Poachers by Tom Franklin

The oldest brother, twenty bearded in heavy set, carried a sunbeam bread sack of eels in his coat pocket. Hooked over his left shoulder was the pink body of a foam they'd shot in skin and over the ride a stray dog, to which they'd done this With skins and heads gone and the dog's tail chopped off, they were difficult to tell apart. The Gates has climbed the hill, clinging to the vines and saplings and slipping in the red clay, their boots coated and enormous. By the time

they stepped out of the woods. For a moment, they stood in the road, looking at the gray sky, the clouds piling up. The two younger ones kneel and Dan set the cooler down. Kent, the oldest, removed his limp cap and squeezed the water from it, and his brothers did the same. Then Kent nodded and they picked up

the cooler. They rounded a curve and crossed a one lane bridge, stopping to piss over the rail into the creek, water high from all the rain, and then went on, passing houses on either side, dark warped boards with the knotholes big enough to look through, and cement blocks for steps. Black men appeared in the doors and windows to watch them go by. To most of these people, they were

something not seen, often something nocturnal and dangerous. Along the stretch of the Alabama River, everyone knew that the brother's father, Boo Gates, had married a girl named Anna when he was thirty she was seventeen, and that the boys had been born in quick succession, with less than a year between them. But few outside the family knew that a fourth child, a daughter unnamed, had been still born, and that Boo had buried her in an unmarked grave and

a clearing in the woods behind their house. Anna died the next day, and the three boys, dirty and naked, watched their father stoop shouldered descent into the earth as he dug her grave. And by the time he'd finished it, it was dark, and the moon had come up out of the trees, and the boys lay asleep upon each other in the dark, like wolf pups. The name of this community, if it could be called that, was Lower Peach Tree, though as far as anybody knew, there'd never

been an Upper Peach Tree. Scattered along the leafy banks of the river were ragged houses, leaning and drafty, many empty and caving in so close to the water they'd been built on stilts. Each April, floods came and the crumbling land along the bank would disappear, and each May, when the flood waters were seeded, a house or two would be gone. Upriver, near the locking dam stood an old store, a slanting, weathered building with a steep tin roof and a stovepipe in the back. Two rusty gas

pumps on the left beside the road. The regular pump, empty for years, had a garbage bag tied over it. Around the store, mimosa trees sagged water logged in front. Long steps led up to the door, wherein the window a red sign said open inside. To the right, like a bar upon maple counter ran along the wall, and behind the counter hung a rack of wire pegs for tools, hardware, and fishing tackle. To the left were rows of shelves made of boards and concrete blocks, and beyond the shelves

a Coca Cola cooler buzzed faintly by the wall. The store owner, an old man named Kirksey, had bad knees, and this weather settled around his joints like rot. For most of his life, he'd been married and lived in a nice two story house on Highway thirty five fireplaces

in every bedroom a china cabinet. But when his wife died two years ago cancer, he found it easier to avoid the house, to keep the bills paid in the grass mode, but the doors locked, to spend nights in the store and to sleep in the back room on the army cot and the warmest meals of corned beef and beef stew on a hot plate. He didn't mind that people had but stopped coming to the store. As long as he served a few long standing customers, he thought he'd stick around. He had his radio in the

Thomasville station and money enough. He liked the area and knewest regulars weren't the kind to drive half an hour to the nearest town. For those few people, Kirksey would go once a week to Grove Hill to shop for goods. He'd resell, marking up the price just enough for a reasonable profit. He didn't need the money, it was just good business. Liquor wise, the county was dry, but that

didn't stop Kirksey. For his regulars, he would serve plastic cups of cheap whiskey he bought in the next county, or bottles of beer he kept padlocked, and an old refrigerator in back. For these regulars, he would break packages of cigarettes and keep them in a cigar box and sell them for a dime apiece a nickel stale Ashburn's were seven cents, and he would open boxes of shotgun shells or cartridges and sell them for a mouse at

varied according to caliber. And he'd known to find specialty items paperback novels, explosives, and once an old magneto telephone. At Euphrates Morset's place, Kent gates pounded on the back door. In Morset's yard, a cord of wood was stacked between two fence posts, covered by a green tarp. Brick halves holding the tarp down. A tire swing, turning slowly and full of rain water hung from a pine limb. When

Morset appeared, he was a large, bald black man. Kent pointed to the fawn and dog hanging on the porch rail. Morset put on reading glasses and squinted at both. How about that, he said, stroking his chin right out, young men's. He closed the door. Kent sat on the porch edge, and his brother's on the steps. A skinny, wet dog trotted from under the house, wagging its tail, and Dan began to pet it. When he found a swollen blue tick in its ear, he pulled it off and flicked

it across the yard. The door opened and Morset came out with three pint jars of homemade whiskey. Each brother took a jar and unscrewed its lid and sniffed the clear liquid. Morset set his steaming coffee cup on the window sill. He fastened his suspenders, looking at the carcasses hanging over the rail. The brothers were already drinking, Dan still petting the dog, which had its head in his lap. Where's the girl, Kent asked, his face twisted from the

sour whiskey. My stepdaughter, you me morsets items apple pumped in his throat. She had sid far away. A rooster crode. Well, get her out here, Kent said. They drank again, and shuddered. Now she ain't of fifteen, Kent scratched his spard. She's gone. Look at her. When they left, the stepdaughter was standing on the porch in her white nightgown, barefoot and rubbing the sleep from her eyes. The brothers backed away, clanking with hardware and blushing and grinning at her. More sets

jaw clenched. The dog watched them go, and then turned and trotted back underneath the house. Sipping from their jars, they took the bag of eels down the road to a half blind, conjured woman who stood waiting on her porch. Her house, with the stark drapes and empty bird cages dangling from the eaves, seemed to be slipping off into the gully. The younger brothers wiped their noses on their sleeves and shifted from foot to foot by the gate.

As Kent walked across the muddy yard held the bag out, she snatched the eels from him, Squinting into the bag with her good eye, grunting. She paid them from a dusty cloth sack on her Apron muttered to herself as Kent turned and walked through her gate, and the three of them went up the dirt road. Only Dan, the youngest, looked back. They pedaled the rest of the things from their cooler and then left through the dump, pausing while Kent and Neil shot at liquor bottles, Dan through into

the air out of ammunition. They stumbled down the ravine and the rain, following the water's edge to their boat, and in the back Kent wedged his jar between his thighs, ran the trolling motor with his foot. His brothers leaned against the walls of the boat, facing opposite banks, no sound but rain and the low hum of the motor. They drank silently, holding their burning whiskey in the hollows

of their cheeks, before gathering the will to swallow. And along the bank's fallen trees held thick stands of cotton mouth black sparkling creatures, dazed and slow from winter, barely able to move. If not for all the rain, they might still be hibernating. Comatos in the banks of the river are beneath the soft yellow underbellies of rotten logs. Randing in Ben, the brother saw a small boat down river, its engine clear, loud and unfamiliar. It was heading this way.

The men in the boat lifted a hand in greeting. He wore a green poncho and a dark hat covered with plastic. Kent shifted his foot, turning the trolling motor and steering them toward the bank, giving the stranger a wide berth. He felt for their outboards crank rope while Kneel and Dan faced forward and sat on the boat seats. The man drawing closer didn't look much older than Kent. He cut his engine and coasted up beside them, smiling morning fellas, he said, showing his badge. I'm the new

District game Warden. The brothers looked straight ahead, as if he weren't there. The warden's engine was steaming. A flock of geese passed overhead. Dan slipped his hands inside the soft leather collars of two dogs who'd begun to growl. Now, you fellows ought to know, the warden said, pointing his long chin to the rifle at Neil's feet, that it's illegal to have those guns loaded on the river. Now I'm going to have to check them. I'll need to

see some licenses too. When he stood, the dogs jumped forward, tonails scraping the aluminum. Dan jerked them back and glanced at Kent. Kent spat into the brown water. He met the warden's size, and an instant knew the man had seen the telephone rig and the floor of their boat. Pulled to the bank, the warden yelled, drawing a pistol, y'all are under a rest for poaching. The gates is didn't move. One of the dogs began to claw the hull, and the others joined him, and a howl rose shut

them dogs up. The Warden's face had grown blotchy and red. The spiteed hound broke free in sprang over the gun slopper strung from his teeth, and the man most surprised by the game wardens shot seemed to be the game warden himself. His face drained of color as the noise echoed off the water, and died in the bent black limbs and the cattails that bobbed in the current. The bullet had passed through the front dog's neck and smacked

into the bank behind them, missing Dan by inches. The dog collapsed, and there was an instant silence before the others, now loose, clattered overboard into the water, red eyed, tangled in their leashes trying to swim. Pulled to the goddamn bank, the warden yelled right now. Scowling, Kent leaned and spat. He moved his thirty thirty aside, Using the shoulders of his brothers for balance, he made his way to the prow kneel, his cheek bones flecked with the dog's blood.

Moved to the back to keep the boat level. At the front, Kent reached into the water and took the first dog by its collar, lifted the kicking form and set it streaming and shivering behind him. His brothers turned their faces away as it shook off the water. Kent grabbed the rope that led to the big three legged hound and pulled it hand over hand until he could work his finger under its collar. He gave Dan a

sidelong look, and together they hauled it in. Then Kent grabbed the smaller bitch while Dan got the black and tan. The warden watched them, his hip swaying with the rise and fall of the current. Rain was coming harder, now, spattering against the boats. Kneeling among the dogs, Kent unsnapped the leash and tossed the spotted hound overboard, and it sank and then resurfaced and floated on its side, trailing blood.

Kent's lower lip twitched and he looked at Neil and opened his mouth, and Dan whispered to the dogs and placed his hands on two of their heads to calm them. They were wretching in trembling and rolling their eyes fearfully at the trees. Neil stood up with his hands raised as if to surrender. When the game warden looked at him, relief softening his eyes, Kent jumped from his crouch into the other boat, his big fingers closing around the man's neck.

Later that morning, Kirksey had just unlocked the door and hung out the open sign when he heard the familiar rattle of Gates truck. He sipped his coffee and leant behind the counter and sat on a stool. The boys came several times a week, usually in the afternoon, before they started their evenings of hunting and fishing. Kirksey would give them what supplies they needed, bullets and fishing line and socks, a new cap to replaced one lost in

the river. They would fill their trucks in cans with gas. Eighteen year old Dan would get the car battery from the charger near the wood burning stove and replace it with the drained one from their boat trolling motor. Kirksey would serve them coffee or cokes, never liquor, not to boys, and they'd eat whatever they chose from the shelves, usually candy bars or barbecue potato chips, ignoring Kirksey's advice to eat healthier Vienna sausages and denty moore or shift boyard.

