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By Root 961 0

of tomato sauce on his chin, the lumps in his face as swollen and hard-looking as cysts. The hair of the women and girls was so black it had a purple tint in it, like satin under a black light. Their skin was sun-browned, their teeth tiny, their eyes elongated, more Indian than Mexican. Their faces and throats were fine-boned, their features free of cosmetics; they looked like girls and young women from the Asian rim who might have just arrived in a new land where they would bear children and be cared for and loved by husbands who considered them a treasure and not simply a helpmate or a commodity.

Jack tore a section of paper towel off a roll on the table and wiped his mouth with it and balled it up in his hand. His eyes seemed to go in and out of focus; he pressed a thumb into his temple as though someone had shot an iron bolt into it.

“You have a migraine?” Noie said.

Jack didn’t answer. He seemed to be counting the number of girls and women sitting on the other side of the plank table. There were nine of them. The wind had come up, fluttering the candles inside the jelly jars, blowing the hair of the women and girls into strands, like brushstrokes in an Oriental painting. The piñata finally exploded from the blows of the broom handle, showering candy on the ground, filling the air with the excited screams of the children. Jack’s eyes were hollow, his mouth gray, his hands like talons on the tabletop.

“You don’t look too good,” Noie said.

“Are you saying something is wrong with me?” Jack said, glaring into Noie’s face. “You saying I got a problem?”

“No, I was wondering if you were sick. Your eyes are shiny, like you’ve got a fever, like you’re coming down with something.” Noie tried to touch Jack’s forehead.

“Mind your damn business, boy.”

“That’s what I’m doing. If you live with someone who’s sick, you ask about him.”

“It’s the dust and the insect repellent and the stink coming out of that pot of tripe. I told you to eat up.”

Jack kept huffing air out his nose, then leaned over and spat into the dust. But he didn’t raise his eyes again and kept his gaze focused on his plate. “Where’s that Amerasian or Chinese woman or whatever she is?”

“Don’t speak rudely of Miss Anton. She’s a fine woman. What’s gotten into you?” Noie said.

“We have to go.”

“It was your idea to come here. It’s a grand night. Look at the stars. Look at the children playing. You should have a family, Jack. You’d see things different.”

“Best shut your mouth, son.”

“Sticks and stones.”

“I cain’t believe I’ve become a warder for a moron.”

Jack stared at the women and girls again and pressed his fist under his chin to keep his hand from shaking. Now Noie had no doubt about the origins of Jack’s discomfort. He lowered his voice when he spoke. “These are poor and desperate people, Jack. Why are you upset by them? Their kind are the salt of the earth. Come on, you’re a better man than the one you’re acting like.”

Jack rose from the bench and picked up Noie’s paper plate and their uneaten food and threw it in the garbage can. “You can get in the car or walk, I don’t care which,” he said.

“There’s Miss Anton now,” Noie said. “Why don’t you talk with her? I’m like these others, I think she’s a holy woman. We’re already here. What’s to lose? It’s just like giving witness at a prayer meeting.”

“You like to quote Saint Paul, do you? ‘I put no woman in authority over a man.’ Did he say that or not? He understood the treachery that’s inherent in their nature. Tell me he didn’t say that?”

“Paul was talking about cultists in Corinth who belonged to a temple dedicated to the worship of Diana. They were courtesans and were behaving as such in the church. Stop acting like you’re unlettered.”

“A pox on you,” Jack replied.

Noie stood up and smiled as Anton Ling headed for their table, but she didn’t acknowledge him. She had parked her truck by the barn and was coming hard across the horse lot, past the windmill and the water tank, amid the tables and the seated diners and the children who were still hunting for the pieces of candy they had scattered