“Let’s check out the goats,” Jody suggested, his hand heavy on Benji’s shoulder to guide him. “Ye sure got big there, lad,” he said as he patted him gently. Hopefully, these weren’t the last kind words he’d share with him this evening.
“What? Ye dinna have that ornery old spotted sow anymore?” Benji asked in jest. He knew that when he was a child, Grandpa and Grannie had a huge sow that seemed to be indestructible. It wasn’t what he wanted to talk about, but he was fairly sure that speaking of long dead pigs was better than discussing what he feared his grandfather had ushered him outside for.
“Why’d ye do it, lad?” Jody asked somberly.
“Come here?” Benji answered brightly, “To see ye and Grannie, and maybe even a few of those cousins of mine. I dinna ken if they’d be here or not. Last I heard, Angus and family were in New Bern. But, I was hopin’ that maybe they took a bit of a vacation—that is a trip, out here to see ye and Grannie—and I’d get to see them, too. I decided to come even though I wasna verra sure of where to find ye, jest a general location,” he joked then deadpanned, “North Carolina.” He added a hearty laugh. “I had a bit of trouble findin’ ye but…”
Benji finally stopped his inane banter. He thought it was a good ploy, but he knew Grandpa was a smart man and could see through anything, even if his chatter was only a dodge and meant to be transparent. “What do ye wish to speak of?” Benji asked soberly, hoping the words he would hear wouldn’t hurt too much.
Jody tried to hold back his anger, but the passion was too strong to be held in check by reason. “Dinna ye ken that it jest about kilt yer parents to think ye deid?” he asked, his voice gruff and harsh, in spite of his effort at self-control.
“It was the only way to keep them safe!” Benji snapped back. “We were all a target, it wasn’t jest me. I was jest the pawn to draw them out. If my folks had come forward with the ransom or The Letters, they’d be deid, jest as sure as ye and I are standin’ here!”
“Dinna take too lightly yer mother and father and their skills,” Jody argued. “I’m sure they’d find a way to get the Fool’s Gold.” Benji shook his head and Jody knew. “Ye never told anyone where the gold and jewels were, did ye?” he asked.
“Nae,” Benji answered. “It’s still there for what good it does anyone. But ye see, the MacLeods wanted me and my family deid jest as much as they wanted the treasure. They were, are, vile, sharp, and resourceful.”
“Aye, that may be, but I’d wager yer parents coulda found a way to turn over the kidnappers to the authorities. Kidnappin’ is still against the law, aye?” Jody asked.
“Aye, but I dinna ken all the men involved. There were others Sept and his cousins spoke of. It was…”
“Letters?” Jody asked, suddenly realizing it wasn’t just money and revenge the MacLeods were after. “What are these ‘letters’ ye and James and Leah have been talkin’ about?”
“It seems they believed there was a map or directions to a treasure in the letters that were kept by our family. I think that James’s family had valuable letters, too, because he was runnin’ into the same problem as me. Maybe the MacLeods thought they were the same ones; I dinna ken and never cared to ask. I kent ye and Grannie wrote letters. They were, are, the biggest treasure of all fer my family. I remember waitin’ fer Saturday nights. Da would bring out the box and we would all cuddle up on the couch and he’d read one. Or rather, he’d recite one. We had heard them all. Da and Mom used to read jest one a month, but after they’d been through them all the first time, it became a family tradition: sittin’ on the couch with our cocoa or cider, listenin’ to Da read the letters.”
Benji grinned in recall. “I blushed every time he told about the antics ye recalled about me when I was a wee ‘un. Aye, I turned red, but I was so happy that ye were so proud of me. I hope I havena disappointed ye with the deception I had to do. I really dinna do it to be mean, but to protect my family. Da and Mom could take care of themselves, but what if they went after wee Becky?” he asked, his eyes begging for forgiveness.
Jody didn’t speak: he wasn’t ready to pardon him for the deception, at least yet. There also seemed to be more that he wasn’t being told.
