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He went to Gam and Agnes and said it was his wish that the students have as varied a program as possible. He spoke to them separately, saying that the other one had objected, but finally agreed to his proposal. Agnes would instruct in the mornings, Gam in the afternoons—and any student who so desired could attend both sessions, of course. He announced this change to the students.

And there were, of course, the individual habit patterns that were rapidly becoming solidified.

Colonel Thomas Catlin Hildebrandt, after two sketching sessions with Agnes, ceased attending classes. And, despite the heavy wheedling and coyness and pretense of hurt feelings by Agnes Keeley, despite the anxious queries by Miles, he made it quite plain that he would not attend any more classes. He had, with great ingenuity, and with equipment tested over the years, made his room exceptionally comfortable. He had brought with him weighty and obscure studies of Mexican
campaigns, from Cortez to Zapata, and prior to his arrival he had made notations on a collection of detailed maps of the countryside.

On the first Tuesday of the Workshop he drove away and appeared some hours later, driving the old station wagon very slowly. Tethered to the tailgate, and moving with alarm tempered by resignation, was a white horse. Her name was Saltamontes. She was elderly and flabby. Her white hair seemed exceptionally skimpy. And under her hair, disturbingly visible, was hide the shade of bubble gum, or a cheap denture. Both the girls from Texas, more acquainted with horses than the other students, noted at once that Saltamontes had a habit they had never seen before. She yawned widely, silently, repeatedly. When she yawned she would shut her eyes, and expose a funereal collection of huge yellow teeth. Each gaping yawn ended in a gusty sigh. And she had in large measure that common affliction of malnourished beasts, chronic flatus. In the station wagon was the equipment furnished with the leased horse, one battered antique of a saddle with wooden stirrups.

Colonel Hildebrandt made arrangements with Alberto Buceada to care for the horse. This consisted mostly of hazing her over onto the grassy part of the barranca slope when she was not being used, and keeping an eye on her, and tethering her behind the servants’ quarters inside the hotel wall at night.

Each morning, when occupied on a project which could not be reached by vehicle, the colonel would saddle Saltamontes deftly, lash his painting equipment aboard, swing competently up into the saddle and clop off toward the scene of some local skirmish or ambush. The colonel had a good seat and a practiced manner on a horse. But any possibility of good effect was lost not only through the obscene pinkness of the hide under the scanty hair, but also through the frequency of the vast yawns as they rode off, and, at the end of each yawn, before the windy sigh, the audible click of the big yellow teeth snapping down on the worn bit.

The colonel’s collection of battlefield scenes grew rapidly. Each bore two dates, the date of the action and the date it was painted. And each bore a number corresponding with the reference sheet for that particular action. Though he was far more competent in his use of perspective, there was in his work the flavor of Grandma Moses. It was a sunny and colorful world of pure pigment. But unpeopled. Where blood had run dark
into the grass of long ago, where men had shot and yelled and died, all was a stillness. The branches grew out only from the sides of the trees, and each leaf had turned to face the painter.

In the evenings when his research was done, he would sit in his room and write long letters to far places. Each day whoever brought the mail back from town would place it on the same small table in the lobby. The colonel received many letters, from Panama and the Philippines, from Washington and Tokyo.

In his reserve and his dedication, and his correspondence with old friends, he seemed apart from all the rest of them. Some of them tried to make jokes about him. But such was his dignity the jokes never succeeded. He somehow managed to make them feel trivial in comparison to his diligence and his energy. And he seemed only remotely aware of their existence.

Miles Drummond quickly established a routine. He made it his custom to make a complete tour of the hotel and grounds once a day. He looked in on each class at least once. In the mornings he labored over his account books and the current inventory of supplies. He tried to make a point of speaking to each student in a friendly way at least once a day. When he received complaints, and there were many, and when he saw things that needed to be done, he would make a notation in a pocket notebook. And he would speak to Felipe. He directed the use of the bus and driver. And he tried to think up little social plans to make the evenings more enjoyable.

