"You ungrateful dog!" Jenks shouted, staggering back in surprise, as if he'd never heard such words before. His arms knotted into cords and his eyes glazed. "Don't you talk to me like that in my own house! I gave you everything! I'm still man enough to kick the shit out of you!"

"The way you'll kick the shit out of Wayan?" Tull asked.

Jenks seemed astonished at the accusation. For a moment his anger collapsed in on itself. "Why, uh, I love the boy! I wouldn't really hurt him. He's my own flesh! I was just having fun. We were both having fun!"

"Oh, you'd hurt him all right. You just wouldn't kill him. And he wasn't having fun. You and me-We. Never. Had. Fun!"

Jenks looked around the woodshed as if at a total loss. Perhaps I've done it, Tull thought. Perhaps I've pierced through that thick skull of his. Maybe he'll go easier on Wayan than he did on me. Wayan cringed and began to cry loudly. I should go now.

"Good-bye," he said.

"What? What?" Jenks shouted. "But . . . you can't leave yet! You . . . you shit! You ungrateful little shit. What's going on here?"

Tull watched Jenks's face redden with rage again. He sputtered curses, and Tull was unsure if he should turn his back on the old man, so he backed away, Wayan still clinging to his neck. Jenks shouted, "Don't you close the door on me!" Jenks began advancing toward Tull, kicking logs from the woodpile.

Tull slammed the woodshed door between them. Jenks shouted curses, while Tull's mother stood at the table, still idly spooning soup into the tiny cup, ignoring what was happening.

Through all the years, every time Jenks had beaten Tull or Wayan, the woman had stood like that-frightened into inaction. Like a dead thing, Tull realized.

His father and mother were both dead inside, dead to the hate and anger that seethed within these walls, dead to the fear that Jenks engendered in his own children.

Tull didn't bother to say good-bye to her. As a child he'd wanted to save her, but as he grew, he'd realized that she should have been the one to save him. He'd given up caring about her years ago, or at least he'd tried. Even now, he fought back the desire to ask her to come away with them.

He stepped out the front door, listened as Jenks kicked open the back door and overturn the kitchen table.

Outside, a crowd of Neanderthals had gathered, come to see the commotion.

Tull walked down the street toward home, Wayan clinging to his neck. Tull stopped on the corner and found he was shaking with rage. Wayan whimpered, and Tull bounced him on his hip. He leaned his head back and closed his eyes. A drop of blood dripped from his nose.

Jenks had broken Tull's nose when he was ten, and since then Tull always got a nosebleed when he became too angry. Moon Dance Inn was on the corner, not far away, and when Tull turned that corner he always felt a sense of freedom, felt the tightening in his chest diminish.

"Don't cry," Tull whispered to Wayan. "Things will be better up here around the bend." He laughed in pain and let the anger leach out of him, then continued around the corner.

Caree Tech was still in her yard, stirring her cooking pot. She crooned, as if speaking an incantation:

Threads of iron have sewn me to this world.

Threads of iron have sewn me to this shore.

Threads of iron have sewn me to this town.

Threads of iron have sewn me to this street.

It was an old slave chant. Tull glanced at her and jiggled Wayan in his arms, bouncing him as if the child were an infant, even though he was nearly three.

Tull could feel the threads of iron that bound him to this place: the ugly memories, dark and desperate, of his home; the sweet sense of fulfillment he received in passing the inn; the echo of release from standing on this very street; the warmth and joy he felt in the presence of Ayuvah. Each was a thread in the tapestry of his life; each bound him to this place, defined his being, even as he struggled to escape such definition.

Wayan's hands were sticky with soup, and his face was dirty. A small stream washed down through the hills and crossed the street under a culvert next to Caree's house. Tull took Wayan to the stream, dipped the end of his long black breechcloth in the water and began sponging the child's face.

Wayan asked, "Tull, will you take me away?"

Tull wanted to. He wanted to save Wayan now, as much as he'd hoped to be saved as a child. But he couldn't do it. He hugged Wayan to his chest. "No, I can't take you now. I'm going on a long trip. It's too dangerous. It's no trip for a child."

"I can't be here!" Wayan shrieked. "I will get hurt from Jenks!"

"He'll hurt you, but worse things can happen in the mountains," Tull said. "There are Mastodon Men in the mountains who would eat you. Besides, Jenks is growing soft in his old age; maybe he won't treat you as badly as he treated me. Just watch out for him when he comes home from hawking his junk, especially after a bad day. If he hunches his shoulders when he walks, run and hide from him-far away from the house. Keep away till after dark. Let him work his rage out by beating the dog. And if he catches you when he's in a bad mood, stay far away from his feet so that he can't kick you. After he beats you, he'll want to apologize. He'll want you to hug him so that he'll know the apology is accepted. If you don't hug him, he'll get mad and beat you some more-so give in quick! Understand?"

"Yes," said Wayan.

