Inland

by Téa Obreht

  “For instance,” Jolly said. “I was born Filip Tedro. But when I got to Mecca my name became Ali Mostafa. By making the pilgrimage, I was allowed to call myself a hadji. So: Hadji Ali.”

  “Hadji Ali.”

  “But hadji is an honorific, Misafir. You see?”

  I turned this over for some time. It was all gusting through me: not just Mostar—not just my father’s birthplace, that tumble of stone houses and the green of the river I couldn’t recall, but his own name, too, unthought-of for so long and dredged now from the blackest loam of my mind. Hadziosman Djurić.

  I pulled it into its separate pieces.

  Hadziosman Djurić. Hadziosman.

  “Who’s that?” Jolly wanted to know.

  “My father, I think.”

  “Hadji Osman?” He grinned at me as though we’d just struck a lode the breadth of Texas. “But Misafir—are you a Turk, after all?”

  MIDDAY

  AMARGO

  Arizona Territory, 1893

  AFTER YEARS WITH SANTA ANNA’S militias, Rey Ruiz’s father was galled to find the very wars he fought had shifted the border south of his own holdings. Anglo officers stood in the plazas of his childhood haunts insisting he would be permitted to keep what was his. Convinced of Mexico’s imminent repossession of the territory, he stayed put in this loathsome new republic and raised Rey up with a robust feeling of vergüenza that lingered long after the old man had gone to God. When Desma met him on her way west, Rey was hurrying the stragglers of his family’s decimated herd out of Chiricahuan territory and beginning to doubt his father’s convictions. Mexico was embattled, bust. It didn’t seem likely to come back for the people lost to its most recent defeat. So he and Desma traveled three hundred miles in each other’s company. He found her no stranger to pistoleros. The men of her family had led ambuscades all over the Macedon. When he recounted a hazy childhood memory of sitting at the kitchen table while soldiers bayoneted sacks of flour and his father hid up the chimney, Desma said, “And did your mother then prepare them a meal so splendid they never noticed she hadn’t warmed a single pot over the fire?” as though she had lived it herself.

  When they got to the Río Rojo, they staked adjoining plots and went a further seven years pretending to be strangers, proving up side by side while Amargo grew up around them. Rey, having studied the yanqui bootheel from below all his life, had finally alighted on the means by which to adjust the vantage. He built a reputation as the surest water-witch in six counties. He fenced off his length of the creek and started charging herders and travelers to water at the breaks. Effortfully, he crushed within himself all lingering vestiges of his grandmother’s belief that farming was a weak man’s work. By the time Nora and Emmett came bumbling in, the Ruizes were only just married, pillars of the camp and stewards of a combined 320 creekfront acres.

  “That’s a fair bit,” Emmett had observed rather nervously during one of their tentative early suppers. “Won’t every man coming this way try and take it from you?”

  “Do you reckon that’d be a change from what my people grown used to?”

  Rey’s people were Mexicans and Quechans. But depending on both day and grievance, the unknown tendrils of his line might expand to accommodate fellow sufferers of Navajo and Pueblo and Yavapai blood. Even Apache sometimes—so long as the target of their raids was some inept yanqui river fort and not a fatherless ranch.

  He had taught Nora and Emmett about the importance of the clerical offensive. One must always know the whereabouts of all paperwork and be able to produce evidence of any agreement, any exchange of goods or services, at a moment’s notice. Nothing pleased Rey more than confusing inspectors and fellow citizens with his organization. This went hand in hand with Desma’s own proclivity toward order, which extended well beyond housekeeping. The last decade of her life had been given over to subduing every unruly inch of range that adjoined her homestead. It had been a stealthy undertaking. Every year, the wagon road near her place just happened to get a little less crooked. The flowers happened to get a little less wild, the trees a little more uniform, until columns of cypress were growing three abreast all the way down to the bottomland, where her outbuildings sat huddled on the south fork of the Río Rojo, currently a mudsmear that caught the light in such a way that it looked, for a hopeful moment, like clear water.