Today they came in looking a little spook, Kirksey thought. Neil stayed near the door, peering out the glass, fogging by his mouth. His arms folded, and Dan went to the candy isle and pocketed several Hershey bars. He left a trail of muddy boot prints behind him. Kirksey would have to mop later morning, young Fellas he said coffee, Dan nodded, Kirksey refilled a starfoam cup and then grinned

as the boy loaded it with sugar. You take coffee with your sweetener, he asked Kent, lending them the computer, inspecting the items hanging on their pages, A hack saw a Lucky thirteen lure, a set of Alan wrenches, a gizmo with several uses, knife and measuring tape and all. He took off his cap and bought it in his fist. Kirksey could smell the booze on him. Y'all need something in particular, he asked, that spotted one you give us, Kent said, not meeting his eyes. Won't bark no more.

She won't bark no more, no tree. Im fine, but won't bark neary a time? Got a shoot her his mouth full of chocolate. Dan looked at Kirksey and by the door, Neil unfolded his arms. Now, Kirksey said, I ain't no need for that, Kent, do what that conjured woman recommends. Now, go out in the woods and find you a locus shell stuck to a tree. This is a time of year for him, if I'm not mistaken, akus hyeah, Kent asked, yeah, bring it back home and crunch it up in the dogs scraps, and that'll make

her bark like she ought to. Kent nodded to Kirksey, walked to the door, and he went out, and his brothers followed. See Kerksey called you're welcome. Dan waved with a hershey bar and closed the door. Kirksey stared after them for a while. It had been more than a year since they'd paid him anything, but he couldn't bring himself to ask for money. He'd even stop writing down what they owed. He got his coffee and leant from behind the counter to the easy chair by the stove.

He shook his head at the muddy footprints on the candy isle. He sat slowly and tucked a blanket around his legs, and took out a bottle and added a splash to his coffee and sipping, he picked up a novel Louis Lamore sack its Land, and reached in his apron pocket for his glasses. Though she had been one once, the woman named Esther wasn't much of a regular and Kirksey store these days. She lived two miles up river in a shambling white house with massive magnolia trees in

the yard. The house had to wrap around porch, and when it flooded, you could fish from the back, sitting in the tall, white rocking chairs, though you weren't likely to catch anything. A baby alligator maybe, or sometimes bullfrogs. Owls nested in the trees along her part of the river, but in this weather they'd grown quiet. She missed her hollow calling. Esther was fifty. She'd had two husbands and six children who were gone and had ill feelings toward her.

She'd had her female parts removed in an operation that she was still paying for. Now, she lived alone, and most of the time drank alone. If the Gates boys hadn't passed out in their truck somewhere in the woods,

they might stop by after a night's work. Esther would make them strong coffee and feed them salty fried eggs and link sausages, And some mornings, like today, she would get a far away look in her eyes and take Kent's shirt and her fingers and lead him up the stairs and watch him close the bathroom door and listen to the sounds of his bathing. She smiled, knowing these were the only baths he ever took. When he emerged

his long hair stringy, his chest flat and hard. She let him down the hall, past the telephone nook to her bedroom. He crawled under the covers and watched her take off her gown and step out of her underwear. Bending. She looked in the mirror to fluff her hair, and then climbed in beside him. He was gentle, at first, curious, and then rougher, the way she liked him to be. She closed her eyes, the bed frame rattling and bumping in her father's old pocket watch slipping off the nightstand.

Water gurgled in the pipework in the walls as Neil took a bath to hoping for a turn of his own, which never had happened, at least not yet. Slow down, baby Esther, whispered into Kent's ear. There's plenty of time. On April third, it was still raining. Kirksey put as out his crossword to answer the telephone. Can you come down to the lock, and Damn Goodlow asked, we got

us a situation developing here. Kirksey disliked smart ass good Low, but something in the sheriff's voice told him it was serious. On the news, he'd heard that the new game warden had been missing for two days. The authorities had dragged the river all night and had a helicopter in the air. Kirksey sat forward in his chair, waiting for his back to loosen a bit. He added a shot of whiskey to his coffee and gulped it down as he shrugged into his denim jacket, zipping it up to his neck

because he stayed cold when it rained. He put cotton balls in his ears and set his cap on his bald head and took his walking. Came from beside the door in his truck, the four wheel drive engaged and the defroster on high. He sank and rose in the deep ruts and gobs of mud flying past his windows, the wiper swishing across his view. The radio announcer said it was sixty degrees and more rain on the way.

Then the red or Lin began to sing. A mile from the locking down, Kirksey passed a grove Hill ambulance axled deep in the mud. A burly black paramedic was wedging a piece of two by four beneath one of the rear tires, while the board looking driver sat behind the wheels, smoking and racing the engine, Kirksey slowed and rode down his window. Y'all going after a live one or a dead one? Dead to Kerksey, the black man answered.

Kirksey nodded and accelerated. At the locking down, he could see a crowd of people and umbrellas, and beyond them he saw the dead man lying on the ground under a black raincoat. Some onlooker had begun to direct traffic. Goodlow and three deputies and yellow slickers stood near the body with their hands in their pockets. Kirksey climbed out, and people nodded sombrely and parted to let him through. Goodlow, who had been talking to his deputies, ceased as Kirksey approached,

and they stood looking at the raincoat. Morning sugar Baby, Kirksey said, using the nickname Goodlow. Hated. Is this who I think it is? Yep, Goodlow, said rookie game Warden of the Year with his cane. Kirksey pulled back the raincoat to reveal the white face. He's a young fella, he said. There was a puddle beneath the dead man, twigs in his hair and a clove of moss in his breast pocket. With the rubber tip of his cane.

Kirksey brushed a snail from the man's forehead. He bent and looked into the warden's left eye, which was partly open, and he noticed the throat, the dark bruises there. Goodlow unfolded a handkerchief and blew his nose and then wiped it. Don't go abusing the evidence, Kirksey. He stuffed the handkerchief into his back pocket. Evidence now, sugar baby. Good Low excelled and looked at the sky. Don't shit me, Kirksey,

you know good and will who done this? I expect they figured the law wouldn't apply to them up on this part of the river, the way things has been all these years. Them other wardens scared of him, are feeling sorry for him. But I reckon that's fixing a change. He paused. I had to place a call to the capitol this morning to let him know that we was all out of game wardens. And you won't believe who they patched me through to. Kirksey adjusted the cotton in

his right ear. Oh, Frank David himself, the sheriff said, Ain't nothing ticks him off more than this kind of thing. A dread stirred in Kirksey's belly. Frank David was see a relation to this fellow teacher, Goodlaw said, said he's been given lessons to young game wardens over at the Forestry Service. He asked me a whole bunch of questions regular interrogation. Said this here, young fellow was the cream of the crop, the best new game warden there was.

Wouldn't know it from this angle, Kirksey said, good Load grunted. A photographer from the paper was studying the corpse. He glanced at the skies if gauging the light, and when he snapped his first picture, Kirksey was in it like a sportsman. Well, what do you want from me, he asked Goodlow. You tell them boys, I need to ask them some questions. Ain't fixing the traps all over the county. I'll drop by the store this evening if they're there.

They're there, Kirksey said, ain't their damn father. Goodlow followed him to the truck. You might think of getting them a lawyer, he said through the window. Kirksey started the engine. Shit, sugar baby. Them boys don't need a lawyer. They just need to stay in the woods where they belong folks ought a note to let them alone by now Goodlow stepped back from the truck and smacked his lips. I

don't reckon anybody got around, telling that to the deceased. Driving, Kirksey remembered the Gates brothers when they were younger, before their father shot himself. He pictured the three blond heads in the front of Boo's boat as he motored up river past the store, lifting a solemn hand to Kirksey, where he stood with the broom on his little back porch. After Boo's wife, a newborn daughter, had died, he taught those boys all he knew about the wood. It's about

fishing and tracking and hunting and killing. He kept them in his boat all night as he telephoned catfish and checked his trotlines and jugs and shot things on the bank. He'd given each of his sons a job to do, one cranking the phone, another netting the stunned catfish, the third adjusting the chain that dragged along the bottom and the wire which conducted electricity from the telephone's magnet into

the water. Boo would tie a piece of rope around the sun's waists and loop the other endto his ankle in case one of the boys fell out. Downriver in the moonlight, Kent would pull in the trotlines while Dan handed him a cricket or a cataba worm for the hook. Neil took the bash or perch or catfish Kent gave him and slid its soft, cold belly with a knife and ran two fingers up into the fish and drew out as palm full of guts and dumped them overboard.

Sometimes on warm nights, grinnel or cotton mouth or young alligators would follow them, drawn by the blood. A danger, too was catching a snake or snapping turtle on the trot line, and each night Boo whispered for Kent to be careful to lift the line with a stick see what he had there, instead of using his bare hand. During the morning, they would leave the boat tied and the boys would follow their fathers back through the trees from trap to trap, stepping when he stepped, and not talking.

Boo emptied the traps and rebated them, while behind him Kent put the carcasses in his squirrel pouch. In the afternoons, they gutted and skin what they'd brought home. What time was left before dark. They spent sleeping in the feather bed in the cabin where barely a memory. Their mother and sister had died. After Boo's suicide, Kirksey had tried to look after the boys. Their ages twelve, thirteen and fourteen, just old enough who must have thought to raise themselves

for a while. Kirksey let them stay with him and his wife, who never had a child. He tried to send them to school, but they were past learning to read and write. Got expel the first day for fighting and ganging up on a black kid. They were past the kind of life Kirksey's wife was used to living. They scared her the way they watched her with eyes narrowed into black lines, the way they ate with their hands,

and the way they wouldn't talk. What she didn't know was that from those years of wordless nights on the river and silent days in the woods, they had developed a kind of language of their own, the language of the eyes, of the fingers, and the way a shoulder twitched, not of the head. Because his wife's health wasn't good in those days, Kirksey had returned the boys to their

cabin in the woods. He spent most saturdays with them, trying to take up where Boo had left off, bringing them food and milt and clothes and new shoes, and reading them books and teaching them things and telling them stories. He'd worked out a deal with Esther, who used to take hot food to them in the evenings and wash their clothes. Slowing to let two buzzards hop away from a dead deer, Kirksey lit a cigarette and wiped the foggy wind show with the back of his hand. He

thought of Frank David Alabama's legendary game warden. There were dozens of stories about the man. Kirksey had heard and told them for years, and had repeated them to the Gage boys, even made some up to try to scare them into obeying the law. Now the truth and the fictions were confused in his mind, and he remembered one a dark, moonless night, and two poachers used a spotlight to freeze a buck in the darkness and shoot it.

