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Walking Rain is one of the best debut novels of the year.--Mary Willis Walker, author of Under the Beetle's CellarEight years had passed since fate left its mark on her grandfather's ranch. Shedding her new name and identity, Amelia Rawlins came out of anonymity and back home--a place of childhood memories, a place where she could walk with her grandfather's spirit and carry on his work. But the horrors of the past also found a home there, and her return didn't escape the vengeful eyes of someone who thought Amelia had no right to be spared on that long-ago dreadful day.
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New Mexico
She drove up U.S. 54 from Interstate 10 because that was the way she had always come to the ranch. Her old pickup had held up well on the long drive from the East Coast, but now it rattled and jounced along the battered road. Amelia checked the rearview mirror often, making certain her potter's wheel was still securely lashed to the bed of the truck. It was her habit to watch her back.
She'd reached El Paso late in the afternoon, and stopped there to put gas in the truck. Between that stop and all the Juarez traffic, it was getting on toward evening by the time she left the city and, with it, the interstate. Now the mountains of the Tularosa basin rose on either side of the two-lane road: the soaring ridge of the Sacramentos to her east, the Organ Mountains, drier, more distant, to her west. The eastern range was heavily snowed, peaks gleaming pink in the fading light, and the evening sky was winter-brilliant. Narrow bands of cloud glowed like flamingo feathers above the Organs.
She had forgotten the crystalline stillness of the air here, forgotten the sunny chill of a New Mexico winter. How had that happened? Maybe that was the price she'd paid for forgetting the things she had to forget. Part of the price.
The sun flamed on the horizon, looking as if it would flow down the mountains to melt the world, and then it sank. Its light faded quickly from the sky; already the stars were taking their turn at ruling the deep blue reaches. Amelia rolled down her window, even though the temperature outside was plunging toward freezing. The desert smelled pungent and strong, and there was a hint of pine and pi±on on the wind.
It was the wind that whipped tears to her eyes. Certainly the wind; she was not a woman who wept. But she was suddenly swept by a brilliant ache of homesickness--here, now, when she was very near the only home left to her--it caught at her violently. So violently that she almost turned the truck around and went away again.
To need something so much frightened her. But she was tired, and she had only decided to come here when she could no longer face starting over somewhere new. She'd been rootless for too long.
So the truck spun on, winding north in the starstudded darkness, past the ghostly dunes of White Sands, north and then eventually east, to a narrower road, one that ran deep into the wrinkled land at the foot of the Sacramentos.
She made her way to the Crossroads by feel, and turned left without thinking. It was unsettling to be in a place so instantly familiar. The stars had come full out; the desert was bright beneath them. An ancient seabed, the Tularosa basin was now four thousand feet above sea level, and the air was thin, rarefied, so the starlight streamed through it undiminished. Amelia could see the beacon of the observatory to the south, high on the mountain, gleaming like a fallen star itself.
And then she was there, bumping the truck off the road next to the dirt lane that led to the house. The gate was closed. A new gate, one of those metal-barred affairs. Amelia left the truck idling when she got out, not sure it would start again if she turned it off after such a long run. But when she tried to open the gate, she found it padlocked. Her grandfather never did that.
She climbed up on the gate and looked toward the ranch house, sprawling among the cottonwood trees beyond the fields. No lights. No smoke from the chimney pipe. The windows were dark vacant blanks against the pale adobe walls of the house. She could see the looming windmill, its blades turning slowly in silhouette, but nothing else moved.
So maybe the ranch hadn't been leased to someone else. Maybe her uncle hadn't decided she was dead and sold the place off. Maybe none of the things she'd been afraid of had happened.
She should have been relieved. But the homesickness was back, wilder than ever, and she realized that some part of her had expected her grandfather to be there waiting for her.
He was dead. Bound to be. He'd been seventy six the last time she and her kid brother had come for the summer, and that was more than a dozen years ago. But one thing she had no doubt about--that Gramps had kept his word and left the property to her. She knew he had, as surely as she knew the pattern the cottonwoods' shadow would paint on the house in summer. This place was part of her.
She went back and cut off the truck. The silence was a living one, even in February. The rustle of a mouse in its nest and the faraway cry of a hunting night bird gathered on the wind. Amelia shivered. She put on her down vest, then took her backpack and her cooler out of the truck. Nobody would bother her things, not out here. Gramps used to say they could go a week without seeing another soul on this road.
He'd been exaggerating, of course. Something he was prone to. Amelia dropped the cooler over the fence, then swung herself over the gate. She picked up the cooler and started down the lane toward the house. The smell of the desert seemed even more sharply familiar now, thick with memories. She remembered racing Michael down this road on bikes-- Gramps taking the two of them to collect native grasses by the old railroad tracks--Gramma baking biscuits in the cool of the morning. So many memories. A cascade of them.
They were falling around her like rain. Amelia bowed her head and walked up the road into it.
Excerpted from Walking Rain by Susan Wade. Copyright (c) 1996 by Susan Wade. Excerpted by permission of Bantam Books, a division of Bantam Doubleday Dell Publishing Group, Inc. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
From Publishers Weekly:
She drove up U.S. 54 from Interstate 10 because that was the way she had always come to the ranch. Her old pickup had held up well on the long drive from the East Coast, but now it rattled and jounced along the battered road. Amelia checked the rearview mirror often, making certain her potter's wheel was still securely lashed to the bed of the truck. It was her habit to watch her back.
