The baby doesn’t make sense — I’m the youngest of my mother’s seven children — but like I said, none of this happened.
婴儿这点说不通——我是母亲七个孩子中最小的一个，但正如我所说，这一切都不曾发生。
My strongest memory is not a memory. It’s something I imagined, then came to remember as if it had happened. The memory was formed when I was five, just before I turned six, from a story my father told in such detail that I and my brothers and sister had each conjured our own cinematic version, with gunfire and shouts. Mine had crickets. That’s the sound I hear as my family huddles in the kitchen, lights off, hiding from the Feds who’ve surrounded the house. A woman reaches for a glass of water and her silhouette is lighted by the moon. A shot echoes like the lash of a whip and she falls. In my memory it’s always Mother who falls, and she has a baby in her arms.
我最强烈的记忆不是一段记忆。它是我想象出来的，之后回忆起来就像真的发生过一样。记忆成形于我五岁时，就要满六岁前，源自我父亲讲的一个故事，他讲得那么详细，以至于我和哥哥姐姐们都各自演绎出自己的电影版本，其中充斥着枪林弹雨和喊叫声。我的版本里有蟋蟀。当我的家人在厨房里挤作一团，灯关着，躲避将房子包围的联邦调查局人员时，那就是我听到的声音。一个女人伸手去够一杯水，月光映照出她的轮廓。一声枪响，像鞭子抽打的声音，她倒下了。在我的记忆中，倒下的总是母亲，她怀里还抱着一个婴儿。
A YEAR AFTER MY FATHER told us that story, we gathered one evening to hear him read aloud from Isaiah, a prophecy about Immanuel. He sat on our mustard-colored sofa, a large Bible open in his lap. Mother was next to him. The rest of us were strewn across the shaggy brown carpet.
在父亲给我们讲了这个故事的一年后，一天晚上，我们聚集在一起，听他大声朗读《以赛亚书》中一段关于以马内利的预言。他坐在芥黄色的沙发上，腿上放着一本打开的《圣经》。母亲坐在他旁边。我们其余人散坐在棕色粗毛地毯上。
The next morning Dad purged our fridge of milk, yogurt and cheese, and that evening when he came home, his truck was loaded with fifty gallons of honey.
第二天早上，爸爸把我们冰箱里的牛奶、酸奶和奶酪全都清除干净。当天晚上他回家时，卡车上装了五十加仑的蜂蜜。
“Butter and honey shall he eat,” Dad droned, low and monotone, weary from a long day hauling scrap. “That he may know to refuse the evil, and choose the good.”
“到他晓得弃恶择善的时候，”爸爸的声音低沉而单调，搬运了一整天的废料，他已疲惫不堪，“他必吃奶油与蜂蜜。”
My father was not a tall man but he was able to command a room. He had a presence about him, the solemnity of an oracle. His hands were thick and leathery — the hands of a man who’d been hard at work all his life — and they grasped the Bible firmly.
父亲个子不高，但他能掌控全场。他仪态不凡，如传神谕者般庄严。他的手粗糙厚实——那是一辈子辛苦劳作人的手——紧紧抓住《圣经》。
There was a heavy pause. We sat quietly.
一阵凝重的停顿。我们静坐不语。
He read the passage aloud a second time, then a third, then a fourth. With each repetition the pitch of his voice climbed higher. His eyes, which moments before had been swollen with fatigue, were now wide and alert. There was a divine doctrine here, he said. He would inquire of the Lord.
他把这段话又大声读了一遍，接着读了第三遍、第四遍。随着每一次重复，声调越来越高。他刚刚因疲惫而肿胀的眼睛，现在睁得大大的，充满警觉。他说，此处有一条神圣教义，他会求问耶和华。
“Isaiah doesn’t say which is evil, butter or honey,” Dad said, grinning as my brothers lugged the white tubs to the basement. “But if you ask, the Lord will tell you!”
“《以赛亚书》上没有说奶油和蜂蜜哪个是恶的，”爸爸笑着说，和哥哥们一起把那些白色大桶拖到地下室，“但只要你问询，上帝必告诉你！”
Grandma had a thin, angular face and an endless store of faux Indian jewelry, all silver and turquoise, which hung in clumps from her spindly neck and fingers. Because she lived down the hill from us, near the highway, we called her Grandma-down-the-hill. This was to distinguish her from our mother’s mother, who we called Grandma-over-in-town because she lived fifteen miles south, in the only town in the county, which had a single stoplight and a grocery store.
