down his face. His stomach lurched again.
He barely got the door open in time. Always, it was like this, and dimly he realized—wet and trembling as bile splashed the sand—that the sickness came mostly from his straining to resist, from his efforts to fight this fierce longing.
All around him, the night breathed.
Here, beyond the outskirts of town, shacks were few and mean.
Early in the day, the little girl had been set outside to get some sun…and forgotten.
When little Molly Leek stroked it, the cat in her lap stirred, purring fitfully before curling back to sleep, and Molly smiled, the late afternoon sun warm on her small, blind face. She loved her cat.
She bent to kiss it. The cat smelled wonderful, and it gurgled in token protest when she hugged it.
“Don’t go gettin’ all rambunctious, fella. Your old man’s prob’ly just run off with some hooch girl.”
Though still early, the gin mill had already begun filling up with men, old men with grayish skin, some with front teeth missing, young men with scabs on their faces, their arms smeared with grease and motor oil. Through the open door came the choke of a dying car. Sometimes the engine would turn over. Banging followed, then deep- voiced advice, then the noise of a wrench applied to metal with more determination than skill.
“Ain’t that the damnest thing, the way we jus’ never found no trace a him?” muttered a younger man to no one in particular. “Shot a dog though.”
Periodically, Wes would grumble about his father in tones both aggrieved and resigned. The rest of the men had grown pretty bored with it by now.
“Them damn dogs was up at my place t’other night,” one of them said. “I let ’em have it wi’ some birdshot. My ole lady was cookin’ dinner. She says they was tryin’ to come right inna door!”
“Mamma?”
The air felt damp, and Molly shivered slightly in the growing dusk. Behind her, she could hear her mother screaming at the other kids in the shack. She sounded drunk again. Obediently, Molly stayed on the crate, some distance from the smell of her home.
She missed her cat. It had left her as the sun faded, and it wouldn’t come back, no matter how she called. Her stomach felt like a yawning ache in her middle now, so long past dinner. She’d never been left out this long before. She considered trying to make her way back to the shack, but she’d been told to stay put and her mother might beat her again if…
A wave of foulness swept toward her with a sudden breeze, and the child went rigid. She heard a rustling sound, deep in the underbrush.
Something crunched, circling her.
“Mamma!”
The warped grain of the wire-spool table resembled a coastal map, swollen lines edging ocean-dark stains, the continents pocked with burn craters. His cigarette smoldering, old Dan Jenkins glowered into the flame of a kerosene lamp, feeling the hot, sweet drifting of his mind as it floated on the booze, feeling all solid thought dissolve with the blurring of his vision.
“So anyhow, we left ’im there wi’ his guts in both hands.” Al threw back his head and roared, showing off rotting back teeth. “Cryin’ like a baby into his innards.”
Old Dan craned his corded neck to listen as he leaned forward, getting the sleeve of his long undershirt wet with spilled rum. As he sucked on the cigarette he’d just rolled, his single discolored eye focused on the yellowed nudie calendar—a decade old at least, tacked above the planks that served as a bar—and on the meat cleaver that hung from a nail alongside the calendar. He glanced around at the men who sat on the barrels and crates scattered about the dirt floor. Most were locals, the rest from neighboring shantytowns with names like Collier’s Mill, Tom’s Grave, Slabtown. Shotguns leaned against the walls, even more than usual.
Seemed no one went out without a gun these days.
She fell from the crate.
A deep-throated roar exploded in front of her. From behind, a growl ripped.
What ever they were, there were two of them.
The child cringed, not knowing which way to crawl. Her hands pushed at the air all around her.
From behind came a snarled challenge.
The heavy breathing passed very close, and her fearfully questing hand found rough softness. With a sob of recognition, she threw her arms around the animal’s neck. The shaggy hulk pulled away from her, hackles up. Planted firmly in front of the child, the dog barked furiously into the woods. The barks sounded like cannon fire, and the girl fell back.
Finally, the rumble grew fainter.
Something brushed her. The wide tongue covered her face. Small grubby hands clung fiercely to the fur, while Dooley carefully licked every exposed part of her.
“Maybe it was the Devil.”
Smoke from the noxious local tobacco stained the air blue, and the room stank of urine and ashes. As always, the lamps had been turned way down to conserve fuel, and the room stayed dark and quiet. When some of the men did speak, it was either to argue the finer points of wire snares or to plan deer-jacking trips, but always silence lapped at the room, ready to seep back like the shadows before which their words became gruff noises, then faded altogether.
“Maybe the Devil got him,” Dan continued. “Hey, Al, ain’t there no more applejack? Dry Squad giving you trouble?”
“Nobody gives me trouble. Shit. Why don’t you get the hell outta here wi’ them stinkin’ shoes? Look at ’is! It’s all over ’is shoes! Go on. Get out!”
“Where’s your boy to night?” Dan kept his voice pleasant to the point of servility.
“What’re you talking about?” demanded Wes. “He’s right here.”
Dan blinked back the haziness. “Where da hell’d you come from?”
Slow shadows shifted in the corner, and Marl’s face glowed softly.
“Startin’ many fires lately?” muttered Wes.
There came the muffled thump of a whiskey jar set down carefully. A couple of regulars glanced at Al, then at Wes. The boy could be heard breathing. “Don’t you go botherin’ that boy,” Dan said in a low growl. “Don’t let his father hear ya.” A match flared as someone lit a cigarette, and the shadows jumped.
Old Dan nodded and gave the boy an encouraging if bleary smile, while reflecting on how funny it was that most of the regulars had such protective attitudes toward the kid, almost as though he were their own kin. Maybe it was the way people just naturally got around half-wits, feeling sorry for them and all. But that didn’t ring true. For instance, the Stewart loony took a lot of abuse, especially around here when he came cadging drinks. So maybe it was just that…He lost the thought when a farmer, already undoing his belt buckle, got up and swayed toward the door, leaving a good half inch of whiskey still in his glass. Dan looked around, then his gnarled hand shot out with the speed of a cobra. He bolted it, just a taste of burning sweetness.
Silence dripped through the room like something molten. The lean brown and white cat skulked through, belly low to the floor, tail twitching like a snake with a broken spine.
“You know what’s out there, boy?” Dan had already sidled up to the boy and begun his usual teasing.
