6.Mud

Mud

They sleep. Not down in the grave but on the soft, loose mound¹ born of it. The hole is filled in, tamped² down, but they couldn’t quite return the dirt they originally took. For the first night since they fled near on two months ago, Lucy sleeps heavy. Dreamless. Though she doesn’t remember Sam coming to bed, there in the morning is Sam’s body beside hers, dirty and stinking³ of life.
Wet has visited overnight, those distant clouds issuing damp breath. Sam’s face is beaded. Dirt’s thickened to mud on their skins. When Lucy tries to clean Sam’s cheek, her finger leaves a streak⁴ of even darker brown.
She cocks her head, raises a second finger. Draws a second streak parallel to the first.
Two tiger stripes.
“Good morning,” Lucy says to the skull⁵ that guards the grave. It ignores her, of course, as it ignores the Western hills behind. It faces the mountains’ end. On this morning, the air boding⁶ a new season, it seems Lucy can see farther than before. Squint⁷, and can’t she see the peak of the last mountain? Squint, and don’t the clouds resemble lace? Squint, and can’t she see a new white dress, and broad streets, and a house of wood and glass?
Lucy presses her fingers to her wrist. Her thighs⁸. Her cheeks and neck and chest, avoiding the new soreness there. On the surface she’s no fatter and no thinner than she was the night before, but something inside has changed, laid to rest with Ba’s body. Wet on her cracked lips. She smiles, small at first, wary⁹ of tearing dry flesh. Then bigger. She licks her lips.
Water is coming back to the world.
Quietly, so as not to wake Sam, Lucy moves through the camp unmaking the home Sam built for burial. She unweaves the grass mats and lays the blades over the grave to hide it. She drops the stones back in the stream. She plucks up the branches and smooths mud over their holes. She packs their gear. She saddles Nellie.
By the time Sam sits up, looking around in bewilderment, Lucy has made Ba’s gravesite look wild once more, as he liked.
“Wake up, sleepyhead. It’s time to go.”
“Where?” Sam says thickly.
“Onward. To hot meals. White bread. Meat. A nice long bath.” Lucy claps her hands. “Clean new clothes. A bandana and pants that fit for you. A new dress for me.” She grins at Sam, who blinks in that sticky way. Lucy faces the tiger skull and points. Then she pulls her hand up. Squints¹⁰ down its line as if down a gun’s barrel. She aims at the horizon. “Once we get past the mountains, we’ve plenty of time to find a new home.”
And Sam says, “We arehome.”
Sam stands. Walks East as Lucy wants. But Sam stops too soon. Plants a foot on the tiger’s skull.
“Here,” Sam says, clearly now.
One foot raised, head thrown back, hands on hips¹¹: Sam doesn’t realize the image this calls up. Lucy’s history books were filled with conquering men who stood this way. Flags waved behind them in land emptied of buffalo¹² and Indians
Lucy drops to her knees, trying to nudge Sam’s boot away. Sam stands firm. Gone the tapping impatience¹³.
“Spurs!” Lucy says. “A proper town will have proper spurs.”
“I don’t need ’em for Nellie. Just like we don’t need any old town.”
“We can’t survive out here. There’s nothing. No people.”
“What’d people ever do for us?” Sam runs the tip of a boot over the skull’s teeth. An eerie¹⁴ music rises from the dead mouth. “There’s tigers here. Buffalo. Freedom.”
“Dead tigers. Dead buffalo.”
“Once upon a time,” Sam says, and what can Lucy do but listen?
Once upon a time, these hills were barren. And they weren’t hills yet. They were plains. No sun, only ice. Nothing grew till the buffalo came. Some say they crossed a bridge of land over the Western ocean, and that the bridge sank from the weight of their passage.
The buffalo’s hooves plowed¹⁵ the earth, and their breath warmed it, and in their mouths they carried seeds, and in their hides they carried birds’ nests. Their hooves made gullies to hold the streams, their wallows made valleys. They spread East, South, through mountains and plains and forest. Across the territories so that there was a time they walked near every inch of this country, bigger with every generation born, stretching up to fill the open sky.
And then, long after the Indians, came new men, from a different direction. These men sowed bullets in place of seeds. They were puny¹⁶ and yet they pushed the buffalo back, and back, till the last herd¹⁷ was rounded up in a valley not far from here. A pretty valley with a deep river running through. The men intended to rope the buffalo instead of killing¹⁸ them. They intended to tame them, and mix them into their cattle. Shrink them down to size.
But when the sun rose, the men saw that hills had risen overnight.
Those hills were the bodies of a thousand thousand dead buffalo that had walked into the river and drowned.
The hills stank¹⁹ so high the men were forced to leave. Even after birds picked the buffalo clean, the river never flowed again, and what grew back between the bones wasn’t the same green grass. It was yellow, cursed, dry. No good for planting. No one can settle these hills the proper way till the buffalo decide to come back.
A dozen times Lucy has heard this story. It was Ba’s favorite. But Teacher Leigh laughed and showed, in a book, the truth of the last herd of buffalo, kept in a rich man’s garden far to the East. The creatures in the drawing did not stretch skyward like these ancient bones. Captivity²⁰ had diminished them to the size of docile²¹ cows. Pure sentiment, the teacher chided. A pretty little folktale.
After that, when Ba told any story, Lucy no longer saw buffalo parting the grass with broad shoulders, or tiger stripes slipping through shadow. She saw only the empty space in Ba’s lying mouth, where once there was a tooth.
“Like you said,” Lucy reminds Sam. “This is cursed land.”
“What if we’renot cursed? The buffalo came from across the ocean—just like us. And the tiger marked Ba special.”
“You can’t trust everything Ba said. Besides, things are different now. The territory’s been civilized²², improved. We can follow suit.”
The tiger’s snarl²³ sits in Sam’s mouth. This time it points at Lucy.