They take hold of its wide rack of antners and struggled to drag them big deer, when suddenly they realized that now there's three men pulling. The first poacher jumps and says, hey, it ain't supposed to be but two of us dragging this deer, and Frank David says, ain't supposed to be none of y'all dragging a deer. The Gates boys came in the store just before closing, smelling like the river. Nodding to Kirksey, they went to the shelves and began selecting cans of things to eat. Kerksey

poured himself a generous shot of whiskey. He'd stopped by their cabin earlier, not finding them there, left a quarter on the steps, a signal he hadn't used in years. Sheriff Goodloaw's coming tonight, he said to Kent, wants to ask you if you know anything about that Dead Game Warden. Kent shot the other boys a look, now, I don't know if y'all ever seen that, fella, Kirksey said, And I'm not asking you to tell me. He paused, and in case they wanted to, but that's what old sugar

Baby's going to have on his mind. And if it was y'all, I just wouldn't tell him anything. Just say that I was at home that I don't know nothing about any dead game war, nothing at all, Kent shrugged and walked down the aisle that he was on and stared out the back window, though there wasn't anything to see except trees ghostly and bent. When lightning came, his brothers took seats by the stove and began to eat.

Kirksey watched and remembered when he used to read to them Tarzan of the Apes and the Return of Tarzan. The boys that wanted to hear the books over and over. They loved the jungle, the elephants, the rhinos, the gorillas, the anaconda's thirty feet long. They would listen intently, their

eyes brighten the light of the stove. Dan holding his small, dirty fingers, the slinky Kirksey had given him as a Christmas present, his lips moving along with Kirksey's voice, spouting some of the words the Great Apes, Numa, the Lion, La Queen of a poor and the Lost City. They had listened to his Frank David stories the same way. The game warden rising from the black water beside a

tree on a moonless night. A tracker so keen he could see in the dark, could follow a man through the deepest swamp by smelling the fear in as sweat, A bent over shadows, stealing between the beaver lodges, the cypress trees, the tangle of limb and vine, parting the long wet bangs of Spanish moss with his rifle barrel, and creeping toward the glowing windows of the poacher's cabin.

The deer hides nailed to the wall. The gator pelts, the fish with their grim smiles hooked to a clothes line, and turtle shells like army helmets, straying in the window sills. Any pit bull meant to guard the place lying behind him with its throat slit. Frank David slips out of the fog, with fogs still clinging to the brim of

his hat. He circles the cabin and peers in each window, mounts the porch, puts his shoulder through the front door, stands, with wood splinters landing on the floor at his feet. A man of average height, clean shaven, no threat until the big hands come up, curling the fist, knuckles scarred blue and sharp. Kirksey finished his drink and poured another, and it burned pleasantly in his belly. He looked at Neil and Dan occupied by their bags of corn curls.

A Merle Haggard song ended on the radio, and Kirksey clicked it off, sparing the boys the evening news. In the quiet, Kirksey heard Goodlaw's truck. He glanced at Kent, who probably had been hearing it for a while outside. Goodlaw slammed his door and he hurried up the steps and tapped on the window. Kirksey exaggerated his lamp and took his time, letting him in Good evening, Goodloaf said,

Shaking the water from his hands. He took off his hat and hung it on the nail by the door, and then hung up his yellow slicker Evening sugar Baby. Kirksey said, if I can volunteer a little understatement here, Goodload said, it's a tad wet tonight. Yep. Kirksey went behind the counter and refilled his glass. You just caught the tail in the happy hour, that is, if you're off the wagon again, Can I sell you a tonic and warm you up? You know we're in a dry county, Kirksey,

Would that be a no? It's a watcher ass. Goodload looked at the brothers, just wanted to ask these boys some questions. Well, have that it? Sugar baby. Goodlow walked to the lance rack and detached a package of Nipchie crackers. He opened it, offered the pack to each of the boys. Only Dan took one, smiling Goodlow bit of cracker in half and turned a chair around, sat with his elbows across its back. He looked over toward Kent, Half hidden by shadow, he chewed slowly. Come on out here so

I can see you, boy. I ain't gonna buy nothing but these stale ass crackers. Kent moved a step closer, his eyes down focused on Goodload's boots. Good Load took out a notepad. Where was y'all between the hours of four and eight am two days ago? Kent looked at Neil asleep. Neil said, good Load snorty. Now, come on, boys, the whole Dern County knows y'all ain't slept a night in your life. Y'all was out on the river. Weren't you making a few telephone calls you saying he is

a liar? Kirksey asked, I'm posing the questions here. Good Load chewed on another cracker. Hell, everybody knows them other game Boardings has been letting y'all get away with all kinds of shit. I reckon this dead fellow had something to prove being new, and all sounds like he ought to use the life jacket, Kirksey said, wiping the counter. It appears good Low studied Kent, that he might have

been strangled. You got an alibi, boy. Kent lowered his eyes, took his hands out of his pockets and bought them into fists. Good Low side, I mean, Christ, is there anybody that can back up what you're saying? The windows flickered, Yeah, Kirksey said, I can. Good Low turned and faced the storekeeper. You that's right. They were here with me here in the store. Good Load looked amused. They was was they? Well? Okay, mister Kirksey, how come you didn't mention that to me?

This morning? Saved us all a little time. Kirksey saw Kent's eyes, but saw nothing there, no understanding, no appreciation, no fear. He went back to wiping the counter. Well, I guess because they was passed out drunk, and I didn't want to say anything, being as I was given alcohol to youngins. But now they has come down to murder, you figured, you'd just better on up something like that, said Kirksey. Goodlaw stared at Kirksey for a long time,

neither would look away. Then the sheriff turned to the boys. Y'all ever heard of Frank David? Dan nodded well, Goodlad said, looks like he's aiming to be this district's game warden. I figure he pulled some strings what he did. Kirksey came from behind the counter that all your questions. It's past closing and these youngins need to go home and get some sleep. He went to the door and opened

it and stood waiting alrighty. Then the sheriff said, standing, I expect ought to be getting back to the office aity how he winked at Kirksey, see you or these boys don't leave the county for a few days. This ain't over yet. Put the crackers in his coat. I expect y'all might be hearing from Frank David too, he said, watching the boy's faces, but there was nothing to see alone. Later,

Kirksey put out the light and bolted the door. He went to adjust a stove and found himself staring out the window, looking into the dark where he knew the river was rising and swirling tires and plastic garbage can

lids and dead wood from upriver floating past. He struck a match and lit a cigarette, and the glow of his ash reflected in the window, and he saw himself years ago, telling the boys these stories, how Frank David would sit so still in the woods waiting for poachers, that dragonflies would perch on his nose, nats would walk over his eyeballs. Nobody knew where he came from, but Kirksey had heard that he'd been orphaned as a baby in a fire and found half starved in the swamp

by a Cajun woman. She raised him on the slick red clay banks of the tom Bigbie River, among laying black poachers and moonshiners. He didn't even know how old he was, people said, And they said he was the best poacher ever, the craftiest, the meanest. That he'd cut a drunklogger's throat and a duke joint knife fight one night.

That he'd fled south and under age, joined the Marines in mobile and wound up in Korea the infantry, where because of his shooting ability and his stealth that made him a sniper Before he left that country, he'd registered over one hundred kills communists half a world away, who never saw him coming back home in Alabama, he disappeared for a few years, and then showed up at the state Game Warden's office demanding a job. Some people had

heard in the intervening time he'd gotten religion. What makes you think I ought to hire you, the head game Morden ask him, because I spent ten years of my life poaching right under your damn nose. Frank David's The Gates Boys pick up was the same old Ford their father had shot himself in several years before, heartbroken over their mother's death. The bullet hole and the roof had rusted out, but was now covered with a strip of

duct tape from Kirksey's store. Spots of the truck's floor were rusted away, too, so things in the road often flew up into their laps, rocks and Budweiser cans, and a king snake they were trying to run over. The truck was older than any of them, only one thin prong left of the steering wheel and the holes from the missing knobs and the dash. It was a three speed a column shifter, the gearstick covered with a bucks

dried balls sack. A window and windshield busted or shot out years before hadn't been replaced because most of the driving took them along back roads after dark or in the fields, and the things they came upon were easier shots without glass. Though he'd never had a license, Kent drove had since he was eight. Neil road shot gun tonight. Both were drinking, and in the back Dan stood holding his rifle, trying to keep his balance below the soles of his boots. The floor was soft, a tarry black

from the blood of all the animals they'd killed. You could see spike antlers and forelegs and hoofs of deer, teeth and feathers and fur, the brittle beaks and beards of turkeys, and the delicate hinge leg bone of something molded in the sludge like a fossil, just beyond a no trespassing sign, already gnawed up by bullets. Kent swerved off the road and they bounced and slid through a field in the rain, shooting at rabbits. Then they split up, the younger boys checking traps, one on each side of

the river. Kent in the boat, rebaiting their trotlines the way his father had shown him. They met at the trug just before midnight, untied the dogs and trumped over a steep logging path, down on one end of four leashes and the lunging hounds on the other. When they got to the bottom land, he unclipped the leashes and loosed the dogs, and the brothers followed the bang ahead in the dark, aiming their flashlights into the black mesh of trees, where the eyes of coons and possums gleamed

like rubies. The hounds bathed and frothed and clawed at the trunks of trees, and leaped into the air and landed and leaped again, and their sides pumping and ribs showing. When the gates came to the river two hours later, the dogs were lapping water and panting. Dan bent and rubbed their ears and let them lick his cheeks. His brothers rested and drank, belching at the sky, and after a time they leased the hounds and staggered downstream to

the live oak, where their boat was tied. They loaded the dog dogs in and shoved off into the fog and trolled over the still water in the middle. Neil lowered the wire in the chain stolen from a child's swing set behind the boat and began cranking the old telephone, which he held between his legs. Dan knitted the stunned catfish. You couldn't catch him with your hand, or they'd come too, and he threw them into the cooler, where in a

few seconds the waking fish would begin to thrash. And in the rear, Kent propped his rifle on his knees and watched the bank in case of coyote, wandered down hunting bullfrogs. They climbed out of the woods into the dirt road in the misty dawn, plying through the muddy yards and pissing by someone's front porch and plain sight of the face in sight a few houses down. Mor Set didn't come to his door, and when Kent tried

the handle, it was locked. He looked at Neil, then put his elbow through the glass and reached in and unlocked it. While his brother's searched for liquor, Dan ate the biscuits he found wrapped in tinfoil on the stove. He found a box of corn flacks in the cabinet, and he ate most of them too. He had to play the cold fried liver. Neil was in a bedroom looking under the bed, and in the closet he was going through drawers and his dirty fingers smudged white shirts.

