When Silence Sings

by Sarah Loudin Thomas

  The McLeans mostly lived over in Hinton and on toward Lewisburg, although one of them owned the Dunglen Hotel across the river from downtown Thurmond. The hotel—once the site of a fourteen-year-long poker match—was being managed by Alden Butterfield, a McLean flunky in from Pittsburgh. There were bawdy girls, drinking, gambling, and who knew what other evils going on over there. Especially in Ballyhack, the rough area nearby where many of those who serviced the hotel lived.

  The McLeans came and went a fair amount but mostly stayed on the far side of the river. Which made it all the more astonishing that Serepta had slithered out from under her rock to make the journey to Glen Jean for a tent meeting—sitting under the nose of Preacher Hickman as his voice echoed through the tent. If God had a message for her, He’d missed His opportunity right there.

  Of course, she was just one woman accompanied by two ruffians. There was a whole pile of other McLeans who didn’t hear that preacher’s message. Colman chuckled. Shoot, he didn’t much hear it himself, and he could hear better than most everyone.

  He sobered. No, what he heard was more than any preacher had told him. Squinting into the night, Colman saw the first light of false dawn illuminating the horizon. He could see the trees silhouetted against the sky and heard a mourning dove coo—fooled by the early light. Well, he was no fool, and this command or request or whatever it was just didn’t make sense. Nope, he wasn’t going to let anyone trick him into entering enemy territory. Not even with the promise of a pulpit. God and the church elders would just have to get someone else to do their dirty work.

  He slapped his hands together and climbed back into bed to burrow under the warm covers. He closed his eyes and yet, somehow, sleep eluded him.

  Just like he did every Monday evening, Colman trudged up the steep road above the river to visit his father. Walter Harpe receded into himself the day his wife died and had been of little use to anyone—including himself—since. He’d worked the rail yard like a machine, there but not there, until one day he’d lost all but the ring and pinkie fingers on his right hand in an accident. He was “retired” then and received a small pension that allowed him to continue existing in the little house on the side of the gorge above Thurmond. Colman visited him every week, even though it didn’t offer him much pleasure beyond the knowledge that he was fulfilling his duty as a son.

  He swung onto the porch of the teetering house, a packet of hoop cheese and crackers under his arm. His father sat in a sagging, woven-bottom chair, staring off into the valley. His right hand was tucked in his pocket even though there was no one but Colman to see the curled stump.

  “Hey there, Dad. Brought you some cheese and crackers.”

  His father’s eyes flicked toward him and then back to the sky, where a pair of turkey buzzards turned in lazy circles.

  “Something dead down there along the river.” He watched the birds some more. “Them birds have the patience of Job. Been circling the past hour it seems.” He coughed. “Maybe whatever it is ain’t quite dead yet.”

  Colman didn’t have much to say to that. “Want me to fry some potatoes and onions to go with this cheese?”

  “Alright.”

  As Colman stepped toward the door, he saw movement on the path and watched to see who else was coming to see his father. He’d been sure he was the only one to bother anymore. As the man approached, he realized it was Uncle Webb. His belly tightened. Webb hadn’t been to see his baby brother in years as far as Colman knew. What could he want now?

  Dad turned bland eyes on Webb. “You’re just in time for supper. Sit and eat with us.”

  Webb stepped up to the porch and braced one booted foot against the edge, leaning on his knee. “I’m not here to eat, Walter.”

  Dad nodded as though it didn’t matter to him one way or the other. Colman guessed it didn’t.

  Webb squinted at Colman. “Thought I’d find you here. Figured it’d be a good chance to talk to two Harpe men at the same time.”

  Colman squared himself in the doorway, crossing his arms over his chest. Webb saw him as little more than an oddity to be tolerated since he had decided to put preaching ahead of feuding.

  “Jake McLean’s been seen over around Hinton. We’re getting a bunch together to see can’t we run him to ground. Thought you’uns would want to come with us.”

  Colman’s father pulled his right hand out of his pocket and looked at it as though he were seeing it for the first time. He turned the blunted stub one way and then the other. “You know I give up feuding when I married Annie. Even if I wanted to come, I cain’t shoot. Cain’t even hardly hold on to ride a horse. Guess I’m not much use to anybody.”

