Anne Prue: The end of the wild grass

This countryside seems to be an empty land, with large clusters of mountain mugwort bushes, golden flowers and dwarf bushes, intricate skies, flocks of wild birds thrown into the air like stacks of cards, and faint tracks winding towards the horizon like red walls. There are tombs and no monuments, and the wood of the decaying wooden houses and animal pens is burned in the old camp fire. Aside from weather and distance, there are not many books worth a book. The occasional farm gate, punctuated for distance, to the north is an endless murmur, and the sun shines from trucks speeding past the interstate.

Three generations of the Tui family run a farm in the unknown area, the ninety-six-year-old still tough old Red, son Aladdin and Aladdin's wife Wanneta, son Taylor is Aladdin's hope, the youngest daughter Sansan, the eldest daughter (to the disgrace of the family) Audleine.

Born in 1902 in Lasker and raised in an orphanage, the elder Red was a child of strong personality—with thick wrists and bright red hair—who escaped from the orphanage at the age of fourteen to work in a logging camp. At the end of World War I, he logged wood in the Medicine Bow woodlands. He quit his job and left the drought-stricken West, where he worked as a well digger, herded cattle at railroad paddocks and posted leaflets, carving together a life that was shaped by two-foot-wide planks. In 1930, in New York, others transported sand excavated from the Waldorf-Astoria Grand Hotel to a barge and shoveled it into the Atlantic Ocean.

One hot and humid morning, he thought about the barren and dry landscape of his hometown and turned back to the west. On the way, he found a marriage partner, and soon there were groups of children and a bunch of dirty toddlers waiting to be fed. In Oklahoma, during the Great Depression, crows in their nests were sold to restaurants with dynamite. After the crow became a rare animal, they moved to Wyoming, settling a hundred or two hundred miles from where he grows.

They rented a farm near Redwall Hill: a log house, with a scattered fence that looked like a truck dropping sticks from a distance. Strong winds isolate them from the rest of the world. If you want to step into the gusts of wind, you are immediately forced to retreat. The farm floats on the highland plains.

Their idea was to raise a few sheep, which was the idea of their wives. Five years later, a flock of first class was created. World War II kept wool prices stable. In one case, the former owner of a farm could not pay the land tax, and the government auctioned it off according to the law.

In August 1946, the green lamp of Sears Roebuck's company was delivered, and on the same day his wife gave birth to his wife. She was named Aladdin.

After the war, thermoplastic resin yarn ruined the wool market, and they switched to cattle herding. As if uncomfortable with changing careers, the wife and her husband said that they were dizzy and wanted to vomit, and they were sick for three or four years, and finally died. Old Red was strict with his children, and only Aladdin was on the dusty farm of the six, the burliest of the siblings, stubborn and rough, determined that everything must be brought to the table, whether it was dry bones or steak.

Aladdin fought in the Vietnam War, flew C-123Bs, and sprayed defoliant. When he returned home after the Vietnam War, he became more violent and liked to push himself to the point of exhaustion, and then fell asleep for days. He married Wanneta Shipseger on a fiery May morning in Colorado. The wife's maiden home is in Kezhou. There was a green cloud in the sky for miles, and a funnel-shaped tornado hung down. Wannetta's hair is full of vitality. She curls her hair into an outdated French knot. The wedding guests were her parents and eleven brothers, who, unable to find white rice, sprinkled wheat on the bride's head. During the wedding ceremony, Wannetta's father smoked one cigarette after another. That night at Tui Farm, Aladdin was reveling in front of his new wife, somersaulting down the porch, scattering a few grains of wheat that fell into the creases of his trousers, falling to the ground, germinating, growing, bearing fruit, and falling to the ground to regenerate. Each year, wheat occupies a little more ground, and ends up being a quarter of an acre wide. The wheat swaying gently in the wind was actively defended by Wanneta. She said that these were her wedding wheats, and if they were cut, the end of the world would come.

Aladdin took the lead from the elder Red at the age of twenty-six. Aladdin began digging wells in the mud early in the morning when the sky was slightly blue. My father came riding a one-eyed mare. The son shoveled a pile of wet mud.

"Haven't dug it yet, have you?" The old father asked, "Aren't your hands and feet very agile?" Not very clever. I bet the shovel must have been sharpened first. How to find a woman to marry you, I don't understand. You must have forced a marriage with a shotgun. It must have been hypnotizing her. It's not that she's so good, but it's probably better than messing around with animals, right? "The mud-covered son crawled out of the hole in the ground, grabbed a lump of dirt and smashed it on his father, frightening him into pulling out his legs and running wildly. He chased his father all the way to the house, continuing to attack him with firewood from stones and pyrets, throwing the diagonal tongs he had carried in his back pocket, throwing pencils clipped to his ears, and tobacco cans. The jar was not tobacco, but homegrown dark green stuff.

Old Red, whose head was red and swollen and bleeding, raised a hand to signify surrender, and stepped back to the porch. He was seventy-one at the time and loudly reported his age as a defense. "I made this farm, I made you." He touched his groin with his hand covered with age spots. Aladdin picked up tobacco cans, pencils, and diagonal tongs and led the old man's mare into the barn. He returned to the well, looked down and picked up the shovel until his hands were numb.

Wannetta moved old Red's belongings from the large upstairs room to the first-floor room. This room is adjacent to the kitchen, formerly a pantry, and still smells of raisins and moldy flour. The window glass is cracked and taped to it.

"It's closer to the bathroom." Her statement is sleek, like gasoline running down a funnel.

Wannetta taught her two daughters to serve pies on white plates to their grandfathers, and Grandpa said goodnight to him, while her son Taylor played with plastic cows and went to bed late. One afternoon, she finished drying her clothes and entered the room, and found four-year-old Audrey straddling old Red's lap, held by old Red, while Audleen twisted to try to get down. She snatched the young girl from Old Red and said, "Don't get near my daughter, you filthy old bird, or I'll boil water to scald your old bird." ”

"What? I didn't—" he said, "No—never—"

"I know the old man." She said.

"Pee!" Audrey screamed, it was too late.

