“Was he a young fella?” Siggy spat a brown stream into the fire.

“Never saw his face. What I remember is he tensed up. You know like you do if you think someone’s going to hit you.” Finn scrunched his head into his shoulders to demonstrate. “Like this, you know.”

“He had time to do that?” Siggy said.

“Sure, he had time to write his last will and testament. Didn’t hit him until the fourth or fifth shot.”

Sal cut in. “You still think about it, Finn?”

Finn nodded. “Had to stop going to the swimming hole of a summer. You know when the kids come out of the water and they’re cold and their mum puts a towel around them, and they do that.” Trembling, he turtled his head into his shoulders. “Always puts me in mind of it.”

“There we go,” Bennet declared conclusively, leaning back. “He may never have sheathed his shiv, but he’s the only one of you here got the stones to kill anyone.”

Otto pointed at Magnus. “What about this fella? Near peed his pants when we give him the rifle to kill that coon.”

Siggy laughed. “Man alive, that coon was all but wearing that barrel.”

“It moved,” Magnus protested. “Cunning creature.”

“You was panting like a hound in heat,” Otto said. “Never seen anyone shake that much.”

Smiling sheepishly, Magnus leaned in a little as if to reveal a secret. “I wanted to tear it apart with my bare hands.” He seemed amazed at himself. “Quite a feeling. I actually imagined biting it.” He glanced hopefully at Siggy. “It’s astonishing what a powerful thirst such vigorous activity provokes.”

Siggy threw Magnus another beer. Magnus, for all his seeming frailty, snatched it out of the air quick as a bat, sucked down the beer with one tip of his head, and dropped the can with a small pile of others at his feet.

Sal put up his hand as if he were a child in school. “I almost kill someone. Beat him.” He raised his fist and then shook it as if it contained dice. “In Atessa, a boy he threw my new shoes on the roof of the church.” The men waited for the rest of the story, but Sal suddenly changed it, his voice becoming theatrically loud. “In Chicago, some bastard he says something to my wife. I beat his brains to shit.”

“Yessir,” Otto murmured, digging between his feet with the knife. “No one’s going to touch Sal’s wife when Sal’s around.”

“Whassat mean, eh?” Sal retorted. “You can’t even keep your wife.”

“My wife’s looking after her sick mom.”

“That’s what she tells you, eh? Cafone.”

“Anyone interested in my wife’s goddamn welcome to her. Anyone’s interested in your wife—”

“Shut the fuck up,” Bennet said.