Snow Hunters: A Novel by Paul Yoon Read Free Book Online Page B

leaned back, his legs in the air as she pedaled past the men and headed toward the boardwalk. When they lost her in a far crowd, Yohan offered the sailor a room to spend the night, as he always did, but the sailor refused, as he always did.
    —Next time, the sailor said, and they parted ways, Yohan pushing the crates up the hill on a dolly, and the sailor returning to the ship, to his cabin, where there was a narrow bed, photographs, his wife’s letters, a ceramic dolphin his children had given him, two coins a shipmate once placed on his pillow, years ago.

6
    F rom his window that evening he saw the shape of someone riding a bicycle through the town. There was a flashlight on the handlebars and he followed the errant star as it swayed down the slope and faded along the coast.
    He left the shop. He passed the church and entered the meadow. He continued to walk away from the town, moving under the open sky, until the land narrowed and formed a promontory high above the sea. He took the path beside it, descending the cliff.
    The brightness of the low moon was everywhere. For a moment he was disoriented. He squinted, shielding hiseyes with a hand. He was on a beach north of the harbor, the sand gleaming and unbroken. The shadow of an animal, a dog perhaps, retreated into a thicket. A piece of torn paper twirled past him.
    In the distance, farther up the beach, a fire was burning. He could distinguish the silhouettes of people in the darkness: some were sitting with blankets over their shoulders; others were standing. A girl lifted her arms and stretched, her body a blade against the light of the fire, a leaping fish.
    He felt the softness of the sand, its give. The water blinked from the nearby lighthouse as he moved along the shoreline. He heard conversations. The calm of the night hours.
    He kept walking. He found the old plantation house on the coast. It stood in a long field, beyond a stone wall. In the evening light it looked as if it had just been built. But as he approached he noticed its dilapidated architecture, the wood-covered windows, the sinking porch, a portion of its rooftop gone.
    Nearby, shanties stood in rows. They were short and squat with steel roofs that reflected the evening light. Some of them were without windows. Others had thespace for a door but there was none, the entrances covered in heavy blankets.
    A path had been made among them and in the moonlight he watched a man on a mule pace through the settlement. Two women carried baskets into a shanty. At one entrance a pair of gray dogs lay side by side with their heads on their paws. A group of old men, with their hats hooked over their knees, smoked cigarettes.
    There was also a large tree in the field. Clothes of various colors hung on its branches, left to dry. Bia was standing under it. She was wearing a hat pulled low over her eyes. She unfurled a shirt and threw it over a branch.
    He climbed over the stone wall. Water hit the hulls of the small boats lined up along the shore. He could hear himself breathing, hear the beats of his heart starting to speed and then slow as he moved away from the beach and entered the settlement. It was as though someone, somewhere, were dreaming this and he had crossed into it without permission. Everything both familiar and foreign.
    A man on crutches walked past, nodding. A basket of dried fish was tied to his waist. Across the field, closerto the plantation house, he saw the figure of a juggler, his chin pointing at the sky. A group of children, sitting around him, were following his motions.
    Bia did not seem surprised to see him. He looked up at the clothes hanging above them in the tree, these shapes in the air like windows afloat. A house of fabric. Drops of water hit his wrist.
    Without speaking she led him away toward the plantation house. The man on the mule greeted her and as they passed she patted the animal on the neck. She spoke briefly with a girl, leaving her a folded shirt.
    Santi was sitting on a