The Wolf Is Crying to Be Heard

By Steve Stroble

“Inside every man dwells two wolves.” – Cherokee legend

“The howl of the wolf echoes humans crying for a place to belong” – Gray Wolf, Kentucky, 1899

Political movements demand government ownership of businesses, less immigration to America, universal health care, and other reforms as the 1800s become the 1900s. Eventually, a movement to prohibit alcohol succeeds even as middle-aged women are the ones most addicted to legal opium based elixirs. Members of Congress call American soldiers fighting in the Philippines "murderers" and a presidential candidate rails against what he calls his nation's "imperialism."
Two friends from different worlds come of age during this generation of upheaval. Though one is belittled as a backwoods hillbilly from Kentucky and the other ostracized because of his religion, they learn from each other how to live and love family despite wars and social changes.
The women who become their wives help them survive WW I and the beginnings of the Great Depression.

The Wolf is Crying to be Heard is Book Three of the Turning Point Series. The series covers three events that shaped America to make it what it is today: the 1849 California Gold Rush, which brought emigrants from around the world to California and began an exodus from the eastern United States westward; the decline and fall of the British Empire and Ottoman Empire, which had ruled much of the world for centuries; and America’s entry into wars in Cuba and the Philippines, which began over a century of foreign intervention.
Book One is Fool's Gold
Book Two is The Prince of Alexandria.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Steve Stroble
• Release date: Jan 9, 2015
• ISBN: 9781311310248

Steve Stroble

Steve Stroble grew up as a military brat, which took him from South Dakota to South Carolina to Germany to Ohio to Southern California to Alabama to the Philippines to Northern California. Drafted into the Army, he returned to Germany.His stories classified as historical fiction often weave historical events, people, and data into them.His science fiction stories try to present feasible even if not yet known technology.His dystopian and futuristic stories feature ordinary heroes and heroines placed into extraordinary situations and ordinary villains who drain the life out of others' souls (their minds, wills, and emotions) by any means available.

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Introduction

From 1968 to 1970 I lived as an Air Force dependent at Clark Air Base, Philippines. No matter where I traveled – Angeles, San Fernando, Mabalacat, Bagio, Long Beach, San Miguel, Subic Bay, Manila, Mactan – a little Filipino kid would yell out, Hey, Joe! and wave. The greeting was a holdover from WW II when the kid’s parents and grandparents had shouted it to American G.I.s liberating them from the Japanese occupation troops.

As I talked to older Filipinos I learned of rebel groups fighting the government and military: the Huks were guerrillas during WW II who believed they had never been rightly compensated; the New People’s Army (NPA) were communists bent on establishing their version of Marxism/Maoism; the Islamic terrorists in the southern islands wanted to break away and form their own nation based on the Koran. During elections, politicians’ private armies battled each other and hundreds died. When I asked about the lawlessness, one Filipino said, You had your Wild West days in America. Now we’re having ours. The oldest Filipinos would bring up a war I knew nothing about, one in which Filipinos fought Americans to gain independence.

Twenty years later, Jose was my boss and Rene my manager. Ironically, the former name means God will increase and the latter reborn. Because of conversations with them, my interest in the Philippines was reborn and increased as they filled in the gaps in my knowledge:

Jose, why don’t the Filipinos cooperate with the PC (Philippine Constabulary) against the NPA?

If your sister gets raped and you tell the local PC, nothing might happen. If you tell the NPA, they take care of the rapist for you.

So what did you do in the Philippine Army?

Tell my men to keep attacking the Muslim rebels. I was a captain stationed in the southern islands.

Rene had other stories about his native Cebu.

While riding the bus to and from work I met an aged Filipino, Jimmy, who had fought as a guerilla against the Japanese during WW II. The last time I saw him in 2009 he was still waiting for any kind of compensation for his wartime exploits.

Forty years after leaving the Philippines, I finally got around to reading about the Philippine War of Independence and U.S. role in it. This book was born out of that. It’s fitting to dedicate it to Jose and Rene and Jimmy, three Filipinos who never stopped loving a land that leaves a lasting impression on any who have lived there.

Inside every man lives two wolves. – old Cherokee legend

The howl of the wolf echoes humans crying for a place to belong – Gray Wolf, Kentucky, 1899

1

The last nightmare was the most real of all as the city fed it until subconscious overtook consciousness and fantasy blurred with reality.

