Listen to the Mockingbird

by Penny Rudolph

  The arroyo floor was powdery sand and going was slow. The banks of the natural ditch got steeper quickly. By the time it bent to the right I couldn’t see over them. With the sun below that high horizon, I was suddenly in dusk. The ground underfoot turned rocky as the arroyo opened into a miniature valley dotted with boulders.

  I passed under the trunk of a tree that must have been uprooted in some storm and wedged between the ravine walls. Here the sun still reached the tops of the wind-etched cliffs. The bold beauty was stunning, and I had perched near one of the thick branches to admire the scene when a scraping sound came from behind me. A dozen or so rocks skittered down the wall, their clatter echoing and re-echoing.

  I was turning back to the cliffs when it happened again. This time I was sure I saw something move on the arroyo rim. I watched the spot intently, but all was still. A coyote, maybe; an antelope or a wild sheep. Nothing stirred.

  The sky had gone a glowering purplish-grey. This time it might actually rain. I had just completed that thought when a thundering crash careened through the canyon like some monumental god in a runaway coach.

  The rain seemed to begin in mid-torrent, sluicing over the cliffs in sheets. I tried to run, angry with myself for getting caught like that. A fool of an Easterner—that’s what they would call me. The rocks made running impossible.

  Another thunderous clamor rang out; and the sky above me grew white, then purple, then almost black. A dull roar behind me grew, blotting out all other sound. I stumbled and turned. A wall of water— rocks and debris at its base, almost white at the top—was moving toward me so fast I only had time to leap for a boulder before it was upon me, tearing my legs from under me, pummeling my back with rocks, swamping my head, engulfing ears and nose. It could ram me against the canyon wall, bust my bones like kindling.

  I had never learned to swim. If I couldn’t climb on something higher, I would die.

  I forced myself to turn loose of the boulder, and let the water carry me. My head broke the surface and I took a ragged gasp of air before the water lunged over me again, remorselessly dragging me, thrusting me at the arroyo wall like a battering ram.

  The log, the tree that had fallen across the arroyo—if I could reach that, I might stand a chance. But I had no control at all, no way to avoid a collision of flesh and stone.

  My feet hit an underwater rock and I bent my knees to absorb some of the shock, praying my limbs hadn’t broken. Something clawed at my face, a branch? Yes, the tree. But the water eddied and swept me sideways, slamming my head against the stony arroyo wall.

  A ball of yellow light burst behind my eyes and the world went black.

  999

  Consciousness came back like a sharp stick.

  My legs, still bent beneath me, were numb, my entire body sodden and bruised. It seemed so dark I kept blinking my eyes to be sure they were open. But I didn’t need light to know I was snagged among the tree’s dead branches and as marooned as any caterpillar on a log in a river.

  Chapter Eight

  In the murky dimness, the water still roiled angrily. Big drops fell from above, slapping the top of my head like wads of chewed tobacco. There was nothing to do but wait.

  The moon hoisted itself above the canyon wall and peered down at me: fat, yellow, jolly and utterly uncaring about my fate. I shivered. It was so like another cruel moon. I squeezed my eyes shut against it, but my past came at me as overwhelmingly as that wall of water.

  Under such a moon, I had surrendered my honor and, ultimately, my very life.

  Andrew Collins and I had married three months later. I hadn’t regretted forfeiting my virtue; I fairly reveled in it. Andrew only had to give me one of his little-boy droll looks, and my knees would fairly buckle.

  I was the envy of every woman I knew, and I knew a substantial number of young women from the best families in St. Louis.

  Very soon after we married, Andrew decided we must go West. I never asked why. Somehow, he wangled a commission in the regular army, I bade goodbye to Nanny and we joined a military train at Independence for the trek across the prairie on the Santa Fe Trail.

  Most of the wives complained of boredom and discomfort. My carriage seat was hard and the days moved slowly; but I marveled at the thicket of bayonets, like the spiked head of some vast dragon, and the stream of wagons that seemed to trail all the way to the horizon. Mostly we followed rivers, and red-winged blackbirds often fluttered along with us.

