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Show All the Variables & Other Love Stories 31 was better, she'd learned, to love than to be loved, better to know beauty than to be beautiful. Yet this she'd long suspected: that Casabon did not know her. And perhaps worse, she did not know Casabon. Love, she thought, had failed, for it could not teach strangers to each other. This struck her so heavily that she fell ill. It was the sickness unto death, and Esperanza knew she must leave or die. On the high plane toward Questa. Buzzards feigned and dove in the deep blue overhead. The sun did not mince words but pounded furiously and without prejudice. Entered here Casabon Nogales on the southerly road. His boots crashed the high sage. Shoved clenched fists in deep pockets, squinted, chewed to gristle his lower lip as though obsessed. Clay flowerbeds of chamisa and sunflowers adorned the wrought iron gate. Beyond, the composite stone path. On the horizon stood the reinforced concrete and two-by- four skeleton of Hightower's house. There was Casabon's destination: Esperanza and home. He could see women up there, midway on a sturdy hill, in sunhats and overalls. A little closer he could account for them by name-JoAnn Windyhill, Esther Spinoza, Prada Mescual, Lucinda Rojo-a score of them. They came when they saw him. "A man," they clucked, "A strange man." They met him at the base of the hill and accosted him by name. "I came just for my wife," he said. "Come on now, give her up." But they would not give her and she would not show herself. "I just want to talk to her!" he begged. "Alright then, bring me Hightower! He'll show himself to me if he's a man!" The women refused and swore at him but when they saw he meant not to leave until he had |
