When Silence Sings

by Sarah Loudin Thomas

  Colman realized he was shaking. How long had it been since he’d eaten? Water inside the cave was all he’d had since eating cake on the train Friday. And based on the way his insides felt, the water hadn’t helped matters.

  “What day is it?”

  “Monday.”

  Colman tried to take a step and felt the woman beside him catch him under the arm and prop him up. No wonder he’d lost track of time. He suddenly felt too weak to stand and sank back to the earth.

  “Wait here,” the sweet voice whispered in his ear. “I’ll be right back.”

  Colman didn’t know what else to do, so he stayed, the coolness of the dirt beneath him seeping into his pants. But at the same time he was acutely aware of the warmth of the sun on his face, the sound of birds in the trees, and the music of water running over stones nearby. A soft breeze stirred the hair on his forehead, and he turned his face into it, breathing the mingled perfume of nature. He squinted against the light, but his eyes hurt and everything was blurry. Had he somehow damaged his eyes inside the cave?

  This time when he heard footsteps, he felt certain it was the woman returning, and he was glad rather than frightened.

  “It’s Ivy,” she said. “And my grandfather is coming, too. We’ll help you back to the cottage so we can see to your needs.”

  “Howdy.” This voice was rougher, deeper, but still beautiful to Colman’s ears. “Take a swig of this.”

  What felt like a jar was pressed into Colman’s hand. He lifted it to his mouth and took a sip—it was cool with a refreshing flavor. What were they giving him?

  “Water with some mint in it is all,” the woman said. “It’ll be easy on your stomach if you haven’t eaten in a while. Just take a little—you don’t want to overdo it.”

  Colman obediently took another swallow and found it surprisingly rejuvenating before it suddenly came back up without warning. A feeling of being at the mercy of strangers washed over him. But what choice did he have? Somehow his plans to go fishing in White Sulphur Springs had resulted in his being spewed out of a mountain in the very place God told him to go. He guessed he would just have to trust that something bigger than him was at work here.

  “Think you can walk with our help?” the man asked.

  “I can,” Colman replied. And this time his voice sounded more like his own.

  Colman held the warm cup in both hands, sipping beefy broth a little at a time, hoping it would stay down. The heat, aroma, and taste were all exquisite to his deprived senses. He could even feel the steam curling against his face and imagined that it soothed his sore eyes. He could see a little, but the world remained hazy. Ivy and her grandfather were little more than shapes moving about.

  “More?”

  He sighed. If she were half as pretty as she sounded, she’d be the most beautiful woman in the world. He squinted, trying to see her better, but it was no use. He could tell she was small and had light hair, but little beyond that. He resigned himself to being treated as a half-blind invalid for now.

  “Ivy, someone’s coming.”

  Colman turned toward the grandfather’s voice. He’d said his name was Hoyt.

  “I’ll go see,” she said. “It’s about time for Emmaline to go home.”

  Colman heard a voice outside and shrank back into the corner where he sat propped on some sort of cot, hoping he was out of sight. Though he couldn’t say why, the thought of someone else seeing him while he was incapacitated disturbed him. And who was Emmaline?

  He wondered if his father knew he was missing yet. Surely he’d be missed when he didn’t show up for dinner this evening. What had Johnny and Elam told everyone? Did they think he was dead?

  “You expecting company?” he asked, hoping the shape near the crackling fire was Hoyt.

  The older man touched his arm and settled near him. “Folks come and go. Ivy’s herbs are in demand, and locals stop by now and again. And these days she’s been helping . . . a friend care for a child.”

  Emmaline must be the child. “People come for herbs?”

  “She knows all about plants and roots and berries. Makes teas and poultices with ’em—all kinds of cures and helps for folks. I seen her mixing something up for your eyes and your belly a little while ago. I expect she’ll have you right as rain in no time.” He chuckled. “Must’ve drunk some of that bad water comes up around here. Let’s hope it don’t send you to the outhouse.”