  Webb grunted and shifted his attention to Colman. “You’re able enough.”

  Colman seethed. His father had long been a disappointment to him, but he was still a man, and Webb had no cause to dismiss his own brother as if he were a hound dog that couldn’t hunt anymore.

  “Able enough to know when a battle’s not worth fighting.” He spit the words out before he could think them through.

  Webb lowered his foot and straightened his shoulders. “You sayin’ Caleb’s death isn’t worth avenging?”

  Colman grimaced. “Caleb and me grew up like brothers.” He paused, took the breath he should have taken the first time. “I’m saying two wrongs don’t make a right.”

  Webb snorted. “And I’m saying an eye for an eye. Guess I knew what to expect when I headed up this hill. Just wanted to give you one last chance to act like a Harpe.” He spit a stream of tobacco juice onto the porch step where it splattered and ran down the side. “Heard you might even be planning to take the Word of God into the enemy’s camp.”

  Colman stiffened. “So what if I did? Seems like everyone ought to hear the Good News. Even the McLeans.”

  Webb narrowed his eyes. “Might be I’d take umbrage with a Harpe being the one to tell it to them.” He tilted his head to the side. “And I reckon there are plenty of other Harpes who’d feel the same way. Guess it might not be worth the trouble—even if you did get a job out of the deal.” He turned, took two steps, then looked back. “Standing behind a pulpit won’t do you much good if folks refuse to sit in the pews.” And with that he strode away.

  Colman and his father watched him go. Then Dad turned his eyes back to the empty sky. “Them buzzards must have found what they was after,” he said. “You gonna fry some taters?”

  Colman sighed and went inside.

  Serepta pulled her tailored jacket tighter around her as she stood between imposing columns outside the massive Greenbrier Hotel. Jake sent word he’d meet her there where she kept a suite to host clients for her bootleg business. She and Jake both knew the Harpes wouldn’t dare try anything at a ritzy place like this, miles away from their home turf.

  Even so, she wasn’t sure she wanted to see her son.

  The breeze made her wide-legged trousers flap at her ankles, and more than one society matron looked askance at her standing there with legs planted wide, back straight, head held high. She’d never been accused of being beautiful, but she knew she cut an imposing figure with her stylish menswear clothing and simple pearls. The necklace with its perfect, graduated gems was the first thing she purchased once she’d asserted control over her husband’s estate. It represented her freedom and her worth.

  There was good money in bootlegging, even though Prohibition had ended more than five years earlier. Plenty of places still restricted the sale of alcohol, and the McLean clan was well known for supplying the commodity. Serepta may have come from humble beginnings, but she made sure no one could tell it by looking at her.

  A hand touched her elbow from behind, sending warmth up her arm. She turned to see Charlie Hornbeck standing there. Her cook, handyman, and more, Charlie was everything her husband had not been. Smart, quiet, gentle, and dark. With his rich black skin, he was the only person she knew darker than she was. He had worked for her father-in-law, who had more or less given her Charlie as a gift. I
f he’d only known what a gift. Charlie was worth more than six normal men and was the only person whose advice she trusted. He was also absolutely devoted to her, and she—well, what she felt for Charlie came as close to devotion as she supposed she was capable. His eyes stayed serious behind spectacles.

  “Jake’s inside.”

  She bit the inside of her cheek and nodded. “I’ll be right there.” She took a deep breath and went to face her eldest son.

  “It was an accident, Ma.”

  She raised one eyebrow.

  “Well, it was. Mack was there. Ask him.”

  Mack—that was an interesting tidbit. Serepta stowed it away for later and refocused on Jake standing sullen before her. “So?” She let the single word hang between them.

  “So, you can’t hold me accountable for something I never meant to do.”

  “Oh, but I can. And I do. As does the Harpe family. You’re just fortunate no one wants to involve the law.”

  He kicked at the leg of the writing desk in the hotel suite where she’d chosen to meet him. “Chief Ash wouldn’t dare cross you anyway. I don’t know what you’ve got on him, but he practically goes belly up when he sees you coming.”

