It’s late when Jo pulls up to his house, the road pitch-black aside from the headlights. Whose truck is that? Leni asks, craning to look at the SUV in the driveway. Xie frowns. I don’t know. Ruh-roh, Jo says, eyebrows high, your dad have a hot date over? A hot date with a gun rack? Xie stares at the SUV, knee jumping. We can go in with you, Leni offers. No one, aside from FKK, has ever been in his house. No, it’s fine. See you guys tomorrow. He gets out of the car, walks up the path. In the living room Erik on the couch, a stranger beside him. Baseball cap, flannel shirt. Filthy jeans. Hey, Erik says. You’re home. Yeah. Nearly a dozen bottles open on the table. This is Jason. From work. Jason lifts his hand; Xie echoes the gesture. He goes into the kitchen. Two bowls in the sink. That your soup I just ate? Jason calls. Pretty damn good. Thanks, Xie replies. He takes a slice of bread from the box, folds it over a banana, walks back through the living room. Jason leaning for the remote on the table, You mind if I change the channel? Erik waving his hand, eyes half-mast. Xie has not seen his father drunk in a long time. Go right ahead. On the screen: some woods. A man and a boy in yellow jackets. The man saying, Steady now. Smooth shift of gun from side to shoulder, the boy turning his head to sight the shape staring straight at the camera. It’s so quick. Shit, Erik says. Jason whistles. That’s a beauty. Xie out the back door, screen slamming, over the garden fence, cold slosh through the stream. Feet thrashing through the leaves. Windless. Go all the way to the east end of the woods, where the stream weaves beneath the bridge. The road amputating the breast of the woods, a thick bar of trash lining the concrete where it meets the dirt. Stopping near to scream. Scream and scream and scream. The mink and the library and MacAdams and his mother on the phone and Jo’s big house and the men in the strip mall and the scar on Nova’s face and the vanished moss and the blister on his palm and the way the body folded. The head hitting a stone. The sound of the head hitting. The boy lowering the gun to look. So serious. Pale face. Tentative smile. The legs going out. The eyes rolling back. The stranger inside his house. His own father letting him in. Not knowing better. The buck’s head hitting the dirt. You got ’im. Mist of blood in the air. You did good, son. You did so good.