Now she warned her daughter not to go near her grandfather, and spoke of him in a solemn tone. Just as she wanted, Old Red sat alone in a straight-backed chair and limped unsupported from the porch across the kitchen to the musty storage room. The sooner he knocks on the gates of heaven, the better, she told Aladdin, and Aladdin snorted and rolled over. He was afraid of the dark, because he couldn't work when it was dark, got up early, got up at three in the morning, filled the kettle, opened the red can of coffee, and anxious to get to work.

"Wanneta, what do you want to do?" He said, "Throw him into the trough of the cattle and drown?" Wait a few more days, he won't be able to hold out long. ”

"You've been saying this for five years, but he walks slowly and looks at the scenery."

Time passes, calves are born, grass sprouts, imprints, rain, clouds, rushing back to the barn for winter, cattle buyer Amendinge visiting, cattle transporting, early snow, late snowstorm. Children grow up. Aladdin was exchanged for an old Little Bear for two bulls, a set of truck tires, a saddle, and an 1860 Colt.44 pistol with a rusted body and rotating chamber. It was he dug up in the roots of the American cedar. Wanneta's brown hair turned gray, and every few months she would go into the bathroom to maintain her hair purple. Only old Red paid attention to the evolution of time with the small monthly calendar sent by the feed. He is older than kerosene and physically tough enough to become a centenarian.

My younger sister Xiaoshan moved to Las Vegas after graduating from high school. She landed a job in the packaging design department of a religious CD maker and quickly grasped the knack for using images: sweeping waves and pillars of light falling from the sky represent God's grace, while dark clouds with light edges and babies bursting into laughter mean that prayer can help people get through this sooner. The hope is endless, and money will automatically come to your door.

Audrey's size is getting closer and closer to a hundred-gallon gas bucket, and she is immediately aware that she is her sister. She graduated a year later than her sister and stayed at home after that. Her hair was reddish, close to pink, tied into two braids, thick as a whip. When she talked to others, they would always look at her dimples, soft pillow-like mouth, and then look at her cracked crystal blue eyes, thinking that it was a pity to be so fat. During her first year at home, she likes to wear brightly colored XXL dresses to help with household chores. However, her legs always felt cold, and she suffered from what Wannetta called "chanting problems", and when the tide came in, she was forced to go straight to the bathroom, leaving behind her dark polka dots, ranging in size from a dime to a pentagonal copper plate. After wading through the snow with bare calves and suffering from scaly frostbite, she gave up her cool skirt and housework to follow Aladdin to work on the farm. Now she steps on cowman's leather boots that are condensed into cow dung, and wears loose jeans and a thigh-length T-shirt.

"Yes, let her find something to do outside the house," said Wannetta, "and everything that wasn't broken by her was lost to her, and everything she didn't lose was broken for her." She cooks things that even pigs eat to die. ”

"I hate cooking," Audrey said, "I'll help Daddy." "It's kind of a plan B. She wanted to leave, wearing red sandals with corked soles and sitting in the main passenger seat of the new pearl-colored pickup truck, drinking soda in a hula shaped bottle. When will someone come and take her away? She is not as bold as her sister. She knew her seductive side and couldn't stop the fact.

Aladdin found her gentle attitude towards domestic animals. His son, Taylor, shouted and whistled in style, and rode like a messenger to report the massacre.

"If I could be in charge, every farm worker should be a woman." Women have a good temper and are more suitable for taking care of animals. He meant to be sarcastic about his son.

"Oh, Daddy." Taylor said in a hilarious falsetto. He was the family's groom and slept in a precarious makeshift farmhouse since he was thirteen years old. This is the holy decree of Wannetta.

"My brothers are all sleeping in makeshift farmhouses." Wannetta's words are plain, but they describe her entire childhood, isolated, fearful, and dangerous.

The only son, Taylor, was nineteen years old, tall, burly, left-handed, and strong enough to scare off any father, with the exception of Aladdin. My son likes to walk in dirty jeans and a brown hat. When he was in reverie, his mouth could not close, he had a mustache like cat hair of a young man, and small pimples continued to grow on his cheeks, which was not enough in the ointment. What he said is only one percent correct, and the temper is alternated between depression and quick liver fire. Aladdin's birthday, Taylor gave him two coyote ears, the result of weeks of careful tracking. Aladdin opened the present, spread it out on the tablecloth, and said, "Oh, two coyote ears, what's the use of giving me?" ”

"Oh my God," Taylor scolded, "put it on your second child, let's say that the second child won the fur hat in the church lottery." You love to go against me. He swept his ears to the ground and walked out.

"He'll be back," said Wannetta, "and he'll come back with dirty clothes and turned out pockets." I know best about boys. ”

"I ran away from home when I was a child." Old Red muttered, "He's not coming back." Learn from mine. I was a cowboy. I've killed pigs. I survived. From the age of fourteen, he learned to work as an adult. This year is a ninety-six-year-old young man. Who the father was was never known. Take you all to hell and spit on you. He dragged his fingers from one end of the tablecloth to the other, and long ago he followed the hand and pointed forward. The old man showed a frightening smile and clumsily held the can of tobacco.

Aladdin's face was like a shield, his hair bouncing, he bowed his head towards the tablecloth and murmured, "May God bless the food." "Large slices of beef lie flat on a large dinner plate, surrounded by a continuous stream of European turnips and poached potatoes. That afternoon he found two cows that had been out of breath for a long time, one in the mud and the other with no cause of death. He forked a small potato and brought it to his father's dinner plate, without even looking at him, and the old man's fork made a shaking sound, and he turned a deaf ear. Waneta frowned as she poured coffee into the heavy cup and said, "Be careful, John Wayne." There was a pink envelope between her dinner knife and the flat cake. The icing on the cake is thin to the point of being blue.

"Shanshan sent it."

"Is she coming home?" Aladdin crushes the potatoes on his plate and drizzles with skim milk. Wild game and fish can make up for grizzly bears or lions biting away livestock. He hadn't seen a lion in ten years, and as for the grizzly bear, never.

