Page:The Geranium.pdf/113

51 "It comin' this way," Gabriel said.

"How many wildcats you killed, Granpaw?"

Gabriel stopped; the plate of side moat tremored in his hand. "I knows what I knows, boy."

"We git it soon. We got a trap over in Ford's Woods. It been around there. We goin' up in a tree over the trap every night an' wait 'til we gits it."

Their forks were scraping back and forth over their tin plates like knife-teeth against stone.

"You wants sommo' side meat, Granpaw?"

Gabriel put his fork down on the quilt. "No, boy," he said, "no mo' side meat." The darkness was hollow around him and through its depth, animal cries wailed and mingled with the beats pounding in his throat.