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stoats, and even the occasional non-laying chicken, but that particular pig was on her own.
    Amy Higgins crossed herself at mention of the sow.
    “Likely ’twas a bear,” she said. “Nothing else would dare. Aidan, mind what Mr. Ian says, here!
    Dinna be wandering far from the place, and mind your brother outside.”
    “Bears sleep in winter, Mam,” Aidan said absently. His attention was fixed on a new top that Bobby, his new stepfather, had carved for him, and which he hadn’t yet got to spin properly.
    Giving it a cross-eyed glare, he set it gingerly on the table, held the string for a breathless moment, and yanked. The top shot across the table, ricocheted off the honey jar with a sharp crack! , and headed for the milk at a high rate of speed.
    Ian reached out and snatched the top in the nick of time. Chewing toast, he motioned to Aidan for the string, rewound it, and with a practiced flick of the wrist, sent the top whizzing straight down the center of the table. Aidan watched it, openmouthed, then dived under the table as the top fell off the end.
    “No, it wasna an animal,” Ian said, finally succeeding in swallowing. “It was a clean slash.
    Someone went for her wi’ a knife or a sword.”
    Jamie looked up from the burnt piece of toast he had been examining.
    “Did ye find his body?”
    Ian grinned briefly, but shook his head.
    “Nay, if she killed him, she ate him—and I didna find any leavings.”
    “Pigs are messy eaters,” Jamie observed. He essayed a cautious bite of the burnt toast, grimaced, and ate it anyway.
    “An Indian, d’ye think?” Bobby asked. Little Orrie was struggling to get down from Bobby’s lap; his new stepfather obligingly set him down in his favorite spot under the table.
    Jamie and Ian exchanged glances, and I felt a slight stirring of the hair at the back of my neck.
    “No,” Ian answered. “The Cherokee near here all ken her weel, and wouldna touch her with a ten-foot pole. They think she’s a demon, aye?”
    “And traveling Indians from the north would have arrows or tomahawks,” Jamie finished.
    “Ye’re sure it wasna a panther?” Amy asked, dubious. “They hunt in the winter, no?”
    “They do,” Jamie assured her. “I saw pug-marks up by the Green Spring yesterday. D’ye hear me there?” he said, bending to speak to the boys under the table. “Go canny, aye?
    “But no,” he added, straightening up. “Ian kens the difference between claw marks and a knife slash, I think.” He gave Ian a grin. Ian politely refrained from rolling his eyes, and merely nodded, eyes fixed dubiously on the toast basket.
    No one suggested that any resident of the Ridge or from Brownsville might have been hunting the white sow. The local Presbyterians would not have seen eye-to-eye with the Cherokee on any other spiritual matter you might name, but they were in decided agreement on the sow’s demonic character.
    Personally, I wasn’t sure they weren’t right. The thing had survived even the burning of the Big House unscathed, emerging from her den beneath its foundations amid a shower of burnt wood, followed by her latest litter of half-grown piglets.
    “Moby Dick!” I now said aloud, inspired.

    Rollo raised his head with a startled “Wuff?,” gave me a yellow-eyed look and laid it down again, sighing.
    “Dick who?” said Jamie, drowsy. He sat up, stretching and groaning, then rubbed a hand over his face and blinked at me.
    “I just thought what it is that sow reminds me of,” I explained. “Long story. About a whale. I’ll tell you tomorrow.”
    “If I live that long,” he said, with a yawn that nearly dislocated his jaw. “Where’s the whisky—or d’ye need it for yon poor woman?” He nodded at Grannie MacLeod’s blanket-wrapped form.
    “Not yet. Here.” I bent and rummaged in the basket beneath my chair, coming up with a corked bottle.
    He pulled the cork and drank, the color gradually coming back to his face. Between spending his days hunting or