It Happened in Silence

by Jay, Karla M

  Willow Stewart

  Cooking sounds from the rectory kitchen draw me awake. For several seconds, I try to remember where I am and why I’m here. When I turn over, pain shoots through my ailing arm like raccoon’s teeth chewing at it. Then vexing reality settles in the room. Dust motes dance along a beam of sunlight, unaware that dancing is forbidden after a death.

  I push out of bed, and the squeak of the springs mocks my throat’s inability to make even a sound as simple as that. At the window, I study the clear morning sky and pray that God has favored Stewart Mountain with the same pure sunrise. During the night, the rain drumming on the roof matched my tears. Eventually, the Sandman won out, and I slipped into sleep.

  “Good morning, Willow.” Mrs. Holcombe stands in the doorway with a tentative smile on her face. “I made porridge.”

  I smile back and gesture that I’ll use the outhouse first.

  Outside, I close my eyes and breathe in cool ribbons of fresh air. I cross the grass, heading for the edge of the woods. The puddles of rainwater squish between my toes under the soft give of spongy ground. Mama loves—she loved—the air after the rain. I draw in another deep breath on her behalf. A quiet hissing comes from the forest, the tiny water droplets drizzling down from a thousand leaves. Nearby are the lavender blossoms of the Lenten rose and pink trilliums. They have to hurry through their whole life before the trees finish leafing out, blocking the life-giving caress of the sun. My chest tightens. Everywhere I look, something is struggling to stretch time for another chance to celebrate the orange traces of sunset. To soak in the pink of the next dawn.

  I wish I’d spent more time with Mama, helped her more than just these last few years when we shared the duties of healing a neighbor’s maladies. Or when we huddled over a new book or newspaper. But until I was about twelve, after our chores were done, Briar, Billy Leo, and I spent our days in the forest, building log dams, making pretend homes in tree branches, or picking herbs for Mama’s remedy jars. And lying in thick wide patches of purple violets that lifted us to heaven on earth with their scent.

  Guilt sits heavy on my shoulders as I return to the parsonage and enter the kitchen. Two bowls of porridge face each other across the table.

  “Do you think you can eat something?” Her voice is a soft mauve, a careful color.

  I nod and take the seat where she points. A cup of milk sits next to the bowl.

  “Pastor Holcombe won’t be home until midday. Officer Vissom is on his way.”

  I reach in my dress pocket for my pencil and pad and remember I’ve run out of paper. I hold the stubby pencil and mimic writing and shrug my uninjured shoulder.

  “Oh, wait. I have scratch paper round here.” She steps to a desk and brings back a pad of paper the color of buttermilk.

  I write, I can walk home. Thank you.

  She studies me so hard I feel like a fly stuck on tar paper. What is she thinking? I drop my head and scoop a few bites of the food and force it down. The milk is cool, a strange sensation in my throat. I spot the built-in blue metal icebox, advertised in newspapers as, “Spoil yourself as you keep your food from the same fate.” Mrs. Holcombe must’ve been enticed. The cool milk soothes the rawness in my throat, and I see the advantage of the indoor icebox.

  “Nonsense. You just eat and relax. I need to ring a friend…a sick friend.” She wipes her hands on her apron. “Won’t be away but a minute. Will you be okay?”

  I smile. After she’s gone, I shake my head, not believing all this. I’m forever being treated like a baby. Why would any fifteen-year-old girl not be okay sitting at a table eating, unless they were thought to be simple? I can hear her tapping the switch on the telephone, and I wonder how on God’s green earth she got trained to be a telephone-hello lady. Having a telephone and knowing how to reach other people are two different things, and that would take training.

  I finish the porridge and feel a wave of might move through me. And I thank the good Lord ’cause I need to buck up for my walk home.

  She returns to the kitchen, beating up her apron again, wiping her hands over and over, as if they fell in a river and she had to fish them out. Surely they can’t be wet.

  She holds out a folded piece of paper. A one-page booklet of sorts. The photograph on the front shows a large white building. On the steps, dozens of girls of all ages are dressed in their best, flanked by two women looking like they had their fill of sour mash just before the photographer’s bulb flashed.

