The Cold Dark Heart of the World: With linked Table of Contents

By Wilson Roberts

Fidget is driven by a hunger that has rampaged longer than people have walked upon the planet, a hunger that has never been sated or defeated. It drives him on a bloody killing spree from the Shores of New Jersey to the Appalachian Mountains of North Carolina.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Wilder Publications, Inc.
• Release date: Jun 10, 2015
• ISBN: 9781633845084

Book preview

Prologue

Silver light from the full moon shone through the bedroom window, falling on Emily's face. Ben lay on his side, watching her as he had for more than fifty-five years. He traced her features with his forefinger, looking through the markings of age, picturing the beauty he had seen those years long before, her flashing eyes and the high cheekbones of her Cherokee grandmother. She had been a dark-haired laughing girl of seventeen when they were married in a blossoming laurel stand at the southern edge of the Valle Crucis Episcopal mission property, taking their vows as they stood looking out over Clarke Creek and Dutch Creek. Afterwards they had walked five miles on the old Beech Mountain cross path, from the party at her parents' house in Beech Creek, to the log home they had built together on a remote high meadow at the top of Beech Mountain, cutting and hewing the logs by hand in the old timey way.

They had lived in that cabin until his parents were gone, and they moved into the old Calloway home place, turning the log home over to a daughter and her family.

I could tell ye a story, Em.

She touched his cheek and said, There are too many stories. You always tell stories when the future is hard, your vision of it unrelenting. Tell me what you're feeling.

He smiled, sighing as his knee brushed her leg. I love ye, Em. Always have.

She covered his hand with her own. I know you do, she said. Love's not a harsh truth, Ben Calloway. What are you seeing in that strange mind of yours? What's coming?

He stared at her face, the left side so clear in the moonlight. He needed to tell her a story. She would have none of it and he could speak the truth in no other way. It was the curse of his way of knowing. Those to whom he was a stranger ignored him, thought him a senseless, witless, mad old man, and those who knew him often did not want to hear what he had to speak. When they did listen they would not hear what lay beneath his words. It was frightening to know what he knew, to see with his eyes.

He gathered her into his arms as he had been doing all the years. Later, as she slept, he walked out on the mountain and stood by his grandmother's tree, the one she had planted as a girl and where she had once held his small boy's hand, quiet tears on her cheeks as she tried to console him over a vision he had seen of his father's drowning, a terrifying vision he had kept silent about until the waters of Watauga Lake had finally released the body. She had told him of her own foreknowledge of things and the agonies of speaking or not speaking them, saying there was no way, at his age, he could have known the difference between a dream and the Hicks' way of knowing things which she had inherited from her father, he from his, going back, she told him, to the Druids. Now, of course, standing beneath that tree alone in his late years, he knew the difference, had suffered throughout his life from the singular aloneness that difference had created for him.

The next morning at breakfast Emily saw the sadness that had fastened itself to him, but she knew better than to discuss it.

The cow’s near dry, she said instead.

He nodded.

You might should take her down to Roby Trivet’s to be freshened, she said.

He nodded again. I would like ye to do it, Em.

She thought about that. He always took the cows to be freshened, just as he always worked on the truck and tractor or patched the roof or repaired the barn, doing things to keep the property in good shape while she tended the garden, raised the children and saw to their clothes and meals..

Em?

Yes?

Ye know I love ye.

I know, she said, wanting to ask him more, knowing there would be no answer. Reaching over she placed her hand on his cheek. Do we have to worry about the cow right this minute?

Not right this minute, he said, putting his hand over hers and leading her back upstairs to their room.

Book One

July 2

Fidget stood on the bridge linking Ciudad Juarez with El Paso, his chest moving heavily, sweat pouring from his forehead as it had since he left the Monumental Bull Ring an hour and a half earlier. The second Grand Corrida of the season over, he was unsatisfied, the three screwdrivers he drank at the Kentucky Bar twisting through his gut and head. Booze is bad shit, he thought shaking his head and belching.

The bulls were small, frightened; the third one scrambled over the fence and had to be forced back into the ring. Bellowing, it ran from the matador, Manolo Ramiros, who stalked it from his armored horse as the picadors and banderilleros terrified the bull until it trembled, cowering in the middle of the ring. A veterinarian finally killed it after Ramiros five times tried and failed to deliver the final blow with his sword. Ramiros had shamed himself, the crowd booed and Fidget left the arena in disgust, taking a taxi to Avenue Juarez where he got plastered at the Kentucky.

