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In the first fight I’d watched birds, but this tietically brutal sport there was a vast tenderness between the handler and his bird Loyd cradled his rooster in his ar to it in a low, steady voice At each handling call he caressed the bird’s wings back into place, stroked its back, and licked the blood from its eyes At the end, he blew his own breath into itsHe did this when the bird was nigh unto death and clearly unable to win The physical relationship between Loyd and his rooster transcended winning or losing

It lasted up to the er I shivered as he tossed the feathered corpse, liht of Loyd’s hands on me made the skin of my forearms recoil from my own touch

"What do they do with the dead birds?" I wanted to know

"What?"

"What do they do with thehed "Not here In Mexico I’ve heard they do"

I thought of Hallie and wondered if they had cockfights in Nicaragua In the new, humane society that had already abolished capital punishhts

Loyd watched the road and executed a tricky turn He was driving a little fast for gravel road and dusk, but driving well I tried to picture Loyd driving a train, and ca No picture No more than I could picture Fenton Lee in his head-on wreck

"What do they do with the a question"

"There’s a du pit They bury thenored his joke "I think I’d feel better about the whole thing if the chickens were getting eaten"

"The ood ht but had won four more after that-more than anyone else that day

"It just seeo into those chicken lives, frorave of the unknown chicken Pretty pointless" I needed to make myself clear "No, it’s not pointless It’s pointed in a direction that makes me uncomfortable"

"Those roosters don’t knohat’s happening to the cock understands its life is pointless?"

"No, I think a fighting cock is stupider than a head of lettuce" I glanced at Loyd, hoping he’d be hurt by reed I wanted hihtened me that he could connect so intensely with a bird and then, in a breath, disengage

"It’s a clean sport," he said "It ht be hard to understand, for an outsider, but it’s soreith You don’t see drunks, and the betting is just a very saree with any of that"

"It’s a skill you have in your hands You can go anywhere, pick up any bird, even one that’s not your own, a bird you’ve never seen before, and you can do this thing with it"

"Like playing the piano," I said

"Like that," he said, without irony

"I could see that you’re good at it Very good" I struggled to find , disjointed iht of residency, stabbed eighteen ti in the driveway dappled with rooster blood Hallie in a jeep, hitting a land reat TellI don’t know My mother died when I was a three-year-old baby!" I had no idea where that came from I looked out theand wipedFor a long tiirls ere split apart from above while they picked fruit For the first time I really believed in my heart it had happened That soer Feel nothing Forget

Loyd seeently, "I mean, animals die They suffer in nature and they suffer in the barnyard It’s not like people They weren’t o to heaven, or wherever we go"

As plainly as anything then, I re to save the coyotes from the flood My ears filled with the roar of the flooded river and ripped the arHallie to stay with o to heaven?" I couldn’t hear his answer, probably because he didn’t have one I hadn’t wanted facts, I’d wanted salvation