奶奶长着一张瘦削而棱角分明的脸，她纤细的脖子和手指上挂着一串串人造印第安珠宝，全都是银色和蓝绿色的。因为她住在我们山下的公路附近，我们便叫她山下奶奶。这是为了将她和母亲的母亲区分开来。我们管后者叫城里外婆，因为她住在南面十五英里外全县唯一的城镇里，那里只有一个红绿灯和一家杂货店。
When Dad read the verse to his mother, she laughed in his face. “I got some pennies in my purse,” she said. “You better take them. They’ll be all the sense you got.”
爸爸将这一段读给他母亲听时，她当面嘲笑了他。“我的钱包里有几分钱，”她说，“你最好都拿走。你的理智也就值这么多了。”
Dad and his mother got along like two cats with their tails tied together. They could talk for a week and not agree about anything, but they were tethered by their devotion to the mountain. My father’s family had been living at the base of Buck’s Peak for half a century. Grandma’s daughters had married and moved away, but my father stayed, building a shabby yellow house, which he would never quite finish, just up the hill from his mother’s, at the base of the mountain, and plunking a junkyard — one of several — next to her manicured lawn.
父亲和他母亲的关系就像两只尾巴绑在一起的猫。他们可以说一星期的话，却对任何一件事都无法达成共识。但将他们紧密连在一起的是对山的热爱。父亲的家族在巴克峰山脚下生活了半个世纪。奶奶的女儿们已经结婚搬走了，但父亲留了下来，在山脚下他母亲家正对的山上建了一座永远都加盖不完的破败的黄房子，在她修剪整齐的草坪边胡乱造了一座废料场——这样的垃圾场还有好几个。
God told Dad to share the revelation with the people who lived and farmed in the shadow of Buck’s Peak. On Sundays, nearly everyone gathered at the church, a hickory-colored chapel just off the highway with the small, restrained steeple common to Mormon churches. Dad cornered fathers as they left their pews. He started with his cousin Jim, who listened good-naturedly while Dad waved his Bible and explained the sinfulness of milk. Jim grinned, then clapped Dad on the shoulder and said no righteous God would deprive a man of homemade strawberry ice cream on a hot summer afternoon. Jim’s wife tugged on his arm. As he slid past us I caught a whiff of manure. Then I remembered: the big dairy farm a mile north of Buck’s Peak, that was Jim’s.
上帝指示爸爸向生活和耕种在巴克峰山下的人们分享这个启示。星期日，几乎家家户户都聚集到公路旁的教堂。那是一座常见的摩门教教堂，山胡桃木色，有一个小小的低调的尖塔。男人们从长椅上一起身，爸爸立刻缠住他们。他先从他的表弟吉姆开始。爸爸挥舞着《圣经》，向他解释牛奶的罪恶。吉姆礼貌地听着，接着咧嘴一笑，拍了拍爸爸的肩膀，说正义的上帝绝不会在炎热的夏日午后剥夺一个人自制草莓冰激凌的乐趣。吉姆的妻子拉起他的胳膊。当他从我们身边经过时，我闻到一股大粪味。然后我想起来了：巴克峰以北一英里处的大奶牛场，就是吉姆家的。
They argued daily, about the mess from the junkyard but more often about us kids. Grandma thought we should be in school and not, as she put it, “roaming the mountain like savages.” Dad said public school was a ploy by the Government to lead children away from God. “I may as well surrender my kids to the devil himself,” he said, “as send them down the road to that school.”
他们每天都为废料场的凌乱而争吵，但更多是为我们这些孩子而争吵。奶奶认为我们应该上学，而不是——用她的话说——“像野人一样在山上游荡”。爸爸说公立学校是政府引导孩子远离上帝的阴谋。“我把孩子们送到下面那所学校，”他说，“和把他们交给魔鬼有什么两样。”
Breakfast became a test of loyalty. Every morning, my family sat around a large table of reworked red oak and ate either seven-grain cereal, with honey and molasses, or seven-grain pancakes, also with honey and molasses. Because there were nine of us, the pancakes were never cooked all the way through. I didn’t mind the cereal if I could soak it in milk, letting the cream gather up the grist and seep into the pellets, but since the revelation we’d been having it with water. It was like eating a bowl of mud.
