Chapter 65

My feeble embryo¹ of a plan was proceeding² better than I had hoped . . . They move up the beach. Hank in front and Lee grimly shivering behind: We are joined, brother, shackled³ together for all our lives, just as the birds and the waves are immutably⁴ tuned⁵ together, in a song of patience and panic. We have been tuned thus for years, me piping and pecking after morsels⁷ while you crashed and roared (Closer and brighter, the light almost there now; the little boy held his breath at the approaching glow of salvation⁸ . . .) but now, brother, the roles are switching, and you are beginning to plaintively⁹ pipe the tune⁶ of panic and I am beginning the melancholy¹⁰ long withdrawing roar of patience . . . and I faced the future with a confident smirk¹¹. “Right behind you, brother mine. Lead on. Lead on. . . .” Lee’s steps stretch out to keep up with Hank. Indian Jenny prepares her soul for another attack on her manless world. The old boltcutter empties his last bottle of Thunderbird and decides to start for town before full dark. The clouds swarm¹² up from the sea, black-booted and brave with the coming of night. The wind springs up from the slough¹³ bottoms. The dunes¹⁴ darken (the boy watches the light). In the mountains past the town, where the streams grow thirsty for winter, the lightning uncurls and begins to flutter in the fir trees, white-orange and black, for Halloween...(Then, finally, after cold minutes or hours or weeks—he has no idea—the earth above the waiting boy has moved far enough. The light is in full view. And the glow of salvation is nothing but that same moon that led him across the dunes, a thin paring of moon that has gradually centered itself in his meager¹⁵ patch of far-off sky) . . . in that kind of sky ...(“Leee-land . . .”) in that kind of world. “Leeee-land; oh, Leeee-land...” The boy doesn’t hear; he stares at the moon, a thread-thin crescent hanging there between the stars like the last of a faded Cheshire cat— everything gone but the black reminder¹⁶ and the jeering¹⁷ grin . . . and this time the boy’s weeping is not of the cold or the fright of falling into a dark hole, or of anything else he has ever cried about before... “Leeeeelan’ boy, answer me...!” The call comes again, nearer, but he doesn’t answer. He feels that his voice is trapped like his weeping, beneath a cold lid of wind. Nothing can ever get out. “Leland? Bub...?” The hole sinks deeper and deeper into the earth and is just beginning to strangle his consciousness when he feels something hail against the back of his neck. Sand. He raises his eyes up to the hole: The grin is gone! A face is there! “Is that you, bub? You all right?” And a flashlight! “Gawdamn, bub, you gave me a real run for my money!” With no tool but his pocket knife it takes Hank most of an hour to cut the limbs from a little scrub pine that he dragged onto the dunes. He works as near to the mouth of the hole as he feels safe, so the boy will be able to hear his labors¹⁸. As he works he tries to talk constantly, keeping up an unconcerned-sounding flow of jokes and stories and shouted commands to the hound—“Come back here an’ forget chasing those rabbits, you ol’ potlicker!”—that listens, puzzled, from the spot where Hank tied him before starting. “Dang that ol’ gadabout dog.” He clucks loudly, then crawls to the hole on his belly¹⁹ again to check on the boy, whispering, “That’s the kid. Sit good an’ still. Don’t fret²⁰. But don’t rustle²¹ around down there any more’n you have to, neither.” He bellies²² back from the hole and returns to his work on the little pine; his nonchalant and rambling²³ narrative²⁴ is just the opposite of his frenzied²⁵ hacking²⁶ and whittling²⁷. “Say now, bub, you know? Ever since I got here I been think-in’...that this whole situation sure does put me in mind of something. An’ it just now come to me what it was. It was the time old Henry and your Uncle Ben an’ me—I was just about your age at the time, too, I guess—all drove over to Uncle Aaron’s place up in Mapleton to help him dig a big hole for a outhouse....” He works swiftly but carefully at the tree; he could remove the branches more quickly by breaking them off, but then they would break off next to the trunk ...he has to leave enough sticking out for the boy to hang on to, but not enough to scrape the sides of that hole—any little jostling could bring it all down. “Your Uncle Aaron, you see, couldn’t do with just any old five-or six-feet hole under his crapper—he wanted it deep. He had got it into his head some way that if it wasn’t deep enough the roots from the garden could get to it an’ he’d end up with carrots tastin’ like turds. Now. Hang tough a minute; I’m gonna bring the ladder an’ try to get it down.” He slides toward the hole again, dragging the tree with him; the branches have all been removed except those opposing each other, and these have been cut off a few inches from the skinny trunk. The result is a wobbly ladder some thirty feet long. Without standing²⁸, he up-ends the tree and begins to lower it very carefully down, talking all the while. “Well, so we went at that hole, the dirt just aflyin’ because it was loamy an’ pretty soft diggin’—feel the ladder yet, bub? you holler when it gets down to where you can feel it—an’ pretty quick we’d dug down about fifteen feet—Don’t you feel it yet, for chrissakes? I’m prodded²⁹ up against something.” He