The Tenderness of Wolves Read Online Free PDF Page B

determined to make his mark, when he found himself on the ground, winded. A short half-breed, Jacob, grabbed the ball and ran, and Donald gave chase, determined not to let his opportunity slip. He hurled himself at Jacob, slicing the man’s legs from under him in a severe but fair tackle. A giant steersman scooped up the ball and scored.
    As he lay on the ground, Donald’s triumphant cheer gurgled in his throat. He lifted his hands from his stomach to see them dark and warm, and Jacob standing over him with a knife in his hand, his features slowly animating into an expression of horror.
    The spectators eventually realised something was amiss and rushed the pitch. The players gathered round Donald, whose first recognisable emotion was embarrassment. He saw the magistrate bending over him with an expression of avuncular concern.
    ‘… barely injured. Accident … heat of the moment.’
    Jacob was distraught, tears running down his face. Knox peered at the wound. ‘Maria, pass your shawl.’
    Maria, the less pretty daughter, tore off her shawl, but it was Susannah’s upside-down face that Donald fixed on as the shawl was pressed to his wound.
    He began to feel a dull ache in his gut, and to notice how cold he was. The game forgotten, the players stood around awkwardly, lighting their pipes. But Donald met Susannah’s eyes, which were full of concern, and found that he no longer cared about the outcome of the match, or whether he had displayed rugged and manly qualities, or even that his lifeblood was now seeping through his capote, turning it brown. He was in love.
    The wound had the strange outcome of making Jacob his undying friend. He had come to Donald’s bedside the day after the match, in tears, expressing his deep and terrible regret. It was drink that had made him do it; he had been possessed by the bad spirit, and he would atone for the injury by personally looking after Donald for as long as he remained in the country. Donald was touched, and when he smiled his forgiveness and held out his hand, Jacob smiled back. It was perhaps the first real smile of friendship he had seen in this country.
    Donald staggers when he slides off his horse and tries to stamp some circulation back into his limbs. He is unwillingly impressed by the size and elegance of the house they have come to; especially thinking of Susannah, and how much more unattainable it makes her. But Knox smiles warmly at them when he comes out, then looks with ill-concealed alarm at Jacob.
    ‘Is this your guide?’ he asks.
    ‘This is Jacob,’ Donald says, feeling heat rise in his cheeks, but Jacob doesn’t seem offended.
    ‘A great friend of Moody’s,’ puts in Mackinley waspishly.
    The magistrate is puzzled, since he is almost certain the last time he saw the man he was sticking a knife into Donald’s guts. He assumes he is mistaken.
    Knox tells them what he knows and Donald takes notes. It doesn’t take long to write down the known facts. Tacitly they know there is no hope of finding the perpetrator unless someone saw something, but someone always sees something in a community like this; gossip is the lifeblood of small country places. Donald stacks fresh paper on top of his notes and straightens it with an efficient tap as they get up to visit the scene of the crime. He is not looking forward to this part and hopes he won’t disgrace himself by becoming nauseous, or–he tortures himself by imagining the worst possible outcome–what if he were to burst into tears? He has never seen a dead body before, not even his grandfather. Though this is unlikely, he imagines with an almost pleasurable horror the teasing he would endure. He would never live it down; he would have to return to Glasgow incognito, probably live under another name …
    Thus engaged, the journey to the cabin passes in a flash.

 
    News travels fast these days, thinks Thomas Sturrock. Even where there are no roads or railways, news, or its nebulous cousin rumour, travels