"Not opened yet." She opened the letter as she spoke. The letter was written short and semantically vague, and Wanneta recited it. Sandwiched on the stationery was a jaw-dropping photo. The daughter in the photo is dressed in a black bikini, with oiled muscles with sharp contours, showing her bulging biceps and calf muscles, her hair is cut into a small flat head, straight to the sky, dyed white, and her round almond eyes are wide open and still. She wrote in the letter: "Start bodybuilding. Many girls practice here! ”

"How did her hair become that virtuous," said Wannetta, "must have been persuaded to dye it." Shanshan I know best, it must not be her own decision. "Before Shanshan left home, she had always been an ordinary young lady, with thin arms, slightly blonde hair, and split ends of her hair. Large and small eyes often glance around. As she spoke, she kept spinning her hands and stretched her fingers outward. The graduation book named her "the person who can point the finger the most."

"Bodybuilding." Aladdin's tone was unemotional. As a farmer, he was mentally prepared for disasters and never expected to live happily ever after. His daughter is alive and well, and he is fortunate that she did not make bombs or wink at clients who drove by.

Audrey stared at her coffee. A moth spreads its wings and floats on the surface, forming small arrows that point to the chair where her sister is absent.

Aladdin used to wear leather boots and a big hat, but rarely jumped on horseback. He missed the little Bear plane, which was like a horse to him. The plane was stolen two years ago, dismembered while he slept and towed away in a platform car. He suspected Mormons had done it. Now he clings to the driver's seat of the truck and drives all over the dusty ground, sometimes in a bad mood after taking drugs, he simply spends the night in a depression, curled up in the front seat. The windshield is affected by high-altitude light and casts a violet glow. The holder behind the truck is made of wooden rods cut from the farm. He prepares a bottle of whiskey in the car, tied to the back of the seat with twine. The open front seat compartment contains tinder, vises, screws and caps, hundreds of scattered fence nails, and a hammer missing a handle. Wannetta threw an old quilt into the car and told him to roll up the windows when it rained.

"I know you," she said, "and you don't care if it's windy or rainy." ”

Every ten days or so, Audrey would follow her father and say she wanted to go downtown to find a job. Aladdin wouldn't let her get in the car. He said that with her weight, it would crush the spring under the passenger seat. And she couldn't find a job anyway, she knew that. She does not know the blessing in the blessing, and it is better to stay on the farm obediently.

"Why do you want to leave the farm, I really don't understand."

She told her father that she should be allowed to drive out by herself.

"I'll tell you when I'm ready to listen to advice," he said, "my own truck, now I'll drive it myself." If you want to drive, you go and buy one yourself. ”

"I'm only short of about a million dollars." She was desperate.

"Otherwise, what do you want Lao Tzu to rob the bank for you?" He said, "By the way, you're going to come with me to the Bull Store." I will teach you the key points that you will never forget. The periphery of the scrotum is terribly important. ”

How does Audreyn spend time when she is not farming? Staring at the indigo slash formed by the hail forty miles to the east, seeing the flipped cloud as a rag for a mechanic, he nervously counted when lightning was flashed, he loved me and he didn't love me. Curved lightning is like a branch, probing all corners of the sky.

That summer, the horses never did. The rain was unusually abundant, and the southwest monsoon gusts hit. Shining horses stand on the prairie, rivers of rain on their shoulder blades and dripping manes. If you suddenly run wildly, the small water droplets on your shoulders are like a cloak. Audrey and Aladdin wore oilcloth raincoats from coffee for breakfast to yawning and saying goodnight to each other. Wannetta watched the weather report on TV, ironing her shirt and sheets. The elder Red called this weather a drizzle, spending all day in his room chewing tobacco and reading large-print versions of Gray [1872-1939), an American writer and author of Knights in the Purple Worm and several Western novels. Popular fiction, curved nails draw lines under each line of words. On the fourth of July, a family sat on the porch and watched the heavy rain in the distance, pretending that the thick, lustrous lightning and thunder were the National Day fireworks.

Audrey has seen through most of the things around her, and she can no longer see new things. The brilliant and beautiful scene does not unfold suddenly in the future, but jumps unrestrained in the imagination. The bedroom where she slept with Shanshan was a room within a room. In the unobstructed moonlight, her eyes flashed white oil. The calfskin carpet on the floor seemed to move, and it seemed to arch up and crawl forward, a fraction of an inch at a time. The dark frame of the mirror sinks into the wall, forming a rectangular trench. From her bed, she could see the moonlit bleached grain ascent silo, and the vast pastures behind her that were dotted with cows like tiny black seeds. In this unsettling moonlight with a near-peppery color, she was either Audleine, and the moonlight made her want to get everything she wanted. The unadorned loneliness at this time, the silence of the day, the lust of the flesh, caused her to press her mouth against her burning elbow socket. She pinched and pounded her fat waist, rolled over the bed, twisted, walked to the window a dozen times, hit her heel against the floor, and finally the old Red in the storage room downstairs finally shouted: "What the hell?" Did you take the sailors home? ”

Her only hope seemed to be semi-literate Hal Bloom. He was a helper his father invited from time to time, with long legs like chopsticks and a T-shirt that read, "Born positive, voluntary cowboy." When not playing in rodeo, he worked for the Aladdin Whirlwind and was usually unable to separate him from the horses (because he liked to fantasize about himself as a cowboy in the 1870s, returning home from Oregon after herding cattle). Audrey had walked with him into the shade of the willows a dozen times, into the damp dirt and bushes of nettles, and then he would take out the light-colored condom, put it on her hard penis, and climb quietly on top of her. His neck was warm and smelled of soap and horses.

However, when Audleine began to work on the farm to earn hard-earned money, Aladdin told Hal Bloom to go home to set up cattle.

"It's okay, it's not worth coming here anyway." Bloom said and turned and left. Never again.

Audrey was depressed day by day. It's too far away from anything. No one came to her rescue. She couldn't even get the solace of television, because old Red dominated the TV and always chose Westerns, shouting at the horses in the film with a broken voice: "Shake him off, kick him in the head!" ”

Audrey went upstairs to her room and listened to the cellphone conversation received on the radio.

