Byron found the dog\u2019s carcass laid out on the black mud of the salt marsh, just behind a row of palms and within sight of the community dock. It wasn\u2019t a neighborhood dog. The breed was wrong. Something strange. Off color.<\/p>\n
The body was short with square, well-muscled shoulders. The stomach was white with spots, each one distended now like tattoos on a pregnant belly. The fur ran from yellow to brown. Beer cans, crab trap floats and Styrofoam cooler pieces formed a line where the water left them. Ten yards below the high-water mark, the dog lay alone on the dried and cracked mud.<\/p>\n
It didn\u2019t come in on the tide, Byron thought. It was brought here. There were no footprints, but the mud was hard and washed by the sea.<\/p>\n
The dog\u2019s eyes were open, the lids and ball of one socket pecked and pulled away. There was a hole ripped into the lower abdomen. Buzzards. Something must have scared them away, or maybe the tide had come in and covered the body. He poked at the dog with a length of palm frond. The hair was stiff with salt, and the flesh beneath did not give easily. The whole of it rocked when he pushed harder with the stick.<\/p>\n
Byron examined the tan pads of the dog\u2019s feet, which were clean. He pulled the pads apart and felt the soft place between them, like he did with his dogs at home. His parents would not have approved. There was a gallon-sized Purell on his kitchen table, and the family wiped to their elbows at meals or in passing.<\/p>\n
The smell of the carcass was enough to wrinkle Byron\u2019s nose. Some of the dog smell, dusty and warm, still clung to the hide, though decay rose from the wounds. It might have been a good dog, he decided. The ears were kind\u2014drooping and soft. The teeth were sharp and clean. He guessed it was young.<\/p>\n
Byron would be sixteen in two weeks. For his birthday, he had asked for a nylon dragon kite and a Casio calculator watch. The kite, he wanted to fly in the open lot beside his house. The watch, he wanted to impress his neighbor Mary, who wore hers every day. Mary had not been at school today, but the pollen streaked Lexus in her driveway hinted that she was home, and she knew Byron would be here.<\/p>\n
He was left alone in the evenings, his parents working late. After the bus dropped him off, he would often walk the dry-muds of the marsh\u2014his book bag hung on the jagged bark of a palm tree, and a palm frond sword in his hand to poke and prod at whatever the water left. Mary often came with him; though, it had been three days since Byron had seen her last. Three days since her father had been arrested. He had killed a man.<\/p>\n
The dead man was a lover. There had been no struggle and no chase. After it was done, Mary\u2019s father, Phillip, sat in the garage and waited for the police to arrive, while Mary\u2019s mother, Beth, sobbed into the kitchen phone to the 9-1-1 dispatcher then fled to a neighbor\u2019s house\u2014the Mitchel\u2019s. Phillip sat in the garage and smoked. It was said that five cruisers came\u2014flashing and parked front-to-back like railcars on a model train that bent around Mary\u2019s U-shaped driveway. It was just after school, and not many in the neighborhood were home.<\/p>\n
When the deputy sheriff arrived, Paul Mitchel, who played tennis with Byron\u2019s father, said that Phillip \u201cwalked right out to the deputy with his hands up. With his hands up and a cigarette still in his mouth.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cDid they find the gun?\u201d Byron\u2019s father asked, his fist wrapped in Lucy\u2019s leash. Byron held Tomcat at a good heel, while his mother held Rory, the Bichon, in her arms. The whole family walked together.<\/p>\n
\u201cHell no. And I heard from the Deputy that Phil hasn\u2019t said nothin but \u2018lawyer\u2019 since they brought him in.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mary was not at school the next day, or yesterday, or today. Byron was not surprised by Mary\u2019s absence, but he was curious about where she had been during the killing. It had been a Tuesday. Mary and Byron had ridden home together on the bus and walked the marsh. They had found, among other things that day, two pieces of good, green sea-glass, smooth and glossy, and then they had gone home.<\/p>\n
She must have been in the house when it happened, Byron thought, noticing now that the dog\u2019s toenails were neatly trimmed.<\/p>\n
The lover had been a man called Babe. Whatever his real name was, no one used it. For over a year now, his truck had been appearing outside Mary\u2019s house\u2014sometimes for days at a time. At the neighborhood oyster roast, everyone gossiped about what he did for work. Someone heard he built dog boxes and shipped them all over the country. Another heard he welded submarines at King\u2019s Bay. \u201cA scuba welder,\u201d Mrs. Stanley confirmed with a nod. \u201cVery skilled. I\u2019ve seen the tanks.\u201d Phillip\u2019s truck was a rarity. He came some weekends to take Mary to lunch, or maybe a show. On those days, Babe was on the job.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe was a real nice guy,\u201d Paul Mitchel told Byron\u2019s father. \u201cA nice guy who never hurt anybody. Helped me put up my Christmas lights this year. On a ladder.\u201d<\/p>\n