  Andrew was at his most gallant. I had not yet discovered that his high good spirits were owed to another kind of spirits. Before we left Missouri he bought me two wonderful gifts. One was Fanny, “bred from mustangs captured in the northwest,” he told me. Just a filly then, she trailed around behind me like a puppy.

  The other gift was Winona. Andrew had not actually bought Winona, or so he said. He had won her in a poker game. My conscience quibbled at owning a slave, but I told myself we were doubtless rescuing her from some cruel master. Such was the state of my ignorance.

  Winona was not as friendly as Fanny. She was solemn and kept to herself, but she had already made one trek with the army as a cook and she knew exactly what supplies would be needed and how to fix decent meals on the trail.

  Andrew and I had lived very well and traveled in better style than most of the officers. Giddy with love and the excitement of my new life, I didn’t question that it was my papa’s money that paid for it.

  Not until we reached Fort Union in New Mexico Territory did the trouble begin. Soon after we arrived Andrew did a most peculiar thing: He stole a hat from the quartermaster’s store.

  “Why, Andrew? Why on earth would you steal when you have all those gold coins locked in your mother’s chest?”

  That was the first time he slapped me.

  Almost immediately, his face became a map of pain. Scooping me up from the floor where I had fallen, he hugged me to him. “God, Matty! I’m sorry,” he cried in a choked voice, then grabbed a hatchet from the hearth and swore to chop off the offending hand. I found myself begging him not to do so and telling him it was nothing.

  He was court-martialed for the theft, but it was many months before anything came of it. And when it did, the result was far different from what I expected.

  Over the next few weeks, Andrew began to antagonize his fellow officers. He flaunted authority, skating right up to the edge of disaster but not quite crossing the line.

  New Mexico seemed the stony edge of civilization. The sparse landscape, the houses that seemed little more than low mud huts, were cheerless at best. Yet the blue-blue mountains seemed to possess a sort of magic. And, as I told myself daily, all of this was temporary. Andrew would soon have his proper place among the officers and be happy again. The houses were not quite so awful as they looked—ours was quite snug. And the stout mud walls provided a place to hide.

  I was nursing another blackened eye and wearied of describing the fall and my own clumsiness that had caused it. Several times a week, Andrew flew into rages followed almost instantaneously by bouts of self-loathing and pleas for my forgiveness. For my part, I was both horrified and bewildered and believed that all would be well again if I could just make him happy.

  He continued to drink heavily, spend grandly and give away what seemed like vast sums of money when he was in high spirits. Even when he brought me lavish gifts, which was more and more often, I began to begrudge that he was so free with the coins—money that my poor papa strove so hard to save, money that but for Andrew would be mine.

  But such thoughts were futile. Only a woman who had no man to look after her—no husband, father, brother, even an uncle—had money of her own. They said we were fortunate not to have to concern ourselves with it. Certainly no married woman I knew controlled a purse of her own, except Dora Tewkesbury in St. Louis, whose father had stipulated in his will that his fortune was to be hers and hers alone. Her father had deplored his daughter’s husband for a scoundrel and a wastrel; and from what I saw, he was right. My papa had
never met Andrew, and I suppose the making of such a will never entered his mind. The wrongness of it all has gnawed at me to this very day.

  One evening I returned from quilting with the other wives, and thinking myself alone, I burst into the bedroom eager to see my new creation on the bed. I was unfolding the quilt when from behind two hands gripped my arms just above the elbows and slammed me onto the bed.

  “You told him, didn’t you?” Andrew snarled.

  “Told who what?” I gasped.

  “Told the colonel I killed old man Peters in St. Louis and took his goddam stash of coins.”

  “How could I,” I faltered, bringing my hands up to protect my head from the blow I knew was coming. “I never knew anyone named Peters in St. Louis.”

  He took hold of my bodice and ripped it chin to waist. “Don’t lie to me, bitch!”

