He came around to where the screen was leaning against his window, took it off, and crawled through into his room. Now he feared that he would get blood on the carpet and the drapes, leaning swiftly out to put the screen back in and snap it shut. With one hand underneath the other, catching drops of blood, he fumbled at the doorknob to his room and tiptoed down the hall to close the door behind him in the bathroom. When he switched the light on, he was shocked. The hand looked worse than he had thought, the bite deep down to the bone, and wide, and swollen, oozing blood, covered with grit, a mass of ugly, bulging, ragged flesh. He gripped the sink to keep from dropping to his knees. He had never felt a pain like this, made worse by the sight of what was causing it. In the mirror, he saw the sweat on his face, the dirt and blood across his pirate top, his skin as white as the towels that hung by the sink. His pallor really scared him. He was trembling. He couldn't stop. He turned on the tap to wash his hand, understanding that he'd have to wash the pirate top as well. After reaching down to take it off, he rinsed it, then squeezed it to get the water out. He checked to make sure that all the blood was off, and then he went back to his hand. The more he washed, the more it continued bleeding. But at least the wound was clean now, and he grabbed a rag beneath the sink to bind the wound and keep the blood from dripping. Nothing more to do. He thought about some first-aid cream, but he had bound the wound already, and he didn't feel like doing that again. Indeed he felt sick, and he was thinking only of his bed. He took the pirate top and shut the lights off, turned the knob and went out down the hall.

"Is that you, Warren? What's the matter?"

He froze and waited.

"Warren?"

"Nothing, Mother. Going to the bathroom."

"All right, dear."

Warren tiptoed into his room, closed the door, and leaned against it, breathing hard, sweating. He bit his lip to ease the pain. He waited, but his mother didn't come. He hung the pirate top within his closet, limped to the bed, and sat there, taking off his shoes. The mud. He hadn't thought to wash the mud off, and he'd have to hide his sneakers. Somewhere in his closet. Far in back. He didn't want to, barely had the strength, and had the feeling that this would never end. He took his pants off, put on his pirate bottoms, and crawled into bed. He wished that he had never gone out. He wished that he had stayed at home and gone to sleep. He tried to sleep. His hand kept throbbing. He stared at the moonlight on his wall.

TWO

"It was a dog, all right. There isn't any question."

"That's what ripped his face, or that's what killed him?" Slaughter asked.

"Both. The cause of death was loss of blood from massive wounds around the face and neck."

Slaughter put his beer can down. "You mean there really is a chance his throat was slit?"

The medical examiner just shook his head. "No, I remembered what you said back in that field. I checked the throat especially. The jugular was ripped, not cut. Oh sure, some nut might still have gone at Clifford with a hand rake, something that would tear, but that would leave a different set of marks than all those bites you saw on him."

The medical examiner reached for his own beer can, and Slaughter shrugged.

"Okay then," Slaughter told him. "How about this? The nut rips Clifford's throat and runs away. A dog finds Clifford and starts chewing. That way all the first marks are obliterated."

The medical examiner just shook his head again.

"Well, why not?" Slaughter asked.

"All the wounds showed evidence of bleeding."

"Oh." And Slaughter leaned back in the chair and studied his beer can. That was final. Only living bodies bleed, so Clifford must have been alive when he was mangled. If some nut had ripped his throat, Clifford might have lived for half a minute longer, but not long enough to bleed from what a dog might later do.

It was half-past two at night, and they were in the medical examiner's office. Slaughter had stayed near the stockpens, helping Rettig and the new man ask the neighbors if they'd heard some trouble in the night. He had asked about a prowler or a stray dog that was barking. Then he'd met with Rettig and the new man, but they hadn't learned a thing. The trouble was, the field was too far from the houses. Near the noisy stockpens and the highway over there, a sound from a dog would not have carried very well. Slaughter told his men to write their report and go home but in the morning to search the field.

"What for?"

"I'm not quite sure yet. Do it, though."

Then he'd looked at the setting sun and known he couldn't put it off much longer: he would have to go see Clifford's widow. In Detroit, he'd on occasion had to tell someone that a wife or child or husband had been killed, but he'd never known the people he was telling. By contrast, here those he told were always people he knew, and some days it was worse than being the chief of police was worth.

Like today. To see his friend Doc Markle dead beside that mangled steer. To hear about his friend's wife so distraught that she was in the hospital (Slaughter planned to visit her as well). And then to go out and explain to Clifford's wife what had happened. It was bad enough to have to say that Clifford had been killed. But not to know why he'd been killed or how, that made Slaughter feel inept and worthless. He had held Clifford's widow, let her keep on crying, and helped her sit down on the sofa. He had brought her coffee, waited until her son arrived from the other side of town, and finally decided that he'd earned the right to leave. He told her that he'd let her know when she could have the body, that he'd pass on any news the minute he received it. Then he'd said good-bye and went outside and nearly lost his balance on the porch.

By then the sun was gone, and he was looking at the stars, the rising moon, thinking that he ought to go see Mrs. Markle, but he couldn't make himself. The scene with Clifford's widow had been just too much. The only thing Slaughter wanted was to get away from this, to get inside his car and roll the windows down and drive. To his place out in the country where he fed and watered both his horses-he'd forgotten when he last had ridden them-and then because the things he'd seen today had ruined any appetite he might have had, he put off supper, driving back to town.

He parked, lights off, in the shadows by the stockpens, looking toward the field in case he saw some movement. But there wasn't anything, and after all, he couldn't spend the night like this, so he drove to the station. The lights were on along the hall. The night man was on duty by the two-way radio. Tall and thin. An Adam's apple that bobbed whenever he spoke. "Hi, Chief. I wondered who was out there."

"Much doing?"

"Quiet."

"For a change today."

Slaughter walked toward his glassed-in section of the office. He sat and thought a moment, looking at the night sheet he had read in the morning. He tapped a pencil on his desk and reached to open the phone book. First, the hospital. Mrs. Markle? She's asleep now, resting better. Thank you. Then a number in the valley. Sam Bodine. But no one answered. Then the state police.

"It's Slaughter here. I wondered if you'd check on someone for me. Sam Bodine… That's right. He's got a ranch on Route 43, twenty miles north of town. I wonder if you'd look in on him for me… No, there's nothing wrong, at least not that I know of. But I went out there today, and no one was around. It seemed like they had left in quite a hurry. I phoned later this afternoon and then again just now, but both times no one answered, and I thought if you had a man out that way, he could maybe have a look… Thanks. I appreciate it."