Pie Town - Lynne Hinton [0]
Lynne Hinton
Dedication
Dedicated to
Jasie Barringer, Carolyn Aldridge, and Art Barrett,
for open hearts and open homes.
We come to the Land of Enchantment by way of your hospitality.
Contents
Cover
Title Page
Dedication
Part I
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Part II
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Part III
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-one
Chapter Twenty-two
Chapter Twenty-three
Chapter Twenty-four
Chapter Twenty-five
Chapter Twenty-six
Part IV
Chapter Twenty-seven
Chapter Twenty-eight
Chapter Twenty-nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-one
Chapter Thirty-two
Chapter Thirty-three
Chapter Thirty-four
Chapter Thirty-five
Chapter Thirty-six
Chapter Thirty-seven
Chapter Thirty-eight
Chapter Thirty-nine
Part V
Chapter Forty
Chapter Forty-one
Chapter Forty-two
Chapter Forty-three
Recipes from Pie Town
Hot Buttermilk Cornbread
Oris’s Famous Cowboy Beans
Bea’s Green Chile Stew
Posole
Francine’s Banana Cream Pie
Barb’s Biscochitos
A + AUTHOR INSIGHTS, EXTRAS & MORE. . .
Reading Group Guide
Finding Pie Town
Pie-O-Neer Pecan Oat Pie
Turn the page for a sneak peek
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Also by Lynne Hinton
Credits
Copyright
About the Publisher
Part I
Chapter One
They come. The two of them, desperate, longing, alone, and displaced, they come because they are told to come. One beckoned from whispers speaking in lingering dreams, directed by stars and canyon voices. The other, obeying the orders of stern and reasonable men, men of piety and certitude. They come because they know no better, because they have nowhere else that will receive them. They come to settle what cannot be settled. They come to find what it is they miss and what it is they never knew existed.
Neither of them has a sense of this desert, the forests, Cibola or Gila, no knowledge of its wide open plains named, by the Spanish, San Agustin, a feeble attempt to wrangle a blessing in their uncelebrated discovery. They do not know the long winding dry springs, Largo and Mangas Creeks, nor have they walked the road through the tiny village of Quemado, with its famed lightning field, or across the meadows studded with short scrubby pinion pines. They have not lifted their eyes to see Madre Mountain Peak or ridden the dusty trails south to the Baldys, Whitewater, and Mogolion, following the tracks of elk and deer and lone gray wolves.
They do not know this is hallowed family land, my mother’s mother’s land, the land of my ancestors and the old ones. They have not learned that this is my family’s heritage, Zuni, gathered and scattered along this territory, centuries ago, living here long before the farmers, Catholic and Spanish, moved from settlements north and east to establish villages of their own, and longer still before the Panhandle Texans and southern plains homesteaders came riding into town, laying claim to earth and making borders on property that was not theirs to possess. They do not know that this is the place of aged secret trails and the sacred Salt Lake of my people and their tribes.
This is my home, the place where I took my first breath, landed my first step, laughed my first laugh, and shed my last tear. This is the place where I fell in love with red skies and clear black nights, the sky dotted with stars, and afternoon rains, the smell of sage, and the high-pitched cries of coyotes, the dance of red-tailed hawks. This is the place where I fell in love with silence and one man who knew the name of every flower and seed and who looked at me as if I were the sun. This is the place for which I long even when I sit among the spirits, float above clouds, glide across galaxies. This is my home, and by the time I came back, and though nothing had changed, it still seemed to me that I had been gone far too