Single Combat

to him, we'd like to get it first.'

Sandy stopped chewing as she heard the word 'necklace', but kept her thoughts to herself.

Quantrill winced as he moved his arm. 'I hope they don't want me ready for a firefight with Feds. I'm sore as a boil.'

'No, compadre, jus' try and find that necklace. Between you and me, it's partly to keep you from underfoot while the penetration raid gets set. El jefe thinks you'd pester them silly tryin' to go along. And Lufo Albeniz thinks so, too,' he added chuckling.

Soon they were retracing their path to Sandy's place, no real path at all but a series of landmarks.

Quantrill carried their nuclear cargo, staying so far behind his companions that he sometimes lost sight of them, but always in microwave contact. They made the trip without incident and sooner than they had expected, yet a fast chopper was already parked near the soddy, a stub-winged, guppy-bellied insect with rotors idling. Both pilot and gunner cradled assault rifles, and Lufo waved his scruffy hat when he saw that the gunner was an old friend.

Quantrill helped load Lufo's 'cycle into the cargo bay, then jestingly thrust fingers into his ears as Lufo took the precious canister from his 'cycle pannier compartment. Lufo saw that his friend Espinel was far from amused; exchanged rapid TexMex banter with him; strapped the canister between inflated pallets in the chopper. Then Lufo spoke with the pilot and trotted back to his companions.

He said to Sandy, 'Looks like I may not be out here again for a long time, chica. Maybe not ever.' His big hands on her shoulders, the hint of a wry smile hanging like a cigarette at one corner of his mouth, he searched her face. Now, as he continued, his voice was deeply resonant. 'But a man must do his duty.'

She laid her hands on his forearms and stared quizzically at him, subtle shadings of emotion changing her face. 'Lufo? Are you trying—' and then a sorrowful, 'This is goodbye then?'

A manly frown, a nod. 'It is not my wish. But I leave on a long mission tomorrow. Someday I may see you again, mi corazon.' He hugged her to him; said gruffly to Quantrill, 'You take care of her, compadre.'

He ignored Quantrill's muttered,' Jee-zus, Christ.'

Sandy pulled his head down to her with both hands in his straight black hair, kissed him soundly, then buried her face in her hands. 'Go on, Lufo, before I beg to go with you.'

The big latino draped an arm over Quantrill's shoulder, urged him to walk toward the chopper, now speaking quickly. 'Tell Sandy to make her sister more careful. Espinel swears he saw her riding the devil not far from here. The pilot thinks he's nuts,' he chuckled.

'Can do. But what the hell was that about a mission? You're not heading North with—'

A squeeze on his shoulder. 'Clearing the air, I hope. I've owed you ever since they put that chingada critic in your head, compadre. After today, I feel like maybe I've repaid you.'

'And then some,' Quantrill replied. 'I think maybe you're into me for a favor. All you'll ever have to do is ask.'

At Sandy's cry of 'Lufo,' both men looked back. Sandy, lavishly appealing in her damp buckskins, ran to the latino under the idling chopper blades, her long hair now flying free. Lufo caught her to him, lifted her as they kissed. The chopper crew and Quantrill all saw her flex one calf as she kissed the broad-shouldered Lufo hungrily, stepped back, smiled a brave blue-eyed gringa smile as her lover vaulted into the cargo bay.

Then the pilot gestured and Quantrill pulled her away from the sudden downdraft as the chopper clawed for altitude. The two of them stood an arm's length apart, Quantrill with raised fist, Sandy waving vigorously as the chopper veered to the

Southeast. She waved until Lufo was beyond lip-reading distance.

With musical good humor, then, she said, 'I think I've just been kissed off, Ted. How was I?'

Churlishly: 'I may barf. You two looked like the worst holoplay I ever saw.'

'Probably. But it was what he wanted, don't you think?'

Quantrill squinted at the dwindling insect. 'I guess. You sure gave the crew something to remember. Lufo too.'

'Remember, yes. Return? I doubt it. Lufo always liked the beau geste, some grand romantic pose, even without an audience. Not that I'm complaining,' she complained.

He could not help grinning at her, and she backhanded his arm, gently, and together they hid his hovercycle before the breeze turned chill and drove them inside. Quantrill had time, now, to satisfy his curiosity about the soddy, the unique mix of ancient and modern trappings she had accumulated, her singular willingness to live this way; everything about her.

Sandy Grange, unused to this kind of attention, wondered for a time if it was genuine. Women almost never came to the soddy. Men were either anxious to get on with some pressing business, or clearly interested in learning what Sandy looked like without her clothes. Lufo had spoken of Ted's deadliness as if he were very much older than — what, twenty-one? Twenty-two? Yet he seemed willing, even anxious, to resume their old friendship as if he were some affectionate cousin.

She was mixing pancake batter with mesquite-bean flour when he asked about the social life around Rocksprings. 'Not much of it; some weekend hoedowns. You could take me to one and find out,' she purred, and then beamed an innocent smile. 'Unless you have a lady who'd object.'

He paused for too long and said, 'She died,' too quickly, running the words together. Sandy changed the subject, aware that the lady would not be one of his favorite topics.

Presently a long peculiar whistle sounded outside. Sandy said, 'Oh lord — Ted, don't get up. I mean it,'

and hurried out for her whistled reply.

He wanted to peek through the window, to see what sort of apparition Lufo's friend had seen. But his joints and muscles protested, and Sandy's warning had a no-nonsense ring to it, and he stayed stretched out where he was. When Sandy returned with Childe ten minutes later she found him snoring, and did not choose to wake him until much later.

CHAPTER 69

Midway through the next morning, the Fourth of October, Quantrill began to appreciate what it meant to be free. True, he ached all over with abrasions and bruises; but he did not leave for the Schreiner ranch because he damned well chose not to. He snooped around in Sandy's smokehouse, fed her Rhode Island reds their cracked corn, and helped Childe hang bundles of vegetables for winter use. The beets and turnips were small but plentiful, the carrots and onions large and plentiful.

By lunchtime, he knew that Childe could speak when she chose.

Having dispatched a plateful of cornbread and blackeyed peas, Childe gnawed a blonde braid and watched her elders dally at their plates. She soon lost interest in their recountings of the years since Sonora. If Sandy accepted Ted so easily, — almost as a member of the family — then he must be Good, as Good as Mr. Gold. Besides, he paid her enough attention to flick her braids and to give her a nickname: 'sis'. But Ted elevated his brows in comic surprise as Childe said, 'Wanta play.'

'You're not finished with the onions,' Sandy objected. But Ted interceded; he could finish the job if sis had pressing business.

Sandy relented, and Childe shyly smiled her thanks to Ted before sprinting away with an extra hunk of cornbread.

'Huh! She can talk,' he murmured.

'You've made a friend, you sly dog.'

He watched the slender waif speed into the scrub, heard a piercing whistle as he said, 'And a little dynamo. I don't see how she'll keep that pace up on cornbread.'

The cornbread, said Sandy obliquely, was in the nature of a bribe.

After long reflective silence, Ted forced a direct assault on the topic. Regardless of Lufo's admonition, he said, he saw no reason why Sandy needed him as a protector. 'You've got a better one out there,' he nodded toward the cedars. 'Haven't you?'

'For some things, yes. But he can't tell me stories, or take me to a dance in town.' The image of such a