“I have to get home,” I said. “The mayor of Dunleith is coming to see my dad. My father is a good friend of the mayor’s.”

“She’s all right,” Charles William said. “I’m taking care of her.” He led me over to a circle about ten feet in circumference. Men were gathered around it in groups of two and three. On one side a man was squatting, holding a small bird that was trying to peck his hand. The bird’s beak was taped with adhesive tape and its feet were tied. The man held the bird with one hand and stroked its head with the other. On the opposite side of the circle a second man had a bird upside down and someone was tying something onto its feet. They were little knives, very small two-edged razor-sharp knives. Even from a distance of several feet and between the backs of the onlookers I could see the tiny glints of steel in the lantern light. I looked away. All around it was dark.

Dark of the moon. July twenty-fifth. I wanted to turn and run, but I could not move. I was transfixed. I thought that at any moment a rooster would escape and come flying at me, cutting my face to ribbons with his deadly legs. I backed away. Charles William put his arm around me and pulled me to his side again. “Don’t be scared, Dee. They won’t hurt you. They want to kill each other.”

“How will they stop them? Who will catch them with those things on their legs?”

“Nobody wants to catch them,” Winston said. “It’s a fight.”

We were joined by a man who turned out to be Junior and the story of Charles William’s luck with the punchboard had to be told and exclaimed over. Junior was still wearing his cape. He had it rolled back from his shoulders. The hood fell down his back like a crumpled camellia. Keep away from me, voodoo and witch, I began reciting. Steer my path from the jailhouse gate. “I think we ought to go now,” I said, hanging tighter and tighter onto Charles William’s arm. “I need to get on home.”

“Not yet, Dee. They’re about to start.” The cock owner had finished arming the second bird. A man stepped into the ring and began to announce the rules. “No poking the birds from the sidelines. No loud yelling. Stand back. Stay back behind the circle. Everybody ready? Okay, on three. One, two, three.” The cocks were released and began to circle. Suddenly, one spread its wings and flew at the other. They met in the middle. The crowd moved back. “I’m going,” I said. “I’m not watching this.”