The Tenderness of Wolves Read Online Free PDF Page A

there is Spanish blood in some Irish, and to look at Francis you would believe it–he is as dark as Angus and I are fair. Ann Pretty once made a laboured joke that he had come to us from a plague, and had become our own personal plague. I was furious with her(she laughed at me, of course), but the words stuck and barge out of my memory whenever Francis is storming through the house, slamming doors and grunting as if he were barely able to speak. I have to remind myself of my own youth and bite my tongue. My husband is less tolerant. They can go for days on end without a good word passing between them.
    That is why I was afraid to tell Angus that I have not seen Francis since the day before. Still, I resent him for not asking. Soon it will be morning and our son has not been home for forty-eight hours. He has done this before–he will go on solitary fishing trips that last for two or three days, and return, usually without fish and with barely a word about what he has done. I suspect that he hates to kill anything; the fishing is just a cloak for his desire to be alone.
    I must have fallen asleep in the chair, because I wake when it is nearly light, stiff and cold. Francis has not returned. Much as I try and tell myself it is a coincidence, just another extended fishing-for-nothing trip, the thought keeps coming back to me that my son has disappeared on the day of the only murder that Dove River has ever known.

 
    First light falls on three riders making their way from the west. They have been travelling for hours already, and daylight comes as a relief, especially to the man at the rear. Donald Moody finds the half-light a particular strain on his weak eyes; no matter how he rams his spectacles up against his nose, this monochrome world is full of uncertain distances and subtle, shifting shapes. It is also freezing. Even wrapped in layers of wool and a skin coat with the fur on the inside, his limbs are numb and long past aching. Donald breathes in the thin, sweet air, so different from that of his native Glasgow, sooty and raw at this time of year. The air is so clear that the unhindered sunlight seems to travel further; when the sun has just broken the horizon, like now, their shadows reach behind them forever.
    His horse, which has been crowding the mount ahead, stumbles and rams its nose into the grey’s hindquarters, earning a warning swish of the tail.
    ‘Curse you, Moody,’ says the man in front of him. Donald’s brute of a mount is continually either lagging behind or bumping into the quarters of Mackinley’s beast.
    ‘Sorry sir.’ Donald tugs at the reins and the horse flattens its ears. It was bought from a Frenchman and seems to have inherited some of his anti-British prejudice.
    Mackinley’s back radiates disapproval. His mount is perfectly behaved, like the horse in front of him. But then Donald is continually being reminded of his greenness–hehas been in Canada just over a year and still makes huge blunders with Company etiquette. No one ever warns him in advance, because almost their sole entertainment is to watch him struggle along, falling into bogs and offending locals. Not that the other men are exactly unkind, but it is clearly the way here: the most junior member of staff must serve his apprenticeship as a figure of fun. Most of the Company men have education, courage and a spirit of adventure, and find their lives in the big country sorely lacking in incident. There is danger (as advertised), but it is the danger of frostbite or exposure rather than unarmed combat with wild animals or war with hostile natives. Their daily lives are made up of petty endurances–of cold, darkness, screaming boredom, and the overconsumption of bad liquor. Joining the Company, Donald realised early on, was like being sent to a labour camp, only with more paperwork.
    The man in front, Mackinley, is the factor of Fort Edgar, and leading them is a native employee, Jacob, who insists on accompanying Donald