It Happened in Silence

by Jay, Karla M

  Tell me what happened here. I can’t make sense out of the little I heard.

  Then Miss Jojo gets her story going, and it’s worse than any haunting. Mr. William’s brother raped her over and over last summer, but she was too scared to tell because she needed the job. She loved Oliver, and Mr. William treated her fine and dandy. She was so drugged when her baby was born, she didn’t wake up for hours. They showed her a dead Colored baby boy, but she knows her baby should look whiter than that. Then it gets worse.

  Now she’s crying, holding Karl close. Tears drip onto his peach-fuzz head.

  The doctor cut out her baby-making parts without her knowing he planned to do that. Said he was saving her life, but he looked like he was forced to lie by Miss Ardith.

  No wonder Miss Jojo about lost her mind.

  “Miss Ardith is wicked, like I said in jail.” She has Karl over her shoulder and is burping him. “I don’t think Mr. William know how dark her heart is, Willow.”

  I don’t add what I know about Miss Ardith being Sissy Belle Strunk. This awful tale is enough for one sitting.

  I’ll help you write your story and mail it to Miss Burns. But where will Miss Jojo go now? If she stays hidden in my room, she can feed Karl, but Oliver pops in most nights. I can’t trust him to keep such a big and important secret.

  You stay in here. I’ll sleep in Oliver’s room for tonight. Miss Ardith left me in charge of Karl all night because he’s been mighty fussy. I’ll come back before everyone wakes.

  I hope this works. I might well find myself back at Miss Lily’s Threads & Things with no way out this time.

  I sneak back into the house and slowly climb the stairs to the hallway. Oliver’s room is two doors past his parents’ bedroom. Far as I know, they never check on him once he’s asleep. She doesn’t want him sleeping in my room, but so far she’s not stopped him.

  Look at him. He’s snuggled under the covers. I crawl in behind him and drop my arm over his side, pulling him close, the position he seems to prefer.

  “Hi, Willow,” he says, all sleepylike.

  I give him a quick squeeze. My hello back.

  He falls right to sleep, but I lie awake worrying about Jojo. Her coming back to the place that treated her so badly. The Dobbses had the ability to have her locked in an asylum once before. What would they do next if they found her here?

  Briar Stewart

  When the train begins its woeful hootin’ before Rockmart, I jump off, even though it’s traveling faster than I like. Learned a life-saving lesson first few times I rode. You run with the train after you jump.

  My legs shake while I move away from the machine and into a field of weeds and wait for it to disappear out of sight.

  I head to a line of trees, running bent over, even though no one seems to be in sight. Once in the lower bushes, I swipe my way into the saplings. A small crick gurgles a path through the center. Good chance to scrub this soot off my face and hands in the clear water, so I squat and get to it. This feels mighty good.

  I follow a deer path through the woods and around a swampy area. The smell of rot and briny water fills the air. Gas bubbles rise to the surface for seemingly no good reason. A turtle parts the duckweed as it swims.

  The scent of pines floods me with longing.

  Walking, I think about home, about hunting coons at night. Before Luther Junior died, Poppy, Luther Junior, and me would head out at dusk. Sometimes Billy Leo would tag along, but we usually left after he fell off to sleep. The bright moon looked to me like it whirled round our heads as we moved through the trees. The air was filled with a smell of the night, of leaf mold, wet bark. Competing crickets and bullfrogs wove a thick background noise.

  Sometimes we treed a coon and shot him, but nighttime was more than just shooting those troublesome varmints. Entering the forest after dark was like opening a gate. We’d leave the fuss of women behind and feel the might and main of being a man. How the good Lord made us. Our senses grew bigger in the shadowy belly of the woods.

  We breathed more, saw more, and felt more.

  The ancient pines whispered as their branches swayed. Their scent floated in the lowering night air.

  We are one, they said. We live inside you.

  Only been out of the pines ’bout a week, but it feels like a month. Glad to be back.

