IT'S in his eyes, steely and unwavering, the look of a hunter after prey. Francisco "Django" Bustamante stalks the pool table, the green rectangle his hunting ground, weapon of choice firmly in hand, ready to strike. It's in his movements around the table: careful but never tentative, pausing now and then to take a puff from a cigarette. If he's across the table from you, then you have a case of good news and bad news. The good: You are facing off against one of the best ever to hold a cue stick. The bad: You're going down next.

Intensely competitive and driven to perfection, Django has always seemed to be a pocketing machine, racking up title after title during this, perhaps the golden era of our country's recent billiard-crazy history. But Cardiff changed all that.

While competing in this year's World Pool Championship in Cardiff, Wales, the nation looked on as Django, clearly hurting from the death of his youngest child a world away, stoically battled Earl Strickland in a tense final pairing. Though he would fall to the American, Django's act of courage touched a nation, and his tears upon his return showed us an entirely new side to the taciturn pool predator.

Yet some things never change. As a new year begins, Django will once again leave his family and travel the world like other professional pool players, match-day mercenaries with sticks slung over their shoulder, journeying to all ends of the earth. As he always has, Django will depart to do battle anew -- but he won't forget all that went on this past year.

Embraced by the cool shadows of the Puyat billiards hall in Makati, Django is home among the silent tables and sticks waiting to be used. As he tells his story, it becomes clear, as in the case of modern legends, that the 39-year-old's origins are the stuff of fiction.

Django is the second to the youngest in the prodigious brood of 13 born to Macario Bustamante, who made toilets or worked in the rice fields, and his wife Juana. But the boy would only meet seven living siblings, including the one born after him, effectively making him the bunso. Born December 29, 1963, to humble beginnings in microscopic Barrio Maliwalo-Maligaya in Tarlac, Django got his name from his playmates.

The game-time gunslinger owes his name to Italian actor Franco Nero. "Cowboy movies were very popular then," he relates in crisp Filipino. "People looked at me when I would play, me in my sandals. And I hated losing, so I would challenge them to fistfights. People said I was like Django, and the name stuck." He was only 12 when he first felt the call of the cue. "One of my siblings was running a restaurant in the town of Tarlac and it was next to a billiard hall," he recounts. "After school, I'd go to the restaurant, then straight to the hall to play a bit until I found out I liked it."

Even in school, the sport was accessible. "There was a billiard hall next to the school, too, and I was there a lot."

Django discovered he really, really liked the game and dropped out in his second year of high school to become a real pool player. At the pool hall, he often acted as the spotter--taking out the pocketed balls and racking them up before "spotting" the cue ball--and earned some money from tips. "When I was a spotter, I figured I could make some money from playing. So I played every day." At 16, he was already whipping older opponents in Isabela and Dagupan.

A benefactor named Mr. Bocobo watched a 22-year-old Django and liked what he saw. In 1985, he brought Django to Manila, the epicenter of the game then and now. "If you wanted to improve your game, you had to come to Manila because all the good players were there." Django hung around the big city pool halls, joined in the bets until he began sharing the floor with big-time players, particularly at the old Coronado Lanes in Cubao.

It didn't take him long to cross cue sticks with the game's best. In 1988, he faced the venerable Jose "Amang" Parica in the San Miguel Beer 9-Ball World Open finals, a competition peppered with foreign competitors. Django was as confident as ever. "I knew I could beat him," he still maintains. "But I had an appendectomy the week before, and he had a twice-to-beat advantage. I went ahead but then he caught up and beat me 8-9." Django wouldn't lose much after that.

That year, he took up the itinerant life of the traveling pro, flying off to Japan where he continued to win. The next year, he flew to Switzerland and finally landed in Germany. In 1990, Indonesian businessman Yongki Purwita was so impressed by Django's performance in money games that he hired the Filipino as the house pro in his bar called Rick's Cafe. Located in the small town of Kiel, Germany, it remains Django's primary base outside the Philippines for most of the year, a lair where he faces off against visiting challengers and represents the cafe in pool leagues.

By 1991, he had joined the ranks of the world's best, downing American Mike Lebron in the Brunswick Open in Munich. The next year, Django continued his ascent by invading the United States. "Back then, I already knew my shot was so good and I was winning so much in Europe that other players began dodging me. I felt like I could beat anybody."

True to form, Django would put together a rack-busting record as he blew away opponent after opponent, winning all over the world. He's won so many times since then that he's lost count, though the 1998 Camel US Player of the Year says he's won "over 200 tournaments in Europe alone." In 1993, he was named to the national team for the first time. These years also featured a rising dominance by Filipino cue artists on the world stage, with Django at the front of the line. Soon, teenagers were hanging from the back of jeepneys with cue stick cases slung over their shoulders throughout the country.