After finishing his last drink Fidget put a ten dollar bill on the table and left, walking past beggars and street vendors to the toll bridge where he stood looking at the Rio Grande trickling below, his mouth bitter, his head aching as he remembered Manolo Ramiros strutting up to the dead bull, pushing the vet and attendants out of the way and cutting off the bull's ears as the crowd booed and screamed.

He was slime, Fidget said aloud, although the only other person on the bridge walkway was an old toothless woman in a serape setting up her begging spot, hoping to catch a few tourists as they came home from the bull fights and the market.

A thin gray and white cat rubbed against his leg. Picking it up he smoothed its torn fur, running his hand over scars and sores as he looked into its milky half blind eyes.

A matador like that is less than human, eh cat? The cat looked at him and cried.

I'll bet it's been a long time since anybody picked you up. Fidget petted the mangy cat. Its ears were torn from many fights and a fresh slash ran across the pink flesh of its nose.

The cat cried again.

I'll bet you're hoping I'm going to feed you. He was stroking the fur on the top of the cat's head. Sorry cat. I don't carry pet food around with me. Maybe you'd like a cigar?

Taking a cigar from his pocket he held it in front of the cat. The cat sniffed, then shook its head crying for a third time.

Pretty damn fussy for a hungry cat.

Fidget felt his fury grow at the sound of the cat’s cries. It was an ugly beast, ratty, scarred and, worse, ungrateful for the attention. Did the damned thing really expect him to be carrying food? He put the cigar back in his pocket.

You're an ugly pain-in-the-ass cat. You know it, eh? And you got a lousy sense of humor. And I don't like cats anyway. Give me a dog. Give me a strong healthy dog that likes to tear the heads off cats any day.

His grip on the cat tightened and it tensed, claws extended. One of them pricked Fidget's left index finger and in a brief moment of clarity he understood what he was.

That's it for you, cat.

He looked around. The old woman was sitting on a small pile of rags holding an aluminum measuring cup in one hand as she stared into space. Fidget put one hand on the cat's chin and quickly broke its neck. Tossing it off the bridge, he watched as the body hit the ground and lay still, the tip of its tail bobbing slightly in the river.

The instant of self awareness was gone, but there was a satisfied residue, an approval of his action. That's how you kill something. You do it quickly and you either get rid of it or get the hell away from it as fast as you can. Frigging cat scratching his finger. Christ knows what it had on that claw, what kinds of garbage and filth it had walked through, poked through looking for food.

He spit over the bridge and watched as the glob missed the cat's body by three inches. Correcting his aim he spit again. He smiled with satisfaction as the yellow mucous landed directly on the cat's head.

That's for you too, cat. He shivered slightly and wiggled his shoulders to prolong the cool excitement of the tremor. Looking at his watch he snorted and continued his walk toward the Texas side of the river. It was five thirty. With luck he would be home by six, a good five hours before he had to be at the Rio Grande Scrap Metal Company just off Mesa Road where he worked night shift under the table, ripping salvageable equipment out of cars headed for the crusher.

The moon seems extra beautiful tonight. Wendy Mapes reached for her husband's hand as they walked along the New Jersey beach, the warm Atlantic curling around their feet.

And clear, he said. You can see all the way to Barnegat Light.

She smiled. He was exaggerating, of course. He always did. But if the island had curved a little more to the east they could have seen the lighthouse. The night was that bright, that clear.

Nice the kids decided not to come this weekend, Bob said.

Wendy nodded, her thoughts drifting. Their daughters were the last people she wanted to see over the weekend. It was hers and Bob’s time alone. The house had been filled with guests all of June and would be for the rest of the summer, as it was every summer, a condition of living year round at the shore. The last two weeks with her younger sister Martha and her kids had been hell. Her husband Carroll had put Martha and the girls on the plane at Logan and stayed in Boston to oversee contract talks between the city and the development corporation he headed. Wendy met them at the Philadelphia Airport and drove them back to Long Beach Island, fed up after the first fifteen minutes with the baby's sniveling and Sara's whining about the length of the trip.

