Blackburn

THREE

Jimmy had been in town to see Ernie that Wednesday, so he didn't know that his mother and Jasmine had left until he got home. He figured out that he had been reading comic books in Ernie's room when Dad had smacked Mom for the fifth time that week. Mom had taken the old Chrysler station wagon, leaving the GMC pickup. Jimmy was sure that she would have taken him along too, if he had been home. She would at least have given him a choice.

Summer vacation didn't end for three more weeks, and Dad would be home a lot since he had been laid off. Jimmy didn't like the prospect. Not that he liked the prospect of school either. He had been dreading eighth grade. At the end of seventh grade, he had noticed that some of the girls were growing breasts, and some of the boys were getting hair on their faces. These were not good omens. Still, he would have preferred school over staying home alone with Dad. It wasn't even that Dad was a bad guy. It was just that he didn't know what else to do with his tough breaks but pass them along. With Mom and Jasmine gone, Jimmy would be in for more than his share.

He was sure of that right after Mom left. Dad tried to cook hamburgers for supper, and started a grease fire. He picked up the skillet and ran outside, burning his hands. When he came back in, he cussed Jimmy for not helping. Jimmy said that he hadn't known what to do, and Dad smacked him and told him to get to his room. Jimmy went into the hot little room and shut the door. He read the Spider-Man comic book that Ernie had given him. After a while he had to pee, but Dad hadn't said he could come out. He waited until he heard Dad's snore, then crept out through the kitchen and down the hall to the bathroom. He peed sitting down so he wouldn't have to turn on the light, and aimed so that the stream hit under the rim instead of in the water. He didn't flush.

In the morning he stayed in bed until Dad yelled for him to get up and do his chores. He got up and put on a T-shirt, cutoffs, and sneakers, then went out to feed the chickens.

The chickens mobbed him. Jimmy hated them. They were loud, smelled bad, and crapped all over the place. Dad had brought them home as chicks in March. There had been fifty of them. They had been cute, fuzzy little things. Some of them had even seemed smart and had taken to following Jimmy or Jasmine around. Then half of them had died, and the rest had grown up fast and gotten stupider. By the time they'd reached their growth, they had become brainless. Now they were eating and shitting machines. They laid eggs too, but broke a lot of them and covered the rest with chickenshit. Jimmy dumped a pile of feed on the ground for them to swarm over, then stepped away to drop a handful for the rooster.

All of the chicks had grown up into hens, so Dad had brought home a rooster in June. It was hideous. None of the pictures Jimmy had ever seen of roosters had looked anything like it. The pictures were of strutting, broad-chested birds with bright red combs and gold and green feathers. But this rooster waddled like a duck, had a dull pink comb that was torn, and feathers the color of old cornbread. It dragged its tail in the dirt. The hens often ganged up and pecked the hell out of it. It had lost a lot of feathers in the past two months, and the bare patches were scabby. It waddled over and gobbled a few mouthfuls of the feed Jimmy dropped for it, and then three of the hens ran it off.

Jimmy went into the plywood coop and gathered the eggs. There were ten that weren't broken. That was better than usual. He cleaned up the rest as best he could and took the ten to the well pump to wash them.

Ten. Farm eggs sold for thirty cents a dozen in Tuttle County, when people bothered to stop and buy them. Most folks just spent the extra dime to get them at the store with the rest of their groceries. Where Dad had gotten the idea that chickens would make money, Jimmy didn't know. Someone had lied to him. Or maybe things had been different when Dad was a kid, and he hadn't been able to figure out that the world had changed. The chicken feed alone cost more than the eggs brought in, never mind the trouble of dealing with the chickens themselves. Jimmy wondered what was wrong with Dad's brain.

He took the eggs into the house. Dad was eating toast in the kitchen.

"How many?" Dad asked.

"Ten."

Dad shook his head. "Don't know what's the matter with them." He eyed Jimmy. "You been chasing them?"

"No, sir," Jimmy said. He put the eggs into the bowl in the refrigerator.

"You been breaking any?"

"No, sir."

Dad put more bread into the toaster. "Want breakfast?"

"Sure." Dad gave him a look. "I mean, yes, sir."

The toast popped up. Dad rubbed each slice with a stick of oleo and handed one to Jimmy. Jimmy said thank you and sat at the table to eat.

"I'm going into Wichita," Dad said.

"Can I come?" Jimmy asked. Once in a while Dad would take him along to the hardware or auto parts stores. Jimmy liked the men who worked there. They were the kind of men who would say hi to a guy even if he couldn't drive yet.

"No," Dad said. "And don't go into Wantoda either. I want you here when your mother gets home. You tell her I'm checking on a machine shop job. I'll be home for supper."

"Yes, sir," Jimmy said. "Would it be okay if Ernie came out?"

"Long as he doesn't eat anything," Dad said. "I work hard enough to feed my own kids." He left the kitchen. The front screen door opened and banged shut. The pickup started and drove off.

Jimmy finished his toast, then put a pan of water on the stove. When it was boiling, he took an egg from the refrigerator and dropped it in. It hit the bottom of the pan and cracked, sending white streamers through the bubbling water. Jimmy let it boil until the water was almost gone. Then he shut off the stove and took the pan to the sink. He ran water over the egg and tried to peel it. It was still hot, and it stung his fingers. A lot of the white came off with the shell. He ate what was left. The yolk crumbled hot and dry in his mouth. The August day was heating up outside.

He phoned Ernie, and Ernie asked his mother for permission to ride his bike out. Jimmy heard Ernie's mom say that she guessed it was all right. Ernie's mom had a quavering voice and always sounded as if she were about to cry, so Jimmy could never tell how she felt about what she said. His own mother's feelings were always clear. She laughed when things were good, and she bawled when things were bad. She bawled too much.

