Silence the Dead

by David Crossman

  For a minute, she sat still, letting him comfort her. “Right then!” she said suddenly, jumping up. “That’s that.” She left, and for the next six days, worked almost nonstop until it was time to load the wagon and go.

  They had lived on Thomas’ wages all winter, putting aside Sadie’s earnings to buy supplies and a wagon and another horse to keep Pinch company. In the end, though, Sadie’s boss, Mr. Gould, gave her an old Conestoga he’d been meaning to use himself one day. He looked out sadly over the plain the evening before their departure. The wagon train, which had been assembling for several days now, dotted the dusk like a little city of white canvas and smoke. Dogs barked. Children, finding themselves with scores of new best friends, called and yelled and cheered and cried when new best friends turned false, then made up again. The lilt and lift of women’s voices floated over the murmur of their menfolk, punctuated now and then by coarse laughter.

  “I’ve been here forty years, Miss Conllan,” Gould said – he’d called her that and nothing else since the day they met. Sadie didn’t object, “Watching wagon trains depart, one after the other, year in and year out. I’ve always wondered what it’s like out there beyond the edge of my flat little world. Always figured I’d go one’ve these days.”

  “Ain’t too late, Mr. Gould,” said Sadie, putting her hand on his shoulder.

  He reached up and patted it. “Not for you, it isn’t.” His eyes watered. “You take that wagon everywhere I’ve always wanted to go, young lady. You hear? You take it to this Chama place your Thomas is always talking about.” He turned and looked at her. “And when you get there, you write and tell me all about it, will you? You’ve been practicing your writing, haven’t you?”

  “I got a lot’ve it figgered out, Mr. Gould. I ain’t quick, and some’ve them words sit on my brain like a fat lady wot won’t get off, but I wrestle ‘em out. An’ I thank you fer that. An’ fer this wagon, in all.”

  Thomas and Patrice had loaded the last of their possessions an hour earlier. Tonight they would sleep in, or in Thomas’s case, near the wagon. Gould caressed the tailgate as Sadie watched ‘if only’ collect in the corners of his eyes. “You can always take the train, y’know, Mr. Gould.”

  He turned to her and smiled a false smile. “I guess if you figure your dreams lie at the end of a railroad track, that’s the way to go. But if they lie at the end of the Santa Fe Trail . . . ”

  He walked away and Sadie watched, waving at his back. After fifty yards he turned around. “I’m going to miss you, Miss Conllan! Anytime you want to come back, you’ve got a job with me!”

  Many, if not most, of the travelers weren’t settlers or pioneers or prospectors, but tourists expecting an experience they would be able to tell their grandchildren about one day. Thomas had overheard the wagon master now and then assuring nervous individuals they were free to leave the party at any time and board a passing train. “East or west, whichever way you please. We’ll never be far from an iron horse.”

  And the tourists would titter and giggle at the romantic phrase and be comforted by what Thomas knew from his conversations with Gerrard was a bald-faced lie.

  For Thomas, however, there was no longer any doubt. The commotion and noise of the wagon train had once more fired his imagination, and the excitement settled in his blood.

  Late that night, exhausted by the day’s labors, Thomas made his bed by the campfire, as did another forty or fifty men up and down the line. Earlier, Gerrard had come to collect Patrice and take her for a farewell walk. Sadie had cozied up in the wagon and lullabied M.A. to sleep.

  Thomas cocooned himself against the cold in thick, wool blankets, and looked up at the stars. His brain swooned at the immensity of the worlds that spun above his head, and his heart ached to contain the anticipation that, after a long, restless hour, cudgeled him to sleep. Patrice hadn’t returned, but she was with Gerrard. She’d be okay.

  He awoke after sunrise to the sound of women crying. He tried to jump up, but first had to fight free of the blanket in which he’d become entangled, rubbed his eyes, and ran to the rear of the wagon from which the sound was emanating. He threw back the canvas. “What is it? What’s happened?”

  Sadie and Patrice were sitting on the narrow bed, facing each other with M.A., rubbing his eyes between them. Both women had been crying.

  “Go on! Show ‘im!” Sadie grabbed Patrice’s hand and swung it up in front of Thomas’ face. “It’s a ring!”

  Thomas could see that, but he didn’t understand the significance. “Very nice.”

