Then comes the night of Nellie’s near escape.
She’ll never know exactly how, but Lucy likes to think it began as most escapes do: in the dead of the night. What’s still called the hour of the wolf. Decades back, before the buffalo1 were slaughtered2 and the tigers that fed on them died too, a lone4 horse in these hills would have quaked in fear of carnivores come slavering. Though there are no tigers, Nellie trembles like her ancestors. She’s smarter than most people, her master claimed. She knows there are things more fearsome than any living threat. The thing strapped5 to her back, for instance, that dead thing she can’t shake. Nellie waits till the stars stare through their peepholes of sky and the two sleepers6 lie quiet. Then she commences to dig.
Nellie digs through the hours of the wolf, the snake, the owl7, the bat, the mole8, the sparrow. At the hour of earthworms stirring in their burrows9, Lucy and Sam wake to the knock of hooves against the stake.
Sam is quicker. Four strides and Sam’s caught the reins10 in one hand. With the other, Sam slaps Nellie. Hard.
The mare11 only snorts, but the sound echoes in Lucy along with the sound of other slaps by other hands on other parts. She leaps between girl and horse. Sam’s hand halts in midair. Only then, her neck loosening, does Lucy admit she didn’t know if Sam would stop.
“She tried to run,” Sam says with arm still raised.
“You scared her.”
“She’s a traitor12. She’d’ve made off with Ba.”
“She’s got feelings too. She’s—”
“Smarter than most people,” Sam mocks, lowering her voice to ape Teacher Leigh. It’s half-convincing. A fit to Sam’s new, leaner face. They both of them go quiet. When Sam speaks again it’s still in a borrowed voice, not quite a man’s but not quite Sam’s own. “If Nellie’s so smart then she understands loyalty13. If she’s so smart she can take her punishment.”
“She’s worn out by the weight. I’m tired too. Aren’t you?”
“Ba wouldn’t quit on account of being tired.”
And maybe that was Ba’s problem. Maybe he should’ve made peace with what they had before he died dirty in his bed, not a clean shirt to his name. Lucy presses a hand to her hot scalp. Her head buzzes. Strange thoughts have been taking residence in her empty spaces. Sometimes it seems the wind itself whispers notions at night.
“Let’s let her rest a while,” Lucy says. “Anyhow, we can’t have much farther to go.” She looks around at the hills. Not a soul to speak to since they left the two boys at that crossroads a month back. She’s got to ask, for Nellie’s sake if not her own. “Right?”
Sam shrugs15.
“Sam?”
Another shrug14. This time Lucy perceives the softening16 in Sam’s shoulders as doubt.
“If we keep on,” Sam says, “we might find a better place.”
The next place might be better, Ba said each time they packed up for a new mine. Better never came.
“You don’t know where you’re going,” Lucy says. And then, unbidden, she is laughing. She hasn’t laughed since Ba died. These aren’t her forced ha-has but something raw and hurting as it pulls free. If Sam means to chase Ba’s dream of wildness, they’ll never quit wandering. And maybe that’s what Sam wants: Ba forever on their backs.
“Don’t be stupid,” Lucy says when she catches her breath. “We can’t last.”
“We could if you were stronger.” Those words are Ba’s words. As the sneer17 is Ba’s, and the swing of Sam’s hand aiming once more for Nellie.
Lucy grabs Sam. Touch is a shock—Sam’s wristbones so small and fine despite that brashness. Sam tugs18 away, pulling Lucy off-balance. Lucy flings an arm out—and her nails graze Sam’s cheek.
Sam flinches19. Sam who’s never quailed20 before, not from the kids and their stones, not from Ba at his drunkest. But why would Sam? Ba didn’t ever aim to hit Sam, as Lucy just did. The morning light is stark21 now, Sam’s accusing eyes as wide as twin suns.
Coward that she is, Lucy flees. The blows resume behind her.
She climbs. Up the biggest hill she can find, thirsting plants reaching up the hem3 of her dress, which is too short now, and faded from travel. The grass so parched22 it draws blood, hatching her legs with delicate pattern. At the summit, she folds her knees to her chest. Puts her head between and squeezes her ears shut.Ting le?Ma asked, holding her hands over Lucy’s ears. Silence for that first moment. Then the throb23 and whoosh24 of Lucy’s own blood. It’s inside you. Where you come from. The sound of the ocean.
Salt water, poison to its drinkers. In Teacher Leigh’s history book, land stops at the ocean that borders this Western territory. Beyond: blank blue, sea monsters drawn25 among the waves. The savage26 unknown, the teacher said, and it troubled Lucy that Ma spoke27 so yearningly28.
For the first time, Lucy understands the desire to travel so far from the life she’s known. She meant for them to leave Sam’s violence when they fled town. But violence lives in Lucy too.
“Sorry,” Lucy says. This time to Ma. She hasn’t taken care of Sam as Ma bid her. She doesn’t know if she can. And then, because Sam isn’t there to witness weakness, Lucy finally lets herself cry. She licks the tears as she goes. Salt’s expensive, missing from their table for many years. She cries till her tongue shrivels. Then she chews a blade of grass to clear the taste.