Jimmy took his BB gun outside and shot at sparrows to kill time until Ernie showed up. There was a hot wind, and his shots curved wide. Sometimes he could see the BBs swerving as they flew, going into orbit like tiny golden satellites. Some of the chickens came running, expecting more feed, and he shot one of them in the rump. They took off squawking. Dad would switch him to within an inch of his life for an offense like that, but Jimmy sure as hell wasn't going to tell him about it. The stupid chicken wasn't hurt, anyway. Jimmy would have liked to put one through its head, in one eye and out the other.

Between shots, he looked down the Potwin road toward Wantoda. Finally he saw Ernie. Ernie was coming slow despite having the wind at his back. Jimmy took his BB gun to the porch and rode his bike out to meet his friend. He put his head down and stood to pump against the wind. The pavement was oily, cooking in the sun. His bike rattled.

When he came within fifty yards of Ernie, he charged him as if to collide head-on. Ernie yelled and stopped where he was. Jimmy whizzed past, then turned and coasted back, letting the wind push him.

"Hey, pussy," he said, coming alongside.

Ernie's wavy red hair was damp, and his face was flushed. He was wearing a blue nylon backpack that made his narrow shoulders look even narrower. He was wheezing. "Pussy yourself," he said. He was hoarse.

"What's the matter?"

"Dust or something. Can't hardly breathe."

"Come on and get a drink." Jimmy pumped ahead and waited in the driveway until Ernie arrived. They went into the house together and made Kool-Aid lemonade, then drank it with ice and ate the bologna sandwiches and Cheez Curls that Ernie had brought. They discussed the Spider-Man comic book that Ernie had given Jimmy and agreed that the Green Goblin was not a worthy adversary. He acted like a queer.

When the food was gone, they went outside and took turns shooting at the sparrows. They had trouble hitting within a foot of their targets.

"Too much wind," Jimmy said.

"You should do it at night, anyway," Ernie said. "You put a flashlight on them. They get hypnotized and can't move. We can try it tonight, if you want."

"Maybe. My Dad'll be home."

"So?"

"So I don't know if he'll want us to."

Ernie took a shot and hit a tree branch a few inches from a sparrow. The bird took off. So did every other bird in the tree. The boys waited for them to come back.

"Your mom and sister at the store?" Ernie asked.

"Maybe. I don't know."

"What do you mean, you don't know?"

Jimmy stared up into the tree. "I mean I don't know. They took off yesterday while I was at your place. They aren't back yet."

"Oh." Ernie handed Jimmy the BB gun, then picked up his lemonade and took a drink. "Family troubles, huh?"

"I guess."

"Don't worry about it."

"I think they just went to see my grandma in Oklahoma."

"Where in Oklahoma?"

"Tulsa."

The birds were starting to come back, so Jimmy and Ernie lowered their voices.

"That's where Oral Roberts University is," Ernie said. "That's where my mom wants me to go to college. They have a great basketball team."

"I wouldn't go to a college named after a goddamn preacher," Jimmy said.

Ernie made a face, as if the lemonade were sour. "I didn't say I was going to go. I said my mom wants me to. She's big on that prayer tower they have with the eternal flame. You can call in with prayers, and guys'll go up in the tower and pray them for you."

"For how long?"

"I dunno. Until the prayers get answered or the guys have to poop."

They both laughed, and the returning birds spooked.

"Hell," Jimmy said, "there they go again."

"Wait until night and put a light on them," Ernie said. He took another drink of lemonade. "You believe in God?"

Jimmy shrugged. "I guess. But I don't think preachers know any more about God than anyone else. Churches are a racket."

"Yeah," Ernie said. "You should see the money they rake in at the United Methodist. I wouldn't go, except my folks make me. But I think prayers work, sometimes."

"Grow up."

Ernie spit a lemonade-goober at the ground. "Not the prayer tower and church and stuff. Just telling God what you think."

"I've tried it. It don't work."

"Maybe you tried to do it the way the preachers say you should. Maybe you never tried it your own way. Just saying what you want. Or what you think about things."

Jimmy grunted. He didn't like it when Ernie got weird like this.

One of the sparrows came back to the tree and perched on a high, bare twig. Jimmy raised the BB gun and sighted.

"Oh God," he said, "please let me kill this fucking bird. In Your name I pray, Amen." He squeezed the trigger. The BB gun popped. Jimmy didn't see the BB fly.

The sparrow twitched, then flopped over. One of its feet held on to the twig for a few seconds before it fell. It bounced once when it hit the ground.

Jimmy and Ernie ran over to it. There was blood on a weed it had brushed against on the way down. It wasn't moving.

"I'll be damned," Jimmy said. "God came through."

Ernie cupped his hands around his mouth and spoke in a booming voice.

"Thou art welcome," he said.

Ernie left at five o'clock. Jimmy rode alongside for the first mile, then said good-bye and turned back. He was within a quarter mile of home when Dad's truck pulled up beside him.

"You were told to stay home!" Dad yelled. His face was greasy with sweat.

"I did," Jimmy said. "Ernie came out and I just rode partway back with him."

"You were told to stay home!" Dad yelled again. The pickup burned rubber and went past.

Dad was waiting beside the truck when Jimmy entered the driveway. He yanked Jimmy off the bike and dragged him into the garage.

"When I give an order," Dad said, "I expect to be obeyed." He took down the piece of fiberglass fishing rod from its nails. "Drop your pants."

Jimmy forced down his fear. Not this time, he thought. He wouldn't do it this time. But then Dad would beat him up even worse.

"Mom called," Jimmy said. His voice quavered like Ernie's mother's. But at least he wasn't crying.