Gas from rotting garbage strewn on the street below invaded the dreamer’s nose and drunken neighbors his ears as his greasy supper convulsed his stomach. He rolled over on a thin, insect ridden mattress and thought of all he had left behind.

Scenes of his friend paraded through his sleep-deprived mind. After a year together they had formed that bond that borders on the supernatural between an owner and pet. This night he awoke because in the last dream the dog was lying next to him instead of a thousand miles distant.

Buster had read his master’s every mood. If Hank was sad, Buster grew quiet and either lay at his feet or retreated to a corner until called. If the sadness was overwhelming he rested his head on the boy’s lap. When Hank was carefree Buster had barked and paced the floor to coax him outside.

Why isn’t there just one person in this whole dang stinking city that cares about me like Buster did?

Hank pounded the pillow as he pretended it was his father’s face.

It’s all Pa’s fault.

Tired of farm life in drought conditions, Tom Richmond had searched for an escape. To accommodate his wife Paula he had moved them closer to her widowed mother in New York City.

Buster’s too wild for city life, Tom had said, a sentence of death for Hank.

All us Richmonds are too wild for the city. What’s it gonna take for you to see that? He stopped beating the pillow.

Destruction boiled inside of Hank: anger toward his parents, followed by regret; then waves of bitterness; finally, loneliness, the type that destroys one’s soul a day at a time. He lay awake not because the thin ceiling, floors, and walls of their tenement did little to conceal the dramas and accompanying sounds of the families above, below, and at either side of his own family. His hurt became a knife that ripped open his inner being to expose the cauldron of emotions. Tears and curses followed. On this especially awful night of despair he turned to his last resort. He uttered a prayer to the God Who now seemed so distant.

Lord, take me someplace where I belong.

2

Nightmares and prayers rarely earn students a gold star.

Studying the back of your eyelids again, Hank? The crash of his teacher’s pointer on his desk sent Hank tumbling into the aisle. Classmates’ laughter further humiliated him. Report for detention hall after school.

Maybe this session would not be so bad after all. The one in charge of detention hall was at the door chatting with the school’s most winsome teacher. And he was known for letting students serve their time without finishing their assignments.

What you doing here, Chris? Hank whispered.

I got caught reading in math class again. School is so boring. Why can’t they just let us study what we like? Now I have to copy twenty pages of what I was reading. He waved a copy of Frankenstein. What’s your punishment?

I have to write ‘I shall not fall asleep in class’ 500 times.

Chris studied Hank’s shoes, pants, and shirt. Why do they call you a hillbilly, Hank? You don’t look like one to me.

Guess cause we hail from Kentucky. How about you? Where’d you come from? They treat you like you don’t belong around here neither.

Not far away. It’s an okay place but back when my dad was a banker we lived over in Upper Manhattan. That was swell.

Ain’t that where all the rich folks live at?

Some of them. Lots of them have moved out to Long Island.

So your dad is rich, huh? I hear the kids calling you ‘rich kid’ all the time.

I guess anybody whose family has more money is looked at that way. All I know is my dad is hurting ever since his bank closed down. Now he works in a pawnshop.

Yeah. This here depression has made a mess of everyone’s life. If it weren’t for the dang depression then we never would’ve left Kentucky. His voice faded. And I’d still have Buster. I still miss him bad.

Buster?

My dog. He’s back there in Kentucky. I never knew how much I needed him til we wound up here. He’s still my best friend.

Desperate for any sort of companionship, Chris ventured from acquaintance toward friendship. Tell you what. You can come over to my house and meet Toby. Maybe that’ll cheer you back up?

Uh, okay.

An hour later, Hank handed in one sheet of paper with handwriting so small that only with a magnifying glass could the number of his sentences be counted. He had stopped at number 100 of his punishment.

Chris turned in five pages of a shortened version of Frankenstein in which Dr. Frankenstein’s monster visited his school and chased away the teachers who most bored him and the students who ridiculed him. The story ended with Chris as principal of a school where students picked their own curriculum and the monster ran detention hall. His jaw tightened as the head of detention tossed the nine collected assignments into a trash can.

Aren’t you going to read it?

