Katherine

by S. A. Glenn

  “No work for us here on weekends till business picks up.” He gulped down a few hard swallows of water from the jug.

  “Great!” Samuel grinned, taking a sandwich from his bag, biting big. “I can’t wait,” he added, spraying bits of dried bread about. There was a battle within Samuel, but he was determined to withstand the mental flak that created the sickness in his mind. Most of everything he had asked for was coming into his life: safety, friends, and money. His doubts about himself were dwindling, though there were still issues that kept him down. With his new acquaintances, he was presumably destined to recover from his past’s ordeals.

  As Samuel and Oli finished their lunch, Oli spoke. “I’m an old-fashioned man, and I like the simple life. And when I see people around me in pain, I feel the urge to right the wrong. I believe life is too short to endure sadness. I’m convinced that laughter wards off gloom. But I know sometimes only a friend can take away the darkness that feeds on emotions.” He chugged down the last of the water, let out a blaring belch and turned to Samuel. “So, where ya from, Samuel?”

  Samuel choked on his sandwich, caught off guard with Oli’s personal question. Oli patted Samuel’s back. After Samuel got his composure back, he reluctantly answered with honesty, despising lies: he knew he could not keep his past buried forever. “The Carolinas,” he said, then changed the subject in hopes of avoiding further complications. “Have you and the Ferley’s known each other long?”

  Oli grabbed a twig, picked his teeth. “A good couple of decades,” he answered. Spitting out a piece of a bean, he jumped back into inquiring about Samuel’s past. “What made you move out here?”

  “Just needed something different.”

  “What was wrong with whatcha had?”

  Samuel bit into his apple, stalling for a non-incriminating but truthful explanation. As he came up with one, he turned to Oli, looked him dead in the eyes, breathed deep. “Well, I was stayin’ with a friend in them Appalachian mountains. He taught me howda survive off the land, but thought it was time for me to move on. I met some strangers. They told me of Wrangler and this mill, said it was openin’ up. I hopped a train, decided to check it out, ’n’ here I am.”

  “Interesting. Got any family?”

  Samuel’s nervousness was building. “Just my Ma.”

  “She lives alone in the mountains?”

  “East of them,” he answered, missing his home, thinking about his mother—then his stepfather’s face entered his mind, chasing her kind image away with a hideous one. “I hate that my step-pa locked me in that cold, dark cellar!” he exclaimed, not realizing he had spoken out loud.

  “Don’t much like him, do ya, Samuel?”

  “No!” he stated, crossing his arms, staring at the ground with glazed-over eyes.

  CHAPTER 5

  THE CELLAR

  1862

  In the beginning things were fine between 14-year-old Samuel and his stepfather—but then the man started drinking too much. He used to drink only after the sun went down; however, he switched to the first thing in the morning, adding alcohol to his coffee, leading to an all-day escapade. He began taunting Samuel about carving out wooden figures with his knife, telling him it was sissy-like, believing Samuel should be masculine by chasing women, smoking cigarettes, and drinking whisky.

  Samuel did what he could to please his stepfather, picking up the nasty habits of smoking and drinking, but he had difficulties with the gals. He was too serious around them, didn’t fathom how to conduct himself when they teased him. They would make fun of his shyness, not understanding his heart and the compassion it held, making him feel unworthy.

  He desperately wanted to fit in, hoping to make things right so the girls would ease up on him. Trying to figure them out, he once went to a whore house, peeked into a window, searching for tips on how to pacify the opposite sex. But two prostitutes caught him looking into the window, calling him a peeping Tom, frightening him away. After that, his reputation got worse, causing him to give up on having anything to do with girls, now focusing only on his deficient customs and whittling.

  Samuel was on the side of the house smoking, carving out a model of a dolphin, being meticulous with its accuracy. His stepfather had crept around the corner, just ending his day at the smithy, sloshed as usual, and seeking a battle. He caught Samuel whittling then stashing the project into his back pocket.

  “Whatcha got there, boy?” he demanded with a mean smirk as he stared Samuel dead in the eye, holding a bottle of whisky and lighting up his cigar.

