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off before I got here.”
    “Where?”
    He smiled painfully. “In an irrigation ditch.”
    “That’s what I thought,” she said. “Come on inside; there’s warm water on the stove.”
    He patted the mare on the shoulder and the horse turned nervously and blew some of her foggy breath in his face. “Jerry, I gotta vamoose. Me and Whisky got a long ways to go.” Awkwardly he faced the mare. “Ain’t that right, girl?” he said, slapping and rubbing the gleaming shoulder.
    “Don’t start loving up that damned horse in front of me,” Jerry said. “Anything else you need?”
    Burns put a hand on the pommel, a foot in the stirrup, ready to mount. “No,” he said, and stopped to think. “Well I don’t have any tobacco. They took it—”
    “Wait,” she said, “just one more minute!” And shuffled in her slippers as fast as she could back into the kitchen.
    “They took it all away from me …” Burns concluded, addressing the kitchen door. He surveyed the eastern horizon again, then turned his narrowed and anxious eyes toward the house and past it and looked up the road that led toward the city.
    Jerry came out of the kitchen. “Here,” she said, a little breathlessly, “here’s some of Paul’s old pipe tobacco.”
    “I ain’t got a pipe, Jerry,” he said softly. “Could you find any cigarette papers?”
    “I know, I know,” she said. “No, I couldn’t find any papers. But here’s a pipe he never uses.” She gave Burns a handsome briar pipe with a slender stem. “I know he wouldn’t miss it,” sheadded, as the cowboy hesitated; “it’s one I bought him for his birthday. Please take it, Jack.”
    “Well … okay,” he said. “I’m sure obliged to you. To both of you. Just hope this fancy tobacco don’t spoil me.” He put the pipe and tobacco inside his shirt. “Pockets all fulla junk,” he explained sheepishly.
    “Jack—”
    “Yeah?” Again he prepared to mount, his foot in the stirrup, his back toward her.
    “Jack …” She stepped forward and touched his shoulder and he faced her again, waiting. “Kiss me,” she said.
    “I want to,” he said. But he made no move. “I want to.”
    “What are you afraid of?”
    “I don’t know. Nothin, I guess.” He reached out then and embraced her and kissed her gently and quickly on the lips. “What I’m afraid of,” he said slowly, “is me. That’s all.”
    “We’re both afraid of the same thing, then,” Jerry said. She smiled at him while her vision dimmed. “You’d better go,” she managed to say.
    “What’s so funny?” He returned her smile with a stiff, uncertain grin.
    “You’d better go, Jack.”
    “Yes,” he said. “I know.” He released her and turned and pulled himself up, a little wearily, into the saddle. He adjusted the bandoleer on his back, tugged at the forebrim of his hat.
    “Goodby, Jack.”
    “Goodby, kid,” he said. “Say goodby to the boy for me.” He touched Whisky with the reins and she turned, facing the mountains. “Take care of your old man,” he said. “When I come back I wanta see you both out here.” The mare pranced and whinnied and shook her head, impatient, indignant, eager for flight.
    “Yes,” Jerry said. “I hope so. God, I hope so.”
    “I’ll see you in a year or so. Maybe sooner.”
    “Yes,” she said; she shivered in the keen air, blinking the mist out of her eyes. “Be careful, Jack.”
    “Adios,” he said, and flicked the mare with the leather, and at once she began to trot, then canter, away from the house andcorral and toward the mountains. Burns reined in a little and slowed her to a brisk trot. Jerry, watching, saw him turn in the saddle and wave back at her. Weakly she pulled one hand out of a jacket pocket and held it up for him to see, but he had already turned and straightened and was facing the east.
    She stood in the bleak gray light, huddled and cold in the jacket and her pajamas, and watched Jack Burns ride away: she saw him cross the