Lee realized that no tin of food would use slang, and he realized what the leather strap meant, for its other end, which Ripley now held in his hand, terminated in a length of chain. He shouted “Hey” just as a figure leapt over a hay bale with a hose aimed high, letting loose a jet of flame at Ripley.

Ripley stood stupidly, and as Lee knocked him down to the dirt, he swore the lieutenant was grinning. Fistfuls of dirt, patting him down, rolling him on the ground just to make sure nothing was aflame, good, Lee stood up. “Hey!” said Lee again, and then, pointing his finger at the boy with the flamethrower, “No,” not pleading, but as if reasoning with an irascible child. “Nein,” he said. “Nein,” calmly. The flames died out against the rafters, just as the boy fired off another blast—he aimed at Lee, but since no souvenir from a battlefield more complex than a canteen ever worked properly twice, the hose backed up, leaking oil onto the boy’s uniform. He screamed in a clear, lofty contralto, and frantically beat at himself, panicked. He fumbled with the buckles on his flamethrower, and as he shifted from foot to foot, the weight toppled him over; the heavy metal canister hit the ground. The hose twisted and bucked like a snake, there was a spark, and petroleum fire spat in arcs and waves, touching the sawdust, the hay, the tank, and Lee himself.

It was a quick wash across his chest, leaving a streak of soot, but he didn’t get burned—it had gone by too fast. Oil was squirting across the floor in strings and puddles.

Ripley, on the ground, looked at Lee. “Should we run?” he asked. He still held his pistol, as if it were a vestigial limb.

“Shoot him!” Lee swept both hands through mounds of sawdust, hoping he could blindly find the knife as easily as his knee could find a bedpost in the dark. Ripley stared at him with curiosity. “Your gun,” Lee yelled. “Shoot him.”

Ripley had about one and a half seconds to look doubtful. The boy was crying to himself, “Jetzt! Jetzt! Jetzt!,” and then, with an unveiling motion like pulling a cloth off a picnic table, let the other weapon loose.

Smoke was rising to the rafters, and sunlight shone down through the haze, filtered through the burning straw. Lee’s fingers found the handle of his knife just as he became aware of motion, right here, suspended in the air, something dark and huge and horrible, lobbing toward Lee, something with fangs and wings fluttering on its back. The knife was in Lee’s hand, and pointing, and for the remainder of his long life, he never forgave himself for swinging it upward once, right at the center of the dark, man-sized form that bounded at him.