To the west?
Generally speaking, it goes west all the way along the mountain, or more precisely, it goes southwest. This is the trade route in the former Indian era.
Thank you, Inman said, putting his thumb into the shoulder strap of his backpack and preparing to continue on his way, but suddenly it began to rain in the low sky. The rain was heavy and heavy like a lead bullet.
The woman stretched out a hand and watched the raindrops converge in the palm of her hand, then looked up at him. Inman’s wound was not bandaged. She observed it for a moment and said that it looked like a gunshot wound.
Inman has something to say
You look weak, she said, and your face went white.
I’m fine, Inman said
The woman looked at it carefully again. He said that you seemed hungry and should eat something.
You can fry me an egg and I’ll pay you, Inman said
what
I wonder if I can pay you to fry some eggs for me, Inman said
I sold it to you, and she said, forget it. I’m not that poor. I’ll give you a meal, but I can’t stand living with chickens. They are the most soulless things.
Do you live near?
It’s less than a mile. I’d be honored if you would like to come for dinner and spend the night.
Fools don’t want to.
Inman followed her and noticed her walking style. It is said that Indians usually do this. Although Inman knew many Cherokee people, including swimming, with foreign characters like ducks, they climbed over a corner. There were flat boulders in front of them. Inman felt as if he was walking on the edge of a cliff. The thin air table was already high, but the line of sight was covered by fog to distinguish high and low rain. Finally, it became thin and thin, and the snow particles suddenly fell hard. They stopped watching the snow, but it snowed for a moment, and then pieces of white fog were lifted up by air. Blue sky appeared in the clouds. Inman
Then he bowed his head and suddenly felt dizzy, and the world suddenly appeared in front of him. He was indeed at the edge of a cliff. Inman quickly stepped back and saw a long blue-purple valley. It was from there that he crawled all the way and vomited a mouthful of phlegm. It was estimated that he would hit the place where he had walked the day before yesterday. On the left, there were high cliffs. Inman looked around, and suddenly he was surprised. The fog scattered in the west and there was a rocky towering mountain. The sun shot from a cloud seam and suddenly hung a curtain-like ladder on Inman’s blue mountain. The right wall of the mountain was like an old man with a beard leaning against
The name of that mountain? He asked.
The woman in Tanavana said that’s what Indians call it.
Inman looked at the huge Laorenshan, then looked at the smaller mountains behind it, gradually disappearing in the smog, and the undulating mountains in the southwest sky seemed endless. The colors of the farthest peaks were slightly darker than the gray gas. These ghostly and illusory mountains seemed to tell Inman something, but he couldn’t figure out that they gradually faded and subsided, just as the pain in his neck wound healed.
The woman waved her hand and pointed in his gaze direction to show him two sharp stone peaks in the distant horizon.
Table Rock Eagle Mouth Rock It was said that Indians lit bonfires in the evening and you could see them for a hundred miles.
The woman got up and walked forward. My camp is coming, she said to Inman
They soon left the main road and walked into a wooded hill, where a stream smelled of rotten leaves and mud. The trees were all short, with many knots on their branches and covered with moss. They all tilted in the same direction. Inman could imagine the February gale rushing towards the mountain with snow and whistling through the bare trees. Before coming to the woman’s camp, Inman immediately saw that its owner had lived as a wave, but then he lived here. It was a rust-colored van standing in an arched house in a sloping forest. The roof tiles are dotted with black mold, green moss and gray lichen. Three ravens are walking around the roof, pecking at the wheel joints. The spokes are very high, and the sides of the vine van are covered with gaudy scenery. People write poorly written aphorisms and slogans. There are handfuls of herbs hanging on the eaves, many strings of red peppers, all kinds of dried grass roots, and a wisp of smoke is emitted from the roof chimney.
The woman stopped for a drink.
I heard that she called three ravens croaking and flew away. Some handsome and lovely two-color goats walked around the Woods from behind the caravan and blinked. In front of Inman, there were twenty or more goats. They came to stretch their necks and look at Inman. They were thin, yellow, bright and clever. Inman couldn’t figure out what goats were more curious and human than sheep, but there was not much difference between the two in appearance. The goats crowded around him, bleating their necks and ringing their bells. The goats stood up in the back and put their little feet on the back of the goats to get a better view.