Martha had always been hypercritical of her for getting married right out of college.

You're nuts, Martha had been telling her for years. You get a degree in physics and marry Bob who's never going to be anything but a small town cop and start pumping out kids like some kind of animal. Where's your mind? Where's your future?

The discussions always led to fights, Martha's comments hitting too close to Wendy's own doubts. Then, a year ago, Wendy and Bob saw the last of their three girls finish college and take a job in New York, just at the time Martha was having her second baby. Wendy, newly free, couldn't understand how a grown woman in her late thirties could suddenly decide to marry and have a bunch of kids.

It was my biological clock, Martha told her. It was either now or never for children and all at once I realized I couldn't settle for never. Besides, Carroll had been after me for years to marry him.

Martha's approach to child rearing was to explain everything in a calm rational voice, trying to reason with a petulant four year old and a one year old with a terrible cold and a high pitched screech of hunger or cold or discontent with whatever situation he might be in.

Now Sara, she would say, how do you think Auntie Wendy feels about what you're doing? It's not nice to pick your nose and wipe it under your chair, or big girls don't stick their fingers in babies' eyes, they might puncture the corneal surface and that would make the baby go blind and we don't want that to happen, do we?

When Sara failed to respond, Martha would tell her she was being unreasonable and should think about what she was doing and then she’d turn to Wendy. They just don't listen to me, she would say, her face wrinkled in confusion.

After a day of this Wendy shook her head, took Martha by the shoulders and sat her on the couch.

Of course they don't listen to you. No kids their ages are going to listen. You have to draw a line and show them you mean business when they cross over it. The kid doesn't give a rat's ass if she blinds her sister or not. She doesn't even know what blindness means. All she cares about is hearing the baby cry when she sticks her finger in an eye. That’s music to her ears.

Smiling at the memory, Wendy snapped back to the present for a moment. Yeah, it's great to be alone.

Then reaching around, she pinched her husband's buns and thought again of Martha, and their conversation as she left that morning. Wendy had driven her to the airport, walked her, the whining Sara and the sniffling baby to the security gate and kissed them goodbye.

You ever think of having another baby? Martha asked the question as she hugged her sister.

Never.

It must be awful with the girls all grown and gone.

I put in a bad twenty-four hours when Kim moved out, wondering what in the hell I was going to do with myself. Then I jumped for joy, drove down to the State College at Pomona, and enrolled in the Masters program. I can't wait to start.

Still, you put in all those years of motherhood.

I did. Now I'm free. I've got a couple of great adult children whose occasional company I enjoy and I’ve got no daily responsibilities to them, unless you consider it a responsibility that I’m taking care of myself, having a good life and setting a sterling example for them. I'm forty-five and free, you're thirty-nine and just starting. Tell me I'd like to trade places with you.

Martha grimaced. I hate it. I feel like I want to scream half the time. I'm going to be an old woman and still not be rid of the children. Carroll wants one more, maybe two. He's constantly after me about it.

What about you?

I want to run away and leave him with the whole mess.

Why didn't we start this talk last week instead of now when you're getting ready to board the plane?

Martha sighed, shaking her head. I was avoiding it. I don't even like to think about it.

Wendy squeezed her sister's hand. Call me when you get home. I'll stay up and you call me after eleven. We'll talk all night if it'll help.

I'll call, but not tonight. Carroll will have to tell me all about his contract and rant about corruption at Boston City Hall. Then he'll start harassing me about another baby. I'll call you sometime next week. A frown, sad and frightened, crossed Martha's face. She started to speak, closed her mouth, as though changing her mind, then opened it again, the words rushing out. Wendy, sometimes I'm really terrified of him.

She pulled her hand away, squared her shoulders and walked quickly toward the metal detectors, the baby in a backpack, Sara holding on to her hand.

Wendy started after her, but Martha waved her off, yelling over her shoulder as she moved away. Later, we'll talk about this later, all right?

Wendy shook her head, watching as her sister and the children moved toward the boarding gates. Her eyes filled with tears, the scene in front of her swimming, Wendy suddenly had a clear image of Martha and the two children landing safely at Logan. She'd arrive with all her emotional baggage, but she'd arrive. That much at least, was a relief. Wendy had seen her father die in a flaming plane crash three hours before it happened and several years later she had a vision of Bob drowning off Barnegat Light, his fishing boat swamped. She immediately called the Coast Guard. The lieutenant in charge had laughed, but she had been so insistent he'd finally sent a crew in a boat out to check. They got there in time to pull Bob from the water.

