He spied above the branches a paneless belvedere, walked toward it, and was soon through the woods at the front of the mansion, where he tied the horse and walked up the flagstones. He took a breath, then knocked on the weather-scoured door.

From around the corner of the house stepped a man of at least fifty years, wearing a misshapen straw cowboy hat and dressed in denim shirt and pants that had been worn sky blue. “What you need?”

“I’m looking for Ninga Skadlock.”

The man walked up, followed closely by an all-black German shepherd that slowly and almost reverently gathered a mouthful of Sam’s pants leg in its mouth and held fast. “Excuse Satan here. He just wants to hold you still.”

Sam looked down into the monstrous dog’s amber eyes whose depths radiated primal obedience. “All right.”

“What you want of Mom?”

He swallowed twice. “I want to hire her to go get a dog for me in Baton Rouge. I heard she was good at it.”

The man touched the shepherd and it slowly drew back. Sam felt its saliva cooling against his calf and looked down again into eyes trained to see things differently than he did. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” the man said.

“Just let me see her.”

The man slowly rubbed his knuckles on the animal’s head. “She’s in the kitchen.”

Sam felt light-headed among the soaring pillars. “This is your big place?”

“It was here when we come along,” he growled.

They walked through a leaf-sodden yard to a small gray-wood clapboard building separate from the main house. Stepping up inside, he saw the walls first, for they were freshly whitewashed. A thick-shouldered, clean-shaven man was seated at table writing in a ledger, and an old woman was working at a kerosene stove, frying onions and bell peppers in a stamped iron skillet.

“Man wants to see you.”

She looked up and he knew at once it was her. The man at the table closed his ledger and watched Sam passively. He was about forty-five, dressed all in khaki, even to his baseball cap.

The old woman wore glasses and didn’t have to squint to size Sam up. “You come in a boat?”

“No, ma’am. I have a horse.”

Glancing at his town shoes, she said, “You sure didn’t walk here in those.” She banged a spoon on the edge of the skillet and dropped chunks of cut-up rabbit into the vegetables. Then she smiled and he saw the gap in her teeth. “Excuse my manners while I keep working. We don’t exactly get much company out here. What can I do for you?”

He looked at the two men, the first still standing in the doorway behind him. Sam was a fair teller of unimportant lies and thought he might fool people like this. Then he looked down at the dog, who watched him as if he were game. “I have a nice house down in Baton Rouge, on Florida Avenue,” he began unsteadily, “where I live with my wife and two young kids. A man next door owns a chow. The dog’s attacked my kids twice, and all night he keeps my family up with his yowling. I’ve tried to deal with the owner for a couple years, but he won’t get rid of the dog.” He paused for effect here, scratching his ear, glancing across the room. A door was opened halfway, revealing a large indoor still under a metal cowl that vented through the ceiling. “He seems to get pleasure out of the trouble he’s caused me.”

“I never knew a chow to bark much.” The woman lay the spoon down on a dishcloth and motioned to him. “Sit down, mister?”

“Sam Simoneaux.”

“Well, a coonass.”

His face remained fixed; he couldn’t afford anger here. “Yes, ma’am.”

“And you live on Florida Avenue down in Baton Rouge?”

“Yes.”

“What block?”

“Ma’am?”

“What’s your house address?”

A brief surge of panic ran up his backbone. “The 1900 block.”

“All right.” She pulled a chair out from the table and sat down, then introduced him to her son Billsy, who had crossed his arms over the ledger and was leaning forward, regarding him with distant amusement. “And that other one’s Ralph. Anyway, how can we help you with this dog?”

“I hear you’re pretty good at gathering them up.”

“And where did you hear this?”

“I have a friend on the police force.”

Here the man at the table laughed, stood up, and poured himself a cup of coffee out of a porcelain pot sitting in a warming pan on the stove.

The woman tilted her head and looked at Sam directly. “Everybody’s got friends on that police force.” She raised a hand and let it drop. “Some even have relatives in the sheriff’s office.”

Sam looked around the room. “I don’t guess you see much law back in here.”

“Son, if we needed the law I’d have to write a letter, but then somebody would have to build a post office for me to mail it in.” Her voice was fine-grained. Close up, her skin seemed smooth and light. “What color is this dog’s tongue?”

He looked toward the door, where the shepherd sat, its mouth closed, its big ears up. “I don’t know.”

“Hot days, a chow’s tongue is always out,” Ralph said, leaning against the door frame.

“Simoneaux, do you have a telephone in your house?” Ninga asked.

“Yes.” This, he sensed immediately, was a mistake.

She got up and went to a high beaded-board cabinet and swung open its door. Inside he could see lines of books and her quick hands flashing through a stack of what looked like magazines. She found the one she wanted and thumbed through it with her back to him. Then she came back and sat at the table, spreading her hands out on the oak.

“We don’t have a phone, but it’s good to have a phone book anyway. Funny thing is, you don’t seem to be listed in the latest directory.” She raised her head and looked him in the eye. “Now, you can tell us what you really want.”

“I want a dog picked up, that’s all. Now if it’s a matter of price-”

“As I remember, the 1900 block of Florida is completely occupied on both sides by a cemetery.” Her gray eyes were as constant as facts, and he knew his lie had failed.

He looked over at the men, who were smiling smugly in admiration of their mother. The dog let out its tongue and panted, as if thirsty for the truth. “All right. I’m from New Orleans and-”

“And somewhere south of there before that,” she added. “We could hear New Orleans in your talk. But you still say those funny a’s the way those dummy Frenchies do. Where were you born?”

“A place you never heard of, over by the Texas line.”

“ Lake Charles?”

“Troumal.”

Ralph snorted, then walked up to the table. “I know where it is.”

Sam gave him a quick look. “You been there? Nobody’s been there much. It’s just our families.”

“Your family-it’s still there, is it?” he asked.

Sam studied his face, then its hard features. “My family was killed off by outlaws.”

A brief flash flew through the man’s eyes. “I think I heard about it, long time ago.”

The woman suddenly tapped him on the shoulder with her spatula, and her face began to darken. “Are you some kind of law? At least tell that much of the truth.”

“No.”

She looked up at the denim-clad son. “Ralph, do you recognize him?”

“I didn’t at first, but now I do.”

Sam turned around. “How is it you know me?”

“We never been innerduced from the front,” Ralph said, showing a rack of yellow teeth.

A phantom pain rose in the back of Sam’s head, and he stood up. “You about killed me.”

“If I’d wanted you dead you’d of been that way.”

The woman moved a hand as if she were shooing a fly. “Look, sit down, Simoneaux, or whoever you are. Ralph, you and your brother do a walkaround, make sure he’s alone.”

Once they had left, he decided that he might as well ask her, and he did. “Why’d you take that little girl?”

She stood and tended the little stove, which smelled of kerosene. “What exactly are you doing out here? Somebody payin’ you?”

“I got my reasons.”