Daryl squirmed on the ground. He flailed and turned and rolled over, and on his knees he pushed himself up so he was on all fours. Dirt and leaves stuck to his back. “I home,” Daryl said directly to the ground. “I home.”

Fellis kicked him in the side. Down. Then again. Daryl’s body may not have deserved it, but Daryl did. Fellis kept kicking and I watched the trees rock in a wind.

“Piece of shit,” Fellis said.

Finally, I told Fellis to stop. But he wouldn’t. He kicked and kicked and kicked at Daryl’s side and stomach and at his head. Once again, Daryl’s body tensed and he screeched and cried. Fellis couldn’t see that Daryl’s body was crying out for help. Something that was Daryl, something that rarely communicated, was signing to me in a language I didn’t know, like an earthquake speaking for the earth.

Fellis tired of kicking him and set the orange bucket upright. He spat on Daryl, sat, and wiped the sweat from his forehead.

Daryl was barely breathing. A clump of wet dirt clung to his face, and the brownness of the earth’s soil so close to his mouth and nose nauseated me.

“You deserve much worse than this,” Fellis said. “You ever come near my family again—especially my cousin—and I’ll set you on fire.”

I didn’t doubt it.

Fellis opened his pack of cigarettes but it was empty. He crinkled the soft pack and stuffed it in his pocket.

Crouching down, Fellis reached in Daryl’s pocket and took the pink iPod, and before he stood he slapped Daryl across the face. I didn’t understand Fellis’s anger—the only family I had left wasn’t talking to me—and it wasn’t like Daryl got after Fellis’s little cousin. Sure, the dead crow and love note written in purple was fucked up (tucked it right into her dresser drawer too), but Daryl could have done worse. Maybe that was why Fellis did what he did to Daryl—because Daryl could have done worse, since men can always do worse.

Fellis made for the truck.

“Let’s go,” he said.

“Hold on,” I told him. I felt sick.