Silent Thunder (6 page)

Thea nodded. “That's only a piece of it. The rest ain't for you to know. I'm only tellin' you so's you understand that every soul—a man's, a woman's, your very own brother's—carries some kind of silent thunder. But listen, silent thunder is something we got to keep quiet and private.” Thea let go a slow breath. “That's the way of slavery, Summer,” she said. “Anything that makes you feel good has gotta stay cooped up, like a toad wriggling inside a croaker sack, else it can be taken away.”

I let all that Thea was telling me settle still for a moment. Then I asked, “Mama's got a silent thunder?”

Thea nodded. “She does.”

“You got it, too?”

“Yes, Summer.”

Now I was thinking hard on what Thea had been saying. “Rosco told you 'bout his thunder?” I asked.

Thea shook her head “He doesn't need to speak on it.”

“Then how do you know, Thea?”

“That's what a seer is, child,” she said. “I can see silent thunder happening in people.” Thea sighed. “And just like your learning letters,” she said, “seeing into people is a boon and a bugaboo.”

September 22, 1862

“
Announced by all the trumpets of the sky,
Arrives the snow, and, driving o'er the fields,
Seems nowhere to alight: the whited air
Hides hills and woods, the river, and the heaven,
And veils the farm-house at the garden's end
. . . .”

I
WAS POLISHING THE DOORKNOBS
just outside Master Gideon's study, listening to Lowell finishing up his lesson.

My thoughts were clouded. Clouded with what Clem had told me at the smithing shack. From that day to this, it seemed all's I could think on was enlisting in the Union army.

But when I heard Lowell reading aloud for Miss McCracken, my thoughts turned to the beauty of poetry, which Lowell was reading without a single snag. His voice was soft and even, and he put weight to
certain words to bring the poem alive—
snow, heaven, veils, garden's end . . .

When I peeked through the half-open doorway, Miss McCracken was looking on approvingly. “Very good reading, Lowell,” she said as Lowell's eyes rose from his book. “Ralph Waldo Emerson's The Snow-Storm,' a lovely poem by one of our finest.”

Lowell coughed from deep down. “Yes—ma'am.” Now he was back to stuttering, like somebody had snatched his voice right out of him.

“That'll be enough for today,” Miss McCracken said, settling her hand on Lowell's bony shoulder. Lowell sat back from his book and nodded.

Miss McCracken's eyes met mine as she left the study. There was kindness in her eyes, kindness in her whole face. Miss McCracken never let a lesson pass when she didn't regard me with some goodly gesture, usually a brief nod of her head and a tiny smile. (And I never let a single lesson pass when I wasn't close by to receive her courtesy.)

Rose McCracken's name fit her rightly, on account of her pink skin. She and I never spoke a word to each other, but whenever she looked at me and gave me her quick, single nod, her eyes seemed to be saying, “
Rosco, you're as good as anybody else, nothing low about you
.”

Of course, I didn't dare hold Miss McCracken's gaze long enough to see if she was telling me anything else. It wouldn't be proper for me to rest my
eyes on hers for more than a moment. And today, like all days, I looked to the floorboards as soon as Miss McCracken graced me with her brief bit of politeness.

I tried to keep my attention to polishing the doorknob, but I couldn't help but listen to the rustle made by Miss McCracken's skirts as she walked down the dirt entry road that snaked onto Parnell's plantation. The gentle swish of her dress carried the same dignity she did. When I couldn't hear the brush of her steps anymore, I knew she was truly gone for the day, and something in me sunk.

Lowell went back to reading aloud from his lesson book:

“Announced by all the trumpets of the sky,
Arrives the snow, and, driving o'er the fields. . . .”

In the years I been listening in on Lowell's lessons, I ain't never heard him read out loud after his lesson was over.

Right then, he read real smooth—not even a break to his voice.

“Seems nowhere to alight: the whited air
Hides hills and woods, the river, and the heaven,”

I stopped my polishing so's I could listen.

