unsmudged

Besides Papa Acevedo, the only shadowshapers left unsmudged were Caleb Jones, a tall, light-skinned guy in his thirties with a bright red fro and tattoos creeping up his neck; Theodore Crane, a shriveled-up old man with his arms crossed over his chest; Delmond Alcatraz and Sunny Balboa, the two guys who ran the barbershop over on Marcy; and a thick, frowning guy in a tracksuit and Stetson hat named Francis True.

I learned about these from my grandmother, and now, instead of searching on the floor or somewhere under my pillow to find my glasses when I wake up, they’re always right where I put them—unscratched and unscathed, but most importantly, unsmudged.

But Daniloff insisted that, unlike Zakharov, he had come through the experience with his honor unsmudged.

He told himself that Socialists are an educated, even over-educated folk, and if one of them did set himself to draw a skull and cross-bones, the drawing would be, if not exquisite, at any rate accurate and unsmudged; that it was highly improbable that a Socialist would spell desperate with two "a's" in an important document without being corrected by a confederate.

Below him lay the level tundra, merging indistinguishably with the white anchor-ice of Behring Sea; beyond that a long black streak of open water, underscoring the sky as if to emphasize the significance of that empty horizon, a horizon which for many months would remain unsmudged by smoke.