pulls the light from his pocket and shines it down; the butt³⁰ of the trunk is resting against the boy’s leg. “My leg’s too cold, Hank, I didn’t feel it on my leg.” “You mean you can’t climb out on it?” The boy shakes his head. “No,” he says without emotion. “I can’t feel my legs.” Hank shines the light around the tube; it might stand another hundred years or it might cave in in another ten minutes. Likely ten minutes. He can’t chance going for help; he’ll have to go down and carry him out. He scoots back from the hole and turns over on his back and comes at it again, feet first. An inch at a time he lowers himself through the opening. “So we’d dug down fifteen feet ...an’ Uncle Ben an’ Uncle Aaron was at the bottom, Henry an’ me up top haulin’ off the dirt ...easy, easy does it ...then Uncle Ben says he just had to go to the house for some water, would be right back, he says. Ah, gotcha, bub. Now; can you hang onto my belt?” “I can’t feel my fingers, Hank. I think my fingers died.”  “You just dyin’ a little bit at a time, huh?” “My fingers and my legs, Hank,” the boy answers flatly. “They died first.” “You’re just cold. Here. Let’s see what we can work out. ...” After some effort he removes his belt and loops it beneath the boy’s shoulders; he ties the end of it through the leather trade patch at the back of his jeans and begins a slow climb back up the cramped³¹ tube; only during this climb does his casual tone flag. “Okay. Now listen, Lee: I didn’t figure this scrub pine supportin’ anything but you, not me an’ you together. So help by climbin’ if you can. But if you can’t help, for Jesus H. Christ don’t go to kicking and squirming! Here we go. . . .” He emerges into the wind and straddles the hole, standing. As he draws the boy up after him by the belt he feels the sand surrounding the hole begin to crumble³². He takes a breath and heaves, falling backward and pulling the boy onto him. From the hole there is a soft thump³³ and for a moment a dusty cloud of rotten wood smell hangs above the sand, then is chased away before the sandslinging hoofs³⁴ of that gritty wind. “Let’s get our asses³⁵ gone from here,” Hank says in a hollow voice and starts back across the dunes with the dog at his heels and the boy piggyback. “I reckon you know what you got into,” he says after a few minutes of silence. “A devil’s stovepipe, I guess.” “Yeah. That’s what the old man calls them. I didn’t know there was any left. You see, bub, this here was a pine forest a long, long time ago. These dunes didn’t useta be here, just trees. But the winds kept bankin’ the sand higher and higher and finally covered up the forest. Clean to the top of the trees. And the trees eventually rotted out, leaving these hollows where they useta be, maybe just barely covered at the top. An’ you stepped into one. A pretty good one, too, thank your lucky stars, because most people who fall into a stovepipe pull the stovepipe in after ’em an’ then ...But what I want to know is what in the goddam hell were you doin’ out here anyway, headin’ across the dunes to the ocean in the dead of night? Huh? Tell me that.” The boy doesn’t speak; his face is cold and wet against Hank’s neck, and the dilapidated mask flaps about them on its elastic³⁶ string. Hank doesn’t ask again. “Anyhow, you ain’t never to come out here again. The devil’s stovepipe ain’t none too pleasant a place to spend a night, even Halloween. It’s lucky, too, I had me this old bluetick dog because the wind had blowed away all your tracks. ...Yeah. Oh! Say now—about what happened to ol’ Uncle Aaron the time he got in dutch in a hole. See, in the barnyard where we was putting in the hole, there was this old horse that Aaron kept around for his kids to ride, a old blind gelding who was twenty years if he was a day. Aaron’d had him all his worthless life, that old horse, and wouldn’t get shut of him for nothing. So that old horse knew ever’ inch of that barnyard, from the house to the fence and the barn to the pigpen. We kids used to put us on blindfolds³⁷ and gallop³⁸ him to scare ourselves, but he never hit a post or nothing. Well, anyhow, while we was there digging this outhouse hole, none of us’d even thought about that horse. Except Uncle Ben. And that was just the sort of thing Ben could think of. When he come up out of the hole for a water break he hollers back at Aaron and says, ‘Henry and the boy are going with me for a sip³⁹, Aaron; we’ll be back shortly!’ He pulled us off a piece from the hole and put a finger to his lips to me and Papa and says in a whisper, ‘Okay, now, shush. Watch this.’ “ ‘Watch what, you damn fool?’ Papa says, and Ben says, ‘Just keep shushed an’ watch this...’ “So Papa and I stood there. Ben went to trotting⁴⁰ across the barnyard at that hole, pawing the ground with his boots and snorting. Keeping back far enough to where Aaron couldn’t see him. He even kicks a couple clods into the hole. “ ‘Whoa!’ Aaron yells. ‘Whoa! Get back there, damn you, get back! You’ll fall in here on me! Get back.’ “Ben kept it up, knocking more and more clods down. Aaron kept hollering whoa, louder and louder. Then all of a sudden the damnedest thing you ever saw; there was some scrambling⁴¹ and scuffling down there, and then zoom⁴² up out of there Aaron come! fifteen sheer foot of dirt, and not a rope nor a ladder, like a man shot out of a cannon⁴³. He never did know how he managed  it.

