Silence the Dead

by David Crossman

  “What business?”

  “You know, sit down business.”

  In the last month Thomas had, for the most part, grown immune to blushing, but Sadie had a way of bringing it on. “Oh, well, you just pull ‘em down.”

  Sadie was horrified. “Then I’ll pee all over ‘em!”

  “Then take ‘em off.”

  “Off! Clear off! Wi’ me bum out like an ‘arvest pumpkin fer all the worl’ ta see?”

  “You’ll be in the bushes, won’t ya? Or behind a tree.”

  Sadie contemplated the arrangement and didn’t like it. “A lot easier jus’ to ‘ike up y’er skirt.”

  “Well, you still have to pull your knickers down, don’t ya?”

  There was a moment’s hesitation. “Knickers is an impediment to free enterprise.”

  Thomas wondered how far it was to St. Louis.

  During the course of Sadie’s transformation it was learned that Swanzy’s husband, Bidriche – a teamster who regularly drove pig metal from local mines over to Phillipsburg, some sixty miles distant – was out now making the round of his customers and would be making the two-day trip first thing in the morning.

  “Bidriche, he vill fuss unt make noisses, bot vill give you ride, ass long ass you don’t zing de Boatman Zong.”

  “The Boatman’s Song?” said Thomas. “I’ve never heard it.”

  “Goot, then.”

  “He don’t like it?” asked Sadie, tucking her hair under the hat, which she tried at every conceivable angle before finding one that suited her mood.

  “Nah. He’s crassie because iss about da Erie Canal. He dug on dat canal ven he vas a boy, did Bidriche, him unt ‘iss broter Herman.” She straightened the cap on Sadie’s head. “Boys vear it like diss.” She pulled it down tight ‘til Sadie’s hair, ears, and eyebrows disappeared. “De Erie, it kilt Herman. Zo, Bidriche, when za jop iss done, he moves here, unt vill only take loads vot iss going to da Pennsylvania Canal. You goin’ to Pennsylvania Canal?”

  “Does it go west?”

  “Ya.”

  “Then that’s where we’re goin’.”

  Swanzy had taken the liberty, while Thomas bathed, to beat some life into his clothes, and beat the lice out. She’d hung them on the clothesline and flailed away ‘til she was rosy with sweat and stunned lice were distributed evenly about the neighborhood in a fairly wide perimeter. Slipping his newly invigorated shirt on, Thomas felt like a new man.

  Bidriche, it turned out the following morning, was neither grumpy nor taciturn, at least by comparison to those whose acquaintance they’d made recently. In fact, for pure abundance of words, the round, red-faced little man easily matched Sadie syllable for syllable. His English was broken but, come right down to it, so was hers so, climbing side-by-side onto the driver’s seat, they would get along famously, a fact that was established before they’d left the dooryard.

  Swanzy waved them away as they attained the dusty turnpike, and thought she might just go ahead and buy those two black chickens she’d seen in market the previous morning, and replace young Adolph’s trousers with another second or third-hand pair rather than new. He’d never know the difference, and would only ruin them anyhow.

  Thomas sat on the tailgate, now and then scuffing his boots in the dirt when they hit a particularly deep rut or pothole. He thought about his promise to settle down at the place where his soles gave out and wondered where that would be.

  They had spent the night in the hayloft of Swanzy and Bidriche’s barn. Sadie, as had become her custom, would lay beside him with her head on his shoulder, making him a human pillow which meant he had to sleep still, because she wasn’t a happy waker.

  He massaged his arm and passed the time alternately nodding off to the gentle cadence of the horse’s hooves, or trying to make sense of the running conversation in the background.

  From Bidriche’s chatter he discovered that the load of ore they carried – which looked like nothing but a pile of rocks to Thomas – was called pig metal and was being taken to Phillipsburg for transfer onto canal barges that would take it to Johnstown. There it would be unshipped and replaced by bar iron for the journey up the Ohio River and the journey west. He mentioned a number of towns: St. Louis, New Orleans, Cincinnati, Louisville, but these meant nothing to Thomas. All he heard was ‘west’.

