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 pa.s.sed.

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 pa.s.sed 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 b.l.o.o.d.y 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 h.e.l.l'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 spa.r.s.e 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 pa.s.sed, 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 thewall. "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 p.i.s.sed 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 hoa.r.s.e 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 embarra.s.sed 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 G.o.d 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 f.u.c.king 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 sh.e.l.l 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.

"h.e.l.l, no," Dad said. "I shot that G.o.dd.a.m.n dog. Son of a b.i.t.c.h 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 gra.s.s. Dad squeezed his left arm hard. Jimmy could feel it now.

"It was killing chickens," Dad said. "The G.o.dd.a.m.n dog was killing my chickens."

Jimmy heard the voice scream again.

"You didn't have to shoot him, you b.a.s.t.a.r.d!"

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 woulddo was put it to sleep anyway. All Dad would do was shoot it with birdshot again. f.u.c.king 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 G.o.d 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 chickens.h.i.t. He kept at it.

A shadow pa.s.sed 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 stillwasn't deep enough.

VICTIM NUMBER SEVEN.

For the first seven weeks, Blackburn's job in the Automotive Department of Oklahoma Discount City went well enough. He unpacked cardboard cases of parts, stocked shelves, and helped customers find things. His boss wouldn't let him run the cash register, but that was fine with him. It was too much responsibility. He preferred work that allowed him to think about other things, and to go home and watch TV when he was finished. There wasn't much else to do in Oklahoma City, but he'd had enough partying for a while anyway. Austin had worn him out.

Blackburn's TV was a twelve-inch black-and-white that he'd bought with his first paycheck. The folks over in the Electronics Department had given him a few dollars off because he was an employee. He thought that was a pretty fair deal. In fact, he thought Oklahoma Discount City in general was a pretty fair deal. Then his boss retired, and the store hired a man named Leo to manage the Automotive Department.

Leo didn't like Blackburn. For one thing, he thought Blackburn's hair was too long, and called him a hippie. Blackburn replied that he couldn't be a hippie, because it was 1978 and all the hippies had been declared dead in 1967. Leo grimaced and spat on the floor of the stockroom. Leo was about fifty, and he wore a black toupee. He had lines around his eyes, and liver-colored lips. He looked p.i.s.sed off all the time, and he sneered at any customer who paid using a lot of pennies.

It was because of Leo that Blackburn lost his job. Leo had only been the department manager for a week and a half when he accused Blackburn of stealing a case of Quaker State 10W-30 Multi-Viscosity Motor Oil.

"I'm sorry, sir," Blackburn told him in the stockroom. It was early on Thursday morning. Leo had just accused him. They were the only ones there. "I didn't steal any Quaker State. I didn't steal anything."

Leo's face twitched. "I saw you take it out of the store last night," he said. "Then I stayed late to count the sales slips, and I came in early this morning and did it again. It's short. You're a G.o.dd.a.m.n liar and a thief."

Blackburn became irritated. He was a lot of things, but a liar was not one of them. He took a breath and closed his eyes. There was no point in getting upset. All he had to do was tell the truth. Then he could get to work and think about other things.

He opened his eyes. "May I explain, please?"

Leo's eyebrows rose. They were thin and gray. They were how Blackburn knew that Leo wore a toupee. The toupee was thick and black.

"May you?" Leo said, mocking."May you? Listen, punk, you can 'explain' by paying for that case of oil and then getting your a.s.s out of here before I call the cops."

"That hardly seems fair."