work, not play — but you don't know that. Okay, I give you four hundred, just about all have, and you come back in a few days and give half of it back. Fair enough?'
A slow smile: 'Four hundred pesos? What if I don't come back?'
He met it with one of his own, feral, canny: 'That garden's too well-tended, hija. You'll come back.'
'You're right, I — uh-oh,' she said, starting to rise. Lufo beat her to the doorway; he'd heard the commotion as soon as she.
Something had made the horses-skittish as they approached the soddy, for the wiry latino, Espinel, had all he could do to keep his mount and the two he led under control. Behind him were three pack-horses in a string, carrying polymer-wrapped bundles much too long for any pack animal. Thompson, a medium-sized anglo afoot, hung onto his leadrope with foolhardy courage as the pack-horses milled and bucked around him, their ears laid back, nostrils distended, eyes rolling in fear.
Lufo sprinted around Espinel's remuda of three and hurled himself into the melee heedless of flying hooves and dirt clods, snatching at leadropes, making things worse by rushing headlong at the already panicky animals. Abruptly, one horse went down in a tangle of lashings, its almost weightless bundles rolling free. Lufo took a deathgrip on the second animal, the third growing calm after Thompson wiped his bandanna across its nose. Lufo saw that Espinel was leading his animals away from the soddy, found himself jerked off his feet, was thrown bodily under Thompson's horse and rolled stunned in the dust.
The pack-horse sunfished once, its bundles slipping, and set off for distant places. 'There goes the rectenna,' screamed Thompson. 'For God's sake, Espinel!'
The latino's head jerked to and fro like a puppet's as he surveyed a situation gone to garbage and getting worse, and his restive mount helped his decision. Espinel vaulted from his saddle in one fluid instant, unslinging the wire-stocked carbine from his shoulder; staggered upright, spent two seconds aiming, and fired a brief burst at the fleeing animal. The pack-horse jerked, continued at a canter, then faltered and fell.
Sandy was running toward the groggy Lufo but Thompson waved her forward to Espinel's horse. 'Grab the reins, lady, and stand fast!' Sandy did as she was told, reflecting that these men had priorities they valued more than their skins.
Espinel remounted then, and with Thompson's help managed to get the five horses tethered at the nearest cedar. Thompson wiped the nose of each animal, muttering. Sandy helped Lufo to stand and gasped as she saw the bare patch of skin on one side of his head.
'You're lucky he didn't kick your head off,' she said with more tenderness than anger, and started to inspect the wound.
But Lufo shook his head and drew away. 'That's an old scar, hija,' he said, almost chuckling, 'and I'm kinda sensitive about it. Here's where he got me,' he finished, pulling up his shirt.
The hoofprint was an angry blue crescent at the side of his belly. The lowest rib was cracked but not floating free, and Lufo insisted on walking alone to his comrades. Sandy studied them, then the horses nervously testing the breeze, and walked back to refill her pitcher.
The three men paused outside the soddy to lay their bundles down before knocking. 'You've rented it,'
Sandy called, 'so don't stand on ceremony.'
It appeared, as she ministered to them, that the rental terms would have to change. As Thompson put it,
'We have no choice now, Lufo. We'll have to launch from here if I can repair the damage. It could take a week.'
It was Lufo's decision to offer the four hundred in gold to Sandy in exchange for meals and her silence.
'We'll sleep out with the stock, hija, but there's something we have to keep inside, and it's big. We can't take chances on anybody seeing it. If you have visitors you'll have to keep 'em out of here.'
She looked at Thompson, whose quick precise speech tagged him as a nor'easter. 'Sorry, but that's the way it is,' he said. Espinel only shrugged as if willing to accept whatever the others decided.
Sandy had options none of them could know; and had she chosen, she could have arranged their departure in one Godawful hurry. But Sandy did not feel threatened; she would accept the situation.
'You'd best hobble your mounts and take them down in the draw yonder,' she said. 'Less breeze down there, and some forage.'
'Something in the air, es cierto,' Espinel agreed. 'No bear or cougar in these parts, senorita?'
They had moved on in the interests of health but Sandy only said, 'No. By the way, Mr. Thompson, what's on that bandanna of yours? It certainly worked miracles in calming your ponies.'
'Mentholated jelly,' he said. 'A horse can't smell anything past it. Espinel taught me that.'
'Kerosene works okay, but not so good,' Espinel said shyly. 'Lufo, can you ride with that rib stove in?'
'He won't have to for a week,' said Thompson, 'but he may have to do some digging.'
Lufo: 'What for? The launcher?'
'No, to bury that damn' pony. It'll draw buzzards.'
'I had no choice,' said Espinel.
'You did right,' Lufo said quickly.
'Don't worry about the pony,' Sandy put in. 'I can butcher it out, and what I don't smoke or tan will go into my compost heap.'
'I hadn't thought about that. You've got your own cottage industry here, don't you,' Thompson said admiringly.
'Yes — but keep wiping your ponies' noses,' Sandy warned. 'As long as they're here they'll be spooky.'
'You must have one hell of a compost heap,' Thompson joked.
'It has an air about it,' Sandy admitted. 'And those big bundles of yours have an air, too — of mystery.
What is it, some kind of secret weapon?'
Silence. Then, 'She'll see it anyhow,' Thompson mused.
'And she'll be an accomplice, which should keep her quiet,' Lufo said, grunting in pain as he stood up.
'Let's go get the stuff. We can lay it out inside the soddy while Espinel stakes the horses out.'
'You've really piqued my curiosity,' Sandy murmured, watching as the men carried the bundles in.
'Young and the Feds wouldn't put it quite that way,' said Thompson, peeling back the polymer from one bundle. 'They know Mexico can't afford holo satellites, and they didn't expect anybody to build an antenna thirty- five klicks high along the border. This one strayed too far into Wild Country and somebody nailed it with a laser — but it landed a few klicks North of here. We hoped to get it back across the Rio Grande for repairs but now I'm afraid I'll have to fly it back.' He spread his hands above the naked bundle as if it were self-explanatory.
Sandy saw a protective framework of cot ton wood, bound carefully with cord. Inside was an intricate gossamer structure covered with an almost invisible film and supported within the framework by a jury-rig of rubber bands as protection against shock or abrasion. Nevertheless, the elegant structure was ripped and buckled in places. Certain that she had misunderstood something, Sandy said, 'You're telling me this is part of a tower that's thirty-five
'Does the same job — and relays holo programs that the Feds manage to keep off their captive networks in Streamlined America,' Thompson nodded. 'That includes anything Governor Jim Street and the Indys have to say about little matters like industrial cartels, strike-breaking goon squads, and a team of what seem to be government assassins. What the governor has here,' he tapped the gossamer structure lightly,
'is a medium that's out of control. Blanton Young's control,' he amended, beaming. 'It's called a Boucher relay.'
Sandy smiled while she wrinkled her forehead in amused disbelief. 'But — but it looks like a huge model airplane!'
Thompson's hand formed an 'OK' in the air. 'Dead center,' he said.
CHAPTER 16
The Boucher relay was no model, but clearly reflected its modeler's origins. Kukon and MacCready, both pioneers, had both drawn on model techniques to develop aircraft that were ultralight for their times.
