The Feud by Thomas Berger

sort who when he had a bunion cut a hole right out of his shoe.
    At lunchtime Dolf tended to avoid the men who worked under him, on the machines, and to take his lunchbox not to the large, noisy, crowded room set aside for the purpose, but to a relatively peaceful corner near the stockroom, where sitting on one crate he could put his sandwiches and thermos on another and while eating gaze with a certain satisfaction on the momentarily quiet factory-scape, crane and catwalks overhead, machinery below. Dolf had come here after dropping out of high school, and he had never worked anywhere else.
    This noon he had just put his first sandwich in order—taking out the piece of lettuce that Bobby insisted on including, which was always wilted by lunchtime and reminded him of garbage; and folding the bread, if it was white, upon itself so that there were four layers instead of two, because white bread tended to compress to nothing when chomped—he had just arranged all that was necessary for the first taste when who should emerge from the adjacent door but Walt Huff, formerly a neutral personage but now of course to be identified with the enemy.
    “I be darn,” said Huff, in a not unfriendly voice. “So you did show up, after all.”
    Dolf lowered his sandwich. He got the reference but would not admit it. “What’s that mean?”
    Huff moved his lower jaw from side to side and said almost shyly, “I don’t know, I thought them guys was making threats.”
    Dolf put it right to him. “You mean your relatives?”
    Huff jerked his shoulder. “By marriage. I ain’t all that close.”
    “Any uh you wanna make something of it,” said Dolf, “you know where to find me.” He had previously made a decision to say nothing directly about the damage to his car to any member of the Bullard crowd. Anybody who would do such a thing would only derive enjoyment from hearing the outrage evoked by it; therefore the only effective response was not words but an act of revenge.
    “ I never had anything against you, Dolf,” said Huff. “You know that.”
    Dolf realized for the first time that Huff had a yellow streak up his back. He pressed his advantage. “By God,” he said with quiet savagery, “I’ll take all of you on, one by one, or all at once. I don’t give a good goddam.”
    “Well, that’s got nothing to do with yours truly,” said Walt. “You ‘n’ me ain’t got no quarrel. Guy who causes all the trouble is that Reverton. He’s half-cracked. He spends too much time with hoboes, if you ask me.”
    “Yeah,” Dolf said, still holding his doubled sandwich. “Well, you just tell him I’m getting me a twelve-gauge, and if he makes one move towards that popgun of his, he won’t have no belly.”
    Huff didn’t look as impressed as he should have. He said, “Well, if there’s too many guns on the scene you can’t tell who’s gonna get hurt. You and Bud could probably make it up, whatever the argument’s about, if Rev would keep out of the way. Trouble is, he’s got a lot of pride. If he thinks you’re trying to show him up—”
    “Aw, the hell with that son of a bitch,” said Dolf. “Shit on him. Is he the only one in the world who’s got pride? Is he God Almighty because he carries a pistol?”
    Huff ducked his head in a yellow way. “I’m just saying it would be too bad if anybody’d get really hurt, you know?”
    Dolf sneered at him. “You mean you’re worried about yourself. Well, you just crawl aside with your tail between your legs, and you won’t get hurt.”
    Huff grinned at him for a while. Walt was as chicken-hearted as they came. Then he said, “Go to hell, you bastard.”
    Dolf put down his sandwich, stood up, and swung a roundhouse at Huff, who stepped out of its way, and just as Dolf had completed the follow-through forced on him by the momentum, Walt gave him a big one in the gut. Luckily it was too low for the solar plexus, and though it hurt him, he was not put out of action: behind the