undergrowth and it was cool on the hottest days and they three lay against the trunk of a hemlock wider than two beds are long, with the breeze high in the tops and the cool light that came in patches, and Billy said:
“You want Trudy again?”
“You want to?”
“Un Huh.”
“Come on.”
“No, here.”
“But Billy—”
“I no mind Billy. He my brother.”
Then afterwards they sat, the three of them, listening for a black squirrel that was in the top branches where they could not see him. They were waiting for him to bark again because when he barked he would jerk his tail and Nick would shoot where he saw any movement. His father gave him only three cartridges a day to hunt with and he had a single-barrel twenty-gauge shotgun with a very long barrel.
“Son of a bitch never move,” Billy said.
“You shoot, Nickie. Scare him. We see him jump. Shoot him again,” Trudy said. It was a long speech for her.
“I’ve only got two shells,” Nick said.
“Son of a bitch,” said Billy.
They sat against the tree and were quiet. Nick was feeling hollow and happy.
“Eddie says he going to come some night sleep in bed with you sister Dorothy.”
“What?”
“He said.”
Trudy nodded.
“That’s all he want do,” she said. Eddie was their older half-brother. He was seventeen.
“If Eddie Gilby ever comes at night and even speaks to Dorothy you know what I’d do to him? I’d kill him like this.” Nick cocked the gun and hardly taking aim pulled the trigger,