  “Nice! It’s ‘uge! A real bloody di’mon’!”

  “Well,” said Thomas. He wasn’t sure what was going on, or why it seemed the women had been crying, but now they seemed happy – with tears streaming down their faces, so he thought he’d paddle for shallow water. “That’s real good, Patrice. Take care you don’t lose it. Now, how ‘bout some breakfast?”

  “‘e’s daft as a post, I tell ye. Thick as a brick.”

  “What?”

  “I’m goin’ to say this very slow, one lip at a time, so you can grab ‘olt,” said Sadie, dragging each word out preposterously. “Patrice is gettin’ married.”

  “Married?”

  Sadie picked up Patrice’s ring hand again and waved it in front of Thomas’ face. “Married.”

  “Who to?”

  Sadie looked at Patrice and shook her head. “See what I mean?”

  Patrice looked up at him and smiled. “Mr. Gerrard has done me the honor of asking me to be his wife.”

  “Gerrard?”

  Patrice nodded.

  “But . . . what about M.A.?”

  Patrice laughed. “He’s part of the package.”

  “What about Colorado Springs? What about James? The wagon train . . . ?”

  “I think you’ll probably do just fine without having to care for an old widow and her baby. And I expect James, if he’s still out there and alive, will do just fine without being encumbered by his brother’s wife and child.” She reached up and stroked Thomas’ cheek. “You saved our lives, Thomas, you and Sadie. And God bless you for your willingness to take us on. You’ll be in my prayers, both of you, as long as I live.”

  Slowly the reality began to filter home. Gerrard himself showed up not long after that, and as they unloaded Patrice’s belongings, Thomas’s perplexity and confusion gradually dissolved to laughter and good wishes. Half an hour later, L.H. Gerrard and his new family were clustered at the edge of a field where the dust, when the wagons began to move, wouldn’t suffocate them. He had his arm around Patrice and she had her arm around him, and M.A. was running in circles around both of them like a wind-up toy manufactured for the purpose.

  When the cry of “Wagon’s Ho!” repeated and repeated down the line, Sadie climbed up in the driver’s seat, cracked a motivational whip near Pinch’s ear, and the wagon was soon enveloped in a shroud of dust. Turning, she could see the soon-to-be Gerrards framed in the oval opening in the canvas at the rear of the covered wagon. She waved until they were out of sight.

  Thomas never looked back.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Conllan Ranch

  Canyon Ridge, New Mexico

  March 10th, 1957

  Regan puffed his pipe furiously, indicating, Maryellen had learned, that his brain was hard at work. “He talks about a fellow named Gerrard who, apparently, taught him how to use his gun and seems to have given lessons on whip handling to Sadie. But who he was or where he came from? No clue. Ultimately he ended up marrying Patrice and adopting M.A., who stayed with him in Junction City. Thomas’s notes are so cryptic. He might as well just have used nouns. This is like putting together a puzzle with too many pieces missing.”

  He slapped the manuscript on the table and pounded a page with his forefinger. “Here’s a good example. The next entry is Colorado Springs, June 4th, 1880.”

  “What about the wagon train?” Maryellen wanted to know.

  Regan threw up his hands. “Who k
nows? I’ll read you what he says. ‘Crossing everything Gerard said to expect. Freak snowstorm near Council Bluffs. Skirmish with Comanches twice, but they ran away from Hutchin’s Hotchkiss guns. Sadie got sick but is all right now. Half the tourists left us one time or another. Six folks died when the water ran out in desert. Pinch made it but the other horse died in the flood. Wagon fell over in a gully, but we righted it. Not much lost. Hear land is going to open up to homesteaders around Ft. Dodge, Kansas, come December. Too flat for me. The Rockies are amazing. My kind of country. Not a bad trip.”

  Becky laughed. “It sounds like a kid’s postcard from camp. ‘Dear Mom and Dad, got poison ivy and snake bite. The food’s terrible and everybody hates me. Having a wonderful time. Wish you were here.’”

  Maryellen started sifting through the papers. “There must be more in here. Surely that was just a synopsis. The rest of the story has to be in here somewhere.”

  “Sorry, it’s not. Believe me, I’ve looked.”