"The deposit balance of account number 73559 is minus two hundred and four..."

"yes, I know. Probably. Started drinking beer so early? "Haha, that's right."

"I guess you probably didn't notice." "It wasn't crushed like this, it was all softened. I'll take it out of the bag and just - are you ready to carve? "That's not going to work. It's so dirty. ”

"Hey, is it raining over there?"

"Is it raining?" She repeated. It was raining everywhere and everyone was alive and well in the rain, with the exception of the Redwall residents.

Audrey looked at Shanshan's photo and said to her mother, "If I can't stand it, I'll go out and take a walk." ”

"Haven't I heard it before?" Wannetta said, "You, I understand. ”

Audrey strode around the house for a few days, then expanded to go around the animal pens, around the tool house, around the root crop storage cellar, around the abandoned gravel field. Aladdin hauled scrap equipment from the gravel yard, and there were various tractors, one was a 1928 Rumeli, diesel-powered blue steel tractor with a bitter cherry growing in the middle of the frame. Next to the tractor lay the old Red's 1935 second-hand AC, a top-shaped four-cylinder valve engine, painted white by the scorching sun. Near the bottom of the sunken riverbank, a Fordson Excellence lay half-buried in the sand, the body was dismantled, and the guardrail and radiator cover were dented. Standing next to the tattered livestock trough is a scheming deer.

As she walked past the rain-soaked pile of abandoned trucks, she heard someone speak and could barely hear it. "Sweetheart, Miss."

The low-hanging sun shines obliquely from the edge of the large clouds, the clouds are as dark as char, the prairie, the tractor, the hand sticking out the sleeve of the yellow tarpaulin raincoat, all plated with orange light. In the cleaned air, the colors are as strong as dreams, and the red walls in the distance are equivalent to a bed of coal.

"Sweetheart." The other party said in an airy voice.

There was no one beside her, and there were no alien flying objects in the sky. She stood motionless. She has suffered from eating a plate for the whole life, suffering from weight, her parents are inconsiderate of their daughter's heart, and the environment here is also harsh. Nerve short-circuits are possible and can happen to anyone. Her uncle, Mapston Shipseger, was infected with jaw swelling by livestock, and then gradually deteriorated from a depressed farmer to a smirking neuropathy. The sunlight faded to a dying hue, and the abandoned machines fell into their own coffee-brown shadows. She heard nothing but the wailing of mosquitoes, except for the small breeze brought by the fading twilight.

That night, she listened to meaningless ramblings on the radio, thinking that she might be suffering from hunger causing auditory hallucinations, so she went into the kitchen to swallow her family's leftover roast pork chops.

"I'm so worried about you, I hope no one plans to kill you." "Don't miss me too much."

"Didn't get hit." "It's raining messily here." "It's raining miserably here." "There is no reason to stay here."

There hasn't been a major event in weeks, and it's normal in this part of the state. One day she came to the gravel pit again at noon.

"Hello, sweetheart. Come here, come here. "It's the old 4030, Aladdin's old green tractor, with a robust shape and a forward-leaning line, giving the illusion of wanting to run. Years ago, a farm worker died in a rollover accident next to an overgrown irrigation pond - Maurice Rambomu? Or is it called what? Blue wave tree? Blue Wave Food? Lambur? Tan Bohong? She was young, but this person always smiled at her and asked her how her life was. On the day of the accident, he pulled a candy bar from his shirt pocket and threw it to her. The candy bar is soft and warm. He said he wore sunglasses that could turn the world orange, and that he would have no problem borrowing them. In the evening he died among the thorny grass and burdock bushes. It was his ghost that was talking.

"Morris? Is that you? ”

"No, it's not. It's not him. The kid was already burned to ashes. ”

"Who is speaking?"

"Two steps closer."

She reached out and touched the side guardrail. Wasps nest inside, crawling in and out between the gaps in the guardrail, vibrating the air suspiciously. She stared intently at the wasp.

"That's good," said a voice from the tractor, "go find a stick and scrape the place where the paint has blistered." And she stepped back.

"You scared me to death." As she spoke, she looked at the sky, at the undulating savannah, at the edge of the world overgrown with grass, burning like a fuse.

"What are you afraid of? Don't be afraid. Our world is full of wonders, right? Come here, get into the cockpit. The elasticity is pretty good. The seat is still comfortable. Pretend you're driving the side of the road in Los Angeles. "The voice is hoarse and mournful, only louder than the whisper of the wounded, the voice of the gang members in the movie.

"No," she said, "I don't like it." I have enough problems, the cockpit of the old tractor can collapse at any moment, don't try to trouble me. ”

"Oh, do you think you have a lot of problems? Look at me, sweetheart, being left here roasted by the sun, enduring blizzards, crawling for lizards, not even a tarpaulin to cover, broken brakes, dead batteries, reimbursement for parts, no gas, surrounded by dead tree trunks, covered with guano and rust. When someone finally found out, you didn't even want to pay attention to me. ”

"It's six twelve." She said and turned away, her fingertips pressed against her eyebrows. Everything is an illusion.

The voice called behind her: "Sweetheart, Miss, don't go." ”

She longs to know the outside world, but only the radio accompanies her.

"Broken, the thread is smoothed, and it can't be welded without pushing." In the past, that bastard would be repaired, but unfortunately he is not mixed in this area now. ”

"-The horn fell off. I stopped by to visit her. "Is it? They told me you would leave before three. "I'll go there at three o'clock to change my clothes." "You, ah, will talk nonsense."

"It's so fucking big over here." "What can you do except rain. Just now it seemed like - Whoosh! Oh my God, what a big lightning! Wow! No more fucking calls with you. ”

"I want to be with you, but I have to face reality. I said to myself, this fucking woman wants to fuck everyone. I can't shoot on the couch, I have to go into the fucking bedroom. "It's all my fault, right?"

The above conversation made her feel uncomfortable. Hearing these conversations in pairs made her jealous.

