Beast Rider , livre ebook

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79 pages

English

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Twelve-year-old Manuel leaves his small town in Mexico to join his older brother in Los Angeles. To cross the US border, he must become a "beast rider"-someone who hops on a train. The first time he tries, he is stopped by the Mexican police, who arrest and beat him. When he tries again, he is attacked by a Mexican gang and left for dead. Just when Manuel is ready to turn back, he finds new hope. Villagers clothe and feed him, help him find work, and eventually boost him back onto the train. When he finally arrives in LA and is reunited with his brother, he is elated. But the longer he's there, the more he realizes that something isn't right. Thrilling and heartfelt, Beast Rider is a coming-of-age story that reveals how a place and its people help to define you.

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Publié par	ABRAMS BOOKS
Date de parution	19 mars 2019
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9781683354819
Langue	English
Poids de l'ouvrage	2 Mo

Informations légales : prix de location à la page 0,0777€. Cette information est donnée uniquement à titre indicatif conformément à la législation en vigueur.

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PUBLISHER S NOTE: This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author s imagination or used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Cataloging-in-Publication Data has been applied for and may be obtained from the Library of Congress
ISBN 978-1-4197-3363-5 eISBN 978-1-68335-481-9
Text copyright 2019 The Johnston Family Trust and Mar a Elena Fontanot de Rhoads Cover illustration copyright 2019 Edel Rodriguez Book design by Hana Anouk Nakamura
Quote, top of this page : copyright 2002 Sonia Nazario/ Los Angeles Times
Poem, bottom of this page : copyright 1974 Nancy C. Wood, reprinted from Many Winters , courtesy of the Nancy Wood Literary Trust ( NancyWood.com )
Published in 2019 by Amulet Books, an imprint of ABRAMS. All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, mechanical, electronic, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without written permission from the publisher.
Amulet Books are available at special discounts when purchased in quantity for premiums and promotions as well as fundraising or educational use. Special editions can also be created to specification. For details, contact specialsales@abramsbooks.com or the address below.
Amulet Books is a registered trademark of Harry N. Abrams, Inc.
ABRAMS The Art of Books 195 Broadway New York, NY 10007 abramsbooks.com
For all Beast Riders And their broken families
And
For Taketora James Tanaka, of the U.S. 442nd Infantry, the Purple Heart Battalion
-TJ
For our brave and loving countrymen and -women who smile at life in good and bad times
-MER
SE LO COMI EL TREN. THE TRAIN ATE HIM.
-Sonia Nazario Enrique s Journey, Chapter Three, Defeated Seven Times, a Boy Again Faces the Beast, Oct. 2, 2002.
***
HOLD ON TO WHAT IS GOOD
HOLD ON TO WHAT IS GOOD
EVEN IF IT IS
A HANDFUL OF EARTH.
HOLD ON TO WHAT YOU BELIEVE
EVEN IF IT IS
A TREE WHICH STANDS BY ITSELF.
HOLD ON TO WHAT YOU MUST DO
EVEN IF IT IS
A LONG WAY FROM HERE.
HOLD ON TO LIFE EVEN WHEN
IT IS EASIER LETTING GO.
HOLD ON TO MY HAND EVEN WHEN
I HAVE GONE AWAY FROM YOU.
-by Nancy Wood, from Many Winters , 1974.
THE JOURNEY
They say in this place where we live that someday La Bestia, The Beast, will get you. One day if you stray too far, as some of our ni os have done, it will grab you and drag you away forever. For a long time I did not believe this, till it took To o, my brother. In dreams I feel its hot breath on my neck. I hear its fearful scream. I know that sometime very soon I will follow the terrible, tempting voice and The Beast will take me away-or kill me .
I

