two yards before the world gave a shake and caused him to plop down awkwardly on his haunches.

            The bum gathered himself with effort to a sitting position.  He looked at Shale and slurred, “Yer s’good listner…I loves ya’.”  He put the mostly empty bottle to his lips and tilted his head back, collapsing back as he did so into a prone position.  The bottle rolled from his loose fingers and rolled away, landing near several other bottles of the same type.

            Shale felt vaguely that he ought to be alarmed, but he was far more concerned with figuring out why the moon was making circles in the sky as it peeped out from the low scuds of clouds.  By the time he realized what was going on, the bum was snoring noisily.  Shale walked unsteadily over to him and nudged him with his nose.  The bum let out an exclamation so incoherent it didn’t even have a vowel in it and gently pushed Shale’s nose away.  Shale, who felt as though he needed some more of whatever liquid he’d been drinking that evening, found his way over to the bottles and nosed through them.  All the bottles said the same thing; “Night Train” and none of them had anything in them.

            By now the fire had died down considerably and since Shale had no idea how to get it stoked again, he decided he’d taken enough of the hobo’s hospitality.  He decided it would be a good idea to climb the culvert.  He got halfway up, tried to bite at weed for no particular reason and lost his balance.  He slipped sideways and half-slid, half-rolled back to the bottom of the culvert. He was unhurt, in fact, he was laughing, as much as a dog is able to laugh.  He decided that perhaps the culvert slope was a little more than he wanted to tackle just now and decided that walking along the bank of what used to be a river would suit him better.

            As he walked, he began to cast his mind back, thinking about events in his life in no particular order.  He seemed to remember a female he’d known, and hadn’t thought about in a long time.  She’d been a wolfhound and to Shale she’d been just about the sweetest thing God ever put on the earth.  She’d had a mate though, a big, dumb, slavering Great Dane named Tor.  She’d been too good for Tor, that much was sure. But Shale, as was his custom around large dogs, had been too afraid to make any type of move.  As he walked, he found himself getting more and more angry with Tor, and more and more sure that the female (whose name Shale couldn’t even remember) had probably loved Shaleinstead of that dopey Dane.  “Why, if he were here right now,” Shale thought to himself, “I’d give him what-for.  I’d knock him right on his backside!”  Shale punctuated this thought with a growl and a snap of his jaws at an imaginary dog located somewhere to his right.  This wasn’t the best idea, since it caused him to overbalance and he nearly fell off the retaining wall he was now walking on into the river that was coursing along happily next to him.

            Over the past several yards, the embankment Shale was walking on had sloped up precipitously, as the river next to him had widened from near nonexistence, to a trickle, to a creek, and finally the rather wide river that it was now.  As a consequence, bridges were needed to cross the river at this juncture.  Shale was approaching just such a place; a mostly deserted road that had wound its way out from Havenwood to the countryside. There were a few scattered houses nearby, however the tall old-growth trees that populated much of the suburban area of Havenwood were gone.  The river flowed under this country road and from hence its final destination Shale could not say.

            He was jerked roughly from his revere by a series of loud shouts from the bridge, which was now no more than twenty yards away. Normally any sort of shouting nearby would have caused Shale to look for a place to hide, however, on this night he felt content to stand where he was.  When he thought about it later, he was never entirely sure if he could have moved quickly into hiding without crashing into something.  The shouts from the bridge came indistinctly to his ears, and although Shale was no genius at decoding human behavior, it certainly seemed to him as though a fight might be in the offing.

            A car was stopped on the bridge and four teenagers had gotten out of it.  In fact, it was exactly the same car that had nearly run Shale down earlier that evening.  Judging by the demeanors of all involved, it was clear they weren’t admiring the view.  A large teenager was holding a bottle in one hand and using the other hand to threateningly poke a smaller boy in the chest.  Two other teenagers, obviously the hangers-on associated with the larger one stood by, grinning impishly.

            “You wanted to go ridin’ with us,” the older boy shouted. “And now you ain’t even going to have a drink?  What’s the matter with ya’? You trying to act too good for us now?” The younger boy, obviously intimidated, mumbled something noncommittal in reply.  “The you better have a drink,” the older boy said ominously. “Unless you want this bottle shoved in a place that it was never intended to go.  If you drink enough of it to make me think you’re not some kind of punk, I might not make you walk home.”  With that, he held the bottle out, clenched in a fist that looked to be roughly the size of a canned ham.

            The boy on one side started to chuckle.  “Yeah, Tony, you tell ‘em!”

            Tony swung his arm without even looking, clipping the one who had spoken with an open hand.  The blow hit him in the shoulder, but nonetheless served to knock him nearly off his feet.  “When I need your help, I’ll ask for it.  ‘Til then, shut yer’ mouth!” he growled.

            The younger boy nervously took the bottle from Tony’s massive hand.  His nervousness caused his hands to shake.  Suddenly, he lost his grip on the bottle and it clattered to the pavement. Fortunately it didn’t break, although some amber liquid spilled from the inside.  In his haste to pick it back up, the smaller boy accidentally kicked it, knocking it under the guardrail and into the river.  He looked back up at Tony, his face a mask of horror.

            Tony flew into a rage.  “Why, you little snot-nose punk!  Do you know how much that bottle cost me?  I’m gonna’ make you pay for that one!”

            One of his cronies registered a warning.  “Hey, c’mon Tony.  The kid didn’t mean it.  Don’t do anything stupid now.”

            Tony swiveled his head to look at who had spoken, glowered at him with a look that would have melted a brass eagle, then put both hands out in front of him.  With a shove, he pushed the younger boy squarely in the chest.  The younger boy flew like a rag doll, crashed into the guardrail, and then tipped head over heels off the bridge and into the river. Tony leaned his head over the rail, yelling, “And don’t you dare get out of there until you got my bottle back!”   

            “Holy crow, Tony!” the one that had spoken earlier exclaimed.  “What are you trying to do, kill him?”  As if to punctuate this statement, the boy bobbed to the surface, splashing and yelling.

            “Help me!” he screamed!  “I can’t swim!”

            With an exasperated growl that would have seemed more at home coming from someone stuck in traffic than one who was watching another person drown, Tony yelled out, “Just let the current carry you to shore, ya’ stupid baby!  I swear, if you wreck this night any more for me, I’m gonna’ send ya’ home with ruptures!”  Naturally, Tony made no move at all to rescue the floundering boy.

            Seeing the boy’s plight threw Shale into action. He prepared himself to do something that he’d never dreamed of doing before.  With nary a second though, he launched himself off the retaining wall and into the water below.  The cold water hit him like a roundhouse slap in the face, sobering him up considerably.  He spluttered as water went into his mouth and down his throat unexpectedly.  He bobbed to the top like a cork and paddled his way in a circle, trying to get his bearings.  The water was frigid, but he was able to make his way over to the struggling boy.  The boy let out a strangled noise and flung himself at Shale, nearly dragging