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IN MOURNING289Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ2juQckxMYv
289Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡUty70S3VPs
The wagon came in early that day, horse-drawn, attended only by the laborers, rolling down all the line of tents. Robinson knew what it was even before he had seen it. The laborers were weeping. Yoshihiro in front was being supported by several others. It had started, Robinson thought, as a detail. It had turned into a funeral.
He came slowly from the tent and walked towards the wagon. Yoshihiro, seeing it, came free from the grasp of the others and motioned for it to stop. He beckoned towards Robinson, tears coming down his broken face. "Look," he said, "look at what they have done."
Robinson looked at the wagon. Thatcher's body, his face dirty and bruised, blood drying on one ear. His hands were folded, probably by the laborers. He looked as if he had been dead for many hours.
"Look at what they have done," Yoshihiro said again, "look at what has happened to this man."
"I'm am sorry," Robinson said. "He was a good man, I know that."
"You are a priest," Yoshihiro said, "can you say nothing?"
Robinson looked at the old man and then again at Thatcher's body. "I can say nothing that has not already been said."
"Nothing? No words?"
"I can help bury him," Robinson said, "but nothing more." He fell into the line of laborers and Yoshihiro looked at him for a moment, then almost collapsed again. Supported by the others, he moved, the procession moved, the wagon moved, past all the line of tents, a single great transversal of the camp, and then out into the fields. Robinson, in the mass of Japanese, kept his head to the ground, and said nothing. There wasn't anything to say.289Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡlLfpdgOIRY
At Bronco's tent, Bronco and the armed guard, Eucher, stood. Bronco looked at the wagon, began to move more closely to it, then shook his head and backed away. "An accident," Robinson heard him say. "A sad accident."
The laborers murmured. Robinson heard them and kept his mouth shut. "Too bad," the little guard said, "lots of unexplained murders in this area." He seemed about to smile until Bronco struck out at him, then his face changed and he too looked away from the wagon.
"Bury him," Bronco said to Eucher.
As Bronco moved away, Eucher looked at Robinson for a moment. There was, Robinson thought, something more in Eucher's eyes than his usual contemptuous arrogance. Was it a threat?
Then Eucher shifted his gaze and ordered, "Go get some shovels!"
The wagon moved across the compound to a nearby field. Robinson found a shovel, thought about the sunbaked earth, and decided he'd need a pickaxe, too. Kimoto materialized beside him. "I'll help," he said quietly, taking the shovel from Robinson.
They followed the wagon to Thatcher's final resting place. Eucher had wrapped the body with canvas, they found, but there was no casket.
As Robinson's pickaxe bit into the earth, it rang against a stone. The sound transformed itself in Robinson's mind to the crack of the temple block, and he let himself remember.289Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡiqokZGipTj
