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four, but in a month of days, two of them will be taken away. And when those two come back, they’ll be roont. Whatever spark there is that makes a complete human being, it’ll be out forever.”
    Hear him, hear him swept through the room like a sigh.
    “How many of you have twins with no hair except that which grows on their heads?” Tian demanded. “Raise yer hands!”
    Six men raised their hands. Then eight. A dozen. Every time Tian began to think they were done, another reluctant hand went up. In the end, he counted twenty-two hands, and of course not everyone who had children was here. He could see that Overholser was dismayed by such a large count. Diego Adams had his hand raised, and Tian was pleased to see he’d moved away a little bit from Overholser, Eisenhart, and Slightman. Three of the Manni had their hands up. Jorge Estrada. Louis Haycox. Many others he knew, which was not surprising, really; he knew almost every one of these men. Probably all save for a few wandering fellows working smallhold farms for short wages and hot dinners.
    “Each time they come and take our children, they take a little more of our hearts and our souls,” Tian said.
    “Oh come on now, son,” Eisenhart said. “That’s laying it on a bit th—”
    “Shut up, Rancher,” a voice said. It belonged to the man who had come late, he with the scar on his forehead. It was shocking in its anger and contempt. “He’s got the feather. Let him speak out to the end.”
    Eisenhart whirled around to mark who had spoken to him so. He saw, and made no reply. Nor was Tian surprised.
    “Thankee, Pere,” Tian said evenly. “I’ve almost come to the end. I keep thinking of trees. You can strip the leaves of a strong tree and it will live. Cut its bark with many names and it will grow its skin over them again. You can even take from the heartwood and it will live. But if you take of the heartwood again and again and again, there will come a time when even the strongest tree must die. I’ve seen it happen on my farm, and it’s an ugly thing. They die from the inside out. You can see it in the leaves as they turn yellow from the trunk to the tips of the branches. And that’s what the Wolves are doing to this little village of ours. What they’re doing to our Calla.”
    “Hear him!” cried Freddy Rosario from the next farm over. “Hear him very well!” Freddy had twins of his own, although they were still on the tit and so probably safe.
    Tian went on, “You say that if we stand and fight, they’ll kill us all and burn the Calla from east-border to west.”
    “Yes,” Overholser said. “So I do say. Nor am I the only one.” From all around him came rumbles of agreement.
    “Yet each time we simply stand by with our heads lowered and our hands open while the Wolves take what’s dearer to us than any crop or house or barn, they scoop a little more of the heart’s wood from the tree that is this village!” Tian spoke strongly, now standing still with the feather raised high in one hand. “If we don’t stand and fight soon, we’llbe dead anyway! This is what I say, Tian Jaffords, son of Luke! If we don’t stand and fight soon, we’ll be roont ourselves!”
    Loud cries of Hear him! Exuberant stomping of shor’boots. Even some applause.
    George Telford, another rancher, whispered briefly to Eisenhart and Overholser. They listened, then nodded. Telford rose. He was silver-haired, tanned, and handsome in the weatherbeaten way women seemed to like.
    “Had your say, son?” he asked kindly, as one might ask a child if he had played enough for one afternoon and was ready for his nap.
    “Yar, reckon,” Tian said. He suddenly felt dispirited. Telford wasn’t a rancher on a scale with Vaughn Eisenhart, but he had a silver tongue. Tian had an idea he was going to lose this, after all.
    “May I have the feather, then?”
    Tian thought of holding onto it, but what good would it do? He’d said his best. Had tried. Perhaps he and Zalia