  Samuel gazed at his stepfather’s sizable right eye that twitched every so often. “Not much!” he answered with a cocky attitude.

  “Ya talkin’ back to me, boy?” He fashioned a fist, ready to backhand him.

  Samuel turned away and put up his hand to deflect the possible assault. “No, sir,” he answered with a pleading voice.

  His stepfather snatched the figurine from Samuel’s pocket and took a chug from the bottle. “What’s this?” He held the dolphin in Samuel’s face. “Some of your fancy art work? It’s crap! Here, boy, take a swig of this, puts hair on your chest. Go on, take it!”

  “Fine!” Samuel yanked the bottle from his grip, smelling the alcohol secreting from the man’s armpit. He wiped off the opening with his shirt and harbored a mouthful.

  “Keep drinkin’, keep drinkin’, boy,” he insisted, tipping up the bottle’s bottom.

  “Enough!” stated Samuel with ire. He guzzled half the whisky, nauseated, chocking and gasping for air.

  “You’re gonna be messed up, boy! Better not catcha vomiting all over the damn place!”

  “Now gimme my dolphin!” Samuel reached, becoming tipsy.

  “That’s what this stupid thing is?” He looked at it, shaking his head in disgust. “It’s trash!” he roared as he dropped it to the ground, smashing it with the heel of his beat-up boot.

  Samuel saw that the mammal’s broken fin was lying in the dirt. He gritted his teeth and peered up at his stepfather, enraged. “I was gonna buy Ma a present with the money I earned from that, you bastard!”

  “You son of a bitch! Don’t you ever disrespect me like that, boy!” He grabbed Samuel by the scruff of the neck, hauling him inside the house, down the dark narrow steps leading to the cellar. Samuel’s stepfather threw him against a door. The large man opened the creaking cellar door, tossed Samuel into the uncanny blackness, slammed the door, and locked it behind him.

  Bam, bam, bam, Samuel pounded. “Let me outta here!”

  “Not till ya quit bein’ ah damn pantywaist, suckin’ from your mama’s teat,” he declared. With his back against the door, he lit up his cigar and downed another swallow. “Boy, you should be suckin’ from a dame; one of them whores in town, not wastin’ your time cuttin’ out foolish fish made outta wood! What’reya . . . a fairy? Never seen ya with ah young tootsie, come to think of it,” he laughed.

  Samuel fell to his knees, crushed. With his cheek to the musty door, palms flat against it, he smacked the only exit with one hand. “Please, sir. Let me out,” he beseeched—then silence fell over him, tears rolled down his cheeks. He knew he was going to be there for a while. He laid down in the fetal position, too drunk to care anymore.

  Samuel’s stepfather hiked up the stairs, canned. He weaved back and forth, holding onto the walls, bitter at the world, and blaming it for his problems, crazed about what had come of him.

  In life, he had wanted to travel, visit the wonders of the foreign countries. But he was stuck in a dead end town; probably because he drank too much, couldn’t stay sober long enough to do what it took to meet his life’s demanding goals. He had planned on being a lawyer when he got out of college; his prominence within the community for his statures in his pre-law courses had him on the road to success; but all he had now, was a job as a blacksmith. He was a has-been, spending
his afterhours degrading Samuel.

  Samuel rested in the dark, listening to the diseased long-tailed rodents chewing on whatever delighted them. Every once in awhile one of them would brush up against him, immobilizing him with terror. The air was stuffy and humid; it had a fusty odor that filled his nostrils with every breath full, leaving a lousy taste in the back of his throat. The only light was that which seeped in from the crevice at the door’s bottom. He prayed to God for help, but it never seemed to come. He thought God was angry at him, did not care; he also thought maybe he had just done wrong too many times, and this was why these horrors kept happening to him. He craved guidance.

  Samuel’s mother worked four days a week at the local restaurant as a cook. She didn’t get home until 8:00 or 9:00, which left Samuel alone with his stepfather two or three hours a night. Only before she got home did his stepfather free Samuel from the dungeon. Samuel never mentioned to his mother what happened, didn’t want her to think he could not handle himself. He never wanted her to worry or believe that he was deserving of his abuse—though she would never consider the latter. She suspected something unpleasant went on between them, but neither would confide in her.