"When I first left the Philippines, there were hardly any tournaments here although billiards has always been popular. But recently, it became really big."

Beyond his focus and titanium-tough nerves, Django possesses one of the ultimate weapons in billiards: the game's best break. Like the Big Bang itself, Django's break sends those colorful spheres of matter careening across the board to their proper places in a stunning combination of precision and power.

"When I'm in a tournament, I really concentrate," Django says of his style. "I don't listen to anything at all when I'm playing. I don't talk to anyone." One of the game's more fit competitors, Django's only past time away from the sport is taking in the occasional cockfight.

Django feels that it's the fact that you can begin playing billiards for very little money and the Filipinos' traditional game of "rotation" -where the number on each pocketed ball is added up until a player beats 60-that has helped make local cue artists the toast of the world. "And I think this isn't a passing thing. We'll be the best for a long time. Even when Efren ("Bata" Reyes) and I fade away, there will be others to take our place."

Interestingly enough, Django has always played the more serious one between the country's-and indeed the very sport's-best two players. He has always been the grim professional to that sly, smiling rogue Efren "The Magician" Reyes, whom Django considers a friend and mentor in many ways. "Even if I manage to win more tournaments than Efren, he will always be number one because he's my idol," Django smiles. "When we're abroad, it's like he's more than my brother." The two play together often under the aegis of Puyat Sports. Django is quick to praise the Puyat brothers, Jose and Aristeo, who have sponsored him since 1993 without earning a peso from him in exchange for carrying the Puyat Sports logo into battle. "But when Efren and I battle, we know it's all business."

Family has always been important to Django. He has two children, 17-year-old Michael and 13-year-old Gene Rose from two previous relationships. But Django now comes home to Milagros, whom he met in Germany, and their three-year-old son Francisco, Jr. But it was their other child, then eight-month-old Marielle, whom the world would tragically know about.

Last July, Django had flown to Cardiff to take part in the gem among the sport's tournaments, the World Pool Championships. Back home, something went terribly wrong. On July 17, Milagros brought Marielle to the hospital because the baby had a fever. The doctors said the baby was fine. The next day, Milagros brought the baby back because the child looked pale and they soon found that Marielle had a viral blood infection, one that was worse than meningitis. The baby was given a 50-50 chance of survival. Django, who phoned home every day, was shaken by the news and prepared to return home as soon as he could although he was doing well in the tournament, making the top 16.

But the next day, July 19, Marielle succumbed to the infection. At 3 p.m. in Cardiff, Django got the terrible news. "I was stunned. I didn't want to go on with the matches because I wasn't in any condition to play."

But Milagros told Django to go on. "I decided to continue playing, dedicating the tournament to my baby." Django felt that Marielle was with him in those waning days in Wales. "Even when I was about to lose, I would still win. It was because of her." An emotional final match had Django ahead of Strickland, but for a crucial scratch, yet Django emerged from the World Championship the fans' favorite if not a titleholder. "That was the most difficult match of my career," he confesses. "It was also my most painful loss ever."

He returned to the country immediately after and straight to the Pasay funeral home where Marielle's wake was being held. It was in front of his baby's tiny casket that Django, known for his emotionless game face, finally broke down. "She was my favorite baby," he recalls. "Marielle was very energetic and liked to laugh and play with me. It was really painful because she was still all right when I left. And then, she was gone."

He almost didn't have any time to mourn because then it was off to another match, this time in the US. "It was hard to leave because of what I had just gone through but what can I do? This is all I do and if I don't go, it'll destroy my career. How will I help my family then?"

Django did receive a boost when he was designated flag-bearer of the Philippine team to the 14th Asian Games in Busan, South Korea. "I was surprised because I really wasn't counting on it. I felt that there were others who were more worthy. But I was really honored," he explains. Django continued his hot streak, winning his first Asiad gold in the billiard doubles together with Antonio Lining. "And it was my first time to take part in the Asian Games." In November, he continued to be dominant, winning the 35th All-Japan Championship in Osaka.

In a game of angles and bounces, the past year was especially crazy. Django says that 2002 was his most successful year ever, as he won seven times. "I'm proud of that but it's painful because the price I had to pay was my baby." The life of a traveling pro continues to be quite a grind. "I spend most of my year in Europe or America and when I come home, it's usually only for a month." But this time, he gets to be with his family as Milagros and Junior will be with him in Germany. "This life is hard because you have to go away, and, if your shot is off, you won't make any money." Yet this nine-ball ninja has no plans to stop his wandering ways after 26 years of pool. "Maybe I'll stop and run a business someday, but right now, this is the only life I know."

Then, as he has done countless times before, Django Bustamante bids farewell and leaves. He has a match in three hours.