mustache.

"Let me take the sack, patrón."

"I heard you had no corn here," Raul said, backing away.

"No corn for three days."

"You should have come to me."

"Sometimes it's better to wait. We have our chickens and pigs. We're not starving."

"You can't make tortillas out of chickens and pigs," said Raul.

Salvador laughed soundlessly, and the upper part of his body shook. He untied the corn sack and shouldered its weight easily. Barefooted, standing there, legs spread, one hand balancing the burlap, he faced Raul, the sun streaming over his whites.

"Will you go inside and wait for me?" Salvador asked.

"I want to talk to you," said Raul.

He entered the low hut and sat on the packed earth floor and took a cigarette paper from his pocket. Presently, Salvador came in and sat against the wall opposite Raul, across the hut. Their feet almost touched. A broken candle lay on a termite-riddled chest that had been patched with a triangle of pine from which dangled a rusty padlock. Clothes and a folded hammock hung on pegs. There were no other furnishings. Outside, women gabbled over the corn sacks and children dashed about crying: "We've got corn.... Come, see the corn!"

Salvador fished out paper and tobacco and paper and tobacco became a cigarette with magical dexterity. The two smoked silently. They had met in this hut quite a few times through the years. Last September they had weathered a hurricane's tail behind these walls. As Raul smoked, he kept seeing the musician's face and sensing his own obligations.

"I want you to move to the house in a few days," Raul said. "I need your help, Salvador. I want you to turn out several carts; that means wheels, frames, and yokes."

"But Don Fernando doesn't want them," said Salvador, and his lip pulled away from his cigarette with a scrap of paper clinging to it. What was Don Raul thinking? What kind of quarrel would come of this?

"You do the job for me. I'm not waiting any longer. I've made up my mind to take over Petaca. We can't go on waiting and waiting. My father's day is over."

Raul felt his voice was trembling, and tried to distract himself with the ash of his cigarette.

"There will be a lot of trouble," said Salvador, skeptical of such a decision. "People will take sides. We'll have our hands full."

"Are you afraid?" scoffed Raul.

"Of course not, patrón."

"Our people are hungry and sick," said Raul, staring at a stone embedded in the wall.

"I'll do my part," said Salvador humbly, picking the shred of paper from his lip. "I know that we need new carts, that carts need repairing.... There's a lot that needs doing."

"When you come to the house, bring Teresa. She can help us."

"I'm glad to move, but I must continue to look after these people, too. They're my friends." A hunch of his shoulder indicated those who lived in the surrounding huts.

"You can do both jobs," said Raul, and glanced at Salvador confidently.

As Raul smoked, tasting the cigarette, liking the cool, rocky interior, a leghorn hen scratched, found a grub and beaked it in the sunlight.

Raul felt easier in his mind. The new responsibility was a challenge; he had no doubt as to his administrative ability. Back against the rocks, he smoked in silence. He was on the side of freedom.

As they headed for the hacienda house, Manuel rode in front.

Raul called him: "Ride beside me, Manuel."

Manuel checked his horse and gave his cartridge belt a yank.

A buzzard circled above them.

"I've made up my mind," Raul said, and his face brightened. "I've told Salvador that I will manage the hacienda from now on."

Manuel's fingers tightened with pleasure on the rein, his eyes became slits, and a slow grin began. He glanced at Raul and nodded, and then glanced away.

"I told Salvador to move to Petaca and make us new carts and repair old ones. We must begin to improve things."

"But your father?" Manuel asked, almost mechanically, fearing Don Fernando's domination; for a moment he felt his conflicting sense of duty, acquired through the years.

"I'll have it out with him," said Raul, working his horse closer to Manuel's, his knee rubbing the Arabian. "Things have gone much too far. He sent Farias to check the corn fences; you know how many boundary troubles have come of that; there's never any attempt to work out a sensible relationship with the del Valle people." His thin lips narrowed. "I want corn distributed to all sectors where there's a shortage. I want our people to know my father is not in control."

"He'll strike back," said Manuel.

"I've stood enough intolerance," Raul exclaimed.

Manuel was satisfied to jog along behind Raul, he wanted to weigh the abrupt change and consider possibilities; he was eager to accept and participate. Slit-eyed, he gazed about him. His nostrils expanded as he remembered Don Fernando had once whipped a young boy until blood streaked his back ... Tonio Enriques. Manuel rubbed his hand over the bullets in his cartridge belt and clucked to his horse.

For Raul, the return trip was melancholy and yet beautiful: Petaca appeared on the gradual slope above the lagoon. It was his job to administer the million and a half acres, to supervise crops, gardens, people ... little Carmen might race to him and cry, "Can we have another jug of milk for supper?" Gasper might come to the office and say, "Mama's sick, she's passing bile—" Dr. Velasco could live at the hacienda and receive annual wages, instead of having to make the long ride from town, at the beck and call of everyone. Should he be unwilling, Dr. Hernández would consent. Gabriel Storni would have his stained-glass windows for the chapel.... Some prayers would be answered. Debts would be canceled. Of course, it would take time.

As he rode between the rows of tall eucalyptus, he felt that time was his friend. Perhaps current political and economic tensions would ease. President Díaz was not his man ... his corrupt regime would last as long only as he could make it last. Reason told Raul that he himself could not alter, singlehanded, the feudalistic setup of the hacienda system. It was Petaca he wanted to change.

Breaking off twigs from a low eucalyptus branch, he crumpled the foliage in his fingers. As he went inside the house he smelled the aroma of the crushed leaves; as he stood in the doorway of his bedroom he sensed the oily pungency.

He found Angelina sitting in front of her circular mirror, brushing her hair. Gazing into the mirror, she smiled at Raul and went on brushing.

"You're back quickly," she said, covering her knees with her skirt.

"I was down along the lagoon," he said.

"I was playing with the children in the garden and messed up my hair."

He tossed his belt and revolver on their bed. Going up to her, he wanted to touch her, stroke her hair, but instead he thought of Lucienne and remembered her smile. Angry with himself, he said, loudly:

"I've told Salvador and Manuel that I'm taking over the hacienda. Sectors are in need of grain. People are hungry. I want Velasco to move here and help the sick. I want no more beatings. I can't wait any longer. It's my job now!"

Angelina stared at him in the glass, until his eyes found hers, and he sensed her disapproval at once. She did not speak. Her brush in her lap, she was thinking that he was a dumb fool, that from now on stability would be a thing of the past. Still looking at him, she reached for her comb, and her brush fell to the floor.

He stooped to pick it up and said, "I'd like to change things slowly."

"Your father will fight you," she said.

Her fingers rolled her hair into a competent bun. She slid a dark green band of velvet around the pile of black hair and got up and paused by the window. Their room was on the upper floor, facing both front and patio sides, a long, broad room with shuttered windows on each side, allowing cross ventilation, so desirable in the summer.