  Desma’s foreyard was deserted save for a handful of chickens and Goatie, Amargo’s most vaunted citizen, presently enjoying a dustbath. She had first appeared half a lifetime ago in one of Rey’s rabbit snares: a small, fat thing with a scrub-brush hackle and a white blaze down her face. That she was of caprine aspect was undeniable—but here town consensus ended. She was so small, and made such a strange racket. Nobody could prove that she was really a goat, and nobody could prove that she was really a sheep. Presented at the county fair on Desma’s whim, she had triumphed in both designations, bringing gawkers from all over the territory to debate this crucial point while she tottered primly around at Rey’s heels. The appearance of her photograph in the wilderness society newsletter had eventually brought a Prescott bigman to town. He insinuated, among other things, that Goatie was no more than a hoax, and further compounded this mistake by suggesting that the only way to prove otherwise was by necropsy—to which Rey responded by beating him, in Desma’s words, “till he couldn’t see God,” an incident the Sentinel neglected to mention, but the Clarion decried for weeks.

  At the height of Goatie’s fame, Rob and Dolan had practically lived at this house. Picture them: six and five, begging to bathe her, walk her into town, sleep in the barn loft overlooking her pen. Did Rob, now, remember warning every passerby that she was a chupacabra, until he half-believed it himself? Could Dolan recall selling wilted greens out of a crate to spare pilgrims the disgrace of meeting her empty-handed? The only Lark to visit her of late had been Toby—who, though fond of her, had never held her in as high esteem as his brothers had, for by the time of his birth she had already shocked everyone by growing up to become a burro.

  And what an obvious burro she was—ornery and old now, thirteen, fourteen, perhaps even fifteen years gone since her county fair debutante days. White with age now and potbellied, and evidently as wedded to her particularities as any dowager, for all it took to bring her indignantly to her feet was a few shouts of Desma’s name.

  When Nora went on calling, Goatie shook herself out and stormed off behind the house.

  Perhaps by some stroke of luck Desma might be out after all, and the questions that needed facing could be held off for another day. But that scenario hid another unwelcome concession: no elk steaks for supper.

  Nora braved the house and called up the stairs. The landing was dark. Ordinarily there could only be one cause for prevailing silence at the Ruiz residence—which would continue, to the embarrassment of unexpected visitors, for however long Desma and Rey required to get themselves decent and out of whatever hayloft or wheelbarrow they had fallen into together when the passion struck them.

  But that wouldn’t be the case now. It would never be the case again. That was the funny thing about death. The wake of its altered mundanities could keep surprising you long after it had swept through.

  The fusty damp of the kitchen—worsened considerably by the stovefire’s dying heat—was probably owed to the mountain of vegetables that muddied the kitchen table. What extravagant waste, Nora thought. Beets and turnips everywhere. But—damnably, maddeningly—not a drop of water in sight. An empty basin sat on the table. The coffeepot was cold. Inside slapped the black dregs of this or yesterday morning’s brew, the sight of which made her so dizzy with thirst she could have tipped the grounds down her throat. And why not? There was nobody watching, nobody here or upstairs or outside the wide-flung rear door through which she could see the back field.

  Everything out there struck her as suddenly brown—as though the distant river had swallowed the immediate plan
e, where flowers and bright-spouting leaves ought to be. The garden had been all churned up. New fenceposts, pink and indecent, retreated uphill alongside the old, which were busted up in one, no, two places—right at the side of the house, and then further down by the shore.

  And there was Desma after all, walking uphill and away, a distant speck of black and orange against the woodshed. Nora shouted after her again, but succeeded only in earning another derisive stare from Goatie.

  Now that she knew where Desma was, she could at least brace herself for what was to come. She felt better about it, somehow. There was a difference, however small, between calling upon somebody on home ground and ambushing them there. She would at least have the element of surprise, a chance now to think about what she might say.