Call me Manuel. It is a good name, says Abue, short for abuelita. Mine is a good name my grandmother has told me for as long as I can remember, a good name as good as the land itself. Then slowly, like the priest who sometimes visits this place, she moves one dry brown arm in a widening gesture to point out the dry brown landscape before us. The milpita, little corn plot, which is our life.
Here there are many milpitas, flat flat. Ours and those of our neighbors, all touching each other like the patches Abue sews onto our worn-out clothes.
Our corn plot. Really it is not the dirt itself that keeps us going, but the ma z, the corn, along with pumpkins and frijoles, which spurts up from it. So we tend it with great care. We are People of Corn, Papi says. Since time before time our family has tilled this field, he tells me proudly and many times over. And this field repays us. He pats a small plant with tenderness, saying, This little green one, one day she will feed us. I know it is true.
The seasons come. The seasons go. Twelve years since I was born. Papi and I and my little brother Javier and little sister Bel n turn the earth. We plant the kernels. We tend the plants. Each year, with sun, with rain, with prayers they grow tall tall. I think, when the wind shuffles them, they are shambling and beautiful as old people. And each year they give us corn. But in times of little rain not enough. Then we work harder. We eat less.
We have one ox. We do not name him. Because if he has a name we will mourn him like family when he dies. And it will hurt deep in our hearts. More than being nameless. Even so, deep in my heart I call him Trini.
We have a dog also. Tough and full of life. He does have a name, I do not know why, for surely our hearts will feel stabs of sadness when he goes. Anyway, he is Guapo, with a body like a bear and a head like a bucket. When a stranger lurks close-maybe a drug person slinking toward the nearby train-Guapo runs him off with deep growls and bites. Pure fierceness like a wolf. With us he is just pure slobber and licks. Guapo follows me sometimes to the milpita to hunt moles, but mostly he guards the house.
Our milpita, beautiful to me, lies not far from a lonely stretch of railroad tracks. I have seen the freight train. I have heard the shouts of the riders atop it. And the screech of the wheels. I would like to go close to watch. But when you are working in the field you do not have time for train watching.
Both day and night, when a train passes this way, I hear the whistle mourn and I think of the far places it is going and I think of To o who I love more than anything. Gone four years. On the train. Now he is nineteen.
When Mami got her sickness To o raised me. He and Abue. He is like my other father. But my brother he is gone gone. Not ever will I see him again. For me, it is a terrible train.
Really it is not one train, but many on many routes, all going to the same place, la frontera, the border. Here in this land of Oaxaca we call it La Bestia, The Beast. Many people both children and grown-ups struggle onto it to get away from this hard life. Or gangs. Or to find loved ones lost in El Norte, Gringolandia. Some are chopped up right then and there if they miss the jump to get on. Many make it. But, mostly, like To o, they never come back. Ay how I miss my hermano!
On this day I am walking barefoot behind Trini, up and down, up and down, plowing weeds in the furrows, the dirt rough beneath my feet. I dig my toes into it deep and feel a great surge of greenness inside myself, as though I were a growing plant.
The tall corn whispers as we go, about sky, about clouds, about secrets corn knows. The ox and I are both lost in the dust we make. Dust. Like the breath of the earth. We are a little dust cloud of our very own , I think as I walk. I am looking at nothing much. Then-Trini balks and plunges away dragging the plow, bellowing. Trini! I call, looking down for what has frightened him.
It is a body. Crumpled in the dust.
To o, I whisper, thinking my brother has come home. I hold my breath.
Aggggh -a small gasp comes from the body. Smaller than a whisper. Trembling, I bend down.
Aggggh.
It is a boy. Younger than me. And he is bleeding. Bleeding bleeding into the dirt of our milpita. How could he get this far without help? The dust has settled upon him. This small dusty boy, he has lost one foot. I know without knowing The Beast has taken it.
Papi! Abue! I race for the house.
Abue with her herbs and chants and wisdom, she is a magical one. But I know as I run she can do nothing. Even so, we can comfort the broken boy. And we can pray.
The boy dies quickly. Here nobody knows him. He must have come from far away. Now he is buried with our prayers in the holy earth of the pueblo s graveyard, along with others of our family. Mami, and my brother and sister who lived only a few breaths. His blood has seeped into the furrows. Few know now his sleeping place but us, this boy taken by The Beast.

After this terribleness I think of To o very much. He made The Beast journey alive. This is a great grace of God both Abue and Papi keep telling us. To find his mother, my friend Leo tried Beast Riding one time. He fell off. Now he walks with a cane. Leo is ten.
Every once in a while To o sends money to help us. Little dribbles and bits, but no matter, it is money. Money he earns cleaning toilets in a big building and doing other throw-away jobs in a place called Los Angeles, The Angels for heaven sakes. How can the angels let my good brother work hard hard cleaning toilets, and for so little? He is smart. He has more school than I do. He should have a job of respect. But I know To o like I know my shadow. Even with this mean work, he will do it with flare, maybe sometimes flourishing the toilet brush, maybe sometimes singing in his big, loud voice. I smile when I picture this.
I miss my brother and his smile and his flare. Two years ago he sent me his picture. He now has a mustache. Without him our family has a missing piece. My heart has a very big emptiness. The train that took To o from us is the one that left the broken boy in the dust. The Beast. The very name makes me shake.
Our adobe is small. It is sheltered by two tired old trees and guarded by cactus. Tall and prickly soldiers. A bougainvillea has grown itself right over the roof, like a purple shawl. There is a yard noisy with chickens and one goat which chews everything including our clothing if we stand too close.
Our home has two rooms, one for cooking, one for sleeping. Since recently we have electricity, but it costs so much we use it little. Also, it works little, failing in storms, failing in earthquakes, failing because it just feels like it, I think. Electricity, it is a mystery. We use no light but candles at night. The bathroom is a hole dug in the earth outdoors. Sharing one bedroom on petates, palm mats, the five of us share snorings, sleepwalkings, nightmares, dreams.
Breakfast we eat together, to start the day as a family. Corn, chiles, frijoles, those are the Oaxaca foods. And eggs in some form. My favorite is with chopped-up chiles and n