  Jasper

  1868

  Back at Tom’s, Samuel and Tom unloaded the wagon, content as they laboriously stacked the wood. Tom realized the suffering Samuel was enduring; his insight of the human psyche had him anxious to unravel Samuel’s secrets that kept him from prospering. But little did he know his gracious nature would not be able to extract all the complicated restrictions Samuel clung to for dear life. Only one person in this new land could achieve this, but Samuel had not met Katherine yet.

  Tom remained working, spouting off a series of questions about Samuel’s childhood. “So, Samuel,” he casually questioned, “have many friends as a youngster?”

  “Yeah, some…”

  “Whatcha kids do for fun?”

  “Boatin’, fishin’. Stuff like that.”

  “Sounds like fun.”

  “Sure was,” he said with a smile—his brow wrinkled with distaste, “while it lasted,” he added.

  “Whaddaya mean?”

  Samuel stopped working, shook his head with a blank stare as he looked into the past. “Something bad happened.”

  “Tell me what it was.”

  “My best friend, Tommy Smith, died.”

  TOMMY SMITH

  Topsail Island

  1854

  Tommy Smith was a good kid. He was smart. He was honest. Lots of times he would pretend that he had a best friend at his side to play with and talk to. But he knew his pal wasn’t real, and that bothered him, being alone all the time.

  Then one hot summer’s afternoon, six-year-old Tommy was swimming at the rock quarry in his undergarments as usual. He was talking to his make-believe friend, both of them splashing about in the cool water. “I can splash you bigger than you can splash me,” he shouted out to his chum.

  A boy with dark curly hair stood at the bank in his undergarments, gazing with wondering eyes at the blond-haired kid who was up to his neck in water. “You’re screwy,” he told him. “You ain’t talkin’ to nobody. You probably got rocks in your darn head.”

  Tommy spun around, sizing up the kid wearing light red and white striped long johns. “Says you,” Tommy replied as he wiped water from his face. “I ain’t the one wearin’ pink. What’s your name?”

  “Samuel Lee . . . and it ain’t pink! Just been washed a lot.”

  “Well, don’t just stand there lookin’ all gawky-eyed. Jump in!”

  Samuel did “the cannonball,” getting Tommy good with a wall of water. Tommy spit out a mouthful of fishy water, smiled big, knowing that that was the biggest splash he’d ever seen. They stayed in the waterhole until their bodies wrinkled into prunes, until past sunset. And when they finally went home, both of their mothers scolded them for worrying them to death.

  Tommy and Samuel became blood-brothers at the age of nine. They were the finest of friends, laughing, playing, and were inseparable. They crossed paths every morning at the water well of the abandoned Crawley’s farm to clown around before school. They stood at the circular stone-made mouth, leaning forward; they had spitting contests to see who could hit the stone at the depths of the shaft. Samuel started the battle by hacking up a mass of mucus, letting it ooze from his mouth in an elongated streak, just missing the target.

  “Ohhh! Tommy, almost got it!” Samuel squealed in excitement, wiping off his lips of excess saliva.

  “Not even close, Samuel.” His holler echoed inside the hole. “I’m the king! Watch this!” He sniffed hard, pulling phlegm from his sinuses into his mouth, pushing the collection through his puckered lips with his tongue, dropping the massive spit bomb. The projectile thwacked the smooth rock smack dab in its center. “I’m the champion!” Tommy boasted, nudging Samuel with his elbow as he leaned further inward to hear his voice ring within the well.

  “You’re not always the winner, Tommy Smith. I beatcha yesterday!” Samuel bragged as he grinned and poked back at him.

  But Tommy was caught off guard, his feet now where his head was. Every hair on Samuel’s body stood on end as he witnessed his best friend descend into the seemingly eternal abyss. Tommy’s shrill reverberated—then the deafening silence grew louder. Samuel was speechless, petrified, felt helpless, strived to register within reason why the horrid hap took place. He couldn’t grasp the absoluteness of it.

  Three schoolgirls caught sight of Tommy’s plunge, stopped in their tracks, then they screamed like banshees. “We saw you push Tommy Smith in, Samuel Simms!” yelled the oldest one.