  She fell back to the kitchen. The fire had a little life in it yet, and for a hopeful moment she lifted the lid off the cookpot. But no water there, either: only a little island of parched cornmeal stuck to the scarred bottom of the pot. That was how Desma had got so thin, she thought. Cooking so little now that Rey was gone and leaving little islands of food day after day. And what did she intend to do with all these vegetables, weirdly green and underripe? How strange of her to harvest so many and leave them strewn about like this.

  Do you reckon she tore everything up in a rage, Mama?

  Desma? God no. The only thing that galls that woman more than Merrion Crace is a disordered house.

  That’s why I love it so here.

  It’s easy to keep order when there’s not three boys and a New York orphan running your place down.

  Sure, but you don’t have the Stock Association haranguing you and calling you whore in the paper, either.

  What’s that got to do with housekeeping? I mean only that if Desma had her way, the world would work in perfect symmetry or not at all.

  Maybe that’s as it should be. Not like our place.

  Well, you can damn well stay here, then. I’m sure Desma would welcome the company, and God knows there’s enough beets here to feed the whole town twice over.

  Wouldn’t it be something if she was having a party, Mama? And you weren’t invited?

  Teach me to rattle off in the paper.

  I don’t think she’s read it.

  She certainly has.

  I don’t think so, Mama. Look.

  There it was. Right in the middle of the kindling crate, between the stove and Desma’s knitting chair. It took Nora a moment to recognize it—but the inferior paperstock was unmistakable, and there sat the telltale mutilated A of the Ash River Clarion’s AUCTION section.

  Seeing it jolted her as though she’d met the eye of some co-conspirator she had never expected to see again.

  Don’t look like she’s read it at all, Mama.

  Oh, she’s read it all right.

  But suppose she hadn’t? It was Rey’s habit to devour the news; Desma was more likely to just get around to bits of it whenever she could. Papers, having survived his wringing and over-gesticulation, were relegated to the kindling pile, strategically placed beside Desma’s chair so that she might peel pages off into the fire as she read them. A strange habit that confounded Emmett—for what if she had cause to revisit a column, or desire to remember some event she wanted to attend or item she wanted to buy?

  Desma found this notion laughable. “Where the hell do I go, Emmett?” she’d say. “What the hell do I buy?”

  How often had they sat here, in this very parlor, while she mended trousers on that very chair with her half-moons slung low and laughed her way through the description of some corset or iron before feeding it to the fire?

  Yet there it was, the offending daily, sitting insolent and intact in the middle of the pile and offering by its very existence the most absolute proof of having gone unread.

  If she’d read it, Evelyn said, wouldn’t it have already burned?

  Perhaps she’s kept it to confront me with.

  Come now, Mama.

  It just seems impossible.

  Surely it’s easy enough to tell if a paper’s been handled or not, Evelyn pointed out.

  Perhaps it was inevitable that Nora’s attempt to edge out this solitary sheaf should send the whole stack spilling to the floor—but neither Nora nor Evelyn had foreseen this. On all fours now, prairie-dogging to keep an eye on the woodshed, Nora shoveled papers back toward the kindling crate. What looked like recently arrived letters surely belonged at the top of the pile—but then there were the undated envelopes; the scraps of script on which no legible date was evident, but the misplacement of which Desma would certainly note. To make matters worse, every time she righted things, she spotted more stray pages that had flurried away, some under the table, others beneath the footstool, both within crawling distance, but in opposite directions, so that she had to scuttle back and forth like a beetle.

  Hurry, Mama.

  Desma was coming back. Struggling under an armful of new fenceposts, she would need three minutes, perhaps more, to come in sight of the open door and Nora’s guilty red face.

