They went back outside into that early morning cold sunlight for the second time and walked their bikes out of the yard. They looked toward the barn and corral. Elko was still humped on three legs, still kicking. They mounted the bikes and rode out of the driveway onto the loose gravel on Railroad Street and east a half mile to the Holt depot.
When they were finished with their paper route they met again at Main and Railroad and rode home. It was a little warmer now. It was about eight-thirty and they were sweating a little under the hair on their foreheads. They rode past the old light plant beside the tracks. When they passed Mrs. Frank’s house on Railroad Street and then the line of lilac bushes in her side yard, the new little heart-shaped leaves beginning to open along the branches now, they could see the extra pickup was still in the driveway at home, parked beside the corral.
Anyway, Ike said, he’s not done with him yet. That’s Dick Sherman’s pickup.
I bet he’s still kicking, Bobby said. Kicking and grunting.
They rode on, pedaling over the loose gravel, past the narrow pasture and the silver poplar and turned in at the drive and left their bikes at the house. They approached the corral but didn’t enter; instead they looked through the fence boards. Elko was on the ground now. Their father and Dick Sherman were standing beside him, talking. He was down on his side in the corral dirt with his neck reached out as if he meant to drink at the barn’s limestone block foundation. They could see one of his dark eyes. The eye was open, staring, and they wondered if the other eye was open too like that, staring blindly into the dirt under his head, filling with it. His mouth was open and they could see his big teeth, yellow and dirt-coated, and his salmon tongue. Their father saw them through the fence and came over.
How long have you boys been here?
Not very long.
You better go back to the house.
They didn’t move. Ike was still looking through the fence into the corral. He’s dead. Isn’t he? he said.
Yes. He is, son.
What happened to him?
I don’t know. But you better go back to the house. Dick’s going to try to find out.
What’s he going to do to him?
He has to cut him open. It’s called an autopsy.
What for? Bobby said. If he’s already dead.
Because that’s how we find out. But I don’t think you want to watch this.
Yes we do, Ike said. We want to watch.
Guthrie studied them for a moment. They stood before him across the fence, blue-eyed, the sweat drying on their foreheads, waiting in silence, a little desperate now but still patient and still waiting.
All right, he said. But you ought to go up to the house. You won’t like it.
We know, Ike said.
I don’t think you do, son.
Well, said Bobby. We’ve seen chickens before.