  Wonder where the search party is? They might check out the house Willow is assigned to, see if I went there. And I might do that. That way, she’d learn I escaped from the gang. When I don’t come home, she can tell what she knows when she gets back to the mountain. Still feel bad she got arrested on account of she was looking for me, but sure glad I got to see her one last time before I head west again.

  She really is a pretty thing now. All grown up. I hope an agreeable man can see that her lack of speech ain’t no handicap.

  I stay to the woods, bypassing small towns and farms. Once I cross Alabama Road, I’m soon waist deep in the Etowah River. The cold water racing past revives me. But the next part of the trip is more worrisome. Getting Cy to a doc in Euharlee.

  How far does a police net stretch when they’re looking for a man on the run? I ain’t that far from County Prison Camp right now. They told that police department for sure. Maybe I should take Cy north to Kingston. Ain’t never been seen there.

  Pretty soon, I reach the cave and push my way in. The damp stone smell greets me. I make my way down the steep entrance of jumbled rocks. The opening’s so large, the light of day reaches in a good long piece.

  I call out, “Cy?”

  No sounds come back but dripping water. Wings beat the air, and a bird swoops past me and out the opening.

  Ilya probably told him don’t answer to nobody calling out. But seems since I left the boys here, Cy couldn’t forget my voice. I take a candle and light it. Cy ain’t used as many as I expected. My heart beats fast, a nuisance in my ears as I try to hear round the thumps. Then I count the days. Nine. He’s been here alone nine days. If’n pellagra is a starvation disease, the boy should be getting better, not worse.

  I sweep the light round the chamber. It’s empty.

  Only one way to go from here. Deeper into the cave. If the boy went exploring in the darker hollows, he might’ve fallen down the holes or slides that lead to the underworld, for all I can tell when I searched here.

  I reach my stash of money. It’s all still here. I owe Rambling Joe thirty dollars, so I take the remaining five and head through a narrow passage. The next chamber is huge and could fit my whole hilltop inside.

  There! In a cranny in the wall. “Cy?” I hurry ’cross to the boy.

  When I set the candle aside to see his face, my breath leaves me. It’s the color of the graying stone round him.

  He’s given up his ghost. I pull him out of the nook. His eyes are closed, like he just fell asleep. Ain’t no sign of harm on him. He just plain died in the cold and dark.

  I sink to the ground and fight tears. I made a promise to Ilya to help him and his baby brother. Lord knows I did my best, but I’m still looking at one sinless boy who done nobody no harm and died anyway.

  Came to this country hoping for a new start, thinking they’d left starvation and horrors behind. When the boys’ kinfolk died, Ilya took over. He tried so hard to get help.

  Maybe his mistake was finding me. If he’d gone to an orphanage, he might’ve gotten work there, even if too old to be cared for. Cy would get medical help, vittles. Most of all, they’d be together.

  I throw a loose rock against the far wall. “Dammit! Dammit all to hell!”

  What to do now? When Ilya gets out of his sentence in another week or so, he’ll come looking for Cy. His brother’s body will be a hellish sight by then.

  I have to bury the boy before I can leave Georgia. Can set a marker that’ll let Ilya know the sad truth when he comes back to the cave. Not much else I can do.<
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  I pick him up. It’s a rough walk back through the cave, ’specially the narrow passage where I have to lower Cy from my shoulder and drag him through, all the while carrying the candle. When I reach the chamber with their food, I search through the supplies. There’s still some cheese and bread. He musta been too sick to eat. If’n he was in that inner room for a long spell, he would’ve shivered to death in his last hours.

  I swipe the tears from my face. He died alone.

  My fault. All my bad doing.

  I think I should pack the bread and cheese for my journey. But I leave it. It would just remind me of another person in a cave I didn’t protect.

  Once outside, I carry him to an area left of the entrance. The cave opening is on a hillside, but there’s a patch of flatter ground. I use a rusty old metal bucket to dig in the loose dirt, and I don’t stop till I know Cy will rest deep enough not to be bothered by wild critters. His feet won’t totally face east, but I figure he’ll catch the Resurrection all the same. Can’t believe he and all the fellers I seen thrown into open graves or left to rot in the forest won’t be ready for Christ’s return.