早餐成了对忠诚的考验。每天早上，一家人围坐在一张翻新过的红橡木桌旁，吃的不是加了蜂蜜和糖浆的七谷物麦片，就是加了蜂蜜和糖浆的七谷物煎薄饼。因为我们有九个人，所以煎薄饼从来都来不及煎熟煎透。如果我能用牛奶泡麦片，使奶油在麦芽粉中凝聚，浸透那些小颗粒，我倒不介意喝麦片粥；但自从上帝的那个启示后，我们就一直用水泡麦片。那感觉就像在吃一碗泥浆。
It wasn’t long before I began to think of all that milk spoiling in Grandma’s fridge. Then I got into the habit of skipping breakfast each morning and going straight to the barn. I’d slop the pigs and fill the trough for the cows and horses, then I’d hop over the corral fence, loop around the barn and step through Grandma’s side door.
没过多久，我开始惦记奶奶冰箱里那些快要变质的牛奶。然后我养成了每天早上不吃早餐直接去谷仓的习惯。我给猪倒好泔水，填满牛马饲料槽，然后跳过畜栏，绕谷仓转一圈，踏进奶奶家的侧门。
After Dad took up preaching against milk, Grandma jammed her fridge full of it. She and Grandpa only drank skim but pretty soon it was all there — two percent, whole, even chocolate. She seemed to believe this was an important line to hold.
爸爸开始布道反对喝牛奶后，奶奶便将她的冰箱塞满了牛奶。她和爷爷本来只喝脱脂牛奶，但很快冰箱里什么都有了——低脂奶、全脂奶，甚至是巧克力牛奶。她似乎相信这是一道重要防线，要坚决守住。
“I wouldn’t like it,” I said.
“我不喜欢上学。”我说。
On one such morning, as I sat at the counter watching Grandma pour a bowl of cornflakes, she said, “How would you like to go to school?”
在这样的一个早晨，我坐在流理台边看着奶奶把玉米片倒进碗里，这时她说：“你想不想去上学？”
I shifted on my stool. I tried to imagine school but couldn’t. Instead I pictured Sunday school, which I attended each week and which I hated. A boy named Aaron had told all the girls that I couldn’t read because I didn’t go to school, and now none of them would talk to me.
我在凳子上挪动了一下。我试着想象学校的样子，但想象不出来。相反，我想起了每周去的主日学校，我讨厌它。一个叫亚伦的男孩对所有女孩说我不识字，因为我不上学，现在女孩们都不跟我说话了。
“How do you know,” she barked. “You ain’t never tried it.”
“你从没试过，”她叫道，“怎么知道不喜欢。”
She poured the milk and handed me the bowl, then she perched at the bar, directly across from me, and watched as I shoveled spoonfuls into my mouth.
她把牛奶倒进碗里，递给我，然后坐在吧台边，正对着我，看着我一勺一勺往嘴里舀。
“Dad said I can go?” I said.
“爸爸同意我去吗？”我说。
“We’re leaving tomorrow for Arizona,” she told me, but I already knew. She and Grandpa always went to Arizona when the weather began to turn. Grandpa said he was too old for Idaho winters; the cold put an ache in his bones. “Get yourself up real early,” Grandma said, “around five, and we’ll take you with us. Put you in school.”
“我们明天要去亚利桑那州。”她告诉我，但我已经知道了。每年天气开始转变时，她和爷爷都会去亚利桑那州。爷爷说他年纪大了，不能在爱达荷州过冬：寒冷让他骨头作痛。“早点儿起床，”奶奶说，“五点左右，我们会带你一起走，送你上学。”
“No,” Grandma said. “But we’ll be long gone by the time he realizes you’re missing.” She set my bowl in the sink and gazed out the window.
“不，”奶奶说，“等他发现你不见了，我们早就走了。”她把我的碗放进水槽，凝神看着窗外。
“You should be in school,” she said.
“你应该去上学。”她说。
“Your dad can’t make me do a damned thing.” Grandma stood, squaring herself. “If he wants you, he’ll have to come get you.” She hesitated, and for a moment looked ashamed. “I talked to him yesterday. He won’t be able to fetch you back for a long while. He’s behind on that shed he’s building in town. He can’t pack up and drive to Arizona, not while the weather holds and he and the boys can work long days.”
“你爸爸不能命令我做一件该死的事。”奶奶站着，摆好架势，“如果他想让你回来，他得自己来接你。”她面带犹豫，一时显得很愧疚，“我昨天和他谈过了。很长一段时间内他都不会把你抓回来。镇上他在建造的那个棚子工期延后，他不会在这个时候收拾行李，开车去亚利桑那州。趁天气暖和，他还要和你的哥哥们干上一段时间的活儿呢。”
“Won’t Dad just make you bring me back?” I said.