The switch wasn't cutting through the air the way it always did. It remained still in Dad's hand.

"What did she say?"

Jimmy didn't care what he told Dad then. He would say anything. He would say anything and keep on saying it as long as it kept the fiberglass rod still. He was thirteen. He was too old to be switched. He was too old to be treated like some goddamn baby.

"She said she was at Grandma's. She said she wouldn't be home tonight, but not to worry. She said to tell you she was sorry she got mad and she'll be back tomorrow."

"Tomorrow?" The switch lowered.

Jimmy licked his lips. "She said she hopes tomorrow, but maybe the next day. She said Grandma was really glad to see her and she couldn't just show up and then leave right away, so it might not be tomorrow but the next day. But not to worry because the car's okay and she's sorry she got mad. And she said to tell you there's pot pies in the freezer."

Dad closed his eyes for a second and rubbed his mouth with his free hand. "Anything else?"

Jimmy tried to think of something more. He couldn't. Much more would sound like the lie it was, anyway. Mom wouldn't have talked a long time on Grandma's phone bill.

"No, sir. Except she said we shouldn't call Grandma's house because Grandma's in a bad mood." Dad would believe that.

Dad snorted. "Like I would," he said. "Turn around and bend over. You still got a whipping coming. You got to start doing what you're told."

Jimmy turned around and bent over. Dad gave him five, but they weren't hard. And he hadn't had to drop his pants. He had won, so long as Dad didn't find out that he'd lied. And it hadn't been a total lie, anyway. Where else would Mom be but at Grandma's?

He and Dad had turkey pot pies for supper. The crust was black on the edges, but it still tasted okay. Jimmy burned his tongue on the filling. He always did that.

Afterward, he and Dad watched a John Wayne cowboy movie on TV. There was a dab of ice milk left in the freezer, and they ate it.

When Jimmy went to bed, the burned patch on his tongue tingled, keeping him awake. He thought about the sparrow he had shot that afternoon. Mom had said more than once that God counted every sparrow that fell. Mom didn't approve of him shooting them. He wondered what she would think if she knew that he had prayed to kill this one.

The next day was a Friday. Mom and Jasmine didn't come home. They didn't come home Saturday either. Dad went out Saturday evening and didn't come home himself until Sunday afternoon. He smelled of beer and was angry. Jimmy knew that Dad was looking for an excuse for another whipping, so he said that Mom had called again. She had decided to stay with Grandma a few more days to help with some housecleaning and sewing. She and Jasmine would be home by Wednesday.

That had to be safe, Jimmy thought. Wednesday would be a whole week. Mom wouldn't stay away longer than that.

On Monday, Dad left in the morning. Jimmy was again to tell Mom, if she returned, that Dad would be home for supper. Dad didn't tell Jimmy to stay home, but Jimmy figured that he should anyway. Sometimes Dad meant orders given one day to be followed weeks or months later as well.

Ernie rode his bike out and brought lunch again. Jimmy was glad of that. He and Dad had eaten the last of the macaroni and cheese the night before, and there was nothing left in the house that either one of them knew how to fix. They were even out of bread for toast. Dad hadn't said anything about buying groceries, so Jimmy doubted that he would. Ernie had brought bologna sandwiches and Cheez Curls again, but also two packages of chocolate cupcakes and two bottles of Coke. He was wheezing when Jimmy met him in the driveway.

"Maybe you should see a doctor," Jimmy said. "You don't sound so good."

Ernie dropped his bike and staggered to the porch. He was wearing cutoffs, like Jimmy, and his matchstick legs were wobbly. He took off his backpack and sat down. "I just got hay fever," he said. He pulled a crumpled handkerchief from his cutoffs and blew his nose into it. He held it up. "See?"

"Jeez, why don't you show me your shit too?"

"Queer."

"Let's eat."

Jimmy was out of BBs, so after lunch they decided to go swimming. They mixed up the last package of Kool-Aid lemonade and poured it into two Mason jars. They put the jars into Ernie's backpack along with the leftover Cheez Curls and set off. The jars clanked and sloshed. Some of the chickens tried to follow the boys, so they yelled and threw clods until the birds took off squawking.

They climbed through the barbed-wire fence behind the windbreak of evergreens and tramped through prairie hay that came up to their waists. The ten-acre meadow belonged to Dad, but the man from whom he had borrowed a mower and baler last year had died. So this year the hay would stay tall. It tickled and scratched. The boys' legs became crisscrossed with red lines. They went up over the hill and down to the second fence, where they crossed into the pasture. This was seventy acres and was owned by a man named Claussen, who kept thirty head of beef on it. Jimmy pointed at the cattle when they topped a rise. The black and brown steers were two hundred yards away, clustered around salt blocks that Claussen had dumped on a grassless patch of earth. The steers switched their tails at flies.

"We'll have about two hours to swim before they come down and muck it up," Jimmy said.

"How do you know?"

"I watched them. They go down when it gets really hot, about two-thirty or three. Then they stay there until it gets cool in the evening. Sometimes they spend the night there, I think. They graze in the early morning and hang out at the salt after that. Until it gets hot again."

"I didn't know cows had schedules," Ernie said.

"Not cows. Steers. Bulls without balls."

"No wonder you know all about them."

Jimmy punched him in the shoulder. They went down to the pond.

The pond was surrounded by brown mud banks. The earthen dam rose at the east end. At the west end, the pond narrowed into a swampy stand of weeds.

"There're snakes in the weeds," Jimmy said, pointing. "We need to stay away from that end."

