HE TURNED the engine near the guardhouse. Mostly dark still he watched the sun come big and torch red at the top of the black tupelo and the sumac crowned a short red dirt bluff. He watched the light steam hard frost on the grass where the shadow did not reach. The guard came up the gravel drive and parked the car. She shut the door and then got back inside and turned off the headlamps. She pushed the door shut again and went over to the small watch booth and turned the light on inside. She saw his car and came out of the booth and stood there past the door and squinted her eyes at him. He cracked the window a slit and stuck his hand out and waved. She came over beside. He rolled it the whole way down, took the cigarette from his mouth and leaned it to the ashtray He smiled.

Early, she said.

He nodded, and then he got the cigarette up and took a pull.

I got a project, he said. A school report.

On what?

History. Battles and all what.

This was true. One was due two weeks before.

She put a hand at her brow for the glare and scanned the backseat.

On the general, he said. That Pickens one.

She looked him straight for a long moment and squinted her eyes. He tapped the white paper near the ash. She raised up all the way and stood there.

He was an Indian killer, she said. Write that in your report.

He nodded. She put her eyes away from him then and to the main road and shook her head. She jostled the brass and silver keys at the circle ring laced on a beltloop and went over to the gate and undid the padlock holding the heavy chain. She went back inside the guardhouse. He drove slow on the early wet road and put the window down, waved at her gone past.

The woods cut to a field past the gate, and he stayed at the dirt road and followed a half circle, and it turned to woods on both sides then ended at another field. He parked the car and got out, stood at a thick wooden sign like a pulpit, the name of the general cut on top, and the name of the fight below that, shot buried pinholes on the face. He thought about those tablets in church that the old man came off a mountain with. They seemed good rules. No killing or stealing, something like that. He put cigarettes out on the sign and dropped the ends to a front pocket. He kicked burst shells, twenty or more.

The grass was high, white brown in the new cold, and rocked in the stiff wind. He walked a straight line through the middle, and the grass shook thick and bent under his boots, and he put his hands at the tops and ran them over.

He heard the fight in the trees, chatter left in the grass, the dust of felled houses and the quickly dead, first names, a hope for child.

He sat down, wind in his ears and eyes watered on the dry air.

The bright cold stayed in the afternoon and he drove and kept the window down and smoked the rest of the joint. He slowed at the exit to his highway and then turned on. Three police cars sat each shoulder gone to the crest, their sirens spun blue and red. There were german shepherds yelling. Officers held them at chains. He rolled the window halfway and then he was between them.

One asked why he took that particular exit. Another stood beside him pressing buttons on a hand held radio. He said certain numbers into one end.

It’s my exit, Terry said.

The one with the radio asked for his address. Terry told him.

It’s not your exit.

It is, he said.

It was his. He used it a few times already. The officer told him to get out of the car.

Where’s your adult? he said.

Sixteen was the age for unaccompanied driving.

He put his hands on the back of his hips and spit because sometimes he liked to spit.

The policeman put Terry’s face against the roof of the hatchback and mashed his lips down until spit ran.

This is bullshit, he said. I know that.

They pulled his arms behind. The one at his head pumped his face down on each word.

Shut the fuck up, right now, he said.

Inside his car a dog whined.

Okay, okay, goddammit, okay, I understand.

He didn’t understand, not even a little.

He spit blood in the kitchen sink. His bottom lip was fat and felt stiff when he poked it. He pulled his father’s whiskey from the cabinet, held it up in front and in light over the sink, sloshed the brown whiskey in the bottle. He drank a mouthful and washed it around. His eyes watered. He heard car engines running full out and hot, smelled burnt tire, felt gasoline at his nose, and in his cheeks. He stomped his feet. He spit again and yelled something, head lost on how much it burned. He punched the pantry door and left knuckle marks.