Of Course

    Mama found a tick stuck on John's hairy head. So we went out in the yard to see where he had picked one up. Daddy stuck a shovel in the ground and it came up with so many million ticks scrawling off the dirt that it made my skin heave in disgust.
    Daddy's lip curled. His chin jutted at a point just under the house. "Them dogs done it. We won't never get rid of these ticks until all them dogs are dead."
    Mama's lips compressed, her eyes were cold and cruel. "I never wanted them thangs to start with," she declared. "Tink. Haul them off."
    I stood there, troubled by the impossible demand; {If I haul them off they will just foller me back and I'll get the beating of my life.} I stood there trembling.
    A horn kicked up the dust and saved me, from the road. Up drove Uncle Chalkie's car and it full of kids. Billy Dan got out first. He was fixed up dandy in a brand new Marine's uniform. It made a difference in the way I looked at him, and his brothers (dancing they were so proud) could feel it too.
    Billy Dan had always been her favorite, and Mama's face was glowing at sight of him. especially now he looked so good and clean in that uniform that cinched him up tight.
    Just by chance I looked around. Daddy was watching Mama, instead of looking at them. His lips tightened, his eyes grew sharp and hard like he was going to start whipping somebody. But suddenly, he grinned and he turned the other way, glad to see them all and I knew I had missed something, but not sure what. Daddy's hand stretched out and flicked over all of Billy Dan's pretty buttons and his smile grew wider.
    "You're just the man I want to see," said Daddy. "We got dogs to kill."
    Billy Dan stopped short, his eyes pinched a little but the smile never left his face. The twins backed up, slid around and joined me. The others were rooted to their space. Every eye was on Daddy; of course that was where he liked to be. "Get the gun, Tink."
    O, I knew where the gun was. I knew it was loaded all the time too. "An unloaded gun ain't worth a dime." That's what Daddy always said. Daddy's gun was ready to shoot all the time, of course.
    That gun was waiting for me in the drawer, an instrument of sudden death. My chest tightened as I picked it up. It fit my hand like always, ready to buck, except now it was cold in my hand for some reason. It had been warm all those times before when I had picked it up, pointed it at some dark spot on the wall and pretended to pull the trigger. "Torsher-ANG!"
    I never missed. Usually even my ricochets killed something.
    Now it was different. The gun was cold. When I looked down the rifled barrel it stared back at me, deep, black, unblinking.
    I put my finger well outside the trigger guard and held the 9-shot snub-nosed H&R .22 revolver flat up against my belly as I ran back outside.
    I ran?
    I did more than run, I flew, and why? because I knew each step should have dragged me to a stop for what that gun was about to do. But of course, I couldn't let anybody in the family know that. So I flew. I even smiled -- just in case anyone was looking through the window.

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Daddy took the gun from my hand, almost grunting his approval of the way I had carried it so it would not shake and go off accidentally. Then he stretched the gun out butt first -- So Billy Dan could take it, if he leaned forward just a little bit.
    He didn't want that pistol in his hand. Their eyes locked. "Now that you are a man --" said Daddy with a tiny shake of his head as if he didn't quite believe it yet. "Just pull the hammer back and it is cocked."
    Billy Dan grinned as he leaned forward and took the gun. "A man, huh? Well I guess I am a man now."
    His poor sloped shoulders almost rose to the occasion, kind of like they did that time he was going to make a million dollars raising blood hounds, and finally had him two registered hounds to start with.
    The twins cheered and danced and pawed their bare feet in the dust like they were Palomino stallions about to steal the herd. The other kids nodded sagely, but pride flooded through their eyes and lifted their souls.
    "He's a man now all right," they said. "Just trot your dogs out here and mark the spot."
    At Daddy's urgen we found ropes and caught them all. Daddy laughed as the dogs dodged and lunged to get away from us. "Ketchim, ketchim. Don't let a one get away."
    Everybody caught the spirit, and it became a game. Machine gun laughter burst from every side of the scene.
    Then we walked the dogs out over the dike and out into the desert hills. Locusts quit singing as we walked on past and the greasewood stood silent beneath the burning sun. Steam sizzled off the black rocks as we lined up the dogs so Billy Dan could shoot them down, one by one.
    A crack,
    POW,
    a spot of blood, and the first job was done.
    Everybody laughed at the way Billy Dan blanched white as the first dog crumpled. Daddy's eyes were hard upon him though, and Billy Dan straightened his poor sloped shoulders up again, like a man. "Which one you want next?" he demanded shrilly.
    "By God," Uncle Chalk crowed for the whole world to hear. "Would you look AT THAT? He's acting just like a man."
    I had somehow caught JewLee, the mother of them all. I had raised her almost from the hour she was born, dipping my little finger in stolen milk to feed her.
At that first shot she whimpered against my leg and sensing I was scared too, she tried to run. My hand reached down and I patted her side. "Don't worry," I lied. "Everything is all right."
    Chuckles erupted from every side. The chuckles caught each other up and turned to laughter, then burst into guffaws as JewLee licked my hand for pity and reassurance. Then everybody laughed again every time a spot of red announced that another dog was dead. Daddy and Uncle Chalk laughed and joked at us to hold the dogs still or they'd kill us too.
    They laughed like it was just a game and I kind of hoped the dogs would get up any second to get the ketchup wiped off their brows.

