He couldn’t see nothing without his glasses, his eyes filling with water. Royce kept the shotgun up in his arms, scanning the cleared land and the edge of the woods. There weren’t many places to hide. Behind his truck, maybe, or beyond to his work shed. As he took one step in front of the other, slow and easy, everything looked fuzzy and distorted like some old black-and-white movie. He got to thinking maybe he didn’t see nothing at all. Maybe that crazy mix of the Fighting Cock and watching that old episode of Gunsmoke had messed up his goddamn mind. His dogs trailed behind him as he passed by the old truck, peeking under the chassis, and then heading out to the shed where he kept his mower and some old tools.

A damn river of mud and shit was eroding his red clay hill, running over his drive and down to the main road. He could feel the wetness soaking into his leather boots as he got to the little tin shed and cut on the lights. The wind whipped the old lamp to and fro, Royce having to squint into the darkness past the heaps of junk he’d collected over the years. Used-up mower blades, empty oil cartons, and busted-up furniture.

He couldn’t see nothing and walked on out of the shed, favoring his left leg, the arthritis kicking up in his right, that leg dragging behind him as he got back to the porch. Royce saw the goddamn door was wide open and those dogs were nowhere to be found, probably already ate up his leftover chicken and greens, maybe getting to some of the homemade jerky old Tom Roberts had given him for Christmas. Fucking dogs. Ain’t got a lick of sense or no goddamn manners.

Royce left the door open and called out for his hounds, hearing some shuffling in the kitchen. He lay the shotgun on the La-Z-Boy and hobbled on back there in the dark, the power having gone out while he had been outside. There was a breaker box above the commode that maybe he could fiddle with, but he knew he was probably shit out of luck. No more dinner. No more Gunsmoke. No more Miss Kitty, with her pretty red hair and high-dollar crotch waffle.

“Git,” Royce said, calling out. “Y’all hear me? Git outta there. Leave my supper alone.”

Then he heard the dogs outside, baying and barking, tracking some kind of animal out into the woods. He stood there in the kitchen, listening, reaching around the table for his supper, when he looked up and saw the shadow of a man before him.

“If you come to rob me, I don’t got shit but the television,” Royce said to the shadow. “And it’s busted most of the time.”

The shadow didn’t talk back, Royce now knowing he had seen the man outside his window.