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want to start?’
    Dodge hefted the ball peen, let it slap the leather of his palm.
    ‘Joints,’ he said.
    The white van rattled up the dirt road, veering side to side on wide, trash-littered switchbacks. The ground finally leveled
     off,the headlights sweeping past an endless chain-link guarding a disused auto-wrecking yard. Vehicles smashed into neat rectangular
     bales were stacked treetop high, the unlit aisles running as long and true as cornrows. Caught wrappers and plastic bags wagged
     in the barbed wire. Rust ground into the hilltop dirt had turned the soil an Indian red.
    Past the wrecking yard, beyond a massive setback of dead weeds, rose a two-story clapboard house. It had settled westward,
     resigning itself to the wind. A blue oak twisted up out of the brown earth like something from a painting.
    The van halted in front of the house, dust clouding around the tires. The breeze picked up to a faint moan. Dodge climbed
     out, slammed his door, stretched his spine. It was early-morning dark, the hilltop as desolate as an abandoned mine.
    A light clicked on upstairs in the house.
    William was a bit slower getting out. Wincing, he fumbled a pill from his pocket and downed it dry, then rubbed at the backs
     of his legs. He palmed a handful of sunflower seeds into his mouth, his jaw shifting with machine precision, then spit a few
     hulls in the dirt. He’d started at eleven years old with tobacco dip, but a few years ago someone had shown him a video of
     people with holes in their lips and cheeks, and so sunflower seeds it was. He had enough problems already without a sieve
     for a jaw.
    He walked around the van, running a hand along the chipped white paint, and opened the back door. Ted lunged out, bellowing,
     his voice strained through the pillowcase tied over his head. William sidestepped, his wilted leg nearly buckling, and Ted
     tumbled off the rear bumper into the dirt. He screamed, arms flopping boneless at his sides, shattered at the shoulders and
     elbows.
    He used his chin to shove himself up, shuffling and grunting like a blind bear, then bolted. The pillowcase was spotted red
     around the mouth where William had punched a knife through to give him some air; it was hard to be precise when they struggled.
    About twenty yards away, Ted tripped and fell. Found his feet. Kept on.
    William’s brother, Hanley, emerged from the front door and paused on the rickety porch, staring out across the Sacramento
     Valley. Morning edged over the horizon, a thin plane of gold. Hanley gave a half nod to the new day, stepped down, and peered
     into the back of the van. A body neatly wrapped in plastic drop cloth, one leather couch cushion seared from a bullet, rags
     soaked with bleach strong enough to make the eyes sting. When Hanley nudged the couch cushion to explore the bullet hole,
     the microcassette beside it clicked to life, a few baby squalls escaping until he stopped the recording again.
    The footing of the sprawling front yard was uneven, ground squirrels doing their work beneath cover of the weeds. Ted ran,
     tripped, knee-crawled, ran. He blazed a frantic, meandering path, making poor progress. The three men paid him no mind.
    Hanley drew a hand across his mouth, his stubble giving off a rasp. The family resemblance was apparent, though Hanley was
     clearly a healthier version of his older brother. Well-defined muscles, smooth pale skin, no kink in the posture or tweak
     in the limbs. ‘Nice work, brother,’ he said. ‘Dodge do his thing?’ Eagerness showed in his voice. This was new for him, and
     more than a little exciting.
    ‘He did indeed,’ William said.
    Dodge was rooting in the duffel bag. He’d donned a rubber butcher’s apron and slaughterhouse goggles. The apron, pulled tight
     across his massive chest, held the marks of jobs past. He paused from cataloging his implements and drew himself upright,
     towering a full head above the van’s roof. That mannequin face, blank as a turned-off