His hands, darkened by death, lay in his lap. He looked at peace. I stared at him, and wondered what I had feared I would find. The Specks had not stripped his body. They had not cut his limbs away or in any way dishonored him that I could see. They had simply carried him all this way, only to set him down against a tree.

The shafts of spring sunlight falling from far above illuminated him as if he were god-touched. Tiny insects danced above him in a flickering cloud of gossamer wings. Behind me, Clove snorted impatiently. I glanced back at my horse, and at the roll of soiled canvas and old rope he carried.

Suddenly it seemed that I would be the one disturbing the rest of the dead.

A man spoke beside me. “Please, sir. Don’t bother him. He is peaceful now.” I leapt sideways and landed in a defensive posture. Clove turned his big head to look at me curiously. The Speck man did not flinch or move.

He didn’t shift his eyes toward me, but stood with his hands clasped loosely below his belly and his head bent as if praying. For a long instant, we were frozen in that tableau. The Speck was a man of middle years, naked as the sky. His long streaked hair was held back with a tie of bark twine. He carried no weapons; his body was unadorned by jewelry of any kind. As natural as an animal, he stood in submission before me. I felt foolish in my wrestler’s crouch, with my fists held up before me. I calmed my breath and warily straightened. “Why have you done this?” I asked him severely.

He lifted his eyes to look at me. I was startled to see that his eyes matched the streaking pigment on his face. A brown eye looked at me from the dark blotch on the left side of his face, and a green eye peered from the tan area around his right eye. His gaze was mild. “I do not understand your words, Great One.” Clove and my scabbarded long gun were several steps away. I edged toward them as I tried to think of a different way to phrase my question. “Yesterday I buried this man in a coffin. Why have you disturbed his rest by stealing his body and bringing him here?”

He puffed his cheeks at me lightly, a gesture I would later learn indicated a sort of denial. “Oh, Great One, I cannot understand what you say.”

“Speak the language, can’t you?” The woman who suddenly stepped out from the shelter of a tree snapped these words with asperity. She had been leaning against the mottled trunk in a way that had allowed her to blend with it. Now that she stood clear of it, I wondered how I had not seen her before, and wondered, too, why Clove showed no sign of alarm. He paid these Specks no more mind than if they were jaybirds hopping near him in his pasture. When, I wondered, had he become so accustomed to them?