1 embryo   

n.胚胎，萌芽的事物

参考例句：

• They are engaging in an embryo research.他们正在进行一项胚胎研究。
• The project was barely in embryo.该计划只是个雏形。

2 proceeding   

n.行动，进行，(pl.)会议录，学报

参考例句：

• This train is now proceeding from Paris to London.这次列车从巴黎开往伦敦。
• The work is proceeding briskly.工作很有生气地进展着。

3 shackled   

给（某人）带上手铐或脚镣( shackle的过去式和过去分词 )

参考例句：

• The hostage had been shackled to a radiator. 当时人质被铐在暖气片上。
• He was shackled and in darkness of torment. 他被困在黑暗中备受煎熬。

4 immutably   

adv.不变地，永恒地

参考例句：

• Only reefs stand alone immutably on the beach after a typhoon. 台风过后，海滩上只有那些礁石岿然独存。 来自互联网

5 tuned   

adj.调谐的，已调谐的v.调音( tune的过去式和过去分词 )；调整；（给收音机、电视等）调谐；使协调

参考例句：

• The resort is tuned in to the tastes of young and old alike. 这个度假胜地适合各种口味，老少皆宜。
• The instruments should be tuned up before each performance. 每次演出开始前都应将乐器调好音。 来自《简明英汉词典》

6 tune   

n.调子；和谐，协调；v.调音，调节，调整

参考例句：

• He'd written a tune,and played it to us on the piano.他写了一段曲子，并在钢琴上弹给我们听。
• The boy beat out a tune on a tin can.那男孩在易拉罐上敲出一首曲子。

7 morsels   

n.一口( morsel的名词复数 )；（尤指食物）小块，碎屑

参考例句：

• They are the most delicate morsels. 这些确是最好吃的部分。 来自辞典例句
• Foxes will scratch up grass to find tasty bug and beetle morsels. 狐狸会挖草地，寻找美味的虫子和甲壳虫。 来自互联网

8 salvation   

n.（尤指基督）救世，超度，拯救，解困

参考例句：

• Salvation lay in political reform.解救办法在于政治改革。
• Christians hope and pray for salvation.基督教徒希望并祈祷灵魂得救。

9 plaintively   

adv.悲哀地，哀怨地

参考例句：

• The last note of the song rang out plaintively. 歌曲最后道出了离别的哀怨。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• Birds cry plaintively before they die, men speak kindly in the presence of death. 鸟之将死，其鸣也哀；人之将死，其言也善。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》

10 melancholy   

n.忧郁，愁思；adj.令人感伤（沮丧）的，忧郁的

参考例句：

• All at once he fell into a state of profound melancholy.他立即陷入无尽的忧思之中。
• He felt melancholy after he failed the exam.这次考试没通过，他感到很郁闷。

11 smirk   

n.得意地笑；v.傻笑；假笑着说

参考例句：

• He made no attempt to conceal his smirk.他毫不掩饰自鸣得意的笑容。
• She had a selfsatisfied smirk on her face.她脸上带着自鸣得意的微笑。

12 swarm   

n.(昆虫)等一大群；vi.成群飞舞；蜂拥而入

参考例句：

• There is a swarm of bees in the tree.这树上有一窝蜜蜂。
• A swarm of ants are moving busily.一群蚂蚁正在忙碌地搬家。