She knew things. Always had. She tried not thinking about it, after all she was a rationalist, going for a Masters in Physics, but she knew things and trusted what she saw. If she had seen the plane going down she wouldn't have let Martha, Sara and the baby board.

She won't call, Wendy said as Bob reached over to pick from the sand a sliver of glass glimmering in the bright moonlight.

Who won't call?

Martha. She won't call to talk to me about how miserable she is. I'll bet she's trying to forget she even gave me a hint of it.

Too much face to lose?

Yep, after ranking on me all those years about us having kids when we were still kids.

I've never regretted it.

I have. Lots of times. All the years I was at home with the girls you had your career to build. I'm just now getting restarted on mine.

I know. His voice was soft and he spoke carefully, wishing he could drop the subject. Sometimes the enormity of what Wendy gave up to marry him and have kids was more than he could bear.

He knew she was brilliant and never understood what had led her to come back to the island after graduating from Drew University with honors. She always said it was because she loved him and he always felt overwhelmed with guilt, thinking maybe he had not loved her enough, otherwise he would have let her go on to graduate school and the career in physics she had dreamed of since elementary school.

I wouldn't change it for anything, she said, knowing why he had fallen silent. I can regret not having discovered black holes or a cure for cancer and still be satisfied with the choices I made. And they were my choices, you turkey.

She pushed him toward the water just as a wave came rolling in. The water swirled around his ankles and he lost his balance, splashing heavily in the surf.

That's it for you, he said, rising up and tackling her. She splashed and twisting, landed on top of him. They lay in the sand, laughing, the surf ebbing around and beneath them.

Just like Burt Lancaster and Deborah Kerr, he said, reaching for her breasts.

Not quite. We can go home, take a nice shower and crawl into bed, then fuck like bunnies. They were sneaking around and had to make it on the beach. He probably got sand in her twat.

Is that an invitation?

On our first night alone since early June? You bet it is. But no sand, Officer Mapes.

An hour after leaving the bridge, Fidget got out of a '63 Chevy, nodded to the driver who had picked him up on Route 20, and walked the last two miles to the small adobe house just outside El Paso on Borderland Road where he rented a room from Ruby Mejia and her husband Buck. By the time he reached the Meijia's door he had forgotten the bullring and the cat. What remained was an undercurrent of rage and violence which tingled in his groin, pushing, driving, slowly engulfing him. It was warm with the promise of the deep shivering ecstasy he craved.

When he had found himself in El Paso almost a month earlier he looked at all the room for rent ads in a small shopper’s newspaper. Ruby's had been the only one he answered, her ad asking seventy-five dollars a week for a room in the country, with kitchen privileges.

Fidget knew the place was right the minute he saw it. The house was small and surrounded by cotton fields. The only other buildings in sight were a large gin and the Andersons’ house half a mile down the road. Borderland Road stretched straight for miles in either direction, and there was generally enough traffic to make hitchhiking easy. In the evenings Fidget would sit in the front yard and watch the colors change on the Franklin Mountains.

A long haul truck driver, Buck was often gone for two or three weeks at a time and Ruby was glad to have someone living in the house with her. For Fidget it was a good arrangement from the beginning. Ruby liked to talk a little too much, but Fidget would nod his head, pretending to pay attention as he made noncommittal grunts at her rambling tales about her grown children and the frustrations of her life. In return for what she took as interest and concern, Ruby made sure Fidget’s kitchen privileges included a well stocked refrigerator and a generous supply of beer.

Buck had argued with her, saying the food and beer cost at least as much as the rent money they got, but Ruby told him it was a good deal. She was nervous being alone on a desolate road for weeks at a time and having Fidget around seemed like insurance. Nobody was going to rob and kill her with such a burly man living in the house. Buck had shut up and Ruby cut back a bit on the food and beer.

Once in the house, sucking on the scratched finger, Fidget went to the kitchen and got a bottle of Tecate from the refrigerator. A freshly made pot of chile simmered on the stove and Ruby sat in a pressed oak rocking chair on the far side of the room reading the newspaper.