Benji sighed deeply and spit it out. “I’m alive, but so are they because of what I did. Ye dinna ken that MacLeod family. They were, are, will be, insane. They’d never give up tryin’ to find the treasure. That’s reason enough to stay away from my family, but,” he said sadly, shaking his head in self-disgust, “I canna go back—ever. I’ve disgraced them.”
“How’s that, lad?” Jody asked gently. This wasn’t a simple case of telling his grandson to go back to his parents. Evidently, there was more involved in this, and his grandson needed counseling, not chastising. “Certainly there’s nothin’ so horrid that yer family couldna forgive ye. I mean, ye havena kilt anyone who dinna deserve it, have ye?”
Benji’s eyes widened in shock and distaste. “No!” he exclaimed, then slipped back into his morose mood. “It’s worse than that and I dinna care to speak of it,” he said with distaste. Benji realized as soon as the words were out of his mouth, how harshly he had spoken. “I’m sorry. That was rude and uncalled fer. Its jest, it…it…well, it’s humiliatin’ is what it is”
Jody shook his head. “That’s what family is fer: to turn to when there’s no one else. We’re here to support ye, forgive ye if need be, but always accept ye jest as ye are, perfect or full of bad deeds in yer past.”
“Well, can ye keep this to yerself? I mean, not even tell Grannie?” Benji asked softly. Maybe confessing to his grandfather would help at least a little.
Jody inhaled deeply. This was a big request. But whatever it was that Benji was going to tell him was so hideous—at least, to him—that he had let his family continue to believe he was dead rather than admit to it. “Okay, until ye tell Grannie yerself or tell me that I can tell her, I’ll not share yer secret.” Big commitments sometimes meant big sacrifices.
“Weel, ye’ve heard about movies from Grannie and Mom and…ye do ken what movies are, aye?”
Jody nodded. “A bit like a play, but also like a picture on the wall; it’s a story told, but the picture moves and talks.”
Benji nodded and bit his bottom lip. “Except sometimes they dinna tell a story, but jest show, um, private acts: like those that are enjoyed by a husband and a wife when they’re alone and feelin’ full of love and…” Benji looked at his grandfather to see if he knew what he was talking about.
“Ye mean performin’ sexual intercourse?” Jody asked. If that wasn’t what his grandson was talking about, he didn’t want to know. Or maybe he did. The boy—man he reminded himself—was quite conflicted.
Benji nodded again, but didn’t speak. Jody did, though. Now he was curious as well as shocked. “Do ye mean they have movin’ pictures of people copulatin’?”
Benji kept nodding and was back to biting his lip again. He glanced up. “And I, I…”
“And ye watched them?” Jody asked, trying to help his grandson set the revelation free.
“That’s not it,” he said. He had watched some, but that wasn’t his problem. Benji looked up, saw the confused look on his grandfather’s face, and could tell the man wouldn’t be able to figure it out without further explanation. The morals of the 18th century—at least as far his grandfather’s life was concerned—evidently weren’t as depraved as what he had lived with.
“So if ye dinna watch them, then…” Jody was truly was searching for words, but was clueless.
“I was in one,” Benji blurted out, and then burst into tears. “I dinna want to be; refused them politely at first, but they wouldna hear anythin’ of it. They did everythin’ they could to get me to cooperate, offered me money and, and lots of other stuff.” Benji wiped the tears from his face with the back of his hand, omitting the part of the story where he was offered drugs and more sex for participating.
“They used a machine to render me unconscious. While I was down, they bound me
with straps that cut into my wrists. They asked me again when I woke up. When I still refused, they whipped me ‘til their arms wore out and, and,” Benji sighed, not knowing how to explain a taser, then decided to bypass the instrument’s details.
Benji straightened his back, hoping that the physical movement of trying to show some spine would actually help him relate his confession. He shook his head side to side and decided he would have to tell the story as a narrative and try to take his personal feelings out of the chronicle.
