The steak was tough but tasty, the corn almost as good as that in the meal Andy had prepared near the edge of the woods. The bowl of taters, although almost the size of a washbasin, needed to be refilled twice, the gravy boat three times, but to Eddie the true revelation was the rice. Zalia served three different kinds, and as far as Eddie was concerned, each one was better than the last. The Jaffordses, however, ate it almost absentmindedly, the way people drink water in a restaurant. The meal ended with an apple cobbler, and then the children were sent off to play. Gran-pere put on the finishing touch with a ringing belch. “Say thankee,” he told Zalia, and tapped his throat three times. “Fine as ever was, Zee.”

“It does me good to see you eat so, Dad,” she said.

Tian grunted, then said, “Dad, these two would speak to you of the Wolves.”

“Just Eddie, if it do ya,” Susannah said with quick decisiveness. “I’ll help you clear the table and wash the dishes.”

“There’s no need,” Zalia said. Eddie thought the woman was sending Susannah a message with her eyes— Stay, he likes you—but Susannah either didn’t see it or elected to ignore it.

“Not at all,” she said, transferring herself to her wheelchair with the ease of long experience. “You’ll talk to my man, won’t you, sai Jaffords?”

“All that ’us long ago and by the way,” the old man said, but he didn’t look unwilling. “Don’t know if Ah kin. My mind dun’t hold a tale like it uster.”

“But I’d hear what you do remember,” Eddie said. “Every word.”

Tia honked laughter as if this were the funniest thing she’d ever heard. Zal did likewise, then scooped the last bit of mashed potato out of the bowl with a hand nearly as big as a cutting board. Tian gave it a brisk smack. “Never do it, ye great galoot, how many times have’ee been told?”

“Arright,” Gran-pere said. “Ah’d talk a bit if ye’d listen, boy. What else kin Ah do ’ith meself these days ’cept clabber? Help me git back on the porch, fur them steps is a strake easier comin down than they is goin up. And if ye’d fatch my pipe, daughter-girl, that’d do me fine, for a pipe helps a man think, so it does.”

“Of course I will,” Zalia said, ignoring another sour look from her husband. “Right away.”

Six

“This were all long ago, ye must ken,” Gran-pere said once Zalia Jaffords had him settled in his rocker with a pillow at the small of his back and his pipe drawing comfortably. “I canna say for a certain if the Wolves have come twice since or three times, for although I were nineteen reaps on earth then, I’ve lost count of the years between.”