Forgetting myself, I stood full-well in the doorway to the study, my cleaning rag dangling from my hand, watching Lowell read the poem like he was delivering an announcement to the state.

After Lowell spoke the final line—
“And veils the farmhouse at the garden's end”
—he looked right at me. I blinked, but I kept my eyes with his.

Then, Lowell motioned me to him.

I hesitated. “Master Lowell?”

He gestured again. “Come see,” he said softly, tilting his book toward me.

I could feel the skin moisten above my lip. The backs of my ears went hot. “I best keep with the doorknob,” I said, lowering my eyes.

Lowell let out a tiny cough. He said, “I've seen how you listen close when Miss McCracken and I do our lessons.”

I tried to swallow the dry patch that had settled at the back of my throat. I shrugged.

Lowell was smoothing his hand over the page of his book as if it were a tiny kitten. Even in the dim room, I could see the page's creamy softness, cradling its beautiful poem-words. Words that I wanted to see up close, but couldn't. My mind raced with wondering how I could swipe that book, same way as I'd swiped
The Clarkston Reader.
I wondered how I could take Emerson's “Snow-Storm” for a day so's I could see Lowell's poem for myself. So's I
could make it
my
poem. So's I could put
my
voice to its pretty words.

Now I was polishing hard on the doorknob. I was trying to pretend Lowell had never spoken to me. But Lowell wouldn't give up. He took a weighty breath. Then he began to stutter. “Come on, Rosco Come s-s-s-ee my book,” he repeated.

I shook my head. “Can't, Master Lowell—can't,” I said firmly.

I couldn't help but wonder why, all 'a sudden, Lowell was inviting me to see his lesson book. There had to be something more to it, and as badly as I wanted to set my eyes on “
all the trumpets of the sky
,” I couldn't take me no chances—not a one. I couldn't help but wonder, though: Did Lowell know I'd learned me to read?

I cut my eyes toward Lowell's to see if I could read his intentions. But all's I saw on his face was pleading. Lowell truly wanted me to look at the poem along with him, and I, for the living gizzards of me, couldn't figure out why.

One thing was for certain, though. It was the thing I knew as sure as I knew my name was Rosco Parnell. That snowstorm Lowell was reading 'bout in that poem would have to fall all over the devil's hell before he or any white man ever roped me into showing I could read, or ever tried to pry the power of reading from me.

Finally, seeing that I was set on ignoring him, Lowell gave up. He closed his lesson book and hugged it to his chest. He left me to my doorknob, which was now shiny enough for me to see the reflection of my own troubled frown.

September 28, 1862

O
N SUNDAY MORNING I WOKE
again before the sun had even thought of rising. Woke shortly after Mama woke.
Early.

Mama always left the quarters before anybody, when the sky was still black, with not even a hint of morning light. She often said, “Gotta fill the house with the smell of breakfast, while the Parnells is still 'sleep. And if it's Sunday, gotta fill it good. Gideon won't stand for meeting the dawn without my biscuits and gravy calling his name. And Missy, well, you know how she likes her hair done up pretty for church.”

Mama put her head to her pallet every night, but I wondered if she ever really slept. Seemed all she ever did was work. That's why it wasn't often that I saw Mama dress for the day.

But today was different.

Mama had lit her lantern, like always (even when she had the lantern lighted, I was usually 'sleep). She didn't know I'd woken up. For a moment, I kept my eyes closed to slits, enough to stay like I was 'sleep, but to enjoy the early hours of waking, too.

Mama rose from her pallet. With her back partly to me—I opened my eyes fully when Mama got to be busy with getting herself ready to go to the Parnells' kitchen—I watched her slip out of her night frock. That's when I saw it, plain as the day that would be coming on. Mama's scar—her brand. The letter
P
, burned deep into her hip, same way as it was on Rosco and on me. But Mama's scar was even more puckered. Even more blackened. It was truly ugly.

