Don’t eat without feeding something to the fire, or you’ll never be rich. —Navajo saying A thousand miles and one universe from San Francisco In the darkness Winsonfred Manygoats had a seeing. It was a flash of light, and he saw it not with his ordinary eyes but with his spirit eyes. A flash of light and parts of a boat flying into the sky, like birds flushed up by gunshot. Strange. He was 103 years old, and in this last decade he’d gotten used to drifting from one world to another. Sometimes, as now, he also saw things. He knew when they came from another place. He shivered, not from the evening cold. Something is going to happen. He knew that much. He settled back on the bench, closed his eyes, and let his mind wander. After two or three minutes he opened them again. Nothing came to him. Sometimes, along with a seeing, there were clues. None tonight. His thoughts turned to the taste of tapioca pudding. The cook prepared it for the old folks—Winsonfred loved tapioca. In his mind he pictured his great-granddaughter Zahnie, who had a good heart but spent her life fretting.