And in the back of the house Kent found a bathroom door locked from in the side he Jimmy had opened with his knife, and when he came into the kitchen, he had a gallon jar of whiskey under his arm and euphraed. He steppdaughter by the wrist. Dan stopped chewing, crumbs falling from his mouth. He approached the girl and put his hand out to touch her, but Kent pushed

him hard into the wall. But Dan stayed there, a clock ticking beside his head and a string of spit linking his open lips, watching as his brother ran his rough hands up and down the girl's shivering body. Her eyes were closed and lips tr in prayer. Looking down, Kent saw the puddles spreading around her bare feet. Dan giggled and then put his hand over his mouth shit,

Kent said, letting her go. She pissed herself. She shrank back against the wall behind the door and was still there, along with a bag of catfish on the table when her stepfather came back half an hour later, ten gallons of whiskey under the tarp in his truck. On that same Saturday, Kirksey drove to the chicken fights held in Heflin Bradford's bulging barn, deep in the woods, cloudy with mosquitoes.

He passed a hand painted sign that had been there forever as long as he could remember, nail to a tree, it said, Jesus is coming. Kirksey climbed out of his truck and button his collar, his ears full of cotton. Heflin's wife work beneath the rented aunting and grilling chicken and sausages and selling cokes and beer. Gospel music played

from a portable radio by her head. Heflin's grandson Nolan, took the price of admission at the barn door and stamped the backs of white hands and the cracked pink palms of black ones. Men in overalls and baseball caps that said cat Diesel Power or STP stood at the tailgates of their pickup, smoking cigarettes, stooping to peer into the cages where the roosters paste the air was filled with windy rainspits and the crowing of roosters. The ground

littered with limp dead birds. A group of loggers was discussing Frank David, and Kirksey paused to listen. He's one caught that bunch over in Washington County. One man said them alligator poachers. Sugar Baby said to of them wound up in intensive care. Another one claimed said they pulled a gun and old Frank day David went crazy with an axe handle. Kirksey moved on and paid the five

dollars admission. In the barn, there were bleachers along the walls and a big circular wooden fence in the center, the dome of chicken wire over the top. Kirksey found a seat at the bottom, next to the back door, near a group of men old farts he'd known for forty years. People around them called out bets, and bets were accepted. Cans of beer were lifted, and Kirksey produced a thermos of coffee and a dented tin cup. He poured the coffee, then added whiskey from a bottle that

went back into his coat pocket. The tin cup warmed his fingers as he squinted through his bifocals to see which bird to bet on. In separate corners of the barn, two bird handlers doused their roosters heads and asses with rubbing alcohol to make them fight harder. They tightened the long steel curved spurs. When the referee in the center of the ring indicated it it was time, the handlers entered the pen, each cradling his bird in his arms.

They flashed the roosters at one another until their feathers had ruffled with blood lust and rage, and the roosters pedaled the air, stretching their necks toward each other. The handlers kept them a breath apart for a second, then withdrew them to their corners, whispering in their ears. When the referee tapped the ground three times with a stick, the birds were unleashed. They charged and rose in the

center of the rain, gouging with spur and beak. The handlers circling the fight like crabs, blood on their forearms and faces, ready to seize their roosters. At the referee's cry of handle, A clown of Louisiana occasions watched, and they emerged red eyed from a van in a marijuana cloud. Skinny shirtless men with oly ponytails and goates, and tattoos of symbols of black magic under their arms. They carried thick, white hooded roosters to pit against the reds and blacks

of the locals. Their women had stumbled out of the van behind them, high yellowl like gypsies, big lips and big chested girls, and halter tops tied at their bellies, and many skirts and moccasins. In the ring, the Cajuns kissed their birds on the beaks, and one tall, completely bald Cajun, wearing gold earrings in both ears, put his bird's whole head in his mouth. His girl, too, came barefoot into the ring, tattoo of a snake on her shoulder, and took the bird's head into her mouth. Bet on

them white ones, a friend whispered to Kirksey. These ones around here ain't ever seen a white rooster. They don't know what they're fighting. That evening, bending to check a trap in the woods north of the river, Dan took hold of a sapling and yelped when a spray of water rained on him. He crouched, dripping and waited while the drumming of his heart slowed, forced himself to rise and move on so his brothers wouldn't laugh at him

for being afraid near dark. In the wooden trap next to an old fence row, he was surprised to find a tiny white fox they'd once seen cross the road in front of their truck. He squatted before the trap and poked a stick through the wire at the thin snout, his hands steady, despite the way the fox snapped at the stick and bit off the end. Would a witch woman want this alive? Never thought of her. He looked around.

It felt like she was watching him, as if she were hiding in a tree, in the form of some animal, a possum, or a swamp rat or a chicken snake. He stood and dragged the trap through the mud and over the land. While in the trap, the fox jumped in circles, growling. A mile up stream, Neil had lost a boot to the mud and was hopping back on one foot to retrieve it. It stood buried to the ankle. He wrenched it free and then sat with his back

against a sweet gum to scrape off the mud. He'd begun to lace the boot when he saw a hollow tree stump, something moved inside. With his rifle barrel, he rolled the thing out. It was most of the body of a dead catfish, and the movement from the maggots devouring it. When he kicked it, they spilled from the fish like rice pellets and lay throbbing in the mud downstream.

As night came and the rain fell harder, Kent trolled their boat across the river, flashlight in his mouth, using a stick to pull up the trot line length by link and removing the fish or turtles, and rebating the hooks and dropping them back in the water. Near the bank. Approaching the last hook, he heard something. He looked up with a flashlight in his teeth to see the thing untwirling in the air. It wrapped around his neck like a rope, and for an instant he thought he was

being hanged. He grabbed the thing. It flexed and tightened, and then his neck burned and went numb, and he felt dizzy, his fingertips buzzing, his legs weak. A tree on the bank distorting, doubling, trippling into a whole line of fuzzy shapes, turning sideways and floating. Kent blinked and felt his eyes bulging and his tongue swelling. His head was about to explode, and then a bright light. His brothers found the boat at dawn, four miles downstream, lodged

on the far side in a fallen tree. They exchanged a glance and then looked back across the river. A heavy gray fog hooded the water, and the boat appeared and dissolved in the ghostly limbs around it. Neil sat on a log and took off his boots and left them standing by a log, and he removed his coat and laid it over the boots. He had his brother his rifle without looking at him, left him watching as he climbed down the bank, hands and elbows in the

air like a believer, waded into the water. Dan propped the second rifle against the tree and stood on the bank holding his own gun, casting his frightened eyes up and down the river. From far away, a woodpecker drummed crows began to collect in a pine tree down stream, and after a while Dan squatted, thinking of their dogs tied to the bumper of their truck. They'd be under

the tailgate, probably trying to keep dry. Soon Neil had trolled the boat back across, and together they pulled it out of the water and stood looking at their brother, who lay across the floor among the fish and turtles that he had caught, one greenish terrapin, still alive, a hook in its lip, stared back. They both knew what

they were supposed to think. The blood, and the sets of twin fang marks, and the black bruises and shriveled skin, the next swollen like mumps, the purple bulb of a tongue between his lips, they were supposed to think cotton mouth. Ken's hands were squeezed into fists, and they were hardened that way. The skin wrinkled, and his eyes were half open. His rifle lay unfired in the boat, and the telephone rig seemed untouched, as if indeed a snake had done this.

But it wasn't the tracks of a snake they found. When they went to get the white fox. The fox was gone and the trap was empty. Its cat sprung. Neil knelt his hand and ran his knuckles along the rim of the bootprint in the mud, not a very wide track, not very far from the next one. He put his finger in the black water that had already begun to fill the track, not too deep. He looked up at Dan, the print of an average sized man. In no hurry, Neil rose and they began above them.

The sky cracked and flickered silently and quickly, no time to get the dogs. They followed the trail back through the woods, losing it once and twice, and backtracking and working against the rain that fell and fell harder, that puddled blackly and crept up their legs until they stood in the water to their ankles, rain beating on the brims of their caps, and they gazed at the ground and the sky, at the rain streaming down each other's muddy faces. At the truck, Dan jumped into the driver's

seat and reached for the keys. Neil appeared in the window, shaking his head, and when Dan didn't scoot over, the older boy hit him in the jaw through the window, and then slung open the door and pulled Dan out, sending him rolling over the ground. Neil climbed in and had trouble getting the truck choked. By the time he had the hang of it, Dan had gotten into the back and sat among the wet dogs, staring at his

dead brother's eyes at their cabin. They carried Kent into the woods and they laid him on the ground and began digging near where their sister and mother and father were buried in their unmarked graves. For three hours they worked, the dogs coming from under the porch and sniffing around Kent and whining and watching the digging, finally sleeking off and crawling back under the porch. An hour later, they came out again and stood in a group at the edge of the yard bay. The boys paused but saw

and heard nothing. When the dogs kept making noise, Neil got his rifle and fired into the woods several times. He nodded to his brother and they went back to digging. By the time they finished, it was late afternoon and the hole was full of slimy water, and they were black with mud. They each took one of Kent's boots,

and Neil got the things from his pockets. They stripped off his shirt and pants and socks and lowered him naked into the hole, and when he bobbed to the top of the water, they got stones and waited them down, and then shoveled mud into the grave. They showed up at Esther's blackest tar. Where's kent, she asked, holding her robe at her throat. We buried him, Neil said, moving past her into the kitchen. She put a hand over her mouth, and as Neil told her what they'd found,

she slumped against the door, looking outside. An owl flew past in the floodlights. She thought of calling Kirksey, but decided to wait until morning. The old bastard thought that she was a slut and a corruption fortnight, she'd just keep them safe in her house. Neil went to the den. He turned on the TV. The reception was bad because of the weather. Dan, a bruise on the left cheek, climbed the stairs. He went into one of the bedrooms

and closed the door behind him. He was chilly in the room, and he noticed pictures of people on the wall, children and a tall man and a younger woman. He took to be Esther. She'd been pretty. Then he stood dripping on the floor, looking into her black and white face, searching for signs of a woman he knew now. Soon the door opened behind him and she came in, and though he still wore his filthy, wet clothes, she steered him to the bed and guided him down onto the

edge of it. She unbuckled his belt and removed his hunting knife and stripped the belt off, and she unbuttoned his shirt and rubbed her fingers across his chest, the hair just beginning to thicken there. She undid his pants and ran the zipper down its track. She worked him over his thighs and knees and ankles and draped them across the back of the chair. She pulled off his boots and socks and pushed him back onto the bed, and pried a finger beneath the elastic of his underwear

and felt what had already happened. He looked at her face, his mouth open. Esther touched his chin, the scratch of whiskers, his breath on her hand. Hush now, she said, and washed him fall asleep downstairs. The TV went off. When Goodlow knocked, Esther answered a cold sliver of her face and the crack door. The hell you won't good evening to you too. The gates is here, No Goodlow glanced at him. Believe that's their truck. It's kind of hard

to mistake, especially for a trained lawman. We're just cruising by and seen it. She tried to close the door, but Goodlow had his foot in it. He glanced at the three deputies who stood importantly by the blazer. They dropped their cigarettes and crushed them out. They unsnapped their holsters and strode across the yard, standing behind Goodlow with their hands on their revolvers and their legs apart like TV deputies. Why don't you just leave them alone? Esther said,

ain't they been through enough? Tell them I'd like to see them, good Load said, tell them to get their boots. You just walked straight to hell. Mister Dan appeared behind her lines from the bed, leaning on his face. Whoa nellie, good Load said, boy, you look plumb terrible. Why don't you let us carry you on down to the office for a little coffee, little cake. He glanced back at one of the deputies. We got any of that cinnamon roll left day? Do you have a warrant for their rest?