1 mound   

n.土墩，堤，小山；v.筑堤，用土堆防卫

参考例句：

• The explorers climbed a mound to survey the land around them.勘探者爬上土丘去勘测周围的土地。
• The mound can be used as our screen.这个土丘可做我们的掩蔽物。

2 tamped   

v.捣固( tamp的过去式和过去分词 )；填充；（用炮泥）封炮眼口；夯实

参考例句：

• The poets, once so praised, are tamped unceremoniously together in our textbooks, in one curt chapter. 那些名噪一时的诗人，在今天的教科书里，已被毫不客气地挤在一起，列为短短的一章。 来自辞典例句
• They tamped down the earth around the apple tree. 他们把苹果树周围的泥土夯实。 来自互联网

3 stinking   

adj.臭的，烂醉的，讨厌的v.散发出恶臭( stink的现在分词 )；发臭味；名声臭；糟透

参考例句：

• I was pushed into a filthy, stinking room. 我被推进一间又脏又臭的屋子里。
• Those lousy, stinking ships. It was them that destroyed us. 是的！就是那些该死的蠢猪似的臭飞船！是它们毁了我们。 来自英汉非文学 - 科幻

4 streak   

n.条理，斑纹，倾向，少许，痕迹；v.加条纹，变成条纹，奔驰，快速移动

参考例句：

• The Indians used to streak their faces with paint.印第安人过去常用颜料在脸上涂条纹。
• Why did you streak the tree?你为什么在树上刻条纹？

5 skull   

n.头骨；颅骨

参考例句：

• The skull bones fuse between the ages of fifteen and twenty-five.头骨在15至25岁之间长合。
• He fell out of the window and cracked his skull.他从窗子摔了出去，跌裂了颅骨。

6 boding   

adj.凶兆的，先兆的n.凶兆，前兆，预感v.预示，预告，预言( bode的现在分词 )；等待，停留( bide的过去分词 )；居住；（过去式用bided）等待

参考例句：

• Whispers passed along, and a boding uneasiness took possession of every countenance. 到处窃窃私语，人人脸上露出不祥的焦虑。 来自英汉文学 - 汤姆历险
• The lady shook upon her companion's knees as she heard that boding sound. 女士听到那不详的声音，开始在她同伴的膝上颤抖。 来自互联网

7 squint   

v. 使变斜视眼, 斜视, 眯眼看, 偏移, 窥视; n. 斜视, 斜孔小窗; adj. 斜视的, 斜的

参考例句：

• A squint can sometimes be corrected by an eyepatch. 斜视有时候可以通过戴眼罩来纠正。
• The sun was shinning straight in her eyes which made her squint. 太阳直射着她的眼睛,使她眯起了眼睛。