Once, Babe took Beth out on a kayak. Byron and Mary had watched the adults from the community dock as the boat wound its way through the marsh and out to a dry-land patch. The kayak laid there beached until dark.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey\u2019re fucking,\u201d Mary had said.<\/p>\n
Byron stayed for dinner at Mary\u2019s that night. Babe boiled pasta and toasted garlic bread and sang Tim McGraw, while Mary\u2019s mother chopped vegetables and hummed along. Mary looked baby blue daggers at everyone in the room\u2014chew, chew, scowl. Byron was hooked.<\/p>\n
\u201cByron?\u201d Mary\u2019s voice called from the palm brush-forest. A second later, she broke through the wood line and began walking towards Byron and the dog. Her stringy blond hair was down today and hung all the way to her waist, fine as silk and flying all about her face. Her watch, he saw, was gone.<\/p>\n
Mary was a year younger than Byron. Only fourteen. She was a pretty girl, he thought\u2014had always thought. Even if her skin was so white you could see the blue of her veins, especially around the tops of her hips, she was a pretty girl.<\/p>\n
Byron had kissed her once two years ago. She had asked him not to do it again.<\/p>\n
\u201cGross, huh?\u201d Mary said, crouching next to Byron and the dog.<\/p>\n
\u201cAre you okay?\u201d Byron asked. \u201cI heard.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m fine. Dad\u2019s in jail.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIs your mom okay?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYeah. I was in the house when it happened. At the top of the stairs.\u201d<\/p>\n
Byron threw his palm frond sword into the mud flat; the blade sang whiffle notes in the air.<\/p>\n
\u201cGosh,\u201d he said after some time.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m glad he\u2019s dead,\u201d Mary said.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhy?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cHe was gross. Always kissing on Mom. Feeling her legs when I was around.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYeah.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cDad shot him here,\u201d Mary pointed to a place an inch above her right eye. \u201cThe bullet went through and into the wall. The cops pulled it out.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat happened to the gun?\u201d<\/p>\n
Mary smiled. Her teeth were white as soap, and thin. Byron could almost see through her two front ones. He could see the grooves in the enamel, and the serrations on their flat, razor edges.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t know.\u201d<\/p>\n
Bryon\u2019s father believed that Phillip had thrown the gun into the river. His mother believed he had hidden it in the house. \u201cHe was a carpenter,\u201d Byron\u2019s mother said. \u201cThat whole house has secret drawers and hidden closets.\u201d If there were secret closets in Mary\u2019s house, Byron hadn\u2019t seen them.<\/p>\n
He began to draw a line in the mud with the toe of his sneaker, circling the dog. He wished he had not thrown the stick.<\/p>\n
\u201cI took the gun. When Dad left, and Mom ran away.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWhy?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI still have it,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Mary walked back to the wood line, and Byron followed, feeling like he was walking on the moon, his knees rubbery and loose.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe kept trying to get her on his side. He kept trying to be all sweet, and Mom bought it. It was so annoying,\u201d Mary said absently, digging in the growth of an azalea until she pulled out the gun.<\/p>\n
It was a small, black revolver with a wooden handle. The kind a detective might carry, or an old city cop. Byron\u2019s grandfather had been a police officer in Detroit. His service gun was framed in Bryon\u2019s father\u2019s office. It was almost the same.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhy did you take it?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cBecause I needed it. I\u2019ll bury it. No one will know.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYeah.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mary walked back to the dog. \u201cBut Babe was trying to get sweet and brought this dog to our house. Adopted it. Made Mom name it,\u201d she said and kicked at the dead dog\u2019s spotted belly.<\/p>\n