I squeezed my eyes shut. There was nothing more for me to see. Still, though, I could feel my eyes dancing under their lids. While I listened to Mama rustle quietly in the dim glow of her lantern, I slid my hand to my own brand. Over and over, I traced my finger around the
P
's hump. Soon I could feel my fingers start to tremble. Then a tug closed off my throat. Next thing I knew, I had wet coming to my eyes. And just as my tears started to spill, Mama slid from the quarters, leaving me to weep silently in the dark.

It was still twilight when Rosco and I met up on the dirt path that lead to the house. Rosco was on his way to tend to Lowell's morning—helping Lowell rise,
having the basin wash-water ready, and making sure his church clothes were set for the day.

I was on my way to work 'longside Mama in the cookhouse. The sight of Mama's scar hadn't left me. I still had tears snatching at my insides. I was trying real hard to think of other things—to shake the memory, same way I shake the wrinkles from Missy Claire's table linens—but, deep down, I had a feeling this morning's sight would stay in my thoughts for a long time coming.

As soon as Rosco and I started walking, Rosco reached in his back pocket and pulled out something that looked like one of Thea's herb pouches, the kind she presses on bruises and wounds to help them heal.

“Here, Summer,” he said, pushing the pouch into my chest. “It's a present.”

I held the pouch over toward Rosco's lantern. “My birthday's been come and gone for weeks now,” I said, turning over the funny-looking pouch.

“Think of it as an any-ol'-time present,” Rosco said. “I made it for you, Summer. Stuffed and sewed it myself. It's a dolly.”

I looked at Rosco sidelong. “Since when did
you
know how to sew?” I asked.

“Since I got me the feeling to make you that dolly.”

Behind us, we could hear the field slaves beginning to spread through the tobacco fields, ready for another long day of picking. Rosco motioned to me. “We better not dawdle,” he said. “Gideon can be real cranky
on Sundays. Mama says it's 'cause he hates going to church.” Rosco had walked a few steps ahead I trailed not far behind as he spoke. “Missy Claire makes Parnell sit in the front pew every week. He sure don't like doin' that, and it's worse when Lowell gets to stuttering his way through the prayers and hymns. That shames Parnell bad, Mama says.” Rosco was picking up his pace. I had to walk double time to keep up. “Master Gideon won't take kindly to us being late,” he said.

The doll Rosco made me was far from pretty, not like them china-head dolls Missy Claire's got sitting up on her bed pillows. (Them's the dolls Missy's had since she was a child herself, Mama says.)

Rosco's handmade dolly wasn't no more than a scrap of burlap from some old flour sack, stuffed with a hump of cotton. Its arms and legs were spruce twigs hitched to the doll's body so's they could move.

And that thing wore the funniest little face. A face made from a walnut shell. Its face looked wrinkly, like Thea's face is starting to look. Wrinkly, but wise, somehow. And the doll's walnut face was the same color brown as Mama's face, and my face, too.

“What's her name?” I asked, bringing the dolly's skinny twig-arms together and out again, helping her do a hand clap.

“Name her what you want.” Rosco shrugged.

“How ‘bout I name her Walnut, like her face.”

Rosco shook his head, like he was feeling sorry 'bout something. “I wish I could'a got you a china-face dolly, Summer, the kind they make for white girls.”

I was thinking the same thing, but there was a hint of regret in Rosco's eyes that kept me from saying what was on my mind. Walnut was far from china. Real far. I tried to make Rosco feel better by telling him something I didn't truly believe. “Them china dolls is too flimsy, anyhow. They break quick as an egg if you drop one. Heck, Walnut here, she's special. You could drop her a million times over and she'd still be good as new.”

Now Rosco was looking sidelong at me. “You expect me to believe you're really thinking that's true, Summer?”

I shook my head. I let go a tiny smile. “Can't blame me for trying, Ros.” I walked Walnut's spindly legs out in front of me as if she were walking on the air, walking along with us. “Why'd you make me this doll, anyhow, Ros?” I asked. “This any-ol'-time present?”