Esther asked, now, I ain't got a warrant for their arrest. They ain't under arrest. They're fixing to get questioned. That's all strictly informal. Good Load winked, you reckon, you could do without them for a couple of hours. Fuck you, sugar baby. The door slammed, The good Load nodded down the side of the house, and two deputies went to

make sure nobody escaped from the back. But in a minute Dan came out, dressed his hands in his pockets, and followed Goodload down the stairs, the deputies watching him closely and watching the house. Where's your brothers, Goodlow asked. He looked down. Goodload nodded to the house, and the two deputies went in, guns drawn. They came out a few minutes later, frowning must have heard us coming, Goodloaf said, well, we got this one. We'll find them other too tomorrow.

They got into the blazer and Goodload looked at Dan sitting in the back. Put them cuffs on him, Goodload said, holding his rifle. Neil came out of the woods when the blazer was gone, and he returned to the house. They got Dan. Esther said, why didn't you come tell him they was out there? The boy got to learn, Neil said. He went to the cabinet where she kept the whiskey and took the bottle. She watched him go to the sofa and sit down in front of the

blank TV. Soon she joined him in glasses. He filled both, and when they emptied them, he filled them again. They spent the night like that, and at dawn they were drunk. Wearing her robe. Estra began clipping her fingernails, a cigarette smoking in then ashtray beside her. She'd forgotten about a calling Kirksey. Neil was telling her about the biggest catfish they'd ever called up, one hundred pounds, he swore, one

hundred and fifty. You could have put your whole head in that old cat's mouth, he said, and sipping his whiskey backfin long as you damn arm, he stood and walked to the front window. There were toads in the yard. With the river swelling, they were everywhere. In the evenings, there were rain frosts. The yard had turned into a pond, and each night the rain frog sang. It was like no other sound. Esther said. It kept her up all night.

That and some other things, she said. Neil heard a fingernail land in the a ashtray, and he rubbed his hand across his chin and felt the whiskers there. He watched the toads as they huddled in the yard, still as rocks and bloated and miserable looking. That catfish was green, he said, sipping. I swear before God, green is grass. Theamn goddamn rain frogs, she said, I just lay there at night with my hands over my ears. A clipping rang the ashtray. He turned and went to her on

the sofa. There was moss growing on his nose, he said, putting his hand inside her robe on her knee. Go find your brother, she said, And she got up and walked unsteadily across the floor and went into the bathroom and closed the door. And when she came out and the bottle were gone. Without kent, Neil felt free to do what he wanted, which was to drive very fast. He got the truck started and he spun off, aiming

for every mudhole that he could. He shot past the house with a washing machine on the front porch and two thin black men butchering a hog hanging from a tree. One of the men waved with a knife, drinking. Neil drove through the mountains of trash at the dunk and turned the truck in circles, kicking up muddy rooster tails. He swerved past the Negro church in the graveyard, where a group of blacks huddle four wobbling poles over an open grave, the wind tearing the preacher's hat out of

his hands, and a woman's umbrella reversing. When he tired of driving, he left the truck in their hiding place, and, using the trees for balance, stumbled down the hill to their boat. He carried Kent's rifle, which he had always admired, and he wore Kent's jacket. On the river, he fired up the outboard and accelebrated the boat, prowl lifting and leveling out, the buzz of the motor rising in the trees.

The water was nearly orange from the mud, and the cypress sneeze nothing but knobs and tips because of the floods. A cotton mouthwa around most every one of them. During the old train trestle, he cut the motor and coasted to a stop. He sat listening to the rain, to the distant barking of a dog a half a mile away,

chasing something, maybe a deer. As the dog charged through the woods, Neil closed his eyes and imagined the terrain, marking where he thought the dog was now and where he thought it was now, then the barking stopped suddenly, as if the dog had run smack into a tree. Neil clicked on the trolling motor and moved the boat close to the edge of the river, the rifle across his knees. He scanned the banks, and when the rain started to fall harder, he accelerated toward the trustle from

beneath the cross ties. He smelled Chris soak and watched the rain as it stirred the river. He looked into the gray trees and thought he would drive into town later see about getting Daan Kent had never wanted to go to Grove Hill, and their father had warn them of the police of jail and telling your truck needed to have a tag in tail lights. A worked Neil picked up one of the catfish from the night before. It was cold and stiff, as if carved out of wood.

He stared at it, watching the green belowflies hover over his fist, and then threw it over into the weeds along the bank. The telephone rig was under the seat. He lifted the chain quietly, considering what giant catfish might be passing beneath the boat this very second. I think as large as a man's thigh, with eyes the shape of right plums and skin the color of mud. Catfish their father had taught them, have long whiskers that make

them the only fish that you can call. Kirksey had told Neil and his brothers that if the game warden caught you telephoning, all you needed to do was dump your box overboard. But Kirksey warn Frank David would handcuff you and jump overboard and swim around the bottom of the river until he found your rig. Neil spat a stream of tobacco juice into the water, and minnos appeared and began to investigate, nibbling at the dark yoke of

spit as he elongated and dissolved. With the rifle safety off, he lowered the chain into the water, then the wire, and a good distance apart, he checked the connections, and then lifted the phone and began to crank Hello. He whispered the thing his father had always said, grinning in the dark. The wind picked up a bit, and he heard a rattling in the trees, and he dialed faster. Had just seen the first silver body appear behind him,

when something landed with a clatter in the boat. And he glanced over a bottle of dynamite, sparks hissing off the end, fuse already gone. He looked above him and the trestle, but nobody was there. He moved to grab the dynamite, but his cheeks ballooned with a hot red wind, and his hands caught fire. And when the smoke cleared and the water stopped boiling, silver bodies began to bob to the surface, large mouth bass and brim and guar, and suckers and white perch, and polly wogs and catfish.

Some only stunned, but others did, and pieces of pink fruit like things, the water blooming darkly with mud. Kirksey's telephone rang for the second time in one day, a rarity that proved that his wife had always said, bad news comes over the phone. The first call had been Esther, telling him of Kent's death, Dan's arrest, and Neil's disappearance. This time Kirksey heard Goodlow's voice tell him that somebody, or maybe a couple of somebody's, had been blown up

on the trustle. Neil Kirksey said, sitting He arrived at at the trestle and with his cane hobbled over the uneven tracks. Goodload's deputies and three ambulance drivers and rubber gloves and waiters were scraping pieces off the cross ties with spoons and dropping the parts and zip lock bags the boat. Two flattened shreds of aluminum lay on the bank, and none of the water minnows darted about, nibbling christ

Kirksey said. He brought a handkerchief to his lips. Then he went to where Goodlow stood on the bank, writing in his notebook. What do you aim to do about this, Kirksey demanded, We'll try to figure out who it was first, you know, goddamn well who it was? Well, I expect, judging from that boat over Yonder, it's either Neil or Kent Gates, it's Neil. Kirksey said, Well, why do you know that? Kirksey told him that Kent was dead. Goodlaw studied the storekeeper. I ain't seen the body, have you.

Kirksey's blood pressure was going up. Fuck, sugar baby, are you one bit of ware of what's going on here? Well, it's fishing accident, Goodload said. His bait exploded from the bank. A deputy call that he'd found most of a boot foot still in it, he said, holding it up by the lace. The deputy behind him gagged and turned away. Tag it, Goodload said, writing something down and keep looking. Puke on your own time. Kirksey poked Goodlow in the shoulder with his cane. You really think Neil would blow

himself up? Goodload looked at his shoulder, the muddy cane print, and then at the storekeeper. Not on purpose, I don't, and he paused, of course, suicide does run in their family, you half wit son of a bitch. What about Kent Well, what about Kent christ sugar Baby? Goodlow held up his hand. Just show me, Kirksey. They left the ambulsce drivers and the deputies had walked the other way without talking, and when they came to Goodlaw's blazer, they got in and

drove without talking. Soon they stopped in front of the gates cabin, and instantly hounds surrounded the truck, barking viciously and jumping with muddy paws against the glass. Goodload blew the horn until the hounds slunk away, heads Low and fang spared. The sheriff opened his window and fired several times in the air, backing the dogs up before he and Kirksey got out, Goodlow reloaded. The hounds kept to the edge of the woods, watching while Kirksey led Goodlow

behind the decrepit cabin. Rusty screens covered some windows, and rags of drapes others. Beneath the house. The dogs paced them back here, Kirksey said, heading into the trees. Esther had said that they'd buried Kent, and this was the logical place. He went slow, already out of breath, stopping to cough once, and sure enough there lay the grave. You could see where the dogs have been scratching around it. Goodlow went over and towed the dirt. You know the

cause of death, you dumb ass. I know the cause of death. His name is Frank fucking David. I mean how he was killed, said Goodlow. The boy said, snake back three times in the neck. But I'd do an autopsy, oh you would, good Low excelled. Okay, I'll send Roy and Avery over here to dig his ass up, maybe shoot these damn dogs. I'll tell you what you better do. First, you better keep Dan locked up safe. I can't hold

him much longer, Goodload said, unless he confesses. Kirksey swung at him with his cane and nearly lost his balance at the edge of the woods. The dogs tensed, and Goodload backed away, raising his pistol the grave between them. Are you crazy, Kirksey, You've been locking that store too long, good Low, Kirksey gasped. The cotton in his left ear had come out, and the air was roaring through his head.

