Puppy by Richard Ford

This is a story about a high profile lawyer who is out of town quite a bit who is married to an AIDS activist. Someone leaves a puppy inside their gate one day.
"Early this past spring someone left a puppy inside the back gate of our house, and then never came back to get it."
The puppy is solid white, solid black.
The wife is insistent on taking it to the pound. The husband is naive and thinks someone will come looking for it. This story is about racial segregation that still exists in the South (New Orleans)
They have circumstantial evidence that the dog came from some street kids.
This is a story for all dog lovers.

The Hitch-Hikers by Eudora Welty

Tom Harris, a travelling salesman decides to pick up a couple of hitch hikers one day. One of the hitch hikers has a guitar with him. When they get to town, Tom goes into the motel for them to get them a room. When he comes back, the man with the guitar is badly wounded. The man does not make it through the night and his co-hitch hiker confesses to the killing. This story is an intense one, but must be read slowly to catch the story between the lines...