Foster walked up to stand before him. He was as close as he had been to the man. He reached over with his left boot and tapped the cane-tip. “The worst thing I can think of. Is to leave you just the way you are.”

“Don’t do it.”

“Tell you what,” Foster said. “I’ll see you later.” And stepped around the man, aiming for the swinging kitchen door.

Mebane wracked, “Come on back here.”

Foster, already in the kitchen, straight for the back door, heard some crashing in the room behind him. Some flailing, some thing breaking. Breaking apart as it fell.

He went across the yard with his head bent down, the rain striking hard his humped back. He opened the door of the cabin but the dogs failed to pour out as he expected. He stepped up inside, shaking the water off his head. The dogs were up on the bed, one either side of Daphne. Who sat crosslegged, her hair in wet matted ropes, peeled away from her face, the L. C. Smith held over her lap.

“Jesus Christ,” he said and stepped forward to take the shotgun up from her, her hands coming off it and held up a moment in the air after it. He broke it open and drew out the two shells and put them in his trouser pocket and snapped the gun to and leaned it against the wall. Her eyes wide upon him, her face damp with rain from her hair. He said, “What’re you doing?”

“I got scared,” she said. “I thought something happened to you.”

“I’m all fucked up,” he said.

She stood off the bed. In heavy dark denim jeans too big for her belted high on her waist with four-inch cuffs over rough old boots also too big, a flannel shirt buttoned tight to her throat. The clothes splotched with rain, the boots rimed with red gumbo mud. She stood before him, not too close. When she stood the young dog Glow also rose up, sitting on the bed, watching. Daphne said, “When you didn’t show up last night I woke up this morning feeling something was wrong. I called Uncle Lex on the telephone and he didn’t sound right to me, sounded giddy and worked up, kept telling me everything was fine. The way a person does when it’s not. There wasn’t any way to get into town so I set off walking. I got a ride pretty quick.”

“What were you up to with my shotgun?” Feeling offkey. He wanted to be alone. Yet there she was. Her lips parted, her breath coming onto him a little sour. Her fear, he thought.