Hunts in Dreams by Tom Drury

blade into his palm until it hurt. The knife closed soundlessly and tightly. It was an excellent knife. He put it back in Lyris’s hand and closed her fingers.
    Earl the deputy stopped by the tavern a couple hours into his nightly rounds. A sign on the wall said that the maximum number of people allowed on the premises was ninety-five, but there were only seven in the tavern, counting the bartender. “How’s the old shillelagh?” he asked Earl.
    â€œNo complaints,” said Earl. “Give me a Pepsi and a pickled egg.”
    The bartender uncapped a jar of brine and reached in with tongs. “I’m thinking of discontinuing these. We hardly sell any of them.”
    â€œNot like the old days,” said the deputy, “when the pickled egg was king.”
    The bartender put the egg on a sheet of wax paper and handed it over. “Why, the sidewalks would be jammed with people, each with their own egg.”
    â€œThat was the heyday of the steam-powered adding machine.”
    â€œNow everything’s changed except the jokes.”
    â€œOld jokes for old men.”
    â€œAll maintenance, here on out.”
    â€œHow true.”
    Earl took the egg and the Pepsi to the back of the tavern and pressed coins into the metal sleeve of the pool table. The cast-resin balls rattled down the open shelf. He walked around the table, setting up trick shots. He ate the egg, which had the consistency of glue.
    The young man named Follard came over and put quarters on the rail for a game of last-pocket. Follard shot from a crouch, peering over the edge of the table.
    â€œYou guys break up a party tonight?” he said.
    â€œNot me.”
    â€œThen who would it have been?”
    Earl shrugged and sank a bank shot he had no business making.
    â€œWell, I heard some kids got their keg taken from a party at the Elephant.”
    â€œEntirely possible, but it’s nothing I’ve heard of,” said Earl. “And these were cops that did it?”
    â€œSo it was told to me,” said Follard.
    Earl took a five-dollar bill from his shirt pocket and folded it into a sleeve, which he slid down the cue, ferrule to joint. “What am I again?”
    â€œLittle ones.”
    â€œI can’t even remember what I am. That’s where my head is at.”
    â€œI got a knife off them.”
    â€œOff who?”
    â€œThe ones who told me about the party.”
    â€œThey just offered it up. Out of generosity.”
    â€œOut of something. They don’t know where it went.”
    â€œWell, Follard, what’d you take it for? You see, this is how you get in trouble.”
    Follard reached under the table for the bridge. “The ladies’ aid,” commented Earl.
    Follard held the butt of the bridge in one hand and fitted the cue intently into the brass notch. “To tell you the truth, I don’t even know why I did it.”
    â€œDon’t think I won’t run you in.”
    â€œFor a little jackknife? Put it this way: it would surprise me.”
    â€œLet me see it.”
    â€œI gave it to a girl.”
    Earl folded his arms with the cue against his badge. “I ought to rough you up or something.”
    â€œWhy do you say that?”
    â€œI don’t know. It’s just a feeling. Like it would be an ounce of prevention.”
    â€œWell, she’s more deserving than the one who lost it. In a sense, I did a good thing.”
    â€œI highly doubt it,” said Earl.
    Micah crept down the stairs. Because of how the house was built, you could get two thirds of the way without being seen. His father sat in the big chair, and his mother was on the davenport with her legs crossed beneath her. They were watching a movie on Channel 9. The commercials were bracketed with film footage of clouds passing eerily over the moon, followed by the words Nightcap Theater, written in letters that were drawn to look as if they were made of wooden planks, jagged from