'Attached?' Potter said.
'Yes.'
'What do you mean, attached'?'
'Might have . .. might have looked like a tumor.'
'Looked like a tumor?'
'Say a tumor ... something like that?'
'No. Nothing like that. Nothing at all.'
Eduardo took the telephone handset away from his head long enough to
swallow some beer.
When he put the phone to his ear again, he heard Travis Potter saying,
'--know something you haven't told me?'
'Not that I'm aware of,' Eduardo lied.
The veterinarian was silent this time. Maybe he was sucking on a beer
of his own. Then: 'If you come across any more animals like this, will
you call me?'
'Yes.'
'Not just raccoons.'
'All right.'
'Any animals at all.'
'Sure.'
'Don't move them,' Potter said.
'I won't.'
'I want to see them in situ, just where they fell.'
'Whatever you say.'
'Well . . .'
'Goodbye, Doctor.'
Eduardo hung up and went to the sink. He stared out the window at the
forest at the top of the sloped backyard, west of the house.
He wondered how long he would have to wait. He was sick to death of
waiting.
'Come on,' he said softly to the hidden watcher in the woods.
He was ready. Ready for hell or heaven or eternal nothingness,
whatever came.
He wasn't afraid of dying.
What frightened him was the how of dying. What he might have to
endure. What might be done to him in the final minutes or hours of his
life. What he might see.
On the morning of June twenty-first, as he was eating breakfast and
listening to the world news on the radio, he looked up and saw a
squirrel at the window in the north wall of the kitchen. It was
perched on the window stool, gazing through the glass at him. Very
still. Intense. As the raccoons had been.
He watched it for a while, then concentrated on his breakfast again.
Each time he looked up, it was on duty.
After he washed the dishes, he went to the window, crouched, and came
face-to-face with the squirrel. Only the pane of glass was between
them. The animal seemed unfazed by this close inspection.
He snapped one fingernail against the glass directly in front of its
face.
The squirrel didn't flinch.
