Even if you knew they were there, you would still jerk your hand back and almost fall down the cliff when you felt one. They growled but not loudly. You felt sorry for them, but there was no question of letting one go because they were as dangerous as their owner. There were a half-dozen places where he had attached thick chicken wire over concave places in the rock, detachable on one side. He often had two or three dogs tied down at a time. He came once a day with a water hose, wet them down, and squirted water into their mouths. After about a week, he would lead them on leashes to the compound where he used them for guard dogs. Combined with the whippings he gave them with a rope kept in a water barrel, the tyings-down and generous feedings made them good dogs, he felt.

            
            He needed them to secure his wrecking yard and the inside of his garage. He had a dozen or so German shepherd and Doberman pinscher-types, liking their biting power and running speed. He put two in the shop at night and the others in the yard, which had a six-foot heavy wire fence. There were no confirmed fatalities, but it was rumored in town that on at least two occasions in the past few years, the dogs had caught a man stealing headlights or a cutting torch or something in the yard. It was said the owner came out of his house and watched with a spotlight but did not intervene. The intruders were buried in the compound and car bodies put over the graves. The men had brought knives and tire tools and killed some of the dogs, but as the owner thought with satisfaction, a pack of dogs can kill almost anything.  

            
            I was climbing up the short rock cliff on this night with the expectation of witnessing a murder. I could have gone to the party where it would happen but didn’t want to be an official witness. I had long known this man was to be observed only at a distance, if at all, though I knew him and was cordial to him. I even periodically took in minor mechanical work so he would never have cause for resentment. I knew our relationship would not stand my discovery, but there was a thick tree stand on a slope some fifty yards from the party. Under a cloud-cloaked half-moon, I moved to the stand and hunkered down behind a tree trunk to watch the people in the fenced-in basketball court.

            
            The man made people uneasy in our rural West Texas town, but he had a wife and three children under 12 and was apparently never physically abusive to them. He was actually a fine-looking man — six feet tall and one hundred-sixty pounds with brown hair, brown eyes and handsome features. His name was common. He had a hollow way of looking at you, though, and was only pleasant in a lurching fashion, forcing himself to conform to local conventions. Nobody knew why he was like that. His parents still farmed in the area, a few miles northwest of town. His property had been a small farm that he converted into a junkyard.  He did not bother to grow anything on the unused acreage but kept the weeds and grass down. Some people think the core of the human race is the fallen angels who were cast out of Heaven with Satan. If you believe that, you could say he was one of the darker ones. It seems as good an explanation as any of the duality of human nature and the differences among children in the same families.

            
            As bad men always learn, you never get so fearsome as to discourage all potential challengers. That’s part of what keeps you bad. There is always someone new who has also never been defeated, who believes that when it comes down to the nitty gritty, no one is more formidable than he or she. The fellow who had forced the situation at the party was one of these.

            
            It had started over the price of an engine overhaul.  The other man complained loudly that day in the shop that the price was far too high, and then carried his complaints to town, calling the man “a crook” and even carrying on about the dogs and rumors of their victims. “Somebody oughta do somethin’ about him,” he said one morning at the coffee shop. “All that bull! I ain’t scared o’ him, and I ain’t payin’ him! He can keep the damn motor. I don’t need it anyway.”

            
            The other man was a farmer who did need the engine to replace one on a well, but it stayed in a corner of the garage as a source of growing annoyance to the mechanic. Mechanics are like plumbers in that they feel the grunginess of their work entitles them to a healthy reward. The unchanging presence of the engine, along with reports of the other man’s remarks from friends who liked to hang around the shop, drove the man to a decision he had never expected to make: to kill a man as well-known in the county as he and do it openly.

            
            The sheriff had never bothered the man except to ask him once if he had any trouble with thieves and encourage him to ask for help if he ever needed any. The man was an established citizen who did not steal or bother anyone who didn’t bother him and in politics you learn not to create any hardcore pockets of opposition unless you absolutely have to. The sheriff knew about the feud and the party, but no laws had yet been broken, and there would be plenty of witnesses if anything happened.

            
            The man came into town a couple of times and mentioned he had a birthday coming up, and his wife and he were throwing a party. “It don’t hurt to be sociable,” he would say. “We like to be friendly.”

            
            He came in one morning when he thought his enemy would be in the coffee shop and sat down with him and two other men. “Guess you heard about my party,” he said.

            
            “No.”

            
            “We’re goin’ to throw me a birthday party, start bein’ little more outgoin’ and ever’thang. I know we had that little fuss, but we’d like you an’ your wife to come. Nothin’ to be afraid of.”

            
            “Afraid!” the other man exclaimed. “Afraid o’ what?”

            
            “I don’ know. You never come picked up y’ motor.”

            
            “I’ll pick it up — and pay what I think it’s worth!”

            
            “Aw right,” the man said, rising and patting the other man on the shoulder. The other man looked angrily at the hand but didn’t otherwise move.

            
            “We’ll come to y’ party,” he said. “Be there with bells on.”

            
            Needless to say, there was a large crowd, at least for our county. Fifty or sixty people sat at four long tables on the shortened basketball court. There was a meal, and the guest of honor began opening his presents. He stood at the head of the table opposite me. His enemy was at the table’s other end nearest me with his back to me.

            
            “Well, lookee here!” the man said, taking a big long-barreled revolver from a package. “Guess I could break it in by shootin’ ol’ Wilbert down there.” Grinning, he cocked and aimed it at the other man but then pointed it upward.

            
            Wilbert stood and brought a semi-automatic pistol from his coat. “Not if I was you,” he said.

            
            The man brought the pistol down and fired, hitting Wilbert around the nose and blowing the back of his head off. Wilbert fell backward over the board seat attached to the table. His feet hit under the table, and his legs caught on the seat, bringing him to rest with both legs up, his knees bent, and the back top of his head touching the concrete. It looked like he was the only one over there looking at me — in a macabre way as if to demonstrate he retained the athleticism he had had as a youthful gymnast. The other guests had dived away, yelling and throwing their arms over their heads. His wife stood there screaming with her arms and fingers thrust out.

            
            “Naw, naw, naw!” the man ejaculated, looking bewildered. “I didn’t know it was loaded! Did you load this?” he asked his wife.

            
            “Yes!” she cried. “You always told me a gun ain’t no good without bullets!”

            
            I took advantage of the pandemonium to get away.

            
            A grand jury ruled that in light of the feud and Wilbert’s display of a weapon, the man was justified in reacting defensively. He had told the sheriff that in bringing the pistol down and pulling the trigger, he only meant to show it wasn’t loaded. He had planned to laugh and get everyone to laugh with him. His wife said she had loaded it so he would be pleased when he checked it, having always been a man who appreciated a loaded gun.