Help yourself. She pointed at the pot.

Thanks. Fidget got a bowl from the cabinet and ladled it full.

Hurt yourself?

Cat scratched me. I’d better put something on it. You never know where a stray cat’s been.

She went into the bathroom, coming back with a tube of antibiotic cream and handed it to him with a piece of tissue paper. You should never pick up a stray, Fidget. They’re half wild and full of hunger and they carry things around inside of them, diseases and filth, scratching and biting people and spreading all kinds of horrible things.

I suppose. Fidget blew on a spoonful of steaming chile before putting it in his mouth. But the poor thing was awful lonely and it just meowed at me so pitiful that I couldn’t resist it.

She clucked her tongue. You should have, though. Look at your finger. The horrid little thing attacked you and you not wanting to do anything but make it feel better.

Fidget looked at Ruby, the last bits of sunlight coming through the window reflecting in her hair. Fidget had seen the photographs in her picture album and knew she had been a good-looking woman twenty, thirty years before. In the first week of his stay in their home he had seen all the pictures of Ruby Allen and Buck Mejia during their courting days, Ruby small with smooth skin and delicate sensual lines, Buck slender and handsome, a rakish smile in each picture. He had seen them at their wedding, at birthday parties for their children, Christmas gatherings, First Communions. He had seen the lovely young girl melt into the sixty-year-old woman who sat in the pressed oak rocker lecturing him about strays. If he squinted his eyes he could convince himself the girl in the pictures was just beneath the puffing flesh of the woman in the rocker.

She rocked back and forth in the squeaking chair sucking on her teeth as she tried to dislodge a piece of hamburger gristle. Fidget watched her, thinking how terrible it was to have flesh accumulate and fold around features which had once been smooth and young. Fingers drumming against his thighs, he tried to imagine what Buck must feel in the mornings when he would wake up and look at her. Men were lucky, men like him, men like Buck, maybe all men. They didn’t age. At least they didn’t age in the same way women aged. They grew into rugged creatures, distinguished looking. The way he saw it, women, almost all of them, folded in on themselves, got ugly and nagged their men over every small thing passing over the smallness of their minds.

Christ, he hated ugly things. Like the cat, scarred and ratty. Age was a scar, a flaw in the species. One of many, he thought.

Let me see your scratch. Ruby held her hand out to him, wiggling her fingers in command.

He shook his head. It’s all right. Just give me a band aid to put on it.

Still, let me take a look at it.

No, for crissakes, it’s all right. Fidget snapped his head around, snarling loudly at her and went out through the broken screen door to sit on the back stoop.

Frigging Ruby, bugging him about his hand. Just like a goddamn woman. The last thing Fidget needed was a hovering, protective woman. Last thing any goddamn man needed. He sat looking out at the cluttered yard with its three rotting Volkswagen van bodies, a refrigerator, door torn off and laying beside it, a broken swing set, a pile of bicycle frames and assorted other rusting junk in the middle of the scrubby unmown grass. Off to the side, bare branches of a dead cottonwood jutted up against the darkening sky.

They used to hang men from cottonwoods. He knew that, somehow. He could dimly remember seeing black and white western movies with men sitting on horses, nooses around their necks, hands tied behind their backs as groups of other men stood around waiting for someone to get brave enough to give the doomed man’s horse a good swat on the behind. Damned if he could remember where or when he’d seen them, or how. Half a mile down the road he could hear the Andersons’ hounds baying.

Fidget tried remembering his life before El Paso, but all he could dredge up were shadowy images for which he could find no words. The photographs of Ruby and Buck Mejia’s’ past had more substance than anything before the day Fidget found himself standing on Dyer Street looking in at Fort Bliss. The diamonds of chain link fence surrounding the fort broke his vision as he stood gripping them, watching men doing drills with weapons on the field before him.

He had come to think of that as the moment of his creation. There was a constellation of atoms which opened its eyes and became Fidget, standing, looking through the thick crosswire of the fence at Jeeps and marching soldiers and low military buildings, dancing in his eyes through the heat waves rising from the desert.

