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except for the dogs scrabbling at the outside of the door. Every so often one or the other would back off and get a running start and throw himself up against it.
    “You fight okay for an old man,” Bantry said, panting. It was about his first volunteer word since he got there. “But you still lost.” Jackson didn’t answer him. It was hurting him too much to breathe right then. Bantry reached a handkerchief off the dresser and dabbed at the cut above his eye. Then he picked up the keys of Jackson’s truck and twirled the ring around his finger.
    “You won’t never make it,” Jackson said. They were both still again for a minute, listening to the dogs trying to come through the door.
    “I could always kill you,” Bantry said.
    “You’ll still come out behind,” Jackson said. “I already lived a lot longer than you.”
    Bantry sat down on the edge of Jackson’s bed, looking down at the floor. He still had to hold the handkerchief over his cut to keep the blood from running in his eye.
    “What say we just call it a draw?” Jackson said. “We could just go on in the kitchen and eat supper and forget the whole thing.”
    Bantry looked over at him. “How I know you’re telling the truth?” he said.
    “Hell, you don’t,” Peter Jackson said. “But there’s always a chance of it. And some chance is better than no chance at all.”
    Bantry sat and thought a while longer. Then he reached over and unlatched the door. The dogs came in fast, spinning around, slipping a little on the slick board floor. They were in such a hurry to find Bantry and eat him alive they were just about falling over themselves.
    “Let him alone,” Jackson called out, and both dogs simmered down right away. Then to Bantry: “You come on here and help me up. And let me have that aspirin bottle. That’s what I was after in here in the first place.”
    Another week or so went by. Bantry’s cut was healing up; it was not so bad as it looked at first. Jackson had thought his ribs were cracked but it turned out they were only bruised and soon enough they started feeling better. Bantry went on about the same as before, doing what he was told and not saying much, yet Jackson didn’t think he was quite so sullen and angry as he had been. Then one afternoon Bantry came up to him and said, “I’m done with the dog runs. All right I go down by the lake a while?”
    “Go ahead on,” Jackson said. He was right pleased because it was the first time Bantry had asked him for anything, and for that matter it was the first time he’d acted like he knew the lake was even there.
    So Bantry went on down the trail and Jackson went and turned out a dog named Theodore he was training for K-9. He had on all the pads he wore whenever he was going to let a dog have at him. After twenty minutes or so he took a break and walked around the low side of the kennels where he could see out to the lake, and that was when he saw Bantry out paddling in the pirogue.
    Later on, Jackson couldn’t tell just why the sight of it hit him so hard. He hadn’t told Bantry he could use the boat, but then he hadn’t told him he couldn’t either. He might have been trying to run off again; there were people in the houses on the far side of the lake and Bantry might have thought he could get over there and steal one of their cars. But even from that far distance Jackson could see that Bantry didn’t know much at all about how to handle a boat: he couldn’t keep it headed straight, and he kept heeling it way over to one side or the other.
    Whatever his reason was, Jackson decided he wanted to get down there quick. He took out running down the trail, shedding his pads as he went along. Bronwen and Caesar came along with him, and Theodore, who was still out loose, was frisking along after all of them, not taking it too seriously, just having a good time. The trail takes a zig and a zag through the cedar grove, and for the last leg or two Jackson couldn’t see the lake at