She froze at the edge of the porch, and Blackburn saw that she thought he was going to shoot her. This saddened him. He had never been a perfect brother, but she should have realized long ago that he never did anything to anyone who didn't deserve it.

"Don't be afraid," he said. "It isn't even cocked."

She didn't relax. "What are you going to do with it?"

Blackburn started toward the meadow. "Retroactive gene-pool maintenance."

Jasmine jumped from the porch and ran to him. She grabbed his wrist and tried to make him stop. He kept walking. Jasmine wasn't very strong.

"Jimmy, there's no point," she said. "He's got cancer, and he won't accept treatment. He told the doctors to go to hell. They said he only has three to five months."

"Then this is my last chance," Blackburn said.

"But he's paying himself back for the things he did. All you have to do is let him!"

Blackburn shook his head. "People can't punish themselves for their sins. Only the people they've sinned against can do that."

"The Bible says only God can do that."

"The Bible's full of chickenshit." He pulled free and sprinted for the windbreak. He heard Jasmine running after him. "Don't make me lock you up!" he shouted.

The sound of her footsteps stopped. When Blackburn reached the evergreens, he looked back and saw her getting into the Hornet. He wasn't worried. He had the keys. Even if she knew how to hot-wire, he would be finished before she could have anyone else here.

He climbed over the fence and ran up the hill. When he reached the top, he spotted Dad and Dog a few hundred yards away to the north. Dog was dancing around the old man, nipping, and Dad was kicking at her. As Blackburn watched, the old man kicked himself off balance and fell into the prairie hay. Dog darted in and slobbered on his face, then darted away again.

Blackburn slowed his pace to a walk. He cocked the Python.

"Hey, Daddy!" he called. "Wanna play catch?"

There was no fear in the old man's face, and Blackburn was glad. Fear might have made things difficult. It occurred to Blackburn that this was the first time Dad had ever made anything easier for him.

He stood over his father and aimed the Python at the old man's forehead. Then Dog came up and slobbered on Dad's face again. Blackburn yelled and chased her away. When he turned back, he saw that Dad had gotten up and was trying to run toward the house. Blackburn almost put a slug into the ground at Dad's feet, and then was ashamed of himself. He hadn't played around with any of the others. When he killed, he killed clean. Mostly. To do otherwise would be to behave as the old man would.

Dad was a pitiful runner. Blackburn caught him and grabbed his shirt where it had been torn by the barbed wire. Dad twisted around, flailing, and hit Blackburn's gun hand. The Python went off, the shot echoing. Blackburn stumbled, and he and his father fell together. Dad tried to scramble away backward, and his shirt ripped open wide, exposing his torso. Blackburn let go, and the old man collapsed onto his back. Blackburn, on his knees, straddled him.

Dad's narrow chest, rising and falling as the old man wheezed, looked hollow. The ribs stuck out. The hair and skin were as white as milk.

Except for the tumor.

It was a pink egg above the left nipple. Red capillaries, thin as spiderwebs, laced through the skin over and around it, vanishing beneath the whiteness a few inches away.

Then the whiteness melted as if the sunlight were X rays, and Blackburn saw the capillaries spreading throughout his father like a living net. He saw the heart stumbling. He saw the lymph glands strangling. He saw the kidneys shuddering, failing.

Blackburn looked up at his father's face. He couldn't see beneath the skin here, but he didn't have to.

"You have breast cancer," he said.

Dad's eyes flashed. "I ain't!" His breath stung. "I ain't got no woman's disease!"

Blackburn pointed at the tumor. "There it is."

The old man swung a fist. Blackburn blocked it with his arm.

"I ain't!" Dad yelled. "It ain't possible!"

"Why not?"

"Because I'm a man!"

The words struck Blackburn as hilarious, and he laughed and laughed. The tumor shook. It seemed to be growing as he watched, as if a cosmic clown were filling it with divine breath. As if it were a sacred balloon.

When Blackburn could laugh no more, he saw that Dad was crying. It was a miracle. Blackburn was stunned. He got off the old man and laid his pistol in the grass. He knelt there, hands clasped, and knew that judgment had been rendered. Punishment had been meted. The universe had proven that it was sometimes perfect, and he would not alter perfection. This one time, seeing it was enough.

As the old man wept, Blackburn bowed down and kissed his breast. The pink egg was hot. Blackburn wanted to always remember how it felt.

"You don't have to get me a birthday present," he murmured.

Then he stood and looked around for Dog. He spotted her lying fifty feet down the hill. He called to her, but she didn't move. He remembered then that the Python had fired.

When he went to her, he found that the bullet had gone through her skull behind the eyes. She hadn't even yelped. There hadn't been time for pain.

Blackburn couldn't cry for her. When there was no time for pain, there was nothing to cry about. Truly, in this place, in this moment, the universe was perfect.

He slowed the Hornet when he saw Jasmine. She was running toward town, coming up on the old water tower. She stopped and turned when she heard the car. Blackburn pulled the Hornet onto the shoulder, got out, and walked to her.

Jasmine was breathing hard. She had run two miles. Her dress was damp and dirty. She had fallen.

"That dress is too long for running," Blackburn said.

She didn't seem to hear him. "Well?" she asked.

"Well what?"

She wiped hair from her forehead. "Did you do it?"

He gazed at the remains of the water tower. It had been his hideout, his Rosetta stone, his starship. He had stood on its catwalk and watched his sister, the size of a doll, playing in the field below.

"Remember the snowball war we had here?" he asked. "You and I built a fort, and some of the town kids built another one. Ours was up against the tower fence. We pretended the water tank was our doomsday bomb."

Jasmine still wasn't listening. "Did you hurt him?"

"And in the spring and summer we flew kites. I made them myself. You were always kind of in the way."

"Did you do something to Daddy?"

Blackburn looked at her again. Had he done anything to Daddy? He supposed that he had.

Just after finding Dog's body, he had heard the Python's hammer click. He had turned to see that Dad had pointed the gun at his own chest. Blackburn had gone over and taken it away. Then he had gathered up Dog and left. At the windbreak he had looked back. The old man had still been kneeling in the same spot.

"All I did," Blackburn told Jasmine, "was kiss him good-bye."

Jasmine stared. "I don't believe you."

Blackburn went back to the Hornet. He retrieved the Python from under the driver's seat and tucked it into his jeans. Then he took his duffel from the back seat and tossed it into the ditch. He threw the shovel that he had taken from the garage down beside it. Finally, he lifted Dog's body from the passenger seat. It was wrapped in a sheet he'd pulled from the clothesline. Only a little blood had leaked through.

Carrying Dog, he returned to Jasmine. "You can take the car back to the house," he said. "See for yourself."

Jasmine was eyeing the bundle in Blackburn's arms. "Don't you need it?"

"No." He would steal another car in town. It was time for a switch anyway.