Theo grabbed a pair of ring pliers from the toolbox and a length of copper wire. “Which ear, dad?”

“Both. Easier to spot.”

Theo threaded the wire into the pliers, positioned the pinchers over the monkey’s right earlobe, and squeezed. The monkey, now the owner of a bright copper earring, shrieked and bucked against the twine, but couldn’t move much; Theo had tied it down tight. After a moment, though, the monkey calmed down a little, just shaking its head violently back and forth, as if trying to dislodge a bug in its ear. Theo threaded another length of copper wire into the pliers and pierced the monkey’s other ear.

Frank went to untie the monkey, but Theo stopped him with, “Slow down—we’re not done yet.” He stepped back, eyeballing his work. “Dunno how we’re gonna get that vest on—we’d have to untie it,” he called to his father.

“Hell with it, then. Just get the hat and boots.”

Theo ran to the truck, came back with an old-fashioned bowler hat and a pair of children’s cowboy boots. The monkey hissed at him when he tried to slide the boots over the long, finger-like toes. Theo just got hold of one of the new earrings and yanked upwards, saying, “Sit still, you little fucker. Sit!” He eventually got the boots over the monkey’s feet, although one was on sideways. He jammed the bowler hat down over the monkey’s skull, down to its eyes.

It glared out from under the short brim, fingers waggling like a bug’s legs, tail whipping back and forth, and made worried chirps.

Sturm stepped closer, squinting into the viewfinder. He bent over, lowering the camera to get it level with the monkey’s head. He rocked back and forth like a cobra for a few moments, trying to get the best angle. Finally, he said, “Say cheese,” and took the picture. “You can put him back now,” he said to Frank.

Frank took off the hat, the boots, got a good hold of the scruff of the monkey’s neck like a wild cat, and broke the twine. After unwrapping the rest of the twine, Frank carried the monkey back to the cage. The monkey tried pulling on the copper rings, but quickly gave up when it discovered that they caused pain. After a few seconds, it seemed to have forgotten about them altogether and went scurrying up into the eucalyptus branches where it loudly warned Frank that he’d best not mess with it again.

* * * * *

When Frank got back out to the lawn, Sturm said, “Let’s go see my girls.” Frank followed him inside, leaving Theo to pack up the toolbox and chair.

Over fifty pounds of ground lamb had been thawing in the refrigerator. Each lioness required at least eleven pounds of fresh meat a day. Frank unwrapped each five-pound brick and dumped equal amounts of the pale meat into five gallon-buckets and carried them out to the lioness cages. Sturm knelt in front of his two lionesses, murmuring to them, curling his fingers through the diagonal openings in the wire.

“I wouldn’t do that,” Frank warned. “They’ll take your fingers off if they want.”

“Not my girls. Oh no. They’re good girls, aren’t you?” Sturm whispered to the lionesses. They regarded him with half-lidded eyes, tails sluggishly flopping about, slapping unenthusiastically at flies.

Frank worked his way down the corridor, dumping food into the cages, but when he reached Sturm’s lionesses, Sturm stopped him with one finger. “No. No food. They’re gonna go hungry. For tonight, at least. Tomorrow, it’s gonna be up to them.”

“I wouldn’t let them go too long. They—”

Sturm stood suddenly, like a deadly serious Jack-in-the-box, popping up and stepping in uncomfortably close; Frank could smell the man’s sweat. The frozen gray eyes drilled into Frank’s soul. “I’m paying you for one thing, and one thing only. Your job is very simple. That’s taking care of these animals until I deem it time for them to suit my needs. These animals are mine, not yours. They are mine to do with as I see fit. I’ve been sensing a little…hesitation in your work.” Sturm stepped in even closer, the toes of his boots touching Frank’s boots. “Suppose I wanted to shoot that monkey just now. Any problems with that, doc?”

Frank shook his head.

“Suppose I take a notion to cut off all them long fingers and toes with wire snips?”

Frank shrugged. “It’s your animal. My job is to keep ’em alive until you see fit.”

“Not just keep ’em alive, son. I want them taken care of. This is their last days. We have an obligation here. These animals deserve nothing but our respect. Thought I made that clear the other night.”

“You did.”

“So what’s our problem here?”

Frank shook his head, said, “There’s no problem here.”

“I hope not. Then the next time me or my son tells you do something, you damn well do it, you got that?”

DAY TWENTY-THREE

Sturm blew the ditch first thing in the morning. It was kind of anti-climactic, really. A whole hell of a lot of smoke spit out of each end of the drainage pipe, and some cracks appeared in the asphalt, but that was it.

“Goddamnit,” Sturm said.

Everyone else expected a much bigger explosion. Frank, Chuck, and Theo were hunkered down behind the pickups parked a hundred yards back up the highway. Jack and Pine were off somewhere for Sturm. Smoke unfolded in the still air. Nobody said anything else.

“Shit, shit. Shit,” Sturm said. “Chuck. Go park that sonofabitch in the middle of the goddamn highway. Park it right on top of the drainage ditch.”

“You got it,” Chuck said, and jogged down the highway, all that slack skin swaying and jumping. After a while, his figure got blurry in the heat rising from the asphalt that appeared a deep dark black under the morning sun, until it simply melted into the highway.

Sweat wormed its way down’s Frank’s temple, and he pulled his cap off and wiped his forehead with his sleeve. He was pissed. Annie wandered through his mind, swinging those hips of hers, heavy breasts swaying, muscles gently contracting in her strong brown legs. As always, he didn’t know what the hell he was going to say. This was a waste of his time, being out here. A slow rage had been simmering in his veins all night, but he stood at the front of the vehicles with everyone else, facing the sun, and gave it his best practiced smile.

Sturm drank coffee, sitting on the front bumper of his truck. He tucked a pinch of Copenhagen snuff the size of a walnut into his lower lip. He grinned, black specks of tobacco seeping up into his teeth like tiny ants. He spit a gallon of black saliva at the dust as if it was a declaration of war.

Far down through the heat waves they heard a motor crank to life. It was the Caterpillar. And apparently, it was the signal Sturm had been waiting for. “Let’s go,” he said, and jumped into his pickup. Everyone followed.

They came upon the Caterpillar in the middle of the highway, tilted nearly sideways, caught in mid-lurch, haphazardly shoved at the sky as if it had twisted an ankle. The engine was silent. Apparently, Chuck had driven the backhoe onto the cracks in the asphalt, and the pipe underneath had collapsed, flinging him out of the tractor. He was off in the sand on the side of the highway; a thin line of blood trickled down his forehead into an eye socket full of blood. But it looked like he was too busy holding his left knee utterly still to worry about a bleeding scalp wound.

“Perfect,” Sturm shouted. “Don’t move anything. Leave it right in the middle of the road.” He turned back to his son and Frank. “Frank, you and Theo set up those sawhorses. Make sure them lights are blinking.”

“Which side?” Theo asked.

“Did your mother drop you when you were born? What side. Use your head.”

Frank had already carried two of the sawhorses to the other side of the backhoe, so anyone driving into Whitewood would see the blinking lights and the orange sawhorses. After a moment, Theo followed him, and they arranged a straight line of sawhorses, blocking all traffic.