Half of Paradise

Evans came out from behind the truck with the dogs. They were going to turn them loose. Evans released the two German shepherds and kept the bloodhound on its leash. The dogs charged up the hill towards Toussaint. They were fine animals and he didn’t want to hurt them. Only a man like Evans would turn his dogs loose to get killed, he thought. He pulled back from the crest, standing erect, and held the rifle by its barrel. He swung and hit the first dog across the muzzle with the stock. The dog flipped sideways and lay quivering on the ground. There was a split along its jowl that ran back to the thick gray-black fur around the neck. The second dog bounded over the crest and tore into Toussaint’s legs. He kicked and pounded its neck with the rifle butt. The dog’s jaws were locked around his ankle, cutting to the bone. He inverted the rifle and shot it through the back. The bullet broke the dog’s spine, and he had to shoot it again to put it out of pain.

He limped back to the crest and took his position. The troopers had moved up the gullies while he fought the dogs. The firing was heavy and it came at him from both flanks. The acrid smell of burnt powder filled the air. He took the last cartridges from his pocket and pushed them down into the magazine. He crawled to the edge of one gully and tried to hold them back. There was a shot behind him, a whine like a bullet ricocheting off rock, and suddenly his stomach was aflame. His eyes throbbed and he couldn’t breathe; he was spitting blood. He held his forearm across his belt line, his rifle in one hand, and stumbled away from the crest to the water’s edge. He fell in a sitting position with one leg bent under him.

This is it, he thought. I ain’t got to go no more. The wound in my side turns the grass to red. He saw the troopers come over the rise, silhouetted against the sun. He could see Evans among them, as though he were looking at him through a long tunnel. He could have raised his rifle and shot him, but he knew it would do no good. There would always be another Evans and another after him. Toussaint was very tired. I wish I could lie in the corn and look up through the stalks. His head sagged on his chest, and he fell backwards in the leaves with his arms stretched out by his side.

J.P. WINFIELD

He had a morning appointment with the doctor. He took a cab to the doctor’s office and gave his name to the nurse and read the newspapers in the waiting room while she told the doctor he was there. Later the nurse took him into a small white room that had the depressing antiseptic smell of a hospital to it. The doctor came in a few minutes later. He was slight and dark featured and he had a gray mustache and his hair was beginning to thin along his forehead.

“What’s the trouble?” he said.

“I want a checkup.”

“Is it anything in particular?”

“I blacked out a couple of times,” J.P. said.

“Under what circumstances?”

“I just blacked out.”

“Take off your shirt.”

The doctor listened to his heart and breathing with the stethoscope.

“Do a couple of knee bends,” he said.

J.P. did them. The doctor listened some more with the stethoscope.

“Let’s check your blood pressure.”

He wrapped the rubber tourniquet around J.P.’s arm and pumped it up with the rubber ball in his hand.

“It’s high,” he said.

“How much?”

“Considerably more than it should be. Did you know that you had a heart murmur?”

“No.”

“I want to make a cardiograph test.”

“What’s that?”

“It will tell us more about the condition of your heart.”

“How bad is a murmur?”

“It depends. It might mean you have to take things a little easier.”

J.P. put his shirt back on.

“Do you drink excessively?” the doctor said.

“No.”

“Are you taking any kind of drugs?”