  “If Tiffin had lived,” said Maryellen, dropping the sheaf onto the table, “that description would have run to fifty or sixty pages, easy.” She noticed the corner of a piece of paper protruding from the stack. “What’s this?”

  She took it out. “Looks old.” The paper, discolored with age, was folded neatly in quarters.

  “How did I miss that?” said Regan. Maryellen placed the document in his outstretched hand. He opened it carefully; the razor-thin edges of the folds, so long compressed, threatened to separate at the slightest touch. One side of the paper was covered with a tight, neat feminine script. “It’s a letter. ‘Dear Thomas’.” His eyes skipped to the bottom of the page. “‘Your most undeserving servant . . . Isabel Quiggley!”

  “Mrs. Quiggly!”

  “Who’s that?” Tiffin asked.

  In the hour that followed, Regan introduced Conllans past to Conllans present.

  “Incredible,” said Becky, and she and Tiffin huddled over the table.

  “I never knew,” said Tiffin. He turned to his mother. “Did you?”

  She held up her palms. “Not me. Gramps never said a word, s’far as I know.”

  “So, what’s the letter say?” Tiffin demanded.

  Regan laid the fragile paper on the table. “The ink’s pretty faded in places, and missing altogether on some of the folds, but . . . ”

  “Just read,” said Maryellen. “Just read.”

  “Okay, okay!” Regan waved the cloud of smoke out of the way.

  “‘Dear Thomas, Imagine me delight when Mr. Pennyfarthin come with the post this mornin and there was a letter from our dear shipmate, after all these years! And to think your askin after poor Mr. Gladston. He more than made it back to Irelan, he outlived poor Mr. Meservey who fell down a hole. Mr. Gladston took poorly, finally, and the cat et im, which made the cat appy so not such a bad endin all round.

  ‘Mr. Quiggley took to leavin’ me slow-like some four or five year ago. You’d think he was here to look at im. Hes fine an bold an bray, as the Scots say, but is mind slipped anchor an that little ship is sailin outve site of land. Now an then he looks up with that same ol daft smile as you recolec, and says ‘Maisy’ (which was the ol Terrors pet name for me), ‘Maisy!’ he says. ‘Where you been, my girl?’ Then he drifts away again. Its like nothin so much as a drownin man come floatin up outve the deep an breakin the surface, an wavin hello then slippin away again, sinkin in them cold green shadows.

  ‘Mos days he spends neelin by our little coy pond in the garden, terrifyin the fish an makin great crossins only God knows where with the little hand-carved wood ship what Mr. Meservey made him.

  ‘He seems happy enuf. But I miss the ol genlman. That I do. It’s a sad thing, Thomas, to sail so many mile with a man, prayin so hard and so long for land, only to lose him in such a tiny ocean.

  ‘But I kiss the ol darlin on the head when he’ll let me, and I talk about them days an sometimes I wonder if he don’t hear. I told him of your letter an he said your name, then sunk away again to that place where he goes.

  ‘All of which means no, he never did go to Boston with your request. But all aint lost. Ive asked a friend of is whos a captain a-goin to Boston if he could do but try. Ill let you no soons I hear.

  ‘Til then, my dear friend, I am Your most undeservin servant, Isobel Quiggley.’

  ‘P.S. I apologize for the spelin. It was never good an is specially bad on Tuesdays, which is today. I couldv waited til tomorrer, which is generaly a good spelin day, but I new you’d want this reply a right off.”

  “That’s so sad,” said Maryellen.

  Tiffin gently turned the letter toward himself. “What do you think she was talking about, this friend of hers going to Boston?”

  “Well, Thomas wrote to her, obviously, or to the Captain, asking him to run an errand for him if he ever went back to Boston.”

  “Which he never did,” said Becky.

  “Right. So Mrs. Quiggley asked a friend, another ship’s Captain, to do . . . whatever it was.”

  “He wanted to find out about Katy,” said Maryellen.

  Becky agreed. “I’m sure that’s right.”

  Regan wasn’t sure. “You think so?”

  “What other business would he have had in Boston? Of course that’s what he wanted.”

  “Is there any date?” Becky asked.

  Regan gingerly examined the periphery and the other side of the paper. “No. Not that I can see. I imagine the envelope could have told us that, but it’s probably long gone.