“爸爸会不会让你把我送回来？”我说。
Grandma was a force of nature — impatient, aggressive, self-possessed. To look at her was to take a step back. She dyed her hair black and this intensified her already severe features, especially her eyebrows, which she smeared on each morning in thick, inky arches. She drew them too large and this made her face seem stretched. They were also drawn too high and draped the rest of her features into an expression of boredom, almost sarcasm.
奶奶性情强势——急躁，咄咄逼人，坚持己见。看她一眼意味着退后一步。她把头发染成黑色，这令她原本严厉的面容更加突出，尤其是眉毛。每天早上她都把眉毛画成粗重的拱形。她将眉毛画得太长，使她的脸看起来拉长了；画得也太高，让她脸上的其余部分都蒙上了厌倦的表情，近乎嘲讽。
Grandma’s scheme was well plotted. Dad always worked from sunup until sundown in the weeks before the first snow, trying to stockpile enough money from hauling scrap and building barns to outlast the winter, when jobs were scarce. Even if his mother ran off with his youngest child, he wouldn’t be able to stop working, not until the forklift was encased in ice.
奶奶的计划很是周密。冬天工作稀缺，在第一场雪降临前的几周里，爸爸总是日出而作，日落而息，试图从搬运废料、建造谷仓中多攒些钱来维持整个冬天的开支。即使他母亲带着他最小的孩子跑了，他也不能停止工作，除非到时铲车冰封。
“I’ll need to feed the animals before we go,” I said. “He’ll notice I’m gone for sure if the cows break through the fence looking for water.”
“走之前，我得先把牲口喂好，”我说，“要是牛从畜栏里跑出来找水喝，他就会发现我不见了。”
I didn’t sleep that night. I sat on the kitchen floor and watched the hours tick by. One A. M. Two. Three.
那天晚上我没有睡。我坐在厨房的地板上，盯着钟表，听着时间滴答滴答地流逝。凌晨一点。两点。三点。
At four I stood and put my boots by the back door. They were caked in manure, and I was sure Grandma wouldn’t let them into her car. I pictured them on her porch, abandoned, while I ran off shoeless to Arizona.
到了四点，我站起身，将靴子放在后门旁边。它们粘满了大粪，奶奶肯定不会让我穿着它们进她的车。我想象它们被丢弃在她家门廊上，而我赤脚跑向亚利桑那州。
I imagined what would happen when my family discovered I was missing. My brother Richard and I often spent whole days on the mountain, so it was likely no one would notice until sundown, when Richard came home for dinner and I didn’t. I pictured my brothers pushing out the door to search for me. They’d try the junkyard first, hefting iron slabs in case some stray sheet of metal had shifted and pinned me. Then they’d move outward, sweeping the farm, crawling up trees and into the barn attic. Finally, they’d turn to the mountain.
我想象家人发现我失踪时会发生什么。我和哥哥理查德常常在山上一待就是一整天，所以可能直到太阳下山理查德回家吃晚饭而我没回去时，才会有人注意到我不见了。我想象我的哥哥们推开门出去找我。他们会先去废料场，掀开铁板，以防有些金属板移位，将我困在了里面。接着他们会向外搜索，扫荡农场，爬上树，钻进谷仓阁楼。最后，他们会转向那座山。
It would be past dusk by then — that moment just before night sets in, when the landscape is visible only as darkness and lighter darkness, and you feel the world around you more than you see it. I imagined my brothers spreading over the mountain, searching the black forests. No one would talk; everyone’s thoughts would be the same. Things could go horribly wrong on the mountain. Cliffs appeared suddenly. Feral horses, belonging to my grandfather, ran wild over thick banks of water hemlock, and there were more than a few rattlesnakes. We’d done this search before when a calf went missing from the barn. In the valley you’d find an injured animal; on the mountain, a dead one.