"Good boy," Tull said, setting Wayan down on a rock.

He wiped the soup from Wayan's face with the wetted breechcloth. "You'll get by all right. Now, go home. Jenks is feeling sorry for himself, now that I'm gone. He'll want to give you something nice so that you'll like him. If you're smart, you'll let him." Tull stood up to leave.

"I'm smart," Wayan said, and Tull patted his head.

Wayan clung to Tull's legs as if he were just learning to walk. His lower lip trembled, and his green eyes were wide with terror at the thought of returning to the house.

Tull considered a moment. He didn't know if Wayan could understand how Jenks wanted to control them, wanted to force them to love him. The old man had even gone so far as to give them names that a Neanderthal could never pronounce, forever keeping their mother from correctly uttering her sons' names. Jenks was a sick, selfish man, but Tull didn't know if he could describe the illness to a child so young. "One last thing," Tull said. "Never talk about running away, or Jenks will chain you to your bed!"

Wayan didn't answer, just looked up with eyes wide with guilt, as if he'd done something wrong. Tull reached down and pulled up Wayan's pant legs. The boy had a shackle on his right leg. The same shackle Tull had worn as a child.

If Jenks had been in striking distance, Tull would have killed him. The shackle was thick and heavy, but it was only iron. Tull grabbed it with both hands, and such was his wrath that he pulled it hard enough to snap the hinges. For years as a child he had struggled to break that shackle, and instead he had only bruised and broken his leg against it.

Caree Tech was still crooning "Threads of iron, have sewn me to this house" narrowing in closer and closer to the end, where the threads would have sewn her to her task. Tull knew Caree must have been reminiscing about her sister, taken by slavers years before. Always the song ended with "Threads of iron, have sewn me to this oar. Threads of iron, bind me evermore."

Tull picked up the broken shackle and headed toward his parents' house, leaving Wayan by the stream. The words to the song hummed through Tull's head, "Threads of iron, have sewn me to this town." He walked past the bastard children jostling and playing tag by the inn, past the fabric shop and spice shop.

"Threads of iron, have sewn me to this street." And he imagined that with each step he was bursting the threads of iron that bound him to this place, snapping the filaments that bound him to his father, to his mother.

"Threads of iron, have sewn me to this . . ." and he reached his father's house with its crowd of gawking Neanderthals still standing outside the door.

Inside, Jenks was roaring and tossing furniture. Tull kicked the door open.

Jenks shouted, "What are you doing back here?" His face was red. His nostrils flared and his whole frame shook with rage. He rushed forward. When he was within arm's reach, Tull lashed out with the broken shackle, slamming it into the side of his father's head.

Jenks dropped, blood spattering from a gash in his temple. He lay on the ground, motionless.

Tull didn't know if the man was dead or alive. He didn't care.

"Threads of iron do not sew me to this family," Tull said. Jenks rolled to his belly and began shaking his head, struggling to regain consciousness. Tull felt a little blood running from his nose, and he wiped it with his sleeve. He threw the shackle to the floor and looked at his mother, quietly standing in a corner, waiting for Jenks's tantrum to subside.

Tull said calmly to his mother, "I'm leaving with Scandal the Gourmet. I'll be back in a few weeks. You and Jenks are dead to me now. But if I come back and find this shackle on Wayan's foot again, you'll both be dead to the rest of the world, too. I'll kill you both myself."

Jenks said groggily, "He's my son. I own him. I'll do what I want."

Tull spun and headed out the door, trying not to limp, trying not to let his father see him limp, and he found Wayan sitting by the stream where he'd left him.

Very obedient boy, Tull thought.

Wayan lunged forward and grabbed Tull's leg when he got near, and clung to him. Tull ruffled the boy's hair, touching him softly, and said, "Good-bye."

"I love you. Only," Wayan said, and he let loose of Tull's leg.

You are only a child, Tull thought. How can you love anyone?

Deep inside himself, Tull felt something was wrong. He could not tell Wayan that he loved him in return. He was not sure if it were true. If Tull really loved Wayan, wouldn't he have done something before now? In spite of the powerful kwea that seemed to press Tull away from this part of town, wouldn't he have stayed at home, protected Wayan, at least have been something more than a stranger?

It should not be so hard to love, Tull thought. Even stupid children do it. Tull did not know what to say to the boy.

Tull pried the child loose. Several Pwi were still watching him, and in the crowd Tull saw Chaa, the old Spirit Walker, being supported by his wife.

Chaa walked forward, put his arms around Tull's neck and whispered in his ear, "When I entered you, I saw your loneliness and rage. You must put this aside. There is no sin greater than loneliness; no vessel can be as empty as a life without love. You cannot any longer be no-people, unfamily. Would you be willing to choose a new family from among the Pwi? Would you become a man of the Pwi?"

"Can this be done?" Tull asked.

Chaa nodded. "There is a ceremony for it, an old ceremony that has not been performed in my lifetime. . . ."