The Wild Girl Read Online Free Page A
made no move to accept his offering.
The old man studied her, finally nodded. “No, I don’t suppose I’ll get you down out of that tree until I put the dogs up, will I?” he said.
He folded the tortilla and honeycomb back up in the wax paper and slipped it into the breast pocket of his shirt. Then he turned to the mule and pulled his dog chains from a saddlebag. He led the dogs lower down the slope to a grove of mesquite saplings, where he tethered each in turn to a tree.
“All right, little missy,” he said, coming back up to the girl, “come on down out of that tree. Dogs won’t harm you now.” He slipped the tortilla out his pocket and waved it toward her, making it clear that if she wanted it she would have to come down for it.
She looked at the tortilla, then at Flowers, then at the dogs. He held it up again. “Come, have a little bite to eat,” he said, talking mainly for the comfort of hearing his own voice, in the same way that he often spoke to his dogs, who were for months at a time his only companions, addressing them just as if they were people and understood his every word. “Dogs are put up, child. I’m not going to hurt you.”
Without taking her eyes from him, the girl began to climb out of the tree, dropping quiet as a spirit from the lowest limb to the ground, the tatters of her dress fluttering faintly with a sound like distant birds on the wing. Flowers couldn’t help but notice the wild grace of her movement, a kind of otherworldliness, in the same way that the coyote and the wolf have a gait so distinct from that of the domestic dog.
“Won’t do you any good to try to run off,” he warned her. “I’ll let them loose after you again, and this time they catch you they’ll tear your heart out.” He reached out the tortilla to the girl, but still she made no move to take it from him. “I will give you a shirt to wear, child,” he said, vaguely unsettled by the unfamiliar sight of the girl’s small brown breasts visible through her shredded dress. “You’re practically naked. And by
God Almighty,
I am told that I’m a strongly aromatic fellow myself, having only rare opportunity to bathe, but you child, yours is an unholy scent. You stink like a beast of the wilds. It is no wonder that my dogs took you for a varmint.”
The girl watched him, her eyes so dark that they appeared black, the sclera itself coffee-colored, an anatomical difference for which the “White Eyes” had gained their name. Billy Flowers had known some Apaches over the years; he had trailed game through their reservations in Arizona and New Mexico, and in general he found them to be a squalid, indolent sort, given to drink and gaming, a people for whose salvation he held out scant hope. But this child was different, untamed and of an earlier race of man altogether, a prehistoric being.
“I’m afraid that the Good Lord has his work cut out with you, young lady,” Flowers said. Then he turned back toward his mule to fetch his shirt with which to cover the heathen girl’s nakedness.
THE NOTEBOOKS OF NED GILES, 1932
7 DECEMBER, 1999
Albuquerque, New Mexico
A man’s memory is the faultiest of instruments, vulnerable to retrospection and revisionism, altered by age and distance, skewed by heartbreak, disappointment, and vanity, tainted always by the inconsolable hope that the past was somehow different than we really knew it to be. This is why memoirs are always, by definition, false. But a photograph never lies. I think it is what attracted me to the form originally. My own memory is largely visual, the years and decades of my life defined by images, hundreds of thousands of photographs taken over the past half century, although what has become of most of them I could not say. It hardly matters anymore; I don’t need to look at the images themselves in order to remember, for they live on perfectly preserved in my mind; I can see the light and composition of
The old man studied her, finally nodded. “No, I don’t suppose I’ll get you down out of that tree until I put the dogs up, will I?” he said.
He folded the tortilla and honeycomb back up in the wax paper and slipped it into the breast pocket of his shirt. Then he turned to the mule and pulled his dog chains from a saddlebag. He led the dogs lower down the slope to a grove of mesquite saplings, where he tethered each in turn to a tree.
“All right, little missy,” he said, coming back up to the girl, “come on down out of that tree. Dogs won’t harm you now.” He slipped the tortilla out his pocket and waved it toward her, making it clear that if she wanted it she would have to come down for it.
She looked at the tortilla, then at Flowers, then at the dogs. He held it up again. “Come, have a little bite to eat,” he said, talking mainly for the comfort of hearing his own voice, in the same way that he often spoke to his dogs, who were for months at a time his only companions, addressing them just as if they were people and understood his every word. “Dogs are put up, child. I’m not going to hurt you.”
Without taking her eyes from him, the girl began to climb out of the tree, dropping quiet as a spirit from the lowest limb to the ground, the tatters of her dress fluttering faintly with a sound like distant birds on the wing. Flowers couldn’t help but notice the wild grace of her movement, a kind of otherworldliness, in the same way that the coyote and the wolf have a gait so distinct from that of the domestic dog.
“Won’t do you any good to try to run off,” he warned her. “I’ll let them loose after you again, and this time they catch you they’ll tear your heart out.” He reached out the tortilla to the girl, but still she made no move to take it from him. “I will give you a shirt to wear, child,” he said, vaguely unsettled by the unfamiliar sight of the girl’s small brown breasts visible through her shredded dress. “You’re practically naked. And by
God Almighty,
I am told that I’m a strongly aromatic fellow myself, having only rare opportunity to bathe, but you child, yours is an unholy scent. You stink like a beast of the wilds. It is no wonder that my dogs took you for a varmint.”
The girl watched him, her eyes so dark that they appeared black, the sclera itself coffee-colored, an anatomical difference for which the “White Eyes” had gained their name. Billy Flowers had known some Apaches over the years; he had trailed game through their reservations in Arizona and New Mexico, and in general he found them to be a squalid, indolent sort, given to drink and gaming, a people for whose salvation he held out scant hope. But this child was different, untamed and of an earlier race of man altogether, a prehistoric being.
“I’m afraid that the Good Lord has his work cut out with you, young lady,” Flowers said. Then he turned back toward his mule to fetch his shirt with which to cover the heathen girl’s nakedness.
THE NOTEBOOKS OF NED GILES, 1932
7 DECEMBER, 1999
Albuquerque, New Mexico
A man’s memory is the faultiest of instruments, vulnerable to retrospection and revisionism, altered by age and distance, skewed by heartbreak, disappointment, and vanity, tainted always by the inconsolable hope that the past was somehow different than we really knew it to be. This is why memoirs are always, by definition, false. But a photograph never lies. I think it is what attracted me to the form originally. My own memory is largely visual, the years and decades of my life defined by images, hundreds of thousands of photographs taken over the past half century, although what has become of most of them I could not say. It hardly matters anymore; I don’t need to look at the images themselves in order to remember, for they live on perfectly preserved in my mind; I can see the light and composition of
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