  An odd, exceeding calmness came over me. It was as if all that I am retreated deep inside. I suspect much of it still resides there. At that moment, I fell silent as a piece of wood. Andrew stripped my torn clothing from me and shook me. I let nothing show on my face. Even when he fell upon me and rammed himself into me I didn’t resist. Even when the pain was blinding, I just closed my eyes, hung on to the bed and thought of the mountains. His rampage didn’t last long; he was too drunk.

  “Oh, God, I’m sorry.” He laid his head on my breast like a lost child and sobbed. “Don’t leave me, Matty. I am lost. Only you can save me.”

  Dry-eyed, I patted his shoulder.

  999

  “Who is old man Peters?” I asked Andrew the next morning at breakfast. I felt safe because Winona was there, setting biscuits and honey on the table. She had not disguised her silent inspection of the bruises on my cheek.

  Andrew’s eyes flicked to Winona, then back to me. “A greengrocer in St. Louis. Why?”

  “Just idle curiosity,” I said, amazed there was no tremor in my voice.

  “Where did you hear that name?”

  “Someone mentioned him yesterday,” I lied. “At the quilting.”

  Andrew stood up peremptorily, and the conversation veered in a direction odder still. “You know voodoo, don’t you, Winona?”

  She looked down at the floor. “No, sir.”

  “I thought all darkies practice voodoo.”

  “No, sir. That ain’t true.”

  “Whatever are you getting at?” I asked.

  He ignored me. “I wager you could put a hex on someone if you had a mind to,” he said to Winona, who did not raise her eyes.

  “Andrew, surely you don’t believe that nonsense?”

  His eyes became small and hard. “Do not belittle what you do not know,” he said slyly. “I saw a woman once, when I was a lad. A chicken got loose from the pen. A dozen people were chasing it. The darky woman just stood there holding a knife. When the others had tuckered themselves out to no avail she raised that knife and pointed it at the chicken—only pointed it, mind you—and that bird fell over dead. Yes, indeed, I do believe in voodoo.”

  He turned back to Winona. “I may one day tell you to put a spell on someone for me, and you’ll do it, you hear?”

  Winona nodded stoically and backed through the doorway.

  Andrew waited until he heard the door open and close and Winona’s footsteps returning to the cabin she shared with other slaves and servants. Then he leaned over me so close his nose almost touched my forehead.

  “You are not to go there again,” he said. A little puff of stale, hot breath hit my face with each word.

  I leaned away. “Not go where?”

  He grabbed both my arms above the elbows and yanked me to my feet. “Anywhere! You are not to leave this house!”

  I weakly mouthed the first words that came into my head: “But…Fanny. I must see to Fanny.”

  Andrew was at the front door. “If you value living in this world, you will not leave the house.” He left, slamming the door behind him.

  And for the first time, the reality of my situation roared through my consciousness like a silent scream.

  I think now that Andrew’s truly dangerous side was not the cruel side but the endearing one. He could tease, his pale blue eyes sparkling with laughter. And sometimes my heart would fairly wrench inside me to see him standing, feet slightly apart, one hand on the dining room table, head tilted down so the thick shock of red-blond hair fell across his brow, those same eyes filled with such a lonely sadness. It was those times I would know that if I just tried hard enough, I could repair whatever had gone crooked inside him.

  A few months after he stole that hat, Andrew received orders to report to Fort Craig. We packed and began the journey southeast with a couple dozen others. The other officers were single, so Winona and I were the only women.

  Andrew had entered one of his silent periods; and interpreting this to mean he had truly changed, I set out quite happy, believing everything might be different at Fort Craig. When we reached the Rio Grande, we turned south on a well-traveled trail. One of the men rode alongside our wagon pointing out landmarks. We were on the Camino Real, he said, the road cut by the Spaniards two hundred years before; and it excited me to be seeing the same rocks, the same soil beneath our wagon wheels as those first explorers.

  We camped where a second river joined ours from the north. Wanting to explore a little, I went to find Fanny. She was obviously bored with following the wagons and welcomed the saddle.

  “Where do you think you’re going?” Andrew’s voice came from behind me. We were quite alone between the tent and the stream.

