Free The Visible Man and Other Stories by Gardner Dozois

tin and whatevah other junk I could scrounge up, begging old rope and nails to lash them together with. Then I’d break my ass dragging them down to the Kennebec. And you know what? They a’ways sunk. Every goddamned time.”
    “Ayah?” Wilbur Phipps said.
    Jacobs pushed the bowl of viscid chili away, and got up. Restlessly, he wandered over to where Dave Lucas, the game warden, was drinking beer and talking to a circle of men “. . . dogs will be the end of deer in these pa’ts, I swear to God. And I a’n’t talking about wild dogs neither, I’m talking about your ordinary domestic pets. A’n’t it so, every winter? Half-starved deer a’n’t got a chance in hell ’gainst somebody’s big pet hound, all fed-up and rested. The deer those dogs don’t kill outright, why they chase ’em to death, and then they don’t even eat ’em. Run ’em out of the forest covah into the open and they get pneumonia. Run ’em into the river and through thin ice and they get drowned. Remember last yeah, the deer that big hound drove out onto the ice? Broke both its front legs and I had to go out and shoot the poor bastid. Between those goddamn dogs and all the nighthunters we got around here lately, we a’n’t going to have any deer left in this county . . .” Jacobs moved away, past a table where Abner Jackman was pouring ketchup over a plateful of scrambled eggs, and arguing about Communism with Steve Girard, a volunteer fireman and Elk, and Allen Ewing, a postman, who had a son serving with the Marines in Bolivia. “. . . let ’em win theah,” Jackman was saying in a nasal voice, “and they’ll be swa’ming all over us eventu’ly, sure as shit. Ain’ no way to stop ’em then. And you’re better off blowing your brains out than living under the Reds, don’t ever think otherwise.” He screwed the ketchup top back onto the bottle, and glanced up in time to see Jacobs start to go by.
    “Ben!” Jackman said, grabbing Jacobs by the elbow. “You can tell ’em.” He grinned vacuously at Jacobs—a lanky, loose-jointed, slack-faced man. “He can tell you, boys, what it’s like being in a country overrun with Communists, what they do to everybody. You were in ’Nam when you were a youngster, weren’t you?”
    “Yeah.”
    After a pause, Jackman said, “You ain’ got no call to take offense, Ben.” His voice became a whine. “I didn’t mean no ha’m. I didn’t mean nothing.”
    “Forget it,” Jacobs said, and walked out.
    Dave Lucas caught up with Jacobs just outside the door. He was a short, grizzled man with iron-gray hair, about seven years older than Jacobs. “You know, Ben,” Lucas said, “the thing of it is, Abner really doesn’t mean any ha’m.” Lucas smiled bleakly; his grandson had been killed last year, in the Retreat from La Paz. “It’s just that he a’n’t too bright, is all.”
    “They don’t want him kicked ev’ry so often,” Jacobs said, “then they shouldn’t let him out of his kennel at all.” He grinned. “Dinner tonight? About eight?”
    “Sounds fine,” Lucas said. “We’re going to catch a nighthunter, out near Oaks Pond, so I’ll probably be late.”
    “We’ll keep it wa’m for you.”
    “Just the comp’ny’ll be enough.”
    Jacobs started his truck and pulled out into the afternoon traffic. He kept his hands locked tightly around the steering wheel. He was amazed and dismayed by the surge of murderous anger he had felt toward Jackman; the reaction to it made him queasy, and left the muscles knotted all across his back and shoulders. Dave was right, Abner couldn’t rightly be held responsible for the dumbass things he said—But if Jackman had said one more thing, if he’d done anything than to back down as quickly as he had, then Jacobs would have split his head open. He had been instantly ready to do it, his hands had curled into fists, his legs had bent slightly at the knees. He would have done it. And he would have enjoyed it. That was a