4

By the time Art came back, considerably less sanguine than when he'd left, Raylan and Burl had completed their tour and Raylan was settling Burl into his desk, next to Nelson and across the bullpen from himself, Rachel and Tim. Nelson hovered like a junior at a senior prom, offering anything Burl was lacking.

"Nelson? You looking to get pinned?"

Art followed Tim's comment with his eyes to where Nelson studiously turned his back on them both as he bent to ask Burl if that stapler was okay by him, there was a different kind in the store cupboard if he wanted it?

"What'd I miss?" said Art, glancing back at Tim.

"Raylan gettin' stroked by the new guy. Hell, everyone gettin' stroked by the new guy."

The look Art gave Tim was not a complimentary one.

"The 'new guy' has some serious mojo in his record. You'd best keep that smart mouth of yours on a leash for a while."

Tim snorted. Art bit.

"What?"

"'Serious mojo'." A heavy pause for effect. "He's a Marine. Probably jerks off at national level, sure, but the rest is all mouth and trousers."

"Oh. Oh." Art made a sad face. "Is Timmy feeling a little bit overwhelmed by the big bad army man?"

"I just think – " and Tim dropped back into his broadest drawl, safety there, "he's some kind of shammerai, taking his medals out for a dance."

"I seem to recall you making some kind of comment 'bout 'another award'?"

"That wasn't army, and you know it."

"Huh. Well, just try not to be a tight ass little shit to the newbie, okay?"

"Okay," Tim said. He couldn't summon enthusiasm, but he could fake obedience. He was a military man, after all.

Raylan loomed up alongside his desk, relaxed with his day and with Burl Torvey.

"Thought I'd take Burl to Lindsay's for a round or two. Care to join us?"

"Now that's a fine idea," Art began, with a meaningful look at Tim, but he was already shaking his head.

"No can do. Sorry, Raylan."

"What?" Burl wandered over, smiling wide. "You got some pretty thing waitin' on you at home?"

Beyond arrogance; that was downright invasive.

"Matter of fact, I do." Tim hit shut down on the computer and pushed back, finding his feet in one smooth motion, baring his teeth in a parody of goodwill. "Y'all have a good night. Here." He reached for his wallet, pulled out a couple of dollar bills and held them for Burl to take. "You go ahead and have one on me."

"Why, thank you," said Burl. "You know I will."

And Tim heard it, even if no one else did, because he always paid attention, always watched for it.

Game on.

He couldn't quite meet Rachel's eye, which annoyed the hell out of him all the way to his car. It wasn't against the law to take a dislike to a bragging sack of Marine shit, was it? If it was, five thousand Rangers should be court-martialled on the spot.

The irritation stayed with him, sand in his eye, until he got home and turned off the engine. That was his first chance to properly hear it.

It was unearthly; a wraith of sound, floating up through his windows and roof, hovering there in the afternoon's last light. His heart thumped hard in his throat and he instinctively reached for his gun as a hundred childhood terrors made their pitiless way across the back of his neck and into the pit of his belly.

Mrs. Goosens was waiting by his porch, irradiated with pleasure at the size of her complaint.

"You hear that? You hear that? All afternoon, young man. One thirty five, I took note, one thirty five, and it hasn't stopped since."

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry, Mrs. Goosen, I'll –"

"I can have it put down, you know. I can get Roy to shoot the damned thing."

A fresh howl from inside the house, and Tim pushed past her, hands still raised in apology, breaking into a run for the door.

"I'll see to it," he called, and slammed the door closed behind him.

At once, the howling stopped. He heard a thump, then a dragging sound, and then the talk began; where have you been? Why did you leave me?

"I'm sorry, baby girl." He hurried through the living room to his small kitchen and back room where he'd left the dog nestled on a pile of rugs that morning. She wasn't there – and a swinging check of the room showed him the laundry door, open when he left, now closed and banging with the force of something repeatedly colliding with it.

"Hold on, alright, I'm coming," he said. He marveled that she was upright and fit to make this level of noise. In two strides he was at the door and pushing it open.

He'd thought to store the dogfood in a container above the dryer. It had seemed like a sound plan. What was left of the food was now spread across the laundry floor, and she was wagging her whole back end for joy at seeing him and in pride for what she'd achieved. A helpless kind of laugh escaped him.

"Oh, Jazz. Look at what you've gone and done."

A slip. A stumble in his mouth. A day of irritation and frustration and all of it was gone as he felt himself hurt so quickly and so completely that it was as if the fall had been a physical one, skinning his flesh in one savage rip.

Jazz was dead twelve years, and all the good of his family dead with him.

The dog was busy pushing her nose into his crotch, between his legs, too full of delight to notice before he pushed her aside and grabbed for the trough. For a long moment he thought he was going to throw up; then a worse feeling when he realized he wasn't, and all the sadness and sick horror was settling back down into his body after all.

Tim hung there, ignoring her, trying to ignore his own self. The pattern of the tile around the taps transfixed him, and he stayed in it, lost in a swirl of blue on orange, cold and hot and twisting towards nausea without ever quite getting there.

The dog food crunched under his feet.

"Goddammit," he whispered. "Goddammit."

She was winding through his legs again, her sores red but shiny now, healing. Her head butted against the long fingers dangling off the front of the trough as he leant on his elbows above it. She whined.

"I know. I know." He whispered it over and over again, the words mere sounds, echoing oddly in the confined space of the laundry. At last he closed his eyes and allowed his knees to fold so that he slid into a knot on the floor, with the dog gladly climbing onto his lap, her tail still wagging with happiness.

He held her then, both hands cupped about her ears, and at last, she stilled. Her mouth closed, lolling tongue tucked away; she looked back at him with huge brown eyes.

If he sat like this, quiet like this, holding tight to her fur, with the dog food under his ass and the smell of urine in his nostrils – if he did, for a time, then maybe. Maybe.

Maybe, this would be one more night when he wouldn't float away.