What for? In your last story you had the Russians invading America and burning our school to the ground, wise guy. Why can’t you read at home instead of in class?

Chris shrugged. I don’t know.

Go on. Get out of here. I need to get out of here too because I’m taking Miss Kelly to a play tonight.

Chris grinned. He always spared his favorite teacher Miss Kelly in his stories because of her beauty.

Maybe it’ll be him falling asleep in class tomorrow. Hank winked as they walked out the door.

Even though Chris’ home was less than two miles from Hank’s tenement, it seemed to be another world. The streets were cleaner and fewer people moved along them. More policemen patrolled them, which kept them safer, especially during darkness and the gangs it spawned and protected.

Toby was a little Welsh corgi that took to Hank during their first meeting. He laughed at the motion of the brown and white dog’s stubby legs and floppy ears when the two boys took him for long walks to Central Park. Its hundreds of acres reminded Hank of the forests he so missed; Toby reminded him of Buster.

Back home there’s more trees than people. Here it’s the other way around. You think that’s why people are so low down and mean in these big cities?

My papa says that it used to be a lot better when he was a boy. He said New York got too crowded and if they don’t stop all of the yids, wops, darkies, micks, krauts, and chinks from coming here it’ll never go back to the way it was.

Each filled in the gaps in the other’s knowledge of the world and its ways. Hank introduced Chris to country folklore and its tales. Chris in turn taught Hank of how the upper middle class lived and what they believed. Females were deemed mysteries beyond comprehension.

Papa says only ten percent of kids make it all the way up through eighth grade. Then only ten percent of those go on to high school. And only a few who graduate from high school go on to college.

College? You’re going to go off to there? You must be smart.

I have to. Papa says it’s the only way for me to get ahead.

Shoot. My pa says it’s off to work for me once I graduate from eighth grade. I’m hoping he’ll let me go on back to the farm and help Grandpa work it. Besides there ain’t no jobs around here. All you ever see is boys and men walking the streets with no jobs.

***

As they had traveled to New York, the first verse of Don’t Leave the Farm Boys ran through Tom’s mind:

Come boys, I have something to tell you

Come near, I would whisper it low

You’re thinking of leaving the homestead

Don’t be in a hurry to go

The city has many attractions

But think of the vices and sins

When once in the vortex of fashion

How soon the course downward begins

Tom’s escape from Kentucky to New York had roots entrenched in an uncivil past. Kentucky was one of five border states during the Civil War, a kind of no-man’s land in which a slave state never seceded from the Union.   For their loyalty they received a special status: the Emancipation Proclamation during the war and Reconstruction after it did not apply to them. Missouri and Kentucky carried the divisions to the extreme by establishing two governments, one pro-Union and the other pro-Confederate. This intensified the strife as family members found themselves fighting for opposing armies, including Tom and his older brother.

Unwilling to join the fray and make a son an enemy, their father tried to remain neutral. This proved impossible when his older son’s intestines were bayoneted and littered the ground at Shiloh. Blaming Lincoln, Republicans, and the North was too remote for his grief; blaming a surviving son allowed daily revenge. After the war Kentucky underwent a process that mimicked Reconstruction and allowed blacks to vote. Seeing them at the polls on election days caused the father to relive his son’s death and renew his anger toward the survivor.

Tom fled from southwestern Kentucky to the northeastern corner of the state that bordered Ohio and West Virginia and underwent the long process of healing that veterans of battle cannot escape but only endure. Eventually he married. But the fractured relationship with his father prevented an invitation to the wedding for either of his parents. They might have never met their daughter-in–law had it not been for the upheaval that forever reversed the demographics of the United States.

The pious called it acts of God; others the weather. Tom gravitated between the two; Paula thought it to be the former, Hank was oblivious as shifts in climate in the late 1800s began a mass reverse migration. In 1870 over half of the nation worked in farming, by 1900 so many farmers had fled to towns and cities that only about one in three Americans still toiled in the fields, orchards, barns, and rangeland.

From 1860 to the 1880s mild weather with adequate rain brought forth abundant crops in the Plains states. Then in 1886-87 a fierce winter killed three fourths of the cattle in the western states. The cattle had tried to warn their masters by eating voraciously during the summer and fall of 1886. But the resulting abnormally thick coats of hair on them failed to alert their owners to find shelter for the beasts. A drought followed that destroyed much of what was planted in the Plains. Over the next four years half of the people in Kansas and Nebraska headed east.

