"Why would he leave the doors open?"

"I have no idea."

"There's something else." Altick pointed up past Slaughter.

When Slaughter turned, he saw a patch of brown and red among the fir trees. His apprehension increased as he straightened and breathed and walked up toward it. He heard someone, likely Altick, walking behind him. But he didn't look in that direction. He only stopped and kept on staring.

Sure, he thought. The freshly mangled carcass of a steer, its mutilated guts protruding, flies swarming over them. What else did you think it would be? He felt dizzy.

"When we started searching, we also found this," Altick said. "The fifth one we've had news about today."

Slaughter leaned his head against a tree. "Better make that six."

"What?"

"Bodine found one like this Thursday, but we only learned about it Friday morning." 'Jesus."

"That's not all," Slaughter said. "We've had some animal attacks in town. A man's been killed. At first we figured it was wild dogs from the hills, but now we're worried about rabies." Altick paled.

"That's right. Now you feel the way I do," Slaughter told him. "We've got trouble." He pointed toward the mountains. "What's up there?"

"Nothing. Wilderness. The forestry department lists this as a recreation area." Altick suddenly understood. "Rabies? Christ, what if people are camping up there?"

Slaughter's forehead throbbed. "Let's assume wild dogs are what did this. Bodine saw them on the range. He chased them into these foothills."

"I'd better get the helicopter looking for them." Altick turned, scrambling down the hillside, followed by the pilot.

"And for anybody else up there. Check the lakes, the likely camping spots." Slaughter hurried after Altick. "Look, I know this is your jurisdiction, but we'd better work together on this. Leave a man to watch the carcass and the pickup truck. Get some other men out here with rifles. Have them search the hills as far as they can go today."

They reached the bottom, Altick turning toward him, and for just a moment Slaughter thought that Altick would be angry, that Altick would tell him not to interfere, to keep his opinions to himself. But Altick only nodded, saying, "I'll go you one better. Dogs. We'll get some bloodhounds out here. We'll pick up Bodine's trail."

TEN

"Warren!"

She heard him screaming and ran from the living room to the kitchen. Staring out the screen door, she saw him racing through the backyard toward her.

"Warren!"

He was clutching his hand. She saw the blood, the mangled flesh, and she was pushing at the screen door, rushing out to meet him.

He kept screaming.

"Warren! Tell me what it is that happened!"

She was holding him, the blood across her sleeve now. She could feel his frantic tears drop off his cheek to wet her blouse.

He just kept screaming.

"Warren! Please! You've got to-"

"It's the glass!"

"But-"

"Broken glass!"

"You've got to show me, Warren!"

She stared at him, at the blood. She wasn't certain what to do. She knew she had to stop the blood. But what had caused it? How bad was the cut?

She tried to lead him. "Show me, Warren."

He pointed toward the backyard. She squinted past the backyard toward the metal barrel in the old man's yard across the lane. She saw the blood across the rim, and she was running. "Oh, my God."

The blood covered everything, the rusty cans, the broken glass, the ashes from the garbage fires that the old man used to set before the town denied him permission. Warren must have climbed up on this cinder block and reached in there for something, but he lost his balance, and he cut himself.

She swung around. Warren was clutching his hand, running toward the back door, and she called to him, but he was in the house already. She scrambled toward him, across the lane and past the bushes, the back door getting larger as she reached it, fumbling at the handle, charging in. She saw the blood across the floor, and she was racing down the hallway toward the bathroom, but he wasn't in there. Where? She doubled back. He sat in his bedroom, crying, blood across the sheets. She hurried to grab him, wrapping a sheet around his hand and guiding him into the bathroom. "No!"

"I have to wash it. I have to see how bad it is." "Don't touch it!"

Warren kept crying as she freed the bloody sheet and pushed his hand down into the sink. She turned the tap on. He wailed again.

Too hot. She turned the other tap, and now the water felt lukewarm, and she was brushing at the bleeding flesh. She saw the wound, but blood kept oozing out, and she was brushing at it, freeing all the dirt and black clots, and Lord, the hand was mangled. Deep and wide and jagged. Oh, my baby, she was thinking as she felt his weight against him, and she knew before she looked that he had fainted.

ELEVEN

Warren smelled something strange, something like the powder that his mother put inside the washer when she did the clothes. His eyes fluttered. He winced from the light all around him, and he saw the strange man in the white coat leaning close. He started wailing.

"Warren, it's all right."

His mother's voice. His father close beside her. They looked angry.

"Mommy, I-"

"It's all right, Warren. Please don't be afraid. You're with a doctor."

Back now to the man, his white coat flecked with red spots down his arm. The man was holding something like a plastic pill that he had broken open, and the strange smell seemed to come from it. Warren kept on crying. This man was much younger, thinner, than the doctor he always went to, and the freckles on his face looked like the blood specks on the white coat, and Warren couldn't stop from crying.

"Ssshhh, it's all right, son. We're here now. You're just fine."

Then Warren slowly understood that they had him on a table, that his hand felt numb and awkward. He was raising it. The hand was like a white club, bandaged so he couldn't even see or move his fingers.

"He's still suffering from shock. He'll take a while to get adjusted," he heard the doctor saying.

Someone dried his eyes. His mother. She was smiling. So she wasn't angry, after all.

"Warren, can you tell us how it happened?"

He turned toward the doctor, trying to remember what the plan was.

"Yes, the glass," he told them slowly.

"In the barrel?"

"Yes, I cut myself."

His father clenched his fist. "I'm going to sue that old man."

"Harry. Please, not here," his mother said.

So I got away with it, Warren thought.

"Warren, let me tell you what I did for you," the doctor said. "You have to make sure you keep the bandage on. I sewed you up. I gave you stitches. Do you understand that?"

"Yes, like Mommy when she makes a dress."

They smiled a little.

"Something like that," the doctor said. "You were cut too deeply to let the wound heal on its own. I took some string like this, except it wasn't string. It's more like what we used to call a piece of catgut, and I sewed the cut together."

"Will the string stay in there?"

"No. A week or so from now, I'll take the stitches out, and you'll be like before, although you'll maybe have a scar," the doctor said. "But you've got a lot of growing to do, and most of the scar will disappear. What you've got to understand is that you can't put much weight on your hand. If you try to pick up heavy things or make a fist or anything like that, you'll risk the chance of pulling out the stitches too soon. Take things easy. Let your mother or your father do the lifting for you."

"Will they make my bed for me?"

"You bet we will," his father said. "And I'll still pay your full allowance."

Warren grinned then. Yes, he'd gotten away with it, and he was wiping at his tears, trying to sit up.