“They beat me with rubber hoses; soft sticks that wouldna leave bruises, but I still wouldna do it. So, they used a machine that paralyzed me so I couldna move, but was aware of everything bein’ said and done around me. They took a handful of these pills…” Benji shook his head, trying to disassociate himself, but the disgust was creeping back in, backing up like vomit in his mouth. “They have these pills fer men that canna, canna get an erection.” Benji glanced over at his grandfather to see if he understood. Jody frowned with uncertainty, so Benji elaborated with common dialog. “They have wee tablets that can make a man’s cock hard, whether he wants it to be or nae.” He grunted with disgust. “One pill is enough to, um, serve the purpose, but these men wanted to make sure I could, could perform, so crammed a whole fistful of these down my throat, nearly chokin’ me to death in the process.
“Weel, the pills worked,” Benji continued dejectedly. “Whether I felt kindly to the lass or nae dinna make a difference. But, I dinna want to do it and she was, weel, she dinna care about anythin’. It was like she was drunk, but without the slobberin’. They gave her bad drugs and had her wantin’ more. She dinna ken right from wrong; just wanted more of the drugs. She’d agree to do anythin’ to get what she needed—nae, not needed—wanted. She dinna need them, but thought she did.”
Benji shook his head again. He had to continue what he had started, no matter how awkward or difficult it had become. “I told them again that I wouldna do it after I was recovered from the taser, that is the paralyzer, and my mouth would work again. Since they had either stripped or cut off all my clothes, they could see that the pills had, um, done their job, and even if I wasna willin’, I was able. They even put a gun to my head, but I still wouldna do it.
“Ye see, I had…hmm, other incidents, encounters, whatever, in the past when I was younger, much younger, that made me decide to, to…” Benji blurted out with exasperation, “Well, anyway, I had vowed not to be with a woman unless I was marrit to her. I was gonna keep that vow, even if I had to die keepin’ it. When they saw I was not to be persuaded with pain, or even my own death, they turned the gun, that is, the pistol, on the lass. If she saw it, she dinna realize what they meant to do, either because she thought it was part of the movie or because she was so drugged up.”
Benji found the nerve to look into his grandfather’s face. His grandfather wasn’t judgmental in the least, but was stone-faced, waiting for his little four-year-old grandson in the grown up man’s body to finish his horror story. Jody nodded his head and let him know that he could proceed with the tale: he was following the sequence of events and understood the strange words and concepts of the 21st century.
“Grandpa, it wasna jest the pistol. They had a whole box full of tools, a brace bit with electric power, punches, awls, hammers,” Benji shook his head, beginning to feel light headed, but continuing the movement, just the same. The story was incredible to him, and he was there and knew it was true. “They were going to punch holes in her body, everywhere, until she was deid, and film it, that is, make a movie of it! They were gonna kill her a little bit at a time and make money from showin’ it to other people if I dinna,” Benji snorted, then said, “have relations with her.”
“So ye saved her life doin’ somethin’ that was against yer wishes, yer vow?” Jody asked, although he knew that was what he had just heard.
“Aye,” Benji said with closed eyes, relieved that he had been able to finish his confession.
“I gave up a part of me to keep yer Grannie safe, to save her life, and weel, keep other parts pure, before yer mother was born. Ye wouldna be in this room with me if I hadna done somethin’ so vile and disgusting to me that it still makes me ill to think about it. But, no matter how horrid it was,” Jody shuddered as he recalled being cut, beaten, and sodomized by two soldiers nearly forty years earlier, “I still have yer Grannie, four children, many, many grandchildren, and even a great-granddaughter, because of my sacrifice. It really isna my business, but the lass, was she harmed?”
“Nae, she was fine last I saw her. They tried to make her do more, um, sinful deeds in order to get the drugs. But I did a bit of an intervention there. Ye see, they dinna have that taser, the paralyzer, handy, and I broke the arm of the man who was gettin’ ready to shoot the drugs into her body. Ye do ken what an injection is, aye?”
“Aye,” Jody said, as he rolled his eyes. Sarah had given him injections on several different occasions in their life together. Even though each time was to save him from dying from either an infection or blood loss, he would chance recovering on his own rather than get another needle poked into him.
