Hard Red Spring - Hardcover

Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Kelly Kerney’s first novel, Born Again, was listed among the best debuts of the year by Kirkus Reviews, was a Book Sense Pick, and was recognized by the New York Public Library as one of the best books of 2006.  A Virginia Commission for the Arts fellowship recipient, she lives in Richmond, Virginia.

Auszug. © Genehmigter Nachdruck. Alle Rechte vorbehalten.

***This excerpt is from an advance uncorrected proof***

Copyright © 2016 Kelly Kerney

1902

The cave in Father’s mountain was just big enough for a little girl to walk inside, though Evie had never done so. She could barely bring herself to look at the cave, let alone breathe its air. Its cold limestone jaws, frozen open, perpetually dripped water. She had never seen anyone in the cave, only the things they left behind, near the entrance: candles, coins, clay trinkets, fragrant half-burned bundles of grass, sometimes still smoking. The Indians came there, trespassing on Father’s land, to talk to their dead ancestors. And these sad offerings, cheap even to an eight-year-old’s eye, were the presents left for the ghosts.

Once, Evie had been compelled, had been feverish enough with want, to try to take something from the cave: a baby doll set far back beyond the fire ring. Dressed like a miniature Indian, the doll was made from an eaten corn- cob with the husk pulled down into a painted skirt. Its burned silk clung to the top to mimic black Indian hair. Clutching a long stick, trying to snag the doll by the hair, Evie inched close enough to feel the cold cave breath leaking from a small hole, like a throat, in the back. Just big enough for a little girl to be swallowed. Startling herself, she dropped the stick and could not bring herself one inch closer to retrieve it.

She never told anyone about the gifts she saw in the cave. Mother didn’t even know the cave existed until Evie informed her. It was too far into the forest, beyond her daily range, which kept her close to the house. Evie had told her long ago, hoping she would order Judas to burn it, which was how she dealt with any trace of Indian activity on their land: corn plantings, al- tars, huts. Their woods were perpetually on fire. But could you burn a cave away? Could you burn ghosts? Evie suspected not. Now that she had turned eight, she was beginning to understand that some situations were hopeless, beyond even her parents’ powers.

Father knew about the cave and generally ignored it, since he had no use for it. Only his fields mattered: wheat and prickly pear, on which he raised cochineal bugs to be killed and dried for dye. Strange Indians using his un- cultivated land didn’t bother him very much, though these trespasses kept Evie awake at night, praying to the American God she wasn’t sure could hear prayers outside America. Half the time, she feared only the ghosts them- selves could hear her pleas for protection. And when she did finally sleep, the ghosts came to her in her dreams.

For all her terror, she felt no surprise when she awoke one morning inside the cave, with her head on a rock. The inevitable, the thing she’d always dreaded, that she knew would happen, had finally come to pass. Had she walked in her sleep, had she been carried? It didn’t matter. And there was no use screaming or trying to escape. Feeling a strange calm, she considered the possibility that she had died. That her soul, too far from home, had not known where else to go but where Indian souls went. But once she saw the Indian coming at her with a raised machete, she realized that she was not dead yet, but about to die. His sunken leather chest, his black matted hair and blazing eyes: this was not a ghost, but a man. Filmed with sweat and dirt, he approached, smelling horrifically familiar. At this, she screamed, and that was when her father began to shake her awake. His hands on her were the Indian’s, attacking her. Molesting, disgracing. Words she heard al- most daily but never understood until that moment. This was what it was to be disgraced by an Indian.

“Start moving, Evie. Get your shoes on! The ash is going to kill the bugs!”

A dream. Only a dream, but she could not place herself. Had she woken again, into another dream? The lumpy handmade walls seemed like another cave. She could not move at first, though she willed it. She began to consider again the possibility that she had died. It could be like this, death, it could certainly be like this in Guatemala.

“Evie!”

“What?” she asked in a strangled whisper. The Indian’s hand still on her throat.

She rubbed her eyes, confused. The smell held her back: corn. Warm and slightly sweet, it lingered on her tongue. She blinked again. Her room looked strange to her. Not the things, but the light. The light was strange.

“Evie, Santa María’s erupting. We’ve got to save the cochineal!”

Mother flashed by the door, then Father ran out after her. Things became clearer, but not why she was awake so early in the morning. In her bare feet Evie shuffled to the front door, peered out through the thick brown morning light, and saw what looked like snow. For a moment she thought they were back in New York. It made sense: the slow flakes, the unidentified drifts of darkness all around, the cold bite of highland air. But then Father grabbed her shoulders and shook her again.

“Evie, wake up!” He tried to push her outside. “If we lose this crop, we’re finished! The volcano—”

She clung to the doorframe, resisting. “But what about the lava?” “There’s no lava here, just ash. The ash won’t hurt you, but it’ll kill the cochineal. We’ve got to protect them.”

They all darted through the prickly pear fields, still in their nightclothes, arms full of papers, clothes, blankets, anything they could find, to cover the cacti, where the cochineal bugs lived. Evie folded newspapers over the stiff leaves like a hat. Once harvested, these bugs would make the most vivid red dye, in high demand around the world. Mother, Father, and Ixna rushed around in the dark, with tablecloths and sheets, while Judas—the only field worker who slept at the farm—worked the far side of the field, doing the same with burlap sacks. Evie heard Mother arguing with Ixna, who refused to sacrifice her extra Indian blouse. They were expensive, she protested, a blouse took months to weave and she only had two. Accusations of vanity were exchanged through the flurries and smoke.

“I’ll buy you a new blouse! From the Frenchman’s shop!” Ixna balked, offended.

“Oh, you’re too good for our clothes, I see. Too good for anything of ours! But I know you stole my last tin of face powder, Ixna! And my mirror!” Mother shrieked. She always pronounced Ixna like a sneeze—Icksna—when in reality it was pronounced Ishna, like a secret. “I know exactly where I left it, I remember!”

“Mirror?” Ixna repeated the word with difficulty. “What’s mirror?”

This ignorance made Mother even angrier. She called Judas over, away from his work, for a translation.

“There is no word for mirror in Quiché,” he said. “How can there not be a word for that?”

Judas shrugged. Father ran to the scene, arms flailing. “What’s going on? Judas! Get the southwest corner covered!”

“How do your people know if they look respectable?” Mother pressed, waving away Father’s insistence. “If they have food in their teeth?”

Judas glanced at Ixna, who was leaning against the house, hugging her extra Indian blouse, which she had succeeded in wrenching away from Mother.

“I guess we just rely on other people to tell us.”

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With all their blankets, pillows, and sheets draped over the cacti, they could not go back to bed. They had no choice but to stay awake, marveling at their situation and shivering, for they had sacrificed their coats as well. The old church, their...