\u201cShe called it Ox. Like the story.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cBabe and the Blue Ox. Like it was some kind of joke.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cOh.\u201d Byron\u2019s hands were sweating and sticking together. He rubbed them on his jeans.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo when they were all gone, I took the gun and the dog out here.\u201d Mary poked at the dog\u2019s empty eye socket with the barrel of the gun. \u201cBang.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWhy?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cDon\u2019t be mad at me.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mary took a couple of crow hops on the mud flat, like she was going to throw the gun, but then she stopped. She walked back to Byron and the dog.<\/p>\n
\u201cI should bury it, right? The mud will eat it up. The salt too.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cMaybe.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cDad will be in jail for just ten years, I think. It was in hot blood.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t know.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cHe was really mad. I called him about the dog.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYeah.\u201d Byron\u2019s head felt light. He wished he cared where Mary\u2019s watch was. He wished, more than anything, that the gun and Mary and the dog were not real. That they were sea trash and dead gulls, laid up on the tide line and rotting.<\/p>\n
\u201cDo you want to shoot it? There\u2019s still bullets. I only used two.\u201d Mary held the gun out to Byron.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t want to.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIf you don\u2019t, it\u2019s because you\u2019ll tell,\u201d she said. Like it was a fact, and she had known all along what his answer was going to be.<\/p>\n
\u201cI won\u2019t tell.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYou might.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI won\u2019t.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cHave you ever shot anything before?\u201d She aimed the gun at Byron\u2019s foot, and watched him step back.<\/p>\n
\u201cStop that. And no.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYou\u2019re pretty afraid, huh?\u201d She smiled that too-thin-tooth smile at him again, and pulled the hammer of the revolver back, pulled it with her whole left hand, until it clicked and held fast.<\/p>\n
\u201cNo. It\u2019s just not safe. Someone will hear it.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cShoot the dog.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t want to.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYou can kiss me again.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s okay.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mary dug in her pocket.<\/p>\n
Byron watched the gun in her other hand, the barrel swinging all over, and wondered who this girl was that had found him on the marsh. There was something different about her\u2014something old broken or something new grown. The way she stood close to him. The way she hovered around the dog, and needed to hurt it\u2014to mangle it. Mary had always been strong willed, but she also cried for roadkill. In the summers, she and Byron pulled turtles from swimming pools. They watched birds. For an entire day, they followed a cat that came off a boat in the marina, trying to feed it. To pet it. Through boat yards and up trees and under trailers, they followed that cat, and Mary had never asked Byron to kiss her.<\/p>\n
Mary\u2019s hand came out of her pocket with a piece of gum. She popped it into her mouth.<\/p>\n
\u201cOne kiss. One shot.\u201d She held out the gun to Byron again, the barrel pointing at his stomach.<\/p>\n
Byron stepped close to her and took the gun. He aimed it at the dog, at the ugly hole Mary had already shot into its face. Just one, he thought. Then I can go home. Throw the gun in the river and go home.<\/p>\n
\u201cFirst,\u201d Mary said and reached her arm around Byron\u2019s waist. She grabbed at his skinny buttocks and pulled him close until his hips touched her own, their foreheads bumping gently. Mary matched her lips to Byron\u2019s, and, even as he felt the weight of the gun in his hand, he felt the touch of her tongue on his, the hard muscle of it knocking around the inside of his mouth. Her eyes were open and shocking blue. It was his second kiss, and it was good, he thought. Even with the dog and the teeth and the gun, it was good.<\/p>\n
Sweat rolled into Byron\u2019s eye and burned until he squeezed it shut. His hands felt miles away, and he wondered if there was a rock buried in the mud that might send the shot into his own face instead of the dog\u2019s. He pulled the trigger, and the gun kicked in his hand. The report drove a black bird from an oak. An egret glared from across the marsh.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou missed,\u201d Mary said.<\/p>\n