  She pats her hair in place, although not a lock has moved atop her head. The woman’s hands stay busier than a blind judge at a beauty contest. That’s something Briar used to say.

  “I want to talk to you about something. We’d like to send you out to Cave Springs. To that school.” She points to the paper.

  I have no time for formal schooling. Mrs. Holcombe has no idea how busy we women are at home, always staying in front of our work. The writing across the paper reads, GEORGIA SCHOOL FOR THE DEAF.

  Why in tarnation would I attend a school for the deaf? I shake my head before handing the leaflet back.

  “It’s a right nice home for white girls although the property has two other homes. One for boys and one for Colored children.” She sets the picture on the table again and pulls an envelope out of her pocket. “We pass the plate each Sunday, and a portion is set aside for young folks who need taking in.”

  I don’t need taking in, but I sure need to get going.

  I write, I thank you for your kindness. I’ll be on my way, and hand her the slip of paper.

  She reads it and moves closer, carefully reaching out a hand, checking to see if it’s safe to touch me. She leaves her fingers on my wrist and their dampness sends a shiver up my arm.

  “I will tell you the truth, if you do the same.” Then she leans closer and peers into my eyes. She pulls me by the hand and leads me into the parlor and points to a green upholstered couch. I take a seat, unsure of what she is about to say. She settles beside me, sitting close as kin, and I get an uneasy feeling. “Deputy Vissom and I are worried about you. We think you’re a runaway, but afraid to tell us what you’re running from.”

  I feel scolded. I’ve told them the truth. Did they think I killed the peddler and stole his wagon just to get away? Why would I wave down the law if I was running? I would’ve kept going.

  “I know about family loyalty.” Her smile is crooked, perhaps an apology for the story her brain is mustering together about me. “With your ma sick and all, a father might turn his attentions…” She clears her throat. “Might get the idea—”

  I brush her hand away and jump to my feet and head to the kitchen where she follows. How dare she insult my poppy! Cuss words race through my head. The woman is lucky they have no way to exit my mouth. I breathe deeply to try to cool the heat pushing off my face.

  “You can’t help what’s going on at your homestead. We are aware of the inbreeding.” She’s standing. Her hands flutter again, uncertain where they should be. “This is why your kinfolk pushed deeper into the hills to escape ridicule.” She takes a step toward me and I take one back. “We want the best for you. God guided you off the hill and into our hands. As a half orphan, you’ll be surrounded by others like you. Many single parents have allowed schools and orphanages to raise their children. What a blessing the Lord is bestowing. Think about it. If a mute can get as much learning from books as you have, imagine what you could learn in a school program surrounded by normal folks.”

  I’m suddenly sorry I wrote that I’ve read a passel while admiring her books.

  I’ve been taught to never be rude to an adult, but if I don’t get away, that’s about to change. Mrs. Holcombe seems dug into this school idea like an Appalachian tick. A large clock ticks loudly on the wall, and an image of a skipjack beetle comes to mind, and how he clicks out his steady warning just before flipping himself in the air, evading danger. I have more than a fe
w clicks building up in me at the moment. But being angry isn’t what I need. I can get glad in the same clothes I got mad in, so it’s time for me to act like I am hearing her out before I get on my way.

  I reach for the piece of paper on the table and write, Can I send a note to my Poppy before I go to the girls’ home?

  She looks pleased, like she’s treed a fat raccoon.

  “Lord Almighty! You write what you have to, and I’ll have the police drive it up. Your family needs to know you’re in good hands.”

  I don’t know about the good hands part. When I leave this church, I do know I’ll be in more trouble than a person standing in a black snake pit toting one hoe. I write, You’ve met the preacher. His wife is taking me to live at the Deaf School for Girls in Cave Springs. You will have to milk the herd without me. Love Willow. I fold the note several times and hand it to her. She slips it in her dress pocket, still smiling. If she reads it before I’m gone, she’ll think I’m leaving with her. Poppy will know I’m in trouble with the last line. We milk one cow, a Miss Mildred, not a herd. “Milk the herd without me” has always been our kin’s warning message that we are in danger.

  We’ve used it only once before. Federal agents swarmed the mountain looking for moonshine. Briar came charging out of the woods yelling out the secret sentence. Mama rushed to hide the five bottles in the piano bench before the two men reached the cabin. They searched the house and found naught. Before they left, they appreciated sweet tea and Mama’s piano playing before heading off on a new pursuit.

