Isaac was the only one of the three brothers who ever stopped to wipe his feet on the rough floor of the dog-run before he walked into the cabin. The dirt he tracked in wouldn’t add much to what was already there, for Nelly was not any great shakes as a housekeeper, but the move was instinctive with him. He hated living in a hog wallow. Moreover, the noise would serve to alert his brothers and Nelly that he was coming. It kept Finis or Luke from poking a rifle into his face as he opened the door, their usual greeting to any stranger who happened upon the place.

A candle flickered on the rough table, and a fire burned low on the hearth where Nelly had fixed whatever had passed for supper; he figured he had already missed his and would have to take whatever he could find. In the glow, he could see that Luke’s face was swollen a little.

Finis glowered at him from behind his thick black beard. Sarcastically he said, “I’m surprised you seen fit to come home. I thought maybe them Lewises was so grateful for you bringin’ their cow home that they might ask you to stay and live with them.”

Isaac did not condescend to answer him. He asked Luke, “How’s your face?”

“It hurts,” Luke complained. “You didn’t have no call to hit me so hard.”

“The way you come at me, I had to. When you ever goin’ to learn not to do everything Finis tells you?”

Finis said, “You know we needed that cow. These young’uns ain’t had no milk since our own cow up and left on us.”

“You ought to have better sense than to steal from a nigh neighbor. They’d've come over here and found that cow, and like as not there’d've been a fight. And a fight can lead to a killin’.”

Finis shrugged indifferently. “That’d be fine with me. I wouldn’t mind seein’ one or two of them Lewises layin’ dead.”

“It might not’ve been them layin’ dead. Might’ve been one of us.” He turned to Nelly, who stood over against a wall, washing the supper plates in a pan. She looked bigger than a three-year-old heifer. He wondered how he could ever have brought himself to climb into bed with her. It had been a long time since he had.

“Got anything left that I can eat?” he asked.

Finis put in sharply, “He ain’t gettin’ nothin’, Nelly. He had no business whuppin’ up on his brother thataway.”

Nelly just stared open-mouthed, confused by the contradictory signals she was receiving. Saying nothing, she kept rubbing an old cloth against the plates.

Isaac took a plate and a spoon and went to the pots that sat on the hearth. He found there a remnant of squirrel stew and helped himself to it.

Finis declared, “I told you there wasn’t no supper here for you. If you want to eat, go back to your friends the Lewises.”