  She kept her voice cool and quiet. “Are you suggesting that you have no real remorse for shooting a man in the back? Over a game of cards?”

  “Aw, it’s not like I’m glad I did it.” He spread his hands wide. “But what can I do now? Can’t take it back.”

  “No. That you cannot do.”

  He shrugged. “So then what do you want from me?”

  She sighed. What she wanted was a son with the judgment and cleverness required to lead their family. At fifty-one, she was getting tired. She needed someone who could handle bootlegging, mining, and keep lawmen like the rawboned Harrison Ash in hand. He might be on her payroll, but that didn’t mean he always did precisely what she wished.

  Jake was her firstborn. He arrived five years after she married Eli McLean—a natural leader with no inclination to do it. Eli’s father, Silas, the patriarch for years, feared the McLean clan would splinter under his eldest son’s easy hand. Then Serepta entered the picture. Silas was one of the few who understood—and accepted—Serepta’s control over her husband.

  It had taken a great deal of planning and care to avoid having a child those first years of marriage. And she only relented when her father-in-law made it clear she was expected to produce an heir. Two more sons followed soon after Jake’s arrival with the last a difficult birth that resulted in a sickly child who died when he was nine months old. That was the end of her interest in bearing children.

  “If only you’d been a daughter.”

  “What’s that?” Jake stopped pacing and leaned closer.

  “I said I want you to go to Pittsburgh and talk to some suppliers there. Keep out of the way until the sting of loss has eased for the Harpe family.”

  “You want me to run?”

  She leveled her cool blue gaze at him. “You already did. Keep going.”

  He cursed and stomped from the room, but she knew he would do what she said. She’d instilled a deep respect in her boys from the day each one was born. Some might have called her tactics cruel, but from the moment she held Jake she knew her heart was more at risk than ever before. So she hardened it.

  And hard it remained.

  chapter

  four

  Colman couldn’t say why, but he felt an urge to visit his father again even though it wasn’t Monday yet. Maybe it had something to do with the way Uncle Webb was stirring folks up. Or maybe it was because he had yet to decide if he was going to preach to the McLeans. There were strong arguments on either side of the idea. Dad had never been one for dispensing advice, but maybe that was because Colman never asked.

  Webb and a bunch of Harpe cousins had laid off work to ride out earlier that week hunting Jake. As they gathered near the rail yard, Colman kept his head down and didn’t make eye contact with any of them. Even so, he could hear their muttering without trying. They turned back up late that evening, tired and frustrated. Colman watched them from the window of his room overlooking the tracks and decided he’d stay inside. But by Thursday the flame had died down, at least temporarily, and something in his gut whispered that he should go talk to his father.

  He climbed the hill and was surprised to find that Dad wasn’t sitting on the porch as he usually did when the weather was fine. Stepping up onto the wooden planks, he called, “Halloo, Dad, you home?”

  It was a funny question. He was pretty sure Dad hadn’t gone much farther than the general store on the ground floor of the Lafayette Hotel, which was where he went for his scant provisions since he’d stopped working.

  Colman heard a sound like the splash of water on a rock and pushed open the creaking screen door. The house still smelled faintly of the onions he’d fried on Monday. He’d made enough for Dad to have leftovers—maybe he’d warmed them this evening.

  “You in here?”

  “I’m here.”

  Colman walked through the small front room to the kitchen at the rear. His father sat at the table, a bottle and water glass in front of him. The clear bottle with a diamond pattern etched into it was more than half empty, and brown liquid glistened in the glass. The sharp scent of alcohol bit the air. Colman couldn’t remember seeing his father drink anything other than water or coffee. “That bottle looks familiar,” he said.

  “Ought to. Serepta McLean has good taste. Even in the style of bottles she uses for her illegal hooch.”

  Colman tried to school his expression but knew his eyebrows were climbing his forehead. “Where’d you come by McLean whiskey?”

