He succeeds with Sallie's lead foot, and it's with enough force to make the old woman overcompensate, leaning backward and slipping.

Awkwardly -- and altogether unnaturally -- she shifts to land on her side, stabbing the floorboards with her knife as a prop to start to stand again.

Any normal crunching sound of bone against floor another 60something would experience is conspicuously absent, for the moment.