The sleet began before third bell, clicking against the small diamond panes of the Office of Unfinished Claims like thrown sand.
Tomas Reed sat at the scrubbed pine table in the front room, working sheep fat into the leather welt of his left boot. The animal fat smelled of boiled sheep marrow and lye, thick and greasy between his thumb and forefinger. But it was the only grease that kept the black canal water from rotting the calfskin stitching. Across the hearth, his heavy canvas cart driver’s coat hung from an iron hook. It steamed faintly as the heat from the peat bricks reached the fleece lining.
His left forearm ached with the changing weather. When the air grew damp, the gristle along the scar tissue pulled taut, binding the grip tendons until his third and fourth fingers curled inward against the palm. Tomas set the boot down, planted his elbow on the table, and used his right hand to force each finger flat against the wood. One, two, three, four. He held the stretch until the dull fire in his wrist subsided into an ordinary, bearable ache. There was no medicine for a cut that had cut the tendon sheath eighteen months ago. There was only animal fat, boiled willow bark. The stubborn habit of moving the fingers before the frost locked them.
