A Tale from the Hills (38 page)

William saw many children who had been orphaned by the war. He thought about the closeness that he had long ago felt for his own family, growing up in that little mountain shack beside of the railroad tracks on Jewel Ridge Mountain. He wondered if any of his brothers were seeing action in the war, and he wondered if his daddy was still living in the little shack. He thought once or twice about sending them a postcard or a letter, or something, but henever got around to doing it.

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The killings and death and destruction made William think about his own mortality. Although he had never been overly concerned about getting killed in battle, he did think a lot about leaving someone behind to carry on his name after he was gone. He had seen whole families perish, and he realized that as soon as the war was over and the rebuilding started, many of those families would be forgotten. It was simply a part of the process in the chain of human events. He made up his mind that as soon as he got back to America, that he would find himself a wife to help him raise a family of his own. He wanted a son first and foremost, and then maybe a daughter that he would name Alice in honor of his lost sister. He had it all figured outbecause he always did like having a plan.

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William was the only one of the Hill boys to fight for his Uncle Sam. Joseph failed the physical because of his knees, and Josh could not hear well enough to pass the test. Years of listening to the high pitched shrill sounds coming from the saws at the lumber mill had damaged his ears almost to the point of being a handicap. By the time that he had reached the age of thirty, he would have to wear cumbersome hearing aids in each of his ears. Until that time he struggled to hear even the loudest noises.

Alan could not serve in the military because of the hardship that it would have caused if he left the store and his family. There was no one to work except him, and since his wife had left him with two small children, he was overcomewith responsibility to them as well. His day started before daybreak and ended well after dark. But he would never have even considered having his life any other way. He wasdevoted to his children and his mountain community.

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When news spread throughout the entire mountain region that the railroad was planning a huge expansion project, there were many good as well as bad aspects of the project to be considered. The prospect of more jobs was met with much anticipation and optimism. The downside however was that most of the little houses that had been scattered along the tracks for so many years, would have to be torn down, or pushed over, or burned, to make room for the expansion.

Josh had moved away from the old home place more than two years earlier to live with Alan and his kids, but there was still a problem that would need to be dealt with before the Hill family could ever be happy with the expansion. Mary Hill was buried under what was left of the old oak tree that would soon be plowed under. The report of her death was never recorded anywhere except in the hearts of her beloved family, and Tom Hill did not want to have strangers scattering her delicate bones along the mountainside with a bulldozer. When he got the news of the expansion, he knew exactly what had to be done.

When he told his sister Eunice what he intended to do, she was not only sympathetic, she wanted to help. But he insisted that he wanted to do what needed to be done, on his own. He would not even tell his sons until weeks after the the job was done. He left Alleghany County before daybreak on a cool Saturday morning. He was driving the pickup truck that he and Eunice had bought with the money that they had saved from the sale of their tobacco crop back in the Fall. He was on a mission that might have been considered to be illegal in the eyes of some of the county officials, but that was a mute point to him.

The two and a half hour trip to Washington County in Virginia was picturesque but uneventful. He had time tothink about his life since he and Eunice had been reunited, and he realized that he was truly blessed. He thought about the circumstances of his young wife’s death, and he wondered how differently their lives might have been if she had not died so young. He cried when he thought about little Alice and how much he wished that she had been found after the tragedy that ended her life.

Tom drove within a quarter mile of the little shack that he called home for many years. He quickly took a spade and shovel, and wooden crate from the back of the pickup, and began the trek to the tiny isolated house. It was hard to carry everything at once but he managed without slipping a single time. He had wanted and intended to do this thing for a long time, and nothing was going to stop him now. He softly whispered a prayer and asked God to forgive him for what he was about to do, if God thought that it was a sin. He worked in silence at his noble task. It took him about two hours to find what he was looking for, and to delicately place the bones of his dear Mary into the wooden crate. When he was finished he covered the hole and loaded the precious cargo into the makeshift hearse. He drove back to Alleghany County and with very little pomp and circumstance, he buried his wife beside of his mother in the family cemetery. He rested that night with theknowledge that his dear Mary was close to him again.

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William’s unit saw as much action as many other American units in Germany, in the last days of the war. Since they were so close to the front lines so much of the time, William and his comrades were among the first Americans to enter the concentration camps after the German had scattered or surrendered. The horrors that the Americans saw were the stuff of nightmares for many years to come for a countless number of the men. Even William’s cold heart melted when he saw the results of man’s inhumanity to other human beings, especially the poor children.

