He doesn't remain with his people now, among the sheepfolds and high-pasture huts. They're not funny, these jibes at his virility. GuIzaman strains up the last hundred feet to reach the fold. Expectant ewes seek shelter from the wind under the lee of limestone walls. He sees his kinsmen, bearded and gaunt and broad-boned as himself, brooding over a dead kid.
Rain starts hissing.
There has been such heavy sleet the week past that in the sheepfolds new-borns have been dying. Ewes don't even lick them and probe for hidden embers of life with their raking tongues. Broken, they turn on their sides like sacks of crushed ice. The turf is sodden but his own fold is a small den made snug by bales of hay. His ewe snuggles up to him and bleats recognition, a thin tremolo of love blanketed by gutturals of pain.