[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
mounds of slag landfill, above yards low enough to flood after a big rain. Georgina slowed to pass a driveway where four children with dirtsmeared legs played a
game of running and handslapping. Even with Andy's sprinkler system and fertilizer, her new west side lawn didn't stay lush like these yards, fed by a watertable not
more than a foot below the surface. That watertable explained everything about this place, why the celery grew, why the earth used to heave behind her old house,
where one month there might be a valley a foot deep and the next month there'd be a little hill, and why Andy's truck, when she
Page 129
reached it, was mired nearly to its axles. If he couldn't live without the new truck as he'd insisted, then why had he risked the thing by coming to the river, of all places,
to get firewood? Andy's truck was as white as a wedding cake, a pure color that seemed wrong here. She'd expect greenwhites like the celery her granny once
protected from the sun, and she'd expect redwhites like the crazy eyes of that pony that had been trapped in the mud a decade ago.
God, she hadn't thought of that pony in ages. As a kid, Georgina had seen cars stuck when older kids unfamiliar with the area would park and make out, and then
they'd have to call their parents or a tow truck to winch them. The girl who lived up on the ridge must have known she was pushing her luck riding her pony into that
part of the woods after spring rains. When Georgina and other kids on the street heard the commotion, they came tearing through their patched screen doors and out
of their weedy backyards. The pony, purplybrown and sweating, had sunk past its knees. It screamed and tossed its neck in the air as if trying to throw off its head.
Its eyes rolled back in its sockets and grasscolored foam poured out of its mouth and coated the leather bridle and reins which whipped around like swamp snakes.
Though visions of the pony used to keep her awake nights, she had managed not to think of the animal since she'd moved with her mom out of the neighborhood. If
they'd given Georgina a chance, she might have been able to free that pony, but back then she hadn't done anything but watch it thrash and listen to its screams, half
animal, halfmachine. The girl had run up the ridge in her cowboy boots and leather fringe and returned with her father who dangled a shotgun. He made the girl stand
back as he raised the gun to his shoulder. "No, Daddy! No!" screamed the girl. Georgina woke into the nightmare that the man wasn't even trying to save the creature,
and that people up the ridge were cruel and stupid. The girl in fringe covered her eyes, and Georgina watched the ashfaced hill farmer buck at the force with which
the shot left the gun. Later he and some other men shoveled a mound of dirt over the pony. A year later the ground was level again.
Undoubtedly the animal had gone a little mad but what greater madness drove that man to bring his gun down the hill? Was it the
Page 130
same thing that made Andy drive his thirtyfive thousand dollar truck into the mud? Nights after the hill farmer shot the pony, Georgina had devised plans for pulling it
out alive, using ropes and winches, blockandtackles, devices which could lift that pony straight into the air, maybe in a hammock made of her bed sheets. The muck
would have released the pony if they'd worked it. Why had the man been so anxious to sacrifice the creature that he didn't even ask the river people for help?
Georgina pulled off the road alongside a drainage ditch and the car tilted sideways. She wished she had brought Andy's pastry and given it to the dirty children back
there if they were like her, they'd have torn it apart with their hands and chewed it with their mouths open as they shouted to one another. When she got out of the
car, she saw that if she'd pulled a few inches farther off the road, the car might have fallen into the ditch. She crossed the road toward the woods and the truck. If this
were March instead of September, the rigid, spiked cradles of skunk cabbage flowers would be poking up from the mud. Were this May, the leaves of the skunk
cabbage would have unfurled as fresh and green as that celery. Georgina used to bend down and smell the skunk cabbage each spring, and now she remembered it
like the stink of her own sweat before she'd ever used deodorant. In the summer she had roamed the cool woods, gnawing wild onion and the roots of wild ginger.
Andy's double rear tires had crushed a stand of jewel weed blossoming at the edge of the road. If this were late September instead of late August, she would touch
the orange pods of the jewel weed, and they would explode against her fingers. In addition to celery, Georgina's granny used to grow tomatoes, cucumbers, and
muskmelons in the black dirt behind their old house.
Fourwheel drive had apparently done Andy no good with all four wheels buried. Maybe that's why the cops called the house if the truck had been easy to tow,
somebody would have towed it already. Andy deserved to be stuck if he was here trying to steal from somebody else's land~ he deserved to be stuck for thinking
these people wouldn't stop him from taking their wood. And yet Georgina couldn't help but think she should at least try to free the truck, to make up for not rescuing
the pony.