  For Thomas and Sadie, the two days’ ride to Phillipsburg was idyllic – apart from the insult inflicted upon their posterior regions by the hard oaken boards of their seats. The sun shone, but the air was cool. Heavy morning dew kept the dust to a minimum and, since nobody would be looking for two boys traveling on an ore wagon, they spent little time watching over their shoulders. Swanzy had packed a variety of sandwiches, stuffed with delicacies, as well as a jar of pickled onions and a bag of ripe red apples from the tree in their yard.

  The second day, Bidriche was even more congenial than the first – which may or may not have been the result of repeated sips from a “medicine jar” he kept in a little hinged compartment under the seat – and ended up singing much of the way, with Sadie joining in at the top of her voice, making up in volume what she lacked in pitch.

  Absent from the repertoire was The Boatman’s Song.

  They arrived at Phillipsburg, New Jersey – an inconsequential collection of buildings at a bend in the Delaware River – as the sun was setting. Unloading of the wagon would happen in the morning. Meantime, Bidriche unhooked and stabled his horse at a smithy near the river. Soon thereafter, he took leave of his traveling companions and toddled off to the nearest tavern with scarcely a break in his running commentary.

  “Well,” said Sadie, who returned from a long-postponed trip to the outhouse gently massaging her sore places. “Wot now?”

  It had been a long time since Swanzy’s last sandwich had been consumed, so there was but one thing on Thomas’s mind. “Food.” Accordingly, they followed their noses in the general direction Bidriche had taken some minutes earlier. As they fell among the collection of buildings that formed the center of town, several conflicting aromas suggested at least two or three dining alternatives. Hunger dictated that the nearest of these would offer the comestibles of choice – whatever they were.

  They had just scraped the mud and horse manure from their shoes on the boardwalk outside Lilly Jones’s, a restaurant with red and white checkered curtains in the window and a enveloping scent of savory stew issuing from its open door, at which their stomachs growled in anticipation, when a commotion erupted at the tavern a few doors up the street. They were surprised to see Bidriche at the head of the commotion, astounded to see that he seemed to be pointing at them – furiously waving a paper in his hand – and stunned when the knot of agitated men behind him began to surge nosily along the boardwalk in their direction, their voices raised in anything but welcome. They were not so surprised, astounded, and stunned, however, that they were about to wait around to see what would happen.

  In the time it took Thomas’s brain to form the word, ‘run!’ Sadie was halfway down the street. Youth and agility soon told and, in no time, the duo was no more than a dimming residue on the collective retina of the angry mob. At a junction halfway to the river – with one path leading to the livery, another to the train depot, and another to the bridge across the river to Pennsylvania – the men drew to a stop. One of them, a well-fed individual in city clothes, bowler hat, and bowtie began giving orders. “You,” he said, poking his forefinger at the men on his left, “go down to the bridge. Be sure to watch the river. You,” he pointed at four or five men to his right, “to the depot. Check the empty cars on the siding . . . ”

  “T’ey’ve gone back to the liv’ry!” Bidriche, who had been huffing and puffing at the edge of the crowd like ornamental embroidery, finally caught his breath. “That’s where their t’ings ist!”

  “Come back!” yelled the man in the bowtie after those who had already hastened off on their commissions. When the posse reconvened and had the change in plans explained to them,
the whole party set off toward the livery.

  The process had bought Thomas and Sadie another thirty seconds, time which they made use of, once back at the livery, to grab their belongings from among the bales of hay in which they’d hid them, and climb via the wood shed to the roof of the livery where, from the deep shadows cast by an overarching oak tree, they watched the search unfold.

  “They’re mostly drunk,” Sadie whispered.

  Thomas was afraid she was going to break out laughing, so he clamped his hand over her mouth. She must have felt it was a good idea, because she didn’t fight him.

  “What happened?” is what Thomas wanted to know. “Why did he turn against us?”

  The search went on for the better part of five minutes, during which the only discovery was that the quarry had fled and taken their things with them. The man in the bowtie loudly favored searching the bridge and the river. Since neither trains nor barges would be running ‘til morning, those avenues could be searched at leisure. This course of action won unanimous assent and the party, only somewhat sobered by their exertions, fell in behind him, this time with Bidriche, declaiming in whispered German, at its rear. He crumpled the paper he’d been waving about and threw it to the ground.