But then there was his name, and the dreams. He had known his name even as he stood at the fence, heard it called in a deep voice. Fidget. Fidget. It was not a loving voice, not kind or gentle, and it could have been male or female, but it said Fidget and he knew it was his name. And there was the rest of his language. Standing outside the fort he could name the things he was looking at. Jeeps. Earth. Soldiers. Weapons. Weapons in all their many forms. He knew the words for all of them. Something created by coalescing atoms could hardly be expected to have dreams, to know its name and the words spoken by the creatures around it. He knew fingers, noses, toes, and could even remember rhymes for the toes, this little piggy went to market and this little piggy stayed home, this little piggy had roast beef and this little piggy had none and this little piggy cried wee wee wee all the way home.

The dreams unsettled him more than the lack of memories. In them he remembered things, or dreamed he remembered things, but on awakening the dream memories would be gone and he was always left with a sense of important things, profound things lurking just beyond his grasp. Once, shortly after moving into the room in the Mejia’s house, he forced himself to stay awake for seventy hours, drinking coffee and snorting cocaine he’d picked up in Juarez. He had hoped to force the dreams into the open. Maybe if they came while he was awake he would remember them and learn more about himself. He struggled to stay awake, walking much of each night along the irrigation ditches honeycombing the fields behind the house. After the second night he was jagged, starting at birds and rustling lizards, jumping at the slightest unexpected sound, and still the dreams would not come. When he finally gave up, sinking into a long awaited deep sleep, the images returned and the next day he awoke once again remembering he had dreamed, the dreams themselves as lost as his memory of the past.

The branches of the cottonwood disappeared as the evening sky blackened into night. Fidget stood in the yard, silent, unmoving, and watched as the tip of the full moon edged over the horizon, feeling his pulse quicken at his first glimpse of the brilliant silver light. He walked to the barbed wire fence separating the Mejia’s yard from the cotton field behind, stepped over it and began walking, then running along the irrigation ditch leading to the Rio Grande. Soon he was loping effortlessly, chasing shadows, singing, free in the silvering night. The moon was rising in the sky when a cloud crossed it, deep shadows falling over the earth where he ran. He stopped, remembering he was due at the scrap metal yard and still hadn’t showered or shaved.

His voice roared, ripping out of his throat. Snapping his fingers, he clapped his hands together in frustration. The last thing he wanted was to be penned up in the yard on such a perfect silvery night.

Walking back across the field to the small adobe house, Fidget cursed and snarled silently. He hated the thought of going back into the house, and getting ready to work all night alone, ripping cars apart and piling things up for Vasquez and Morelos, the two day shift dorks who dismantled and cataloged the things he ripped out of the cars. He would sweat under the vapor lights in the yard, working in the grease and grime, cursing, all the while pushing from his mind thoughts of running along ditches in the moonlight, singing the songs he knew would force themselves from his throat, which always forced themselves from him when he was running at night.

He laughed aloud, a sound no one else would ever mistake for laughter. Of course he ran at night. Why had he forgotten? He had to run at night. He would.

Climbing back over the fence he returned to the yard. Ruby had come out and was standing in the doorway, holding the frame of the screen door together and calling his name.

I’m here, he answered.

You didn’t finish your chili. You want me to put the bowl in the refrigerator and save it for later?

Sure, Fidget said, wishing she would stop trying to take care of him. He was doing all right by himself. He had done all right for himself for a long time, even if he could remember only a month back. He had to have. After all, he was here now, wasn’t he? He was doing all the good, no doubt.

Ruby smiled. I’ll put it in there, but you be sure to eat it before you go to work. You get to the scrap yard without dinner and you’ll fill yourself up on peanut butter cups and potato chips from those vending machines they got there.

Jeezus he wished she’d shut up. He walked over to one of the van bodies and kicked it hard, pleased with the way the metal caved in. With his right fist he hit the windshield. It cracked in a hundred lines out from the center where the fist had collided with the glass. He hit it again and the glass shattered, thousands of tiny shards tinkling against metal, each one reflecting the silver moon. He liked the sound and he liked the feeling, the slivers of glass pricking the bottom of his fist, the warmth of the blood running down his arm as he held the fist in the air, red globules shimmering in moonlight.

What on earth are you doing out there? Ruby let the screen door slam and walked across the yard toward him.

Fidget looked at her thick form moving through the night. His breath was shallow and he stood still, thinking as he did how much he must look like the dead cottonwood standing there with his arm raised against the darkened sky. Are you all right, Fidget?