She'd reached El Paso late in the afternoon, and stopped there to put gas in the truck. Between that stop and all the Juarez traffic, it was getting on toward evening by the time she left the city and, with it, the interstate. Now the mountains of the Tularosa basin rose on either side of the two-lane road: the soaring ridge of the Sacramentos to her east, the Organ Mountains, drier, more distant, to her west. The eastern range was heavily snowed, peaks gleaming pink in the fading light, and the evening sky was winter-brilliant. Narrow bands of cloud glowed like flamingo feathers above the Organs.
She had forgotten the crystalline stillness of the air here, forgotten the sunny chill of a New Mexico winter. How had that happened? Maybe that was the price she'd paid for forgetting the things she had to forget. Part of the price.
The sun flamed on the horizon, looking as if it would flow down the mountains to melt the world, and then it sank. Its light faded quickly from the sky; already the stars were taking their turn at ruling the deep blue reaches. Amelia rolled down her window, even though the temperature outside was plunging toward freezing. The desert smelled pungent and strong, and there was a hint of pine and pi±on on the wind.
It was the wind that whipped tears to her eyes. Certainly the wind; she was not a woman who wept. But she was suddenly swept by a brilliant ache of homesickness--here, now, when she was very near the only home left to her--it caught at her violently. So violently that she almost turned the truck around and went away again.
To need something so much frightened her. But she was tired, and she had only decided to come here when she could no longer face starting over somewhere new. She'd been rootless for too long.
So the truck spun on, winding north in the starstudded darkness, past the ghostly dunes of White Sands, north and then eventually east, to a narrower road, one that ran deep into the wrinkled land at the foot of the Sacramentos.
She made her way to the Crossroads by feel, and turned left without thinking. It was unsettling to be in a place so instantly familiar. The stars had come full out; the desert was bright beneath them. An ancient seabed, the Tularosa basin was now four thousand feet above sea level, and the air was thin, rarefied, so the starlight streamed through it undiminished. Amelia could see the beacon of the observatory to the south, high on the mountain, gleaming like a fallen star itself.
And then she was there, bumping the truck off the road next to the dirt lane that led to the house. The gate was closed. A new gate, one of those metal-barred affairs. Amelia left the truck idling when she got out, not sure it would start again if she turned it off after such a long run. But when she tried to open the gate, she found it padlocked. Her grandfather never did that.
She climbed up on the gate and looked toward the ranch house, sprawling among the cottonwood trees beyond the fields. No lights. No smoke from the chimney pipe. The windows were dark vacant blanks against the pale adobe walls of the house. She could see the looming windmill, its blades turning slowly in silhouette, but nothing else moved.
So maybe the ranch hadn't been leased to someone else. Maybe her uncle hadn't decided she was dead and sold the place off. Maybe none of the things she'd been afraid of had happened.
She should have been relieved. But the homesickness was back, wilder than ever, and she realized that some part of her had expected her grandfather to be there waiting for her.
He was dead. Bound to be. He'd been seventy six the last time she and her kid brother had come for the summer, and that was more than a dozen years ago. But one thing she had no doubt about--that Gramps had kept his word and left the property to her. She knew he had, as surely as she knew the pattern the cottonwoods' shadow would paint on the house in summer. This place was part of her.
She went back and cut off the truck. The silence was a living one, even in February. The rustle of a mouse in its nest and the faraway cry of a hunting night bird gathered on the wind. Amelia shivered. She put on her down vest, then took her backpack and her cooler out of the truck. Nobody would bother her things, not out here. Gramps used to say they could go a week without seeing another soul on this road.
He'd been exaggerating, of course. Something he was prone to. Amelia dropped the cooler over the fence, then swung herself over the gate. She picked up the cooler and started down the lane toward the house. The smell of the desert seemed even more sharply familiar now, thick with memories. She remembered racing Michael down this road on bikes-- Gramps taking the two of them to collect native grasses by the old railroad tracks--Gramma baking biscuits in the cool of the morning. So many memories. A cascade of them.
They were falling around her like rain. Amelia bowed her head and walked up the road into it.
Excerpted from Walking Rain by Susan Wade. Copyright (c) 1996 by Susan Wade. Excerpted by permission of Bantam Books, a division of Bantam Doubleday Dell Publishing Group, Inc. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
This vibrant debut novel proves it's possible to write good suspense without gimmicks or excessive gore. Amelia Rawlings returns to her grandfather's New Mexico ranch after years of hiding from the Wolfen, a neo-Nazi hate group that murdered her family 13 years ago. Despite death threats and chalked swastikas on her front door, she's determined to rebuild the ranch and protect the endangered native grasses her grandfather had cherished?in short, make a home for herself. As the wisdom of her decision is challenged, Amelia finds strength in newfound friendships with architect Frank Burkhalter and his dog and an osteopath, Caroline Garrity, and her son. Amelia learns that trust, like hospitality, is like latent seed, "still resting, dormant, under all the years of separateness and silence, patiently waiting for the right conditions of temperature and soil to put out shoots."
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.
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- PublisherFanfare
- Publication date1996
- ISBN 10 0553568655
- ISBN 13 9780553568653
- BindingPaperback
- Number of pages384
- Rating
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