He didn’t yield in approval of my textbook execution of the armlock.
Dropping his rifle from his good hand, he grabbed me by the scruff of the neck and pitched forward, spilling me over his shoulder onto the rocks by the side of the road.
Dad swung one heavy, elongated arm, knocking the Old Man away from me like a golf ball on a tee.
“Dad, stay out of—”
The Old Man sat up, unslung and aimed the shotgun in a fraction of a second. He fired it into Dad’s torso, sending a spray of Splinter matter out behind him.
“You didn’t have to do that!” I shouted, but I might as well have been shouting it about everything the Old Man had ever done, for all the use it was now.
“You can’t hurt me with that, Dwight,” said Dad, pulling himself back into more or less his usual shape, waiting for his fart