Even you can't be this stupid. You let that boy out, and he's that cold blooded fucker's next target target, Kirksey. Shit ain't nothing to prove anybody to kill them damn boys. This one a snake bit. You said so yourself. That other one blowing hisself up them durned gates is had fished with dynamite their whole lives. You ought to know that you the one gets it for him. He narrowed his eyes. You're about neck deep in this damn thing, you know that. And I don't mean just lying to

protect them boys, neither I mean selling explosives illegally to miners. Kirksey. I don't give a shit if I am. Kirksey yelled. Two dead boys in two days, and you're worried about dynamite. You ought to be out there looking for Frank David. He's supposed to be here for another week, week or two,

Goodloaf said, paperwork, He fired his pistol. Kirksey jumped and looked down at his chest to see the blood, but the sheriff was aiming passed him, and when Kirksey followed his eyes, he saw the three legged dog that had been creeping in it lay slumped in the mud, a hind leg kicking, and blood coloring the water around it. Good Load backed up a step and smoke curling from the barrel of his pistol around then the other dog circled, heads low, moving sideways, and the hair on their spines

sticking up. Let's argue about this in the truck, good Loaf said. At the store, Kirksey put out the open sign. He sat in his chair with his coffee and a novel. He read the same page three times when it occurred to him to phone Montgomery and get Frank David's office on the line. It took a few calls, but he soon got the number and dialed it. The snippy young woman who answered told Kirksey that yes, mister David was supposed to take over the Lower Peachtree district, but that

he wasn't starting until next week. She thought, well, where is he now? Kirksey wanted to know, Florida. She said, no, Louisiana. He's fishing. No, sir, he couldn't be reached. He preferred his vacation's private. Kirksey slammed down the phone. He lit a cigarette and tried to think it was just a matter. He decided of keeping Dan alive until Frank David officially

took over the district. There were probably other game wardens who testify that Frank David was indeed over in Louisiana fishing right now, But once a son of a bitch officially moved here, he'd have a motive because he'd known the dead game warden, and his alibi wouldn't be as strong if Dan turned up dead and Frank David would be the chief suspect. Even Goodlow would be able to

see that. Kirksey in Hell smoked deeply and tried to imagine how Frank David would think, how he would act, the noise he would make or not make as he went through the woods, What he would say if you happened upon him or he upon you, What he would do if he came into the store. Certainly, he wasn't a creature that Kirksey had created to scare the boys, not some wild, ghostly thing. He was just a man who had had a hard life and who'd grown bitter

and angry. A man who chose to uphold the law because breaking it was no challenge, A man with no obligation to any other men or a family, just to himself and his job to some damn unwritten game Warden code. His job was to protect the wild things the law had deemed worthy, deer and turkeys, alligators. But how did the Gates Boys fall into the category of trash animal?

Wildcats or possums or armatie villas, snapping turtles, snakes? Things you could kill any time, run over in your truck and not even look in your mirror to see it dying behind you. Why couldn't Frank David see that he, more than a match for the boys, was exactly the same as them. Kirksey drove to the highway. The big thirty six he hadn't touched in years, was on the seat next to him, and as he steered, he pushed the cartridges into the clip and then shoved the clip

into the guns underbelly. He pulled the lever that injected a cartridge into the chamber, and took a long drink of whiskey to watch down the three pills that helped all the ache in his knees and the one in his gut. It was almost dark when he arrived at the edge of the large field near park, facing the grass. This was a place a few hundred yards from a fairly well traveled blacktop, a spot no sane poacher would

dare use. There were already two or three deer creeping in the open from the woods across the field that came to eat the tall grass, looking up only when a car passed, their ears swiveling, jaws frozen, and sprigs of grass twitching in their lips like the legs of an insect. Kirksey sat watching. He sipped his whiskey and lit a cigarette with a trembling hand. Both truck doors were locked, and he knew this was a very stupid

thing that he was doing. Several times he told himself to just go home and let things unfold as they would. But then he saw the faces of the two dead boys, and the face of the live one when Boo had killed himself. The oldest two had barely been teenagers, but it was twelve year old Dan who'd found him. That truck still had window glass then, and half the back

window shield had been sprayed red with blood. Flies had gathered at the top of the truck around what Dan discovered to be a bullet hole, the pistol still clenched in his father's hand, the rim of Boo's hat still on his head. The top blown out, and Kirksey frowned thinking of it. The back of the truck was full of wood Boo had been cutting, and the three boys had unloaded the wood and stacked it neatly beside the road.

Kirksey shifted in his seat, imagining the boys pushing that truck for two miles over dirt roads, somehow finding the leverage or whatever the goddamn strength to get it home, to pull their father from inside and bury him, to clean out the truck. Kirksey shuddered and thought of Frank David, and then made himself think of his wife instead. He rubbed his biceps and watched the shadows creep across the field, the tree line dimming beginning to disappear. Soon it was

full dark. He unscrewed the interior light bulb from the ceiling and rolled down the window and pull the door lock up. Quietly, holding his breath, he opened the door and outside, he propped the rifle on the side mirror, flicked the safety off, and he reached through the window and felt alongside the dash for the headlights switch and pulled it. The field blazed with the eyes of deer,

red hovering dots staring back at him. Kirksey aimed and squeezed the trigger at the first pair of eyes, Not wanting to see if he'd hit the deer, he moved the gun to another pair. He'd gotten off seven shots before the eyes began to vanish. When the last echo from the gun faded, at least three deer lay dead or wounded in the glow of the headlights. One dough bleeded weakly and bleeded again, and Kirksey coughed and took the gun back into the truck and closed the door

and reloaded in the dark. Then he waited. The doe kept bleeding, and things in the woods took shape, detached and whisked toward Kirksey over the grass like spoon ukes, and the little noises, things like footsteps, and the stories Frank David appearing in the bed of someone's moving truck and punching through the back glass, grabbing and breaking the driver's arm, leaping from the truck and watching while it wrecked. Quit it. Kirksey croaked, you damn school girl several more

times that night. He summoned his nerve and flicked on the headlights, firing at any eyes he saw or thought he saw, or firing at nothing. And when he finally fell asleep at two am, his body numb with painkillers and whiskey, he dreamed of his wife on the day of her first miscarriage, the way the nurses couldn't find the vein in her arm, and how they'd kept trying with the needle, and the way she'd cried and held his fingers tightly like a woman giving birth. He started

to wake, terrified, as if he'd fallen asleep. Driving Caring less for silence, he stumbled from the truck and flicked on the lights and fired, though now there were no eyes.

He lowered the gun and for no reason found himself thinking of a time when he'd tried fly fishing, standing in his yard, with his wife watching from the porch, tarzan of the apes in her lap, and him whipping the line in the air, showing off, and then the strange pulling you get when you catch a fish, and Betty jumping to her feet, the book falling, and her yelling that he'd caught a bat. For Heaven's sakes, a bat. He climbed back into the truck, his hands shook so

hard that he had trouble getting the door locked. He bowed his head and missing her so much that he cried softly for a long time. Dawn found him staring at a field littered with dead doughs and yearlings and fawns, and one of the deer, only wounded, was trying to crawl toward the safety of the trees. Kirksey got out of the truck and vomited colorless water, and then stood

looking around the foggy morning. He lifted his rifle and limped into the grass in the drizzle, and a quick hip shot put the live deer out of its misery. He was sitting on the open tailgate trying to light a cigarette when Goodlow and a deputy passed in their blazer and stopped. The sheriff stepped out, signaling for the deputy to stay put. He sat beside Kirksey on the tailgate the truck, dipping with his weight. His stomach was growling, You old fool, good Loaf said, staring at Kirksey and

then behind them at the field. You figured to make Frank David show himself. He shook his head. Good Lord, almighty Kirksey, what'll it take to prove to you that there ain't no durned vigilanti game warden out there? Kirksey didn't answer. Goodlaw went to the blazer and told the deputy to pick him up at the old man's store. Get Dave over here to load up them deer quick, he said, Tell him to gut them and drop them off at my place in the barn. The deputy put

the blazer into gear. Can I have some of the tenderloin's? Boss good Load slammed the door at Kirksey's truck. He helped the old man into the passenger's seat and went around and got in the driver's seat. He took the rifle and unloaded it and put his clip in his pocket. We'll talk about them dear later, he said, now I better get you back. They gone a silent mile. When Kirksey said, would you mind running me by Ester's Goodload shrugged and turned that way. His stomach made a strangling

noise and he patted it absently. The rain and the wind were picking up rocking the truck, and the sheriff took a bottle of bourbon from his pocket. It's medicinal, he said, handing it to Kirksey. It's just been two freak accidents, that's all, Kirksey. I seen some strange shit in my life, stranger in this. I seen a nigger had rabies one time off foaming at the mouth, bit his terrned wife on her teddy before she shot him. It's a hell of a thing, buddy boy, and he

took the bottle back them gates. Is is just an unlucky bunch period. I ain't one to go believe it in curses, Kirksey, but I swear to God if they ain't just down right snake bit. Soon Goodload parked in front of Esther's and they sat waiting for the rain to slick, and Kirksey rubbed his knees and looked out the windows where the bottoms of the trees were submerged in the rising floodwaters. They say old esther has a root seller, good Load said, taking a sip she had.

I expect it's full of water this time of year, ain't it. She's probably got cotton mouse wrapped around her plumbing. He shuddered and offered the bottle, and Kirksey took it and sipped. He gave it back, and then Goodload drank and drank again. That they don't hit the spot. When I was in the service, good Low went on over in tie Land. They had them little bitty snakes, then banded crates. They call them poison his cobras, what they told us used to hide up under the commode lid.

Every time you took a shit, you'd have to lift the lid up. See was one there? He drank? Yep, it was many a time I kicked one off in the water and flushed it down the commode. Wait here, Kirksey said, and he opened the door, and his pants legged darkened as the rain poured in, cold as needles. He set his knee out deliberately and planted his cane in the mud and pulled himself up. Stood in the

water to his ankles. He leaped across the yard with his hand before his face, blocking the rain, and there were two chickens on the front porch, their feathers fluffed out so that they looked strange and menacing. Kirksey climbed the porch steps with the pain so strong in his knees that stars were popping near his face. By the time he reached the top. He leaned against the house, breathing hard, touching himself at the throat where a tie might have gone, and then he rapped gently on the

hook of the cane and the door opened immediately. It was dark inside, and she stood there looking at him. How come you don't ever stop by the store anymore? Well, she folded her arms. Neil's dead, he said, I heard esther said, now I'm leaving. Fuck this place and every one of y'all. She closed the door, and Kirksey would never see her again. At the store. Goodload nodded for the deputy to stay in the blazer, and then he took Kirksey by the elbow and helped him up the steps.

He unlocked the door for the old man and held his icy hand as he sank in his chair. He want those boots off. Good Low ass spreading a blanket over Kirksey's lap and unlaced the left and then the right. Pick up your foot, now the other one. He set the wet boots by the stove. It's a little damp in here. I like this thing. He found a box of kitchen matches on the shelf under the counter, among the glass figure ings Kirksey's wife had collected, the little Deer,

the figure skater, the unicorn. Goodlow got a fire going in the stove and stood, warming the backs of his legs. I'll bring Dan by a little later, he said, But Kirksey didn't seem to hear. Goodlaw sat in his office with his feet on his desk, rolling a cartridge between his fingers. A plate of ribs sat untouched before him. Despite himself, he was beginning to wonder if Kirksey might be right. Maybe Frank David was out there on the prowl.

