Jack Durkin’s day usually ended at seven, but it wasn’t until eight o’clock that night he finished his third pass of the field and emptied the sack into a stone pit behind Lorne Field, adding to the small mountain of Aukowies picked earlier that day. Kerosene wasn’t needed. Just throw a match on the Aukowie remains and they lit up as if they’d been soaked in gasoline. The contract required him to watch them burn, so after setting a match to the remains, he stood and watched the flames shoot skyward. After the fire died out he gathered up the ashes, mixed them with lime and buried them. Then he headed home.

At a quarter to nine Durkin stepped through his front door, too bone-tired at first to do anything but glare angrily at his wife. He would’ve fallen over when he took off his work boots except he was able to throw out his right hand and grasp the wall and keep himself on his feet. Lydia’s color paled to a dead white as she watched him.

“What happened to you?” she asked, her voice unusually brittle.

He shot her a withering look, then hobbled past her and collapsed into a worn imitation-leather recliner that had been patched up in places with duct tape.

“You ain’t going to tell me what happened?” Lydia demanded, a hot white anger chasing out whatever concern she had felt moments earlier.

“Get me a bucket of hot water first,” Durkin said. “My damn feet are swollen to twice their size.”