Oil lamps were made for darkness. Plainly, seeing it was still but
morning, the men watching her ride away were not a little curious as to
her destination with a lamp at such an early hour.
* * *
When she found him, it was not yet as she had feared.
She quickly located the body by the sight of a large flock of vultures
wheeling and circling overhead. Nearby, a cluster of hyenas was already
sniffing around, still trying to find the body.
Hyenas, with their silly laugh and ugly, death's-head faces, could
crush ox bones with their powerful jaws. They usually ran in packs, and
she considered them -as did any decent folk- to be cowardly, dangerous,
and disgusting animals.
But they had not quite succeeded in locating the body yet, and the
man's motionless remains lay virtually unscathed, except for the mortal
wounds from his execution at the orders of Borla. His lifeless body had
been left lying face-down beside a series of downwards sloping, shaded
stretches near a gently banked, zig-zag ravine that meandered through
the broad field.
A wide ground covering of white-streaked, blue morning glory flowers
interlaced throughout with green leaves, adorned the banks of the
ravine, trumpeting silent praises to God. Their little green vines,
with their countless green stepping-stone leaves were outstretched like
a living carpet that extended away from her in an uneven boundary
restricted to the shade in a series of wide, irregular patterns,
patches, and grassy missed sections.
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