The truck bounced and swayed up the pitted gravel road that
led over the low foothills. We were headed down the back
end of Road E toward the Sawyer house. Iโd never been
there, but I knew where the house was. Everybody knew
where the house was. Everybody knew because it was a place
that you stayed away from. Even the mailman refused to
come all the way out here. Instead, he dumped the mail
into a bucket out on the highway.
Thunder rumbled softly to the west, but the
air was dry for the moment. A cool night wind had dried
the thick, scummy water on my skin, leaving a filmy, greasy
residue behind. The truck jerked violently to the left,
plowing through a deep puddle, and I rolled with it,
bracing my foot against the wet, matted hair of the carcass
for support. The steer lay stiffly on its side, legs
jutting straight out, and rocked slightly with the motion
of the truck. Then we were over the top of the foothill
and shuddering down the other side into the deep hollow
where the Sawyer brothers lived. I pulled my eyes away
from my bloody hand and twisted around so I could see
through the two-inch gap in the wooden slats.
The weak headlights splashed over a tangle
of old fig trees that had never been pruned. A quagmire of
rotten figs blanketed the ground beneath the trees. As we
got closer, I heard a low buzzing fade in and out. It took
me a moment, but when a wasp landed on the steer and
crawled around, I realized what was causing the buzzing. I
had never heard or seen wasps out at night before, and it
made my skin crawl.
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