She went to the gravel pit again. Twenty feet away, a panting and hoarse voice began to speak.

"Maurice Steinbo? Don't mention him. Turn the steering wheel wildly, step on the brakes indiscriminately, and add and add the throttle. Never change the oil or filter, never check the brake oil, never adjust the ballast, bother to check the inner harnesses of the front wheels, step on the clutch mercilessly, rush into the thick mud, never think about the front wheel bearings. Grind the bearings to ashes. Sitting restless, it pushed me crazy. Oh, stop drumming with your fingers and take me seriously. ”

She moved her gaze to the red wall, something that was best seen at a distance. That place can't go. The road flashes in the distance, reflecting the light of tourists throwing bottles from their cars.

"I killed him, not for that reason."

"What is the reason for that?"

"For you," said the tractor, "for you." I saved you from his hands. He wanted to get a hand on you. ”

"I can save myself," she said, "if I want to." ”

At dinner, Wannetta opened the letter from Sansan. The envelope is pink.

"As I expected," she said, "I knew it." I knew Taylor was going to run to her. Sansa wrote to report that for the past month, Taylor had lived with her roommate and wanted to apply for a job with the Bureau of Land Management to drive wild horses. While waiting for a response, he got a job as a collector at the phone company. He bought a computer for himself and seemed to be studying electronics during the day. When she came back from the gym, she always saw the table full of wires, duct tape, and springs. They went vegetarian, and Taylor loved shrimp and crab legs, foods he had never tasted before coming to Las Vegas. He never gets tired of eating. Shanshan wrote that he once bought a box of four-pound prawns for sixty-five yuan and cooked it to satisfy his appetite. "Haha, not much has changed. He's still a pig. "That's the end of the letter.

Aladdin moved a piece of European radish to Old Red's plate.

"Eat shrimp, chickens will shrink." The old man said, "It seems that he is assembling bombs with that pile of wire." ”

"He wouldn't do that kind of thing." Wanneta said.

After dinner, Audrey packed up her plate and began sobbing her nose. Wannetta touched her hip and wrapped one hand around her daughter's soft shoulders.

"What are you crying about? Can't lose weight? Die this heart, someone is naturally destined to be fat. Your grandmother is not the same. ”

"It's not. I feel like someone is teasing me. ”

"Who? Who dares to trick you? ”

"I don't know. Someone. She pointed to the ceiling.

"Forget it, let me tell you, that man, likes to tease everyone. The man must have joked and laughed happily. This is my opinion. ”

"It's so lonely here."

"There's nothing lonely or lonely. You've worked hard enough. ”

Audrey went upstairs and turned on the radio to set to roaming search.

"Please enter your billing number. Sorry, you entered the wrong number or the Bank does not accept your number. Please dial again later. ”

"How so?" "Turn it off, turn it off."

"Hey, go buy donuts. Don't be stingy and buy only twelve. Buy a bunch of them. Don't be petty, buy two boxes. ”

"If that's all you talk about—you!"

Every day the tractor utters new complaints, and his voice is rude and urgent.

"Miss, your daddy is a big old man. When you get in the car, you refuse to get out of the car. Sit in a chair for sixteen hours. Oh, come here, I'll show you something. Look at the ventilation cap on the left, yes, underneath. What do you see? ”

"A piece of rust. What a big piece of rust. ”

"That's right. What a big piece of rust. How so, I won't tell you. I don't like to tell girls bad things about her daddy. However, I have worked for your daddy for so many years, and there is only one best day, the day I came directly from the dealer parking lot, it was a four-hand car, it was abused, you were only ten years old, and it was your birthday. You pat me and say, 'Hello, Mr. Tractor. Your daddy hugged you to the seat and said, 'You're the first person to get in the car.' 'Your little hand sticks to the frosting, twisting around on the seat, I thought - I was thinking, it will be like this every day in the future, but unfortunately then you never touched me again, never came close to me again, only that skinny monkey Morris, who didn't even bother to use the rocker arm shaft, and the pressure of the hydraulic oil was not enough, causing him to roll over, and bacteria infected the wound. And that stinky daddy of yours. It broke my heart, and I haven't recovered yet. I'll be honest with you. If Daddy gets in the car today, I'll hurt him and retaliate against the good he did to my brakes. What he did with the beer, I'll tell you later. ”

"What's the matter?"

"More on that later. Saying it will make you feel disgustful. I don't want the eldest lady to be disgusted with her family. I know you're going to hold a grudge against me for this, and I don't want that. I'll tell you another day. ”

"Tell me now. Don't sell the guanzi. I hate it when people sell them the most. ”

"Okay. You asked for it. Si Danbo has always been too lazy to check the car. Finally the brake fluid ran out. Your daddy drove me, on the slope, and we dragged the wagon behind us. He brought six cans of beer. Drinking so fiercely, he is an alcoholic. He hit the brakes hard and we continued at full speed. He couldn't stop me, and I didn't want to. I don't care. When we came uphill, we slowed down. Before I could step back, he jumped out of the car and kicked a rock under the rear wheel. He, he poured warm beer into the sink of the brake pump, and the beer flowed down into the brake line. That's right, enough pressure. But it ruined me. That's why I ended up here. Tell you about this, will you hate me? ”

"Nope. I have heard of sins more serious than this. For example, killing people in irrigation tanks. ”

"You're messing with me, aren't you?"

One day, she rushed out of her house to a gravel pit.

"Shut up," she said, "can't you see I'm fat?" ”

"Just what I want."

"Why don't you focus on other tractors? Less annoying me. ”

"Miss, here's the thing, tractors are not attractive to each other. The object of the tractor is a human. Every tractor longs to fall in love with humans, usually old and fat croppers. ”

"Have you been cast a spell?" There is a story about a girl who made an old toad full of sarcoma sleep in her shoes, and the next morning the toad turned into a handsome man and cooked breakfast. ”

"It's not. I can tell you that a few years ago in the space shuttle program of Qianglu Corporation, an employee was fired for having a picnic with foreigners and drinking vodka. However, the company could not provide evidence. He was angry. At that time, they began to study computers and digital magnetic tapes. Remember that some cars don't tell the owner to close the door? It's that kind of technology. Very simple. Computer, he helped me design, fifteen languages. I can tell you. Would you like to hear me speak in Urdu? Skivili, Scaveli—"

"Tell whatever the story you want, I don't believe it. It's so badly made. She believes that the tractor takes the trouble to explain that on the one hand he is born with a liking for humans, but on the other hand, he has hidden vengeful malice.

