And she tells him. About the fight, about seeing John Elvis and the Skank and the cop, about Bodie and Bird and how the Cooch tranquilized her and then him. About the dog crunching the bones in Bodie’s hand, rending the flesh. Turning it to a glove filled with ground meat.

“That dog’s evil,” Shane says.

The dog pants and whines in response.

“He seems all right,” she says. “I think he saved my life, actually.”

She clumsily pets him. Meaning, she taps him on the head with her open palm. Clumsy or no, the dog seems to like it and leans into her, eyes closed, a sincere moment of canine bliss.

“So he belongs to who now?”

“Ellis Wayman,” she says. “Big sumbitch. They call him the Mountain Man, though whether that’s because he’s from the mountains or big like one, I dunno. Maybe both.”

“You have to give the dog back.”

“I can’t do that.”

“What?”

“This dog saved my life, Shane. What, I’m supposed to repay him by sending him back to that place? I saw just one fight and it was the most miserable thing ever. All the blood in the dirt. Both animals in pain. I can’t do it. Won’t do it. He’s not my dog, but he’s not gonna be theirs, either.”

“He’s gonna want that dog back.”

“I know.” Worry fills her up—gallons of spoiled milk in all her empty spaces. “I don’t know what to do.”

“Do you think he’ll come for you?”

She shrugs and takes a seat. “Maybe him. Maybe Bodie.” A sudden realization strikes her: “Aw, dang, and those other Nazi assholes saw me, too. That’s not good, Shane.”

They sit quiet for a while. The afternoon sun sinks, sliding like a plump egg yolk toward the edge of a tilted pan.

The dog leans his head on her knee. She scratches his ear. He whines a happy whine.

“You’re not my dog,” she tells him, “so don’t get used to this.”

He pokes her with his nose.

Soon Shane says, “Those Nazis. They were the same ones who messed with Chris.”

“Yeah.”

“Do you think they did it?”

She knows what he means. Chris. The hanging.

Atlanta offers a small nod.

Shane sits up straight. “That means this whole thing with the dogs is starting to meet up with Chris’s murder.”

“Yeah, I guess it is.”

“That’s not good.”

“No. It ain’t.”

Takes a while, but Shane finally asks: “Are you going to make them pay, too? Way you made those guys, Birdie and Bodie, pay?”

She exhales, hoping the breath will make this feeling go away, but it doesn’t.