Salvage the Bones

But Boss thinks he has been called, that he should run to Jerome. He whirls and pours through the air, black as burnt oil, and jerks to a puddle in the dirt because Kilo has borne down on him, his teeth in Boss’s back. Boss flings himself back at Kilo, his growl a great rip.

“Call him!” Jerome yells. The fight is no longer clean. Jerome has made a mistake.

“Kilo!” Rico shouts, and he grabs Kilo by his hind legs. “Kilo!” It is more a cough than a yell. Kilo lets go, tosses his head through a cloud of dust and hair and droplets of blood. Jerome grabs Boss by his front leg. Rico drags Kilo by his hind legs across the bowl, away from Boss. Both dogs are peppered in cuts. Rico’s shirt is not so white anymore.

Jerome kneels, presses his rag into the wound on Boss’s back. It shows black through the rag, and when he wipes the gash, the blood runs clean. He presses again, waits until it is a trickle. Boss’s white muzzle is streaked with red. Jerome nods at Rico.

“Again?” Jerome calls.

“Yeah,” Rico says.

Junior lets Lala’s head fall in the dirt.

“I’m going back to the tree,” he says to Marquise’s little brother. “You coming?” They leave Lala to sit up, looking confused. Big Henry stands with his arms crossed over his chest. Randall stares at Boss’s back, his stick hanging at the side of his leg before he flips it up to rest on his shoulder, and he sighs.

Jerome slaps Boss on his haunch, and he is off across the clearing to meet Kilo. The two dogs blur into one. They have two heads, four legs, two tails. They are an ancient beast, fierce, all growling hunger, rising up out of the sea. Boss’s head whips back, distinct for a blink, and he buries his teeth behind Kilo’s shoulder.

“Shit,” Randall breathes.

Kilo gurgles and bends himself almost in two, grabbing Boss’s front leg.

“Shake him, son! Shake him!” Rico yells.

“Get him!” Jerome shouts.

They are boiling, red against black. Kilo is trying to shake blood loose. Boss growls and shakes his head again and again, giving back to Kilo what he is given. Neither rips; neither folds.

“They’re even,” Big Henry says.

Boss and Kilo’s teeth are grinding into each other with each asking and answering jerk. They are sharpening the knives of their canines on a whetstone of flesh. Both hold. Neither will give.

“Call it,” Skeetah says.

“Boss!” Jerome yells, and grabs Boss’s back leg and drags.

“Kilo!” Rico grabs.

The dogs pull apart, are dragged away. Boss has many cuts, and his white muzzle has never been white, has always been red. Kilo’s red shoulders look spread with redder yarn, a ratty maroon shawl, and his breathing is the loudest sound in the clearing, over the dying and rising wind. Daddy’s hurricane is sending out feelers.

“Kilo got it,” Rico says.

“Bullshit,” says Jerome.

“What you talking about? He had him,” says Manny.

“I don’t know what you saw, but it sure wasn’t Kilo winning,” says Marquise.

“Everybody saw Kilo got him,” says Rico’s friend wearing the white shoes, which have turned yellow- brown.

“Everybody didn’t see shit. It was even,” says Big Henry, and suddenly everyone is talking at once. Kilo had him. No, Boss had him. Nigga, you blind? No, you? All the boys argue. The dogs around them bark and roll in the pine and lick their wounds and wag their tails. They raise their wet noses to the moving wind.

Rico rises from wiping Kilo, who bleeds and smiles. Rico clips Kilo’s leash and leads his dog, who saunters with his head down, across the clearing to us. Rico is frowning at Skeetah, who still stands apart on the edge of the bowl, one finger a hair’s width above China’s head. She is so bright it is hard to look at her.

“So when I get my puppy?” Rico asks Skeetah.

“My dog ain’t lose,” says Jerome, clipping and standing.

“Ain’t no clear winner,” says Marquise.

