“All right. You go lock up the hens and tend to Phineas’s grave. I’m going to help your mother bring in some beans.”

Hephaestus did not see that the boy headed back to the well and then off toward the no-man’s-land where he had led the stooges to ambush. And he did not know how many other secrets Lloyd had on hand, from wild-turkey snares he had modified in size to deadfall netting and fermentation jars full of nasty things ready to fly up off a hidden springboard. The pit Lloyd had captured Grady in was an example of taking advantage of a natural asset. The hole was part of a seam of clay and had been excavated years before. All that had been required was to disguise it and lead the quarry there. Lloyd set down one of the well buckets to pick up a few stones along the path. A long summer twilight was settling in, full of whip-poor-wills and spoon frog chirping. But there was another sound as Lloyd approached the pit, which he had covered with a section of mite-ridden thatching. A plaintive moaning.

“Any bones broken?” he called, lifting the thatching.

“Hey!” bellowed Grady from below. “Yoo li’l weasel. Ah’ll git yoo! Let me up! I mean it!”

“I’m sorry, Grady,” Lloyd answered. “You need to learn a lesson. Three days should do it.”

“Three days! Yoo lissen to me!”

Lloyd dropped one of the stones he had picked up along the path.

“Aw! Sheet! Damn thang hit me.”

“I have plenty more,” Lloyd assured him. “Now, if you want some water-and believe me you do, then you’re going to say you’re sorry for what you did to my windmills.”

“Sorry? Yoo goddamned mongrel!”

Another stone fell, with similar results. Then another.

“Hey! Hey! All right, Ah give. Ah’m sorry for breakin’ up yer toys.”

“They’re not toys,” Lloyd hissed. “They’re machines. Reverence machines-and they’re not for hogswill like you to touch or even see. You’re going to learn that lesson over the next three days. And you’ll never breathe a word, because you’ll be so ashamed. Now stand back, I’m going to lower a bucket of water. I don’t want you to die of thirst before the lesson’s over.”