  Mrs. Holcombe hands me the envelope. “There’s seven dollars in there for your first month at the home. After that, you’ll be assigned chores to pay your way.” Her eyes crinkle at the corners, pleased with her charity.

  I accept it but have no intention of crossing the stoop of that school. If I don’t take it, she’ll wonder what I’m up to. The Bible says that when a person lets the devil have an inch, he’ll throw the door wide open. Yesterday, I let a man die, and today, I’m stealing from God’s servant. Within a day, I’ve gone and chipped two commandments right off the face of Moses’s stone tablet and made them my own.

  Tires crunch on the pebble drive.

  “That will be Deputy Vissom. He’s offered to drive you to your new home in Cave Springs. You may not know the county, but that’s about a hundred twenty miles west of here.”

  Not only do I know where Cave Springs is, part of our home learning was to memorize the history and the layout of all the towns in Georgia. Briar’s last letters home came from near there, west of Cartersville. That was five months ago, but I reckon he’s still working in the logging industry there.

  I pocket the envelope and write, I’ll be ready once I use the outhouse again. I grab my burlap poke on the table. Mama made it for me, and I won’t abandon it, even though it’s only candy.

  I run a short distance like a gun is pointed at my back. At the edge of the woods, I duck behind an old oak tree as Mr. Vissom calls hello to the preacher’s wife, and the car door whumps shut just as the screen door opens.

  “Is she inside?” His voice is a strange brown, also tight like barbed wire wrapped around his words. “Did she take to the idea of the deaf home?”

  “She’ll be right back. I think the idea set real nice with her.”

  “Not that she has any choice. Her father can try to find her, I guess. I’ll wager within a few days, she’ll want to stay after she’s enjoyed indoor plumbing. I also need to talk to her about that map she drew.”

  There’s a saying that all secrets are witnessed in the forest, but as I stand in the trees, I’m not prepared for Mr. Vissom’s next words.

  “It led us to a field where the ground was chewed up from hooves and wagon wheels, but there were no poison mushrooms. No dead man.”

  That peddler was graveyard dead when I left.

  “She was quite upset when you asked her to sketch the map. Very easy to make a mistake.” Mrs. Holcombe’s voice sounds thin, whitewashed with raggedy nerves. “Maybe animals got to him.”

  “No blood. Even with the rain last night, animals leave parts behind. Clothes. I’m not sure what happened there.”

  Mrs. Holcombe clucks her tongue. “Must have been a mind-fuzzing event. Getting captured like that. Easy to forget details.”

  It sounds like he spits tobacco. “I’ll talk to her on the way to the school.”

  “She wrote a note to her father.”

  “Tear it up,” are the last words he speaks before the house swallows them up.

  I already have more troubles than I can say grace over. And God knows the truth about the pickle I was in with Mr. Coburn. My throat tightens. How will I ever return home if I’m locked up in a school for deaf girls?

  I glance to the sky, check the sun, and take off through the woods heading south.

  In the opposite direction they expect me to go.

  Briar Stewart

  We veer off Sugar Valley Road and cross Ashpole Creek, heading to Saltpeter Cave, the saddlebags full of grub. Chicken, cheese, bread, bacon, and eggs. Milk, lard, and potatoes round out the vittles that I pray will last ’em a good two weeks. Had money left over from Taggert’s ten dollars to buy a fry pan, matches, candles, and two sets of tin plates with knife and fork. Fresh water in the cave and hours of sunshine at any of the two openings should have these two fellers right as rain in no time.

  They’re both old enough to work in the cotton mills. Train runs from Cartersville to Atlanta, pert near to dumping a feller at the doors of that Fulton Bag Company. They even got a whole town suited for the workers, with a hospital, library, and company store. Called Cabbage Town ’cause so many folks come from the hills to work there. Never heard tell of a mountain person who don’t love a good plate of boiled cabbage.

  Was headed to Fulton myself when I got arrested.

  “You are here before?” Ilya asks as we wind up the sides of Knox Dolomite Knob.

