The sky was loaded with a swag of mauve-tinted clouds, and the air was the color of tarnished pewter. It wasn’t snowing, but there had been the fresh fall in the night that Jenkins had mentioned. The land all around was smooth and plump as a pillow. The gnarled bare boughs looked as if they had been blackened in fire. Strafford watched his breath smoke in the air. Summer was unimaginable.
