It was so hot even the birds quit singing. I sat in front of the window fan drinking iced ginger ale and watching the bubbles rise while my dear Doyle thrashed around his old trunk in the spare room.

Ugly, God, he was ugly. He ranted about Alan being the liar supreme and cursed Alan so bad I knew he feared him.

“I hate that bastard, Annie,” Doyle said. “I hate everything about him from his pointy toed boots to his goddamned hat.”

I set my glass on the maple table, heedless of the water ring it would leave and went to Doyle and closed his trunk.

“The shotgun’s not in there,” I said. “You’ve got yourself all worked up.” I lay a quiet hand on his, but with his other he yanked open the trunk.

“Why isn’t it?” he yelled.

Alan and his big hat barged in and yelled just as loud as Doyle. “Thief!” He brandished a bayonet.

I slipped through the doorway to the porch and peeked through the window above the spinning fan blades. Alan waved his bayonet in the thick air while Doyle danced his hands to keep Alan from cutting him. Neither spoke, until Doyle swore and screamed when Alan cut his left wrist deep.

I pulled the 12 gauge from where I’d hid it behind the glider and sent a deer slug into the side of Alan’s face.

Dear Doyle bled all over my truck’s seat on the way to the E.R., and I’ve been two days getting it out of the upholstery.

Merle Drown is a freelance writer and editor. He has published three novels, Plowing Up a Snake (The Dial Press), The Suburbs of Heaven (Soho Press), which was chosen by Barnes and Noble for its Discover Great New Writers series, and Lighting the World (Whitepoint Press). He has also published over 40 short pieces of fiction and received fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and the New Hampshire Arts Council. He is working on a collection titled Shrunken Heads: Miniature Portraits of the Famous Among Us.