The Crying Rocks

by Janet Taylor Lisle

  Joelle tramps along behind him, not really looking where she’s going. Her head is full of the past. The forest is working its silent charm on her again, more mysteriously now because the light is failing. The trees, which were merely netting before, a loose weave sifting the sun’s autumnal gold, have turned dense and brooding. A wind has come up. Shadows dance with shadows. It’s possible to imagine a group of tawny-skinned figures moving along a path parallel to theirs, slipping silently between the trees.

  Suddenly, Joelle sees them. They are warriors returning from a hunting trip up north, and they’ve been successful, as in the mural at the library. They are carrying two deer and also a bunch of snared rabbits and a fat wild turkey. The outlines of this bounty are clear, slung over their shoulders and strapped to their backs. Tonight, around a fire, the people of their village will have plenty to eat. Everyone will celebrate, and news from the north will be reported. Perhaps a great chief has died or an important marriage has occurred. Or is it that a company of pale-faced strangers-from-across-the-sea has been sighted marching inland from a northern beach? A high council will be called at the overlook, and chiefs of surrounding tribes will be invited to come for a discussion of the matter.

  From the theater of her imagination, Joelle watches longingly as the hunters slip away toward their camp. Their lean shapes melt into the gathering darkness, and suddenly—the feeling lunges up in her—she wants to go with them. She would like to see their camp, sit by their fire, eat their food. For a step or two she even forgets herself and veers off after them, nearly plunging into thick brush bordering the path. Just in time, she stops herself. What was she thinking?

  She runs to catch up with Carlos. He is ahead walking steadily when, all at once, he comes to a halt and takes a long look off to the right. Joelle, racing up behind, almost crashes into him.

  “What was that?” he asks.

  She listens but hears nothing, only the sound of the wind kicking branches overhead. “What?”

  “A scream. Did you hear it?”

  Joelle shakes her head. “No. Nothing.”

  Carlos listens again. “Somewhere over there is a mass of glacial boulders called the Crying Rocks,” he says. “I visited them once with my father.”

  “What were they crying about?” Joelle jokes, then wishes she hadn’t. She’s getting as bad as Aunt Mary Louise. Carlos is frowning. His face, in shadow, has taken on a stern, gaunt look. For the first time Joelle sees, or imagines she sees, a vague outline of his Indian ancestry—something about his nose and the slope of his forehead. He is gazing intently into the forest.

  “The story is that when you pass by these rocks at certain times, you hear children crying,” he says.

  “Children! What children?”

  Around them tree shadows flick and twist.

  “Ghosts of Indian children,” Carlos says. “They were killed there or something. A long time ago. Or maybe it’s their mothers who are crying, I don’t know.”

  “It’s getting so dark,” Joelle murmurs.

  In that moment an eerie feeling descends on them both.

  “Let’s get out of here,” Carlos whispers.

  They catapult ahead down the wide trail, running and running, not looking back. The forest, speeding past in a blur, turns black and menacing. The wind howls in their ears. Branches claw at their clothes. They keep running. Downhill. Uphill. Through a meadowlike clearing. Downhill again.

  After what seems a long time, the ground begins to level out. A faint glow appears ahead of them. They are breathless by now, nearly out of strength, but in another moment the glow becomes a sparkle, then a mighty blaze. They break through the forest’s edge. Heart pounding like a drum, Joelle gazes down and gasps with relief. Below is the noisy, smoggy, headlight-clogged road that promises, in this last hour of the waning day, to take them safely home. Who would ever guess it could look so beautiful?

  “Well,” Carlos pants beside her, “that was exciting!”

  They are walking down the incline toward the lanes of speeding cars when Joelle has a thought. She glances across the road to the sandy turnout, but Queenie’s red Bug is gone.

  “So what is this story about crying rocks?” Joelle asks Carlos lightly as they approach town a half hour later and can walk side by side again. “Who got killed? You kind of scared me back there.”

  “Sorry.” Carlos laughs. “It’s nothing, really. An old Native American legend my father told me once, from back when the English were fighting the Narragansetts, I guess. I don’t know why I even thought of it.”

