Child of God by Cormac McCarthy

it didn’t look like there was anyone in there.
    He came out of the bushes and walked on down past the automobile. He was just a squirrelhunter going on down the road if it was anybody’s business. When he passed the side of the automobile he looked in. The front seat was empty but in the back were two people half naked sprawled together. A bare thigh. An arm upflung. A hairy pair of buttocks. Ballard had kept on walking. Then he stopped. A pair of eyes staring with lidless fixity.
    He turned and came back. With eyes uneasy he peered down through the window. Out of the disarray of clothes and the contorted limbs another’s eyes watched sightlessly from a bland white face. It was a young girl. Ballard tapped at the glass. The man on the radio said: We’d like to dedicate this next number especially for all the sick and the shut-in. On the mountain two crows put forth, thin raucous calls in the cold and lonely air.
    Ballard opened the car door, his rifle at the ready. The man lay sprawled between the girl’s thighs. Hey, said Ballard.
    Gathering flowers for the master’s bouquet.
    Beautiful flowers that will never decay.
    Ballard sat on the edge of the seat by the steering wheel and reached and turned the radio off. The motor went chug chug chug. He looked down and found the key and turned the ignition off. It was very quiet there in the car, just the three of them. He knelt in the seat and leaned over the back and studied the other two. He reached down and pulled the man by the shoulder. The man’s arm dropped off the seat onto the floor of the car and Ballard, rearing up at this unexpected movement, banged his head on the roof.
    He didn’t even swear. He knelt there staring at the two bodies. Them sons of bitches is deader’n hell, he said.
    He could see one of the girl’s breasts. Her blouse was open and her brassiere was pushed up around her neck. Ballard stared for a long time. Finally he reached across the dead man’s back and touched the breast. It was soft and cool. He stroked the full brown nipple with the ball of his thumb.
    He was still holding the rifle. He backed off the seat and stood in the road and looked and listened. There was not even a birdcall to hear. He took the squirrels from his belt and laid them on top of the car and stood the rifle against the fender and got in again. Leaning over the seat he took hold of the man and tried to pull him off the girl. The body sprawled heavily, the head lolled. Ballard got him pulled sideways but he was jammed against the back of the front seat. He could see the girl better now. He reached and stroked her other breast. He did this for a while and then he pushed hereyes shut with his thumb. She was young and very pretty. Ballard shut the front door of the car against the cold. He reached down and got hold of the man again. He seemed to be hung. He was wearing a shirt and his trousers were collapsed about the tops of his shoes. With a sort of dull loathing Ballard seized the cold and naked hipbone and pulled him over. He rolled off and slid down between the seats onto the floor where he lay staring up with one eye open and one half shut.
    They godamighty, said Ballard. The dead man’s penis, sheathed in a wet yellow condom, was pointing at him rigidly.
    He backed out of the car and picked up the rifle and walked out to where he could see down the road. He came back and shut the car door and walked around the other side. It was very cold. After a while he got in the car again. The girl lay with her eyes closed and her breasts peeking from her open blouse and her pale thighs spread. Ballard climbed over the seat.
    The dead man was watching him from the floor of the car. Ballard kicked his feet out of the way and picked the girl’s panties up from the floor and sniffed at them and put them in his pocket. He looked out the rear window and he listened. Kneeling there between the girl’s legs he undid his buckle and lowered his trousers.
    A crazed gymnast laboring