Within a day, the train arrived to bring workers bearing Red Cross armbands and scores of white-clad nurses. Dan wondered where they had found so many people willing to volunteer for duty in the small, forsaken town. Gratefully, he relieved himself of the massive obligations and turned his affairs outside of home over to those who had come to help.
Joelle climbed out of bed on the fourth day and, although her body still ached, she said very little about her pain. In fact, she said very little of anything to anyone. Even Lillie found it difficult to draw out the tiniest detail and rarely did Joelle even seem to notice when Lillie spoke directly to her.
It was Joelle’s way of dealing with her pain. She knew in full what had happened that night, and it was hard enough to come to terms with it, much less to talk about it.
John had pleaded to see her, but Joelle had refused. How could she face him now? She was soiled and used by others. She would never again be John’s beloved, and she wanted nothing to do with anything that would remind her of her loss. That was the reason she began to plan how she would leave. Somehow and by some means, she had to leave Columbus and get as far from John and his parents as she possibly could. Only then, she reasoned, would the demons leave her mind. Only then, would she be free from the memories.
“Joelle?” Lillie questioned, coming cautiously into the room with a tray of food. “I’ve brought you lunch.”
“I don’t want it,” Joelle replied flatly.
“You need to eat. It will help you heal.”
Joelle shot her a look of disbelief, then quickly turned away. “Just leave it, then.”
Lillie put the tray on the bedside table and went to sit beside Joelle. “You know I love you as a daughter, Joelle,” she began. “I just want to help you through this. You’ve done so much for John and for Dan and me. Please let us help you.”
“There’s nothing you can do,” Joelle stated simply, refusing to look at Lillie.
Lillie reached out and touched Joelle’s hand. “When I was around your age, I lost my first husband and the child we were expecting in a tragic accident. I thought God the most cruel and inhumane Being. I railed against Him and felt that He, above all others, knew nothing of my pain. But I was wrong, Joelle. It was through my pain and that tragedy that I met Dan. He too had his own pains from the past. He had lost a wife in childbirth and was also very angry at God.”
Joelle pulled back her hand. “I’m sorry for your losses, but it has nothing to do with me.”
“It does in a way,” Lillie replied softly. “You’ve lived through a hideous nightmare. You feel that God has shown you all manner of cruelty and punishment. But He hasn’t, Joelle. He hasn’t sought to harm you, and you mustn’t turn away from Him now.”
Joelle’s eyes blazed. “I didn’t turn away from Him, Lillie. He cast me aside. The night he allowed those men. . .” Her words fell into a void of silence. “He threw me away,” Joelle finally said.
“No, He didn’t.” Lillie struggled for just the right words. “We often go through bad things, but not because of God. We are as wheat being sifted. . . being made pure. The bad with the good, you might say, and from both we grow and learn how to cope with the challenges of life. The evil in this world, those men, and their sinful natures caused this, not God.”
Joelle got to her feet. “Please go, Lillie. I just want to be alone.”
“John’s asking to see you. He loves you so much.”
“He won’t love me when he knows the truth,” Joelle stated with hollow eyes staring blankly at Lillie.
“He knows the truth, Joelle.”
Lillie’s words hit Joelle as though she had been slapped. “He knows?” Her voice was small and weak.
“Yes, and he loves you even more. He knows that what happened to you, happened because you were saving his life. Oh, Child, he knows what they did, and it breaks his heart. But not because he thinks you are less than what you were, but because you think you are less than what he could love.”
Joelle’s eyes rimmed with tears. “He’d come to hate me.”
“Never!” Lillie declared. “He could never hate you.”
“Please, just go. Tell him to forget me. Tell him I release him from the obligation of our engagement. It’s what he wanted before the attack. Now I see the wisdom of it.”
“No, Joelle. John doesn’t want to lose you. He never wanted that.”
“He just feels sorry for me like he feared I felt for him.”
“Joelle,” Lillie tried to speak.
Joelle just shook her head. “Please, just leave me alone.”
When Lillie was gone, Joelle sat back down and stared at the food on the tray. Food, water, air to breathe. How simple it all seemed. The basic requirements to keep a human body alive. But what of the spirit? What of the heart and soul of a person? What could raise those from the dead, when murder had been committed against them?
“Joelle!”
Joelle’s eyes tightened shut, and her hand went to her throat at the sound of John calling her name. He kept doing that. Kept calling to her. Kept declaring his love and begging her to come to him.
“Joelle, I love you! Please don’t stop loving me!”
Joelle felt the hot tears slide down her cheeks. “I’ll never stop loving you, John. But, I can’t be your wife,” she whispered. “You deserve someone pure, and that can never be me.”
After Lillie left the house to take supper to Dan at the hospital, Joelle grabbed what few things she could handle and left the house. She had no idea where she would go or how she would make her way from Columbus. All she knew was that she could no longer bear to hear John’s pleading voice.
She left a simple note explaining her undying gratitude and love, with emphasis for John that her heart would forever belong to him alone. She pleaded for understanding and hoped that in time, John’s pain would pass and that he would love another.
