He noticed the women sitting against the base of the cliff, terrified.
"What's wrong?"
Kathryn looked around them at the barren ground and at the clear sky stretching away to the horizon. "What's wrong? Look at this. I feel like I'm floating in air. There's nothing over us!"
The men laughed.
"Don't laugh," Marta wailed. "It's a horrible feeling. This emptiness is killing me. Sing, shout, do something! But let's not have such silence!"
Stella, the shy girl with the mouse-colored hair, began crying again. Karl gently pulled her head over on his shoulder.
They left at dark, winding up through the canyon and back into the hills where the scrub trees began. All night they traveled, tearing their flesh on the jagged limbs and rocks in the darkness. Only, the occasional muffled sob of the women broke the stillness.
