"The lad should take my name," Windom said after supper. "It's long past time."

It was a sore point with him, one he usually raised when he'd been drinking. By the small fire, the boy's mother closed the Bible on her knees.

Bess Windom had been reading to herself as she did every evening. From watching her lips move, the boy could observe her slow progress. When Windom blurted his remark, Bess had been savoring her favorite verse in the fifth chapter of Matthew: "Blessed are they which are persecuted for righteousness' sake: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven."

The boy, Joseph Moffat, sat with his back against a corner of the chimney, whittling a little boat. He was twelve, with his mother's stocky build, broad shoulders, light brown hair, and eyes so pale blue they seemed colorless sometimes.

Windom gave his stepson a sullen look. A spring rain beat on the thatch roof. Beneath Windom's eyes, smudges of charcoal dust showed. Nor had he gotten the dust from under his broken nails. He was an oafish failure, forty now. When he wasn't drunk, he cut wood and smoldered it in twenty-foot-high piles for two weeks, making charcoal for the small furnaces along the river. It was dirty, degrading work; mothers in the neighborhood controlled their errant youngsters with warnings that the charcoal man would get them.

Joseph said nothing, just stared. Windom didn't miss the tap-tap of the boy's index finger on the handle of his knife. The boy had a high temper. Sometimes Windom was terrified of him. Not just now, though. Joseph's silence, a familiar form of defiance, enraged the stepfather.