I’m fine, he whispered. I’m just fine Ruby. You go on back in the house.

Ruby couldn’t hear him, his whisper was too low. He knew it was. He could barely hear it himself.

Fidget? You hurt? Answer me.

He was crouching behind the van, his fist beginning to throb, his breath quick and shallow. The Andersons’ hounds were baying loudly, five or six of them keening into the night. He would sneak over there before he went to work and let them loose. A dog shouldn’t be tied up and have to cry for its freedom. There were cats to be run down in the night and torn apart. Cats and other things dogs should be free to prey upon, to sink their teeth into. And those poor dogs of Anderson’s locked up over there, howling for their freedom. The bastard.

He’d do it. He’d go under the night’s cover and open their cages. God they’d be happy. He shivered again at the thought of the dogs free to run, to lope over the open ground in the moonlight. They’d be up to Canutillo before he could be back home in the Mejia’s house.

Fidget. What are you doing down there? You sick, boy? Let me help you back into the house.

Ruby leaned over, touching Fidget’s arm in an attempt to get him on his feet and in the house.

Let me be, he snarled and jumped back. Don’t touch me.

Ruby dropped her hand and took a step backward. As she did, her foot landed on a beer bottle Buck had tossed there one Sunday last spring when he was sitting on the back step reading the sports pages in the El Paso Times. She lost her balance and fell, landing hard on her back. Her breath knocked out, she lay in the dust gasping, trying to see Fidget through the darkness, moaning his name.

He didn’t move. If she saw him she’d surely tell him she was injured. Then he’d have to help her and he didn’t have the time. The dogs needed him. Their cries were all he could think about, their cries and the pleasure he would feel when he saw them streaking free across the desert in pursuit of a cat, or a hare, any small soft creature. He imagined he could hear a cat’s heart pound as the dogs leapt for it. He listened to it for a moment, then realized the thumping he heard was his own heart.

I think I sprained my back, Ruby said.

Fidget heard her voice but the words meant nothing; they were simply a noise which interfered with the messages coming from the Andersons’ kennel as the dogs cried out to him, Fidget, help us, free us. Fidget. Fidget.

Ruby moaned again. Fidget, I hurt my back, I can’t get up. Please Fidget, help me.

Fidget turned in the direction of her voice, then looked south toward the Andersons’.

Fidget, Ruby yelled, her voice tense, frightened. For God’s sake Fidget, help me get in the house and call for an ambulance. My back hurts terrible. I think I done something bad wrong to it.

Fidget snarled at the sound, then rose up from behind the Volkswagen. He saw Ruby’s dark form on the ground and came over, kneeling next to her. Looking toward the cottonwood he could see the moon through its branches. It looked as though the tree had caught it and was holding it, waiting for some signal before releasing the hold and freeing the moon to continue racing across the sky.

Raising his arm Fidget made its silhouette merge with the shadowy outline of the tree, as if he could hold the moon, contain it. The motion reopened his cuts and blood ran down his arm.

Help me Fidget, don’t just kneel there. I need help.

He placed his injured hand on her chin, the other on the back of her neck.

What are you doing, Fidget? Her voice was shaky, fearful at his lack of response and the roughness of his touch, the taste of blood from his wounded hand filling her mouth. Fidget, what are you doing?

As he knelt there, the pressure of his hand on her chin slowly increasing, all the dreams came back and Fidget knew what he been unable to remember. Relief shot through him like a stream of cool rushing water. His shivery tremors were so sweet he did not hear the sound of Ruby’s neck snapping.

I think there’s good news about the chief of police job, Bob Mapes said.

He looked at Wendy who was close to sleep. They had come back from the beach, taken a shower together and jumped into bed, devouring each other with passion all too rare in their twenty-three years of marriage. They made love often enough, but it had become like dinner, or brushing teeth, something they did without thinking. Necessity rather than ecstasy. Maybe that wasn’t so bad, especially when ecstasy still waited in the wings. Like tonight.

What’s the good news, and why did you wait until now to tell me? She mumbled, curious but not sure she could stay awake through a long explanation.

He shrugged. I’ve been afraid to jinx things. Ed Lenz is definitely retiring and the results of the civil service tests are in. I’m next in line. That is, unless the mayor and the township commissioners decide to hire somebody from outside.

