She crossed the clearing without looking at the cob at the other end, tail swishing, the boy beside him. Under the porch roof in a nest, chicks’ small heads bobbed up. Swallows. The door was propped open with a rusted gas can. She lifted it. Five gallons, mostly full. There was a dirty rag stuffed in the spout. The dog barked at the cob and boy. The dog had clearly arrived at some plan. The can had clearly once been kicked by a mule. The scent of gas was very strong despite the rag. There was no floor under the porch, just dirt, bits of eggshell. The bottom logs were rotting. Inside, the floor was wide pine with the huge old table. The cob nickered to her but she was not ready and the human was boss so he’d have to wait. The room was smaller than her mind had made it. The logs were gray. She’d have liked to have known the red dog’s plan, the scheme as to the cob and boy. How to get it? The cob nickered again. The red dog barked off the porch. She could hear his hackles up. No need to see the dog at all. The dog’s fur had gold too, not just brown.

A raven’s nest had fallen behind the woodstove. The nest was huge, a pick-up stick construction of blackened sticks. Its fall, to the raven, must have been catastrophic. Mouse shit was scattered amid the cans knocked over and rolled about below the table. A dog should get tired of barking but, to be fair, it’s his only job. The grain of the tabletop was stained from long-dried blood and cabbage heads split by cleavers. She’d fucked someone on a table once. He’d flung his coat down for her. The entrancement of secrets. On this table, a man had lain for stitches, had been horsing around with some slut, his boot run through by a forgotten nail, ripped his foot wide open after he fucked her. The table was pine. A mallet had been used to drive in pegs and left prints at joints. Babies had probably been born on this table. Dan had always wanted babies. Who knew if it was true. No one living could say they saw a baby born here. The red dog was going crazy off the porch now, barking so hard his paws came off the ground.

Relax, she might say to him. Can’t stop the future.

She took a catnap on the cot as the dog barked at whatever that strange boy was doing with her cob. She blocked the message the red dog was sending her, another sin. Can’t change the world. Accept the world with all its flaws. The world is what it is, take a catnap.