Afterlands Read Online Free PDF Page A

the man’s three brothers had lugged him over the gunwale and let him drop into seas still scraping and rattling with ice—slabs and pashy floes and slurry. Tyson had watched, grim-eyed, yet with a survivor’s numb detachment, his belly packed, mind dulled. … Cowan reported that at the time it had not seemed to Hannah that Punnie had noticed the event, yet three years later as she lay burning in bed—fingers scuttering over the counterpane as if at the keyboard—she remembered. Why, she even remembered the dead man’s name: Obadiah Squires. I want to be buried in that cold water, Mama, she’d said in English. She would only use English now. Poor Hannah feared that she was forgetting her mother tongue. But my darling, you are getting better! she’d said, laughing and crying at the same time—you will not need to be buried on land or at sea!
    Promise me, Mama.
    Hannah, just do as she asks! Cowan had told her. Promise her! Perhaps it will calm her!
    And she’d glanced at the physician, who nodded soberly, then at Chusley, who was watching the child’s moving fingers with wide, blood-rimmed eyes, perhaps reading a familiar tune in their motions. The mother was known to all as quietly decisive, but at that moment she seemed utterly lost. At last she leaned close to her daughter’s ear, stroking the freshly shaved head, and gave her word.
    They file down the gravel path to Pleasant Valley Road. Mourners will walk more slowly from the grave of a child, but because it’s downhill the numb-legged gathering moves with some clumsiness, faster than it means to, as if fleeing the site. Sarah Budington and Sydney in his stovepipe hat support Tukulito, dwarfing her, one on either side. They help her into the funeral brougham waiting by the churchyard gate and get in after her. Four black horses draw the brougham away. Cowan and Miss Crombie and Chusley and the other mourners climb into chaises and buggies and follow in a straggling procession back to the Budingtons’ parlour.
    There will be a wide selection of spirits, knowing Budington, thinks Tyson, who is now a teetotaller. He knows that Budington will be unhappy to have him in his house, but this is New England and the man won’t want to make a scene—at least not until he has absorbed a few drams. There’s also the German to consider. His letter all but challenged Tyson to a duel. Still, Tyson wants to be able to give Tukulito his heartfelt sympathies, and after what they went through together on the ice, he must.
    Of course he’s also drawn by the prospect of another test.
    He declines an invitation to board a neighbour’s buggy, meaning to walk, then realizes that Kruger, behind him, has already done the same. The final buggy rattles past Tyson and he walks steadily up the middle of the road, inhaling the wheel dust that hovers in the sun’s last amber. The creaking of the buggy’s axle fades. Kruger’s footfalls sound some dozen paces behind. Tyson stifles a cough. It seems important not to accelerate, either. He slows down. In silence the last buggy rounds a curve in the road, vanishing behind a stand of black cypresslike pines.
    Tyson stops, plants his feet, pivots from the waist up.
    Well, shall we walk the rest of the way together, Mr Kruger?
    For a moment it seems that Kruger will sweep past the larger Tyson without a word, but he halts abreast, gives Tyson a challenging look from under his hat-brim, then turns his eyes up the road.
    Yes, and why should we not. And he strides on with his rolling, wide-stepping sailor’s gait. The German accent is faint, although he still pronounces w like v , says und for and .
    Especially on a day like this, says Tyson, catching up. His tone, while hardly fawning, is mild enough to broach the possibility of peace. Why revive finished battles? A sentimental part of him has always yearned to be liked as well as feared.
    You’re referring to the weather, Mr Tyson? The veather . Yes, a fine day to make amends.
    I refer to