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Roger ringing wet;se of brownish blood over his chest and stomach He rubbed the heel of his hand over the knot in his belly, slanced casually round oncethe trees
"The wo the dirk froht, butchering and salting" He nodded in the direction of Roger’s glance
"Even if it’s near, it willna trouble us Cats dinna hunt large prey unless they’re hungry" He looked wryly at the torn flank of the dangling pig "A half-stone of prime bacon will ha’ satisfied it for the lanced at his long rifle, leaning loaded against the trunk of a nearby hickory
He held the pig while Ja mass of intestines in the cloth fro a fire of green sticks that would keep the flies away fro with blood, waste, and sweat, Roger walked across the field to the small stream that ran by the woods
He knelt and splashed, ar of being watched More than once, he had crossed an e erupt froic from the heather at his feet Despite Jamie’s words, he was all too aware that some piece of quiet landscape could abruptly detach itself and take life in a thunder of hooves or a snarl of sudden teeth
He rinsed histightness in his throat He could still feel the stiff coldness of the pig’s carcass, see the caked dirt in the nostrils, the raw sockets where crows had pecked out the eyes Gooseflesh prickled over his shoulders, chilled as hts as by the cold stream-water
No great difference between a pig and a man Flesh to flesh, dust to dust One stroke, that’s all it took Slowly, he stretched, savoring the last soreness in hisfrom the chestnut overhead The crows, black blotches in the yellow leaves, voicing their displeasure at the robbery of their feast
"Whaurshall we gang anddine the day?" heup at the!" Seized by revulsion, he scooped a stone froht The crows erupted into shrieking flight, and he turned back to the field, grimly satisfied
But his belly was still knotted, and the words of the corbies’echoed in his ears: "Ye’ll sit on his white hause-bane/and I’ll pick oot his bonny blue e’en Wi’ ae lock o’ his golden hair/we’ll theek oor nest when it grows bare"
Ja Beyond the field, the pig’s carcass hung above the fire, its outlines hidden in wreaths of smoke
They had cut the fencerails already, s lay ready by the edge of the forest The fence would have drystone pillars to join the wooden rails, though; not one of the simple rick-rack fences h to withstand the jostling of three- and four-hundred-pound hogs
Within the s that had been turned out to live wild in the forest, fattening theround Some would have fallen prey to wild animals or accident, but there would likely be fifty or sixty left to slaughter or sell
They worked well together, he and Jamie Much of a size, each had an instinct for the other’s moves When a hand was needed, it was there No need for it just now, though--this part of the job was the worst, for there was no interest to soften the tedium, no skill to ease the labor Only rocks, hundreds of rocks, to be hoisted froed, wrestled to the field, to be piled and fitted into place
Often they talked as they worked, but not thisto and fro with the endless load Theof the disgruntled crows, and by the thunk and grate of stones, dropped on the growing pile
It had to be done There was no choice He’d known that for a long time, but now that the dier eyed his father-in-law covertly Would Jah?
From a distance, the scars on his back were barely visible, leam of sweat Constant hard work kept aFraser in outline--or close enough to see the deep groove of his backbone, the flat belly and long clean lines of are
Jah, the first day they went out to work together, after he had co by the half-built dairy-shed, Ja casually, "Have a keek, then"
Up close, the scars were old and well-healed, thin white crescents and lines for the most part, with here and there a silvery net or a shiny lump, where a whipstroke had flayed the skin in too wide a patch for the edges of the wound to draw cleanly together There was so the weals--but not er had wondered I’es?
In the event, he had said nothing Jaer an ax with coun their work, bare-chested But he had noticed that Jamie never stripped to work, if the other ht Of all men, Jamie would understand the need, the necessity--the burden of Brianna’s dreaer’s belly like a stone Certainly he would help But would he consent to allow Roger to finish it alone? Jamie, after all, had so, but farther off, their cries thin and desperate, like those of lost souls Perhaps he was foolish even to think of acting alone He flung an armload of stones onto the pile; small rocks clacked and rolled away
"Preacher’s lad" That’s what the other lads at school had called hiuity the tere to prove himself manly by means of force, the later awareness of the ultimate moral weakness of violence But that was in another country--