Most of all, he kept telling himself that he was doing everything possible to make the Cuernavaca Summer Workshop run perfectly. But he was in a constant state of despair. The accounts did not come out right, ever. The inventory never checked out. And the money he had set aside to cover total expenses was melting away at a sickening rate. On each tour he saw multiple evidences of sloth and neglect. The temporary permit had not arrived. He would take out his pocket notebook and tell Felipe what needed to be done, what the rest of the staff should be instructed to do. Felipe would look at him with surliness and boredom and say everything would be taken care of. But it never was. And when he tried to scold Felipe, his voice would tremble with frustration and helpless anger, and he would think he could see the amusement and contempt far back in Felipe’s eyes. When he looked at the classes he was alarmed to see
how poorly attended they were. And Mr. Torrigan’s class sessions seemed to grow constantly shorter. Suppose they all requested the return of their money?

In addition, he never knew where the red bus was, or who had been taken away in it. And it broke down constantly. He thought up interesting ideas for social evenings, but there were never enough people who wanted to co-operate. In despair he would go back to his books and records. And find a notation which, even though it was in his own hand, he could not read. 12 cshaygn 48 pesos. Whatever they were, they were four pesos apiece. That, at least, was clear. What were they for? How many were there left? And how could you tell how many were left?

And Margarita would come in then, beaming wildly, and stand hipshot in her shapeless red dress, and say in her carnival voice, “Ah, señor, the
rápido
in the bathroom C, it is wounded. Felipe says it is the Señor Torrigan who fell while drunk. The flue is now on the floor in two pieces and Alberto cannot fix it.”

“Go away and in a little while I look at it.”

After she was gone he would feel like putting his head in his arms and weeping. He wanted his little house back. Strangers were using his dishes and reading his books. He did not know how long he could stand this. And he sensed that somehow, when it was all over, if indeed it ever ended, in some mysterious way the total expenditures would equal total income. To the final implacable centavo.

Mary Jane Elmore was not as quick to establish her own pattern. She felt at loose ends, restless and slightly irritable. Bitsy and that Parker Barnum were becoming constantly more inseparable, and so there were not as many laughs with Bitsy. She wondered if Bitsy might be going to have an affair with Park Barnum, with an older man. She did not think that was a smart thing to do, to get involved in … in such a cold-blooded way, sort of. If you didn’t give a damn, it certainly would be no trick to get involved around this Weirdsville Hotel. Take that oily little Paul Klauss item, just for example. Just a harmless little stroll to look at the lightning in the mountains. He said sweet cute little things, and all of a sudden he had eight or ten hands, and you really had a time breaking it up. And somehow he’d managed to get you all bothered in a kind of sleazy way. But it wouldn’t do to let him know that. Maybe
he knew it anyway, without being told. Anyway, it would be terribly smart to be very sure you never had a little too much to drink before letting him cut you out of the string and take you off to his little old corral. Anyway, really, the easiest thing was to think of how that Paul Klauss would stack up against Chuck or Booker or B. J. Why if you were ever seen anywhere around home with that Paul Klauss they’d say you must have tossed the fish back in and kept the bait.

Torrigan had the usual ideas, all right, but he was a lot easier to handle. Hinting you could be a real hell of a painter if he’d let you learn all about Life from him. Always trying to load your drinks. And that tired game that goes I’ve-just-got-my-arm-around-you-because-I’m-just-a-big-friendly-guy. No trick handling him. If Bitsy gets all mixed up with this Park Barnum, and it gets intense like, it doesn’t leave much left over for ole Mary Jane. Now if that John Kemp could get notions, it might be different. It might be a whole lot different. But if he had any ideas at all, he was having them about Barbara Kilmer. And certainly getting no further than was Paul Klauss who also seemed aimed in that mournful direction.

And so, on the second Saturday, in the afternoon, she went into town alone. And sat alone at a table on the sidewalk in front of the Marik. And she was picked up by three crazy-wonderful boys from the University of New Mexico who were in Mexico on some sort of summer field trip in archaeology or something like that, and they had a four wheel drive jeep and curly beards. The three of them took her to Las Manñanitas for dinner and, the next day, when the one named Scotty was too hung-over to lift his head, she and Bitsy drove to Mexico City in the Mercedes with the other two, Hal and Jaimie, and went to the bullfights and didn’t come back over the mountains until it was nearly dawn.