Lillie found the note upon her return and with tears in her eyes, took it to her son. “She’s gone,” she stated simply and handed John the letter.
He scanned it quickly. “Go find Dad. Get him to send out a search for her. She can’t be far. We have to bring her back.”
Lillie nodded. “If you think it best, I will. But, John, what if Joelle only hates us for interfering?”
“She can get as angry and hateful as she likes,” John declared. “I owe her that, given what I put her through. Just go quickly, Mom. We can’t waste any time.” Lillie nodded and hurriedly left the room to retrieve Dan.
John eased his weight to the side of the bed. Useless things, he thought, pounding his hands against his still-weak legs. If only I could walk, I could go after her myself, he thought. But no, he could not even get off the bed without help. Here he was in a land he did not know well, with the love of his life fleeing from him and no way to go to her.
“Oh, God,” he whispered, “if only You would heal me and let me walk. If only You would give me the power to go after her.”
Outside his open window, John heard the haunting strains of a Spanish melody. The guitar’s rich strings poured out the accompaniment of the once-popular “La Golondrina”—“The Swallow.”
The Spanish words drifted up to pierce John’s heart. He easily translated them, and the realization of Joelle’s flight was brought home in ineffable irony.
“Where will she go, swift and weary,
The swallow that leaves from here?
But if in the country you strayed
Seeking shelter and unable to find it!
Next to my bed I will place her nest,
In which she can spend the season. . .
I, too, am in the lost land:
Oh! Cielo santo! Y sin poder volar!”
Oh! Heaven! And unable to fly!
Ch
apter 9
Joelle had no means to escape Columbus and so, in desperation, she snuck aboard a freight car when the opportunity presented itself. The train moved out of Columbus leaving behind scores of national newspapermen and an ever-growing command of soldiers. Joelle had heard it rumored, while waiting for the train, that President Wilson was sending troops out after Pancho Villa and his men. She silently hoped the army would slaughter all of them.
It was easy to slip onto the train. No one paid her any attention and, without regard to her own safety, Joelle threw herself into the back of a halfway empty car and settled down for the ride. She fell asleep and in such complete exhaustion found the first peace she had known in days. She was still bruised and aching from her ordeal, but her real pain was emotional. The never-ending bombardment of nightmares usually allowed her little escape from her memories. Gratefully, she succumbed to the rocking motion of the train car, finally realizing that she no longer cared if she lived or died.
When she woke up, Joelle adjusted her eyes to the darkness. Somewhere along the way, someone had closed the freight car door, leaving it pitch black inside. At first it frightened her, then, feeling that nothing else could hurt her more than she had already been hurt, Joelle eased her body into a sitting position and waited for the train to reach its unknown destination.
She thought of John. She could not help it. Somehow she knew that no matter where she went, she would always think of John. She remembered with fondest memories his laughing eyes and quick wit. She even smiled at the memory of their arguments. John was so good and loving. She could only hope that the woman he one day married would be worthy of him.
“Let him marry and be happy, God,” she whispered the prayer, then started at the thought of talking to God. Had she not concluded that God no longer listened to her?
I’m listening, Joelle.
It was not an audible voice, but Joelle heard it, nevertheless.
“But You left me alone!” Joelle declared.
Never, My child.
Joelle felt the train slowing, and whether it was due to a planned stop or merely the obligation of an upcoming town, Joelle prepared herself to exit the car.
The train groaned to a stop, and although Joelle had no idea where she had arrived, she thrust her full weight against the door and managed to open it enough to jump to the ground.
It was dark outside and cold. Colder than she had remembered in Columbus. But then, in Columbus she had never before ventured outside in the dead of night.
There was a small train depot and a smattering of people milling around the train engine. Joelle crept silently to the side of the depot and down the sandy roadway. She passed by several darkened adobe buildings. They seemed oblivious to her plight in their orange-brown silence.
The moonlight overhead did little to aid her journey, and finally Joelle sat down against the side of a small building and considered what she should do. The town seemed quite inhospitable at the lateness of the hour, and Joelle began to wonder if she should just seek out the nearest telegraph and wire her parents.
“No, I can’t go home to them. I can’t go home until I know,” she whispered to herself. A frightening question had risen up to haunt Joelle, and she desperately desired to have it answered before she made any plans for her future.
“You’ll freeze out here, Child,” the voice was gentle, ancient, and kind.
Joelle would have jumped at the sound of the voice, but her weariness of spirit gave her no reason to care. She gazed up into the face of an elderly man, a priest it seemed from the look of his clothing.
“I’ll be fine,” she answered and clutched her bag for warmth.
“I dreamed of a lamb caught in a snare,” the white-haired man replied as though Joelle had remained silent. “It was so real that I had to come check.”
“Did you find one?” Joelle asked innocently.
The man’s wrinkled face broke into a smile. “I believe I have.”
Joelle felt immediately at ease. “I’m no lamb, but I suppose you could say I’m caught in a snare.”
