a0360fb9102ade3f7b73f3354953daaa by Unknown

Author:Unknown
Format: epub
Published: 2019-04-18T16:00:00+00:00

17

Just past midsummer, on a surprisingly sultry day, Tor appeared on the Johnston tenancy, near the west edge of the secondsector. Mother Johnston rose from her pea shelling to meet him.

“You, Tor. Everything all right? No boys to teach swimming?”

“Thought I’d come help you with the hay. I think it’s going to rain before night.”

“Rain, eh? Stan never mentioned it. Can’t, though. Can’t pay you.”

“No matter. I have the time. Plenty of it.”

“You’re no farmer then. You’ll find them in the meadow. Forks in the bam. I’m sure they’d be able to use an extra hand. You’re not worried, then? The Raiders, I mean.”

“Yes. But not in the daylight. And I’ve been down the whole secondsector ice face. Nothing but the usual couples’ tracks.”

Dame Johnston watched him stride off toward the barn, not limping now. She smiled slightly. She liked him. The valley lacked eccentrics. He was a misplaced figure from legend.

As the afternoon wore on, Tor worked with the rest, the fork passing through a leather loop around his right forearm. But he grew more and more restless. Eventually he stopped, looked across the wide strip of woodland rising, dipping, and then rising far up toward the ice face. Something was wrong. The other men, moving down the windrow, looked back at him. He wasn’t moving at all. Was he imagining things? He came out of his reverie and worked silently until supper break.

As he had predicted, thunder clouds were piling up, raining on the west face of the ice far off. They were thick

enough to begin stretching their high leading clouds out over the forest and west farms.

Tor didn’t sit down at the outdoor table, but stood eating a barley cake. “Be glad for your help this evening, long as the light lasts and the rain holds off,” Stanley Johnston said.

“Something’s wrong.”

Johnston looked at Tor. “It’s an obsession, Tor. Just an obsession.”

“No. Never felt this here before. I’m surprised you don’t, having lost a child to them. Even so long ago. I always know. That’s my profession. Wish I could help you here. This is more important. Listen. I know you’re going to be tired, but set a watch the way I told you—years back now. Probably nothing will happen. Not yet.”

Johnston snorted. “We’ve got to gulp supper and get haying before the rain. Well, thanks for your help anyway.”

Tor was already moving away. He waved his hand in reply. By the time he had climbed to the ice face, rain was sheeting down, running from the ice in narrow waterfalls. He found one of his small shelters under a spruce and sat down. As the rain diminished, it began to grow dark. Tor moved in silence along a narrow trace leading toward the logging shack. Something was different. He could taste his fear. The forest floor had lost its brittleness in the rain, which still dripped from the trees and ran audibly in the darkness down the slopes.

The darkness became nearly total before Tor heard the first sound, a slight one, but out of place.

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