The woman continued to walk forward, and Inman wanted to follow the sheep. At this moment, a goat of Dagong Mountain retreated a step or two and pushed the smaller goat aside. Its front leg was lifted forward and threw its head against Inman’s thigh. Inman was hungry for several days, and he was extremely weak and dizzy. When he gave the goat a hat, he fell to the ground, and then he fell on his back. The male goat was black and brown with a long pointed beard. Like Satan, he came over and looked down at Inman. It seemed that he was checking his record. Inman’s brain was dizzy and painful, and he continued to swell,
By this time, the woman had gone around to the back of the van and could not see Inman, the goat and several other goats. She squatted in a sloping shed with a pine roof, pressed the charcoal fire in the kitchen and lit it to see if it had burned. Inman went over and stretched out his hand to warm the fire. She added some large hickory nuts to the fire, then picked up a white enamel basin and sat beside her. A little goat with spots and brown and white came up to her. She reached out and touched it, scratching its hair on its neck. Finally, the lamb fell to the ground with four legs bent down and a long neck. Stretching forward, the old woman continued to scratch it and stroke its ear. Inman also saw that the old woman continued to stroke the goat with her left hand and her right hand reached into her apron pocket and pulled out a short knife. In the blink of an eye, she deeply cut the goat’s jaw artery. She pushed the white basin against the sheep’s neck to catch the spewing and the shining blood sheep struggled for a while, then she lay still trembling all over. She continued to scratch it and stroke its ear. The sheep women were staring at the distance and seemed to be waiting for a signal.
The goat finally swallowed his breath. Inman looked at the caravan. At the bottom of its wall pattern, there was a row of blue figures dancing hand in hand. There was no specific arrangement order. Obviously, he gave up a label halfway through the painting. Job’s facial expression was distorted, his painful face was covered with a sheepskin. Inman could see half a sentence. He was opposite to another picture. The man prostrated himself on the ground and looked dull. He looked up at the face. A white ball, the sun, the moon or something else. There was a question written on it. Are you one of the lost people? An unfinished face scratched his eyes
Inman looked back at the woman’s work from the picture. She chopped the sheep from sternum to asshole to make it dirty and put it in a blood basin. Then she peeled off the sheep’s skin. The lamb looked strange with a long neck and bulging eyes. She cut the sheep into several tender parts, coated it with spices, pepper, salt and a little sugar. Then the green branches were strung together and put in the fire. Others were put in the iron pot with water, onions, garlic, five dried red peppers and dried leaves. She also rubbed some fragrant mint into the bottom legs of the iron pot with her hands. She picked up a wooden stick and put some charcoal fire on the surface to
Put some white beans in later, and we can have a good meal at dinner, she said.
After a while, the fog gathered again, and the rain dripped down on the roof of the caravan. Inman sat in a small stove next to a dark corner. The room was full of herbs, mud, burning wood and smoking. He came in through the back door and passed through a narrow corridor. There was a cupboard and a table on one side and a narrow floor on the other side. Further on, there was a small room with a large area, but two grave bags were close to the corner. The body of a small iron stove was not much bigger than a pig oil drum. The back wall of the stove was covered with a layer of iron sheets to prevent it from being burned by fire.
A pile of paper was cluttered on the table, and the edges of the pages turned yellow. Most of them were knocked down and buckled on the table, and some pen drawings were nailed to the walls around the table, all of which were sketches of plants and animals. The spider legs were lightly covered with a layer of yellow or brown colors, and the edges of each painting were covered with dense small print. It seems that many detailed stories must be told to explain these simple pictures. Bundles of dried herbs and grass roots were hung on the roof, and brown fur of various small animals were scattered in piles on the floor. At the top, a pair of black nightingale wings were displayed as if in a flying furnace.
Inman watched the woman cook. She put the frying pan on the stove cover, poured the jade paste into the crackling hot oil, and baked one pancake after another. When there was a high stack of pancakes on the plate, she rolled up a piece of roast mutton and handed it to Inman. Wang Shanliang, who had been seasoned, baked the mutton to a dark brown color.
Thank you, inman said.
He ate so fast that the woman simply gave him a plate of meat pancakes and let him eat them himself. Inman devoured them here. The woman had changed the frying pan into an iron jar of goat’s milk to make cheese. She kept stirring the goat’s milk, getting thicker and thicker, and then poured it into a wicker woven screen to divide the whey. A tin pot then left the curd and poured it into an oak bucket. When she was working, Inman kept moving her feet to get in the way. They rarely talked. The woman was busy and Inman was too absorbed. After that, she handed Inman a pottery cup filled with warm whey.
Did you think you would see cheese before sunset when you got up this morning? She asked.
