Snow Blind

Начало книги

They had to sit for a time after dragging the body so far in this heat – two young women in sleeveless summer dresses, hugging their knees on the hillside while the hot wind danced in their hair and crept up their skirts and a dead man lay behind them. They both looked straight ahead across the rolling fields of prairie grass, and nowhere else.

‘We should have tied him to a board or something,’ Ruth said after a few minutes, ‘so he wouldn’t get tangled up in the grass like he did.’

Laura opened her mouth, then closed it abruptly. She’d almost said they’d know better next time. She closed her eyes and saw big, raw hands dragging through the grass, fingers curled, almost as if he’d been trying to hang on. It was high summer and the grass was long, whipping in the wind and wrapping around the rough fabric of his sleeves.

‘Shall we start?’

Laura felt her heart skip a beat. ‘In a minute.’

But it was impossible to keep Ruth still for very long. She was like one of those little birds whose wings beat so fast you couldn’t see them, darting here and there like they were always on the edge of panic. She was trying to be still to please Laura, but her hands were busy, almost frantic, shredding one piece of grass and then another. ‘I have a headache.’

Читать дальше →