  I say they’ll be first to hear the trumpets.

  I take one last gander at the boy. “I’m so sorry I can’t give you a proper funeral, Cy.”

  He looks so young due to being hungry his whole life. His clothes are worn thin, but I notice something ’bout his pants pocket. One is bumpy with something inside. I reach in and find a half dozen agates, the striped and moss-colored kind.

  These ain’t precious as gemstones, but womenfolk do wear them in jewelry. They’re surely worth something. Ilya should have ’em. These’ll help him with something to start over with. A gift from Cy. Maybe that’s why the little guy went deeper in the cave. Found one pretty stone and just kept on looking.

  I study the area. Where can I leave ’em so Ilya can find them? Out here they’d be stolen. But what if he don’t go in the cave at all? Okay, now I’m feeling as useless as tits on a boar trying to help him.

  I set the agates aside and take good care as I lower Cy into the grave. Not even a fresh sawn pine box to lay him to rest. My heart feels near breaking. I can’t look as I push dirt in the hole and cover him up. I find rocks to lay over the fresh dirt. Need to try to make the area look more natural. To mark his grave, I push in a cross made out of two narrows boards and rusted wire the miners left behind.

  With a pointed stone, I scratch CY on the board. “I don’t even know your last name.” On the other one, I scratch June 1921.

  Like the folks who left a piece of themselves by scratching their names in the cave, Cy now got his own record of having lived.

  I gather up the agates.

  Only one thing left to do.

  On the back trails up to Timberland parts, it hits me that maybe the cutting gang has moved again. Been over a week and they could be anywhere by now. As I get closer, the sun’s slipping down the west side of the sky. I push harder. Got to find Ilya before he’s locked up for the night.

  And this ain’t gonna be no sorry-bout-your-brother-here’s-some-stones kind of reunion. I’m getting the kid out of here.

  The chopping sounds reassure me. Work hasn’t stopped for the day. I circle the site like I did as a trustee, figuring out where everyone’s working and trying to avoid Taggert at all costs.

  If I don’t spot Ilya tonight, I’ll move off a piece and wait till the break of day.

  I spot a couple of new fellers, but most the old gang’s still here.

  And then, there he is. He’s smaller than I recall. Got a black eye and looks as defeated as a June bug stuck on his back with a hungry owl overhead.

  My news ain’t gonna lighten his load but getting him free will help. We’ll hit the road together. No one’s keeping him in Georgia now.

  I throw a stick at him, keeping my head a peek above a bush. He startles and starts to speak, but I put my finger to my lips and motion him to me.

  Closest worker is still chopping, head bent, making a good amount of noise.

  I pull Ilya down to a squatting position.

  “Ray. You came back.” His smile ’bout breaks me in half. He ain’t gonna be smiling for long.

  “We’re leaving,” I whisper. “Gotta get you outta here. Stay quiet and trust me.”

  I pray this time his trust in me works out for the better.

  I pull him through the woods like he’s a ragged scarecrow. When he loses his footing, I get him back up and moving. We don’t talk. I’m pondering the shortest way off the mountain that the hounds won’t be following. The Etowah River’s still a ways below, ’bout halfway down, when I hear the whistle for the end of day. It will take some time before the trustees report him missing.

  But not that much time. We need to be away well before dark.

  We come to an outcropping, the same one I studied Cartersville from the first time I met Ilya. Down below is where we need to get to. There’s the steep way down or the winding road.

  He’s breathing hard, doubled over with his hands on his knees. Is the kid strong enough to get through the boulders down the rocky face? No. But I am.

  I take off my too-big shirt and tell him to put it on. Then I have him press his skinny self against my back, face-first. I grab the shirttails and tie them round my waist, leaving him in a hasty-made sling. I’ve gotten stronger working on the gang, but it’s a good thing he ain’t any bigger.