"That's right, I'm lying."

"If you have a little brain," she says, "you know humans aren't crazy about tractors." ”

"You don't understand this. In Iowa, Bob Radran's funeral item was his tractor. The two love inseparably. Who can understand, he doesn't care. It's not just the crops in Iowa that do this. Some people can't catch up. Across the United States, there are girls everywhere who fall in love with tractors. There are also examples of girls marrying tractors. ”

"I'm going home," she turned away, "I'm going home." "She looked at her home, at her mother's golden wedding wheat swaying, and old Red's face appeared in the window like a hanging head." Oh please," she muttered to herself, sobbing "no tractors, no tractors or anything like that." ”

After dinner, she made a wish in her room, hoping to get a laser gun to eliminate the bright spots from the lonely road and eliminate the noise from the road. Road noise is like the muffled hum of bees on tall hawthorn trees. She wanted the cow to lie down and die, she wanted a tornado, she wanted Christ to return, she wanted violent men in suits and sports cars to enter the yard. But she only has radio.

"At first glance, you would think that he is a normal person, and you will know that something is wrong after you start talking to him."

"I knew I should call the police, because he was hateful and terrible, but I couldn't stop it. I thought in my heart that although we haven't been married for a long time, I'm still going to kill him. Sooner or later he will have to pay. He's! He earns two thousand yuan a month. No matter what, I have a daily headache for this matter. But I'm fine. It's just a bit of a mental disorder. Rest assured. I'm fine. ”

Aladdin dug out a clump of turnip leaves from the salad bowl and placed it on Audleine's plate.

"What do you do with a tractor over there in the gravel pit?" I looked for you for half an hour. ”

"I was thinking," she said, "that strong deer might be repaired." Just a little bit of a whole one. Earlier that day she climbed into the cockpit and sat in her seat, feeling extremely excited.

"That damn thing, don't think I'll spend a dime more." It has never been aura. ”

"I buy the parts at my own expense. I don't know, maybe it's a stupid idea. I just want to fix it. ”

"That machine went wrong from day one. Damn Maurice Gargaka was done off, don't think about hitting the road in the future. We dragged that thing to Dig Yount, who replaced some wires, cleared the tank, blew the tubing, moved ten other parts, and rebuilt the carburetor. Then something went wrong with the other parts. Every time they fix it, something else burns out. What they sold me was rotten goods. I went to the dealership and argued with them, and eventually they admitted that it was a rotten car. Give me preferential treatment and buy that Keyes. That one is truly durable. You know, that forty-thirty-thirty ah, in the end, there was only a pile of broken iron. "He was eating a rotisserie. He thought for a moment and said, "If you have time—I can fix it for you." Dragged into that cabin with the blue door. Move a stove and connect the water pipes. "He imagined himself waking up in the dark on a winter morning, his family still sleeping, going outside to make a fire, raising a little smoke, loosening the rusty screws with comfortable warmth, cleaning up the filthy parts, big nails, screws, screws, screw caps, soaking in a basin with kerosene, waiting for dawn to start the day's business." Drag her over tomorrow. ”

"It's 'him'." Audrey said.

"If you can't fix it," old Red said, "you can't fix what you want." ”

"Well," she said as she walked toward the tractor, "we're going to move you into that blue-door cabin for surgery." My dad wants to help me fix it, you better be 100% quiet, otherwise there will be no singing. ”

"What's my problem, want to know?" Brake. The drive belt is broken, the pulley is cracked, the motor does not move, every part rusts to failure, mud, dirt, jacks need to be replaced with new ones, the water pump is broken, the cam bearing is broken, the lead seal is broken, the magneto, AC power reimbursement - look inside the clutch and know that it is a nightmare. The clutch plate needs to be adjusted, to replace the tie rod ball head, the closed oil line fails, the transmission gear set is ruined, the front axle bushing, spindle bushing, all are out of order, there is no cure, I want to talk about differential gears, it takes fifteen minutes just to list the parts. Transmission clutch jumping, other places are fully braided. I don't want your smelly dad to fix me. He repaired it, and I still have this virtue. ”

"It's different now. Anyway, the main thing is that I am repairing. The person who did it was me. Which gear does the transmission clutch jump? ”

"You? Repair tractors, what do you understand? I don't want you to fix me. I want you to take me to Dig Yount—he's the tractor man. Repairing tractors must be handed over to men, not women. First and third gears. ”

"Don't pick and choose. I told you, I didn't take home economics classes in middle school. I studied mechanical technology and got a B grade. First and third gears, right? The lead seal on the brake piston of the low-speed gear is worn out, and it is more likely that the disc brakes are almost worn out. She bought a jar of penetrating lubricating oil beforehand, sprayed it on the tacks, screws and caps, and tapped the rusty screws with a heavy-duty wrench.

"If you mess around, don't blame me for hurting you."

"You, if I were you, just lie down and enjoy it." This is what Hal Bloom said.

The rains ceased in September and the savannah began to wither yellow. A few days of heat followed, then the weather cooled down, and the storm swept in early from the northwest, casting flakes of snow before they could dismember the tractor into frames, motors and gearboxes.

"It seems that the engine crane must come in." Aladdin said while coughing. The first night of heavy snow, he was drunk and unconscious, sleeping in a pickup truck with the windows unrolled up and snowflakes hitting him directly. He woke up shaking all over, drove home, and realized that he had finished his coffee, so he had to drink a glass of cold boiled water and tell Wanneta that he didn't want breakfast. Before noon, he developed a fever, had difficulty breathing, and rested in bed.

