Read Online Twilight by Brendan DuBois - Free Book Online Page B

to Toronto if they had their choice. All that work this afternoon, over three dead cows. And to top it off we get to spend the night here, instead of at the motel.”
    Jean-Paul said, “We had no way of knowing what was in that gravesite. We would have been remiss to drive away and leave it. And don’t be so sure that we would have gone back to the motel. Charlie might not have allowed it. So we were doing our job here today, and doing it well. You have no reason to feel bad. Tomorrow we will keep on working.”
    â€œSite A, am I right?”
    I could sense his shoulders shrug. “Among other things. We will look for Site A, sure, but we will do other work as well. We should not flit from village to village, town to town, without having better information. And the information we have about Site A is nearly nil. But unfortunately there is plenty of work to be done up here. Just be grateful we are not down south in Manhattan, eh?”
    I shivered, thinking of what had happened there. “You’re right. I’m glad I’m not in Manhattan.”
    â€œSo true,” Jean-Paul said. “It is so bad down south that it is said you can smell the bodies from many kilometers away, even before you get to
the new Ground Zero. Be thankful you are here. At least the air is clean, for the most part.”
    I finished off the cup of cognac and passed it back to Jean-Paul. “Thanks.”
    â€œYou are so very welcome.”
    Â 
    Â 
    SLEEPING ARRANGEMENTS THAT night were standard, as when we’d camped out before. Miriam and Karen shared a tent, while Sanjay and I shared another one. Peter and Jean-Paul shared the third one, while Charlie made do on his own, like he always did. As far as tent-mates went, Sanjay was all right. He didn’t snore, though sometimes his legs did kick around a bit as if he was restless at night—dreaming, I guess, about far-off India or nearby Karen. He had an irritating habit of getting up early, murmuring to himself and then getting dressed in his sleeping bag before barreling out of the tent as though he was late for a train. But tonight we both crawled into our sleeping bags and murmured a “good night” to each other without saying much else. I curled up on my side on the thin mattress pad and tried to sleep, still wearing my pants and shirt and socks. The sleeping bag was clammy and cold, and I curled up, trying to warm myself, knowing that the darkness was out there, like it always was.
    But I was too tired to sleep. My body ached and my back and my hands and my neck were stiff. All I could see in my mind was the face of that poor dumb cow, slaughtered for who knew what reason, and then probably buried by some kind neighbors who were tired of seeing the bloated bodies slowly decompose in the field. As for the people who lived here, who knew? Perhaps the documentation work that I had done today would end up helping some family in some other country, looking through the pictures of the house and the clothing, to determine what had happened to their loved ones.
    I turned over in my bag, stared at the blank tent wall. I blinked my eyes and tried to think of back home, safe and cool Toronto, tried to think of something that would soothe my mind and ease me into sleep, but that didn’t work either. I wanted to think about the Star and my buds there and the nightlife on the weekends and clubbing in the John Richmond district. But instead Father barreled into my thoughts, and in my mind’s eye I saw the red face, the white handlebar mustache and gray-stubbled head, and heard the comment, always the same comment: “Screwed up again, eh, boy? Not going far in this world if you keep screwin’ up like that.” Good old Father, who had wanted his son to join the family business—the Canadian military—but the boy had disappointed him by entering journalism instead.
    Sanjay moved again, then there came the stealthy noise of him trying