Around them, supplies were boxed, tables were folded, and the ring began to be disassembled. Dogs were led away. Men were cursing, killing their beverages, and taking last hits off their smokes. Others were crowded around the bookie, collecting their bets. Lee went there, waited his turn, and got his money. When he was done counting it, he head-motioned Rico. The two of them went up into the woods, climbing the grade the way they had come.

Mark Christianson stood beside an oak on the rise, taking photos through his digital camera, its lens zoomed to the maximum. He was focusing on the dog handlers, the referee, and the bookmaker rather than the spectators, though he caught many of them in the frame.

Mark had found his vantage point and remained hidden behind the wide trunk of the oak for as long as possible. He had first looked through his binoculars, more powerful than the lens of his camera, to familiarize himself with the people and the scene.

Immediately he had recognized Fat Tony Jamison, a former dogfighter turned oddsmaker and consultant, moving his 350-pound frame slowly through the area, working the crowd. Fat Tony had been around way too long. Then Mark saw Antoine Loomis, who had a pit on a leash and was apparently still in the trade. For a three-month stretch back in ’97, “Twan” Loomis had run fights out of a condemned apartment building at 49th and A, in Southeast. He had always been one step ahead of the law. When a determined Mark finally did gain entrance to the apartment house, after Loomis had abandoned the site, he had found the cinder-block-and-concrete basement where the fights had been staged. Damp, mildewed copies of Your Friend and Mine, The Pit Bull Chronicle, Face Your Dogs, and other publications were spread about the floor. Also on the floor were broken malt liquor bottles, cigarette butts, feces, matches, bottle caps, and syringes. Blood was streaked on the walls.