Stallion Gate by Martin Cruz Smith Page B

in his hair were bright. The La Fonda not only suffered Cleto, but prompted him to approach guests as long as he did so with a minimum of contempt.
    “How much?” Joe asked.
    “Two dollar.” Cleto laid the necklaces on the table.
    “Ridiculous.” Fuchs picked up a string and held it close to the candlelight. He scratched a stone with his fingernail. “You know what turquoise is?” he asked Cleto.
    “Turquoise.”
    “Turquoise is, in fact, a phosphate of copper and aluminum.”
    “One dollar.” Cleto shrugged.
    “See, you didn’t even know what you were selling. I just told you; you should pay me. I’ve seen these stones. They change color, they fade, they’re hardly diamonds. They’re stones off the ground.”
    “Not off the ground.” Joe lifted a necklace. “They have to mine them. The old way is to build a fire against the rock, then throw water on the rock. The rock shatters and you see a seam of fresh turquoise like a blue stream of water. It would be easier to use explosives, but they’re impossible to get now.” He put two dollars on the table and gave the necklace to Anna Weiss. “For you.”
    “You’re a gentleman, Sergeant. Thank you.”
    She slipped the turquoise string over her head and inside the collar of her shirt. The stones were mixed: evening-blue, blue-weed blue, mountain-lake blue, corngreen. With the shirt and comb, she looked like a beautiful ragpicker of all nations.
    Cleto quickly gathered the necklaces and money from the table and moved away.
    Fuchs took a deep breath. “Sergeant, sometimes your simpleness seems almost clever. You have what we called in Germany a ‘peasant wit.’ Do you understand? But there is a great difference between cleverness and intelligence. Where you see pretty stones, I do see phosphate. Where you see ‘longhairs,’ I see an elite. To be honest, the war will be won by intelligence, by science,not by soldiers. Not to denigrate anybody’s sacrifice.”
    “Klaus, we’re all soldiers fighting for the same cause,” Harvey said.
    “And we all have different causes.” Fuchs turned to Anna Weiss. “Take the necklace off, it looks foolish.”
    “Willst Du lieber einen gelben Stern haben?”
she asked.
“Oder einen roten?”
    At the sound of German the entire dining room fell silent. In the hush, Harvey whispered, “Joe, that old guy with the necklaces stole your newspaper.”
    “You’re seeing things. You need a cure,” Joe said. “Let’s get out of here. Let me take you up to some hot springs, some sacred healing waters. You’re invited too,” he told Anna Weiss and Fuchs.
    “Impossible,” said Fuchs.
    “When?” Harvey asked.
    “Right now,” Joe said. “Tonight. I’ll lead you in the jeep.”
    Anna Weiss said, “Yes.”

10
    High above the Jemez road, a hot spring poured into a well of rock. Pink coralroot crept out of pine needles. Spruce bough and moon floated on sulfurous steam.
    Joe was already in the black water. Harvey bobbed like a rubber duck. Anna Weiss laid her clothes on the edge and stepped in. As she sank, her eyes looked directly into Joe’s and she said, “Joy through strength.” She went under and came up, her hair molded to the sides of her face.
    “Too bad Klaus didn’t want to come up from the car,” Harvey said. “He’s getting a little testy. It’s the pressure from Trinity. Only a month to go.”
    “Why Trinity?” she asked. “Why does Oppy call the test site that?”
    “From an English sonnet. By John Donne, according to Oppy,” Harvey said, and mimicked Oppy’s hoarse whisper. “ ‘Batter my heart, three person’d God, for you as yet but knock, breathe, shine and seek to mend.’ ”
    “Doesn’t it have a name already?” Anna asked.
    “Stallion Gate,” said Joe.
    “An American name. I like that better.”
    “So do I.”
    “This is the perfect example of average temperature,” Harvey said. “Half of me is cooking and half of me is freezing, but the average is very