Stepping into the autumn dusk, I heard soft singing trailing on the breeze. The local people were out. They huddled around the barn and sang in a strange language by candlelight. The words sounded alien and primeval in the impending night.
I spotted Campbell some distance from the gathering smoking a cigarette and quietly observing.
“Evening Ben,” as I approached. “Come to view this anthropological spectacle?”
I understood what he meant. The mutilated carcass of the sheep lay in the dirt, eviscerated and skinned, the lean pink muscle stretched tight over the skeleton. Stripped of its coat and fatty tissue, the body looked emaciated. Like a medium-sized dog or the size of a wild cat, I thought. The families huddled close, wreathed in candlelight. Their song was a dirge, a hymn to life an
