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The Loons
潛水鳥
Margarel Laurence
瑪格麗特勞倫斯
Just below Manawaka, where the Wachakwa River ran brown and noisy over the pebbles,the scrub oak and grey-green willow and chokecherry bushes grew in a dense thicket.
馬納瓦卡山下有一條小河，叫瓦恰科瓦河，渾濁的河水沿著布滿鵝卵石的河床嘩嘩地流淌著，河邊谷地上長著無數的矮橡樹、灰綠色柳樹和野櫻桃樹，形成一片茂密的叢林。
In a clearing at the centre of the thicket stood the Tonnerre family's shack.
坦納瑞家的棚屋就座落在叢林中央的一片空地上。
The basis at this dwelling was a small square cabin made of poplar poles and chinked with mud, which had been built by Jules Tonnerre some fifty years before, when he came back from Batoche with a bullet in his thigh, the year that Riel was hung and the voices of the Metis entered their long silence.
這住所的主體結構是一間四方形木屋，系用一根根白楊木涂以灰泥建成，建造者是儒勒坦納瑞。大約五十年前，也就是里爾被絞殺、法印混血族遭到徹底失敗的那一年，儒勒坦納瑞大腿上帶著一顆槍彈從巴托什戰場回到這里后便建造了那間小木屋。
Jules had only intended to stay the winter in the Wachakwa Valley, but the family was still there in the thirties, when I was a child.
儒勒當初只打算在瓦恰科瓦河谷里度過當年的那個冬天，但直到三十年代，他們家仍住在那兒，當時我還是個孩子。
As the Tonnerres had increased, their settlement had been added to, until the clearing at the foot of the town hill was a chaos of lean-tos, wooden packing cases, warped lumber, discarded car types, ramshackle chicken coops , tangled strands of barbed wire and rusty tin cans.
坦納瑞家人丁興旺，他們的木屋慢慢地擴建，越來越大，到后來，那片林中空地上小披屋林立，到處亂七八糟地堆放著木板包裝箱、曬翹了的木材、廢棄的汽車輪胎、搖搖欲墜的雞籠子、一卷一卷的帶刺的鐵絲和銹跡斑斑的洋鐵罐。
The Tonnerres were French half breeds, and among themselves they spoke a patois that was neither Cree nor French.
坦納瑞一家是法裔混血兒，他們彼此之間講話用的是一種土話，既不像克里印第安語，也不像法語。
Their English was broken and full of obscenities.
他們說的英語字不成句，還盡是些低級下流的粗話。
They did not belong among the Cree of the Galloping Mountain reservation, further north, and they did not belong among the Scots-Irish and Ukrainians of Manawaka, either.
他們既不屬于北方跑馬山保留地上居住的克里族，也不屬于馬納瓦卡山上居住的蘇格蘭愛爾蘭人和烏克蘭人群體。
They were, as my Grandmother MacLeod would have put it, neither flesh, fowl, nor good salt herring.
用我祖母愛用的詞來說，他們簡直就是所謂的"四不像"。
