C4 antho - Chamber Four

Black Night Ranch ~197~
“I didn’t find them,” Billy said.
“Did a headcount. They ain’t with the rest. Why’d Sonny
split off from the others?” Billy didn’t know. He also didn’t
know why James Carl would ask him. He knew Billy didn’t
know anything about sheep. “Sheep don’t split up. Don’t
make sense. Why’d those dogs kill so many?” Billy didn’t
know that either. From the recent lack of ticks in his bed, and
the fact that he hadn’t seen Dog around, Billy thought he’d
been missing a couple of days, but he wasn’t willing to mention
it without something concrete to say about it.
“Instinct never failed an animal so much as a damn
sheep. Untie my three. I’ll skin them and hang them in the
smokehouse. Take the rest to the bone yard in the pecan orchard.
How’s your eyes? You see good?”
Billy told him his eyes were fine, but that he was only a
fair shot with open sights.
“Can’t be any worse than me. I reckon you better start
carrying the rifle, at least until I get a scope for it.”
Billy had only been working with James Carl the three
months since his parents died, and already he was used to
seeing sheep do things that made no sense. He was used to
seeing them get killed. They ran into barbed wire fences, off
cliffs, into slow moving dirt road traffic, and other such nonsense
on a regular basis. Apparently he and his boss could
add running under tractors and straight at dogs to the list of
stupid things sheep do.
“Maybe Sonny was retarded,” James Carl said with serious
wonder. “Get back to plowing. I’m going go find the hole
he slipped through. I’ll yell at you when the Mexicans get
here.” It was his last word on the subject of Sonny.
Billy didn’t say anything, but he didn’t think Sonny was
retarded. For one thing, the lamb had been the only one to
find the hole in the fence, which Billy thought was smart.