E-Book, Englisch, 304 Seiten
Cravens Lucky Red
Main
ISBN: 978-1-83895-675-2
Verlag: Allen & Unwin
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: 6 - ePub Watermark
E-Book, Englisch, 304 Seiten
ISBN: 978-1-83895-675-2
Verlag: Allen & Unwin
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: 6 - ePub Watermark
Claudia Cravens grew up in the San Francisco Bay Area. She has a BA in Literature from Bard College and lives in New York City. Lucky Red is her first novel.
Autoren/Hrsg.
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CHAPTER 2
I buried Pa under the cottonwood trees. It took most of the day to dig: though I was strong from plenty of hired work, the prairie soil was hard-packed and laced overtop with such a thick net of sod that it took all I had to scrabble a shallow grave out of it. Before I pushed him in, I rifled Pa’s pockets. I found his wallet, which held thirteen dollars—about twelve more than I’d expected—and his pocketknife, which still held an edge. I didn’t find the folded piece of greasy paper that was supposed to have secured our future, but twenty acres of grass wouldn’t have done me a lick of good anyhow, even if the plot had been real, which I doubted it was.
I dragged and rolled the body into the hole I’d scraped out and piled dirt over it, having neither the time nor the patience to search for rocks. When I was done, mud-streaked and exhausted, I laid one hand upon the mound. I tried to think of something to say, but no words came to me, so I just patted it a couple of times and stood up.
It was afternoon already, but I was eager to move on. I didn’t know how far it was to the next town, and all I had was cheese and crackers. I didn’t let myself think about how miraculous it was that no one had come up to the spring yet. Neither did I mention to myself that coyotes would be along shortly to unbury my pa, nor the possibility of those same coyotes gnawing my own self down to bones that would bleach out real nice in the summer sun. I thought it best to keep my reasoning grounded in simple things like food rationing and miles traveled, at least until I got someplace.
The mules had bolted in the storm; though one had vanished without a trace, his partner had come through just fine, and Providence had even seen fit to keep him from wandering. He was just down the creek bed that fed from the spring, drinking the clear water and swishing his tail. Apparently pleased to see a familiar face, he came right up to me so that I could load him up with a bedroll and the remains of our food.
It’s hard to say how much time passed after I left the spring. At first, I stuck to the creek bed, following its serpentines approximately westward. The cover of brush and the nearness of water were so comforting that when, after some days’ wandering we came to the end of the creek, I all but wept to leave them behind. Still, I turned west out onto the plains. The mule and I traveled another day until we hit a wagon track running north-to-south. Having little idea where I was, I shrugged and chose south. Though I wasn’t sure what lay in that direction, I knew north was nothing but Nebraska, which was a much rougher place in those days than it is now.
Those days of traveling were dull in the extreme. I grew skinny and irritable from day after day with no one to talk to, while the mule grew bored and fractious, shuffling sideways when it came time to load him up. I alternated riding and walking, and we traveled without schedule or routine: when one of us got tired, we’d stop and rest. On waking, I’d nibble on some provisions and move us on as quickly as I could.
I hid at every sign of people, whether a dust cloud from a distant cattle herd, fresh horse tracks in the dust, or the creak and stamp of an ox-drawn wagon coming up behind us. Not a soul knew where I was, or even that I existed; I pushed us hard as I dared, hoping to get across the prairie unnoticed. Many years later I met a missionary who’d rode the plains awhile, and he told me that the prairie sky was nothing but God’s big blue eye. If that’s true, I wonder if He saw me, one little speck creeping like a mouse through that featureless stretch of His creation.
Finally, one morning I crested a small rise—I’d woken in the predawn chill and set out as fast as I could—and saw a cluster of smudgy buildings far off. I went hard that day until I had to stop, too tired to continue, but by the time the prairie shook itself awake the next morning, my mule and I were shuffling into Dodge City.