  Boston, Massachusetts,

  September 14th, 1896

  ‘Clipper’ Shipton had started as a cabin boy aboard the Briar Rose when he was eleven and had learned within minutes, and for life, that you didn’t question the captain’s orders. Nor did he now. When he told you to go to a certain address on Beacon Hill, hide himself behind a tree and keep an eye on the house, that’s what he did. And if he was especially to mark the comings and goings, if any, of a young lady say, about his own age, well, that’s all to the good.

  “An’ I’d warn ye to keep yer ears open as well,” said the Captain, “but you’ve spent most’ve yer life list’nin’ at doors, so yer ears’ shaped like a key’ole. Get on wi’ ye!” Here, he took a swing at the boy, but long experience had so well taught Clipper when a blow was about to fall that he could anticipate it by a good thirty seconds. The trick was not backing out of the way too quickly and so risk the Captain’s ire for missing altogether. Let him just catch the top of your head with the tip of his fingers, or even the shoulder of your blouse, and that seemed to satisfy.

  That morning, like most since they’d pulled into the harbor three days earlier, was, in seaman’s terms, ‘thick-a-fog.’ The neighborhood was veiled in wraiths of mist that prowled the streets and alleys like phantoms stealthily prying at doorlocks and windowsills for access to the warm flesh within. Good weather for spying.

  Careful not to be seen, Clipper stationed himself behind the wrought iron bars of a postage-stamp sized park across the street from the subject house and there, concealed from view, lay down on the ground and watched through the leafy undergrowth of a yellowing bush.

  The early hours were marked by the typical comings and goings of a home of New England gentry. Kitchen maids bustled off to secure fresh provisions for the day, scullery maids emptied the trash and tipped out the coal, the butler – the only servant to use the front door – altercating with the newspaper boy about that day’s edition, both its condition, damp, and its headline, decidedly liberal, as if the poor benighted lad were both weatherman and editor.

  Clipper chuckled.

  A few hours went by with nothing out of the ordinary happening. Clipper was beginning to feel drowsy, and the ground had become soft and inviting. He was just about to surrender to these compound enchantments when, with loud mechanical pronouncements, a horseless carriage pulled up to the front door of the house across the street. Clipper was agog. Fevered conversation with his street-wise peers had inform
ed him that there were three motorized vehicles in Boston, all Duryea Motor Wagons, and now Clipper had seen them all. Which of his native compatriots could say the same? Nothing so stirred his fancy as the sight of these veritable smoke machines dispensing their miasma up and down the thoroughfares at breakneck speeds of nine, even ten miles an hour, dispersing leaves, trash, chickens, and taunting children with careless disregard!

  The Saltonstall’s front door opened and a liveried footman stepped out onto the landing, where he opened a massive umbrella, though it wasn’t raining. Two females then emerged from the house and descended the steps under the shelter of the umbrella. One of them, being about his own age, must be the Female In Question. The other was, Clipper guessed, thirty-five or forty. They were assisted into the car by the footman and the coachman, and amid smoke and feminine laughter, drove into the fog.

  Clipper saw a scullery maid watching the proceedings from a cellar window below the steps. As a man of the world, he knew he’d discovered the Font of all Knowledge. All he had to do was wait.

  Nearing noon, the girl came around the corner from the back of the house carrying a pail of mop water, which she was about to pour down the drain. Clipper was at her side before she suspected his existence.

  “Here, missy, lemme ‘elp you wi’ that.” He took the bucket from her before she could protest. She flashed a guilty glance at the house. If the butler caught her talking to a boy from the streets, it could mean her job.

  “Ooh, ‘in’t ‘alf ‘eavy, this, is it?” said Clipper with a smile. He upended the bucket over the drain. He saw the nervous look she gave the house. “Oh, don’t worry ‘bout ‘im,” he said. “I seen ‘im go up ‘round the corner there.”

  The girl looked in the direction Clipper was pointing. “He’s gone for his afternoon drink, then.”

  “Aye. ‘At’s right. An’ I’ll be as gone as an ‘arlot’s virtue by the time ‘e gets back, as me mum said. Coo, you must be strong for yer size; that was ‘eavy.” He handed her the bucket and a wink. “Let me feel your muscle.” Without waiting upon an invitation, he reached out and squeezed her bicep. The girl flushed ten shades of crimson and pulled away, but not sharply.