Wolves of the Calla

Then the rope caught on someone's heel-Heddon's, it looked like to Susa

She hoisted herself over to where he lay and put her head down so she could kiss him. "No, you're not," she said, "but you're attacking my heart, Eddie Dean. I love you."

He gazed up at her seriously from the dust of the dooryard. He knew that however much she might love him, he would always love her more. And as always when he thought these things, the premonition came that ka was not their friend, that it would end badly between them.

If it's so, then your job is to make it as good as it can be for as long as it can be. Will you do your job, Eddie?

"With greatest pleasure," he said.

She raised her eyebrows. "Do ya?" she said, Calla-talk for Beg pardon?

"I do," he said, gri

FOUR

All of them were hungry after their exercise, and with Susa

"Set us on with a word, Zee, if'ee would," Tian said.

She looked pleased at that. Susa

"Bow your heads, children."

Four heads dropped-six, counting the big 'uns. Lyman and Lia had their eyes squinched so tightly shut that they looked like children suffering terrible headaches. They held their hands, clean and glowing pink from the pump's cold gush, out in front of them.

"Bless this food to our use, Lord, and make us grateful. Thank you for our company, may we do em fine and they us. Deliver us from the terror that flies at noonday and the one that creeps at night. We say thankee."

"Thankee!"'cried the children, Tia almost loudly enough to rattle the windows.

"Name of God the Father and His Son, the Man Jesus," she said.

"Man Jesus!" cried the children. Eddie was amused to see that Gran-pere, who sported a crucifix nearly as large as those worn by Zalman and Tia, sat with his eyes open, peacefully picking his nose during the prayers.

"Amen."

"Amen!"

"TATERS!" cried Tia.

FIVE

Tian sat at one end of the long table, Zalia at the other. The twins weren't shunted off to the ghetto of a "kiddie table" (as Susa

"My arm still wuks if Ah do," the old man said, and snatched up the bread-basket to prove it. He did this smartly for a gent of advanced years, then spoiled the impression of briskness by overturning the jam-cruet. "Slaggit!" he cried.

The four children looked at each other with round eyes, then covered their mouths and giggled. Tia threw back her head and honked at the sky. One of her elbows caught Eddie in the ribs and almost knocked him off his chair.

"Wish'ee wouldn't speak so in front of the children," Zalia said, righting the cruet.

"Cry'er pardon," Gran-pere said. Eddie wondered if he would have managed such wi

"Let me help you to a little of that, Gran-pere," Susa

"Ain't seen a true brown woman in oh Ah'd have to say forty year," Gran-pere told her. "Uster be they'd come on the lake-mart boats, but nuramore." When Gran-pere said boats, it came out butts.

"I hope it doesn't come as too much of a shock to find out we're still around," Susa

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," Susa

"There's no need," Zalia said. Eddie thought the woman was sending Susa

"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 fu

"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."