Chapter One

The Execution

A wind was blowing that day, old and wintry and mean. It came up in the morning, arriving from the southeast, and by noon it had gained in force and shook the heaviest branches of the trees and caused them to saw back and forth with a low groaning noise. Patches of snow still lay on the hills, old grainy slubs nestled in crevices on the north-facing slopes and thinner white lines running in scallops along the northern ridges.

When he sat on his coffin, the wind ruffled his hair and lifted the flaps of his jacket and they fluttered like the wings of some small black bird clinging to his breast.

Meadowlarks broke into song occasionally, and the wind continued to blow in heavy gusts as more men arrived, riding singly down out of the hills, or coming in groups of two or three, like pale apparitions.

He could hear the sound of the water in the stream.

Where the cows had trod the muddy ground they left hoofprints the size of dinner plates and the earth had now dried and the path was left uneven and hard to walk. The wind made it unpleasant to be out of the shelter of the wagons and many of the men stood with their backs against the running boards or set their shoulders against the warmth of their horses.

In spite of the cold, it felt like spring would soon arrive. All the signs were present—the hopeful notes of the meadowlarks, the grass greening up in the meadow, and the patches of bare earth on the hillsides. There was a feeling some corner had been turned and winter was behind them now, even though the wind still held such bitterness. The sky, though not really overcast, was covered with a white