They stripped off their shirts and went in. They left their shoes on. The water stayed blood-warm until it was waist-deep. Then there was a layer of coolness down low. The bottom was mud that sucked at their sneakers, but there were also sticks and things that felt like broken glass and tin cans. The water didn't come up to their necks until they reached the center. Jimmy found one hole where the water was over his head. He dropped into it and opened his eyes, but all he could see was a brown haze. When he looked straight up, it turned reddish. The water in the hole was cold, and something slimy slithered past his legs. He surfaced and moved back to shallower water.

He and Ernie swam and splashed each other until they tired, and then they moved to where the water was shallow enough that they could sit with the waves lapping at their chins. The sun was hot on Jimmy's head, and when his hair started drying, he dunked himself to wet it again.

"Hey, look," Ernie said when Jimmy surfaced. He was pointing toward the dam.

Jimmy blinked the water out of his eyes. A small brown dog with a narrow head was sitting on top of the dam, watching them. It was panting.

"I think he wants a drink," Ernie said.

"So why doesn't he get one?"

"Maybe he's scared of us."

Jimmy stood. The breeze on his chest was cool for a few seconds, then turned hot. "Come on, pup," he called, bending over and patting his thighs. "Come on down. We won't hurt you. Come on."

The dog cocked its head.

"You know him?" Ernie asked.

"Never saw him before."

"How come you don't have a dog, anyway? Out here in the country you could have three or four."

Jimmy shrugged. "Dad doesn't like them. He says they just cost money for feed." Sort of like chickens, he thought. Only not as stupid. He started walking through the water toward the dam.

The dog stood, ready to run.

"It's okay, pup," Jimmy said. "Don't be afraid. We're your buddies. Don't be a chickenshit." He kept on walking until he was within a few feet of the base of the dam. "Come on down, pup. The water's fine."

The dog took a few steps toward the water, then returned to the top of the dam. It sat down again and panted.

"Here come the cows," Ernie said.

Jimmy looked. The steers were moving down the slope toward the pond like slobber-nosed tanks. Jimmy slogged back to Ernie, and they got out of the pond. Ernie opened his backpack and brought out one of the Mason jars. They each took a long drink of Kool-Aid, and then the steers were close. A chunky black one bellowed at them. The boys moved away toward the dam, and a brown streak shot past them, heading toward the cattle.

It was the dog. It charged the black steer, and the steer turned and ran, thudding into another member of the herd. Then all thirty of the steers were running back the way they had come, their hooves rumbling. The dog stayed after them, dashing first at one and then another.

Jimmy and Ernie laughed. The steers disappeared over the rise, and the boys went back into the water. After a while the dog came back and took a drink while they were out in the middle.

"Thanks, pup!" Jimmy called. The dog looked across at him and grinned, its jaw dripping. It took several more laps from the muddy water, then trotted back to the top of the dam. It stayed there and watched Jimmy and Ernie until they got tired and left.

Jimmy's mother didn't come home that day. In the evening, Dad smacked Jimmy in the head for not doing the dishes. Dad hadn't even told him that he should, but that didn't seem to matter.

On Tuesday, Dad was gone before Jimmy woke up. There wasn't a note. Jimmy took care of the chickens and boiled a couple of eggs. After eating, he cleaned up the kitchen and bathroom, then dragged out Mom's canister Hoover and vacuumed the living room. It was boring as hell, but he wanted to head off Dad's temper if he could. The only room he didn't clean was Mom and Dad's bedroom. The door was shut. He wouldn't have gone in even if it had been open.

When he had finished cleaning the house, he went outside and mowed the yard until the mower ran out of gas. The fuel cans in the garage were empty, so there was nothing more he could do. He left the mower where it had died and went into the house to splash water on his face and arms. He was dusty and covered with bits of dry grass that itched. When he felt better, he took some comic books to the porch. It was too hot in the house. He sat on the concrete step, his legs in the sun, his head in the shade.

Ernie showed up while he was reading The Flash. Ernie had brought lunch again. Jimmy was embarrassed that Ernie kept having to feed him, but there wasn't much he could do about it. He didn't have any money to buy groceries, and Dad would kill him if he went into town anyway.

They ate lunch and then hiked back to swim in the pond again. The little brown dog appeared after they had been there about twenty minutes. It sat on top of the dam and watched them as it had the day before. Jimmy and Ernie went to the base of the dam and called it, but it still wouldn't come down. It moved away whenever one of them took a step up the dam. They gave up and went back into the water.

"What kind of dog is that, anyway?" Jimmy asked.

"Heinz fifty-seven," Ernie said. "He's got some terrier in him, though."

"What kind of terrier, you figure?"

"Rat."

"I wonder who he belongs to."

"If he belonged to anybody, he wouldn't be here, stupe."

Jimmy splashed Ernie in the face, and they got into a terrific war. They moved into deeper water and floated on their backs, kicking brown and white plumes at each other. Then something brushed against Jimmy's shoulder, and he stood up in the chest-deep water.

The dog had swum out to them. It paddled around Jimmy in a circle, holding its triangular head up at an angle. Its mouth was closed. Jimmy heard air puffing in and out of its wet black nose. Its expression was one of serious concentration.

Ernie stopped splashing and stood. He stared at the dog. It swam around him and back to Jimmy.

Jimmy put a hand under the dog's chest and lifted, buoying it. The dog stopped paddling. It didn't try to get away. It remained still, letting Jimmy hold it. It kept its head pointed up and its mouth closed. Jimmy could feel its heart beating fast.

"You're a brave one, pup," Jimmy said, and let it go. It paddled across to the muddy bank, climbed out, and shook itself so hard that some of the spray reached the boys.

Ernie shook his head. "That's a weird dog."

"I like him," Jimmy said.

"How you know it's a him?"

"Look, moron."

