When he was not drinking or wiping sweat off his forehead, he looked at Maria, or talked to Joey.

"Are there many rifles like this in your country?" Joey asked him.

"Oh yes, many," Lichtenberg replied.

"Would I find some in the City of Mexico, if I went there?" Joey asked.

"You would find beautiful guns, but what would you buy them with? You are just a poor boy!" Lichtenberg said, startled that this youth, living in a filthy village, would aspire to travel to the City of Mexico, in search of a rifle.

"I would buy them with money," Joey said.

There was something a little frightening about the boy, Lichtenberg thought. A chill in his look, or in his tone. He reminded Lichtenberg of someone he had once known, long ago, an Austrian named Blier, a young count and assassin whose task it was to murder Hungarian rebels. There were many Hungarian rebels, and the Emperor wanted to avoid the expense of many trials. Young Blier killed forty rebels before they caught him and impaled him on a pole. Count Blier died hard, but he had done his job, saving the Emperor the expense of forty trials.

Lichtenberg had not known Count Blier well, but he had been with him a few times and remembered the look in his eyes. This boy, Joey, had the same eyes. Such eyes could look on a hundred deaths, or a thousand, without pity.

Lichtenberg had seen men executed, both in Mexico and in Europe. He had seen them shaking in front of firing squads, or crying and begging as the noose was put around their necks. Some lost their water, as they awaited death; some emptied their bowels as well. He could not, without pity, look upon men staining themselves as their deaths came near.

But Count Blier could see it without pity; and so, probably, could this boy Joey, a boy who could outshoot him with his own gun. Joey was very good-looking. He was a g@uero, as they said in Mexico; g@uero, almost white. In certain moods, Lichtenberg might have offered him a coin.

Boys were usually easier than women, but not this boy, this g@uero with eyes like the famous Count Blier's.

Maria saw Joey looking at the old German's things. His eyes turned again and again to the rifle case. She also saw that the old German looked at Joey as he looked at her. She wished the man would go; too much trouble would come, of his visit. But when you wished men to go they never did, and the old German was no exception. He stayed for four nights. Four times she had to persuade Roberto to sleep on the ground. He didn't like it. He cursed her and he cursed the German, but he only hit her once, and he didn't bother the German.

On the fifth morning, as Lichtenberg was leaving, Joey stole six coins from his valise.

Lichtenberg was drunk when he left, and didn't notice. Joey went down the river and bought a horse, a black gelding, three years old.

When he rode home with it, Maria knew he had robbed the German. Her best hope was that the old German wouldn't notice. Otherwise, Doniphan and his deputies would come.

"I didn't know you owned a horse," Maria said to Joey. "Yesterday you didn't own a horse." "I only stole six coins, Mother," Joey said. "If the old man comes back, I'll just kill him." "What if Doniphan comes?" Maria asked.

"Tell him to find me in the City of Mexico," Joey said.

That night, he left. After four or five days, Maria relaxed a little. Lichtenberg was many miles away. Even if he missed the coins, he wouldn't come back. A year later, she learned that the old man had drowned in Sonora.

He had attempted to cross a wash, when the wash was running, and the water had swept him away. The vaquero who found his body took some silver ore from his saddlebags, but Lichtenberg was dead and could not tell where he had found the silver.

The news of his death made Maria feel light. That night, she danced in the cantina, and several vaqueros fell in love with her. When she danced, she often became happy, became welcoming, and men fell in love with her. It was the death of the German that allowed her to feel light.

If he was dead, she was safe from his vengeance.

Only when men were dead could she feel really safe from their vengeance. If he were alive, old Lichtenberg might ride in someday, with Doniphan to back him up, and beat her half to death, because Joey had stolen those coins.

In the City of Mexico, Joey Garza felt at home for the first time. He felt that he had come to the place where he belonged. All night there were people in the streets. The air was soft, the ringing of the church bells beautiful. Young priests went barefoot in the street, particularly around the great cathedral. Joey was not a worshiper, but he loved the great cathedral. Several times he came back to stand inside, happy just to look at the high ceiling and the great space it contained. In Ojinaga all the ceilings were low. As he walked in the night, whores followed him, because of his horse.

They thought he was rich, for in the City of Mexico not many boys his age had fine black geldings.

Joey ignored the whores, and didn't frequent the cantinas. He had come for a gun-- if possible, one with a little spyglass on it. It took him three days to find the gun he wanted.

An old trader had it, a Frenchman, a man with a vast belly and empty eyes. Joey had the urge to stick a knife in the man's belly, to see if he could cause the emptiness to leave his eyes. Perhaps as he died, the man would look alive for a few moments. When Joey showed him the five coins--he had spent one on the gelding--the man didn't say a word. He just put the rifle away and nodded for Joey to get out of his shop.

That night, Joey walked the cantinas, looking for card players who were winning. In a cantina not far from the great cathedral, he saw a small man with quick hands who had many gold coins.

When the man had enough of the card game, he put the coins in a little sack and had a whore carry it.

When a second whore wanted to go with him, he shoved her away. Joey followed the man for a while, as he lurched along. He kept sticking his hand under the dress of the young whore. It reminded Joey of the way Benito had behaved with his mother; of how all men behaved with his mother. All her husbands put their hands on her, in the house.

They didn't care who saw them.

Joey followed the man and the whore until they were well away from the cantina. As he was walking along a cobbled street, he saw a cobblestone that had come loose. Joey believed in omens. The loose cobblestone meant that it was time for him to act.

He picked up the cobblestone, came quickly up behind the small man, and smashed his head with it. He grabbed the whore and took the sack of money from her. The whore became frightened, and fled.