Free Bull Head by John Vigna

morning to come.
IX
    After he hauls his last load the next day, Lonnie parks behind the bar. He fixes his hair in the rearview to hide the bruise on his forehead, changes his clothes in the front seat, and enters through the back door.
    He sits down where he can watch the N O E NTRY door and waits for the next show, flashes a hundred-dollar bill to the waitress. “Bring me a high-test every ten minutes until I run out of money.” He peels off a twenty, hands it to her. “Your tip.” She raises her eyebrows, stuffs both bills into her cleavage.
    A dancer hangs plastic beer jugs off her breasts, jiggles them against each other; the next dancer contorts herself in strange configurations on the pole. A third dancer tears tiny holes in hertip money and pulls the bills over her nipples. Lonnie drinks his beer fast and asks the waitress when Shelby Sweet is scheduled. The waitress leaves him another beer, shrugs her shoulders. He hands her the empty bottle.
    The N O E NTRY door opens, Shelby steps out, and Ricky follows, a stunned look plastered on his face. She holds his hand and they pause at the DJ booth. Ricky lights her cigarette, then his own. He leans toward her ear; she smiles. Ricky glances over at Lonnie, points a finger at him, and shoots, laughs. Lonnie guzzles his beer and stumbles out the back door.
    At the edge of the parking lot a small doe feeds quietly on the brush. Lonnie lurches toward his truck, climbs up inside, and sits, slamming his head against the steering wheel. “You dumb-ass, stupid fat fuck.”
    He digs for his keys in his jeans, pushes the right one into the ignition, waits for the red lamp to glow. He strikes his head again, touches the wound on his forehead, sees blood on his fingertips. The doe lifts her head to look around and leans down to continue feeding. Lonnie watches her for a while, feels for the rifle behind the seat, slides out of the cab.
    He staggers, uses door handles of pickups and sedans for balance, stops at a Chevy where he leans his elbows on the front hood, squints down the barrel at the doe’s brown neck. His heart hammers and he can’t breathe. He waits and takes a deep breath, exhales slow and easy, and pulls the trigger. The blast booms out and echoes across the parking lot; the kickback smashes into his shoulder like a punch and sobers him. The doe’s head whips down as if yanked from below, and then it staggers to its knees, confused, before keeling over on its side.
    A faint, sugary taste of cordite hangs in the air. Lonnie walks toward where the doe thrashes, her head snatching back and forth. Pine needles and dirt collect in dark wet clumps on her neck. Her eyes roll with panic. From the bar, the DJ’s muffled voice announces Shelby Sweet. The shouts of men, the slam of a door. Lonnie sucks in a mouthful of cold air, exhales, and spits. The deer convulses, braces herself. He touches her forehead. She twitches furiously against his hand. He tries to comfort her, stroking her head as she flails.
    Lonnie stands, reloads, and sights in. The hairs on the doe’s neck are white-tipped, the bullet hole floods red against the soft white and brown of her hide. His finger rests on the trigger, his breath calm and measured.
    â€œGo on now,” he whispers. “Go on home.”

FENCES
    M AURICE LAY IN his tattered sleeping bag, peered around the one-room cabin in the pre-dawn glow. A yellowed calendar, thirty-five years old, hung on a steel spike next to faded pink stubs from raffle tickets bought for the valley’s Rodeo Queen contest. A stack of his wrinkled and warped hunting magazines sat beneath a rack that held two well-polished rifles; a washcloth, dishtowel, flannel shirt, and navy work pants drooped from a clothesline hanging near the woodstove. A worn Bible jammed with various bookmarks—an obituary of their father clipped from the newspaper, blades of grass, and turned-over page corners—rested on a small table