As the Americans were rummaging through captured German files in the camps of death, they found reel after reel of film footage that chronicled the extent of the atrocities that were inflicted upon the prisoners of the camps. Unspeakable horrors and tortures and experiments and executions were recorded by depraved film makers, who in effect sealed the fates of many high ranking German officers at the Nuremburg Trials that followed the war. William was so moved by the few tapes that he saw, that he vowed to change his ways after he returned to America. He promised himself that he would never own a gun again, or take another life in the new city that would give him a wholenew outlook and appreciation of life.

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As a reward for being in the middle of so much of the action during the war, William’s entire division was one of the first to leave Germany, bound for America. He was ecstatic when he got the news that his ship would drop anchor in the Port of New York. He had survived the war in one piece and he was going to the very city that he used to dream about, with a whole new outlook on life. He had already had his second and third and fourth time to start over, and this time he was not going to mess it up. It was a promise that he intended to keep.

When he saw the Statue of Liberty in the harbor, he felt like she was there for his benefit alone. He was only sharing her with the rest of the ship because he felt unusually generous. The crowds that were waiting on the dock, greeted the ship with cheers and many tears of joy. William wished that he had someone waiting for him, like a lot of the happy men who were waving and screaming and crying. But he had a whole new outlook and a city full of possibilities. He could hardly wait to get off of the ship and have some authentic American food and a Coca-cola. Who knows he might even meet a nice waitress.

END OF PART FOUR

PART FIVE
 

His lifeless body lay half in the doorway and half in the hallway. A tiny glimmer was still in his eye, not that anyone noticed. He was as dead as four o’clock and ironically the clock had just struck four in another of the small apartments. Somewhere in the dark recesses of his brain, a tiny spark was arcing ever more faintly as the milli seconds ticked away. He could not understand why so many people were running in and out of the room where he had just been standing a few moments earlier. Off in the distance he could hear a faint tapping that sounded so familiar, but he just could not remember where he had heard it before. Then he saw the faint outline of the dirty old man just as he remembered where he had heard the tapping before, a long time ago, in a barn near the railroad tracks. The old man with the bugs and spider webs in his hair, and the dirty old ragged clothes, was back.

“Are you ready to go now son?” the old man asked in a low steady confident voice.

“What do you mean go? Stay away from me old man!” William shouted, but only the old man could hear.

“I kept my end of the bargain. I stayed out of your dreams while you were alive. Now you must keep your end. Let’s go son.”

Unable to struggle when the old man tugged at his lifeless arm, William’s spirit was raised from the floor to join the spirit of the old man. In all of the commotion no one even saw the tiny glimmer fade from William’s eye.

At that exact moment, in a place so far away that it might as well have been a foreign land, bulldozers unearthed the bones of a small child. Construction had begun on the railroad expansion project in Washington County in Virginia, and one of the men remembered the tragedy all those years ago when the little girl disappeared.

The Hill brothers escorted the tiny elegant coffin to Alleghany County in North Carolina, where little Alice was finally laid to rest beside of her dear mother. For the first time in years the little store in Jewel Ridge Mountain was closedfor a couple of days. A makeshift family reunion and cemetery decoration ceremony took place, and a very good time was had by all who attended. No one spoke of Tom and Eunice Hill’s long lost father, and few words were spoken about William. Who could have imagined in their wildest nightmares, that the two of them were having a reunion of sorts of their very own.

THE END

EPILOGUE
 

He stared up at the ceiling with absolutely nothing on his little mind. The loud noises had stopped and someone had changed his dirty diaper. He could hear sounds all around him but they were soft and comforting to his ears. Something about the sounds made him want to close his eyes and just forget about everything.

Soon he would be flying through the air. He saw big white puffy shapes, and blue skies, and little birds, floating all around him. He loved this place. He was so happy there. He was going to stay there forever, or at least until he was hungry again.

When he woke back up he was still moving but his eyes were open and he was wet again. He was going to start crying again too, because he just could not help it. It was a very natural thing for him to do. Besides, things always happened soon after he started to cry.

The social worker took him home with her, because it was too late to place him anywhere else. She had no idea that the baby even had a name yet. She could not find out anything about him in the apartment where she found him. He was simply baby John Doe as far as she was concerned. She called him little Johnny with a soft voice and he cooed at her. The name suited him. She was going to feed him and put him to bed. He would have a very busy day tomorrow.

He woke up sometime after the room was dark and he was so startled by what he saw while his eyes were closed, that he could hardly catch his breath. When he was finally able to breath, he cried loudly even after the soft voice picked him up. The soft voice told him that everything would be all right, but that was exactly what they told him when his eyes were closed, and they had raspy voices and their eyes were glowing like fire.