The dog still wouldn't come to them when they left the water, but it trotted after them when they started back toward Jimmy's house. It stayed well back.

"What's the matter with him?" Ernie asked.

"He's smart," Jimmy said. "He wants to make friends, but he wants to make sure we want to make friends too."

"So why'd he swim out to us?"

"He's a good swimmer. He probably figured he could get away if we tried to hurt him."

"Why would he think we wanted to hurt him?"

"How should I know? Maybe people have hurt him before."

They continued toward the house. A cottontail rabbit spooked, and the dog took off after it. The boys ran after them, whooping, cheering the dog on. The wind burned past Jimmy's face. It felt great.

The rabbit led them to the salt lick. The dozing steers looked up, startled, and saw the dog. They bellowed and ran into each other trying to get away. The dog didn't even notice them. It was after the rabbit. The cattle fled, kicking up dirt.

The rabbit zigzagged and ran into a salt block. Jimmy saw it happen, and heard the thunk. The rabbit stopped cold. It might have been able to recover, but it didn't have time. The dog caught it by the head and shook it.

The steers' hooves rumbled. Dust boiled into the sky. The little dog stood in the center of chaos, victorious, shaking the cottontail. Jimmy stopped at the edge of the salt lick, breathing hard. He laughed and clapped. Ernie came up beside him, coughing.

The dog tore open the rabbit and lay down in the center of the bare patch of earth to eat. Jimmy and Ernie went toward it, and it growled. They stopped and watched it for a while. It was as serious about eating as it had been about swimming. Jimmy had never seen a human being with such singleness of purpose. He admired the little dog.

"Guess he doesn't go hungry," Ernie said.

"He's too smart for that," Jimmy said. They went on to the house. The dog stayed behind and ate.

Jimmy and Ernie were reading comic books on the porch when Dad came home. It was four o'clock. Jimmy hadn't expected him home until after five.

Dad lurched out of the pickup. His foot slipped on the gravel, and he almost fell. He came up cussing. He started toward the house, saw Jimmy and Ernie, and looked disgusted. Jimmy glanced at Ernie. Ernie looked scared.

Jimmy stood up. "Hi, Dad," he said.

Dad looked across the yard. "What the hell you mean leaving that mower out?" he yelled. He sounded as if his tongue were too thick. "Supposed to goddamn rain. Ain't I told you to put it back when you're finished?"

"I was going to," Jimmy said. He was miserable.

"And you stopped with the job half done," Dad said. "What kind of lazy shit did I raise, huh?"

Jimmy's misery became rage. "It ran out of gas," he said. His voice was loud. "And there wasn't any more."

"I better go home," Ernie mumbled. He put down the comic book he had been reading and started toward his bike in the driveway.

"You talking back to me?" Dad bellowed.

Ernie looked back at Jimmy. His lips formed the word "Pray." Then he hurried to his bike and pedaled away. He had forgotten his backpack. It lay on the porch beside the comic book.

"You talking back to me?" Dad bellowed again.

Jimmy's skin was hot all over. He jumped off the porch. "I'll talk to you any way I like," he said, "you son of a bitch."

Dad lunged for him. Jimmy dodged, and Dad banged his shin against the porch. He turned toward Jimmy. His face was purple.

Jimmy ran to the backyard and past the chicken coop. The chickens scattered as he passed. Feathers flew. Jimmy could hear Dad's footsteps behind him. Dad wasn't yelling, wasn't saying anything. That scared Jimmy. Why couldn't he have kept his mouth shut? If he had kept his mouth shut, Dad would have smacked him once or twice. Big deal. Now Dad wanted to kill him. He really wanted to kill him. Jimmy could tell.

He crashed through the evergreens and clambered over the barbed-wire fence. His cutoffs caught and tore. A barb scratched his thigh. He didn't stop. Dad was coming through the trees. Jimmy dropped to the hay meadow and ran hard for the second fence.

Hay whipped his legs. His heart slammed against his chest. Hot wind scraped his throat. He ran as fast as he could, up and over the hill and down. He couldn't hear Dad behind him anymore. As he climbed over the second fence, he risked a glance back. Dad had stopped at the top of the hill and was watching him.

Jimmy dropped into the pasture and kept running north, over the rise and down toward the pond. His arms were heavy and tingling. His head hurt. But he couldn't stop. He had called his father a son of a bitch. He passed the salt blocks. Some of them had smooth channels where they had been licked over and over again. He kept running.

The cattle were at the pond. Most of them stood in the shallow part beside the flat bank. The rest were lying on the mud. They saw Jimmy coming and tensed. He ran wide around them, up onto the dam. They didn't spook, but they watched him. They didn't trust him.

He stopped halfway across the dam and looked back. Dad was nowhere in sight. Jimmy stood there awhile, breathing hard and blinking away sweat. Then he sat down among the dry weeds. He hooked his elbows around his knees and grasped his right wrist with his left hand. He watched the steers watching him.

"Moo," he said.

The steers stared back with dull eyes.

"Moooo," Jimmy said.

Before long the steers were ignoring him. They drank the fouled water, lay on the mud, and switched their tails at flies. It was hot. Flies started buzzing around Jimmy, too. He pursed his lips and blew at them. Dad could go fuck himself with a crowbar.

His butt began to itch, but he didn't want to stand up. He leaned to one side and scratched, then leaned to the other side and scratched. It didn't help much. His underwear and cutoffs were still damp from swimming. They were sticking to his skin. He tried to pull them away, but they sucked right back. Short of stripping them off, there was nothing he could do that would help. He tried to ignore the irritation, but he couldn't. He scratched and pulled.

