bear the offering, too hot to touch, on a platter into the hall. They set it on the table among the half-empty wine jugs, the near-empty but still fizzing punch bowl.