Summary
Jordan continues to lie awake in the sleeping bag on the pine bough bed looking at and holding Maria until she begins to respond to his kisses. Maria wants to make love; her pain is gone. They both become lost in each other, knowing that it will be the last time they will be alone together. Afterwards, Jordan thanks her and they both admit that to have experienced such a love makes them both very fortunate. Maria wants to stay with him but he tells her he has chores to do that don't involve her and that he would only worry if she were with him. He tells her she will stay with the horses. It is ten minutes to three in the morning when he enters the cave.

Analysis
Jordan revisits the idea of living his whole life in three days. He has loved beyond wonder, ate, drank and was merry, so to speak, and now today is the tomorrow on which he dies. He wonders at the attachments he has formed in such a short span of time: the band of guerillas are now his brothers, Maria is his wife, his sister and his daughter all rolled into one. Their love-making, written in stream of consciousness style, mimics the rhythms of love-making, focusing on the central word "now," that is repeated in almost every sentence. Jordan does not want to the past to intrude on the present; he wants the present to remain frozen in time with no thought of the future.