  “Webb brung it to me.” He raised the glass to the light, seemed to take pleasure in the honeyed glow of the liquor, and swallowed some. “I was bad to drink after your ma died. Give it up when . . .” He held up his right hand and wiggled the two remaining fingers.

  Colman couldn’t have been any more shocked than if his father had announced he was leaving for Timbuktu in the morning. He’d never known him to be drunk. He glanced at the bottle, noting again how much was gone. “That full when you started?”

  His father’s eyes rested on the bottle with a vague look of surprise. “Guess it was.”

  Even now he didn’t seem drunk, wasn’t slurring his words or acting funny. Well, except for voicing thoughts more interesting than what was for dinner. Colman wondered if that was a sign he really could ask his father the kind of questions that gnawed at a man.

  “Why’d Webb bring you whiskey? I thought he was put out with you and me.”

  “That’s why.” Dad smirked and took a long swallow. He set the glass down. “Want some?”

  Colman shook his head. “What do you mean ‘that’s why’?”

  Dad hooked the two remaining fingers of his right hand around the neck of the bottle and tipped more whiskey into his glass with admirable precision. “You can hear things nobody else can.”

  Colman grabbed the back of a chair to steady himself and then eased into it. His father had never acknowledged the notion that any of the Harpes—much less his own son—had a special gift.

  “Webb can do something particular, too.” He raised his glass to the light. “He knows right where to jab a man so as to hurt him the worst.” He lowered the glass without drinking. “And here I sit, letting him do it.”

  Colman felt as though someone had changed the basic rules of nature. As though night was suddenly day, and up was down.

  “You don’t have to drink it just because Webb wants you to.”

  “That I do not.” Dad tipped the glass to his lips once more. “Son, did I ever tell you about the crew I worked with before . . .” He held his mangled hand up again.

  Colman couldn’t remember the last time he’d really looked at his father’s scarred hand. Usually he kept it tucked away, but tonight he didn’t seem to care. If it weren’t for that—and the way he was suddenly willing to talk—Colman would have sworn he
was drinking iced tea.

  “I know some of ’em are still there at the rail yard. Johnny and Elam worked with you, didn’t they?”

  “They’re the ones. We’re all come down from the four Harpe brothers who were there the night the Holy Spirit descended on this valley. Reckon we worked together as good as we did ’cause we all carried the same blessing. Or burden.”

  Colman felt the hairs on the back of his neck stand up. He’d surely never heard his father talk like this before. While everyone around had heard the story about the church split between the Harpes and McLeans and how some of the Harpes had special gifts, it wasn’t something his father had ever talked about. He schooled his expression, afraid that if he spoke he might break whatever spell Dad was under.

  “Summer of 1832 it was. Your great-great-grandfather Philip Harpe and his three brothers teamed up with some of the McLeans to start a church. They brought in a Holy Spirit preacher, and word was he could preach so hard it’d set your hair on fire.” He turned the whiskey glass with his left hand, watching the light play across the viscous liquid. This much, Colman knew.

  “My grandpa—he died when you were still a squirt—said something happened one night. Folks told stories about tongues of fire descending. Next day, first one and then another claimed they had ‘gifts.’ Funny thing was, only the Harpes made that claim. The McLeans got all het up. Said the Harpes were playacting for attention.” He swallowed some more whiskey, his Adam’s apple bobbing. “Guess it drove a wedge between the families. Split the church, sure enough.” He turned eyes devoid of emotion on Colman. “Guess some folks are still holding on to all that mess. Webb sure is.”

  Colman cleared his throat and swallowed. “You believe that stuff about gifts?”

  Dad looked back into his glass and swirled the liquid. “Don’t you?”

  Serepta stood in deep shade at the station in Ronceverte, watching clouds build on the horizon. They were great tumbling columns of gray that might fill her with wonder if she let them. Although she’d been confident Jake would board the passenger train and make his way to Cincinnati, she’d learned it never hurt to be certain. She watched him lean over the back of a bench, flirting with a poor country girl. Toying with her, more like. Serepta was tempted to make her presence known, if only to save the girl the trouble of her trifling son. But doing such a kindness was not in her nature. Let the girl learn the hard way, like she had.