"Coughing like that, it was so loud that I wanted to jump into the water. I can't swim," said old Red, "and it's better to suffocate him." ”

"I wanted to suffocate someone else," Wannetta said, "and I knew it was going to happen." Sleeping in a truck. "Aspirin, hot compresses, drinking plenty of water, steam drapery, hot tea, were her therapies, but they didn't work. Aladdin was tormented by the dry heat he generated.

"What time is tomorrow?" He said as he twirled his dull aching head on the hot pillow.

"Friday."

"Bring my calendar." Mindlessly, his eyes studied the scribbled record and wanted to call Audleine over.

"She went out to feed the animals. It was snowing wet outside, freezing into a hard layer, and the animals could not eat any grass. This weekend should pick up. ”

"Damn," he whispered, "she called her over when she came in the door." He was shaking and retching.

Snowflakes fell on Aladdin's Big Case tractor, and Audleen sat in it, forking large bales of hay with a hydraulic forklift. According to this snowing situation, it will probably fall until June. At noon she drove home, hungry and eager to eat cheese macaroni. She let the Case tractor idle.

"Your dad is looking for you." Wanneta said. Lunch is beef and soft round cakes. Audrey takes a pickled cucumber from a carved glass dinner plate.

She crept into her parents' bedroom. She couldn't stand the patient, afraid to look at the bloodshot eyeballs and swollen face, but she didn't know where to focus.

"Well," he said, "tomorrow is the first Friday of the month." I made an appointment for Amendinger to come at eight. If I don't improve," he coughed until it turned dry, "you'll have to fight him, take him outside, and he can take it to see what we have and make you an offer." "Amendinge is a cow buyer, with a dark complexion, dark eye bags, and a black beard that jumps down to his chin, like a two-man diving performance. He used to wear a black shirt and a black hat, giving people the feeling of being incapable of changing decision-making and stubbornness in control. He lacks a sense of humor and every farmer curses at him behind his back.

"Dad, I'm afraid of dying that person. He's going to take advantage of me. He would open a low price, and I would be intimidated by him and promise to sell. Why not go to your mother? No one dares to take advantage of her. ”

"Because you understand livestock, she doesn't. If Taylor was home—alas, he wasn't. You are my good cowboy daughter. You don't have to say anything. Just take him around, listen to how much he offers, and say we'll contact him again. He knew that Amendinger was used to closing deals on the spot, and there was no possibility of contacting him afterwards, "I'm getting better, I'm going to buy an airplane I've been considering buying." The farm is so big that it can only be managed by flying a plane. The truck is useless, only the windows and the like. ”

"I can bring him in to you, Dad."

"No one except my family was allowed to see me lying flat. Damn it. He coughed, "Life is not like this, first the money is gone, and then even the clothes are stripped naked." ”

That night was her hardest night, waking up in the morning groggy and in a bad mood. The snow stopped, blowing the Chenook warm wind [Chenook warm wind, the warm wind blowing down the eastern slopes of the Rocky Mountains. ]。 The plain has been left with no grass, and the shrinking snow remains in the bent depressions of the ground. They still have no coffee to brew. Aladdin was panting upstairs.

"It's not a good situation." Wanneta said.

At eight o'clock, the cattle seller had not yet arrived. Audrey ate two oatmeal cookies, a second slice of ham, and drank a glass of milk. After nine o'clock, the black truck of the cattle buyer drove into the yard. Reaching for the papers, Armendinger black hat bent down. Three hounds were carried in the back of the truck. He got out of the car with a notepad in his hand and had already begun typing numbers on the computer. Audrey walked out the door.

Not the cattle buyer Amendinge, but his son Frebbe Amendinge, with thick nostrils and a fat body, his bearded chin naturally divided into left and right halves, and his movements were as quiet as three in the morning.

"Is Mr. Tui home?" He asked, looking at his leather boots.

"I'll show you around the animals," she said, "and he's sick with influenza or something." We thought you'd be over at eight. We thought your dad was coming. ”

"I missed two or three turns. My dad went to Hoyt. He pulled a newspaper clipping from his shirt pocket and it was an advertisement: Amendinger & Sons Livestock Dealership, "I've been doing business with my dad for almost nine years, and I probably know a little about the art of doing business now." ”

"I'm not saying you don't understand," she said, "I'm glad it's you." I'm afraid of your dad's beard. She imagined him driving down the red road to the farm. The red road is like a thick red marker drawn on the map, cutting the circle of the horizon.

"I was terribly scared when I was a child." He looked at the porch, the house, the wedding wheat, the Blue Door cabin.

"Well," she said, "I'll show you around." ”

"It's time to cut that pile of wheat." He said.

She drove while he stared into the distance, the horizon looming beneath the cow's belly. The car jolted across the pasture, and the dust filled the cockpit, forming a fine and crystalline dust mist, as if the thoughts in the hearts of the two emanated and could merge into audible statements. He opened the bar door. Audrey thanked him, and then counted the advantages of the herd, which were strong and lean, with straight legs, bulging ribs and eyes on both sides of the spine, and a majestic physique. He muttered to a cow with a coarse front and a gelding-like appearance, then pointed out several geldings with flat waists and sickle-shaped tarsal joints. He counts and takes notes while adding or subtracting numbers, offering a fair price.

"You girl is so smart and sensible," he said, "although she is a little richer, she looks really standard." Would you like to drink beer? ”

For the rest of the morning, Audrey and Fleibay continued to drink bottled beer. Freibai describes how lonely his days as the son of a cattle buyer were, narrating in a sad tone, accompanied by long, flat gestures. He left at noon.

She leaned against the bedroom door frame and explained the offer figure to Aladdin. He was groggy and hot, and the hot tea made his bladder swollen and painful, and he nodded and said yes. OK. He doesn't need a computer to calculate every penny. The price was fine, although sad, but also relieved. As for his own situation, it is not okay.

