CHAPTER 42

BLIZZARD

The day after the Coming, returning to her pallet through the quiet kitchen early in the morning, Malila saw motion outside. The dim light of the room caught the silent, furtive movement of snowflakes just beyond the glass. For a moment, Malila was back among rusting girders, with numbing cold, fear, death, and abandonment. Wind whistled around the corner of the house, sending up a cyclone of snow that gyrated like a specter in the uncertain light. It made her shiver.

By first light, Moses had strung ropes between the back porch, the washout, and the milking barn. The snow outside the kitchen window was already banked, hip deep, into a gentle, sinuous curve. Malila was standing on tiptoes watching the swirling snow as Moses came in and recited:

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