I’ll never spare another dime for those filthy beasts. Those were the last words I ever heard Mama Precious Tuck speak. Then Uncle Tuck came across the room and smashed her upside the head with the cast iron shovel from the fireplace and rolled her inside the old rug that had lain on the floor of the parlor for five generations of Tucks. He used the shovel to strike the rolled up rug several more times where I guess he figured her head was. After that we took her out back and threw her in the bed of his pickup. He covered the rug with a tarp. He said come on. Uncle Tuck drank half of a fifth of Jim Beam on the short drive down to the chinchilla ranch. I sat in the truck and fiddled with the radio dial while he dragged the rug out. I watched him haul her across the lot and down to the pens. I rolled down the window to catch the breeze. Above the music from the radio I heard a lot of screaming and then Uncle Tuck came walking back up the hill with just the rug. He threw it in the truck and came over and got in the cab. He sat silently contemplating the view through the windshield, the barren weed strewn lot and down the hill the ramshackle structure he’d constructed to house the ranch. Did you feed her to the chinchillas, I asked. Weren’t expecting her to still be alive was all he said in answer. He reeked of liquor. And chinchilla cum.