Ernie had said "Pray." Ernie believed in that stuff. Maybe there was something to it. Preachers were full of shit, but maybe God didn't have anything to do with that. God had, after all, seemed to answer Jimmy's prayer about the sparrow. And he hadn't even been serious. Maybe God had been telling him that he should be. Or maybe he'd just had a lucky shot.

If Mom didn't come home soon, he might as well run off or die. Mom coming back was the only thing that would keep Dad from killing him. Why was she staying away so long, anyway? What was she trying to prove? Did she think Dad would get all pitiful and go running after her, begging oh please come home I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry? It would be a cold summer in hell when Dad ever did anything like that. Goddamn her anyway. Goddamn both of them. Bitch and son of a bitch.

Jimmy closed his eyes. The sun was so hot on his head that it hurt. He started to pray.

"God," he said. "Lord." He didn't know how to do this. The prayers he had learned when he was little had all been poems. God is great, God is good, Let us thank Him for our food, Amen. Pass the gravy, pass the meat, pass the taters, Lord, let's eat. Amen.

He felt the crying coming up tight in his throat. He didn't want to let it happen. He had spent years training himself not to let it happen. Men didn't cry. Men who cried were queer. Pussies and fairies and faggots.

"God," he said. He hated his voice. It wasn't a voice at all. It wasn't even his. It was a baby's. "I'll do anything You want. I'll pay any price You want me to. But make Mom come back. Please."

He didn't know what else to say. He sat there and cried. Finally he remembered to say "Amen." He pulled up the bottom of his shirt and blew his nose.

The weeds off to his right whispered. He looked and saw the brown rat terrier. It was sitting six or seven feet away. It was grinning and panting. It seemed to be glad to see him.

"Hey, pup," Jimmy said. "Was that a good rabbit?"

The dog came closer, wagging its tail. It was a funny-looking thing. Its tail was stumpy and mud-caked. Its head was like a furry wedge of wood.

"Don't you have a home?" Jimmy asked. "Don't you have people to feed you and pet you?"

The dog came closer still. It was two feet away now.

"I'd be your people if I could," Jimmy said. He reached out. "But my dad doesn't like dogs. Maybe he'd change his mind if he knew you could feed yourself."

He touched the top of the dog's head. The fur was short and stiff. The dog flinched, but didn't move away. Jimmy spread his fingers so that his palm rested on the dog's head. The head felt warm and strong.

Jimmy told the dog about the latest adventures of Green Lantern and Spider-Man. The dog sat down and grinned while Jimmy petted it. They sat there a long time.

Just before sunset, Jimmy had to take a crap. Some trees lined a dry creekbed west of the pond, so he went there and found a fallen trunk. It was propped a few feet off the ground, held up by its dead branches. Jimmy shucked down his cutoffs and underwear and sat with the backs of his thighs on the narrow trunk. He lost his balance and grabbed a branch to keep from falling. The dog was sniffing around underneath.

"Get away," Jimmy said, swinging his legs at it. It looked up, then resumed sniffing. Jimmy broke off a stick and threw it across the creekbed. The dog went to investigate, and Jimmy strained to finish before it returned. He used leaves for toilet paper.

Then he stood and pulled up his pants. He kicked dead leaves and dirt over the turds. He was disgusted. The dog had returned and was curious about what he was doing. Jimmy started back toward the pond. The dog sniffed and dug a little, then followed him.

They returned to the dam, and Jimmy watched the sun go down. It was a golden evening. The pond shimmered. The water looked pure in this light. Jimmy threw a clod into it and watched the ripples glint. A breeze came up, smelling of cattle and prairie hay. The steers began to wander off.

Jimmy supposed that he would have to sleep on top of the dam. He wished that he'd thought to grab Ernie's backpack. There had been some Cheez Curls left.

"Want to catch me a rabbit?" he asked the dog. The dog cocked its head and grinned.

Jimmy thought about round steak and mashed potatoes with brown gravy. He thought about cherry Popsicles and chocolate ice cream. He would die of hunger if he had to stay on the dam all night.

It was getting dark. Jimmy stood up. He would go on reconnaissance. He would see if the pickup was still in the driveway. Or maybe the station wagon would be back. Maybe God had answered his prayer. It had been several hours. Maybe Dad wasn't even mad anymore.

Jimmy came down from the dam, and the little brown dog came with him. They headed south, toward home. Just to check it out. Jimmy would be ready to run back if he had to. Or maybe he would grab his bike and head for town. He could stay with Ernie. Ernie's mom would feed him.

The dusk had become full dark by the time they reached the hay meadow. A yellow light from the house shone through the windbreak, but the white yard light wasn't on. This might mean that Dad wasn't home. Dad always turned on the yard light when the sun went down, to scare off thieves. Jimmy had always wondered what a thief would want to steal, but had never said so.

He and the dog continued across the meadow. The ground was uneven, and Jimmy tripped and fell. The dog snuffled his face. Jimmy pushed the dog away and stood. His ankle had twisted, but it only hurt a little. He went on. The dog came with him. The night noises had started. Crickets fell silent as Jimmy and the dog passed.

They crossed the next fence and went through the trees into the backyard. The hens made soft noises in the coop. Jimmy saw a dark lump on top of the coop and knew it was the rooster. The hens wouldn't let the thing sleep with them. The dog paused and whined as Jimmy passed the coop.

"Come on if you're coming," Jimmy whispered. The dog trotted fast to catch up.

Light shone from the kitchen and living room windows, and the TV murmured. Dad's pickup was still in the driveway. The lawnmower was still in the yard.

Jimmy crept up to the porch. He had left his bicycle leaning here, but it was gone now. Maybe Dad had put it in the garage. Jimmy had to walk on the driveway gravel to get there, and it made noise. He hoped that the TV was loud enough that Dad wouldn't hear.