In God we trusted, in Kansas we busted was written on a sign attached to one of the wagons that Tom saw headed to the cities on the East Coast. The eastward migration made him uneasy.

Things that bad back in Kansas? Tom pointed to the crude sign on the wagon.

The skinny man reined his horses to a stop and waved his dusty torn hat in circles. Brother, it’s better felt than telt. He threw his hat to his feet and jabbed a bony finger at Tom. The day will come when you join us on this trail to nowhere. He let out a ghostly laugh and ordered his horses onward, the dust from their hooves baptizing Tom with fear. After that Tom never spoke to another fleeing from the Great Plains.

Even though factory workers were better off than farmers their wages fell, which led to strikes, and still fewer jobs to absorb those coming to the cities. As the drought spread farmers were also hurting in the Midwest, East, and South, including Tom. The patch of land on which he raised tobacco, corn, and hemp stopped producing as much due to the weather’s change. Hundreds of miles to the west his parents’ farm was devastated more by the weather. To help, Tom offered to let them take over his smaller farm, which included Buster.

America’s largest city had already overgrown itself a decade before they arrived and now it had large suburbs as more and more immigrants made it home. New York’s strangely dressed people at worst terrified and at best baffled the Richmonds as they encountered their cacophony of foreign tongues. Over forty percent of the city’s 1.5 million inhabitants were European born, including 211,000 from Germany, 190,000 from Ireland, 49,000 from Russia, 48,000 from Austria-Hungary, 40,000 from Italy, and 36,000 from England. Even the English spoken by English, Irish, and Scottish immigrants sounded foreign to the Richmonds.

The hard pressed migrating farmers from the west having to compete with the immigrants for work caused social unrest that gave birth to the Populist Party in 1892. It demanded an eight-hour workday, government ownership of the railroads, a graduated income tax, and a restriction on the number of new immigrants. Shortly after arriving in New York, Tom joined it when one of its organizers found him a job on the docks unloading and loading boat after endless boat.

Then the end of railroad overbuilding using risky bank financing brought on the Panic of 1893. Tom’s wages fell. The Populist Party organizer explained why over two beers at a dimly lit tavern.

You ever notice that there’s more people on the boats at the docks than there’s cargo?

Tom sipped the warm brew. Yeah.

It’s all them foreigners coming here that’s the problem. That’s why we got to get one of our own elected president. Then we can keep the foreigners out and tax all the rich bastards to death too!

Tom cocked his head as he had when sensing a skunk back in the hills of Kentucky. Man, you act like you hate rich people.

You’re damn right, I do. He pounded his mug on the table until beer sloshed from it. Tax the rich! Tax the rich! Tax the rich! Others took up the chant.

The bartender sighed and reached for the blackjack he had had to use the last time the organizer started a riot in his business. This time he would thrash the troublemaker before he destroyed anything.

As the depression deepened over one-third of railroads went bankrupt and 600 banks and thousands of businesses went under. One of those failed banks housed the Richmonds’ meager savings.

We lost all our money that was in the bank! Tom smashed a chair against the floor until its legs shattered and the neighbors below answered with a broomstick handle pounding on their ceiling.

Hank and his siblings scrambled for the safety of a bedroom and hid under a bed. All three cried as they listened to their parents’ turmoil.

I knew we shouldn’t have come here! If it weren’t for your mother, we never would have!

Please, Tom. You’re scaring the children to death. You act like a wounded animal sometimes. Their mother’s sobs intensified the children’s.

Seeing better off citizens planted seeds of envy; they sprouted faster than the weeds of Tom’s former tobacco fields. The mature tares produced a crop of bitterness. He rejoiced in August 1894 after a Democrat controlled Congress responded to Populist Party demands by passing the first graduated income tax law.  When a less covetous Supreme Court declared it unconstitutional a year later he cursed and broke another chair. Tom’s sagging head and brooding silence betrayed him as one merely going through the motions of being a husband and father overwhelmed with regrets of abandoning the familiar.

