THIRD FULL week the town hung lit ornaments at the end of bridge lamps; blue and red, white and green fat colored bulbs, shaped candy canes, snowmen, reindeer. He stopped at the crest, and looked over the side to the black water steel and cold. He spit, wiped his mouth with the back of a sleeve. The stoplight at the foot of the bridge blinked; the downtown behind dark then drawn red in the throb.

Dusk he left the station where Deaccus and King crossed at a yellow light and thumped a pack of cigarettes topside against a palm. He stopped at the curb and spit, sat down and let his feet on the road. He studied an old house on the northwest corner, pink at the front, white on the rest, clapboard shutters at the windows green and open, front door mismatched wood and small for the frame. The yard was dirt, one side of the front porch stacked with tires. Guinea hens pecked and kicked around the steps and at the yard and the walk. An old pig white at the jaw nosed the yard and wore a Christmas wreath at the neck, bells sewn into the green, rang dull when it waddled. An old woman lived in the house. On the east side of the place an empty firework stand built for holiday shouldered more tires and the shells of cars and a spring bed frame, a stove, a septic tank, stacks of cinder block and brick and old pipe. The old woman poked the yard, leaves in her hair and on her clothes. She tossed seed to a cloud of hens, put a hand to the old pig’s mouth. The pig licked her hand, and she patted its back, and scratched at the ears. Her mailbox was labeled

KEHOE.

He watched his father step from the car and walk toward the filling station with keys and folded bills in one hand. He limped at his back heel. A few minutes passed. He came back out and got into the car and shut the door. Terry made across the lot, stood next to the car and knocked the window with a fist. There were boxes stacked in the backseat, a pile of clothes on hangers laid long on top. He saw his shoulders and his head stretched long in the glare from halogen on glass. He looked hard, then turned down to his lap. He cranked the car, and looked up. The window fell. Terry looked at him for a moment, and then he cocked his head at the backseat.

It’s late boy, his father said.

He looked over the roof of the car, turned his eyes over the lot.

We going to leave soon?

A few weeks. A month. Something.

Terry shifted weight from one hip to the other.

Come back to the house when you get tired of walking around, Benjamin Webber said.

Alright.

You know how things are so nasty and pretty you want to fall over sometimes? I know about that. I do.

He drove off, and Terry stood there and smoked. A man who worked inside held the door and yelled at him.

Get the fuck away from the pumps.

Terry didn’t understand. He spit.

You’re going to start a goddamn fire boy.

He took a pull, and looked at the cigarette.

Yeah, alright, alright. Fuck alright.

He stepped what felt a safe distance. The attendant went back inside the station and let the door shut.

A crash of feather and teeth then in the yard of the old house. One pack dog came up in the yard and took two birds, and then more of them gathered and snarled and held twitching guineas in their mouths. They moved jagged circles and worked on the last hens, pink mawed, full of feather and tiny bone. One went for the pig, snapped at its hind legs and chased it around the yard. The bells rang on its neck wreath. Its cries were desperate, clueless.

Terry picked up a handful of gravel beside a dumpster, heavy in the palms, and he ran to the dogs, the birds, and the wailing pig. He threw the rocks hard and straight, worked on the dogs one at a time. Some turned and jostled away A few moaned.

The pig stuck its nose about the ground and jawed the scraps of birds after the pack left. His heart beat fast. One of the dogs circled and came back. It bore teeth, and studied the pig nudging the ground, stayed half in shadow at one side of the firework stand and moved in and out of the dark. The boy got a piece of scrap metal at the ground. He held it at a sharp end and pushed the tip on the dog.

You want a fight? That it?

Things got confused in his head; he saw his father, and the dogs, the pig and the old woman all singing, his father holding a shovel, the old woman’s house crumbled and then raised.

The dog growled. Terry kicked the ground. It looked to be mostly wolf, but its tongue was fat and purple, almost black. He was set in his mind to gut it. He took a step, and the dog clenched, pulled back some in the dark. A streetlamp stuttered yellow on the corner.

I’ll cut your ears off.

He waved the shank. The tip caught the dog’s eyes. He did it a few times, and then he took his arm down slow and put it on the ground between them. He put his hands up, showed the dog his bare palms. The dog’s face went still. They pondered each other this way for a few moments. He leaned some more, turned his hand over and moved it slow beneath the dog’s nose, mouth blotted red, breath warm at his skin.

Be quiet now.

He let the dog breathe at his hand and smell it, and then he moved it behind the ears and kneaded the skin.

Get to it then.

He stood up and pointed at the trees behind.

Go on.

For a moment the dog looked at him, and then it turned and made to the woods.