  I spent a lot of my younger years climbing down steeper ones, but this could be the death of us.

  “Use your hands to help me grope the rocks.”

  His face is turned sideways against my back. I can feel him swallow.

  “Okay,” he chokes out.

  Slowly I go over the edge, feet first, searching for my first toehold. We descend, both gripping a rock or tree root, then do it again.

  I miss my footing and we slide, rocks tearing at my hands and chest. I grab ahold of a boulder and hug it close for several breaths to slow my heart. Then we get on the move again. Following cracks between the huge rocks and trees is our best route. It seems to take forever, but eventually we make it to a slight hill near the bottom.

  I untie him and let him walk. My back aches, and I stretch. We just saved some time, but we still need to get farther away.

  “Zanks,” he says. “I vas going to die in work camp. Boss not like me.”

  “He the one who gave you the shiner?” I point to his eye.

  “Ya. Said I vas too slow.”

  “Taggert’s got hot liquid hate running through his veins. Don’t worry ’bout it.”

  It was that part of the evening when the sun’s gone but daylight remains. The whippoorwills call to each other, a choir of frogs sit together for critter church service in the ditch, and bats swoop overhead, swift, then gone in the gathering dusk.

  “When boss man came back to camp vithout you, I vondered how you run away.” He pulls leaves from his hair. “You got to cave. To Cy?”

  “I was rearrested that day. For protecting my sister. I been on the work gang at a brick factory till I escaped this morning.”

  Has all of this happened today in the time it took the sun to cross over the sky and disappear again? Escape, the cave, a burial, to the pine area, and escape again?

  “You not vith my brother all these days?”

  I sigh. How do I form the next words? Once they leave my mouth, he has nothing left of his kin.

  I stop and wait for him to come alongside me. “I couldn’t get free. But…I went to the cave first today, to check on Cy.”

  A hopeful look is fixed on his face. “Vere is he now?”

  “Ilya, I’m very sorry…but he died deep in the cave.” I take him by the arm as he sways for a moment. “He looked at peace when I found him. Like he fell asleep.”

  His face is like my pa’s when he came home from
the war. Shell-shocked, they call it. Too long in the trenches, hearing the horror of another blast but not accepting it as real. Ilya’s face crumples—he’s silent, probably recollecting my promise.

  “I buried him right nice.” I reach in my pocket and bring out the agates. “He had these on him. They’re worth something, can help when you get out on your own.”

  He hides his face in his hands and is whimpering like a hurt critter. A quiet sound, yet full of pain for the ages.

  I let him cry, leaning up against my chest. I know what the loss of a brother feels like. ’Specially if you accept it’s your fault. Hope he don’t blame himself.

  “You did your best to get him help.” Gently, I push him away to look him in the eye. “I feel responsible for leaving him there, and there ain’t enough sorrys to say how I feel, Ilya.”

  “I promise our mama before she die. I take care of him.” He wipes a trail of snot on his sleeve. “I vill die now too. It not safe anywhere.”

  I can’t leave him on his own. “You’ll come with me.” We both need to get out of here. I pause. “My real name is Briar, not Ray. What’s your family name?”

  “Gojack.” He’s gathered his emotions for now, but I suspect they’ll race back like a summer storm. Sunny one minute, water busting loose the next.

  “Okay. Vere you going?” he asks.

  My words spill out. “Out west. Eventually. But right now, Ilya Gojack, we’re going south to make sure my sister’s okay.”

  Ardith Dobbs

  My idea for Baby Karl to sleep in Willow’s room all night seems to be working. He’s happy and doesn’t need to be fed as often. And just two full nights of sleep have done wonders for me. I’ve even tried my hand at making supper. Tonight, I’m surprising William with breaded lamb chops, creamed potatoes, Parker House rolls, and an orange sponge cake for dessert.

  He barely kissed me goodbye before leaving for work. William’s been wound so tightly over the lawsuit and what it might mean for the Klan’s reputation. His membership. His business dealings in town.