  Nora got the Clarion out from under the stovebox and opened it. This copy was creased once, only in half, and seemed to have suffered none of the damage that befell papers passed from hand to hand—the worn-out corners and cup rings and sticky vestiges of meals. Perhaps such things did not befall papers delivered to a house devoid of men and boys. Perhaps papers in widows’ households maintained only that single, primordial seam.

  Or perhaps she just hasn’t read it, Mama!

  That’s not possible.

  It would be too immense a stroke of fortune. She glanced outside. Here came Desma with the strides of some Amazon, stout and sunburnt, bosomed like the prow of a ship and crowned with that glorious detonation of hair into which white lines had recently begun to intrude.

  Lord, but she moves fast.

  Are you going to take the paper?

  Don’t be ridiculous.

  If she hasn’t read it yet, Mama, she needn’t ever.

  She’ll hear all about it around town. If she hasn’t already.

  But the author, Mama. Town gossip won’t tell her it’s you.

  When Nora looked up again, the fenceposts had dropped from Desma’s hands. In their place was the derringer out of Desma’s pocket, useless at this distance but leveled at the open door as though it might drop a bird at two hundred yards with lethal accuracy.

  “Who’s there?” Desma shouted. “Come out, you’re stood down!”

  “It’s me, it’s only Nora!” She waved her free arm.

  “Who?” And then, after a few moments, Desma put it all together. “Praise God.” She stood awhile with her hand on her chest. “I thought: here they’ve come now in broad daylight and me without the rifle like a right fool.”

  Nora babbled reassurances—no, no, it was just herself, sure.

  “I suppose you’re here for the steaks?”

  “Only if you’ve a few to spare.”

  “I ain’t gone hunting this week, Nora.”

  This felt punitive. But it was unlike Desma to lie.

  Nora gestured to the deluge. “What’s all this?”

  “As you see.”

  What was the meaning of that? A rebuke? Quarrel didn’t seem to be in the immediate offing—but neither did an embrace, nor a smile. If only she could remember how Desma greeted her on any ordinary day. Her fingernail tasted of salt. “Do you need help?”

  But Desma only waved her off. “Help yourself to what’s left of the coffee. I’ll be along in a minute.”

  And as the woman outside dropped from crouch to crouch to gather up the jackknifed fenceposts, Nora tipped the stove lid open and dropped the Clarion inside. For a blinding, terrifying moment, she watched it strike the ash on the cold end of the stove, and she thought it might not catch. But then a tiny wisp of flame sprang to l
ife along its edge. The fire did its work, and she replaced the lid.

  Her heart was still staggering a little when Desma swept in. “What are you standing around for? You waiting on me to put out the good silver?”

  “I’m surprised you think there’s any left—I been waiting on you unchaperoned a full ten minutes, and this here’s my roomiest thievin’ skirt.” Nora lifted her hem and swished a little from side to side.

  “At least you left the vegetables.”

  This was better. Here was the Desma she recognized. Desma, whose eyes were always this flat, always this mirthless—perhaps especially when she was feeling mirthful.

  “I wouldn’t want the folks invited to whatever feast you’re planning to go hungry.”

  “I’m dissolving my garden.”

  “You look to be fortifying it—that’s a hell of a lot of new fence.”

  “I doubt it’ll do much to keep in what belongs to me and keep out what don’t.”

  “Deer?”

  “One of Crace’s men.” Desma opened the coffeepot and made a face and began looking around. Nora allowed herself to hope that a water bucket might appear from someplace. “I caught them this time. Saw them with my own eyes, horse and rider just yonder. Though not till they’d ate most of my cabbages.”

  “Good,” Nora risked. “With yours out of the running, maybe the rest of us will have hope at the harvest fair this year.”

  Desma didn’t laugh. Nora took her hand. “Let me help.”

  Fence-raising went no faster with both of them at work. She grappled each post to the instructed angle while Desma grimaced through a mouthful of nails and bent to the hammering. The blows set a garble of panic through Nora’s chest.

  They moved into the field. Here and there, massacred beets leered up from between the furrows.