  Colman didn’t like the sound of that, but since he was feeling better, he relaxed and took another sip of broth. Hopefully whoever was outside would move on. He perked his ears at the sound of voices. There was Ivy’s sweet tone and then another woman with a deeper tenor to her words. She spoke with an almost flat cadence that seemed familiar, yet Colman couldn’t place it. Probably just reminded him of someone else. While the words didn’t hold much interest for him, he liked the smooth, easy rhythm of their talking that told him the women were comfortable with each other.

  Even so, he thought he felt a measure of tension flowing from Hoyt.

  “Everything alright?” he asked.

  “Sure, sure. She’s a regular. Been bringing that child round for a few days now.”

  The voices came closer, and Colman felt the presence of more people in the cottage. It must be a small room, as tight as it felt with the warmth and presence of bodies inside. The sense that someone was examining him intently washed over him. Maybe the child was studying him, although wouldn’t she have already seen him by now?

  “You have a guest.” It was the second woman. Although her tone was flat, Colman had the notion she wasn’t happy about his being there.

  Colman felt multiple eyes on him, although he couldn’t make out faces. How did he factor into this conversation?

  The second woman spoke—low and throaty. “I wouldn’t want her to be exposed to . . . just anyone.”

  If it were possible to feel someone’s eyes reading his very soul, that was what Colman felt at that moment.

  A childish giggle came to Colman’s ears, and he couldn’t help but smile. Such a sweet, innocent sound. It complemented Ivy’s singsongy voice. He had a vision of a home with a wife and child, not so different from the one he’d grown up in.

  “No, wait . . .”

  The other woman’s cry preceded the pressure of a wee hand on Colman’s leg. He reached out and laid his own hand over the warmth of the fingers pressing against his knee.

  “It’s alright,” he said. “I expect she’s curious.” He dabbed at his watering eyes with a sweet-smelling handkerchief Ivy had given him. He could just make out a mass of dark hair and maybe a cherub grin.

  “Of course.” The voice was stiff, hard, as if the woman didn’t approve of him. But how could that be? She’d just now seen him. He didn’t much know anyone in Hinton, since the Harpes and McLeans didn’t mix any more than they had to. Maybe she was just uneasy because of how unkempt he was.

  “Don’t fret about me,” he said. “I’m a wandering preacher, and these folks have been kind enough to see to me after I had . . . a spot of trouble.”

  “Indeed. Are you . . . what’s your name?”

  “Colman Harpe. And you are?” He held his hand out in the direction of her outline.

  “No one of consequence.”

  No touch met his, so he lowered his hand and accidentally bumped the tangle of soft curls. The child giggled again, and he let his hand rest there on her head for a moment, a soft smile touching his lips.

  “Get on back to your momma, you little scamp,” he said.

  He heard a soft gasp but couldn’t tell where it came from. Then the room emptied, and he was left alone again. He tried to puzzle through the day—escaping the mountain, being found, trusting strangers he couldn’t see, the child and her mother . . .

  “Hey now, you’d best rest your head before you fall over.”

  It was Ivy again, easing him down on the bed piled with quilts or blankets. She helped him recline and tucked the covers around him as if he we
re just a boy in need of a nap. He let himself relax, thinking that maybe that’s exactly what he was.

  Serepta panted softly in the back seat of the car being driven by Mack. He’d stayed in the automobile while she fetched Emmaline. Which was just as well since Colman Harpe had been sitting inside the little cottage where the herbalist plied her trade. Preacher indeed.

  She’d wanted desperately to ask what he was doing there all dirty and wild, as though he’d been rolling in filth. And he didn’t seem to recognize her or to even see her for that matter. He’d dabbed at his eyes as if there were something wrong with them. Perhaps Webb hadn’t been telling a tale when he said his nephew had gone missing. Was Colman hunting Jake? Had he been injured in some way? What was the “spot of trouble” he mentioned?

  And then . . . he’d thought she was Emmaline’s mother. Up until that moment she’d been plotting, calculating, considering what the presence of her enemy so close to her home might mean. But when he told Emmaline to get back to her momma, it was as though a prophet had spoken the secret hidden in her heart. And her heart had been so long under lock and key that hearing its hope voiced was like seeing the sun rise in the middle of the night. If there had been a chair handy, she would have sunk into it.

