Hard Red Spring Read Online Free PDF Page A

know,” Mrs. Fasbinder had said not long ago. “They’ve done it for centuries.
Virgins
, of course. This country is like a bad adventure novel sold to silly women. You’d think the Spanish never arrived.”
    Why were they walking to town alone? What were virgins? Did they die in the volcano? Terrible thoughts, unmentionable questions that Evie could not even gather the breath to ask. Her mother walked so fast down their mountain that Evie could not keep up. She lagged behind with Ixna, who was barefoot and taking her time.
    â€œIxna, do you think lava’s coming to Father’s mountain?”
    â€œHis mountain?” She clicked her tongue.
    â€œYes. His mountain. Where we live. Will lava come?”
    â€œNot his mountain.”
    â€œHow’s that?” Evie asked, kicking the dirt. “My father paid for this land. It belongs to him.”
    Ixna did not break her calm stride and passed by Evie, leaving her standing in disbelief. “The mountain never belongs to anyone. We all belong to the mountain.”
    â€œHe paid,” Evie insisted, galloping to catch up. How else could someone own something if they didn’t pay? “He paid!”
    â€œWho did he pay?”
    â€œThe government.”
    â€œAh, but we paid for it, too. Three times. How many times did your father pay?”
    Evie didn’t know what to say. Conversations with Ixna usually turned on Evie in this way. So she wasn’t much surprised, just hopeful that one day she would understand.
    â€œWhen he pays four times, it can be his.” Ixna’s tiny, flat-topped teeth came over her lip in an angry imitation of a smile. “Then we eat bread. Then all our problems solved.”
    There was no view of the city from the mountain, where there should have been a view. Just black clouds, ash falling up, down, sideways, and accumulating on the empty road, and the sound of trumpets and drums in the distance. They walked two miles to Xela. There should have been Indians on the road. Evie imagined them standing, lined up just beyond visibility. They were there, Evie knew they must be there. This road was crowded with shacks so primitive they didn’t even have doors and proper walls. These Indians would sneak onto their land to plant food, cut down trees, and worship.
    â€œThey have no sense of what ownership means,” Mother often said. “Unless they have a claim. Then they start waving titles at you. Illegible titles for communal land, issued over a hundred years ago by the Spanish Crown! But they wanted independence from Spain and they got it!”
    â€”
    The band was still playing by the time they made it to the central park, where half the gas lamps had been blown out and the other half cast a gothic orange light over the busy scene. Visibility had cleared somewhat, because of the protected position of the park plaza. There had been no one on the road, no one to trouble them, and now Evie could see why. Everyone had come here—standing in open doorways or sitting on the wide dingy steps ofthe Catholic church—to watch the military band. Evie knew they were from the military by the severe, straight lines they stood in, and their uniforms. At least two hundred of them aimed their instruments at the sky, playing so loudly that Evie couldn’t hear what her mother said right next to her. A little farther away, near the market, more soldiers marched, yelling into windows and at the people who passed by. The same phrase over and over.
    â€œWhat are they saying?” Mother asked Ixna.
    Ixna shrugged. “They say there’s no volcano erupting.”
    â€œWhat?”
    Evie watched one of the band members shake the ash from his hat and spit on the ground. He held a trombone at his side, then pointed it at some Indians like a gun.
    â€œIn Quiché. They say the President decrees that this is not from the volcano.” Evie watched a small flake of ash flutter down and