13 slough   

v.蜕皮，脱落，抛弃

参考例句：

• He was not able to slough off the memories of the past.他无法忘记过去。
• A cicada throws its slough.蝉是要蜕皮的。

14 dunes   

沙丘( dune的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• The boy galloped over the dunes barefoot. 那男孩光着脚在沙丘间飞跑。
• Dragging the fully laden boat across the sand dunes was no mean feat. 将满载货物的船拖过沙丘是一件了不起的事。

15 meager   

adj.缺乏的，不足的，瘦的

参考例句：

• He could not support his family on his meager salary.他靠微薄的工资无法养家。
• The two men and the woman grouped about the fire and began their meager meal.两个男人同一个女人围着火，开始吃起少得可怜的午饭。

16 reminder   

n.提醒物，纪念品；暗示，提示

参考例句：

• I have had another reminder from the library.我又收到图书馆的催还单。
• It always took a final reminder to get her to pay her share of the rent.总是得发给她一份最后催缴通知，她才付应该交的房租。

17 jeering   

adj.嘲弄的，揶揄的v.嘲笑( jeer的现在分词 )

参考例句：

• Hecklers interrupted her speech with jeering. 捣乱分子以嘲笑打断了她的讲话。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• He interrupted my speech with jeering. 他以嘲笑打断了我的讲话。 来自《简明英汉词典》

18 labors   

v.努力争取(for)( labor的第三人称单数 )；苦干；详细分析；（指引擎）缓慢而困难地运转

参考例句：

• He was tiresome in contending for the value of his own labors. 他老为他自己劳动的价值而争强斗胜，令人生厌。 来自辞典例句
• Farm labors used to hire themselves out for the summer. 农业劳动者夏季常去当雇工。 来自辞典例句

19 belly   

n.肚子，腹部；(像肚子一样)鼓起的部分，膛

参考例句：

• The boss has a large belly.老板大腹便便。
• His eyes are bigger than his belly.他眼馋肚饱。

20 fret   

v.(使)烦恼；(使)焦急；(使)腐蚀，(使)磨损

参考例句：

• Don't fret.We'll get there on time.别着急，我们能准时到那里。
• She'll fret herself to death one of these days.她总有一天会愁死的.

21 rustle   

v.沙沙作响；偷盗(牛、马等)；n.沙沙声声

参考例句：

• She heard a rustle in the bushes.她听到灌木丛中一阵沙沙声。
• He heard a rustle of leaves in the breeze.他听到树叶在微风中发出的沙沙声。

22 bellies   

n.肚子( belly的名词复数 )；腹部；（物体的）圆形或凸起部份；腹部…形的

参考例句：

• They crawled along on their bellies. 他们匍匐前进。
• starving children with huge distended bellies 鼓着浮肿肚子的挨饿儿童

23 rambling   

adj.[建]凌乱的，杂乱的

参考例句：

• We spent the summer rambling in Ireland. 我们花了一个夏天漫游爱尔兰。
• It was easy to get lost in the rambling house. 在布局凌乱的大房子里容易迷路。

24 narrative   

n.叙述，故事；adj.叙事的，故事体的

参考例句：

• He was a writer of great narrative power.他是一位颇有记述能力的作家。
• Neither author was very strong on narrative.两个作者都不是很善于讲故事。

25 frenzied   

a.激怒的；疯狂的

参考例句：

• Will this push him too far and lead to a frenzied attack? 这会不会逼他太甚，导致他进行疯狂的进攻？
• Two teenagers carried out a frenzied attack on a local shopkeeper. 两名十几岁的少年对当地的一个店主进行了疯狂的袭击。

26 hacking   

n.非法访问计算机系统和数据库的活动

参考例句：

• The patient with emphysema is hacking all day. 这个肺气肿病人整天不断地干咳。
• We undertook the task of hacking our way through the jungle. 我们负责在丛林中开路。

27 whittling   

v.切，削（木头），使逐渐变小( whittle的现在分词 )

参考例句：

• Inflation has been whittling away their savings. 通货膨胀使他们的积蓄不断减少。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• He is whittling down the branch with a knife to make a handle for his hoe. 他在用刀削树枝做一把锄头柄。 来自《简明英汉词典》

28 standing   

n.持续，地位；adj.永久的，不动的，直立的，不流动的

参考例句：

• After the earthquake only a few houses were left standing.地震过后只有几幢房屋还立着。
• They're standing out against any change in the law.他们坚决反对对法律做任何修改。