  “Spent a few days last winter,” I say. “You’ll be safe inside. Nobody mining here no more.”

  The main entrance is to the east and comes up as a little bit of a surprise, tucked in a shady fold near the top of the mountain, bearded by hardwood trees. The other entrance comes out northwest, but it’s a mite smaller. To get to that side, you gotta crab along on elbows and knees in some spots.

  Bayou picks his way through the jumble of rocks to the tall opening. I help Cy down. He’s wobbling a bit but standing on his own.

  I sling the saddlebags over my shoulders and turn to Ilya.

  “You help your brother. Once inside, we drop down ’bout three hundred paces at a fair steep angle. Then we reach the rooms y’all can stay in.”

  “It cold inside?” Ilya says, following behind me.

  “Yeah. Can get so cold, we mountain folk call it a ‘two-dog night.’” I see the puzzlement gripping Ilya’s face. “That means you need a couple dogs to keep ya warm. ’Specially deep inside. But near the entry it’s warmer. Best sleep outside at night.” I tip my head to the side near the opening. “Under that overhang is a flat area. You’ll find an old kiln. Do your cooking there. Wash in the pool right next to it.”

  I stop to light a candle and tell ’em to follow me. Then I lead the way into the mouth of the cave and crunch through sticks and dead leaves. We slowly descend on a path that must’ve been cleared for hundreds of years between piles of rocks. The bright sunlight thins as we move inward. Ilya and Cy stay right behind me. The scent of damp rocks fills my head. My heart thuds like it wants to come out of my chest. This smell always brings back the day Luther Junior died.

  We reach the first room without a hitch. It’s smaller, ’bout the size of the inside of our cabin back home. The walls are jaggy, probably carved by water ’fore dirt was invented. Water plinks somewhere deeper, and a small stream dribbles in a back corner.

  “Y’all should be safe in here, but if
anyone comes, there are more rooms a mite past this one. Get to the big one with over five hundred names scratched into the walls.”

  “Can you show us?” Ilya lowers Cy to a flat rock in a dry area.

  We could spend hours in here studying the wonders of pillars sprouting up from the ground or hanging down from the ceiling. Stalag-something or another Willow calls them. Even has a room with a rock shaped like a giant jug.

  “I’m on an errand for the boss and he don’t take lightly to tardiness.” I set the sacks with vittles in a corner. “I might can circle back in two weeks. But don’t wait on me. Y’all get stronger, head on down to Atlanta and grab some work.”

  “Zank you, Ray.” He smiles.

  I wonder for a second who he means. “My pleasure. Travelers need to stick together.”

  “I hope you come back.”

  “I hope y’all find a nice place to live and work. You two ain’t known a minute’s peace out there on your own.”

  Ilya told me how his kinfolk made it to America after nearbout starving like millions of others in Russia. His folks saved them from becoming part of the thousands of children who yoked together after the 1917 Revolution, hunting and robbing so’s they could eat.

  Boy told tales right out of a horror book. Folks following gravediggers, waiting for the black of night to dig up the fresh dead. Cooking legs and arms. His family of five ate grass from the fields. One sister died on the passage. His parents grieved but were mighty thankful for a new country, a fresh start. Then the Spanish Flu took them.

  Got one more stop inside this here cave.

  “Y’all get washed up in that pool over yonder.” I point to a dark hollow where water drips in from above. “Be right back.”

  I light another candle and head to the next room. Ain’t no more than a wide hallway but directly opens up into the large room. Not the biggest one, but it’s got a dozen stalag things—pillars—and lots of hidey-holes.

  A worry pecks at me. What if someone’s been snooping round in here and found my money? I cross to a pile of stones, the top one covered on purpose with bat shit. Then I lift three rocks off to the side of the pile and lean over. It’s still here! The gunny sack is settled in the hole just as I left it. I undo the drawstring and pull out ten dollars. But I hesitate. There’s another thirty-five in there. Enough to live on if’n I was to catch a fast-moving freight away from here. I’d leave Bayou with a farmer to steer Taggert and the hounds in another direction away from the boys and me. But a life on the run ain’t a dependable way to be living. A feller’d be looking for storm clouds at every sunset. And I sure as shooting don’t want Taggert anywhere near my kin back home.