Big top - part 6
Slim had an idea about touching the earth with their sorrow, marking their loss in the form of an offering to nature. Something stoic, something with dust and stone and silence. He didn't mention it to Angel because when he tried the words clenched up in his jaw and a flush ran over him. Angel convalesced for two days in a free clinic on the edge of southeast side of Natchitoches. It was hot in there. She watched fat flys bang their heads against the loose screened in windows. "Why'd they open the windows, Slim? They've got air conditioning! It's as if they enjoy this heat!" "Maybe to them it's just it not hot. " But the folks there were friendly. When Esther, a large and slow moving woman the color of Red River silt, found Angel doubled over at the foot of the bed, she took her in her thick arms and held her until both their tears drew dry. And Gaff ( they called him Gaff cause he was always ready for a good