“I broke the man’s wrist, the wrist of the man holdin’ the drugs. I told him if I ever caught him givin’ drugs to anyone ever again, I’d break his neck. Weel, I think he believed me. At least, I scared him so bad—or maybe it was from the pain of the broken arm—that he pissed himself. When he did that, I’m sure he lost the respect of his minions. I took the lass with me and left that place, his lackeys runnin’ all over each other, tryin’ to get away from me.”
“The lass…” Jody prompted.
“I took care of her fer three days and made sure the drugs were out of her system. I told her to go home and get back to her family; that they would take care of her.” Benji saw the look in Jody’s eyes, the wide-eyed look that meant he was getting ready to tell him to do the same thing. “But, I agreed with her that family wasna always the best place to go, dependin’ on the circumstances. So, I gave her a note to go see the constable in the next town over. He wouldna ken of her past with drugs or the other, um, stuff she’d been doin’. The police, as we call them, are pretty well connected. I mean, a police officer may not be able to help her, but he could contact an agency—that is a group of knowledgeable people—who could help her.”
“Weel, at least it was one lass and not two men,” Jody said flatly. He sighed deeply and saw that maybe it was time to share some of his pain. “Come here and let me hold ye like I did when ye were a wee lad and scarrit of the thunder and lightnin’.” Jody reached over and Benji cuddled into his arms like their sizes were of no importance because emotionally, they really didn’t matter.
Benji started sobbing into his grandfather’s shoulder. Jody kissed him on the top of the head and started his revelation. “Believe it or not, I ken how it is because of the, um, sacrifices I made, too. Ye made a gift of yer body, not to the man who made the movin’ picture, but to the lass who ye saved from the drugs or bein’ kilt or whatever. Ye see, I had to trade my body to save yer grannie’s, but I had to give it to two men. It was me or her,” Jody shook his head and shuddered with recall. “But, she still loved me and I’m grateful. It isna easy to give up that part of your body under duress. It’s supposed to be given in love, not taken against yer will.”
“How did ye get over it,” Benji asked as he sat up, feeling better for crying in Grandpa’s arms like a young child.
“At first, it’s minute by minute, then hour by hour until, weel, until ye brought it up, I hadna thought of that, um, time fer nearly a year. But, ye canna take yerself away from yer parents. If ye have a way to get back to them, weel, I’ll miss ye, we all will, but…”
Jody was without words. He had lost Sarah for 20 years, and then she had returned. It had been awkward at first. He couldn’t, hadn’t dared, tell her what he had done while she was gone. She found out about it, and then all hell broke loose. The two of them got over it, but this wouldn’t be the same for his grands
on. Benji was the man-child returning to his parents, the prodigal son. And then he had the words to share.
“Ye do remember yer Bible, aye?” he asked.
Benji shrugged his shoulder. “There werena many churches where I was, and I wasna allowed out by myself. After I got away, I dinna feel worthy of being in the house of the Lord. I do remember a lot from when I was younger, about what is right and wrong, the Ten Commandments, and most of the Lord’s Prayer.” He shook his head. “Nae, I havena seen a Bible since I was at home and a lad.”
“Two things I have to share with ye. Jesus said, ‘Come to Me as ye are.’ That means even if ye have a lot of sin, come to Him and He’ll clean ye up. And ye need to read the story in the Bible of the prodigal son. It’s about a lad who leaves and, even though he does some bad deeds, the father is glad to have him back. He even kills the fatted calf and has a big party in the young man’s honor. Of course, the Bible says it better than I can. I have a wee Bible I can give ye. It should fit in yer sporran and ye can read a bit every day. It will feed yer soul and, from what ye tell me, it’s been starved fer quite a few years.”
32 Don’t Tell My Mother
August 26, 1782
“D o you ever reread the letters you’ve written to Mona and Gregg?” I asked. “I mean, I looked back at what I wrote last year and I sounded sappy, but I left it the way I had written it. I mean, those were my real feelings at the time…”
“I know what you mean, and that’s why Jody and I agreed not to reread ours. Once they’re folded and in the box, they’re off limits. They belong to our heirs at that point, not us.”
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