“Come along, little one. These old bones won’t take the desert cold. I have a fire and a room that will serve you well. Rise up and come with me.”
Joelle stared at him in mute surprise. His words were so like those of John’s when he had quoted Song of Solomon. Struggling against the need for comfort and the desire to fade into oblivion, Joelle got to her feet and sighed.
“I suppose it would be nice to get warm.”
The priest nodded and began to walk. “I am Father Cooper and I watch over the flock of this tiny parish.”
“I’m Joelle Dawson.” She offered nothing more, and the man seemed satisfied to leave it at that.
He motioned to the adobe dwelling that rested behind a small church. “It isn’t a mansion, but it manages to meet my needs.”
“It looks fine,” Joelle said and followed him into the house.
A warm fire did indeed glow out from the domelike fireplace in the corner of the main room. Joelle gazed longingly at its cheery flames.
“Go ahead, Child. Warm yourself,” the ancient priest invited.
Joelle hurried to the structure, dropped her bag, and held out her stiffened fingers. “It feels wonderful,” she said softly.
“Are you hungry?”
Joelle could not ignore the rumbling of her stomach. She could not even remember when she had eaten a proper meal. “Yes,” she replied, “I suppose I am.”
“I have some beans and tortillas left over from supper. Would you care to partake of it?” He watched Joelle intently for her answer.
“I would be very grateful,” Joelle replied.
“Then I will fetch it from the stove. You sit there by the fire, while I see to it.”
Joelle watched Father Cooper go from the room. He seemed to be one of those antiquated characters from the previous century and Joelle instantly liked him. It was funny, she thought. It seemed very right and good to be under his care. Yet, here was a total stranger, a man whom for all she knew could very well be no different from those who had harmed her.
“You have traveled far, yes?” he questioned, returning with a plate of food. His voice held the slightest hint of an accent.
“I don’t really know,” Joelle replied. “I’m not sure where I am, but I caught the train in Columbus.”
“Then you have come about forty miles north, northeast,” Father Cooper replied. “I see you are injured,” he motioned to her face. “Were you there during the attack on the city?”
Joelle’s countenance darkened. “Yes.”
“Your room is over here,” he stated and picked up the bag she had left by the fire. “Please, light a candle for yourself. You will find them in the box by the door.”
Joelle did as he instructed and followed him down a short hallway. Father Cooper opened the door to a tiny room. There was a single, old-fashioned bed in one corner and a cross on the wall. Joelle noted the furnishings with a heart of gladness. It was safe and warm and away from the painful memories of Columbus.
“It is small, yes, but it is yours.”
“Thank you,” Joelle murmured.
“God bless you, Child. Sleep well. We will talk in the morning,” Father Cooper said, closing the door as he took his leave.
Joelle did not even undress. She put the candle on the sawed-off frame of the bed and sat down wearily. The bed sagged, betraying the roping that held the thinly stuffed mattress, but Joelle did not care. She blew out the candle, slipped off her shoes, and fell back against the scratchy woolen blanket.
The nightmares came, as they did most every time she slept. Joelle relived the anguish of her rape, over and over, with every dream. She could hear their laughter, feel their breath against her face. Always she would wake up in a cold sweat, unable to
shake the feeling of being hit and mauled. Pulling her knees to her chest, Joelle clutched them tightly and squeezed her eyes shut. When would the images leave her? When would she ever be free?
After a restless night, morning came, and with it, the delicious aroma of sausage frying. Joelle jumped from the bed, sought out her brush, and quickly rebraided her hair. She thought for a moment about changing her clothes, then decided against it. If she had to travel again today, she might as well wear the same old things.
“Good morning,” she said shyly, entering Father Cooper’s kitchen.
“Ah, so you are awake. I have begun the breakfast. Will you join me?”
Joelle smiled at the sight of the little man working his way along the stove and counter to prepare his fare. “I would be grateful.”
Father Cooper motioned her to the cupboard. “There are dishes in there and cups. We will have hot tea with our sausage and eggs.”
Joelle went to the cupboard and pulled down two plates and matching cups. They were an ancient pattern of a once-fashionable china set. She thought how like Father Cooper the dishes were. Castoffs from another time and place, yet still serviceable.
She set the table and clasped her hands together, wishing she knew something to say. Father Cooper brought the skillet and all to the table. Joelle peered inside to see the concoction of eggs and sausage all scrambled together.
“It looks delicious,” she said, offering the slightest smile.
Father Cooper blessed the meal and offered Joelle a seat before taking one opposite her at the tiny table. “We are a poor people here, but the Lord does provide, oui?”
“You’re French,” Joelle said in surprise.
“But of course,” the man replied as though she should not have been surprised. Joelle smiled but made no further comment.
“You are traveling to your home?” Father Cooper asked.
“No,” Joelle said, shaking her head. She pushed around the food on her plate, spooning in several bites, trying to think of what to say next. “I guess I have no home,” she finally managed.
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