29 prodded   

v.刺，戳( prod的过去式和过去分词 )；刺激；促使；（用手指或尖物）戳

参考例句：

• She prodded him in the ribs to wake him up. 她用手指杵他的肋部把他叫醒。
• He prodded at the plate of fish with his fork. 他拿叉子戳弄着那盘鱼。 来自《简明英汉词典》

30 butt   

n.笑柄；烟蒂；枪托；臀部；v.用头撞或顶

参考例句：

• The water butt catches the overflow from this pipe.大水桶盛接管子里流出的东西。
• He was the butt of their jokes.他是他们的笑柄。

31 cramped   

a.狭窄的

参考例句：

• The house was terribly small and cramped, but the agent described it as a bijou residence. 房子十分狭小拥挤，但经纪人却把它说成是小巧别致的住宅。
• working in cramped conditions 在拥挤的环境里工作

32 crumble   

vi.碎裂，崩溃；vt.弄碎，摧毁

参考例句：

• Opposition more or less crumbled away.反对势力差不多都瓦解了。
• Even if the seas go dry and rocks crumble,my will will remain firm.纵然海枯石烂，意志永不动摇。

33 thump   

v.重击，砰然地响；n.重击，重击声

参考例句：

• The thief hit him a thump on the head.贼在他的头上重击一下。
• The excitement made her heart thump.她兴奋得心怦怦地跳。

34 hoofs   

n.（兽的）蹄，马蹄( hoof的名词复数 )v.（兽的）蹄，马蹄( hoof的第三人称单数 )

参考例句：

• The stamp of the horse's hoofs on the wooden floor was loud. 马蹄踏在木头地板上的声音很响。 来自辞典例句
• The noise of hoofs called him back to the other window. 马蹄声把他又唤回那扇窗子口。 来自辞典例句

35 asses   

n. 驴，愚蠢的人，臀部 adv. (常用作后置)用于贬损或骂人

参考例句：

• Sometimes I got to kick asses to make this place run right. 有时我为了把这个地方搞得像个样子，也不得不踢踢别人的屁股。 来自教父部分
• Those were wild asses maybe, or zebras flying around in herds. 那些也许是野驴或斑马在成群地奔跑。

36 elastic   

n.橡皮圈，松紧带；adj.有弹性的；灵活的

参考例句：

• Rubber is an elastic material.橡胶是一种弹性材料。
• These regulations are elastic.这些规定是有弹性的。

37 blindfolds   

n.蒙眼的绷带[布等]( blindfold的名词复数 )；障眼物，蒙蔽人的事物

参考例句：

• Why not just hand out blindfolds, Captain? 何不干脆给我们眼罩不就行了吗？ 来自电影对白
• Prejudice blindfolds the mind. 偏见使人无法正确理解事物。 来自互联网

38 gallop   

v./n.(马或骑马等)飞奔；飞速发展

参考例句：

• They are coming at a gallop towards us.他们正朝着我们飞跑过来。
• The horse slowed to a walk after its long gallop.那匹马跑了一大阵后慢下来缓步而行。

39 sip   

v.小口地喝，抿，呷；n.一小口的量

参考例句：

• She took a sip of the cocktail.她啜饮一口鸡尾酒。
• Elizabeth took a sip of the hot coffee.伊丽莎白呷了一口热咖啡。

40 trotting   

小跑，急走( trot的现在分词 )； 匆匆忙忙地走

参考例句：

• The riders came trotting down the lane. 这骑手骑着马在小路上慢跑。
• Alan took the reins and the small horse started trotting. 艾伦抓住缰绳，小马开始慢跑起来。

41 scrambling   

v.快速爬行( scramble的现在分词 )；攀登；争夺；（军事飞机）紧急起飞

参考例句：

• Scrambling up her hair, she darted out of the house. 她匆忙扎起头发，冲出房去。 来自《现代英汉综合大词典》
• She is scrambling eggs. 她正在炒蛋。 来自《简明英汉词典》

42 zoom   

n.急速上升；v.突然扩大，急速上升

参考例句：

• The airplane's zoom carried it above the clouds.飞机的陡直上升使它飞到云层之上。
• I live near an airport and the zoom of passing planes can be heard night and day.我住在一个飞机场附近，昼夜都能听到飞机飞过的嗡嗡声。

43 cannon   

n.大炮，火炮；飞机上的机关炮

参考例句：

• The soldiers fired the cannon.士兵们开炮。
• The cannon thundered in the hills.大炮在山间轰鸣。