The Killing Tree by Rachel Keener Page B

rest of Crooktop. And so close
     to it. I had always known they lived there. That they spoke Spanish and lived in tents. But that they were a community? A
     family even? That they loved and were loved? I had been raised to believe that their way of life was miserable. So I believed
     the people always were too. But joy could be found in the tentworld. Pain too. Stooped backs, blistered hands, and homesick
     children. But there was family there. More family than I had ever known.
    Trout saw the look on my face, and he understood.
    “Never seen the likes of it, have you?” he asked. “First time I saw ’em, I was just a fourteen-year-old boy fishin’. I heard
     ’em first. Singin’ in their tongue. Never heard nothin’ like that. I couldn’t make out any of the words. It’s like they was
     callin’ me.”
    “Is that when you joined them?” I asked.
    “I started spyin’ on ’em. Through the briars and weeds, I laid on my belly and watched ’em. One day Mr. Miguel found me. The
     way I am with trout, he’s with the maters. He knows when to plant ’em and when to pick ’em. He knows what bugs will hurt ’em
     and what won’t. I felt linked to that old Mexican right then and there. He felt about maters like I felt about trout. I reckon
     he could tell by lookin’ at me that I didn’t have any sort of home to go back to. So he let me join ’em. He may be a Mexican,
     and I ain’t. But he’s been more daddy to me than ol’ Earnie ever was. He’s a wise man. Even the bosses listen to him. Still
     dreams of Mexico. Reckon he always will. It’d be about like us leavin’ the mountains for the flatland. Couldn’t ever get it
     out of our blood.”
    “I could leave the mountains,” I said. “I’ve always wanted to see the ocean.”
    “But they wouldn’t leave you. They’re in you. Same as trout’s in me,” he said.
    He was right, the mountain was in me. And parts of it would be hard to leave. Like the view of my living sky. But there were
     other parts, that soaked up Heron blood, that I would do anything to shed.
    “You come here every summer?” I asked.
    “We go where the biggest crops are. One mountain valley or another. When it gets cold we head to Florida to work other crops.
     We don’t stay the same, either. There’s new people every year. Some leave to settle down, others go back to Mexico. But a
     few of us don’t. We just keep on movin’ around.”
    “Don’t you ever just want to stay put?” I asked, my mind thinking about the coming winter. About him leaving and never returning.
     He sighed, and I sensed that he had asked himself the same question before.
    “Teacher told me once that the earth is just a ball that’s always spinnin’. Round and round. Spinnin’ the people that stand
     on it. But I walk with it. I ain’t gonna wait for it to spin me. I spin myself.”
    “That’s a lot of moving. Ever get tired?” I asked.
    He shrugged his shoulders. “You ever get tired of standin’?” he replied.
    Yes.
I grew tired.
Tired of standing in the middle of a lying house. Of standing by Mamma Rutha. Standing before Father Heron. Standing with
     smoked pork in my hands, and nickels and dimes in my pocket.
    “Where you standin’, Mercy?” he asked.
    Hadn’t he heard? About the silent old man and the crazy old woman? About the random peonies, the unharvested garden, the sun
     yellow house, the sun yellow body. My life wasn’t like his pretty fairy tale, of a little boy lost in the woods rescued by
     a loving family. I was still lost in the woods.
    “
¡Vengan, es tiempo de comer!!
” called a plump woman with glossy, inky hair.
    “Grub time,” he said, as he stood up and walked toward the woman. I looked around and noticed that the tents were organized
     in clusters, with central campfires and meals.
    He returned with a heaping plate of food that smelled like summer. There were corn, beans, and tomatoes mixing in a little
     river of broth on the plate. And a pile of warm