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me; I’m like water: boil me away and I come backin the next thunderhead.” He stepped outside. “I’ll have about six eggs.”
    “You’ll have to put your horse in the corral with the goats.”
    “I know,” he said, untying the reins from around the post. “That’s all right; me and Whisky ain’t proud.”
    “There’s a bale of alfalfa in the shed. Help yourself.”
    “Thank you, Jerry.” Burns rubbed the mare’s neck. “Say thank you to the lady, Whisky.” The mare tossed her head and backed away, snorting; “Easy, girl, easy. Goddamnit,” Burns apologized, “she’s still a trifle skittish,” He cradled the mare’s head in his arms and stroked her nose. “Now you take it easy, little girl; nothin to get all excited about. She’s gonna break my heart,” he said to Jerry; “she’s so all-fired pig-headed. Gotta crazy streak in her.”
    “She takes after her master, then,” Jerry said.
    Burns grinned. “That might be.” He gave the reins a tug. “Come on, you vinegaroon.” The mare followed him toward the corral, where two goats waited with their white muzzles thrust out between the poles. The sunlight was dazzling, a white glare on the sand and wood; Jerry squinted, watching the man and horse and their black stark shadows. A pair of finches swooped over the yard, shrilling.
    She heard an explosion, dim, muffled, like a shot of dynamite going off underground.
    Burns stopped. “What was that?”
    “I don’t know. I heard it too.” They stared at each other. “I think it came from the south,” she said. “Towards the city.” She shaded her eyes with her hand, gazing toward the smoke and dust of the invisible city. She saw something black, a smoking fragment, float slowly down across the blue dome of the sky, down, down, disappearing below the horizon. “Did you see it?” she cried.
    “I saw somethin,” he said slowly. “Was it an air plane?”
    “I don’t know. Yes—-I suppose it was. Part of one,maybe.” They continued to stare at the southern sky, where nothing moved now, nothing burned or shone; the arc of black smoke lingered on in the windless air like something forgotten. “It must have been a jet plane,” Jerry said. “They explode now and then—I don’t know why.”
    The cowboy stared at the smoke trail, rubbing his jaw. “Yeah…” he said. “Well…” He looked at Jerry.
    “There’s a bucket out there you can water the horse with,” she said. “Hanging on a nail by the feed barrel.”
    “Okay. Thanks.” He went on toward the corral, leading the mare and staring south at the hovering thread of smoke.
    Jerry took what was left of a ham from the icebox on the porch, re-entered the kitchen and began preparing a meal. When Burns returned about ten minutes later, carrying saddlebags, rifle and guitar, she had the kitchen table set with dark home-baked bread, a pitcher of goat’s milk, butter, a salad of lettuce and tomatoes and cucumbers in a wooden bowl, and a plate heaped with four thick slices of fried ham. Burns dropped his equipment on the floor and looked joyfully at the food. “Hey!—look at all that, will you!”
    “Sit down,” Jerry said. “The eggs will be ready in a minute.”
    “Doggone—how’d you get all this on the table so fast?” He pulled up a chair and sat down. “You some kind of witch doctor?” Then he stood up again. “I gotta comb my hair and wash my face for a feed like this.”
    “Would you like your eggs turned over?”
    “What?” He filled the basin and splashed water over his face and hair, and groped around for the soap. “No—sunnyside up, please.”
    “The salad and bread were left over from lunch,” Jerry said. “I hope you don’t mind.” He made some kind of garbled reply from under the water. “I hope you like goat milk; we’ve got plenty of it.” The eggs weresizzling; she lifted them out of the skillet and onto the plate with the ham. “It’s all ready.”
    “Be right there.” Burns was fumbling