Good Lawman would at least cons the possibility. He stood and took off his pistol belt and walked to the back and pushed open the swinging door and had Roy buzzhm through. So far he'd had zero luck getting anything out of Dan. The boy just sat in a cell, wrapped in a blanket, his head shaved for lice, not talking to anybody, and not eating. Goodlow had told him about his brother's death, and he'd seen no emotion across the boy's face. Goodlow figured that it wasn't this youngest

one who'd killed that game warden. It'd probably been the other two. He knew that this boy wasn't carrying a full cylinder by the way he never talked, but most likely he had been a witness. Goodlow had even considered calling a psychologist from the Searsing Mental Hospital to give the boy an evaluation. Come on, said Goodlow, stopping by Dan's sell and jingling the keys. I'm fixing to put your talent to some good use. Up the boy cuffed

as the deputy drove them toward the Trustle. Turn your head, Dave, Goodloaf said, handing Dan a pint of old crow. The boy took it in both hands and unscrewed the lid and began to drink too fast. Slow down, their partner, good Loaf said, taking back the bottle. You need to be a bit of alert. Soon they stood near the trustle, gazing at the flat shape of the boat on the bank. Dan knelt and examined the ground. The deputy came up and started to say something, but good Low motion for quiet,

just like a bloodhound, he whispered. Maybe I ought to give him your job. Reckon what he's after, the deputy asked. Dan scrambled up the trustle and the two men followed, and the boy walked slowly over the rails, first staring into the trees and then examining the spaces between the crossties. He stopped and bent down and peered at something, and he picked it up. Well you got there, boy, good Low call, going and squatting beside him. He took a sip of old crow. When Dan hit him two handed.

The bottle flew one way and Goodlow flew the other. Both landed in the river, and Goodlow, with his hand clapped to his head to keep his hat on, He came up immediately, bobbing and sputtering, and on the trestle. The deputy tackled Dan. When they went down, fighting on the crossties below. Goodload dredged himself out of the water, and he came ashore, dripping and tugged his pistol from

its holster. He held it up so that a trickle of orange water fell, and he took off his hat and looked up to see the deputy disappear, belly first into the face of the river. Dan sprinted back down the track toward the swamp. The deputy came bowling ashore. He had his own pistol drawn and was looking around vengefully. Good Low climbed the trestle in time to see Dan disappear in the woods. The sheriff chased him for a while, all ducking limbs and vines, but stopped and breathing hard,

his hands on his side and his cheeks red. Dan circled back through the woods and went quickly over to the soft ground, scrambling up the sides of hills and sliding down the other sides. Two haulers over, he heard the deputy heading in the wrong direction. Dan slowed a little and trotted for a long time in the rain, the cuffs rubbing his wrists raw. He stopped and looked at what he'd been carrying in one hand, a match limp and black. Now with water nearly dissolved, he stood

looking at the trees around him. The hanging Spanish moss, and the cypress sneeze rising from the stagnant creek to his left. The hair on the back of his neck rose, and he knelt, tilting his head and closing his eyes, and he listened. He heard the rain, heard it hit the leaves and wood, and heard the puddles lapping at their tiny banks. But beyond those sounds there were other sounds.

A walking bird walking, a blue jay, a squirrel barking, another answering, and the deputy falling a quarter mile away. Then another sound, this one close, a match striking. Dan began to run before opening his eyes, and crashed into a tree. He rolled to his feet, ran again, tearing through limbs and briers and spider whips. He leapt small creeks and slipped and got up. And he kept running,

and at every turn he expected Frank David. And he was near tears when he finally stumbled into his family's graveyard. The first thing he saw was that kent had been dug up. Wooden steak surrounded the hole and fenced it with yellow tape that had words on it. Dan approached slowly, his fists under his chin. Something floated in the grave. With his heart pounding, he peered inside. It was the

big three legged, wary of the trees behind him. He crept toward their backyard, stopping at the edge, and he crouched and blew into his hands to warm his cheeks, and gazed at the dark windows of their cabin, and then circle the house, keeping to the woods. He saw the pine tree with the low limb they used for stringing up larger animals to clean, and the rusty chain hanging, and the iron pipe they struck through the back legs

of a deer or the rare wild pig. Kent and Neil had usually done the cleaning, while Dan fed the guts to their dogs and tried to keep them from fighting. And there past the tree scattered and laid the rest of the dogs, all shot dead, partially eaten, buzzards standing in the mud, staring boldly at him, with their heads bloody and their beaks open. It was dark when Kirksey woke in his chair. He'd heard the door creak. Someone stood there, and the storekeeper was afraid until he smelled

the river. Hey boy, he said, Dan ate two cans of potted meat with his fingers, and a candy bar and a box of saltines. Kirksey gave him a coat from the red cooler and he drank it, took another one while Kirksey got a hike saw from the rack of tools behind the counter. He slipped the cardboard wrapping off and nodded for Dan to sit. The storekeeper pulled up another chair and faced the boy and began sawing the handcuff chain. The match dropped out of Dan's hand,

but neither saw it. Dan sat with his head down and his palms up and his wrists on his knees, breathing heavily while Kirksey worked, and silver shavings had accumulated in a pile between their boots. The boy didn't lift his head the entire time, and he'd been asleep for quite a while. When Kirksey found he saw it through. The old man rose, flexing his sore hands, and he got a blanket from a shelf, and he unfolded it, shook out the dust, and spread it over Dan. He

went to the door and turned the dead bolt. The phone rang later. It was good Low, asking about the boy and telling what had happened. Kirksey nearly smiled, You've been lost all this time? Sugar baby reckon, I have good, Low, admitted, and we still ain't found Deputy Dave yet. For a week they stayed in the store together. At times Kirksey could barely walk, and other times the pain in his side was worse than ever. He gave the boy a stocking cap to cover his skinned head and put him

to work sweeping and dusting and scrubbing the shelves. He had Dan pull a table next to his chair, and Kirksey did something he hadn't done in years. He took inventory. With the boy's help, he counted and ledgered each item, marking it in his life Green book. The backshelf contained canned soups, vegetables, sardines, and tins of meat. Many of the cans were so old that the labels fleked off in Kirksey's hand, and so they were unmarked when Dan replaced them in the rings. They'd made not only in

the dust, but on the wood itself. In the back of that last shelf, Dan discovered four tens of underwood deviled ham and as their labels fell away at Kirksey's touch, he remembered a time when he'd purposely unwrapped the paper from these cans because each label showed several red dancing devils, and some of his colored customers had refused to buy them. Kirksey now understood that his store was dead, that it no longer provided a service. His colored customers had stopped

coming for years, the same with Esther. For the past few years, except for an occasional hunter or logger, he'd been in business for the Gates boys alone. He looked across the room at Dan sprang a window with winds and wiping it absently. Gazing outside, The boy wore the last of the new denim overalls Kirksey had in stock, and they were too short by an inch or two. Once, when the store had thrived, he'd had many sizes, but for the longest time now the only ones he'd stok

were the boys sizes. That night, beneath his standing lamp, Kirksey began again to read his wife's copy of Tarzan of the Apes to Dan. He sipped his whiskey and spoke clearly to be heard over the rain, and when he paused to turn a page, he saw that the boy lay asleep across the row of chairs they'd arranged in the shape of a bed. Looking down through his bifocals, Kirksey flipped to the front of the book and saw

his wife's name written in her neat script. He moved his thumb over to it, and he read it to himself, and then he turned to the back of the book to the list of other Tarzan novels, twenty four in all, and he decided to order them through the mail so that he and Dan would know the complete adventures of Tarzan of the Apes. In the morning, Goodlow called and said that Frank David had officially arrived. The sheriff himself had witnessed the swearing inn, and he was now this

district's new game warden. Pretty nice fellow, good Loaf said, kind of quiet and polite. Asked me how the fishing was. Then it's over, Kirksey thought. A week later, Kirksey told Dan that he had business in Grove Hill. He'd spent the night before trying to decide whether to take the boy with him, but had decided not to that he couldn't watch him forever. Besides, town wasn't the best place for a gates. Before he left, he gave Dan his thirty all six and told him to stay put not

to leave for anything and for himself. Kirksey took an old twenty two bolt action and placed it in the back window rack of his truck, and he waved to Dan and he drove off. He thought that if the boy wanted to run away, it was his own choice. Kirksey owed him the chance, at least. At the doctor's office, the tired looking young surgeon frowned and removed his glasses when he told Kirksey that the cancer was advancing, that he'd need to check into the hospital and mobile immediately.

It was way past time. Just look at your color, the surgeon said, and Kirksey stood and thanked the man, put on his hat and he leaped outside. He went by the post office and placed his order for the Tarzan books, and he shot for the supplies in the dollar store, using the buggy for support, and then the pigloo wiggily and had the checkout boys put the boxes in the front seat beside him. Coming out of the drug store, he remembered that it was Saturday, that there'd

be chicken fights to day. Impossible news about Frank David. At Heflin's, Kirksey paid his five dollars admission and let heflin help him to a seat in the bottom of the stands. He poured some whiskey into his coffee and sat studying the crowd. Nobody had mentioned Frank David, but a few old timers had offered their sympathies for the

deaths of Kent and Neil down in the Pith. The Cajuns were back, and during the eighth match, one of the Cajun whites versus the local red the tall ball Cajuns stooping and circling the tangle birds and licking his lips as his rooster swarmed the other and hooked it. The barn smoky and dark, and rain splattering on the tin roof, and the door swung open instantly. The crowd was hushed, feathers subtle to the ground. Even the Cajuns knew who he was. He stood at the door, unarmed,

his hands on his hips. He was a wiry man, lifted his chin and people tried to hide their drinks. His giant ears that hook nose the eyes. The bird handlers reached over their shoulders, clawing at the numbered pieces of masking tape on their backs. The two handlers and the referee in the rings sidled out, leaving the roosters for a full minute. Frank David stood staring, and people stepped out the back door and climbed out the windows. Half naked boys in the rafters were frozen like monkeys

and hypnotized by a snake. Frank David's gaze did not stop on Kirksey, but settled instead on the roosters, the white one pecking at the red's eyes. Outside, trucks roared to life, backfiring like gunshots. Kirksey placed his hands on his knees. He rose and turned up his coat collar and flung his coffee out, and Frank David still hadn't

looked at him. Kirksey planted his cane and made made his way painfully out the back door and through the mud, not a person in sight, just clattering tailgates vanishing into the woods. From inside his truck, Kirksey watched Frank David walk away from the barn and head toward the trees. He watched him step around a mud puddle. Now he

was just a bury bowlegging man with white hair. Kirksey felt behind him for the twenty two rifle with one hand while rolling down the window with the other he had a little trouble aiming the gun with the shaky arms. He pulled back the boat. He flicked the safety off. The sight of the rifle wavered between Frank David's shoulders as the game warden walked as if an old storekeeper were nothing to fear. Closing one eye, Kirksey pulled the trigger.