Dodge was in its prime then, brimming like a stoveful of boiling pots. As I came up the main street, every building seemed to be spilling over with people and sound and activity. After so many days with nothing to see but grass and sky and the twitching ears of my mule, it was a lot to take in. Two gray-faced cowboys supported a third between them who looked heavy as a grain sack; his legs spun crazily under his body as his friends maneuvered him toward a horse that swished its tail and sighed resignedly. Up above, I saw a girl in naught but a camisole lean her forehead against the windowpane, eyes shut. A storekeeper sweeping his chunk of boardwalk looked up and gave me a half nod, which I returned tersely. In the window behind him, I looked like a wraith. Through every window a pretty—or at least pretty-seeming—girl was combing her hair, blowing on a steaming cup of coffee, rolling her eyes at something said within. The sides of every building were lined with booted men, sleeping upright with their hats over their faces; before each one a saddled horse shifted patiently from foot to foot, blowing in the crisp air and nickering softly to each other. Farther off, I heard a train whistle before a blast of steam appeared like pipe smoke over the buildings, dissolving blue and ghostlike into the thin sky, while under it a steady rumble of cattle lowing and stamping was punctuated with the yips and whoops of cowboys already hard at work loading them up. It was completely overwhelming, and completely enchanting, unlike anyplace I had ever been.
That first day in town I sold the mule to a sod-buster who planned to take him straight back out to the plains. Though the sod-buster seemed a decent sort, I found I couldn’t bear to watch the mule be led away at the end of a rope. The sale brought my assets up to thirty-three dollars plus the worn-out bedroll and the pocketknife. I considered visiting the land office to try and inquire about the plot my pa had died supposedly possessing, but I couldn’t even formulate the question I would ask, or how I would know if the answer was correct.
I sold the knife for two more dollars and gave the bedroll to a ragman for fifty cents, and found myself for the first time in my life with more money than sense. My whole body ached, and I suddenly craved to be indoors worse than I had ever craved anything in the world. It was as if the miles had been waiting until the last possible moment to make themselves known through every bone that had carried me this far. The wind felt like sandpaper against my cheeks, the dirt from the street caking between my toes like mold on old bread.
Working my way south down the main street, I was turned out of seven hotels before I found one that would rent a room to a raggedy, barefooted orphan. I had never stayed in a hotel before, which must have been obvious for I was forced to pay an entire fortnight’s room and board in advance. Key in hand, I shut the door to my little room, and at the sight of a real bed—neither a roll of threadbare blankets nor a loud, itchy cornhusk pallet—I stood in the middle of the floor and wept. Then I lay down and slept clear through to the next morning, when I was woken by the of the key fob falling from my balled fist.
I ran through every dime I had without ever once leaving the hotel. On waking each morning I’d slither into my dress, a hand-me-down that had started out too big in Arkansas and become a faded pink sack during my travels, and patter down to the dining room. The hotel was little more than a flophouse, but there was a real cook, of sorts, and I think he took pity on me. My days began with great, steaming mugs of coffee with enough cream to make my spoon stand upright, four or five fried eggs layered over thick slabs of toast spread with sun-colored butter, fat glossy sausages with chunks of peppercorn tucked here and there. I ate as though I were packing my soul back into my body, as though I would never be served again. I thrilled at every meat that wasn’t possum or squirrel or the meanest hen in a worn-out flock. I’d never mastered the baking of wheat bread, so every slice that crackled and puffed between my teeth was like a fresh start, a sign that I hadn’t been dreaming.
Momentarily sated, I’d drift back upstairs and send for a hot bath, ordering buckets of steaming water for hours until I wrinkled up like a little old witch. In those murky, soapy waters I alternated between tears and a buzzy, soft blankness, my head like a hive of woolen bees, letting the misery and terror of that prairie crossing and all that had come before it well up through my chest until it had no place to go but out through my face. When my tears were spent I stared at the sky outside my window or at my callused, crooked toes. As the days passed, I watched years’ worth of dirt soak out of them until they grew soft and pink, the nails whitening to milky crescents.
When I wasn’t in the tub—and often when I was—I was eating. Hunger wasn’t new, of course, but it had always been a source of worry. Now, with my meals paid ahead and the anonymous cook on my side, every whisper of appetite was of interest to me, an invitation to think about not what I lacked but what I would soon have before me. I ate accordingly: double portions of stew to be dabbed at with thick, crumbly biscuits; two or three chops at a time nestled in a lean-to shape against a hillock of steaming potatoes studded with salt crystals; greens boiled silky and toad-colored twining with beans that smelled of molasses and hid chewy burnt ends. I kept bright apples and...