  “You heard something.”

  “I know. A kind of scream, far off. The wind, most likely.”

  “I didn’t hear anything, just branches scraping together,” Joelle says firmly.

  “Well, that proves it. It was the wind.”

  6

  THE OVERHEAD LIGHTS ARE TURNED off, and the Native American mural is merely a huge, black oblong between the men’s and women’s bathrooms when Joelle goes to see it, alone, after school, the following afternoon. Something has drawn her here, she’s not sure what. Outside the day is dark, rainy, and cold, and not many people are in the library. The library staff, being budget-minded, is keeping lighting to a minimum to save on electricity.

  The light switch is on the left. Joelle flicks it. Above her the mural springs to life. The women are hoeing and basket weaving. The children are playing with the dog. The white man is examining tobacco leaves that an old Indian man, perhaps one of the tribal elders, has offered him.

  The hunters are there, bursting upon the scene with their two deer and the rabbits and the turkey. (Yes, they are carrying rabbits and a turkey, Joelle is amazed to discover. She must have noticed this detail before and stored up the memory without realizing.)

  The hunters are bare-chested, and their heads are shaved except for a stiff bristle running back from their naked crowns, exactly the way she saw them in the forest. Or rather, the way she imagined she saw them. It is all a little strange. She almost feels that she is meeting these men again, for a second time.

  Off to the side the two Indian girls with the long, black braids are standing as still as statues, their hands clasped tightly together. Joelle doesn’t look at them directly at first. She’s afraid of what she might see. But after a minute she can’t keep her eyes away and allows herself a quick glance, then an all-out stare.

  Immediately, there it is again: the snakelike slide of a memory. But it twists away before Joelle can make sense of it. In its place she feels an odd rush of friendship for the girls, as if she’s known them somewhere, in some other place. They are wearing finely beaded bands low on their foreheads and long deerskin dresses over deerskin leggings. Who are they? Why do they seem so real?

  There’s nothing in the mural to answer these questions. The painting has no depth and probably no meaning, either, beyond its symbolic arrangement of stereotypes. It’s pointless to look for more. And yet: Joelle takes a step back and runs her eyes over the whole mural. There is something here that attracts her, more than ever now that she’s been in the forest with Carlos.

  After a few minutes she goes back to the front of the library and types the words “Narragansett Indians” into the catalog computer. Several titles are listed. She jots them down before entering another phrase under the same heading: “The Crying Rocks.”

  It’s a long shot, and she’s not much surprised when nothing pops up. They’re a local landmark, probably, the scene of a ghost story passed down through generations to explain some odd outcropping of stone.

  Still, it’s interesting that a place like that, lost in the woods, below the radar of official history, could be powerful enough to survive as a memory all this time. What happened there so long ago? Joelle checks out three books about Narragansett Indians and departs the library.

  * * *

  Sometimes it seems to Joelle that she can remember her trip across the country in the freight car. She doesn’t look for this memory. It arrives unann
ounced: a certain dark aroma filling her head, a feeling of enclosure and a sense of speed.

  If she isn’t in school then, or out doing something in town, she goes to her room and sits cross-legged on her bed. She closes her eyes and lets the freight train carry her away. Clickety-clack. The train wheels clip over the track.

  The heavy sliding door of the freight car hasn’t been closed all the way. There is just enough room for Joelle to sit in the opening, swinging her legs over the edge and watching the country go past. The freight car’s metal floor has been riding in the sun and feels warm against her bare legs. She looks out for hours at fields speeding by, at farms and towns, into the tangled underbrush of forests, at mountains in the distance rising and falling and fading away, at white clouds above them floating across the sky.

  A happy feeling comes into her, pours through her skin with the warm sunlight, until her body becomes as loose and flexible as rubber. It isn’t as bad on the freight train as someone might think. She’s not lonely and doesn’t miss anybody. There is even a feeling of relief, as if she’s escaped from something or left a difficulty behind.

