Little painted turtles tilted from a log one by one like counted coins into the water. The child buried within him walked here one summer with an old turtlehunter who went catlike among the grasses, gesturing with his left hand for secrecy. He has pointed, first a finger, then the long rifle of iron and applewood. It honked over the river and the echo drifted back in a gray smoke of sulphur and coke ash. The ball flattened on the water and rose and carried the whole of the turtle’s skull away in a cloud of brainpulp and bonemeal. The wrinkled empty skin hung from the neck like a torn sock. He
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