St. Lucy's Home for Girls Raised by Wolves

Author:Russell, Karen [Russell, Karen]
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Publisher: Vintage
Published: 2007-08-13T16:00:00+00:00

Finally, we have reached the bluffs. From up here, we can see the midway point, the alkali desert of the Great Sink. It’s a tough landmark to celebrate. The Great Sink is a weird, treeless terrain. Even the clouds look flat and waterless. A wide, dry canal cuts through the desert, a conglomerate rut, winnowed out by a thousand wagons. It looks as if someone has dug out the spine of the desert. The Great Sink reminds me of home, an Olympian version of the trenches that Dad used to paw in our kitchen. When I mentioned this to Ma, she laughed for the first time in many days.

This patch of our journey feels like a glum, perpetual noon. The lumberwomen are in low spirits; there is no wood for them to hack at. Suddenly, their curses sound hoarse and sincere. Wolves skulk around our wagons by day, just beyond rifle shot. Clem and I scare them off by singing hymns and patriotic ditties. Above us, the pale sky is greased with birds.

Inside our wagon, Dotes shivers beneath three horsehide blankets. Maisy sleeps and sleeps. Yesterday, Ma wanted us to stop, but my father was afraid of losing the company. At night they stepped outside again, to take a spousal conscience. Ma made me hold up the curtain of modesty, now soiled and tissue-thin, as a courtesy for our neighbors.

“Do you see any doctors around here?” Dad asked, making a big show of looking under a rock. He squeezed the rock in his fist, crushing it to powder. “Any medicine? Be brave, Velina. We have to press on now, we are over halfway there—”

He broke off abruptly. I had lowered the curtain. My arms were tired, and I had to itch my nose. Our eyes met, and my father saw something in my expression that made him trot over.

“Jacob.” His teeth were shining. He wobbled a little, eyes burning, his hair on end, full of a radiant, precarious cheer, like our town drunk. He touched the nick in his horn to my cheek.

“Don’t pay her any mind, son. We’ll get there. Have a little faith in your father.”

Then he picked me up and waltzed me through the ashes of our campfire. “Hold on, son!” He charged around and around the corral, making his shoulder muscles buckle and snap like oilcloth, an impromptu rodeo. “Gee!” I pleaded, giggling in spite of myself, “Haw!”

“Don’t let go!” I yelped, even though I was the one holding on to his horns.

Then Dad spun me away from my mother, beyond the edge of our camp. We waltzed straight to the edge of the bluff.

“Look at that, Jacob.” He whistled. “Look how far we’ve come.”

Viewed from my father’s shoulders, the desert stretched for eons, flat and markerless. It was an empty vista, each dune echoing itself for miles of glowing sand. A silent, windless night, where any horizon could be the West. The heat made me mistrustful of my own vision: I couldn’t be certain if the blue smudges I saw in the distance were mountains, or mirages.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.