  Thomas and Sadie allowed ample time for the dust to settle before climbing down from the roof. Once on the ground, Thomas found the paper and took it into the dim halo of light cast by the stable’s lone lantern, which hung from a post by the door. “Let’s see what this is all about.” He had no sooner begun to unfold the paper to smooth it across his knee than he saw two faces staring up at him. Their own faces.

  “That’s us!” said Sadie excitedly, snatching the paper away. She dropped to the ground and spread it out on the dirt. “Look! I’m in a photograph!”

  The photo was of the two of them on the platform at Exchange Place and, he realized at once, had been taken, by pure chance, by the public photographer. It showed the two of them, side-by-side, looking more or less in the direction of the camera – which they had done in response to the explosion of the flash – in flight with “Much” Addo in hot pursuit.

  “I never had me picture took!” said Sadie. Closer examination dampened her enthusiasm. “Why am I all blurry?” Sadie critiqued.

  It struck Thomas as curious, too. Some people in the photograph were crisp and clear, while others were fuzzy about the edges, and some little more than smudges. His critique was less aesthetic than Sadie’s. “Don’t matter,” he said. “It ain’t so blurry you can’t tell it’s us.”

  “Still . . . ”

  Thomas eyes drifted toward the caption. At the top of the sheet, in tall black letters, were the words ‘$500 Reward!’ which he exclaimed aloud.

  “For us!” said Sadie. “You reckon we’ll get it if we turn ourselfs in?”

  “Don’t be stupid.”

  “I was jokin’, Mr. Serious. ‘ere, they’s more words, ain’t they? Wot’s it say?”

  Thomas read: “Train Robbers Wanted.”

  “Train robbers! We din’t take nuffin’ from no train! We’re ware’ouse robbers.”

  “I don’t think they make much difference.”

  “Go on. Wot else it say?”

  Thomas struggled through the text. “‘Believed to be heading west from Exchange Place. Information leading to their arrest and conviction will be promptly rewarded. Notify the station master or telegraph operator at the nearest PPG depot. Believed to be armed and dangerous. Approach with caution.’”

  “‘Armed’. Us? Wot wiv, a bloody gun an’ no bullets!”

  “‘Signed Islip Feathers.”

  Thomas was about to tear the paper up, but Sadie snatched it from his hand.

  “What are you doin’?”

  “What am I doin’? What are you doin’?” said Sadie, carefully folding the paper and putting it in the saddle bag. “That ‘ere’s wot you call a sooveneer. That’s French.”

  “What’s it mean?”

  “‘Soove’ means ‘somefin’ and ‘neer’ means ‘keep close.’ So Sooveneer is ‘somefin’ you keep close.’”

  “Why do you want to keep it?” said Thomas, slinging the saddle bag over his shoulder. “It tells people we’re criminals.”

  Sadie smiled. “We’ll show it to our gran’children one day.”

  Thomas began to walk down a grassy path to the west. “Whose grandchildren?”

  “Yours an’ mine.”

  Thomas changed the subject. “I’m hungry.”

  “Me, too.”

  They walked a little further. “Now half the country’s going to be lookin’ for us.”

  “I guess they figured out I ain’t a boy.”

  “I told ya,” said Thomas. “You’re too much of a girl.”

  Chapter Eighteen

  The Jicarilla Indian Reservation

  Dulce, New Mexico 1957

  Her hands, as she spun the wool, reminded Regan of roots of Piñon Pine, the landscape of a lifetime’s manufacture. She hummed while she worked, twisting a timeless, atonal tune into the fibers twirling hypnotically about the distaff like a dervish.

  “I sometimes think there is too much blood in my veins,” she said, in response to nothing other than her own thoughts.

  Following Indian etiquette, Tiffin and Regan had waited on Soledad’s porch for two or three minutes, without knocking, to give her time to prepare for visitors. When, at last, they knocked lightly on the screen door and entered the house, she had looked up, acknowledged their existence with a nod, and gone on working as if there had been no interruption.

