He hurried across the street to offer his aid. She thrust the heavy basket at him and then spun in a circle, letting the wind lift the muddied cloak wide, before she sort of danced herself into it, finally trapping it around her. There was a large dirty patch on the back of it now. I blushed for how foolish she looked as I heard her thanking the man for his help.

I think she felt my stare. They both glanced toward me, and I found myself lowering my head and turning to one side. She did not know me. The brim of my cavalla hat hid my face, and there was nothing about my body that she could possibly recognize. I walked quickly around the wagon and climbed up onto the seat. I could not find a clear thought for why I was avoiding her. “I’m not ready,” I muttered to myself. “Not yet. Let me get settled, and then I’ll make myself known to them.” I took the wheel brake off and shook the reins, and Clove leaned into his harness. I think he was grateful to be back to pulling rather than being ridden. The ride home took longer than when I’d ridden horseback. The road had been soaked by the rain, leaving the ruts full of standing water. As I let Clove pick his way, I tried to sort out my thoughts and feelings on seeing Epiny. I’d felt that lift of anticipation at the sight of a familiar face, followed by my surprise that she and undoubtedly Spink were here and settled in already. For some reason, I thought it would take them far longer to transfer their home. I thought of how pleasant it would be to call on them, to sit down to a meal and talk of people we knew. And then I laid my own dread bare to myself: that would never happen now. Cousin or not, Epiny was an officer’s wife. Spink was no longer Spink to me: he was Lieutenant Kester. By now they probably had their own circle of friends among the other young officers stationed at Gettys. What could I be to them, save an embarrassment? Yet even as such a thought came to me, I knew that Epiny and Spink would both stand by me, whatever my rank or physical condition.

Yet it was not their reaction but my own that concerned me. Could I salute my best friend and stand before him and wish him well, without spoiling it with the greenest of envy? Could either Spink or I make Epiny understand that no matter what had gone before, Spink was now an officer and I merely an enlisted man, and thus could not fraternize with any comfort? All I could see would be discomfort, embarrassment, and shame on my part. I felt the greatest wave of revulsion that I had ever felt for my body at that moment. It surrounded and engulfed me in a wall of yielding flesh. I felt it with every jounce of the cart, how my thighs met and my elbows rested against the roll of fat that masked my ribs. I felt the heaviness of my jowls and cheeks. It was even in how my hat sat upon my head. My soldier’s hat, the sole symbol that I was a soldier son.

When I reached home, I turned to what I always could rely on to empty my mind. I worked. The sack of hay became stuffing for my mattress. It was clean and fragrant, and Clove would not miss it. I unloaded my building supplies, and put the harness in my storage shed. I’d take the cart back to Gettys tomorrow, I decided. I doubted anyone would miss it.

It was a chill day, but I was soon sweating. I’d decided that Clove’s shelter would be attached to the toolshed, to save myself constructing one wall. I worked with shovel and pickax to level an area next to it that would make a generous box stall for the big horse. Setting the two uprights made me wish I had another set of hands and eyes to help me. I felt it even more keenly when putting up the supports for the roof. The carpentry was a different sort of work than I’d done in months, and I lost myself in the simple pleasure of working steadily and watching what I had imagined take shape. The smell of the sawdust, the rhythm and sound of a nail squarely driven, the satisfaction that comes when the final plank fits snug and true in a wall: there is a lot to be said for honest work and the ease that it can bring to a troubled heart.

The dimness of the early night had crept up on me before I was finished. I felt more satisfaction over that stall than I had over signing my enlistment papers. When I poured the corn into the grain box, Clove came gratefully into his new shelter. I went into my little cabin, taking my mucky boots off by the door. I built up the fire again and lifted the lid off my bean pot. Fragrant steam rose gratifyingly. I hung up my cloak, and then dismantled my makeshift clothesline and folded or hung my extra clothing. As I put it all neatly away, I tried to retain the sense of satisfaction I’d felt earlier. I set my little table with my cutlery and bowl, and ladled myself a generous helping of the baked beans. I had tea to go with it, and sugar. I ate my meal with pleasure, perched carefully on my rickety chair. Tomorrow, I resolved, I’d remedy that. I’d make myself something that not only could accept my weight but would be comfortable to sit on.

As night lowered outside and the world grew chill and black, I was safe and warm within my shelter. I had much to be grateful for, and very little to complain about, I told myself. Nevertheless, when I sought my now-softened bed that night, a bleakness of heart settled on me once more.

I began each day with a patrol of the cemetery, shovel in hand. Diligently I repaired animal damage to any grave. I made notes of headboards that would soon need replacing, jotting down information that might otherwise be lost. I maintained the paths and improved them, evening out the ruts and adding drainage. And every day, I dug a fresh grave. I measured them precisely, and dug them deep and straight-edged. I mounded the soil so it would not fall back into my excavations. I did this past the time when the frosts came and froze the ground. I stopped only when the snows began. My diligence was the only reason that when Narina Geddo died from pleurisy at six years, three months, and five days, an open grave was waiting.

I knew Narina Geddo’s age to the day because I was informed that one of my duties as cemetery guard was to carve the grave markers. I did hers in my cabin one long evening. I put the plank on my table and puzzled out how to engrave the letters and numbers into the wood with the few tools I had. I’d never been a whittler, but I fancy that I did well enough. I threw the chips and shavings into my fire as I worked, and when I was finished, for good measure, I heated the poker and burned black each letter and number in the hopes they would remain legible a bit longer.

The next day I drove to town with a coffin in the back of my cart. Clove snorted and steamed as the cart jolted along over the frozen ruts of the road. When I stopped outside the small house that belonged to Corporal Geddo, his older daughter opened the door, looked out, and gave a wild shriek of fear. “It’s a croaker-bird man, come for little Narrie! Papa, don’t let him eat her!”

I heard later that the tale of her words scampered through the town and brought laughter to those untouched by the tragedy. But that day, no one laughed at her words. I bowed my head and held my tongue. I suppose that with my cold-reddened face and flapping black cloak, I did look like one of Orandula’s carrion birds. The little girl’s solemn father came to my cart and wordlessly took the coffin from it. I sat and waited in the biting wind. A time passed, and then he and another man carried it back and loaded it. It weighed very little. I wondered if I’d been thoughtless, bringing such a large box for such a small body. I wondered if a man so gripped by grief could care about such things. Clove and I led, and the small funeral procession of men and women on foot and horseback followed.

I had cleared the grave cavity of fallen snow the night before, so there was a trodden path for the mourners to follow. I did not stand with the attendees. Instead, I watched from a distance as the family lowered their child into the frozen earth, and Gettys’ sole priest, a thin, pale plague survivor, said words over her. When they were gone, I went back with my pickax and shovel to break the frozen mound of snowy soil into lumps that thundered down on her coffin as I shoveled them in. It seemed a harsh and cruel sound, and heartless somehow to bury a little girl beneath frozen clods of earth. Yet, in a way, I was proud of myself. Without my foresight to dig a grave, I was told, her little body would have been stored in the coffin and toolshed until spring softened the earth and she could be decently buried. So they had done in years past.