The boy was left-handed, fast, aggressive. Not much face: a heavy brow, dim eyes, a flat, spade nose dotted with blood. Short, sandy hair and peg ears. In his tank shirt and denim trousers, his most distinctive features were his neck and shoulders of fanning muscle. A natural heavyweight. Twenty years old. Less.

Ray tried to slip the right jab, but the boy pulled it back and snapped it again, moved in again to a chorus of cowboy hoots. There was an old saying, "Poor New Mexico, so far from heaven, so near to Texas." Joe'd always felt it was a combination of the big hats and Texas sun that baked and compressed the Texas brain to the size of a boiled egg. There was a deeper mystery here, though. The Army was drafting men who were missing fingers, toes, other appendages. There was a clerk with two fingers typing in the quartermaster's office. Joe couldn't count fingers inside a boxing glove, but this boy seemed exactly the sort of post-adolescent maniac who should be gutting Japs on some barren atoll. Ray was getting thrashed.

Ray kept circling to his left, which was right into the kid's jab. In New York, Ray had been a solid, middle-of-the-card fighter, a body puncher. Tonight he looked old, the eyes desperate, the muscles puffy. A painful blush spread on his chest and face everywhere a punch landed. He circled into a jab, ducked and moved into a straight left and was down on his ass, sitting on his gloves, his legs splayed. The kid bounced and motioned Ray to stand. The shouts of a hundred men tried to take off the roof.

Joe had already taken a step out into the dark. Through the door, the scene looked smaller, like a cockfight, betters hanging over a pit, some glum, some screaming till their neck cords popped. It depressed him. There was something about war, about murder on the grand scale, that made mere boxing unnecessary.

The cooling night winds blew. Across the valley the range of Sangre de Cristo was a spine pointing south to Santa Fe. At his back the Jemez Mountains were a dark, volcanic mass. In between, the moon looked ponderous, ready to crash.

Why had he picked on Fuchs? Because he was angry and the German was the first easy target to waltz on to the dance floor. Jesus, how shameless would he get before this war was over?

Since he was supposed to be on twenty-four-hour call to drive Oppy and handle any "native" problems, Joe lived outside the barracks, in his own room in the basement of Theatre 2, the enlisted men's general-purpose hall. The basement corridor was a black tunnel of volleyball nets and music stands. Without bothering to turn on the light in his room, he went straight to his locker and opened a new bottle of bourbon and a fresh carton of cigarettes. The glow of the match lit a poster for the Esquire All-Stars, featuring Art Tatum and Coleman Hawkins.

Hawkins held a tenor sax. The poster was a door to the past and to the future; it sure as hell wasn't the present. He blew out the flame and on the wall the black men faded and he felt like he was fading himself. Hanging in the centre of  the room, barely visible, was a heavy bag. Joe set down his drink and cigarette, pulled off his tunic and shirt. He tapped the bag with a jab and as much felt as saw it wiggle on its chain. The bag's name was MacArthur. Joe hooked it with his left and listened to the satisfying creak of leather and kapok. He hooked again and crossed with his right, and MacArthur jumped. Jabbed, hooked, crossed, bobbed, and crossed again. Air popped from the seams. Over the chain, the ceiling groaned. A heavy bag demanded commitment; hit it tentatively and a man could break his wrist. Joe snapped the bag back, moved in to hit it again and slipped,  nearly fell. The bag bounced off his shoulder as he reached to the floor and picked up silk and tulle. The silk had polka dots, like a spotted lily.

"I'll give you a hint. It isn't Eleanor Roosevelt."

Mrs Augustino lit her own cigarette. She had a silver lighter and a silver cigarette case and that was all. Even in winter she had a two-piece bathing-suit tan and she was a genuine blonde. She shut the lighter, but Joe wouldn't have been surprised to see her whole body continue glowing like a neon sign. An Army wife was a dangerous thing. He could almost hear a neon sizzle.

"You shouldn't be here." He was still breathing hard from hitting the bag.

"Try and throw me out, Sergeant, and I'll scream rape so loud they'll hear me in Santa Fe."

"Go ahead, scream." Mostly what he could see now was the glint of her blue eyes.

"Rape," she said softly.

"Mrs Augustino -"

"Call me Celeste."

"Mrs Augustino -"

"I'm twenty years old, attractive. Married to a captain. Here I am, waiting hours for a sergeant to come to bed."

"I didn't ask you, I hardly know you."

"Hardly anybody knows me, Sergeant. This is an Army post and I should be at the top of the social pinnacle. Instead, with all these foreigners and scientists, I'm treated like some ignorant hillbilly, like an intellectual embarrassment. I looked around that dance tonight for one man who didn't give a damn for all these geniuses and tin gods and I only found one, Sergeant, and that was you."

He found himself interested. "You think so?"

"I saw you talking to Fuchs. You hate them."

"I may dislike Fuchs."

"And the German girl with him."

"She's not my type."

"That's my point. I am your type, Sergeant."

Well, there was a little bit of truth in that. Enough truth to frighten the lion in his lair, the chief in his tepee. She sat up. His eyes had adjusted to the tiny beacon of her cigarette. Light freckles covered her breasts.

"I'm flattered, Mrs Augustino. Really, but -"

"It's cold out there. Could a lady at least have a drink before she goes off in humiliation?"

Joe brought her the bourbon he'd poured for himself. Tin gods and geniuses? And the occasional sergeant, the one-time fighter but now a man who steers clear of trouble, a man in a long, dry spell of good conduct. Looked at that way, in a desert, she was an oasis of sin.

"Where is the captain?" Joe asked.

"Who knows?"

There was a Victrola against the wall and 78s arranged neatly underneath; he took better care of his records than anything else and he didn't need light to set a disc on the turntable and let the arm down. "Mood Indigo" whispered.

"Then maybe we have time for one dance." He took the empty glass from her.

In her bare feet, Mrs Augustino didn't come to his chin.

"Ready for the dip?" Joe pulled her close.

They bumped into the heavy bag and it wiggled on its chain.

"Was that General Groves?" she laughed. "No, that's General MacArthur."

"That's a terrible name for a punching bag. He's the greatest American alive."

"That's the one."

4

Snow had fallen like a fine dust during the night. Mrs Augustino stepped delicately through it into the early morning dark.

When Joe went back to his room it was rank with free-floating lust and stupidity. As he picked up the blanket, her cigarette case fell out, cool to the touch, and he knew he didn't want to see her again. Case in hand, he rushed through the basement hall, knocking aside volleyball nets, up the stairs and across the theatre pews that would be turned round in a few hours for Sunday morning services and threw open the side door she had left by. Too late. Nothing but snow and the cold night air. He was only in shorts and icy sweat. Storm clouds had cleared. Directly across the road was Military HQ, an E-shaped building. The roofs were white rhomboids floating on black.

Between two arms of the E, an engine started and tyres rolled. A vehicle crossed the dim gloaming of the road and stopped ten feet in front of Joe. Headlights went on, blinding him. Its engine raced with the clutch in, then shifted into neutral. Captain Augustino stepped out of the weapons carrier and gave a visible sigh.