那时黄昏已过，夜幕马上就要降临，景色逐渐黯淡下来，继而全部被黑暗笼罩。你看不见周遭的世界，只能靠感知。我想象哥哥们四散在山上，在黑黢黢的森林搜寻。没有人说话；每个人心里想的都一样。山上会有可怕的意外发生。悬崖突然出现。祖父的野马在浓密的水毒芹坡上狂奔。还有不少响尾蛇。以前有一头小牛从谷仓跑了出去，我们就这样搜寻过。在山谷中，你会发现一只受伤的动物；但在山上，你发现的只会是一具尸体。
I imagined Mother standing by the back door, her eyes sweeping the dark ridge, when my father came home to tell her they hadn’t found me. My sister, Audrey, would suggest that someone ask Grandma, and Mother would say Grandma had left that morning for Arizona. Those words would hang in the air for a moment, then everyone would know where I’d gone. I imagined my father’s face, his dark eyes shrinking, his mouth clamping into a frown as he turned to my mother. “You think she chose to go?”
我想象母亲站在后门旁，她的眼睛扫视着黑暗的山脊，这时父亲回家告诉她他们没有找到我。姐姐奥黛丽会提议去问奶奶，母亲会说奶奶一大早就去亚利桑那州了。这些话会在空气中凝固片刻，接着每个人都会意识到我去了哪里。我想象父亲的脸，他眯起黑色的眼睛，抿紧嘴巴，眉头一皱，转向母亲，说：“你觉得是她自己要去的吗？”
It began near the end of canning season, which other kids probably called “summer.” My family always spent the warm months bottling fruit for storage, which Dad said we’d need in the Days of Abomination. One evening, Dad was uneasy when he came in from the junkyard. He paced the kitchen during dinner, hardly touching a bite. We had to get everything in order, he said. There was little time.
它始于罐头季节接近尾声时，其他孩子可能把这个季节叫作“夏天”。我的家人总是在天气暖和的月份里将水果装罐储存起来。爸爸说在可憎的末日里我们需要这些水果。一天晚上，爸爸从废料场回来，很是不安。晚饭时，他在厨房踱来踱去，几乎一口也没吃。他说，我们必须把一切安排妥当。没多少时间了。
Low and sorrowful, his voice echoed. Then it was drowned out by sounds from another conjured remembrance — crickets, then gunfire, then silence.
他的声音回响着，低沉而悲伤。然后这声音被另一个召唤记忆的声音淹没——蟋蟀的叫声，接着是枪声，之后是寂静。
The event was a famous one, I would later learn — like Wounded Knee or Waco — but when my father first told us the story, it felt like no one in the world knew about it except us.
后来我会知道，那是一桩著名事件——诸如翁迪德尼之战[1]或韦科惨案[2]，但当初父亲给我们讲这个故事时，感觉仿佛除了我们，世人对此一无所知。【注：[1]Wounded Knee，又称“伤膝河大屠杀”，1890年12月29日美国政府对印第安人的疯狂屠杀，标志着印第安人反抗移民的武装起义结束。[2]Waco，指1993年发生在得克萨斯州的知名事件，在这次事件中政府和大卫教教派发生武装冲突，包括不少妇女和儿童在内的76名教派人员丧生，极为惨烈。】
That night Dad called a family meeting, and we gathered around the kitchen table, because it was wide and long, and could seat all of us. We had a right to know what we were up against, he said. He was standing at the head of the table; the rest of us perched on benches, studying the thick planks of red oak.
那天晚上，爸爸召开了一次家庭会议。我们聚集在那张餐桌周围，因为桌子又宽又长，能坐下全家人。他说，我们有权知道自己面临何种处境。他站在桌子最前端，我们其余人都坐在长凳上，盯着厚厚的红橡木桌板。
We spent the next day boiling and skinning peaches. By sundown we’d filled dozens of Mason jars, which were set out in perfect rows, still warm from the pressure cooker. Dad surveyed our work, counting the jars and muttering to himself, then he turned to Mother and said, “It’s not enough.”
第二天我们一整天都在煮桃子、剥桃皮。日落时分，我们已装满了几十个大玻璃罐，这些玻璃罐被拿到外面排列得整整齐齐，还带着来自高压锅的余温。爸爸扫了一眼我们的劳动成果，数了数罐子，自言自语，然后转向母亲说：“这些还不够。”
“There’s a family not far from here,” Dad said. “They’re freedom fighters. They wouldn’t let the Government brainwash their kids in them public schools, so the Feds came after them.” Dad exhaled, long and slow. “The Feds surrounded the family’s cabin, kept them locked in there for weeks, and when a hungry child, a little boy, snuck out to go hunting, the Feds shot him dead.”
