Sect Year 5 · eleventh month · night of day 28 · the fifty-second life: the Haskett bend on the river, his eighteenth year
The clouds gathered over the bend for the whole of a morning and did not break. They sat on the river hills like wet wool hung on a hook, dark and swollen, and the light under them went flat and white. Under that light the bend had a close, sour smell of wet stubble and river mud. Somewhere behind the Odells’ barn a dog barked twice and gave up. Emmer had walked this stretch of lane so many times that he could tell from the sound of the ditch how high the water stood. He walked the ox out to the far pasture and back again at midday, because there was nothing else to do with a day that would not make up its mind. Dapple walked slowly with his head low and his tail swinging. The weal on his flank had gone from red to purple overnight, and the hair over it stood up in a ridge.
Tirza was sitting on the fence rail when they came back into the lane. She was eleven and small for it, and she had her knees drawn up under her chin and a bowl of milk held in both hands. She didn’t move as they came past. She only turned her head to follow the ox with her eyes.
