I won’t lie to you and tell you that I haven’t been giving it all a good hard think. No sir, not with those bones showing up like they did on the back step, and me taking so long to realize just what they were, who they were, I should say. That’s the thing that really knocked it out of me, realizing who it was that was showing up, piece by piece, a bone at a time, at my back door. Damn fool dog! As if I didn’t have enough to think about without him dragging all that up. Maybe if I’d picked up that first one—a nice hefty human fibia, it turns out, although at the time I was thinking maybe an ostrich leg or something—and given that mutt a good thump on the head the whole business might have ended up on someone else’s back step. Hell knows I didn’t need it, but then, once a guy starts thinking about something like that, he realizes, who does? No one I knew of, that’s for sure, so I guess it might just as well been me as the next guy. Besides, I’m not much for thumping dogs. I’m not much for thumping anything, truth be known, which is maybe why the whole damn business landed at my feet. Turns out, some fights just need a guy to step in and take the punches.