They wouldn’t, not after all the years you’ve been on the force.

He shrugged. Ed told me he heard that Steve D’Amato’s been talking about applying. With his father being a State Rep he can pull a lot of strings if he really wants the job.

He’s been a State Trooper for years. Why would he give up his seniority and take a pay cut for a local job?

Less travel. Maybe less risk, too, what with cruising Route Nine, and up Seventy-two, all through the pines and the bay area, the Parkway. There’s some tricky stuff going on in that area, drugs, mob dumps, all kinds of things that can turn dangerous quickly, and the Staties have to cover the island here too, filling in the gaps for us. Hell, Steve probably looks on a job with Long Beach Township as semi-retirement.

He’s an arrogant redneck bastard, she said. If they made him chief, he’d have everybody in the Township up in arms within a month.

Bob nodded. She was right. Even the other State cops disliked Steve. They claimed he’d do anything to make sure an arrest led to a conviction. Truth wasn’t an issue with Steve. A perfect record was.

What about the mayor and the commissioners?

He took a deep breath. Tom Haines is with me. Sam Railman would go with Steve, if he applied. That leaves Rube Tucker. I think he’d vote for me, but I’m not sure. Sam can be pretty persuasive and if Steve’s father promises some money for the new sewage plant I could be out in the cold.

She turned over, facing him, grinning lewdly. You’ll get the job. You’ve got to. After all, I’ve never been to bed with a police chief.

Christ, I hope not. I’d hate to think I was getting sloppy seconds from Ed Lenz.

Wendy sat up, face tight. Bob Mapes, that’s the most disgusting thing I’ve ever heard from you. It’s sexist, tasteless garbage.

Hey, I’m sorry. It was just a joke.

Making a slimy comment about sloppy seconds isn’t a joke, even when it’s intended to be.

Sure it is. It’s just a joke that’s been around as long as I can remember.

So has the idea about woman being created from man’s rib, but it’s still offensive.

Turning on her side, facing away from him, Wendy pulled the sheet up to her chin.

Sorry, he said, meaning it. She was right. Just because sloppy seconds sounded funny when he was in ninth grade didn’t make it an appropriate when he was forty-nine and in bed with his wife. But the news is good, right?

Right, she said, smiling to herself. If Bob was chief he’d be preoccupied with learning the new job for a year or two and less likely to notice how busy she was going to be traveling back and forth to the college down in Pomona while she worked on her Masters. Besides, there’d be more money and a car. The job of Police Chief carried a car with it and they’d be able to sell the Buick, keeping the Escort for commuting. She wished she could see the future of things like this, the regular things of life.

It’s excellent news, she said, turning over to face him again, her arms outstretched. Come’ere Chief.

Let’s hope so. He put his arms around her, burying his face in her neck.

Hank Anderson had been listening to his hounds raising hell all evening. Goddamn beasts. Every goddamn full moon they’re out there howling and baying and pounding their stupid heads against the cyclone fence trying to batter their way out of the kennel.

He was spending the night sitting around watching the tube and downing a few beers. Halfway through an old Clint Eastwood movie, damned if he could even remember the title, even though he’d insisted on watching it, argued with Leona about how much he wanted to see it, he opened his eighth beer and threw the cap at her as she dozed on the couch.

Thanks, she said, throwing it back at him.

Didn’t want you to miss the ending. Every goddamn night you fall asleep on the couch and miss the ending to something and every goddamn night I got to tell you what happened or you won’t leave off complaining. It’s a pain in the ass, Lee, and I hate it. So watch the ending and I won’t goddamn have to tell you what happened again.

We seen this one before, during the regular season. You already told me how it ended.

So how did it end?

I don’t remember. It had something to do with some guy getting shot in the middle of the street.

Big goddamn deal. That’s the plot of ninety percent of them.

So then let me sleep through it.

Don’t ask me to tell you how it ends.

I don’t give a shit how it ends. I really don’t. I only ask you how the dumb movies end so you’ll talk about something other than how horny you are before you hammer me.

You got a great mouth, Lee. Hank finished the beer and got up to fetch another one from the refrigerator.

Get me one while you’re up will you, honey?

Hank grunted as he wove across the room and into the kitchen. The lights were off, the bright moonlight coming through the window giving all the light he needed to make his way across