After that she had her pattern. She hadn’t realized Mexico would be so full of wonderful kids on vacation. All you had to do was go look for them. Sometimes Bits would come along, and then it was the most fun. So the project was to pry Bits loose from Park all the time, not just some of the time. And go to a class once in a while.

For students and staff alike, with the possible exception of Barbara Kilmer, one aspect of all personal patterns was the same. They all had an intense interest in the mail table. And, on Tuesday, the eleventh day of July, there was more mail than
could fit in the post-office box. No one was neglected. Miles brought it back at quarter of twelve just as Agnes was dismissing her class. Some took the letters to their rooms. Others sat in the lobby.

Jeanie Wahl was made to feel guilty by one portion of the long newsy letter from her mother. “We do understand, dear, that you are on your honeymoon, and you are a married woman, but you can let yourself be just as thoughtless and inconsiderate as you were when you were a little girl, if you let yourself. I haven’t talked this over with your father, but I can tell from the way he acts that he’s worried about you. And so am I, dear. We have no way of knowing whether you actually got to that school. All I know is that since you and Gil left during the reception, we have had two post cards from you. Just two, mind you. And just a few words on each one. That isn’t like you, dear. You sent one from New Orleans and one from Mexico City. At least two is all we have received. I certainly don’t want to scold you at this time, but you must realize that your father and I put a great deal of time and thought and money into your marriage. You are in a foreign country and it seems to me, at least, that the very least you can do is sit down and write us a long letter about the school and how you are living and so on. You may be married but we are still your parents, remember, and we expect you to be thoughtful and considerate.”

Right after lunch Jeanie started a long letter to her parents. She apologized and said the school kept them busy every single minute. She said she had never known anyone could be so happy. At that point Gil started reading over her shoulder. He said that any girl would be happy to be with him. She sprang up to do battle, and did not get back to her letter until late afternoon. She finished it at dinner time, and awakened Gil and read it to him. He said it was sure a long letter.

Harvey Ardos, who had expected no mail at all, received a letter signed, “Jimmy Waskawitz and all the gang in the third-floor stockroom.” It told him who’d been drunk and who’d been fired, and who was on vacation where, and when and where the others were going. And at the end it said, “Harvey, old buddy, it doesn’t seem like real that the guy who worked beside me is in Old Mexico in a fancy painting school. It’s guys like you that save your money and do stuff that get someplace, and bums like me that is always broke by payday and
get noplace. I wish you all the luck there is, old pal, and I hope you’ll be famous sometime and I can say we worked in the same crummy place together. That Janie and I was talking about you just last week. I run into her by the time clock on the way out. I don’t know her last name, but you know the one I mean she’s got blond hair and she’s got a real good built and the only thing wrong with her is the way one of her eyes looks off the wrong way. She’s the one that was in pocketbooks and now she’s in kitchen wear the same one Morillo tried to take back into rug storage that time and about kicked him loose of his teeth but didn’t report it. Anyhow when you come back I think if you asked she’d give you a date because she was interested about Mexico and you could shoot some bull, but I can’t be sure I’m right. Send me a present. Send me by airmail one of those cute little spic girls. Ha Ha Ha. Good luck.”

That evening Harvey wrote Jimmy Waskawitz a long letter, thinking to write about Mexico, but when he read it over he saw that most of it was about Monica Killdeering. And so he tore it up. He knew Jimmy would show it around, and he knew what they’d say, all of them. Morillo and the rest of those wise guys. They wouldn’t understand. They wouldn’t get the right idea at all.

Parker Barnum had a chatty and amusing letter from an account executive named Trevor Helding. It related all the latest office dirt and confusions. He was grateful to Trev for taking the trouble, and was surprised that he should have. They had never gotten along too well.