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he told Sherman in front of the other two children. “You’re nothing but trouble. I’ve tried to be good to you but nothing gets through. And I won’t put up with this any longer. It’s just the last God-damned straw.” And he slapped Sherman’s face with the flat of his hand so hard that it made a loud pop and Sherman stumbled and fell. He drove Sherman to the police station and turned him over to the officer in charge. Sherman was identified by the two women, Stiles and Coveleski, and was detained for questioning for nine hours. It was nearly eleven-thirty at night before he was released into the custody of his father. More to preserve the reputation of the women than anything else, the matter was kept out of the Graylie newspaper. And yet the word got around. Sherman wouldn’t talk about his detainment, but he was properly chastised and seething.
    Later, his mother had tried to explain that they only meant to teach him a lesson, but Sherman had never trusted them again. He was convinced his father would betray him with any chance he had, and he hated his mother for letting his father get away with it. Sherman already had the gun when he wrote the note.…
    It was not yet five-thirty that early August morning when Mamie left the house by the back-porch steps. In her dress pocket she carried two lumps of brown sugar; in her right arm she carried the sack of Sherman’s loot. The severe change in light from the interior of the house to the brilliant glare of the yard blinded her. Hugging the paper bag, she shielded her eyes, stepping into the cooler house shadow.
    She followed the walk parallel to the house until it ended, then hurried across the wet grass. At the hedge, she ducked into the tunnel made by the thick branches of the privet hedge and the adjoining iron fence. All but hidden from view, she crawled down the length of the iron fence, dragging the sack with her to the end of the yard, where she emerged in the thicket of ragweed and goldenrod and wild crape myrtle. She stood and dusted her knees.
    She crossed the weedy right-of-way.
    She could hear the Chinaman before she saw him—a low, throbbing, nerve-numbing growl. The pen was constructed with two high fences, one set inside the other, because when he was mad enough to break his chain, the Chinaman could chew through one layer of fence in nothing flat. The back of the pen faced the right-of-way; its front and the gate were flush with the Ambroses’ back yard, which meant she would have to skirt the fence and enter their yard in order to reach the gate. Picking her way carefully, she started down the sloping embankment alongside the fence. The low throb of the dog’s growling neither quickened nor faltered.
    More than halfway down the side of the pen, the weeds gapped and she saw him: the ruff of his black hair framing his pug face, the slanting Chinese eyes with no irises, just black holes to see through, the muzzle of his black mouth drawn back on long slashing teeth, saliva hanging from his jowls. It was the face of absolute rage and, as always, for a moment she found herself mesmerized by it, unable to move. He must have sensed her fear—the low, guttural growl rose an octave. Slowly he came to his feet, the chain attached to his collar clinking as he stood. His matted tail curled up and back on his hindquarters. His dust-mottled coat fell at odds with itself along his shabby length, clotted with chunks of dirt. He was no longer growling; his black lips were stretched thin, his nose ridged. Then he sprang, hurtling through the air, his growl twice as loud as it had been, teeth snapping, cracking together on empty air, till the chain caught, whipping him backward. He hardly touched the ground before he flew at Mamie again, his massive black muzzle ripping through the air only two feet away.
    Frightened, she fumbled in her pocket for the sugar. The first lump crumbled to powder in her hand, and she quickly