  What cruel trick would allow her enemy—her damaged enemy—to see so clearly what she hardly dared put words to herself?

  She would not bring Emmaline again so long as Colman was in the house. Ivy said she understood, but she’d looked disappointed. Serepta refused to acknowledge the sorrow in the other woman’s eyes as she marched Emmaline back to the car. Now she looked down at the child whose head bobbed as she tried to stay awake in the swaying car. Sliding over, she tucked Emmaline close to her side and saw that within seconds she slept. A fierceness rose in her unlike any she’d felt for her own sons. Yes, Ivy might provide practical care, but Serepta would be this little girl’s rock in the storm. Her safe place, her refuge and defense against all enemies. She would provide the one thing she’d never had in all her years growing up with a tyrant of a father and then being married to a big talker who left her to raise their boys alone.

  Security.

  chapter

  ten

  Colman woke to the aroma of bread baking and the sound of soft voices in hushed conversation. For a moment he lay still, luxuriating in the comfort that enveloped him. Finally, he stirred and stretched. A hand brushed his shoulder.

  “Think you can handle some supper?” Ivy asked.

  He sat up, blinking, thinking maybe he could see a little better. “What time is it?”

  “Evening—the sun’s just setting.”

  “Sunset? I’d like to see that.” He rubbed his eyes, but Ivy stilled his hands.

  “Best not rub at them. I have some ointment I think might help.” She tilted his head and dabbed something cool in the corners of his eyes. He blinked rapidly and found the paste soothing to his itchy, irritated eyes.

  “Will this help me see better?”

  “I hope so. Now let me get ready and I’ll take you out to see the setting of the sun.”

  She led him out into the cool evening, where he could feel the fading warmth of the day’s last light on his face and could hear birds chattering about going to bed. He continued to blink and resisted the urge to rub his eyes. The rest and the ointment seemed to have eased the worst of the blurriness. While the world remained soft around the edges, he could make out larger details with the colors of spring taking on an unexpected richness.

  He saw the trees leafing out, the grass beginning to green, and in the distance mountain upon mountain rolling away to a glory of orange and red as the sun dimmed and dropped below the horizon. He breathed in and felt as though the air reached all the way to his toes, invigorating and strengthening him.

  Those days inside the mountain, he’d despaired of ever seeing the sun again, much less a sunset such as this. It was almost worth the agony of the cave to be reminded of the beauty of the world around him.

  “Have you ever seen . . .” Words failed him as he turned to look at the profile of the woman beside him. At first he thought he was seeing a ghost. The pale slip of a woman in the broad hat squinting at the view looked ethereal. Her face was so white he thought she might be cut from chalk. Her hair wasn’t much darker, almost silvery. She firmed her chin as though bracing herself for something and turned to face him. Even her eyes were pale, although they at least were a washed-out blue.

  “I’ve seen many sunsets from this very spot,” she said. “But this evening I think I can see it through your fresh eyes, and no, I’ve never seen anything so lovely.”

  Colman couldn’t tear his gaze from the woman beside him, and she seemed to steel herself under his close attention. He looked away, trying to refocus on the dying light as the sun dipped lower behind the mountains.

  He heard Hoyt clear his throat behind him and glanced at the older man with his full white beard and serious gray-blue eyes. Unlike Ivy, his flesh looked ruddy. “How about we get you cleaned up afore supper.”

  Colman looked down at himself for the first time. He was filthy. Dirt ground into the knees of his pants, dust layered over his shirt. Thankfully, he’d let them take the remains of the blanket he’d dragged through the mountain with him. Probably they’d set fire to it. He reached up and felt his face, a shadow of beard and who knew what else. He guessed he didn’t have much room to judge Ivy’s looks.

  “I’m a sight,” he said.

  Ivy laughed quietly. “And now you can see what a sight. Go on with Grandpa and tidy yourself. We’ll be having ham and that bread I baked for supper.”

