“It’s fine by me. My dog is a male, too.”

“Jesus. Hud always goes after the ladies.”

“Your dog is bisexual,” Hank said, drawing two warmish beers from the pockets of his capacious hunting coat. “Or maybe today he’s discovered he’s a fagola.”

“I don’t get it.” Warlock drank deeply from the warm beer, feeling a smidgin of insult, but also the inherent advantage of Hank carrying a shotgun.

“There’s nothing to get. So your dog’s a fag. So what? Skiiers are fags. So are tennis players. So are politicians. So are most joggers.”

“See here …”

“No, see here. This is my land and your dog is raping my dog. I could have him thrown in jail.”

“I wonder if there are many prosecuted cases of dog rape.” Warlock sensed and was warming to Hank’s irrational jests.

“It’s not really my land. I need a cold beer.”

They ended up traveling cross-country to Hank’s house, broiling two grouse which they basted with lemon, butter and thyme. And deer hunting with Clete a few weeks later substantiated the alliance based on Hank’s interest in sporting art. They shot an illegal doe and ate a great deal of it at Clete’s, washed down with his favorite wine, which was whiskey. Warlock brought home a hindquarter to Diana, who loved venison. She was pleased with this new outside interest of Warlock’s, having since youth despised the sensation of clinging.

The day before Thanksgiving he came down with a horrid form of the flu that put both ends of his feverish body into action. He wept with disappointment in the toilet. Their bags were packed for the annual trip to Diana’s father’s farm outside of Eaton Rapids: the trip, never missed in nearly ten years of marriage, was to be an agreed upon parole from the rigors of diet. For days he imagined and remembered the bounty of her parents’ table and the merriment of children and the gaggle of grandchildren. He had even bought a new suit, and loved the idea of secretively referring to his new prosperity to her father and brothers who, after a period of suspicious probation, had enjoyed Warlock. After all, Little D., as they called her, was very happy and that was the main thing.

“Maybe I should stay with you, darling,” Diana said through the door.

“Nothing doing. A sick dog wants to be alone.” Hearing the front door click brought a subdued sob of self-pity, with nauseating turkey and ham whirling behind his clenched eyes. He dozed on the toilet rug, dreaming that the forbidden herring he had eaten were herring that had witnessed the Titanic coming down through the water, with drowning bodies of her passengers following, tumbling end over end in tuxedoes and gowns. Warlock answered the phone on the seventeenth audible ring.

Chapter 31