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he’ll have that produce all over the floor. He’s too rambunctious for his own good. Yours, too.”
    As if to prove her point, Red lunged against a bushel basket and sent potatoes flying in all directions.
    Mitch rolled his eyes ceiling ward. “Okay, okay, you’re right as usual.” He snapped his fingers at the dog, then pointed toward the door. Red ran over there, and the stockier man held the door open so the animal could go out.
    “Now, you pick up after your dog,” Mrs. Hilliard said. To the stocky man she added, “And you help him, Hod Barnett. Your wife was just in here wheedling more credit from me, so it’s the least you can do.”
    The man called Hod Barnett—Della’s husband?—scowled but bent and began helping Mitch pick up the potatoes. Alix glanced at Lillian Hilliard and saw she was watching him with a smug expression that belied the compassion she had shown earlier for the woman. Probably enjoys dispensing charity because it gives her power over people, Alix thought.
    When the two men were done Mitch turned back to the counter, counted out change for the cigarettes Mrs. Hilliard handed him. Then he and Hod went out past Jan, who was just returning.
    Jan took the largest carton, and Alix followed him outside with a smaller one. The two fishermen were standing in the gravel parking area nearby, lighting cigarettes in cupped hands. They glanced at Jan and Alix, their expressions neither hostile nor accepting; rather, their looks were ones of apathy and indifference. The dog was once again frisking around, begging for attention, and Jan gave it a nervous look. He was afraid of dogs, the result of a childhood misadventure with a German shepherd in which he’d been painfully mauled. Where larger dogs were concerned, his fear was almost a phobia.
    As Jan started to where the station wagon waited with its tailgate lowered, Mitch’s dog turned playfully and went after him, nipping at his heels. He pivoted in alarm and shook his leg, trying to push the animal away. The groceries shifted dangerously in the carton; he came near to losing his grip, staggered as he tried to maintain it. Red closed in again, teeth snapping at Jan’s calf.
    Alix stifled a cry. But Mitch just laughed. “Hey, Red,” he called, “don’t bite that fella’s leg off.”
    Jan half stumbled to the station wagon and thumped the carton down on the tailgate. The dog nipped at his leg again, this time catching the cloth of his jeans. Jan’s face was pale with fear. He swung around in reflex and kicked the dog solidly on its rump—not hard enough to hurt it, but hard enough to make it yip and scurry backward. It stood at a distance, tail down, eyes accusing.
    “Hey,” Mitch said angrily. “What the hell’s the idea?”
    Jan had leaned a hand against the Ford’s roof. He looked up, said blankly, “What?”
    “I said, what’s the idea, kicking my dog?”
    “It was biting me . . . ”
    “Red don’t bite. Nips a little, that’s all.”
    “How was I supposed to know that?”
    Mitch tossed his cigarette onto the gravel and took a step forward, his jaw set in tight lines. Hod Barnett looked uneasy now. Alix felt an uneasiness of her own, one that deepened her concern for Jan. Out of the comer of her eye, she saw that a pair of women who had been approaching the store had stopped to watch.
    “You can’t just kick a man’s dog, mister.”
    Jan straightened, frowning. “I told you, I had no way of knowing the dog was harmless.” He made the mistake of enunciating each word, as if speaking to one of his slower students. “Why don’t you keep him on a leash?”
    “That dog never hurt nobody,” Mitch said.
    There was belligerence in his voice, and Alix’s fingers tightened on the carton she was carrying. God, he seemed to want to fight! That was the last thing they needed as newcomers to Hilliard. And Jan, never a physical person, was in no shape to take on these two; he wouldn’t back down—he wasn’t a coward—and that