Then afterwards they sat, the three of them, listening for a black squirrel that was in the top branches where they could not see him. They were waiting for him to bark again because when he barked he would jerk his tail and Nick would shoot where he saw any movement. His father gave him only three cartridges a day to hunt with and he had a single-barrel twenty-gauge shotgun with a very long barrel.
“Son of a bitch never move,” Billy said.
“You shoot, Nickie. Scare him. We see him jump. Shoot him again,” Trudy said. It was a long speech for her.
“I’ve only got two shells,” Nick said.
“Son of a bitch,” said Billy.
They sat against the tree and were quiet. Nick was feeling hollow and happy.
“Eddie says he going to come some night sleep in bed with you sister Dorothy.”
“What?”
“He said.”
Trudy nodded.
“That’s all he want do,” she said. Eddie was their older half-brother. He was seventeen.
“If Eddie Gilby ever comes at night and even speaks to Dorothy you know what I’d do to him? I’d kill him like this.” Nick cocked the gun and hardly taking aim pulled the trigger, blowing a hole as big as your hand in the head or belly of that half-breed bastard Eddie Gilby. “Like that. I’d kill him like that.”
“He better not come then,” Trudy said. She put her hand in Nick’s pocket.
“He better watch out plenty,” said Billy.
“He’s big bluff,” Trudy was exploring with her hand in Nick’s pocket. “But don’t you kill him. You get plenty trouble.”
“I’d kill him like that,” Nick said. Eddie Gilby lay on the ground with all his chest shot away. Nick put his foot on him proudly.
“I’d scalp him,” he said happily.
“No,” said Trudy. “That’s dirty.”
“I’d scalp him and send it to his mother.”
“His mother dead,” Trudy said. “Don’t you kill him, Nickie. Don’t you kill him for me.”
“After I scalped him I’d throw him to the dogs.”
Billy was very depressed. “He better watch out,” he said gloomily.
“They’d tear him to pieces,” Nick said, pleased with the picture. Then, having scalped that half-breed renegade and standing, watching the dogs tear him, his face unchanging, he fell backward against the tree, held tight around the neck, Trudy holding, choking him, and crying, “No kill him! No kill him! No kill him! No. No. No. Nickie. Nickie, Nickie!”
“What’s the matter with you?”
“No kill him.”
“I got to kill him.”
“He just a big bluff.”
“All right,” Nickie said. “I won’t kill him unless he comes around the house. Let go of me.”
“That’s good,” Trudy said, “You want to do anything now? I feel good now.”
“If Billy goes away,” Nick had killed Eddie Gilby, then pardoned him his life, and he was a man now.
“You go, Billy. You hang around all the time. Go on.”
“Son a bitch,” Billy said. “I get tired this. What we come? Hunt or what?”
“You can take the gun. There’s one shell.”
“All right. I get a big black one all right.”
“I’ll holler,” Nick said.
Then, later, it was a long time after and Billy was still away.
“You think we make a baby?” Trudy folded her brown legs together happily and rubbed against him. Something inside Nick had gone a long way away.
“I don’t think so,” he said.
“Make plenty baby what the hell.”
They heard Billy shoot.
“I wonder if he got one.”
“Don’t care,” said Trudy.
Billy came through the trees. He had the gun over his shoulder and he held a black squirrel by the front paws.
“Look,” he said. “Bigger than a cat. You all through?”