Byron opened his eyes. There was a clean hole in the mud just below the dog\u2019s head. It might have been a fiddler crab\u2019s home\u2014one of millions. Relief and nausea rolled through him, his shoulders sagged, and still Mary held him close with her fingers hooked through the belt loops of his jeans.<\/p>\n
\u201cYeah,\u201d he said. Blood rang in his temples. He tried to pull away from Mary, but she held him close.<\/p>\n
\u201cOne more,\u201d she said, her breath brushing Byron\u2019s cheek. She had a light, sweet smell. \u201cJust one.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t want to.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI was waiting for you to come out here,\u201d she said softly, still holding on to his pants and pulling him now, just a little, so that he had to step with her towards the dog. Like a dance. \u201cI heard the bus and waited for you.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cMary.\u201d<\/p>\n
She kissed him again, sucking at his lower lip.<\/p>\n
\u201cShoot it this time. With your eyes open,\u201d she said. She reached for the pistol in his hand. She cocked it roughly. She wrapped her hand around his and the handle of the gun.<\/p>\n
She smelled like honey. Honey and that gum.<\/p>\n
\u201cWait,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cHow do you feel?\u201d she asked. She bent at the knees, pulling Byron by the hand until the pistol pressed against the dog\u2019s bloated side. The smell of the dog interlaced with the smell of Mary; it was sugary-sick.<\/p>\n
\u201cWait,\u201d Byron said. He tried to pull away again and could not.<\/p>\n
Mary leaned in to kiss him once more. Her finger snaked over his to the trigger.<\/p>\n
\u201cShh,\u201d she breathed.<\/p>\n
\u201cNo,\u201d Byron said and shoved her away. He leveled the gun at the horizon and fired. He saw there was a boat behind the sights, miles away and cutting its way across the sound. He worked the pistol\u2019s action and fired two more times before he dropped the pistol on the mud next to the dog.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou didn\u2019t have to waste them all,\u201d Mary said.<\/p>\n
\u201cShut up.\u201d<\/p>\n
She watched him closely.<\/p>\n
Byron looked back at the dog and imagined Mary leading it out, her spindly hand wrapped beneath its collar, to the mud to be shot and left. Somehow, the leaving seemed worse. He stooped and dug his arms under carcass until he had the thing secure against his body. He lifted the dog.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat are you doing?\u201d Mary asked.<\/p>\n
\u201cTake the gun.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mary picked up the gun and followed Byron across the marsh to the community dock. At the dock, she threw the pistol into the water.<\/p>\n
Byron turned with the dog and saw that he and Mary were alone. Palms leaned out over the water from the mud bank behind them, as if straining to get a closer look, their root-ball feet clinging to the shore. Dead trees lay snaking and grey just under the surface, all reaching out to the dock where Mary and Byron stood. Soon, they would break away and float out with the tide, or else sink to the bottom and rot. Some of them were shade trees and some of them beanpoles and all of them were doomed from their first sprout to drown in the Lincoln River. A hard wind blew in off the sound and tore a few fronds from the palm trees, picking them up like dandelion spores and dropping them where it pleased.<\/p>\n
Byron held the dog over the water. \u201cSay something nice about it,\u201d he told Mary.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat?\u201d She said from behind him.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe dog.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mary was silent.<\/p>\n
\u201cWas it friendly?\u201d he asked.<\/p>\n
\u201cYeah.\u201d<\/p>\n
A man shouted from somewhere on the land above the dock. Someone coming to investigate the shots.<\/p>\n
\u201cByron,\u201d Mary said.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd it was named Ox?\u201d Byron continued.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe don\u2019t have time.\u201d Mary grasped at Byron\u2019s sleeve.<\/p>\n
\u201cWas it a good dog?\u201d he asked.<\/p>\n
\u201cYes.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cGood.\u201d Byron let the dog fall into the river. From behind him, he heard the ringing of Mary\u2019s shoes on the steel ramp of the community dock. The dog bobbed for a while and then sunk away. Byron heard the shouting of men on the land above him, and then he heard nothing at all.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
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