  Colman swallowed, hoping he could stomach something that good. The soup he’d had earlier stayed down so far, and he longed for a proper meal. He hobbled after Hoyt, who showed him a wash station on the back porch. After brushing his clothes, combing his hair, and washing the skin that showed, he felt like a new man—if one in need of a shave. Looking around at the darkening evening, the stars beginning to show, and the flicker of lantern light inside the cottage, he supposed in a way he was a new man in a new place with a new task. And with God’s help he’d do it this time around.

  After removing cotton gloves to dish up the simple meal, Ivy took a seat to Colman’s left, and he wondered if it was on purpose so that he wouldn’t be gazing at her across the table. “You mentioned you’re a preacher earlier. Is that true?”

  “Not full time—I preach when I get the chance. Hope to have my own church one day. Mostly I’m a wheel tapper for the C&O Railroad. But I guess when I don’t show up for work tomorrow I may not be that much longer.”

  She darted a look at her grandfather, who nodded in reply. “You also said your name is Harpe. Are you one of the Harpes from over in Thurmond?”

  “I am. Didn’t realize our fame had spread this far.”

  Hoyt chuckled. “There’s famous and then there’s infamous.”

  Colman swallowed and wiped his mouth. “I guess you might be referring to our ongoing . . . disagreement with the McLean family.”

  “Feud is what it is,” Hoyt said. He laid his fork down and looked Colman in the eye. “We’re hoping since you’re a preacher, it might be you don’t have any truck with all the wrangling back and forth.”

  The warm food in Colman’s belly felt like it was hardening. “I’ve never shot anyone, if that’s what you mean.”

  Ivy watched him intently, and he forced himself not to examine her as closely. “But you don’t like the McLeans,” she said.

  It was a statement, not a question. Colman pushed his plate back and leaned heavily on the table. “I’ll tell you the honest truth. I don’t like them. But I’m here to preach to them just the same.”

  Hoyt’s bushy eyebrows shot into his hairline. “Why would you do that?”

  Colman’s laugh came out shaky. He ran a hand through hair still damp from rinsing it with wash water. “God’s not giving me much choice. Can’t say as I’m excited about carrying the gospel to a
bunch of outlaws like the McLeans, but back there in the mountain I got the sense it was preach to ’em or else.”

  “Or else what?” Ivy asked.

  Colman picked up a piece of bread and took a tentative bite, hoping it would settle the uneasiness in his belly. He chewed and swallowed. “Or else make my bed in the roots of the mountain.”

  Hoyt chuckled and stroked his beard. “God has a way of making His position clear to a man, don’t He?”

  Colman grinned. “Guess maybe I’m more scared of Him than I am any McLean.”

  “You’ll do,” Hoyt said, and for the first time since boarding the train to White Sulphur Springs, Colman thought maybe this crazy plan wouldn’t be the death of him after all. Then he ran outside and lost his dinner.

  The next morning, Colman woke to hot coffee and warm oatmeal with fresh cream. He ate a few bites, and since the food stayed down, he decided he’d quit while he was ahead. He passed on the coffee, even though the smell of it was enough to give a dead man hope.

  Ivy handed him more ointment for his eyes. When he’d examined them in the small glass over the washbasin on the porch, they looked red and felt full of grit. And his vision wasn’t back to normal yet.

  “Are your eyes still bothering you?” Ivy asked.

  Colman stretched his lids open and blinked a few times. “Guess they are some. I thought a good night’s sleep would’ve fixed them up.”

  “Did you use that chamomile wash I gave you?”

  “Last night before bed.”

  She cleared the dishes, then came back, tilted his head into the light, and peered into his eyes more closely. He squinted, trying to take advantage of this opportunity to examine her face. Her skin looked translucent. Even with his sore eyes, he could see the blue of veins beneath her flesh. What was she?

  “Does the light bother you?”

  “It does. I figure I’m not all the way adjusted to being out of the dark yet.”

  Ivy made a humming sound. “The light troubles my eyes, too.” She grimaced. “Although there’s no cure for me. I wish I had some fresh eyebright, but it won’t be blooming again until late summer. Rinse your eyes with the chamomile every few hours and then apply the ointment. I’ll check them again when I get back.”