The side door of the garage was open. Jimmy reached inside and groped for the flashlight that Dad kept hanging on the wall. He took it down and turned it on. Its light was orange. His bicycle leaned against the shop-rag barrel. He started toward it.

Frantic squawks stopped him. Out in the coop, the chickens were going crazy. Jimmy looked around the garage for the dog. It wasn't there. He ran outside, the orange oval of light wavering before him.

Chickens were scrambling from the coop. They thumped against the plywood walls in their rush for the doorway. Feathers floated down orange. Jimmy ran to the coop, colliding with a few hens on the way. He went inside and swept the light around.

The dog was in the far comer. A dead rat, its head a bloody mess, lay at the dog's feet. The rat was huge. Another rat, almost as big, struggled in the dog's mouth. The dog whipped its head back and forth, and then the rat was still. The dog dropped it beside the first.

"What the hell's going on?"

Jimmy's chest clenched. Dad was behind him. He looked back and saw the shadow.

"This dog followed me home," Jimmy said. His voice hurt his throat. "He found these rats in here and killed them. I think the rats were eating the eggs."

Dad took the flashlight from Jimmy and stepped closer to the dog. The dog picked up one of the rats and growled.

"Git," Dad said, waving the flashlight. The dog growled again, then carried the rat past Dad and Jimmy and out the door.

Dad picked up the other rat by the tail and took it outside. Jimmy followed. Dad threw the rat toward the windbreak. Jimmy heard it hit the ground. He looked around for the dog, but didn't see it.

The light in Dad's flashlight was dying. The filament was a dull squiggle. Jimmy couldn't see Dad's face.

"Scrambled eggs in the skillet on the stove," Dad said. "Get in and eat and get to bed."

Jimmy went in. He ate. The eggs were cold, but he didn't care. He went to bed. He knew he was lucky that Dad had decided not to kill him, but his prayer still hadn't been answered. He prayed it again. He wanted Mom to come home. He even missed Jasmine. Things were too weird without them. Things weren't all that great with them around, but at least he knew what to expect.

He had no doubt that the little brown dog had saved his life. He was grateful.

The next day was Wednesday. Mom and Jasmine had been gone for a week. When Jimmy awoke he thought about calling Grandma to see if they really were there. But he couldn't do that unless Dad left. He could hear Dad snoring.

He dressed and went outside to feed the chickens and gather the eggs. He found three more dead rats near the coop. Two of them were half eaten. As Jimmy carried the eggs to the house, the dog trotted around the garage with yet another rat in its mouth. It dropped the rat and came to Jimmy to be petted. Jimmy obliged and then took the eggs inside.

Dad was in the kitchen. He wasn't wearing a shirt. His eyes were bloodshot, and his face was slack. His sparse hair stuck up at odd angles.

Jimmy put the eggs into the refrigerator. "That dog killed four more rats," he said. "He eats them. I saw him eat a rabbit too."

Dad lit the burner under the skillet that had held cold eggs the night before. "Scramble some eggs," he told Jimmy.

Jimmy did as he was told, and they ate the eggs without talking. Then Dad left the kitchen and went into his and Mom's room. He closed the door. Jimmy waited for him to put on a shirt and come out again, but an hour passed, and he didn't. Jimmy took some comic books to the porch and sat down to read. The dog appeared and hopped onto the porch to lie beside him. Jimmy scratched the dog behind the ears and noticed that it smelled like the pond, with a sharper smell mixed in. It wasn't a good smell, but Jimmy didn't mind.

He had read all of the comic books before, so he went into the front yard and threw sticks for the dog to chase. The dog had no idea what he was doing and just watched him from the porch. The lawnmower was still sitting where he had left it the day before, so he pushed it into the garage. The dog came with him.

Jimmy took some shop rags from the barrel and piled them on the dirt floor between the barrel and the wall. "You can sleep here at night," he told the dog. "This is your own personal bed." The dog sniffed at the barrel, lifted a hind leg, and pissed on it. Then it sniffed at the rags and tromped on them, turning around and around. It flopped down and grinned up at Jimmy.

Jimmy went into the house to call Ernie. The dog tried to follow him inside, but he kept it out. Dad would never allow a dog in the house. Jimmy was sure of it.

He called Ernie. "You know that dog at the pond?" he said. "It came home with me."

"No lie?" Ernie sounded hoarse again. His breath whistled in the receiver. "What did your dad say?"

"Nothing. I don't think he cares, because it kills rats." Jimmy hesitated. He was still embarrassed about the day before. "You want to come out this afternoon?"

Ernie's breath whistled a few times before he answered. "I can't. I got a doctor's appointment. I told my mom it's just hay fever, but she made the appointment anyway."

"Maybe he'll give you something for it."

"Yeah. Your mom back yet?"

Jimmy twisted the phone cord around his finger. "No."

"Well, my mom called that prayer tower for you," Ernie said. "I guess it can't hurt."

They talked a little more. New comic books were due at Nimper's IGA on Friday. They agreed to meet at Ernie's house and go down to Nimper's to make their purchases together. Then they would read the comics in Ernie's room or on the water tower catwalk.

After hanging up, Jimmy sat looking at the dusty black phone for a while. He could hear Dad snoring. Maybe it would be all right if he was quiet. He got Grandma's number from the inside cover of the phone book, where Mom had written it in ink. Tulsa's area code reminded him that this would show up as a long-distance call on the bill. But if Mom came back soon, that would be okay. She did the bills.

He dialed the number and waited. The line clicked and popped. Then there was a hiss, followed by a loud busy signal. He replaced the receiver in its cradle. He was breathing hard. He felt guilty.

