Why a cat couldn't bite it now, could it, Lester? I ain't got time to mess with you all, the girl said, turning back with a grin and picking up the pan. She cocked her hip and set the pan on it and looked at them. Beyond the little trailer the old man walked against the sky rolling a tire and a ropy column of foul black smoke rose from a burning slagheap of old rubber. Shit, she said. If you'ns ever got any of this you never would be satisfied again. They watched her saunter up the hill toward the house. I'd like to chance it, the man said. Wouldn't you, Lester? Ballard said that he would. THE CONGREGATION AT Sixmile Church would turn all together like a cast of puppets at the opening of the door behind them any time after services had started. When Ballard came in with his hat in his hand and shut the door and sat alone on the rear bench they turned back more slowly. A windy riffle of whispers went among them. The preacher stopped. To justify the silence he poured himself a glass of water from the pitcher on the pulpit and drank and set the glass back and wiped his mouth. Brethren, he went on, a biblical babbling to Ballard who read the notices on the board at the back of the church. This week's offering. Last week's offering. Six dollars and seventy-four cents. The numbers in attendance. A woodpecker hammered at a drainpipe outside and those strung heads listed and turned to the bird for silence. Ballard had a cold and snuffled loudly through the service but nobody expected he would stop if God himself looked back askance so no one looked. IN LATE SUMMER THERE were bass in the creek. Ballard went from pool to pool on the down sun side peering through the bushes. He'd been on a diet of stolen field corn and summer garden stuff for weeks save for the few frogs he'd shot. He knelt in the high grass and spoke to the fish where they stood in the clear water on wimpling fins. Ain't you a fine fat son of a bitch, he said. He fairly loped toward the house. When he came back he had the rifle. He made his way along the creek and eased himself through the sedge and briers. He checked the sun to see it would not be in his eyes, making his way on all fours, the rifle cocked. He peered over the bank. Then he raised up on his knees. Then he stood up. Upstream below the ford Waldrop's cattle stood belly deep in the creek. You sons of bitches, croaked Ballard. The creek was thick red with mud. He brought the rifle up and leveled it and fired. The cattle veered and surged in the red water, their eyes white. One of them made its way toward the bank holding its head at an odd angle. At the bank it slipped and fell and rose again. Ballard watched it with his jaw knotted. Oh shit, he said. I'LL TELL YE ANOTHER THING he done one time. He had this old cow to balk on him, couldn't get her to do nothin. He pushed and pulled and beat on her till she'd wore him out. He went and borry'd Squire Helton's tractor and went back over there and. thowed a rope over the old cow's head and took off on the tractor hard as he could go. When it took up the slack it like to of jerked her head plumb off. Broke her neck and killed her where she stood. Ast Floyd if he didn't. I don't know what he had on Waldrop that Waldrop never would run him off. Even after he burnt his old place down he never said nothin to him about it that I know of.
That reminds me of that Trantham boy had them oldtimey oxes over at the fair here a year or two back. They sulled up on him and wouldn't go till finally he took and built a fire in underneath of em. The old oxes looked down and seen it and took about five steps and quit again. Trantham boy looked and there set the fire directly in under his wagon. He hollered and crawled up under the wagon and commenced a beatin at the fire with his hat and about that time them old oxes took off again. Drug the wagon over him and like to broke both his legs. You never seen more contrary beasts than them was. COME UP, LESTER, SAID THE dump keeper. Ballard was coming, he didn't need asking. Howdy Reubel, he said. They sat in the sofa and looked at the ground, the old man tapping his stick up and down, Ballard holding the rifle upright between his knees. When we goin to shoot some more rats? said the old man. Ballard spat. Any time you want, he said. They about to carry us off out here. Ballard cut his eyes toward the house where he'd seen a half naked girl cross in the gloom. A baby was crying. I don't reckon you've seen em have ye? What's that? Hernie and that next to least'n. Where they at? I don't know, said the old man. They cut out, I reckon. Been gone three days. That fair headed one? Yeah. Her and Hernie. I reckon they've took off with some of these here jellybeans. Well, said Ballard. I don't know what makes them girls so wild. Their grandmother was the biggest woman for churchgoin you ever seen. Where you goin, Lester? I got to go. Best not rush off in the heat of the day. Yeah, said Ballard. I'm goin to walk out thisaway. You see any rats, why, just shoot em. If I see any. You'll see some. A dog followed him out the quarry road. Ballard gave a little dry whistle and snapped his fingers and the dog sniffed at his cuff. They went on up the road. Ballard descended by giant stone stairs to the dry floor of the quarry. The great rock walls with their cannelured faces and featherdrill holes composed about him an enormous amphitheatre. The ruins of an old truck lay rusting in the honeysuckle. He crossed the corrugated stone floor among chips and spalls of stone. The truck looked like it had been machine gunned. At the far end of the quarry was a rubble tip and Ballard stopped to search for artefacts, tilting old stoves and water heaters, inspecting bicycle parts and corroded buckets. He salvaged a worn kitchen knife with a chewed handle. He called the dog, his voice relaying from rock to rock and back again. When he came out to the road again a wind had come up. A door somewhere was banging, an eerie sound in the empty wood. Ballard walked up the road. He passed a rusted tin shed and beyond it a wooden tower. He looked up. High up on the tower a door creaked open and clapped shut. Ballard looked around. Sheets of roofing tin clattered and banged and a white dust was blowing off the barren yard by the quarry