  She has food in a brown paper bag: peanut butter and jelly sandwiches on soft white bread that somebody made for her. She has water in a screw-top jar. There are people who are traveling with her, but they sleep a lot, or maybe they jump off at one of the stops and never get back on. She hardly notices. Instead, a large, long-haired cat has come aboard and keeps Joelle company at night, curled up by her side. When the car rattles too hard or the whistle blows too loud, the animal trembles and looks up at her with wide, terrified eyes. To keep it from bolting, Joelle gives it a piece of sandwich and strokes its long hair.

  “I’ll take care of you,” Joelle whispers. “Stay with me. We’ll be safe.”

  Together they look out the train’s big sliding door to where the stars are making pinprick patterns in the sky. The dark night is as soft as velvet. The cat is warm against her side. They are on their own, going somewhere, flying across vast floors of land between horizons.

  * * *

  Michiko, waiting for her behind the hedge the next morning, studies Joelle intently as she crosses the lawn to the sidewalk. She keeps glancing up at her all the way to school, but she doesn’t mention Joelle’s hair until just before she has to turn off. Then she says: “You have braids.”

  Joelle smiles and nods.

  “They look nice. You look like an Indian.”

  “Thanks.”

  “Can you do my hair like that?”

  “Sometime,” Joelle says.

  “Today? After school?” Michiko begs. “I could come to your house.”

  “No!” Joelle says, more sharply than she intended. “I have a lot of homework,” she adds, as an apology.

  She wouldn’t mind doing Michiko’s hair but doesn’t want to get dragged into anything with the others, especially Penny Perrino, who strikes her as not a very nice girl. Several times Joelle has overheard her make sneering comments to Michiko: about the clothes she wears, which are from the cheaper department stores; about Michiko’s family. “Everybody’s got the same kind of eyes. All funny-looking,” she heard Penny say to her. It reminds Joelle of the way some people look at her in school and around town.

  When they reach the elementary school building, Joelle gives Michiko a little push on the arm to send her off. “See you later.”

  “Okay, see you later,” Michiko echoes, and trudges off valiantly toward the door.

  Her small figure looks so innocent and defenseless that Joelle’s heart goes out to her and she almost calls her back to say she’ll do her hair. But at the last second she keeps quiet. After all, it’s better not to get too involved, she thinks. She might start worrying about Michiko, feeling responsible for her, which would be dangerous. Why would it be dangerous? Joelle doesn’t know, and something tells her not to look into it more deeply.

  No sooner has Michiko gone through the door than Carlos bounds up beside Joelle like a big puppy, his coat flapping. Obviously, he’s had his eye on her. He was hiding somewhere, waiting for an opportunity to talk to her alone. She’s not sure she likes this. It’s too possessive.

  “So, Tonto, I thought we’d lost you,” she says in her mocking tone. “Michiko was worried when we didn’t see you coming up your street.”

  Carlos smiles and shakes his head.

  “I told her you were ambushed by Apaches. Now she’s really upset.”

  “She is not. You’re the only one she cares about. What is it with you, anyway? You’re the Pied Piper of little girls?” Carlos teases her back. He’s getting better at this, actually.

  “Ha-ha,” says Joelle. “At least I’m not making a total fool of myself crawling around town on my hands and knees hunting for arrowheads all the time.”

  “No, you’re just braiding your hair to look like an Indian squaw.”

  Joelle narrows her eyes. “Squaw! Forget it. If I’m anything, I’m an Indian sachem. Queen Awashonks of the Sakonnets or Weetamoo of the Pocassets.”

  “Who?”

  “I was reading about the Narragansetts last night. Women could be leaders of their tribe. They were known for being smart, and ruthless to their enemies. They could be merciful, though—to those who bowed and scraped before them.” She gazes down at him regally from her great height.

  Carlos grins and nods. He never gets angry, apparently.

  They are approaching the school by this time and have joined the flow of other students on the front walk.

  “Listen,” he says, under cover of the babble. “Do you want to go on another hike? I could show you a cave with ancient Indian markings.”

