"Is he having one of his bright days, your Gran-pere?" Eddie asked Tian a few minutes later. They had walked around to where Tian could show Eddie the field he called Son of a Bitch, leaving Zalia and Susannah with all children great and small.
"Not so's you'd notice," Tian said, his brow darkening. "He ain't half-addled these last few years, and won't have nobbut to do with me, anyway. Her , aye, because she'll hand-feed him, then wipe the drool off his chin for him and tell him thankya. Ain't enough I got two great roont galoots to feed, is it? I've got to have that bad-natured old man, as well. Head's gone as rusty as an old hinge. Half the time he don't even know where he is, say any small-small!"
They walked, high grass swishing against their pants. Twice Eddie almost tripped over rocks, and once Tian seized his arm and led him around what looked like a right leg-smasher of a hole. No wonder he calls it Son of a Bitch , Eddie thought. And yet there were signs of cultivation. Hard to believe anyone could pull a plow through this mess, but it looked as if Tian Jaffords had been trying.
"If your wife's right, I think I need to talk to him," Eddie said. "Need to hear his story."
"My Granda's got stories, all right. Half a thousand! Trouble is, most of em was lies from the start and now he gets em all mixed up together. His accent were always thick, and these last three years he's missing his last three teeth as well. Likely you won't be able to understand his nonsense to begin with. I wish you joy of him, Eddie of New York."
"What the hell did he do to you, Tian?"
" 'Twasn't what he did to me but what he did to my Da'. That's a long story and nothing to do with this business. Leave it"
"No, you leave it," Eddie said, coming to a stop.
Tian looked at him, startled. Eddie nodded, unsmiling: you heard me. He was twenty-five, already a year older than Cuthbert Allgood on his last day at Jericho Hill, but in this day's failing light he could have passed for a man of fifty. One of harsh certainty.
"If he's seen a dead Wolf, we need to debrief him."
"I don't kennit, Eddie."
"Yeah, but I think you ken my point just fine. Whatever you've got against him, put it aside. If we settle up with the Wolves, you have my permission to bump him into the fireplace or push him off the goddam roof. But for now, keep your sore ass to yourself. Okay?"
Tian nodded. He stood looking out across his troublesome north field, the one he called Son of a Bitch, with his hands in his pockets. When he studied it so, his expression was one of troubled greed.
"Do you think his story about killing a Wolf is so much hot air? If you really do, I won't waste my time."
Grudgingly, Tian said: "I'm more apt to believe that 'un than most of the others."
"Why?"
"Well, he were tellin it ever since I were old enough to listen, and that 'un never changes much. Also..." Tian's next words squeezed down, as if he were speaking them through gritted teeth. "My Gran-pere never had no shortage of thorn and bark. If anyone would have had guts enough to go out on the East Road and stand against the Wolves - not to mention enough trum to get others to go with him - I'd bet my money on Jamie Jaffords."
"Trum?"
Tian thought about how to explain it. "If'ee was to stick your head in a rock-cat's mouth, that'd take courage, wouldn't it?"
It would take idiocy was what Eddie thought, but he nodded.
"If'ee was the sort of man could convince someone else to stick his head in a rock-cat's mouth, that'd make you trum. Your dinh's trum, ain't he?"
Eddie remembered some of the stuff Roland had gotten him to do, and nodded. Roland was trum, all right. He was trum as hell. Eddie was sure the gunslinger's old mates would have said the same.
"Aye," Tian said, turning his gaze back to his field. "In any case, if ye'd get something halfway sensible out of the old man, I'd wait until after supper. He brightens a bit once he's had his rations and half a pint of graf. And make sure my wife's sitting right beside you, where he can get an eyeful. I 'magine he'd try to have a good deal more than his eye on her, were he a younger man." His face had darkened again.
Eddie clapped him on the shoulder. "Well, he's not younger. You are. So lighten up, all right?"