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other hand, always looks rushed. Her short, round Mexican body speeds from one activity to the next even though her thick gray braid says she must have been getting close to seventy. Spacers rarely had the money for the expensive treatments from Earth that keep a body young and pretty, but Lupe wouldn’t have bothered anyway. She’s been on Ithaca for over forty years, keeping house for the Vaqueros. She smells of spices and she keeps sweets and dishtowels hidden in the pockets of her voluminous skirts.
    “ Híjole! What did you do to this one, mija ?” Lupe looks at Penelope accusingly, panting for breath. “Did you shoot him? Why are you always shooting people?”
    “Nothing! I didn’t do anything!” Penelope mumbles defensively, nudging the old man with the toe of her boot. He didn’t react at all.
    Penelope exhales noisily and says, “This old bugger just showed up to die on our front porch. Said he was an old family friend and then asked me directions to where he already was and passed out. I think he’s crazy.”
    Lupe grunts and crosses herself. “Of course he is. Only crazy people come here. He probably took one look at you in those man clothes you are wearing and died of shock.”
    Penelope knows Lupe’s favorite lecture is about to follow. The woman was obsessed with skirts. Sure enough, Lupe says, “Your pobre madre, rest her soul,would die all over again to see you in those pants. You are practically the queen of this place and you dress like the worst trash. Go inside and change before you scare the whole neighborhood.”
    “The nearest neighbor is kilometers away, Lupe. Would you rather I train mules in my skirts or tend sick cows in a party dress, abuela ?” Penelope smiles sweetly at the older woman who immediately swats her in exasperation.
    Pushing Penelope towards the house, Lupe hisses, “And you with a son practically a man! Training mules! Get one of your so-called cowhands to do it! Now out of my way, I’m busy.”
    The short woman bustles past Penelope and bends over to grab the unconscious man on the ground.
    Shrugging, Penelope turns towards the house. Lupe struggles to drag the man by one arm towards the bunkhouse, the communal cabin for cowhands, muttering, “Me estás tomando el pelo. ”
    Argos says nothing, but he smiles in good-natured exasperation as he takes the man away from Lupe and slings the limp stranger over one shoulder. Dependable to a fault, Argos isn’t one of the world’s deep thinkers. He is best pleased with someone telling him exactly what he needs to do.
    The unconscious man drools and smiles vaguely, but doesn’t wake. Lupe herds Argos and his passenger like a terrier nipping at the heels of a lumbering bull towards the bunkhouse, a long, low structure away from the main house. There is a small room in the back for sick ranch hands and that’s where they take Cesar. Lupe lives in the main house with Penelope and her son, while Argos has his own snug cabin as far from everyone else as he can possibly get.
    Penelope watches them go. She wonders who the man is without really caring. She knows Lupe will fuss and cluck over him like a mother hen. Penelope fervently hopes the man will not die because then Lupe will make the whole house mourn for forty days, wailing and tearing her hair over the death of a stranger.
    “I need that like I need to swallow a shotgun blast, even if I do only load it with rock salt,” she groans under her breath.
    Penelope takes a minute to look with pride at the ranch. She even looks gladly at the little tequila still towards the back of the ranch where her father-in-law insists on living.
    “Mine,” Penelope says fiercely. “And no man will take it from me.”
    She just wishes she knew what was going on lately. There were those weird offers from strange men to “buy” the entire herd at exorbitant prices. As if she’d ever sell what she’s worked so hard to make. Then followed the veiled threats from other strangers who