  “You’re not going to find Mami Sol an easy interview,” Tiffin had cautioned on the drive to Dulce. He had one foot on the dashboard, a forearm draped casually across the steering wheel, and his cowboy hat tipped toward the back of his head in defiance of the wind that blew through the open drivers-side window and a crack in the windshield.

  Regan was freezing. Tiffin had conceded this by turning the heater on high – its only speed – but the window stayed open and whatever heat the over-worked fan expelled quickly retreated somewhere under the dashboard in an effort to keep warm.

  The ’37 Ford pickup, a Conllan family heirloom that had earned the name Balaam’s Ass for its sheer contrary-mindedness was, according to Becky, “Nine parts rust held together by chicken wire and wishful thinking.” But the family had sworn to drive it ‘til it died a natural death, which time had long ago expired. Every morning when he turned the key and pressed the starter pedal, expecting nothing but tomb-like silence, Tiffin’s disbelief was met by a familiar series of mechanical farts and wheezes signifying life. Every morning he’d say, “I’ll be damned,” and drive away, confident that some component critical to the operation of the vehicle would fall off on the ride down the hill. It never did.

  “How do you mean?”

  “Well, she’s sharp, like ma says, but she’s . . . what’s the word? Ob-something. Obscure? Ob . . . ”

  “Obtuse?”

  “Obtuse! That’s the one. Dang, I wish I could remember stuff like that. That’s it, though. Mami Sol’s about as obtuse as they come.”

  “Meaning?”

  “Well, if there’s a round-about way to get somewhere, that’s the road she’ll take. You can ask her questions ‘til you’re blue in the face and she’ll answer . . . wouldn’t be polite not to . . . but you might have to sift through what she says a bit before you come up with what she means by it.”

  “You sure she’s not just being . . . eighty-seven?”

  “Nah. She’s bein’ Jicarilla.”

  Regan smiled and looked out the window as the magnificent scenery slipped by. The road, recently repaved, wound lazily through a broad open valley flanked by gently rolling hills. To the north, the San Juan mountains breasted a startling blue sky with gleaming mantles of snow pinned in place, here and there, by arrow-straight Ponderosa pines. It was the kind of land a man could get lost in, he thought, and not particularly care if anyone came to look for him. He imagined him
self on horseback – come spring and warmer weather – riding a virgin trail through valleys lush with soft green grass to some distant cowboy Valhalla.

  If only he knew how to ride.

  The rear-view mirror, fused in its dotage to an angle of thirty-five or forty degrees, presented the intimidating backdrop of Los Brazos, silhouetted a deep blue-gray against the rising sun and, in the foreground, Canyon Ridge. ‘I live up there these days,’ he thought.

  The Ridge had quickly won a special place in his heart, as it did with everyone, and he was pleased with his place on the planet.

  “What about her Spanish part?”

  “Oh, that comes out whenever there’s a weddin’, baptism’, stuff like that. She goes the whole nine yards, from the prendorio to the entriega. The prendorio is the engagement.”

  “And entriega?”

  Tiffin thought a minute. “There’s not really a word for it in English. I guess you’d call it the reception, but it’s a helluva lot more than that. Mima figures, when it comes to those kinds of celebrations, there’s two ways to do it, the Spanish way and the wrong way.” He laughed.

  “What about funeral’s?”

  “They’d be a little bit of both, I guess. Spanish and Indian – maybe a little Anglo thrown in. A mixture of superstition and church.” Tiffin stared off through the cracks in the windshield to some place in his mind. “I remember when we were kids, she’d say things that sounded crazy. ‘Don’t wear a basket on your head or it will slow your growth,’ like that’s something we were gonna do. Or ‘don’t stand in the path of a whirlwind because it’ll capture your thoughts, take them away, and leave you twisted.’ To Mima, there’s spirits in everything. We had to avoid contact with ashes, because she believed they held sickness and ghosts, some kind of poor relation to a Navajo chindi, I guess. That part of her’s Jicarilla. But she controls ‘em with crucifixes and prayers on her rosary. That’s the Spanish part. Then there’s the Anglo part in there, too, that kind of spins in circles scratching its head ‘cause it can’t make sense of any of it.”