Chavela's broad chocolate face looked troubled; her big steady hands seemed to lift on strings as she brought the ember to the tip of her cigarette and puffed violently, close to Fernando's bed. Smoke corkscrewed from her nose and mouth, and she frowned and coughed, and then grinned. Carefully, she placed the cigarette between his lips. "There," she said. For a second, her eyes narrowed; she turned away, repelled, and as she turned, the ember dropped alongside the bed. "You could have burned me!" wailed Fernando. "Where's Angelina? ... get her!" "She's outdoors, playing with the children." "Playing with the children: doesn't she do anything else? Doesn't anybody do anything here?" A heavy tread outside Fernando's room made Chavela glance toward the door; a spur dragged its wheel over tiles; it was Jorge Farias, the corn-production manager, a hungry-looking man, half Spanish, half Tarascan. He removed his wide-brimmed straw hat as he halted in the bedroom doorway; the rough brim scraped across his trousers. "Farias wants to see you," said Chavela, and went out. "May I come in?" asked Farias. Don Fernando motioned him inside with childish gesture. As Farias entered, the old man spat on the floor. Farias was dressed in soiled brown trousers and a white shirt designed like a four-pocketed jacket, he had on black riding boots spurred with star-shaped rowels, polished from use. He stood stiffly erect. He disliked the old man. Nearly fifty, he felt that his years of service, doled out to the Clarín, had been largely wasted; yet he liked his job and was proud of any help he could render his own people whenever Fernando's vigilance slackened. "Can't you bear to look at me?" said Fernando. "I'm at your service," said Farias. "Sit down ... sit down!" The spurs dragged. The chair by the window squeaked. Farias supposed he would be told to check the crops along the boundary line of the Santa Cruz del Valle hacienda, where it adjoined Petaca. He dreaded the journey through the mountains, but remembered he could take his son along, unless the Clarín had another job for Luis. But the Clarín's mind was slipping. Last week, he had ordered Felipe locked in the pillory; Felipe had not been guilty of stealing; it had been Carlos Vasconcales who had robbed the corn bins; nothing Farias could say had altered the Clarín's decision. Farias studied a crack in the red tiles; the crack wandered like a river toward the old man's bed. Farias found himself staring at Don Fernando. Cigarette smoke hooded his face--a falcon's hood of gray. "I want you to leave here early tomorrow. Check the crops along Santa Cruz del Valle. Go armed." "Yes, sir." "There's something else. Check the stone fences along our property; take time to fix them if they're down; we can't have cattle foraging on our corn. Understand?" "Yes, sir. I'll check thoroughly. Anything else?" "Expect trouble.... You may go."