The grass tastes of ocean too.
A second blade proves just as salty. Lucy stands, looking over the hilltop. There: a gleam of white.
She walks till she reaches the edge of a huge white disk that crunches29 underfoot, burning her scratches. Height of the dry season and all through the hills, the shallow pools and creeks30 are disappearing. Here a whole lake has gone, and left behind a salt flat.
Lucy stands long enough for the clouds to gather, the world to swirl31 around her. She thinks of the plums Ma pickled in salt, the way they took a form more potent32 than their origins. She thinks of Ba salting his game. Of salt to scour33 iron. Of salt in an open wound, a burn that purifies. Salt to clean and salt to save. Salt on a rich man’s table every Sunday, a flavor to mark the passage of the week. Salt shrinking the flesh of fruit and meat both, changing it, buying time.
—
The sun’s swung low when Lucy descends34. Sam’s face is mottled, but not on account of shadows. Sam rages—yet there is fear behind it. What here in this emptiness could scare Sam?
“You left,” Sam spits out between a string of cusses, and Lucy understands. She broke the unspoken contract of their lives. Always it’s been Sam who ranges wide while Lucy sat, waiting. Sam’s never been left behind.
Lucy speaks, gently, as she would to a spooked horse. Of salt and pork, venison and squirrel, while Sam refuses. Yells louder.
“It’ll mean we can keep looking,” Lucy says. “Nellie’s not as strong as you.” She pauses. “Nor am I.”
This soothes35 Sam, but what convinces is the wind that insinuates36 itself between them, carrying the flies and the odor of Ba. Both siblings37 pale. So when Lucy says certain Indian tribes honored their warriors38 this way, Sam relents at last.
Does it matter that agreement was bought with a lie?
For the first time they untie39 the ropes from Nellie’s back. Freed, the mare rolls in the grass, leaving a black mash40 of flies.
What makes a man a man? They tip the trunk. Is it a face to show the world? Hands and feet to shape it? Two legs to walk it? A heart to beat, teeth and tongue to sing? Ba has few of these left. He lacks even a man’s shape. He’s shaped by the trunk as a stew41 is shaped by its pot. Lucy has salted meat gone green at the edges, and meat frozen for days. Nothing like this.
—
Sam approaches the salt flat at a run. By evening it’s as if one great white moon has sunk to the ground, leaving a lesser42 in the sky that rises, unconvincing. Sam leaps high and slams down those boots. A crack splits the surface, twice as long as Sam is tall. The boom like close thunder. Lucy peers up at the now-dark sky. Sure enough the clouds are circling.
She shoulders the shovel43. Where Sam leaps, Lucy follows, prying44 hunks of white. Goose bumps swim on Lucy’s skin despite the heat. This here’s a familiar rhythm. The digging. The heat. Even the boom like laughter from a man full-grown. Lucy looks up to find Sam looking back.
“It’s near as pretty as gold,” Sam agrees. Then, “Wish he coulda seen it.”
—
Sprinkled over Ba’s body, the salt looks like ash. Flies flee the onslaught, but the maggots can’t escape. In their death throes they look for all the world like small white tongues, curled in screams.
It takes four blistering45 days for Ba to transform to something other. Time to rest Nellie and let her eat her fill of grass. Sam turns the parts, using the shovel to give them an even coat of salt. From time to time Sam chops apart a joint46, a knot of flesh. At a distance Sam looks to hold an enormous spoon.
Burial is just another recipe, Ma said.
—
Ba dries up smaller than Lucy, smaller than Sam. They pour him into the empty rucksack: the startling brown flower of his ribs47, the butterfly of his pelvis, the grin stuck to his skull48. And lengths and lumps they can’t identify, hardened mysteries that may hold the answer to questions Lucy never could ask. Why’d he drink? Why’d he sometimes look like he was crying? Where’d he bury Ma?
They leave the stained trunk behind. Once, Ma carried it across the ocean. Now it’s a gift to the flies. Lucy feels an unexpected pang49 of pity for those flies, which followed faithfully for weeks, buzzing and mating and birthing young. Countless50 lives lived on the bounty51 of Ba’s corpse52, a generosity53 of the kind the living Ba never showed. They’re doomed54 to die by the hundreds. Each morning will dawn on more black bodies cold in the grass. If Lucy had a handful of silver, she’d scatter55 it in their midst.