That night, old Red slept lightly and woke up to hear a hissing sound he was afraid to hear. His heart was beating wildly, and he got up and felt dark to the storage room window. The filthy moonlight pierced the fragmented clouds and shone on the wielding blade of the long-handled scythe. This time it was not the Grim Reaper who came to summon him, but a man in a black hat, chopping the wedding wheat fiercely, cutting until the end of each row before stopping, binge-drinking the contents of the bottle. He saw his granddaughter Audrey's mouth wide open, her white teeth shining like a mica stone bed, leaning against the door frame of the Blue Door Cottage. She took a piece of oil-stained metal and threw it into the sky, twisted it when she landed, and then bent down to pick up another piece and send it to the sky.

Old Red watched from the sidelines, and had a bottom in his heart. "I've brought cattle. I was a cowboy. Work since childhood. Driven over cattle and sheep. The man is still alive, standing up straight on both legs, and his energy is more exuberant than that of a dog that has grown two old men. My life is not over yet. ”

Taylor and Sansa are fighting for their future in the distance, and Audrey and her tractor are here. He didn't want to waste his saliva laughing.

The wedding takes place in September with a grand picnic under the tent of the Amendinge Cattle Selling Conference, with red and white stripes casting a flush and a telescopic table in the side courtyard with roast pork, braised sloin, lamb kebabs, calf testicles, sweet corn, Taylor's homemade prawns dipped in tomato sauce, burritos, buckets of pickled cucumbers, melons, Oregon ripe peaches, and a three-storey wedding cake decorated with light blue frosting with mini plastic bulls and cows. It was a hot and sunny day, and the Redwall Mountain trembled on the horizon. Forty thirty lay outside the fence, the parts dismantled, and only the frame remained, placed where Aladdin was dragged, sleeping sideways among the mountain worm bushes. Wannetta was sobbing not because her daughter was going to get married, but because the wheat had been cut off from the waist. Taylor inspected the farm and gave him an unhappy look. Everything has gotten smaller and shabby. How could he have wanted these things before? He had a cell phone and sat on his horse to talk to someone far away. Wannetta told Sansa that she planned to visit Las Vegas one day.

"If I can be the master, you can't go." Aladdin said.

Guests pulled folding chairs forward and backward to sit, and as Audrey smoothed the rayon satin dress at her knees, she felt the sand and saw the shimmering dust stuck in the weft. The barbecue sauce dripped on the chest. Finally, she changed into new aqua-green pants and was driven by Frebble Armendinger for a four-day honeymoon between motels in Nebraska.

Where wheat used to grow, a row of dog houses has now been built. Two trucks stopped in the driveway. While the box-spring bed upstairs sang, old Redba in the storage room downstairs was deaf. The rest is business as usual.

Aladdin applied for a loan from the bank to buy another plane. "I said I would buy it if God spared my life." He dreamed of a 1948 Aelon Kasedang, with loose parts, a large cockpit, feminine curves and a cracked crankcase. He bought an undamaged crankcase at Donald's denim scrapyard and replaced it.

"It's so spacious inside, if necessary, you can carry two calves, several bales of hay, cakes, almost anything, even Audleine can carry it, haha."

The bank approved his loan. One quiet, gray morning, when the wind subsided, Aladdin started the truck, drove halfway out of the driveway, reversed, stopped, and went into the kitchen. Old Red dipped the toast in coffee and ate it.

"I'm going to drive the plane home," he said, "and it's going to land in the triangle pasture." I'll be grateful if you all come over there and watch me fly. You're the same, lad. He said to his son-in-law.

"I'm going to see Trivi's cows this morning." Fleibe Amendinger did not like to live under the command of Aladdin Tuy. At night he complained to Audleen that Aladdin was worse than his bearded father.

"My pulley doesn't fit his pulley set." He whispered.

"Mine works well together." She whispered back.

"Call Trivi. Let's just say you come later. He wouldn't care at all. I would like to see everyone waving below. To get another plane in this damn place is worth celebrating. I had to teach Audrey to fly. ”

Halfway through the morning, they heard the rumble of the engine.

"Mom!" Audrey shouted into the house, "He's here." ”

Wannetta went out and stood with Audrey and Frebai, staring at the horizon. Old Red limped up to the porch. The wind turned fierce, and the strong wind gusts brought a chill, and the lines of the distant mountains dotted the withered plain with a sultry red. Wannetta rushed back into the house to add a jacket.

The plane flew overhead, flew towards the red wall, turned around, and flew in their direction, the altitude was greatly reduced. The plane flew over twenty feet above the ground. The smoke of homemade tobacco filled the cabin, and Aladdin's head loomed in the smoke. The plane went up, swayed in the wind, flew horizontally after a steep rise, shrunk to a small point in the distance, turned back and flew towards the farm, turning and gliding, flying lower and lower. From a certain point of view, it looks like a signboard in the sky.

"He's showing off." Wanneta said. She watched the plane roar at low altitude, like an airplane spraying pesticides.

"I guess he's going to land," Fleibay said, "or trying to check the dirt." Otherwise, they want to set up piles to mark the boundaries of the farm's commons. ”

"He's showing off. He, I know best. You give me down! Wannetta yelled at the plane.

As if obeying her orders, the plane touched the ground and kicked up a large amount of dust, bounced back into the air, made two amazing jumps, and then the revolver jammed the iron frame of the abandoned tractor, crashed face down, crumpled into a mixture of cloth, metal and farmer's mud, and then the explosion made a loud sound like engine backfire, but there was no flame. Spherical dust.

Fleibay dragged Aladdin to safety. The father-in-law's neck softened at an unusual angle.

"He's dead, I guess. I guess he died. Yes, he died. His neck was broken. ”

Wannetta screamed.

"It's all you," Audrey told her, "you killed him." ”

"Me! Cutting the wheat will cause this kind of thing. ”

"He asked for it." Old Red called out from the porch. How things had to develop, he saw clearly. They will plant Aladdin. Audrey and her scythes will take over the farm. Wannetta would pack her bags and drive to the slot world [referring to Las Vegas]. ]。 As soon as she drove out of the horizon, he planned to move out of the storage room and back upstairs. The most important thing in life is the ability to endure. He is hard proof: stand for a long time, and one day it will be your turn to sit down.

Translated by Song Yingtang