“离这儿不远有户人家，”爸爸说，“他们为自由而战。为了提防政府给孩子洗脑，他们不送孩子去公立学校，于是联邦政府的人来抓他们了。”爸爸慢慢呼出一口长气，“联邦政府的人包围了这家人的小木屋，将他们锁在里面好几个星期。其中一个小男孩太饿了，溜出去打猎，被联邦政府的人开枪打死了。”
I scanned my brothers. I’d never seen fear on Luke’s face before.
我扫了一眼哥哥们。卢克面露恐惧，我还从未见他害怕过。
That night, Dad dragged a pile of old army bags up from the basement. He said they were our “head for the hills” bags. We spent that night packing them with supplies — herbal medicines, water purifiers, flint and steel. Dad had bought several boxes of military MREs — Meals Ready-to-Eat — and we put as many as we could fit into our packs, imagining the moment when, having fled the house and hiding ourselves in the wild plum trees near the creek, we’d eat them. Some of my brothers stowed guns in their packs but I had only a small knife, and even so my pack was as big as me by the time we’d finished. I asked Luke to hoist it onto a shelf in my closet, but Dad told me to keep it low, where I could fetch it quick, so I slept with it in my bed.
那天晚上，爸爸从地下室拖出一堆旧军用包。他说这些是我们的“上山应急专用包”。我们那一整晚都在往里面装物资——草药、净水器、打火石和钢铁。爸爸已经买了好几箱军用即食餐，我们把尽可能多的食品塞进包里，想象着一旦从家里逃出去，躲在溪边的野李子林里，这些吃的就会派上用场。有几个哥哥在他们的背包里藏了枪，但我只有一把小刀。即便如此，等我们打完包，我的包个头也和我一样大了。我让卢克把它抬进我衣橱里的架子上，但爸爸让我放到低处，以便我可以迅速拿取，所以我就将它放在床上一起睡。
“They’re still in the cabin,” Dad said. “They keep the lights off, and they crawl on the floor, away from the doors and windows. I don’t know how much food they got. Might be they’ll starve before the Feds give up.”
“他们还在木屋里，”爸爸说，“关着灯，匍匐在地板上，远离门窗。我不知道他们还剩多少食物，也许在联邦政府的人放弃前，他们就饿死了。”
No one spoke. Eventually Luke, who was twelve, asked if we could help. “No,” Dad said. “Nobody can. They’re trapped in their own home. But they got their guns, you can bet that’s why the Feds ain’t charged in.” He paused to sit, folding himself onto the low bench in slow, stiff movements. He looked old to my eyes, worn out. “We can’t help them, but we can help ourselves. When the Feds come to Buck’s Peak, we’ll be ready.”
没有人说话。最后，十二岁的卢克问我们能否去帮忙。“不，”爸爸说，“谁都帮不上忙。他们被困在自己家中，但他们有枪。你可以打赌就是因为这个，联邦政府的人才没有冲进去。”他停下来坐下，将身子蜷在低矮的长凳上，动作缓慢而僵硬。我觉得他看起来苍老又憔悴。“我们帮不了他们，但我们可以帮自己。等联邦政府的人来到巴克峰时，我们早就做好了准备。”
I practiced slipping the bag onto my back and running with it — I didn’t want to be left behind. I imagined our escape, a midnight flight to the safety of the Princess. The mountain, I understood, was our ally. To those who knew her she could be kind, but to intruders she was pure treachery, and this would give us an advantage. Then again, if we were going to take cover on the mountain when the Feds came, I didn’t understand why we were canning all these peaches. We couldn’t haul a thousand heavy Mason jars up the peak. Or did we need the peaches so we could bunker down in the house, like the Weavers, and fight it out?
我练习把包滑到肩上，背着它跑——我可不想被落在后面。我想象着我们的大逃亡，在午夜逃往印第安公主的安全之地。我知道，这座山是我们的盟友。对认识她的人来说，她可以友善，但对入侵者来说，她只会背信弃义，这对我们是一个优势。话又说回来，要是我们打算在联邦政府的人到来时躲到山上去，我不明白为什么还要将桃子制成罐头。我们不可能把一千只沉重的罐子搬到山顶上去。还是说我们需要这些桃子，这样就可以像韦弗一家那样，躲在房子里，誓死抵抗到底？
Fighting it out seemed likely, especially a few days later when Dad came home with more than a dozen military-surplus rifles, mostly SKSs, their thin silver bayonets folded neatly under their barrels. The guns arrived in narrow tin boxes and were packed in Cosmoline, a brownish substance the consistency of lard that had to be stripped away. After they’d been cleaned, my brother Tyler chose one and set it on a sheet of black plastic, which he folded over the rifle, sealing it with yards of silvery duct tape. Hoisting the bundle onto his shoulder, he carried it down the hill and dropped it next to the red railroad car. Then he began to dig. When the hole was wide and deep, he dropped the rifle into it, and I watched him cover it with dirt, his muscles swelling from the exertion, his jaw clenched.