9 dogs downed with twelve cracking shots and he reloaded and killed 3 more.
    Then it was JewLee's turn to face the gun. She wasn't happy looking at that barrel. She squirmed and sawed. Dead pups were strung out all around us; even I could smell the death and the blood.
    "Hold her still," Daddy ordered.
    And of course, I did.
    I peered down the skinny barrel of the H&R revolver. Just an inch to this side and there would be a spot of ketchup on my forehead. I would never know if I was the one that died. I wished it would swerve in his hand. I stood there -- looking down the barrel and praying it would be that got hit. "If he is aiming at me, I won't even hear the ZING! I won't have to live in this world any more." How come you never get what you pray for when you need it that much?
    Twelve dogs laid there splattered, lifeless inside that circle of taunting men. JewLee was number thirteen.
    Unlucky, she was.
    Dumb too.
    She licked my hand in supplication. God wouldn't even answer my prayers, much less hers. Giving up on me, she looked up at Billy Danthen, begging him for a reprieve. But there was a cloak wrapt tight over his heart and a whitened grin puckered his lips. TORSHER-ANG! just like I'd heard it a thousand times from my finger pointed at some target on the wall, trying to get away from me.
    Billy Dan was a good shot. That bullet hit her between the eyes. JewLee jerked this way and that at the rope to get free. A spot of blood blubbered just above where her nose met her eyes.
    "Hold her still," Daddy yelled.
And, of course, I did.
    Billy busted out laughing because she had lived through his finest shot. "It's the gun's fault, not mine." Everyone nodded, watching JewLee for the next shot.
    Then Billy took dead aim and shot her again, and then again as her piteous yowls shook the very dirt beneath my feet. One more time Billy shot her, and my sickened hand grew numb. The rope dropped at my feet and JewLee streaked away from the blazing death.
    She ran for safety.
    She ran for home.
    Stupid dog.
    "Ketcher!" said Daddy. And off we went, chasing her down. The twins were faster, far ahead of me. But JewLee beat them to the house and crawled beneath it to her bed where she lay. She was whining in pain when I got there, last of all, not by choice but slowed by the sickness within my gut.

    They made me, I forget who did, or maybe I just volunteered because I knew they would make me, but they made me crawl under there to drag her out.
    I dragged her out, and we dragged her over out of the way. With Mama and the girls looking on, blanched and white, Billy Dan shot her, and shot her, until the gun was empty again.
    Daddy laughed for all the world to hear. "I guess I'll have to finish the job for you, Billy Dan." He took the shovel, and battered her head into the ground. His laughter crackled louder than the pounding whacks from the shovel.
    Did she still whimper? I know it was so for I heard her piteous cries over and over again. The gasp was in her, but it shuddered low. Then at last she was still even when the shovel pounded her head deeper into the dirt.
    Billy Dan was sick, his eyes were real hard and mean, the gun dangled loose like a glob of blood about to drip from his limbered hand. Daddy took the weapon back. A huge triumphant grin crimped his lips as he looked at Mama and brayed: "Now, that's what I call a MAN!"
    Uncle Chalk put his arm around Billy Dan at the waist and drew him close. "I'm proud of you," he said. "I didn't think you'd ever make me proud of you, but now you have. You're a man, Son!"
    JewLee laid there, a sodden mass. Daddy kicked her hard in the tail with his toe, then told me to haul her off.
    I wouldn't do it. I refused by not moving. Everybody laughed at the weakness displayed there inside of me. Daddy's eyes got real hard and his teeth cranked shut. "Haul her off," he barked again.
    His voice was rising in that old dangerous way that said all hell was about to come loose and I could almost see the shovel rising in his hands.
    So of course I just ducked my head like always and dragged her off.

Stupid dog.

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