shut it down, even though it cost him more to have his foreman
salvaging than it would have cost him to cut the iron with torches.
When we finished, I had some bruises but I wasn’t hurt. Shawn seemed
bled of life. It had only been a few months since his fall from the pallet,
and his body couldn’t take the wear. He was cracked in the head many
times when a length of iron bucked at an unexpected angle. When that
happened he’d sit for a minute in the dirt, his hands over his eyes, then
he’d stand and reach for the next length. In the evenings he lay on the
kitchen floor in his stained shirt and dusty jeans, too weary even to
shower.
I fetched all the food and water he asked for. Sadie came most
evenings, and the two of us would run side by side when he sent us for
ice, then to remove the ice, then to put the ice back in. We were both
Fish Eyes.
The next morning Shawn and I would return to the Shear, and he
would feed iron through its jaws, which chewed with such force that it
pulled him off his feet, easily, playfully, as if it were a game, as if he
were a child.