战斗到底似乎很有可能，特别是在几天后，父亲带回家十几支军用步枪，主要是SKS半自动步枪，薄薄的银刺刀整齐地折叠在枪管下面。步枪装在狭窄的锡盒里，涂过防腐润滑油。这是一种褐色物质，其稠度与猪油相当，必须擦掉。擦洗完毕后，我的哥哥泰勒选了一支枪，把它放在一张黑色塑料布上，然后卷起来用几码长的银色布基胶带密封好。他把这捆东西扛在肩上，搬下了山坡，将它扔在红色火车车厢旁，接着开始挖洞。当洞又宽又深时，他把步枪扔进了去。我看着他用泥土把它盖好，他的下巴紧绷，肌肉因用力而鼓起。
“Randy Weaver’s been shot,” Dad said, his voice thin and erratic. “He left the cabin to fetch his son’s body, and the Feds shot him.” I’d never seen my father cry, but now tears were dripping in a steady stream from his nose. He didn’t wipe them, just let them spill onto his shirt. “His wife heard the shot and ran to the window, holding their baby. Then came the second shot.”
“兰迪·韦弗被人开枪打死了，”爸爸说，他的声音又细又怪，“他离开木屋去抱回儿子的尸体，联邦政府的人开枪打死了他。”我从未见过父亲哭，但现在眼泪顺着他的鼻子源源不断地流下来。他没有擦，任凭它们滴到他的衬衫上。“他的妻子听到枪声冲到窗前，怀里还抱着他们的小宝宝。接着又是一声枪响。”
We kept on bottling peaches. I don’t remember how many days passed or how many jars we’d added to our stores before Dad told us more of the story.
我们继续制作桃子罐头。我不记得过去了多少天，也不记得在爸爸告诉我们更多故事之前，我们又增加了多少罐食物储备。
Soon after, Dad bought a machine to manufacture bullets from spent cartridges. Now we could last longer in a standoff, he said. I thought of my “head for the hills” bag, waiting in my bed, and of the rifle hidden near the railcar, and began to worry about the bullet-making machine. It was bulky and bolted to an iron workstation in the basement. If we were taken by surprise, I figured we wouldn’t have time to fetch it. I wondered if we should bury it, too, with the rifle.
不久，爸爸买了一台用废弹壳制造子弹的机器。现在我们可以在对峙中坚持更长时间了，他说。我想起我的“上山应急包”正在床上等着我，还有藏在火车车厢附近的那支步枪，开始担心子弹制造机的安危。它体积庞大，用螺栓固定在地下室的铁制工作台上。如果我们遭到突袭，我认为我们没有时间去搬它。我想知道我们是不是也该把它和步枪一起埋起来。
Mother was sitting with her arms folded, one hand across her chest, the other clamped over her mouth. I stared at our speckled linoleum while Dad told us how the baby had been lifted from its mother’s arms, its face smeared with her blood.
母亲坐在那里，双臂交叉，一只手放在胸前，另一只手捂住嘴巴。我盯着我们家污渍斑斑的油毡，听爸爸告诉我们婴儿如何从那位母亲的怀里被抱了出来，脸上还沾满了她的鲜血。
Dad never told us the end of the story. We didn’t have a TV or radio, so perhaps he never learned how it ended himself. The last thing I remember him saying about it was, “Next time, it could be us.”
爸爸从未告诉我们故事的结局。我们家没有电视和收音机，所以或许他自己也不知道结局。关于这件事，我记得他说的最后一句话是：“下一次，可能会轮到我们。”
Until that moment, some part of me had wanted the Feds to come, had craved the adventure. Now I felt real fear. I pictured my brothers crouching in the dark, their sweaty hands slipping down their rifles. I pictured Mother, tired and parched, drawing back away from the window. I pictured myself lying flat on the floor, still and silent, listening to the sharp chirp of crickets in the field. Then I saw Mother stand and reach for the kitchen tap. A white flash, the roar of gunfire, and she fell. I leapt to catch the baby.
