Sect Year 2 · eighth month · day 17 · Sallet Ford, in the long valley
The rain came in the night from the west. Lin heard it arrive before he understood what it was. It hissed on the straw roof of the wagon drivers’ shed and ran off the roof edges in a steady rope, and then it found the ditch outside and began to talk to it in a voice that grew louder as the night went on. By the time the grey light came up, the dust of the road had turned to a paste that sucked at every boot and let go of it with a sound like a kiss.
Some of the carriers stood out in it with their faces lifted and their eyes shut. Some did not come out at all. Tian Mao sat in the wet grass beside the shed, laughing, with the rain running off his nose and into his open mouth. Then the laugh caught on something and turned into a cough. His mother came out with the green shawl over her head and pulled him up by the collar. The cough went on for a long while after she had dragged him back under the roof edges.