8 thighs   

n.股，大腿( thigh的名词复数 )；食用的鸡（等的）腿

参考例句：

• He's gone to London for skin grafts on his thighs. 他去伦敦做大腿植皮手术了。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• The water came up to the fisherman's thighs. 水没到了渔夫的大腿。 来自《简明英汉词典》

9 wary   

adj.谨慎的，机警的，小心的

参考例句：

• He is wary of telling secrets to others.他谨防向他人泄露秘密。
• Paula frowned,suddenly wary.宝拉皱了皱眉头，突然警惕起来。

10 squints   

斜视症( squint的名词复数 )； 瞥

参考例句：

• The new cashier squints, has a crooked nose and very large ears. 新来的出纳斜眼、鹰钩鼻子，还有两只大耳朵。
• They both have squints. 他俩都是斜视。

11 hips   

abbr.high impact polystyrene 高冲击强度聚苯乙烯，耐冲性聚苯乙烯n.臀部( hip的名词复数 )；[建筑学]屋脊；臀围（尺寸）；臀部…的

参考例句：

• She stood with her hands on her hips. 她双手叉腰站着。
• They wiggled their hips to the sound of pop music. 他们随着流行音乐的声音摇晃着臀部。 来自《简明英汉词典》

12 buffalo   

n.(北美)野牛；(亚洲)水牛

参考例句：

• Asian buffalo isn't as wild as that of America's. 亚洲水牛比美洲水牛温顺些。
• The boots are made of buffalo hide. 这双靴子是由水牛皮制成的。

13 impatience   

n.不耐烦，急躁

参考例句：

• He expressed impatience at the slow rate of progress.进展缓慢，他显得不耐烦。
• He gave a stamp of impatience.他不耐烦地跺脚。

14 eerie   

adj.怪诞的；奇异的；可怕的；胆怯的

参考例句：

• It's eerie to walk through a dark wood at night.夜晚在漆黑的森林中行走很是恐怖。
• I walked down the eerie dark path.我走在那条漆黑恐怖的小路上。

15 plowed   

v.耕( plow的过去式和过去分词 )；犁耕；费力穿过

参考例句：

• They plowed nearly 100,000 acres of virgin moorland. 他们犁了将近10万英亩未开垦的高沼地。 来自辞典例句
• He plowed the land and then sowed the seeds. 他先翻土，然后播种。 来自辞典例句

16 puny   

adj.微不足道的，弱小的

参考例句：

• The resources at the central banks' disposal are simply too puny.中央银行掌握的资金实在太少了。
• Antonio was a puny lad,and not strong enough to work.安东尼奥是个瘦小的小家伙，身体还不壮，还不能干活。

17 herd   

n.兽群，牧群；vt.使集中，把…赶在一起

参考例句：

• She drove the herd of cattle through the wilderness.她赶着牛群穿过荒野。
• He had no opinions of his own but simply follow the herd.他从无主见，只是人云亦云。

18 killing   

n.巨额利润；突然赚大钱，发大财

参考例句：

• Investors are set to make a killing from the sell-off.投资者准备清仓以便大赚一笔。
• Last week my brother made a killing on Wall Street.上个周我兄弟在华尔街赚了一大笔。

19 stank   

n. (英)坝，堰，池塘 动词stink的过去式

参考例句：

• Her breath stank of garlic. 她嘴里有股大蒜味。
• The place stank of decayed fish. 那地方有烂鱼的臭味。

20 captivity   

n.囚禁；被俘；束缚

参考例句：

• A zoo is a place where live animals are kept in captivity for the public to see.动物园是圈养动物以供公众观看的场所。
• He was held in captivity for three years.他被囚禁叁年。

21 docile   

adj.驯服的，易控制的，容易教的

参考例句：

• Circus monkeys are trained to be very docile and obedient.马戏团的猴子训练得服服贴贴的。
• He is a docile and well-behaved child.他是个温顺且彬彬有礼的孩子。

22 civilized   

a.有教养的，文雅的

参考例句：

• Racism is abhorrent to a civilized society. 文明社会憎恶种族主义。
• rising crime in our so-called civilized societies 在我们所谓文明社会中日益增多的犯罪行为

23 snarl   

v.吼叫，怒骂，纠缠，混乱；n.混乱，缠结，咆哮

参考例句：

• At the seaside we could hear the snarl of the waves.在海边我们可以听见波涛的咆哮。
• The traffic was all in a snarl near the accident.事故发生处附近交通一片混乱。