1 A Storm Breaks

JEAN CRAIGHEAD GEORGE Newbery Medal-winning author of Julie of the Wolves On the Far Side of the Mountain The sequel to My Side of the Mountain

让·克雷格黑德·乔治 《狼群中的朱莉》作者，纽伯瑞金奖得主 本书《山的另一边》是《山居岁月》续作

Chapter 1 IN WHICH A Storm Breaks This June morning is hot and humid with a haze so dense I can barely see the huge hemlock tree in which I live. I like the haze. It has erased all but the great tree trunks, making my mountaintop home as simple as it was when I first came here more than two years ago. I lean back in the lounging chair I constructed from bent saplings held together with rope made from the inner bark of the basswood tree, and enjoy the primitive forest. A wind rises as the sun warms the earth. The haze moves off, and I see my pond, my millhouse, and the root cellar. The first year I lived here I had only a tree, a bed, and a fireplace. But one idea led to another, and the next thing I knew, I had built myself a habitat. Things just kept evolving. Take this lounging chair, for instance. One day I replaced the old stump I sat on with a three-legged

第一章 风暴来袭 六月的这个清晨闷热潮湿，雾气浓得我几乎看不清我住的那棵巨大铁杉。 我喜欢这雾气。 它抹掉了除大树干之外的一切，让我这个山顶的家，和两年多前我初来时一样简单纯粹。 我仰靠在自制的躺椅上，享受这片原始森林；这躺椅用弯树苗搭成，还用椴树内皮搓的绳子捆在一起。 太阳晒暖大地，起风了。 雾气飘走了，我看见了我的池塘、磨坊和储菜地窖。 我刚住在这里的第一年，只有一棵树、一张床和一个壁炉。 可一个想法接着一个想法，不知不觉，我就给自己建起了一个完整的小家。 一切都在慢慢变化。 就拿这张躺椅举例子吧。 有一天，我把原来坐的老树桩换成了三条腿的

stool, and then I replaced the three-legged stool with this comfortable chair. The people changed, too. At first I was alone. Then my family arrived and—except for my lively sister, Alice—departed. I don't know where Alice is this morning. She was going to go strawberry picking, but the haze is too dense for that. Maybe she's sitting on the porch of her tree house talking to herself just as I am. A haze mutes not only the birds and beasts, but people, too. As a hot dry wind clears the air, I can see Frightful, my peregrine falcon, sitting in front of the six-foot-in-diameter hemlock tree that I hollowed out for a home. Unlike the chairs and people, Frightful has not changed. She still holds her body straight up and down and her head high in the manner of the peregrine falcon. Her tawny breast is decorated with black marks; her back is gray blue; her head black. When she flies, she is still a crossbow in the sky, and she still "waits on" above my head until I kick up a pheasant or a rabbit. Then she stoops, speeding toward her prey at two hundred miles an hour, the fastest animal on earth. She almost never misses.

凳子，后来我又把三条腿的凳子换成了这张舒服的椅子。 身边的人也变了。 最开始只有我一个人。 后来我的家人来了，除了活泼的妹妹爱丽丝，其他人都离开了。 我不知道爱丽丝今早在哪里。 她本来要去摘草莓，可雾太厚了，没法摘。 说不定她正坐在她树屋的门廊上，像我一样自言自语呢。 雾不光让飞禽走兽变得安静，连人也跟着沉静下来。 干热的风吹散雾气，我看见了我的游隼惊惊，它正坐在那棵我挖空当家、直径六英尺的铁杉前。 和椅子、人不一样，惊惊一点都没变。 它仍像所有游隼那样，身板笔直，头昂得高高的。 它黄褐色的胸脯布着黑斑，后背是灰蓝色，脑袋是黑色。 它飞起来的时候，就像天空中的一把石弩，依旧在我头顶待命，等我惊出野鸡或者兔子。 接着它会俯冲下来，以每小时两百英里的速度冲向猎物，它是地球上飞得最快的动物。 它几乎从来不会扑空。

"Hello, Frightful," I say. "Creee, creee, creee, car-reet," she answers. That is her name for me, "Creee, creee, creee, car-reet." All peregrine falcons call the high-pitched creees, but when Frightful sees me in the morning or when I return from the forest, even when she is flying high above my head, she adds "car-reet." "Hello, Sam," she is saying. She is perched on a T-block that I covered with deer-hide to protect her feet. She lifts a broad foot and scratches her head with a curved claw on the end of a long, narrow toe. "Creee, creee, creee, car-reet." I call her name in her own language; I whistle three notes—low, high, low. She responds by lifting the feathers on her body, then shaking them. This is called rousing, which is feather talk meaning "I like you." I can't speak in feathers so I answer by imitating her love notes. I do this by pulling air through my two front teeth to make a soft, cozy sound. Sometimes I have nightmares that she has left me. I awake in a sweat and try to reason with myself. Frightful will not leave me, I say. If she were

