Salvage the Bones - Jesmyn Ward [69]
The boys meet in the middle of the circle, careful to keep their dogs at the edge; they hand their leashes to friends. They huddle to hammer the matches out.
“What the fuck you mean, you want Boss?”
“Yours is too big for mine.”
“He a puppy, but he scrappy.”
“She can take on any of them. She ain’t weak.”
“I say a two-fight limit.”
“I say three.”
“Who gives a fuck what you say?”
“I say two, too.”
“Sugar got at least two in her.”
“Homeboy got three.”
“Ojacc can fight every one of them and whip all they asses.”
A chorus of groans.
“Buddy Lee, too.”
“Truck’ll run all y’all over.”
“Do you see Slim? Do you understand what he’d do to Kilo?”
“Ain’t noboby for Kilo but Boss.”
“Wizard want in on Kilo.”
“I said Kilo ain’t here for nobody but Boss.”
“Y’all heard the man. Kilo ain’t here for nobody except Boss.”
In the middle of the dead circle, the boys snap like the air before a storm. Skeetah and China stand at the edge. The boys’ arguing rises to an angry buzz, and the air that had been still before swoops and tunnels through the clearing, raising dust, making the boys close their eyes. Maybe Daddy is right; maybe Katrina is coming for us. Big Henry covers his nose with his rag. Did Medea bless the heroes before they set out on their journey? Did she stand on the deck of that ship like I stand in this clearing, womanly ripe, and weave spells for rain to cloak their departure, to cloak her betrayal? Had Jason told her he loved her? Manny holds Kilo’s leash and stares at China. Skeetah and China do not move.
“Let’s go,” Marquise says.
Skeetah and China leave the circle, stand to the side of us, but a little away, a little closer, Skeet’s shirt darkening wetly at the neck, down the middle of his back, China still except for her ears, which flick away gnats trying to land.
Skeetah fought China as soon as he figured she was full grown, at a year. There was always a clear winner to those fights with dogs owned by boys in Bois Sauvage, in St. Catherine. She has fought every one of these dogs. Except for two of her beginning fights, where China fought but still bled more than the other dog and had part of her ear sliced, she won by bearing down on the other dog, by grabbing his throat with her teeth, her face a fist. The other dog would yelp, and Skeet would call her off, and that is how everyone would know that China had won.
Now, no dogs sniff China. No dogs lope over to her and playfully snap, mouth her face or shoulder. She and Skeet stand apart, and when the first fight begins between the first two dogs, they are the only two that stand still. The fight is quick, messy. The dogs meet in the middle and tumble around the side of the pond bed, kicking up dirt and golden grass and sticks and blood. They twist and snarl and whine. The gray shrieks first, but it is the brown-and-white that falls, pulls away, wanting out of the harsh light, the burning bowl, the searing puffs of wind, the nail, the jerk, the tooth. The boys grab the dogs by the hind legs, pull them away from each other, cuss, let them go again. Junior is bouncing from foot to foot on his toes behind Big Henry, who wipes at his neck even though he is wiping so often there is no time for sweat to gather, to glaze. Randall, who had been flipping the stick over and over like a band major, has stopped, and he stares at the fight and holds the stick like a club. The gray is pulled away, yelping, while the brown-and-white one still strains against his boy’s hands. Skeetah pets the watching China once, just a touch to the head, and she licks his finger. She never pulls away.
“Ojacc got him,” the gray’s boy