在那一刻之前，我内心曾经渴望冒险，有点盼望联邦政府的人到来。现在我感到了真正的恐惧。我想象我的哥哥们蹲伏在黑暗中，汗津津的手从步枪上滑下来。我想象母亲口干舌燥，疲惫不堪，从窗前往后退。我想象自己平躺在地板上，静静听着田野里蟋蟀的清脆鸣叫。然后我看见母亲站起来，伸手去够厨房的水龙头。一道白光，一声枪响，她倒下了。我一跃而起，接住婴儿。
Those words would stay with me. I would hear their echo in the chirp of crickets, in the squish of peaches dropping into a glass jar, in the metallic chink of an SKS being cleaned. I would hear them every morning when I passed the railroad car and paused over the chickweed and bull thistle growing where Tyler had buried the rifle. Long after Dad had forgotten about the revelation in Isaiah, and Mother was again hefting plastic jugs of “Western Family 2%” into the fridge, I would remember the Weavers.
这句话一直萦绕在我耳际。蟋蟀的鸣叫，桃子扑哧掉进玻璃罐里的声响，以及擦拭SKS步枪时叮叮当当的金属碰撞声，都能让这句话在我耳畔回响。每天早上，当我经过火车车厢，在繁缕和牛蓟草丛生的泰勒埋枪之地停留时，都会听到这句话。后来，当爸爸早就忘记了《以赛亚书》中的那个启示，母亲又重新把“西方家庭”牌低脂奶的塑料罐子塞进冰箱，我还会记起韦弗一家人的遭遇。
It was almost five A. M.
差不多早上五点了。
After I’d finished I climbed the railway car and looked out over the valley. It was easy to pretend the car was moving, speeding away, that any moment the valley might disappear behind me. I’d spent hours playing that fantasy through in my head but today the reel wouldn’t take. I turned west, away from the fields, and faced the peak.
做完这一切，我爬到火车车厢顶上，眺望着山谷。很容易就能假装这是一列行驶中的火车，它正疾驰向前，随时可能将山谷抛在身后。我花了好几个小时在脑海中玩这个幻想游戏，但今天就是无法获得那种眩晕感。我的视线离开田野，转向西边，面对着山峰。
I returned to my room, my head full of crickets and gunfire. In the lower bunk, Audrey was snoring, a low, contented hum that invited me to do the same. Instead I climbed up to my bed, crossed my legs and looked out the window. Five passed. Then six. At seven, Grandma appeared and I watched her pace up and down her patio, turning every few moments to gaze up the hill at our house. Then she and Grandpa stepped into their car and pulled onto the highway.
我回到我的房间，脑袋里满是蟋蟀的叫声和枪声。睡在下铺的奥黛丽在打鼾，一种低沉而满足的嗡嗡声让我也渴望这样睡去。但我爬上床，交叉双腿，望向窗外。五点过去了。然后是六点。七点钟，奶奶出现了，我看着她在她家露台上走来走去，每隔一会儿便回过头来朝小山丘上的房子看看。然后她和爷爷上了车，朝公路驶去。
When the car was gone, I got out of bed and ate a bowl of bran with water. Outside I was greeted by Luke’s goat, Kamikaze, who nibbled my shirt as I walked to the barn. I passed the go-kart Richard was building from an old lawnmower. I slopped the pigs, filled the trough and moved Grandpa’s horses to a new pasture.
车开走后，我下了床，用水泡了一碗麦麸喝。我来到外面，朝谷仓走去，卢克那只叫“神风”的山羊轻咬我的衬衫，以示欢迎。我走过理查德用旧割草机改装的卡丁车。我喂了猪，填满饲料槽，把爷爷的马牵到一片新牧场。
The Princess was always brightest in spring, just after the conifers emerged from the snow, their deep green needles seeming almost black against the tawny browns of soil and bark. It was autumn now. I could still see her but she was fading: the reds and yellows of a dying summer obscured her dark form. Soon it would snow. In the valley that first snow would melt but on the mountain it would linger, burying the Princess until spring, when she would reappear, watchful.
春天，当针叶树从雪里露出头来，深绿色的针叶在黄褐色的泥土和树皮的映衬下，显得几乎呈黑色时，印第安公主最为清晰可见。现在是秋天。虽然还能看见她的身影，但她正在消隐：垂死的夏天的红黄色遮掩了她黝黑的身影。很快就要下雪了。山谷里的第一场雪会融化，但山上的雪会存留，将公主掩埋，直到来年春天，她才会充满警惕地再次出现。
0 条评论