The first showed a young man, much younger than myself, with tousled straw-colored hair, wearing jeans and a bright orange "Hooters" T-shirt, arms around two gorgeous women who looked to be several years older -- and several inches taller -- than he was. He grinned like an idiot. He was no idiot, though, I knew suddenly. And I knew his name, too: Randy. He was my brother -- or was it half-brother? -- and yes, he was as sex-crazed as his name suggested.

The next picture showed the pale, unblinking face of Julian, the conspiracy theorist. He wore fatigues and a flak jacket. I remembered now that he lived way out in the woods in a bunker with a bunch of inbred hound dogs and the meanest damn horse you ever laid eyes on, and God-knows-what-all in the way of arms and provisions. I wasn't even sure whether he even still answered to his real name: the most recent time I'd seen him, he was calling himself "The Guardian" and telling us, without a trace of emotion, how the end was nigh and we was all gonna die. A real nutjob.

The guy in the next photo wasn't much better, I knew. His name was Caine, and he was as dark from his days on the lake as Julian was pale from his days underground, though they both had the same dark hair. He wore faded black jeans, a green John Deere T-shirt, and a black satin NASCAR jacket. He stood posing in front of a spiffy new bass boat, clutching a wicked-looking Bowie knife in one hand, looking as menacing as he could, which was to say, very. I didn't remember for certain, but I got the feeling that maybe he liked to hold up convenience stores for fun and profit.

I flipped the next photo up and instinctively made a face. Eric, my big brother, the insurance salesman. He wore a black suit and red power-tie, and he smiled like a politician or a guy in a real-estate ad. His bearded face looked respectable enough, and yet I wouldn't be surprised at all to learn that he was the one that whacked me with that whiskey bottle. I sure wouldn't put it past him. And that smile made me nervous. I set that photo aside pretty damn quick.

The next picture showed a tall, thin man dressed in brown coveralls, standing next to the prettiest dun mare you ever did see, holding a twisted walking-stick. His name was Ben, and he was the oldest of all us brothers (and half-brothers). He didn't talk much, I knew, or smile much, either, but I respected him -- maybe because he knew when to keep his mouth shut, unlike most of the rest of the family. Or maybe because he was such a damn fine shot, which goes a long way in my book. Some folk say he could kill a dragonfly with a shotgun and a rhino with a pea-shooter, and I don't doubt it one bit. Good man, maybe better than all the rest of us put together. No wonder he moved across the county line and hardly ever calls anymore.

I flipped over the next picture and damn near spewed Budweiser all over the coffee table. Unless I've got an identical twin I don't remember, which, all things considered, I very well might, it was a picture of me, Cory, dressed in a black leather jacket, tight black Harley T-shirt, black leather pants, and black biker boots. Hanging from the jacket zipper was an emblem of some kind, and I squinted to make it out. Yes, it appeared to be a chrome hood ornament in the shape of a rose. What was I, some kind of leather-freak pansy? I set the picture aside in disgust and flipped up the next one.

It showed a man, similar to me but larger and, I knew, slower, dressed in a frayed blue bathrobe, holding a can of Budweiser. He smiled. I smiled back. His name was Gerry. Strong as an ox he was, and about as bright. He'd never strayed too far from home, and still lived in a ramshackle trailer at the edge of the old homestead, scaring away trespassers, doing repairs, and fishing.

The next picture brought back a flood of memories, and I laughed. It showed a redheaded man, bearded, wearing a sissified red silk shirt and tight pants like one of them Shakespeare actors. He slouched on a La-Z-Boy with a banjo in one hand and a bag of pork rinds in the other, grinning like the cat that ate the canary. My half-brother Bleys, Mr. Barrel-of-Fun. Captain of the high school football team back in the day, banjo player in a not-half-bad bluegrass band -- even if it was that sort of arty bluegrass that don't go over so well 'round these parts -- always with a pretty girl or three on his arm. Always the life of the party, he was, and good at everything he tried, just so long as he wasn't competing with one of his brothers.

I flipped over the next photo, and for a minute there I thought it was another picture of the same guy. But no, I realized, this was Bleys's younger brother Brand. He sat in a high-backed chair with a ratty green blanket draped over his legs, staring out the window so that his face was half in light and half in shadow, his hair like a fiery red halo around his head. He'd been a good kid, I reckon, but then he went off to Nam and came back... not quite right. Sharp as a tack, still, but moody as anything. I mostly avoided him if I could.

I flipped the first one over to find the painted face and bustin'-out-all-over body of Flo, clad in a halter top and cutoff shorts and with long nails and impossibly big hair. I didn't spend too much time lookin'. I mean, hell, the girl was right out in the shop if I wanted an eyefull. 'Course, that'd mean gettin' an earfull, too, so maybe there was something to be said for lookin' at the photo. I set it aside for later.

I looked at the next picture, and my heart damn near skipped a beat. A black-haired girl in a short, tight, sleeveless dress with a silver chain-link belt and no shoes gazed out the photo at me with eyes as blue as Amber Lake. Ah, sweet Deedee, was there ever a thing of beauty more... beautiful? My eyes filled with tears, my Wranglers with wood. I let out a sigh of relief: I guess I wasn't no pansy after all. But an instant later, relief turned to frustration: Lord, why couldn't she a'been my cousin instead of my sister?

The next picture was completely out-of-focus, a blur of red against a dark background, but I knew it had to be red-headed Fiona, full sister of Bleys and Brand. A dowser she was, and a midwife, and a teacher of herb lore. And for some weird reason, every picture of her came out blurred. Some folk said it was because the spirit of an old Cherokee medicine woman dwelled inside her, casting magics that obscured her image. But I think it was just 'cause Fiona moved so damn fast to flip you off as soon as you picked up the camera. She was a real bitch, and she hated having her picture taken. Just as well that I didn't have to look at her.

The next and final picture was perhaps the strangest of all: a green-haired girl dressed in green and purple who, more than any of my other siblings, was not like the rest of us. Her name was Ella -- I'm pretty sure it was short for something, probably something foreign or fruity, what with her mom being from California -- but I don't remember what. She only lived with us a little while before she went off to some fancy-pants Yankee college to major in Women's Studies. What is that, anyway, Women's Studies? I done me plenty o' women-studying' and I didn't need me no books to tell me how. Now, rumor has it, she's gone vegetarian and stopped shaving her legs and is in Vermont or some other God-forsaken place, living in sin with a woman who writes feminist porn, whatever the hell that is. The family don't much talk about her no more, 'cept in the kind of whispers you use when you're talking about cancer or bastards or Democrats. Of which she is two out of three, come to think of it.