  “To see what there is to see,” I said. “It’s lovely here. Why don’t you come, too?”

  “Go back to the tent. You are not to leave it.”

  “I won’t go far.”

  He took a step toward me. “Get back in the tent. You’re the only woman here.”

  “No, I’m not. There’s Winona. I’ll take her with me if you want.” I was holding the harness, preparing to insert the strap into Fanny’s mouth.

  “Get back in the tent.”

  I turned to look him straight in the eye and kept my voice calm and low. “Please believe me. I won’t go far. I only want to ride a bit.”

  Andrew snatched the reins from my hand, threw them about my neck and twisted. I fell to my knees unable even to gasp as my heart exploded in my ears. He twisted the straps again and I thought my head would burst. My heart near beat its way out of my chest; my lungs didn’t know what to do with the air inside them. Andrew’s face snarled into mine, and the world got black around the edges.

  Chapter Nine

  In his own good time, Andrew loosed his hold and I crumpled to the ground. After that, something inside me changed. Looking back, I confess I am puzzled by my response. I was frightened of Andrew, but I was also afraid that someone might find out. I suppose it was my pride. No one must discover my sordid circumstances. Above all, I detested the thought of becoming an object of pity.

  I no longer deluded myself with the notion that I could “fix” whatever was wrong with Andrew. But instead of going to any of the two dozen men who might help me, I took great pains to hide the bruises and to appear normal. I tied a strip of flannel about my throat and feigned a cough. I was so good at this I was sure even Winona did not know.

  Dazed and unresisting, I continued the trek oblivious to the landscape, to Andrew’s fellow officers and, especially, to myself.

  The following night, Andrew brought Fanny’s reins into our tent and made me sleep with them around my neck.

  Numb, dazed and exhausted, I fell into a troubled sleep until something smashed into my pillow near my ear. My eyes flew open to stare at a hatchet blade buried in the feathers inches from my cheek.

  Andrew stood over me, his pale eyes like chunks of evil glass.

  “Don’t even think about taking my mother’s cherrywood chest,” he said, his voice low and deadly. “All those pretty gold pieces were not hers, but they are mine! And will always be mine. Never yours. Never. If you so m
uch as look at that chest, I will carve you into small pieces of meat and roast you over the fire. I might even treat the men to a special banquet.”

  999

  For some wholly irrational reason, I looked upon our arrival at Fort Craig as an end to my ordeal. Exhausted but relieved, I unpacked. Now things would return to normal. All of this would become what it really was: a horrible dream.

  The first week, I spent all my waking hours making our little mud house tidy and homey. Because Andrew still was under court-martial for the stolen hat incident, he was not assigned to active duty. He had not yet begun to chafe at that, regarding himself as quite clever to be paid for doing nothing. He was cheerful and even helped me polish my grandmother’s silver.

  I told Winona that Andrew had harbored some odd ailment that made him understandably ill-tempered, but he was now recovered and himself again.

  Her face went deadly serious, her eyes hard at the corners. “No, Miss Matty. Do not fool yourself.” And then she disappeared, leaving me with a puddle of something cold in my innards.

  A few days later, I rose, dressed and prepared to do some visiting. Several of the other officer’s wives had sent servants with invitations to come for tea as soon as we were settled.

  Andrew had left early on some business of his own, Winona was preparing some sort of stew that had to simmer many hours and I spent the day laughing and chitchatting, and sipping tea. By late afternoon, I was feeling quite my old self and almost eager to go back to my little mud house to have dinner and exchange the day’s stories with my husband.

  At home, I freshened up, washed my face, braided my hair again and changed my shirtwaist. At full dark, Andrew still had not appeared. I lit two oil lamps and the fire Winona had laid. Trying to sound cheerful and unruffled, I suggested she take a big portion of stew back to her own cabin. Something unavoidable must have detained my husband. I would serve him myself when he got home.

  Having dined on nothing but tea and sweets all day, I was hungry; and after another hour, I ladled some stew onto a plate and was just sitting down, carefully not thinking about what might be keeping Andrew, when the door burst open.