I was trying to focus on just one of them while it was still up near the window and follow it all the way down to the piece of tin where we set up the stove in winter. Nero, lying outside the screen door, raised her head from between her paws and pricked her ears toward the barn. I heard his singing too. There’ll be smoke on the mountain, on the land and the sea, When the Army and Navy overtake the en-e-mee… A song we heard sometimes when the radio batteries were charged and we could pick something out of the static. He stopped at the horse trough, scooped up water in his yellow straw hat and held it over his head to let the water filter through onto his hair. The first drops rolled down without penetrating his black mane, divided into little streams at the nape of his neck, then ran quickly down his bare brown shoulders and disappeared under his overalls. He said “Ahhh!” then laid his hat and glasses on the trough’s rock rim and washed his face, snorting in the green water. Then he replaced his hat and glasses and reached toward the fence.
