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wouldn’t let him touch her unless she didn’t have a choice. She hates him as much as we do.”
    “Ask her,” the first boy challenged. “And just remember, you go tattlin’ to your folks and who’re they gonna believe? You or Marcus?”
    The question hung between them. “Let’s go,” one of the other boys said. “Let’s take a swim.”
    They hurried along the path, headed up the creek. Alice and I could move on down to the parsonage or try to double back and beat them to the swimming hole. With Picket tied, I didn’t have a choice. We crossed the creek and started up the other side, hindered by the vegetation and by Maebelle in the sling. Where I could duck and twist around the brambles and undergrowth, Alice was slower with the baby.
    We were about there when I heard the howl. There was no mistaking Picket’s voice, and this wasn’t a bark of anger. She was in pain.
    “Run!” Alice pushed me ahead of her. “We’ll catch up! Run!”
    Cursing myself for everything I was worth, I ran. I didn’t feel the briars or the limbs. Picket’s howl of pain came again, and I thought my heart would burst. She was defenseless. I had left her that way.

Five
    T HE
tall boy was backing away from Picket when I crashed through the undergrowth. His hand was bleeding, and every hair on Picket’s body was standing on end. She wasn’t making a sound.
    “Get away from her.” I went to stand by Picket. Very carefully I began to run my hands over her fur, to check and see where they had hurt her. She gave a sharp whine of pain as my fingers pressed her lower spine, at her rump. Beside her were two heavy sticks.
    The boys had shed their white shirts, and their skin was alabaster in the shade of the woods. Ribs protruded on all but the plump boy, making them look helpless, somehow shamed. Blood streaked the tall boy’s hand. It ran down his middle finger and dripped to the ground very slowly.
    “Let’s get out of here,” he said, and the others followed him as he backed away.
    “What did you do to my dog?” Picket was tense, ready to strike, but she wasn’t barking. Deep in her throat she growled, a sensation I felt more than heard. No one answered my question, and I wanted to strike them, to pick up the heavy sticks and whale away at them until they would never hurt another dog again. Not a single one of them answered me. They stared until the tall boy turned away.
    “I said let’s go,” he commanded. The boys fell in with him in a ragged line.
    “If you ever hurt my dog again, I’ll get even. You’ll burn in hell, Redeemer boys!”
    The tall boy paused as if he was considering my words. Then he turned and faced me. He was smiling. “You’d better be careful who you threaten, girl. Don’t you know you shouldn’t be out in the woods alone. No tellin’ what might happen to you. No tellin’ …”
    “Bicycles!” The cry rang out over whatever else the tall boy had intended to say. The plump boy had found them, the one who earlier had been defending his sister.
    They pulled the bikes from the foliage where Alice and I had hidden them. They were jubilant with the discovery, intent among themselves. One of them danced and hollered like an Indian around my Schwinn. Very carefully I loosened Picket’s rope from around the magnolia tree. If I let Picket loose, she’d go after them. It would be worse than one small bite. But even as much as I wanted to let her go, I was afraid of the tall boy. He might really hurt her. Or me, and he might enjoy doing it. There was also Alice and Maebelle V. to consider. I held Picket tight.
    The boys picked the bicycles up and started running across the creek with them. They meant to keep them.
    I spoke softly to Picket, pressing my fingers along her back once again. Except for that one sensitive spot she seemed to be okay.
    “Bekkah!” Alice broke through the tangle of huckleberries behind me. She took in the disappearing boys and our bicycles. “Oh, my God,” she whispered