He didn't hear the shot, though later he would notice his ears ringing. Frank David's coat bloomed out to the side, and he missed a step, and he stopped and put his hand to his lower right side and looked over his shoulder at Kirksey, who was fumbling with the rifle's bolt action. And then Frank David was gone, Just wasn't there. There were only the trees bent in the rain and

shreds a fog in the air. For a moment, Kirksey wondered if he'd seen a man at all, or if he'd shot at something out of his own imagination, if the cancer that had started in his pancreas had spread up along his spine and into his brain and was deceiving him, forming men out of air and walking them across fields, giving them hands and eyes and the power to disappear from inside the barn Aroosto Crode, Kirksey remembered Dan. He hung the rifle in the rack and started his

truck and gunned the engine. He banged over the field and flattened saplings in a fence, and though he couldn't feel his feet, he drove very fast. Not until two days later in the VA hospital and mobile with Kirksey finally began to piece it all together. Parts of that afternoon were patchy and hard to remember. Shooting at Frank David, going to the store and finding it empty, no sign of a struggle, and the thirty six gone, as if Dan had walked out on his own and taken the gun.

Kirksey could remember getting back into his truck. He planned to drive to Grove Hill in the courthouse, the game Warden's office and find Frank David finished the job, but somewhere along the way he blacked out behind the wheel and veered off the road into a ditch. He barely remembered the rescue workers and the lights and the sirens.

Goodlow himself pulling Kirksey out. Later that night, two coon hunters had stumbled across Dan wandering along the river, his face and shirt covered in blood, the thirty six nowhere to be found. When Goodlow told the semi conscious Kirksey what happened, the storekeeper turned silently to the window, where he saw only the reflected face of an old, dang failed man, and later, still in the warm haze of morphine, Kirksey lowered his eyelids and let his imagination unravel and

retwine the mystery of Frank David. It was as if Frank David himself appeared in the chair where Goodlow had sat, As if the game warden broke the seal on a bottle of jim Beam and leaned forward on his elbows and touched the bottle to Kirksey's cracked lips, and whispered to him a story about boots going over land, and then gun shot and rain washing the blood trail away even as the boots passed, about a tired old game warden taking his hand out of his coat and seeing

the blood there and feeling it trickle along his side and down the back of his leg, And about the boy in the game warden's truck, handcuffed and gagged and blindfolded, about driving carefully through the deep ruts in the road, stopping behind Esther's empty house and carrying the kicking wet

boy inside on his shoulder. When the blindfold is removed, Dan has trouble focusing, but knows where he is because of her smell bacon and soap and cigarettes and dust, and Frank David holds what looks like a pillow case. He comes across the room and puts the pillow case down. He rubs his eyes and sits on the bed beside Dan.

He puts on a pair of reading glasses and opens a book of matches and lights a cigarette, holds the filtered into Dan's lips, but the boy doesn't inhale, and Frank David puts a cigarette in his own lips and the embers glow. Then he drops it on the floor and crushes it out with his boot and picks up the butt, slips it into his shirt pocket. He puts his hand over the boy's watery eyes, the skin of his palm dry and hard, cool, and the faint smell of blood, and he moves his fingers over Dan's nose

and lips and chin. He stops at his throat and holds the boy tightly, but not painfully, in a strange way. Dan can't understand, and he finds it reassuring. His studying heart slows. Something is struggling beside his shoulder, and Frank David takes the thing from the back. Now the smell of the room changes and Dan begins to thrash and whip his head from side to side. My damn son, Frank David whispers, I hate to civilize you. Good Low began going to the Veterans Hospital and mobile once a week.

He brought Kirksey cigarettes from a store. There weren't any private rooms available in the hospital, and the beds around the storekeeper were filled with dying ex soldiers who never talked. But Kirksey was beside a window and Goodload would raise the glass and prop it open with a novel. They smoked together and drank whiskey from paper cups, listening for nurses.

It was the tall, mean one. One more time, God damn it, she said, coming out of nowhere and plucking the cigarettes from their lips so quickly that they were still puckered. Sometimes Goodlow would push Kirksey down the hall. When they would get a good wheelchair. The IV rack attached by a stainless steel contraption with a black handle the shape of a flower, and they would go to the elevator and ride down three floors to the covered

area where people smoked and talked about the weather. There were nurses and black cafeteria workers in white uniforms and hairnets, and people visiting other people, and a few patients. A in the halls, they'd see some mean old fart Kirksey knew, and they'd talk about hospital food or chicken fighting, or the fact that Frank David had surprised everyone by deciding to retire after only a month of quiet duty, that the new game warden was from Texas and a nigger

to boot. Then Goodlow would wheel Kirksey back along the long window, out of which they could see the tops of oak trees. On one visit, Goodlow told Kirksey they'd taken Dan out of intensive care three weeks later. He said, the boy had been discharged. I give him a ride to the store. Good Load said. This was in late May, and Kirksey was a yellow skeleton with hands that shook. I'll stop buying check on him every evening, good Loa went on, It'll be okay, The doctor says, he just

needs to keep them bandages changed. I can do that, I reckon. They were quiet then for a time, just the costs of the dying men, and the soft swishing of nurses thighs, and the hum of ivy machines. Goodlaw, Kirksey whispered, I'd like you to help me with some The sheriff leaned in to hear, an unlit cigarette behind his ear like a pencil. Kirksey's tongue was white and cracked, and his breath was awful. I'd like to change my will, he said, make the boy the beneficiary, all right, said Goodlow.

I'm obliged, whispered Kirksey, and he closed his eyes. Near the end, he was delirious. He said he saw a tiny black creature at the foot of his bed. He said it had him by the toe. In surprising fits of strength, he would throw his water pitcher at it, or his box of tissues, or the reader's digest. Restraints were called for, and his coma was a relief to everyone, and he died quietly in the night in Kirksey's chair in the store. Dan hadn't seemed to hear Goodload's questions.

The sheriff had done some looking into the Grove Hill Public Library, research was the modern word, and discovered that one species of cobra spat venom at its victim's eyes, but there weren't such snakes in southern Alabama anyway. The hospital lab had confirmed that it was the poison of a cotton mouth that had blinded Dan. The question, of course, was who had put the venom in his eyes. Goodloads

shuddered to think of it. How they'd found Dan staggering about, howling in pain and bleeding from his tear ducts, the skin around his eye sockets dissolving, exposing the white ridges of his skull. In the investigation, several local blacks, including Euphrates more Sets, stated to Goodload that the youngest Gates boy and his two dead brothers had tested euphrates stepdaughter

in their own home. There was a rumor that several black men dressed in white sheets with a pillowcases for hoods, had caught and punished Dan as he alurked along the river, peeping in folks windows and doing unwholesome things to himself. Others suggested that the conjured woman had cast a spell on the gateses that she summoned a swamp demon to chase them to hell, and still others attributed the happenings

to Frank David. There were a few occurrences of violence between the local whites and the Blacks, and some fires and a broken jaw, but soon it died down. In good Low file the deaths of Kent and Neil Gates as accidental, but he listed Dan's blinding as unsolved. The snake venom had bleached the boy's pupils white, and the skin around the eye socket had required grafts. The surgeons had had to use skin from his buttocks, and because his buttock were hairy, the skin around his eyes began

to grow hair too. In the years to calm, the loggers who clear cut the land along the river would occasionally stop in the store, less from a need to buy something, and more from a curiosity to see the hermit with the milky, hairy eyes. The store smelled horrible, like the inside of a bear's mouth, and dust lay

thick and soft on the shelves. Because they had come in, the loggers felt obligated to buy something, but every item was moldy or stale beyond belief, except for the things in the cans, which were unlabeled, so they never knew what they'd get. Nothing was marked as to price either, and the blind man wouldn't talk. He just sat by the stove. So the loggers paid more, some less than what they thought a can was worth, leaving the money on the counter by the telephone, which hadn't been connected

in years. When Plumper Gray or Goodlow came by on the occasional evening, smelling of booze, he'd take the bills in coins and puts them in Kirksey's cash shower and the rest in his pocket. He was no longer sheriff, having lost several elections back to one of his deputies, roy Or Dave. He still wore the same khaki uniform, but now he drove a lance truck, and his route included the hospitals and the county, and every other month the prison. Damn boy, he once cracked to Dan, this

store's doing better business now than it ever has. You sure you don't want a cookie rack? When Goodlow left, Dan listened to the rattle of the truck as it faded. Sugar Baby, he whispered, and many a night for years

after until his own death. In his sleep, Dan would rise from the chair and move across the floor, taking Kirksey's cane from where it stood by the coat rack, and he would go outside and down the stairs like a man who could see, and his beard nearly to his belly, and he would walk soundlessly the length of the building, knowing the woods even butter now as he crept down the rain rutted gully toward the river, whose smell never left the caves of his nostrils in the

roof of his mouth. At the river bank, he would stop and sit with his back against a small pine, and lifting his white eyes to the sky, he would listen to the clicks and hum and thrattle of the woods, seeking out each noise at its source, and imagining it an acorn nodding and detaching its thin ricochet, and the way it settled into the leaves, a bullfrog's bubbling throat, and the things it said, And the trickle of the river over rocks, around the bases of cattails and cypress sneeze,

and through the wet hanging roots of trees. And then another sound familiar, the soft, precise footsteps of Frank David down Wind, coming closer, not going away, circling, the striking of a match, and the sizzle of ember and fall of ash, the ascent of smoke, strange and terrifying comfort for the rest of Dan Gates life. I hope you all enjoyed that story. Poachers is a short story by Tom Franklin. It is a story from a collection of short stories by the same name, Poachers. I think the

book won an award. I think it's the Edgar Award. I'm not sure. I saw an interview with Tom Tom Franklin, and he said it won an award, and he didn't even know what the award was. He had to ask his agent. He goes, what award is this? I'm sure he knows now. Anyway. I sent an email to Tom about a month ago and I asked him if I could read a story or two from this book, and his answer back to me was hell, yes, that's all he sent back. And so he's probably a He's probably

a pretty good guy if he hears this. I certainly do appreciate him giving me permission to read this great story. I love this style of writing. It's so easy for me to follow especially when it's set in a region where I'm familiar with and I can relate to the characters, and so I love this story. Tom has several novels available, plus this book of short stories. I'll put his author page linked in Amazon in the description, and you guys can look him up and buy his books and you

will not be disappointed. If you like good literature, good modern literature, you'll enjoy this stuff. So thank you all for listening, and we will see you on the next podcast. Thanks