  The girls looked at each other and nodded their heads in agreement.

  Samuel stood beside himself, trembled with fear. He tried forcing his dismayed mind to unscramble and yell something in his defense, but he was dazed. “No . . . ! I . . .” is all he managed as he peered into the dark well. He prayed in his spirit that his blood-brother was fine, but Tommy was lifeless down there. He was upside down, his chest resting against the cold wall, head forced against the back of his neck, legs sticking up, bent at the knees, heels at his spine.

  The girls rushed over to the well, gave Samuel stares of revolt then encircled the spot and peered down it to view Tommy’s stillness. The youngest female whimpered, took hold of the second oldest as they both bawled. The oldest girl gazed upon Samuel with hate in her eyes, and then shook her head in disgust. “You murdered him in cold blood! I’m telling the marshal! They’ll hang you dead! DEAD, I say. You’re goin’ STRAIGHT to hell, Samuel Simms!” The two younger gals stopped crying. They had never known anyone bad enough to go to the “underworld” as Reverend Ambos had put it. The three girls huddled, backed away from Samuel with fear, running away as though the devil were chasing them.

  Samuel stood alone, his eyes filled with tears, brokenhearted that his classmates believed that he could commit such a heinous act. He did not want to go to hell, but thought that maybe he deserved to suffer, unworthy of future happiness. These negative thoughts had him lost without sensibility. He, with his head hung low, dragged his feet home to tell his mother. Samuel explained the traumatic experience to her, crying the entire time. Her tender embrace comforted him. She dried the tears from his red, swollen eyes, sat him down at the kitchen table and served him a glass of water.

  Trotting hooves approached their home, became louder then stopped. A horse’s neigh brought Samuel’s mother to the door. She grasped the knob—five stern knocks startled her. She opened the door to the Marshal standing there with a serious, businesslike expression. Samuel’s mother’s heart raced with uncertainty, motioned with her hand for him to enter. “Please, come in, Marshal Macmurdo,” she said, trying to fashion a smile. “I know why you’re here. It’s Tommy Smith, right?” She was afraid for her son, but she did her best to show Samuel strength. Becky
Simms was the type of woman who hadn’t any limits to what she’d do for her family. When she was a little girl her parents taught her that love was the most important unselfish benevolence a person could share with someone. They also taught her that charity started at home.

  Marshal Macmurdo removed his hat, slowly shook his head as he looked deep into her concerned blue eyes. “Is Samuel here?”

  The law man, James Macmurdo, who had loyally served the community of Topsail Island for sixteen years, always sought justice. He would bend over backward for the innocent; but, for the guilty, he would see to it that the perpetrator was charged according to the law.

  “Yes, he is. Please, follow me,” she uttered. Shutting the door she walked him to the kitchen.

  They sat with Samuel, his mother next to her son, holding his hand. Marshal Macmurdo placed his hat atop the maple table, twisted the tip of his dark black mustache, and gazed upon Samuel. Samuel, with his puffy eyes, quiet as a mouse, took a sip of water, gazed back.

  “Ma’am,” said Marshal Macmurdo, looking at her then Samuel, “I’ve got three girls from Samuel’s school stating they saw Samuel push Tommy in the well at the ol’ Crawley’s place—he’s dead!”

  Samuel stared at the marshal, blinked twice, his mouth gaped as he tried absorbing the harsh remark. He quickly shifted his face toward his mother, pled with gloomily silent eyes for her to tell the marshal that it was just a fluke.

  She smiled at Samuel, turned to Marshal Macmurdo and said with sincere certainty, “James . . . it was an accident. You know Samuel would never hurt Tommy on purpose. They are . . .” she hesitated, took in a deep breath, and corrected herself. “My God, they were best friends! They were just playing, Samuel poked back at Tommy, he fell in.”

  “Look, Becky,” he said with a soft voice, leaning inward. “I know they were great friends. I hafta investigate this! I’ve got three girls swearing to what they saw. Tommy’s parents are devastated about this. They want Samuel charged with manslaughter—if not, at least malice.”