  “I want to see the Crying Rocks,” Joelle replies. “Do you know where they are?”

  Carlos doesn’t answer for a second. When she glances at him, he says, too quickly: “I’m not sure I could find them again. I was pretty young when I was there.”

  “Aren’t they somewhere close to where we were?”

  “Maybe. I’m not really sure.” This sounds definitely evasive.

  “You don’t want to go back?” Joelle asks.

  “I’d have to ask my father exactly where they are.”

  “Then ask him!”

  “I’ll see.”

  For some reason, Carlos doesn’t want to visit the rocks. Well, everyone is entitled to their privacy; no one knows this better than Joelle.

  “Okay, let’s see the cave, then. I can’t today, though,” she says, suddenly remembering. “I have to pick up some medicine after school. You know, for my aunt.”

  Carlos doesn’t know. He doesn’t know a thing about Aunt Mary Louise. Not about her being sick or about how, this morning, she lost her balance and couldn’t get out of bed after Vernon left. Joelle went upstairs and helped her into the bathroom. In the end, she was all right. She even walked down to the kitchen and fixed breakfast for the first time in a week.

  Carlos doesn’t know any of this, and Joelle doesn’t intend to tell him. He has sharp antennae, though, and seems to have detected some worry in her voice.

  “Is your aunt okay?” he asks.

  “Oh, sure,” Joelle announces breezily. “She’s just been a little dizzy lately.”

  “A little dizzy?” He gazes at her with concerned eyes, an inheritance from his father the great doctor, no doubt.

  “It’s nothing.”

  “Are you sure? Dizzy can mean something.”

  “Of course I’m sure,” Joelle says.

  “But it sounds kind of—”

  “Well, it’s not!” Joelle bristles, cutting him off. Carlos has crossed the line, the invisible line even she can’t see until it’s already been crossed. He’s getting too close.

  “If there’s something my father can do—”

  “There isn’t!”

  “He might be able to tell you—”

  “Don’t worry about it, okay? Just leave it alone,” Joelle explodes, now breathing fire.

  “Sorry.” Carlos backs off. �
��I didn’t mean to—”

  “I know!” Joelle shouts over her shoulder. She plunges away down the hall toward her first-period class, the Indian braids beating like two angry sticks against her jacket.

  7

  AUNT MARY LOUISE HAS LIVED most of her adult life here in Marshfield, on the western edge of Rhode Island. She grew up in the area, too, just across Narragansett Bay, in Tiverton, where some of her brothers and sisters still live. Joelle remembers when they used to drive over to see them, on holidays usually, a couple of times a year.

  They haven’t visited recently. Vernon took a dislike to Aunt Mary Louise’s family, who are all devoutly religious. He called it the Bible Belt over there because they talked about the Lord Jesus all the time and tried to convert people. At meals everybody had to hold hands and bow their heads before taking a bite. Joelle still remembers getting a hard slap on the arm from one of Aunt Mary Louise’s sisters when she tried to eat a piece of corn bread too soon. Vernon had shot out of his chair and yelled at the woman. He’d snatched Joelle away, over to his side of the table.

  “They don’t like her looks and they never will. She’s not one of them, thank God,” Joelle heard him tell Aunt Mary Louise in a low voice on the way home in the car. “You keep her away.”

  After that they never went back.

  “Don’t you wonder how they are?” Joelle asked Aunt Mary Louise a few times, after they stopped going.

  “Oh, they’re doing okay. I get a card now and then.”

  “I mean, do you ever miss seeing them, in person? They’re your family.”

  The question Joelle was really asking was: If you’re related to someone, by blood, do you have feelings for them that you can’t help, that are just built in? Is there some genetic thread that keeps you connected? Back when she was Michiko’s age, Joelle, unrelated by blood to anyone she knew, had begun to wonder.

  “I do miss them,” Aunt Mary Louise had admitted, “but not enough to go without you. And if we went, I’d have to lie or Vernon would be mad. Then he’d probably find out, and I’d have to lie about telling the lie, and on and on. Once you start that, you’re headed down to hellfire.”