He went to his room and shut the door. He didn't turn on the light. He lay down on the bed with his face in the pillow. He was a liar and a sneak. No wonder Dad was always mad at him. No wonder Mom had taken his sister and run off. No wonder God didn't answer his prayers. No wonder his best friend was a sissy like Ernie.

Far away, the chickens squawked. Jimmy put his head under the pillow. The last thing he wanted to be reminded of was the filthy fucking chickens.

He could still hear them. They wouldn't shut up. He started humming, then singing. It was a song he had heard at Ernie's house. It was about an astronaut named Major Tom. Ground control was having trouble with him.

Something exploded.

Jimmy threw off the pillow. He held his breath and listened. There was another explosion. It came from outside. It was Dad's shotgun.

Jimmy ran from his room, through the kitchen, and out the back door. A chicken rushed past, flapping madly. Dad was standing beside the chicken coop. He still wasn't wearing a shirt. He was holding his Remington twelve-gauge. He pumped it, and a spent shell went flying. It tumbled in a red arc. Dad lowered the gun. His shoulder was pink where the stock had rubbed it.

Dad's eyes and mouth were narrow. Jimmy stopped several feet away. He couldn't stand to look at Dad's face. He looked down and saw the rooster dead on the ground. Its head was gone. A hen lay a few yards away. Its head was gone too.

"Did you shoot them?" Jimmy asked. His eyes throbbed.

"Hell, no," Dad said. "I shot that goddamn dog. Son of a bitch ran off before I could finish it."

The throbbing spread into Jimmy's skull and became a roar. He couldn't feel his body. He heard a voice screaming no and no and no.

The ground was spinning. Dad grabbed him. They were in the driveway now. The shotgun lay back on the grass. Dad squeezed his left arm hard. Jimmy could feel it now.

"It was killing chickens," Dad said. "The goddamn dog was killing my chickens."

Jimmy heard the voice scream again.

"You didn't have to shoot him, you bastard!"

Dad's hand went up and came down. Jimmy fell. Dad's hand clamped onto his neck and pressed his face into the gravel.

Jimmy closed his eyes. After a while he realized that Dad's hand was gone. He got up to his knees. He was alone.

Jimmy brushed gravel from his face and stood. Gravel was embedded in his knees, and he brushed that away too. He was crying again, the same way he had cried at the pond. He hated it. He wanted to stop and couldn't. All he could do was hide. He went into the garage. He held on to the rim of the shop-rag barrel and hunched over. Something cold touched his leg.

It was the dog. It seemed to be okay. It was looking up at him the same way as before. Then it turned. The fur and skin on its left side were gone. The flesh was raw and red and open. A rib showed.

"Why'd you have to do it, pup?" Jimmy asked. He was sobbing. It was disgusting. "Why couldn't you have stuck to rats and rabbits?"

The dog whined. It limped onto the shop-rag bed Jimmy had made for it and lay down on its right side. Every breath was a short whimper. Black BBs were embedded in its side. Quail shot.

Jimmy knelt and stroked the dog's head. It licked his wrist. That was the first time it had done that.

There was nothing he could do. He couldn't drive. There was no way to get it to a vet. All a vet would do was put it to sleep anyway. All Dad would do was shoot it with birdshot again. Fucking redneck idiot.

He stroked the dog's head a little longer. It wasn't right to let it keep hurting. He stood and wiped his face on a shop rag, then looked around the garage. Dad's toolbox was on the workbench. He went over to it. The dog stayed on the bed of rags, panting.

Jimmy opened the box. The tools were jumbled. He reached in and grabbed a hammer. Wrenches and screwdrivers came out with it. He took the hammer over to the dog. He heard gravel crunch outside.

He knelt again and put down the hammer. He pulled a few rags out from under the little dog's head, then turned the head so that the jaw lay flat against the floor. He stroked the top of the head. The eyes looked up at him. He stroked from the nose up over the eyes so that they closed.

He kept stroking with his left hand. The eyes stayed closed. He picked up the hammer in his right.

Jimmy had stopped crying. Now that he knew what to do, he could control himself. There was no point in prolonging pain. It would have to be one blow. It would have to be perfect. Perfection allowed no tears, no trembles.

"That's a sweet pup," Jimmy said. He raised the hammer.

A shadow fell over him. He took his left hand from the dog's head. He brought the hammer down.

It was one blow. It was perfect. Jimmy pulled the hammer free, then looked away.

His sister Jasmine was in the doorway. He stood and faced her. She turned and ran.

Mom was in the kitchen when Jimmy went inside. She hugged him and told him she'd missed him. She was going to make a special supper of smoked pork chops, and there would be ice cream for dessert.

Jimmy pulled away from the hug and looked at her. She looked the same.

Jasmine was standing with Dad beside the kitchen table. She was hanging on to Dad's leg and staring at Jimmy. Dad had his hand on her head. He still wasn't wearing a shirt.

Jimmy's prayer had worked. It had worked in just the way he had prayed it. He had told God that he would pay any price to have his mother back. Now the little brown dog was dead, and Mom was home. It made sense.

He went back to the garage and bundled the dog's body in shop rags. He carried the bundle out behind the chicken coop. There was a dead rat lying there. He set the bundle down beside it, then fetched the shovel and started to dig. The ground was packed hard. It was stiff with chickenshit. He kept at it.

A shadow passed over the hole. He looked up and saw Jasmine. She was the only one who was innocent. She was the only one he could love. He wouldn't let anyone hurt her, ever, as long as he lived.

"I saw you kill that dog," Jasmine said. "I hate your guts." She went back to the house.

Jimmy kept digging. He dug until his hands blistered, and then until the blisters opened. The hole still wasn't deep enough.