Page 131
On the other side of the truck, three men stood in the driveway of an asbestosshingled house painted the color of lime sherbet. One was old and bald and small
headed and two were about Georgina's age and wore baseball caps. Their property was built up unevenly, several feet higher at one side of the concrete block
foundation. A fulllength crack in the front picture window was held steady with duct tape. Beside the driveway sat a trailer made out of the back end of a pickup, [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
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mounds of slag landfill, above yards low enough to flood after a big rain. Georgina slowed to pass a driveway where four children with dirtsmeared legs played a
game of running and handslapping. Even with Andy's sprinkler system and fertilizer, her new west side lawn didn't stay lush like these yards, fed by a watertable not
more than a foot below the surface. That watertable explained everything about this place, why the celery grew, why the earth used to heave behind her old house,
where one month there might be a valley a foot deep and the next month there'd be a little hill, and why Andy's truck, when she
Page 129
reached it, was mired nearly to its axles. If he couldn't live without the new truck as he'd insisted, then why had he risked the thing by coming to the river, of all places,
to get firewood? Andy's truck was as white as a wedding cake, a pure color that seemed wrong here. She'd expect greenwhites like the celery her granny once
protected from the sun, and she'd expect redwhites like the crazy eyes of that pony that had been trapped in the mud a decade ago.
God, she hadn't thought of that pony in ages. As a kid, Georgina had seen cars stuck when older kids unfamiliar with the area would park and make out, and then
they'd have to call their parents or a tow truck to winch them. The girl who lived up on the ridge must have known she was pushing her luck riding her pony into that
part of the woods after spring rains. When Georgina and other kids on the street heard the commotion, they came tearing through their patched screen doors and out
of their weedy backyards. The pony, purplybrown and sweating, had sunk past its knees. It screamed and tossed its neck in the air as if trying to throw off its head.
Its eyes rolled back in its sockets and grasscolored foam poured out of its mouth and coated the leather bridle and reins which whipped around like swamp snakes.
Though visions of the pony used to keep her awake nights, she had managed not to think of the animal since she'd moved with her mom out of the neighborhood. If
they'd given Georgina a chance, she might have been able to free that pony, but back then she hadn't done anything but watch it thrash and listen to its screams, half
animal, halfmachine. The girl had run up the ridge in her cowboy boots and leather fringe and returned with her father who dangled a shotgun. He made the girl stand
back as he raised the gun to his shoulder. "No, Daddy! No!" screamed the girl. Georgina woke into the nightmare that the man wasn't even trying to save the creature,
and that people up the ridge were cruel and stupid. The girl in fringe covered her eyes, and Georgina watched the ashfaced hill farmer buck at the force with which
the shot left the gun. Later he and some other men shoveled a mound of dirt over the pony. A year later the ground was level again.
Undoubtedly the animal had gone a little mad but what greater madness drove that man to bring his gun down the hill? Was it the
Page 130
same thing that made Andy drive his thirtyfive thousand dollar truck into the mud? Nights after the hill farmer shot the pony, Georgina had devised plans for pulling it
out alive, using ropes and winches, blockandtackles, devices which could lift that pony straight into the air, maybe in a hammock made of her bed sheets. The muck
would have released the pony if they'd worked it. Why had the man been so anxious to sacrifice the creature that he didn't even ask the river people for help?
Georgina pulled off the road alongside a drainage ditch and the car tilted sideways. She wished she had brought Andy's pastry and given it to the dirty children back
there if they were like her, they'd have torn it apart with their hands and chewed it with their mouths open as they shouted to one another. When she got out of the
car, she saw that if she'd pulled a few inches farther off the road, the car might have fallen into the ditch. She crossed the road toward the woods and the truck. If this
were March instead of September, the rigid, spiked cradles of skunk cabbage flowers would be poking up from the mud. Were this May, the leaves of the skunk
cabbage would have unfurled as fresh and green as that celery. Georgina used to bend down and smell the skunk cabbage each spring, and now she remembered it
like the stink of her own sweat before she'd ever used deodorant. In the summer she had roamed the cool woods, gnawing wild onion and the roots of wild ginger.
Andy's double rear tires had crushed a stand of jewel weed blossoming at the edge of the road. If this were late September instead of late August, she would touch
the orange pods of the jewel weed, and they would explode against her fingers. In addition to celery, Georgina's granny used to grow tomatoes, cucumbers, and
muskmelons in the black dirt behind their old house.
Fourwheel drive had apparently done Andy no good with all four wheels buried. Maybe that's why the cops called the house if the truck had been easy to tow,
somebody would have towed it already. Andy deserved to be stuck if he was here trying to steal from somebody else's land~ he deserved to be stuck for thinking
these people wouldn't stop him from taking their wood. And yet Georgina couldn't help but think she should at least try to free the truck, to make up for not rescuing
the pony.
Page 131
On the other side of the truck, three men stood in the driveway of an asbestosshingled house painted the color of lime sherbet. One was old and bald and small
headed and two were about Georgina's age and wore baseball caps. Their property was built up unevenly, several feet higher at one side of the concrete block
foundation. A fulllength crack in the front picture window was held steady with duct tape. Beside the driveway sat a trailer made out of the back end of a pickup, [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]