He sank onto the steps of the deck, and surveyed the back yard. The cross dominated the landscape, overpowering everything. It was simply too big, like a walnut tree in a field of dwarf pines. But Sturm seemed satisfied. It showed true respect for his dog.

Frank yawned, shook his head. “Well, gentlemen. I gotta get back and feed everyone.” That, and finish the bottle of rum stashed under his cot. The bottle of Jack Daniels in Jack’s truck could wait until tomorrow. He stood. Jack, Pine, and Chuck watched him with blank, dull gazes.

“Hold on. Want you to take a look at something.” Sturm said in a thick voice. He led Frank through the garden again and back into the barn. But this time, he went straight down the aisle, past Sarah, and opened the back door.

* * * * *

Frank stepped out into a large, irregularly shaped cage. The ground was bare dirt, packed hard. A few bald tires were tossed in the corner; in the other corner was a crumpled, stained mattress. The sides of the cage were constructed of two layers of chicken wire, buried deep, bolted to steel anchors. The wire was stretched tight over a curiously curving and bulging framework. It took Frank a while for realize the bars were actually the bones of old playground equipment, lashed together with chains and padlocks. The whole thing was interlaced with razor wire. Frank figured out they must have raided both the hardware store and the elementary school.

“Boys worked hard on this, I tell you that.”

“Yeah. Looks like they locked this down tight.”

“Think it’ll hold?”

“Hold what?”

“Them two lionesses, back at your office.”

“I thought they were for the hunts tomorrow.”

Sturm laughed. “Shit, I got plans for them girls. Yessir. I would have shot them long time ago otherwise.”

“I thought, well, thought that they were gonna be shot out in the fields. The clients were gonna—”

“No rich peckerhead dipshit is gonna shoot my girls. Not while I’m around. Fuck no. The clients’ll have fun, don’t you worry. They won’t be complaining. They’ve got plenty to shoot at.” Sturm grabbed hold of one of the curved bars and shook it. “No. What I need to know is, is this going to hold ’em? Those cats. They’re not for the hunts. No sir. Those are my pets.”

DAY TWENTY-TWO

The morning sun undulated into a white sky, sending temperatures into triple digits when Frank finally slipped away. He wheeled the long black car away from Sturm’s ranch, hunched over the wheel, joints in his neck and shoulders full of ground glass, everything coming through the tinted windows bleached and cracked, like bones picked clean and left to lie in the sun. When he realized he’d just blown straight through the highway intersection without stopping, without even slowing down, he decided he needed someplace to park.

He pulled off the road straight into an overgrown almond orchard, plowing silently through the three-foot grass into the center. Branches bursting with dry leaves and clusters of brittle almonds scraped the roof of the car. He killed the engine but left the keys in the ignition and slid down, relaxing into the corner of the seat and door, so that he could just see above the dashboard. He slipped into fitful sleep, too tired to even look for the bottle of rum under the seat. The shadows in the orchard were deep and dark and cool and Frank slept for six hours straight.

* * * * *

When he got back to the vet hospital, Sturm’s truck was parked out front. Frank swore, and fumbled under the seat for the bottle as he pulled around back to stash the car in its usual hiding spot in the barn.

He took a few strong gulps of rum, opened door to the aisle that ran through the center of the barn and found Sturm and Theo looking at the monkeys. Frank had gotten sick and tired of listening the monkey’s screeching and chattering all night every night, so he and Pine had lined the stall next to the rhino in yet more chicken wire. They sawed off a few thick limbs from the eucalyptus trees out back and nailed them crossways in the cage, giving the monkeys something to climb and hang off.

“Wasn’t sure if you were gonna make it today,” Sturm said. The blisters on his shoulders had deflated into slackened bubbles of dead skin.

Frank started to explain how he had nearly fallen asleep at the wheel, but Sturm cut him off. “Hope it doesn’t happen again. These animals need you to look after ’em. That’s what I’m paying you for, let’s not forget that. Understood?”

Frank nodded.

“Good. Okay then,” Sturm clapped his hands together and the monkeys jumped and scolded him in chittering screeches that echoed throughout the barn. Theo laughed and clapped his own hands. The monkeys flinched the first few times, but then got used to the sound. Theo took to kicking the wire to get a reaction from the monkeys. The rhino ignored them and calmly dragged more alfalfa through the bars of its feeder.

“Pick out a wild one,” Sturm told his son. “We want one that’ll give ’em a good run for their money.”

“That one. The big one, up on top,” Theo said, pointing and grinning, like he was choosing some exotic new toy.

Sturm turned to Frank. “Get it on out of there, then.”

Frank got a scoop of dry dog food, undid the cage latch, and cracked the door open just enough to fit his arm and the scoop inside. He dumped the dog food into the trough and waited until all the monkeys had swarmed over the trough. From the far cupboard, he grabbed an apple and sliced it into wedges with Sturm’s pocket knife. Sifting through the jumping mass of black fur, he found the big spider monkey Theo had pointed out, and carefully nudged it out of the rest of the pack with the toe of his boot. He kneeled quickly, bringing one of the apple wedges up the monkey’s face, instantly catching its attention. The furrowed brows popped open in excitement and the monkey snatched the wedge from Frank’s hand. It attacked the sweet white flesh like a wood chipper going after Styrofoam. Frank didn’t waste time; the other monkeys were clambering over him, reaching for the rest of the apple. He tossed most of the pieces into the corner to distract them, and grabbed the big monkey by the scruff of the neck.

He carried it outside, following Sturm and Theo. The monkey, fifteen pounds of sinuous, snake-like muscles, twisted and squirmed in Frank’s hands, rolling its head and reaching for his arm with all four limbs as well as its tail. He gave it another apple wedge to keep it quiet.

Sturm had a wooden kitchen chair waiting on the lawn in the sun. Theo carried his father’s heavy red toolbox from the back of the pickup over to the chair and thunked it down in the dry grass. He pulled a roll of twine from the toolbox and tied one end to the back of the chair. Looking up at Frank, he said, “Any day now.”

“What’s the plan here?” Frank asked.

“We’re gonna make this monkey famous,” Sturm said, fiddling with Theo’s digital camera.

“Let’s go,” Theo snapped. “Hold it on the chair.”

“You’re just taking a picture?” Frank asked.

“What the hell else are we gonna do with it? Play checkers?”

“Knock it off,” Sturm said. “Let’s get this done. We still have tents to set up and a thousand other goddamn little things.”

Frank could feel his insides clenching up as if he was afraid something might break loose and come washing down the insides of his thighs, blood pooling in his boots, but he knelt down and held the monkey on the chair. His scalp hurt, and he realized that the top of his shaved head was sunburnt. Theo looped the twine around the monkey’s right arm and cinched it down tight to a chair leg.

The monkey made a sound like a cat in a pneumatic press, sending ice picks marching up Frank’s spine.

Theo didn’t pay any attention; he yanked the twine tight across the monkey’s chest, tying it against the back of the chair. He repeated the process with the monkey’s left arm, then criss-crossed the twine back and forth, securing the screaming, wriggling animal to the chair.