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into a clearing. Now, Hart's been riding this herd a good two weeks by then so the cattle know him, they're used to him, and they don't make a fuss about him being there. So he just lays down amongst 'em. Lays right down in the middle of the herd facing the stars with the shotgun across his chest. He waits and the cattle mill around some.
    "And pretty soon one of the Mex herders rides in close enough and Hart lets him have a barrel and that's the end of the herder. The cattle start moving, naturally. They're stomping and snorting and jumpy as hell what with the shotgun blast and the gunpowder and the smell of blood and Hart can feel stampede in the air but it ain't happened yet.
    "So a second herder comes riding toward the shot, cursing his buddy and no doubt wondering what in the hell would make him do a damn fool thing like firing off a round in the middle of a herd of beef and Hart stands up and gives him the second barrel, blows him right out of his saddle. Then moves off into the brush opposite their campsite.
    "Cause then of course there is a stampede. And while the Mex are all running around and chasin' their ponies and saddling 'em and then runnin' them into a lather trying to stop the damn thing Hart just punches his blanket roll into a likely-enough pillow and lies down to get some sleep.
    "Next night, same thing.
    "Except this time the second rider's wise to him once he's shot the first. So Hart has to hunt him down through a mess of half-crazed pissed off cattle disturbed by gunfire two goddamn nights in a row. Hart gets him, though.
    "Third night he can only manage to kill the first one but that's just fine because now they're down to three riders from the original eight and they haven't gotten far with all the roundup work they been doing, they're pretty dispirited, so the next afternoon Hart says the hell with it and they're rolling down a wash when he catches up to them, shotgun cradled in his arm and tells the Mex driving the wagon that he's the one who shot his buddies and that he can either give up the cattle and the wagon or they can have it out right then and there.
    "Next day he rides back to where Berry and the others are waiting with all but four head of cattle. Berry said in all truth he had to give it to the Mex — they were nasty little sons of bitches but they were pretty good herders to come out of three stampedes with only four head unaccounted for. By then Hart's bushed, so Berry sends the other two boys back for the supply wagon and they find it right where Hart said he'd left it though there was nothing to stop the Mex from taking that at least.
    "'Cept of course the worry that Hart might come after 'em again."
    Hell of a story , I thought. Were it not Hart he was talking about but some other man unknown to me I'd have written it up as soon as I got to pen and paper. But I didn't think he'd care to be the subject of a story in a New York daily .
    "That doesn't explain it, though," I said.
    "Explain what?"
    "The way he treats her. His problems with the Mex."
    "Mex killed his stepbrother at Churubusco. Kid about your age, had he lived."
    I saw Hart leading the horses up from the stream. Elena's horse among them. She wasn't with them. In his free hand he twirled the dice.
    "I never did meet a man who loved his dice so."
    Mother laughed and set a match to the kindling. "Hell, those belonged to his wife. Dealer in a saloon over in San Antonio, time they met. Tough, handsome woman, she was. Spirited I suppose you'd say. A little like this one here, only white. Ran off with a fella whose game was blackjack I believe."
    Interesting , I thought. I'd learned more about Hart in a single conversation than I had in the past two months. Information about him was coming at me thick and fast and the thought occurred to me that it was as though somehow Elena was the catalyst for all that. Elena and whatever it was she was up to.
    "I'd never have thought of him as married," I said.
    "He ain't married, son. Not