Revolver Read Online Free

might have come from any country of the North; he might be American, maybe Dutch-American, maybe German. But the man was waiting for an answer, and the longer he left it, the more obvious Sig’s lies would seem.
    â€œDon’t know. Later. Maybe.”
    â€œI’ll wait.”
    For a moment it seemed as if the man would barge past him into the cabin, but instead, he turned, slowly mounting his horse, flicking the beast to a walk. He was looking straight ahead, back at the path to town, but then his gaze shot to Sig, just as he was about to close the door.
    â€œAlone?”

    And for some reason, Sig could only tell the truth this time.
    â€œYes,” he said, though the word died in his throat.
    The man nodded.

7
    Sun Day, noon
    Y ou might never know what it was that killed you. You might not see it coming; it might strike like the proverbial lightning bolt from the blue.
    Or you might have some inkling of your doom. You might suspect the cause; that it is your greed or your lust for revenge or your blind faith that is to be your undoing.
    Or you might see it clearly, running over the horizon toward you. Death on a pale horse.
    Sig spent all morning pounding the blade of the shovel through the snow to the icy ground beneath. The snow was cleared in moments, but after an hour of frantic attempts to dig a hole, the tongue of the shovel gave up and snapped, the old metal fatigued in the cold, the ground as hard as bitterness.
    He’d been standing in the cabin, and more and more,
had been unable to take his eyes off the corpse. Suddenly the vision from the day before returned, and he saw his father as the reindeer carcass, his ribs picked clean, and a deep cavity already hollowed out behind them by ravenous birds. He couldn’t bear it and had rushed out to find the shovel, intent on burying the thing that had been his father.
    Now, exhausted, he collapsed sobbing in the snow, his hands scraping at the grave he’d tried to dig for Einar, a dozen inches across, and a few less deep. Angrily he threw the handle of the shovel away behind the dog huts. He picked up the blade to follow it, then felt the anger drop from him, and with it let the blade fall in the snow by his feet.
    But what was he going to do with the body?
    Surely Anna and Nadya should have returned by now? At least Anna should. And Nadya, too. Of course she would come back.
    But into his mind came the sight and sounds of their jealous fights, tongues spiteful and eyes cruel, when he couldn’t believe he was seeing his singing sister before him. Sig, innocent and young, could never understand why they argued over Maria, so long gone. And the things Anna said about Nadya were harsh, and not true, not true, but where then, was she now?
    He shook his head and stood, pushing the doubts away.

    If Nadya had wanted to leave, she could have done so at any moment in the last couple of years, and she certainly hadn’t stayed for Einar’s wealth; they owned nothing, even the cabin they lived in, the tools they used, the food they ate, it all came from the mine, from the Company. The Company owned everything.
    Any minute now, Sig told himself, both Anna and Nadya would appear around the track, bringing some company men to help them.
    Sig staggered back into the cabin, shattered, dragging his boots off as he closed the inner door behind him. He tried not to look across at his father on the table, but he couldn’t help it. He had to do something. He pulled a blanket from Einar and Nadya’s bed and threw it across the body, trying but failing to avoid his father’s eyes, which were still open, giving Sig the terrible feeling that Einar was watching him from beyond death.
    With the body covered, he tried to roll it over to adopt a more natural position. Then he gently rearranged the blanket into a more fitting shroud.
    With a moan in his heart he saw that the logs were almost eaten up, and turned to the door, when through the window