| The rain fell onto the downswept branches and collected and fell to the hard undergrowth with a steady hammering. The old man climbed slowly down in the near dark, edging each thick lug sole into the wet humus, leaning back against the push of the slope to balance the weight of the rifle. Water soaked through his frayed mackinaw, through the flannel shirt, and lay next to his skin, familiar and comforting. The years eased away as the drumming on the brush deepened. Then he stopped and frowned as the dancers began moving again in the undergrowth, swaying and stepping, back and forth, watching him. He moved his eyes between the wavering shadows, feeling the drops of water running down his cheeks from the wool watchcap, and he tried to fix the faces again and again he failed. |
| "I have work to do," he said in a soft, flat voice. "Go back." |
| His forehead creased and his black eyes tried to focus. Now they seldom left him alone. In the last weeks they had come only on rare, solitary nights when he camped in that drainage, but now they were nearly always there, beckoning, waiting to begin the dance again. Once he had been drawn in, stamping his heavy boots and shrugging his old shoulders, moving with them in the darkness and chanting. They were becoming harder to resist, more demanding and insistent. |
| He turned away, his short, heavy body shifting with a precise grace. Stiff, silver hair hung straight from the black roll of the cap, and deep in the square face his eyes glinted. Wrinkles cut like old wounds around the eyes and pulled the corners of his mouth up and back and then dropped them. The skin on his cheeks stretched over blunt bones, and when he grimaced yellow teeth gleamed in a face the color of red cedar. |
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