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right,” he managed to say with a measure of truth at its conclusion. But she held on and didn’t let go, not until he took his hands away from the frozen ground and sat back on his heels. When he looked at her again she was staring at him, and in her dark gray eyes he saw grave concern mixed with what looked like guilt. She gestured toward the grave and gave a quick, remorseful shake of the head, and he guessed what she was thinking.
    He took deep, steadying gulps of the icy air. “No, it wasn’t the exertion,” he got out, wiping perspiration from his forehead. Not only that, anyway. “Once in a while I have spells, attacks of neuralgia. It’s a residual effect of a disease I contracted a year and a half ago. It’s nothing now, much better than it used to be.” She didn’t look reassured. “I’m all right, honestly.” He really was; he stood up to prove it. She reached for his arm to help, and only let go of it, warily, once he was on his feet. He knew how paper-white he could turn during these episodes, and spoke once more to set her at ease. “There, I’m fine, you see? Thanks for your help.” For a few more seconds she continued to eye him carefully: Then, apparently deciding he was telling the truth, she stepped away.
    He’d wrapped her dog in an old army blanket; the still, dark bundle lay a few feet away from the hole he’d dug in the hard earth. He watched her walk toward it, sorrow in every line of her slow, long-legged step, and sink to her knees beside it. For a few minutes he kept his distance. She had on a coat today, not the thin shawl; it was a man’s coat, dark blue wool, the too-long sleeves rolled back at the cuffs. Beneath it were the blue dimity skirts of the same dress she’d worn yesterday. Today he could see a series of faint lines at the hem; if he counted them, he would know exactly how many times the dress had been let down. Her ankles might be trim, even delicate, but it was hard to tell because of her mannish leather shoes and thick stockings. She had on a dented felt hat with a rather chewed-looking brim; it might have been black once, but now it was rusty green with age. For all that, she didn’t really look drab; in fact, he thought she looked almost elegant in her inelegant clothes.
    Finally he went to her, bent and put a hand on her shoulder. “I didn’t think you’d be able to make it down the mountain today, because of the snow. So—I thought it best to bury Shadow here. Is it all right?” She nodded without looking up. “Are you sure? If you’d rather take her back with you—” She shook her head, glancing up briefly. She was crying.
    He crouched down beside her. “I promise you, Carrie, she didn’t suffer. She just went to sleep. There was no pain at all.” She tried to send him a grateful look through the tears. “Would you like to see her?” She put her hand on her throat, as if it ached; he thought she would refuse, but a moment later she took a shuddery breath and nodded.
    He pulled the army blanket back from Shadow’s grizzled old head, thankful that the dog’s death-snarl had relaxed and her eyes were closed, not glazed and staring. He got to his feet and walked a little distance away. Dusk was closing in; the clouds were a livid purple in the western sky, gunmetal in the east. Delicate lilac shadows darkened the rolling, glittering snow-cover of his yard, shading to lavender under the yew hedges. In the distance he could hear the jingling song of a sparrow, high and light, like tinkling icicles in the twilight. When he turned back, Carrie was climbing to her feet and blotting her face with an oversized red handkerchief.
    They buried the dog together. When he’d thrown the last spadeful of dirt, he saw her look around his barren yard, as if searching for something that might serve for flowers, something alive, a token of remembrance to honor her friend. But there was nothing. Her eyes clouded. She knelt in the dirt and put both flat palms on top