He grinned after the exertion—a prosperous man grown thick about the middle. But his middle was still hard. At fifty-four, he could still lift a grown man over his head, split half a cord of blackjack before breakfast, outshoot any man half his age.

He was alone today. His wife, Mary, was at Blowing Rock, in the mountains, with his three grown daughters. Usually, she went there only in summer, but this season, the heat had lasted so long. She’d be back within the week.

His boy, Bill Junior, was building a hydroelectric dam in Mexico. He’d passed through in June, back from a stint in Sault Sainte Marie. He was an alert boy, sharp as flint, good head for numbers. Engineer. Going to make his mark in this world. Hell, only twenty-six, and the boy had already been around the world—built a plant for Carbide Manufacturing in Sydney, Australia, then traveled home via Borneo, Sumatra, China, Japan, Ceylon, London, Berlin, Rome, Paris, and Niagara Falls.

Kenan used to sit up nights in his study, matching the postmarks of his son’s letters to the globe—his thick finger carefully tracing out the boy’s whereabouts, making it actual. It wasn’t real until he could feel it under his hands. Once he had his hands on a thing, he had it for sure.

The boy got his talent for numbers from the old man. Kenan had been on the Board of Audit and Finance till this Fusionist crowd got in down at city hall. Damned meddling Governor Russell. No matter—he had plenty to keep him busy. He wasn’t a wealthy man, but he had ample money in the bank. He had good credit and a good name, and, of the two, he valued the name more.

He walked between the kitchen—a separate outbuilding—and the main house, down the driveway to a woodshed crammed full of scrub oak sawed and split into stove-sized sticks. He’d left a little niche just inside the door. Dandy, the family Labrador retriever, had whelped nine pups night before last. Six had survived. He stepped into the shed and listened: they were chirruping like little birds. He grinned. God, he loved dogs. They were so uncomplicatedly loyal, so trusting. They craved affection so.

He hunkered over the wooden soapbox he had lined with castoff flannel shirts. Dandy lay on her side, fat with milk.

“How you doing today, little mother? Hey?” She licked his hand automatically. Her eyes were bright and her nose cold—she was doing just fine. The five black pups, fuzzy as bear cubs, jostled for places at the teats. They nestled in close, eyes closed, paws pressed on either side of a teat, suckling.