“You hear everybody talking. It’s a draw,” Randall says, and he moves forward to stand next to Jerome, facing Rico. Rico sniffs and spits. I wish the wind would catch it, throw it back in his face or on his white, white shoes. Randall’s stick is across his shoulders and behind his neck, and his arms hang over it like a scarecrow’s. Big Henry shadows him, flanks Marquise. Manny starts walking across the clearing, the boy with the yellowed shoes behind him. They are all coming, all meeting in the middle. Like the dogs.

“I said”-Rico points his finger at Skeetah and China, who pants at his side-“where’s my puppy?” He walks toward Skeet and the boys, who have moved into a loose cell around Rico and Jerome. Marquise is bouncing on his toes, curling his hands. If I were a boy, I would fight like Marquise, I think.

“No,” says Jerome. “My dog didn’t lose. Most it is is a draw.”

“I gives a fuck what you say,” says Rico, his finger now swinging to Jerome, his eyes on Skeetah. “And I want the white one.”

“It’s a draw. It’s a tie.” Randall blocks Rico, stands in front of Skeetah. He rolls his shoulders, grabs the stick in one hand, swings it wide and holds it like a baseball bat. Everyone is drawing together in a knot, tighter and tighter, black against the day. “You can’t decide it.”

“Yeah,” Skeetah says. “We can.” He unhooks the dull heavy chain from China’s neck, smiles; she smiles with him.

How you going to fight her? Randall scream-whispered at Skeetah after Rico started laughing and led Kilo across the clearing to rub him down. She’s a mother! The boys and their dogs spread around the circle of the clearing; the knot loosened, frayed. And he’s a father, Skeetah said, motioning toward Kilo, and what fucking difference does it make? China nosed Skeetah’s side. Her titties, Randall said. Are for the puppies, and you don’t have to worry about that, Skeetah breathed. The puppies, Randall said, what about the puppies? We all fight, said Skeetah. Everybody. Now leave me the fuck alone so I can talk to my dog, he said.

“Randall?” Junior and Marquise’s little brother have scampered down from their mimosa tree. “Skeetah going to fight China?”

“Go back to your tree,” Randall says, “I mean it. Up.”

“Go ’head,” I tell Junior. “And don’t come down til it’s done.”

Junior picks up a stick, throws it at Marquise’s little brother, who wears a bright green shirt dusted with pink flowers from the tree and jean shorts with creases. His mother did that, I think.

“Don’t fall,” I say.

“All right,” Junior huffs, to let me know that I am getting on his nerves, and then they are running away.

Marquise is speaking loudly in the kind of voice that wants to be heard and saying that he thinks Rico is a bitch, his dog is a weak bitch, and hell naw Kilo didn’t win. Big Henry is shaking his head, rubbing his forehead over and over with his sweat rag. Jerome is agreeing with Marquise, loudly. I can see why they are cousins. Boss is lounging again at Jerome’s feet, bleeding faintly, tongue out, grinning again. Blood runs in his eye and he blinks. Kilo lolls on his back in the straw, curving into a C again and again. Randall is swinging his stick back and forth, again and again, like a golf club now, catching vines, ripping them down from their branches. He looks at me, his upper lip tight.

“Well?” Randall swings, and the stick flings up dirt and dry pine needles. “They’ll die. Fucking camp!” he spits.

Across the circle, Manny is watching us. When the dogs were fighting, rolling like the spokes around the wheel of the clearing, gnashing and struggling muscle to muscle, tooth to tooth, it was easy to narrow my vision, to avoid Manny. Manny’s eyebrows are together, his eyes are big; they almost look sorry. I tell myself I don’t care and imagine myself tall as Medea, wearing purple and green robes, bones and gold for jewelry. Even though it feels awkward, I pull my shoulders back when I walk toward Skeetah, who is on the edge of the clearing in a cluster of ground palms, kneeling, whispering into China’s ear, rubbing her so hard her skin slides in ripples with his hand. Skeetah smooths her, talks to her. Her fur looks silver in the shade. China is standing very still, staring across the clearing. Skeetah’s tongue darts out of his mouth and a razor I did not know he had in his cheek flips out and over