the shot echoing. Blackburn stumbled, and he and his father fell together. Dad tried to scramble away backward, and his shirt ripped open wide, exposing his torso. Blackburn let go, and the old man collapsed onto his back. Blackburn, on his knees, straddled him.
Dad's narrow chest, rising and falling as the old man wheezed, looked hollow. The ribs stuck out. The hair and skin were as white as milk.
Except for the tumor.
It was a pink egg above the left nipple. Red capillaries, thin as spiderwebs, laced through the skin over and around it, vanishing beneath the whiteness a few inches away.
Then the whiteness melted as if the sunlight were X rays, and Blackburn saw the capillaries spreading throughout his father like a living net. He saw the heart stumbling. He saw the lymph glands strangling. He saw the kidneys shuddering, failing.
Blackburn looked up at his father's face. He couldn't see beneath the skin here, but he didn't have to.
'You have breast cancer,' he said.
Dad's eyes flashed. 'I ain't!' His breath stung. 'I ain't got no woman's disease!'
Blackburn pointed at the tumor. 'There it is.'
The old man swung a fist. Blackburn blocked it with his arm.
'I ain't!' Dad yelled. 'It ain't possible!'
'Why not?'
The words struck Blackburn as hilarious, and he laughed and laughed. The tumor shook. It seemed to be growing as he watched, as if a cosmic clown were filling it with divine breath. As if it were a sacred balloon.
When Blackburn could laugh no more, he saw that Dad was crying. It was a miracle. Blackburn was stunned. He got off the old man and laid his pistol in the grass. He knelt there, hands clasped, and knew that judgment had been rendered. Punishment had been meted. The universe had proven that it was sometimes perfect, and he would not alter perfection. This one time, seeing it was enough.
As the old man wept, Blackburn bowed down and kissed his breast. The pink egg was hot. Blackburn wanted to always remember how it felt.
'You don't have to get me a birthday present,' he murmured.
Then he stood and looked around for Dog. He spotted her lying fifty feet down the hill. He called to her, but she didn't move. He remembered then that the Python had fired.
When he went to her, he found that the bullet had gone through her skull behind the eyes. She hadn't even yelped. There hadn't been time for pain.
Blackburn couldn't cry for her. When there was no time for pain, there was nothing to cry about. Truly, in this place, in this moment, the universe was perfect.
He slowed the Hornet when he saw Jasmine. She was running toward town, coming up on the old water tower. She stopped and turned when she heard the car. Blackburn pulled the Hornet onto the shoulder, got out, and walked to her.
Jasmine was breathing hard. She had run two miles. Her dress was damp and dirty. She had fallen.
'That dress is too long for running,' Blackburn said.
She didn't seem to hear him. 'Well?' she asked.
'Well what?'
She wiped hair from her forehead. 'Did you do it?'
He gazed at the remains of the water tower. It had been his hideout, his Rosetta stone, his starship. He had stood on its catwalk and watched his sister, the size of a doll, playing in the field below.
'Remember the snowball war we had here?' he asked. 'You and I built a fort, and some of the town kids built another one. Ours was up against the tower fence. We pretended the water tank was our doomsday bomb.'
Jasmine still wasn't listening. 'Did you hurt him?'
'And in the spring and summer we flew kites. I made them myself. You were always kind of in the way.'
Blackburn looked at her again. Had he done anything to Daddy? He supposed that he had.
Just after finding Dog's body, he had heard the Python's hammer click. He had turned to see that Dad had pointed the gun at his own chest. Blackburn had gone over and taken it away. Then he had gathered up Dog and left. At the windbreak he had looked back. The old man had still been kneeling in the same spot.
'All I did,' Blackburn told Jasmine, 'was kiss him good-bye.'
Jasmine stared. 'I don't believe you.'
Blackburn went back to the Hornet. He retrieved the Python from under the driver's seat and tucked it into his jeans. Then he took his duffel from the back seat and tossed it into the ditch. He threw the shovel that he had taken from the garage down beside it. Finally, he lifted Dog's body from the passenger seat. It was wrapped in a sheet he'd pulled from the clothesline. Only a little blood had leaked through.
Carrying Dog, he returned to Jasmine. 'You can take the car back to the house,' he said. 'See for yourself.'
Jasmine was eyeing the bundle in Blackburn's arms. 'Don't you need it?'
'No.' He would steal another car in town. It was time for a switch anyway.
Jasmine went to the Hornet, then faced her brother again. 'Tomorrow's your birthday, isn't it?'
'Yes.'
Jasmine tried to smile. It didn't suit her. 'Well,' she said. 'Happy birthday, then.'
'Thanks.' He turned toward the ditch. 'Say hi to Mom for me.' He heard the Hornet start as he climbed into the field. By the time he reached the fallen tower, Jasmine was gone.
He laid Dog beside the rusted tank, then retrieved his duffel and the shovel. As he dug the grave, he told Dog about the lessons he had learned from the things he had read and done here. A car on the Potwin road slowed, and its occupants stared at him as it went by.
When Blackburn lowered Dog into the grave, he saw an earthworm writhing in a corner. This reminded him of another story, and he told Dog about the one time that he and Dad had gone fishing together. He wondered if Dad ever went fishing anymore. He doubted it.
He patted Dog through the sheet and filled in the grave. He threw the shovel among the pieces of the water tower's legs, then slung his duffel over his shoulder and walked toward the heart of town.
His family had vanished into the past. For the first time in his life, Blackburn was alone. The perfection of the universe, embodied in the quiet Sunday evening of Wantoda, lay before him. He felt weightless, as if he were falling. Or flying.
Cars were pulling into the parking lot at the Methodist church, and ghosts were emerging from them. Blackburn's lips pulsed with warmth. He took out the Python and cocked it.
It was good to be home.