“你好，惊惊。”我说。 “叽——叽——叽——咔哩，”它回应道。 这就是它对我的称呼：叽——叽——叽——咔哩。 所有游隼都会发出这种尖利的叽声，但早上它看见我、或是我从森林回来，哪怕它在我头顶高空飞的时候，都会额外加上一声“咔哩”。 它其实是在说：“你好，山姆。” 它站在T形栖木上，我给栖木包了鹿皮，保护它的脚爪。 它抬起宽脚掌，用细长脚趾末端的弯爪挠了挠头。 “叽——叽——叽——咔哩。” 我用它的语言喊它的名字，吹了三个音——低、高、低。 它的回应是扬起全身羽毛，接着抖了抖。 这个动作叫振羽，是羽毛的语言，意思是“我喜欢你”。 我不会用羽毛说话，所以我模仿它的爱语来回应。 我让气流从两颗前门牙缝穿过，发出轻柔舒服的声音。 有时候我会做噩梦，梦到它离开了我。 我一身冷汗醒过来，试着劝自己。 我对自己说，惊惊不会离开我的。 如果它想

going to do that, she would have departed last spring when I was flying her free. A wild tercel, the male peregrine falcon, passed overhead. The last of the vanishing eastern peregrine falcons breed in Greenland and Canada, and a few winter as far south as the Catskills. This one was on his way to his home in the north. Frightful playfully joined him. Together they performed the peregrine courtship dance, swooping low, zooming high, then spiralling earthward. I was scared. I thought Frightful was going to leave me. I whistled. She instantly pulled deeply on her wings and sped back. Within a few feet of my outstretched hand, she braked and alighted on my glove as softly as the fluff from a dandelion seed. "Creee, creee, creee, car-reet," she said. "Hello, Frightful," I answered happily. Now, I whistle her name again. She turns her head and looks at me. Her curved, flesh-ripping beak looks sweet and demure when you see her head on. Her overhanging brow shades large black eyes that are outlined in white feathers. She is a gorgeous creature.

走的话，去年春天我放它自由飞翔的时候它就走了。 一只野生的雄游隼从头顶飞过。 日渐稀少的东方游隼，仅存的种群都在格陵兰和加拿大繁殖，少数会飞到南边的卡兹吉尔山区过冬。 这一只正往北飞，回它的家。 惊惊闹着也跟了上去。 它们一起跳起了游隼的求爱舞，低掠、冲高，再盘旋着坠向地面。 我当时吓坏了。 我以为惊惊要离开我了。 我吹了哨。 它立刻猛拍翅膀，飞快往回飞。 飞到我伸出的手几英尺近时，它刹住冲势，落在我的手套上，轻得就像蒲公英的绒絮。 “叽——叽——叽——咔哩，”它说。 “你好，惊惊，”我开心地回应。 现在，我又吹哨喊它的名字。 它转过头看着我。 正对着看它，那弯锐锋利的钩喙看起来居然乖巧又文静。 它突出的眉骨遮着大大的黑眼睛，眼睛周围围着一圈白羽。 它可真是一只漂亮的小家伙。

At peace with me and herself, she bobs her head as she follows the flight of a bird. I cannot see it, but I know it's a bird because Frightful's feathers tell me so. She has flattened most of them to her body while lifting those between her shoulders. "Bird," that means. "Human" is feathers flattened, eyes wide, neck pulled in, wings drooped to fly. I get to my feet. I have daydreamed enough. While the last of the haze burns off, I weed the meadow garden and split kindling before returning to my tree. A hot sun now filters down through the lacy needles of the hemlocks in my grove. I look for Alice, wondering what she's up to. That's how one thinks of Alice—what is she up to? She's probably gone downmountain to the farm to see that pig she talks to. Sticks snap in the distance. Someone is coming. Frightful has clamped her feathers to her body to say that whoever it is is not a friend. Her feathers read "danger." The phoebe clicks out his alarm cry and I tense. I have learned to heed these warning signals. The birds and animals see, hear, smell, and feel approaching danger long before I do. I

她心情平和，挨着我，脑袋一点一点，追着飞鸟的身影看。 我看不见它，可我知道那是一只鸟，福莱特的羽毛告诉了我。 她把身上大部分羽毛贴紧身体，只竖起双肩之间的羽毛。 “这意思是——鸟。” “是人”的时候，羽毛贴平，眼睛圆睁，脖子内缩，翅膀垂落准备飞。 我站起身来。 我已经做了够久的白日梦。 趁着最后薄雾还没散尽，我给草甸花园除了草，劈好引火木，才返回我的大树。 灼热的阳光透过我林中铁杉的薄针叶，筛落下来。 我找爱丽丝，好奇她又在捣鼓什么。 大家想到爱丽丝都会这么问——她又在捣鼓什么呀？ 她多半是下山去农场了，去找那头她经常聊天的猪。 远处传来树枝折断的脆响。 有人来了。 福莱特把全身羽毛紧紧贴在身上，代表来者不是朋友。 她的羽毛在说“危险”。 菲比鸟发出报警的咔咔声，我瞬间绷紧了身体。 我早就学会重视这些警报信号了。 飞鸟走兽远比我早就能感知、听见、闻出靠近的危险。 我