Blackburn was surprised that it was so easy. He hadn't thought he would be able to shoot another man. But here was Number Two trying to pull on his pants. The man was big, and his footfalls shook the telephone on the nightstand. A hole in his stomach pumped dark blood. The blood glistened on the man's skin, on the bedsheets, on the floor.

The woman on the bed was screaming. She scooted back against the headboard and stuffed part of the top sheet into her mouth. She screamed louder.

"Don't do that," Blackburn said. His ears were buzzing from the gunshot.

Number Two pulled his pants up as far as his knees, then fell. The telephone jumped. The man grunted. He lay on his side, and the blood ran down his belly to the floor. The woman continued to scream. Her screams were why Blackburn had come into the room. But there was no need for them now.

"It's all right," Blackburn said.

The woman screamed and screamed.

"What else could I do?" Blackburn asked.

Number Two began twitching. After a moment Blackburn realized the man was sobbing. He was in pain. Blackburn was sorry for that. He wasn't used to the pistol. Until today, he had never fired a real gun. He hadn't meant to hit Number Two in the stomach.

Blackburn stepped closer to the man. "Don't look," he said to the woman. The woman pulled the sheet over her head. Her screaming was becoming hoarse.

Blackburn pulled back the pistol's hammer to cock it. Then he pointed the muzzle at the side of Number Two's head.

The man was sweating. His twitching had become a steady tremble. His eyes rolled up to stare at Blackburn. He moaned.

Blackburn hesitated. It had been easy to shoot when he had seen the man beating the woman. It was not so easy now.

He turned to leave. This man wasn't Number Two after all. Wounding didn't count.

The woman's screams stopped as Blackburn started for the door. She was probably already reaching for the phone. He would have to get down the road in a hurry. He hoped that the junk Ford pickup he had stolen would start.

He heard the woman say, "Oh my God should I call an ambulance?"

He heard the man say, "Get you for this, bitch."

The pistol was still cocked. Gripping it with both hands, Blackburn went back to the man and fired into his head.

It was spectacular. Blackburn was shocked. He'd had no idea. The walls, the bed, the woman, his clothes. He'd had no idea at all.

The woman was screaming again. "I'm sorry," Blackburn said. He gestured at the walls with the gun. "About all this."

The woman's nightgown was hanging askew, making her body look twisted. Her hands covered her face. She was trying to say something through her own screams. Blackburn couldn't understand the words.

"Hey," Blackburn said. When she didn't respond, he yelled. "Hey!"

The woman stopped screaming. She uncovered her face and stared at him. Her hair was tangled, her face streaked. The flesh around her eyes was puffy and bruised. She was trembling just as Number Two had.

"He was hurting you," Blackburn said.

The woman rose to her knees. She clenched her fists beside her face and shrieked, "He was my husband!"

Blackburn was confused. "Did that make it okay?" he asked.

The woman crumpled into a ball and wouldn't say anything more.

Blackburn went out. Some people.

The lights were on in the motel office. The county sheriff's patrol must be on its way. Blackburn sprinted for the Ford and jumped in. It started on the first try, and he tore out of the gravel lot onto the blacktop. Six hours remained before sunrise. He would have plenty of time to lose himself in the Ozarks.

He had learned a lot since leaving Kansas that afternoon. He had learned that improving his aim was essential. He had learned that a.357 Colt Python packed a bigger punch than he had realized. And he had learned that when a man deserved to die, killing him was not hard.

Only two cartridges remained in the Python. He would need more. His seventeenth birthday had been eventful, and he expected more of the same in the days ahead.

The day before the blind man came to school, Jimmy Blackburn's father made his mother bleed. It wasn't much blood, but Jimmy's mother cried. His sister Jasmine screamed. Jimmy wanted to hit Jasmine in the mouth the way Dad had hit Mom. Jasmine's screaming was what had started the fight in the first place.

Dad went outside and drove off in his pickup truck. Jimmy would have gone outside too, but Mom said he couldn't leave the table until he had cleaned his plate. He didn't want to eat. His round steak and mashed potatoes were cold. But the longer he waited, the worse they would get. So he tried. Maybe if Mom saw that he was trying, she would excuse him anyway. Maybe she would even let him have some ice milk later on.

Mom dabbed at her mouth with a dishrag. She was still crying a little. Jimmy was afraid she was a sissy. He had been hit harder than that before and hadn't cried. Jasmine started pounding on her high chair tray, squashing her food, and Mom didn't seem to care.

"May I be excused yet?" Jimmy asked. Jasmine was making him sick.

"Five more bites," Mom said.

Jimmy forced down five bites of meat, then left the table. Jasmine threw a blob of potatoes at him as he went by. It stuck to his shirt. He threw it back, hitting her in the face. She screamed louder than ever, and Jimmy was sure that he would get in trouble. But Mom only reached over with the dishrag and wiped Jasmine's face. The blob of potatoes smeared and turned pink on the cloth.

He went outside and sat on one of the tires behind the garage. The sun was setting, turning the western sky gold, red, and purple. Mom said that Kansas had the most beautiful sunsets on earth. Jimmy wondered how she knew, since she had never been anywhere else.

The windbreak of evergreens murmured. Winter was coming. Jimmy couldn't wait for snow, because snow would mean canceled school days. He hated third grade. Mrs. Porter was fat, and her breath smelled like burnt newspaper.

A meteor streaked southward, its white trail pointing at the town of Wantoda. Jimmy hoped it would hit the grade school. He listened for an explosion, but didn't hear one.

After a while he got chilly and went back inside to watch TV. Mom gave him a bowl of ice milk, then made him go to bed at eight-thirty. She stood in his bedroom doorway and listened while he knelt and said his prayer: "Now I lay me down to sleep, I pray the Lord my soul to keep. If I should die before I wake, I pray the Lord my soul to take. God bless Mom and Dad and Jasmine, in Jesus' name, Amen."

Jimmy got into bed and under the covers. Usually Mom said good night and closed the door as soon as he did that, but tonight she just stood there, centered in the rectangle of kitchen light. Jimmy's bedroom had once been a pantry, and it had no windows to let in light from outside. He couldn't see Mom's face. Only her shape against the yellow.

"Remember, Jimmy," she said. "A prayer isn't just something you say. It isn't like a poem you memorize for school. It's what you use to talk to Jesus."

"Yes, ma'am," Jimmy said. "I know."

"I'm sure you do. But sometimes we forget that we know something. So be certain to remember what Jesus said about praying: Anything you ask in His name will be granted."