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buffalo
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n.(北美)野牛;(亚洲)水牛 | |
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2
slaughtered
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v.屠杀,杀戮,屠宰( slaughter的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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hem
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n.贴边,镶边;vt.缝贴边;(in)包围,限制 | |
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lone
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adj.孤寂的,单独的;唯一的 | |
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strapped
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adj.用皮带捆住的,用皮带装饰的;身无分文的;缺钱;手头紧v.用皮带捆扎(strap的过去式和过去分词);用皮带抽打;包扎;给…打绷带 | |
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sleepers
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n.卧铺(通常以复数形式出现);卧车( sleeper的名词复数 );轨枕;睡觉(呈某种状态)的人;小耳环 | |
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owl
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n.猫头鹰,枭 | |
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mole
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n.胎块;痣;克分子 | |
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burrows
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n.地洞( burrow的名词复数 )v.挖掘(洞穴),挖洞( burrow的第三人称单数 );翻寻 | |
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10
reins
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感情,激情; 缰( rein的名词复数 ); 控制手段; 掌管; (成人带着幼儿走路以防其走失时用的)保护带 | |
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mare
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n.母马,母驴 | |
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traitor
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n.叛徒,卖国贼 | |
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13
loyalty
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n.忠诚,忠心 | |
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14
shrug
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v.耸肩(表示怀疑、冷漠、不知等) | |
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shrugs
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n.耸肩(以表示冷淡,怀疑等)( shrug的名词复数 ) | |
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16
softening
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变软,软化 | |
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sneer
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v.轻蔑;嘲笑;n.嘲笑,讥讽的言语 | |
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18
tugs
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n.猛拉( tug的名词复数 );猛拖;拖船v.用力拉,使劲拉,猛扯( tug的第三人称单数 ) | |
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19
flinches
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v.(因危险和痛苦)退缩,畏惧( flinch的第三人称单数 ) | |
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20
quailed
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害怕,发抖,畏缩( quail的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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21
stark
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adj.荒凉的;严酷的;完全的;adv.完全地 | |
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22
parched
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adj.焦干的;极渴的;v.(使)焦干 | |
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23
throb
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v.震颤,颤动;(急速强烈地)跳动,搏动 | |
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24
whoosh
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v.飞快地移动,呼 | |
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25
drawn
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v.拖,拉,拔出;adj.憔悴的,紧张的 | |
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26
savage
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adj.野蛮的;凶恶的,残暴的;n.未开化的人 | |
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27
spoke
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n.(车轮的)辐条;轮辐;破坏某人的计划;阻挠某人的行动 v.讲,谈(speak的过去式);说;演说;从某种观点来说 | |
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28
yearningly
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怀念地,思慕地,同情地; 渴 | |
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29
crunches
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n.(突发的)不足( crunch的名词复数 );需要做出重要决策的困难时刻;紧要关头;嘎吱的响声v.嘎吱嘎吱地咬嚼( crunch的第三人称单数 );嘎吱作响;(快速大量地)处理信息;数字捣弄 | |
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30
creeks
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n.小湾( creek的名词复数 );小港;小河;小溪 | |
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31
swirl
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v.(使)打漩,(使)涡卷;n.漩涡,螺旋形 | |
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32
potent
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adj.强有力的,有权势的;有效力的 | |
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33
scour
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v.搜索;擦,洗,腹泻,冲刷 | |
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34
descends
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v.下来( descend的第三人称单数 );下去;下降;下斜 | |
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35
soothes
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v.安慰( soothe的第三人称单数 );抚慰;使舒服;减轻痛苦 | |
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36
insinuates
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n.暗示( insinuate的名词复数 );巧妙或迂回地潜入;(使)缓慢进入;慢慢伸入v.暗示( insinuate的第三人称单数 );巧妙或迂回地潜入;(使)缓慢进入;慢慢伸入 | |
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37
siblings
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n.兄弟,姐妹( sibling的名词复数 ) | |
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38
warriors
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武士,勇士,战士( warrior的名词复数 ) | |
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39
untie
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vt.解开,松开;解放 | |
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40
mash
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n.麦芽浆,糊状物,土豆泥;v.把…捣成糊状,挑逗,调情 | |
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41
stew
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n.炖汤,焖,烦恼;v.炖汤,焖,忧虑 | |
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42
lesser
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adj.次要的,较小的;adv.较小地,较少地 | |
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43
shovel
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n.铁锨,铲子,一铲之量;v.铲,铲出 | |
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44
prying
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adj.爱打听的v.打听,刺探(他人的私事)( pry的现在分词 );撬开 | |
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45
blistering
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adj.酷热的;猛烈的;使起疱的;可恶的v.起水疱;起气泡;使受暴晒n.[涂料] 起泡 | |
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46
joint
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adj.联合的,共同的;n.关节,接合处;v.连接,贴合 | |
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47
ribs
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n.肋骨( rib的名词复数 );(船或屋顶等的)肋拱;肋骨状的东西;(织物的)凸条花纹 | |
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48
skull
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n.头骨;颅骨 | |
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49
pang
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n.剧痛,悲痛,苦闷 | |
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50
countless
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adj.无数的,多得不计其数的 | |
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51
bounty
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n.慷慨的赠予物,奖金;慷慨,大方;施与 | |
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52
corpse
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n.尸体,死尸 | |
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53
generosity
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n.大度,慷慨,慷慨的行为 | |
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54
doomed
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命定的 | |
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55
scatter
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vt.撒,驱散,散开;散布/播;vi.分散,消散 | |
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