Hank’s only other city dwelling friend came from his neighborhood. Not yet a slum, the neighborhood was typical of many in New York of that day that was home to the lower class, with brothels’ customers and drunks milling around them. Junk collectors and rag collectors pushed their carts as they called out for donations on crowded and dirty streets. Vendors sold ice from their wagons in summer. In winter they sold coal. Salvation Army workers gave away tons of both, including to the Richmonds after their bank lost the money saved for such items. 

Paula hung her laundry on clotheslines strung between two tenements and screamed the first time she noticed the rats that used the clotheslines as bridges. After that, Hank’s favorite pastime became hitting them with stones propelled by his slingshot. Any rodents that survived the fall scampered for cover from the hungry dogs, cats, and children waiting for them in the alley below. Tens of thousands of horse drawn wagons vied for the right of way with the animals’ dung everywhere feeding swarms of flies. Cruel teamsters mistreated the horses, which sent them to early graves. Journalists wrote about the dark side of their city; reformers screamed for change.

Also on the street corners were Salvation Army bands playing drums, tambourines, trumpets, and tubas and holding banners with slogans such as Come join our Army, to battle we go. All of them wore blue uniforms, the women with black bonnets and the men caps that distinguished soldier from officer playing music, praying for the lost, and announcing meetings at nearby rented halls.

One night after a meeting was made known Hank followed the Salvation Army band to the gathering place not due to curiosity about such services but because a girl that looked to be only slightly older than he was part of the crowd. He walked a half block behind the others.

The meeting hall was the first floor of a seven-story tenement, which doubled as sleeping quarters for the members until a more permanent work could be established. Hank sat directly behind the girl, pretty but her young face carried the kind of suffering usually seen in those who have lived long enough to endure so much of it. The sermon was one of salvation through Jesus Christ alone, similar to messages during revivals back in Kentucky. Bored, Hank focused on the girl’s long black curls and squirmed as she cried from start to finish. When she rose to leave one of the black-bonneted women met her near the door. Hank pretended to read a piece of the Army’s literature and stood close by to eavesdrop.

Estelle, if you leave, we’ll protect you. You…

You don’t understand. He would kill me.

Hank followed her outside and down the steps. Miss, it’s awfully cold tonight and real dark outside. Please let me walk you on home.

She turned and studied Hank. Now fourteen, he looked older because he had grown to six feet tall. Her tears had stopped once she stepped outside; coldness accompanied her sigh.

Sure, why not? Maybe Mr. Burtan won’t beat me if I bring him a customer. It’ll cost you anywhere from four dollars on up.

Huh? Hank fell in step beside her as she walked away. What kind of place do you work at? A saloon?

I wish.

Her story unfolded slowly. She told of how she had been promised work in a factory by a stranger who had visited her small town in northern England. But when she had arrived in New York she was met at the docks and taken to the brothel that had become her prison. She was sixteen.

But why don’t you leave? That nice Salvation Army lady at the meeting said she would help you out.

Ha! The last one who tried to leave wound up floating in the river. She stopped in front of the brownstone that served as a brothel. Are you coming in?

No. I’m sorry. I just wanted to help you out is all. I was hoping maybe…

Thank you. Other than those Salvation Army people you’re the only one who’s been kind to me since I came to this God-forsaken city. She kissed Hank on the cheek and started to climb the steps as a drunken customer stumbled down them.

When Hank next saw Estelle, her eyes were blackened and swollen, her mouth bloodied.

What happened?

Estelle dabbed at the bloody lip with her napkin. Burtan beat me again. He said I needed to work harder. I hate him.

That does it. You can’t ever go back there. I won’t let you. I’m taking you over to where those Salvation Army people live at.

Estelle agreed, more out of resignation than hope.

Okay. I’ll go.

It was early evening and less than half of the street lamps worked, which left patches of sidewalk particularly dark. At one such dimly lit spot a huge shadowy figure leapt from an alley and grabbed Estelle with one hand and Hank with the other and dragged them into it. The dark abyss swallowed all three. His viselike grips kept both from escaping.

Run away from me, will you? I’ll teach you, you little wench.

Hank bit Burtan’s fingers. The bleeding assailant howled in pain and loosened his grasp. Hank ducked the punch thrown at him and yanked on Estelle’s free arm. Let her go! He remained gallant until a blackjack smashed into the top of his head.

When Hank awoke an hour later, he tried to stand but crumpled back onto the ground. It took a moment for the dizziness to subside so that he could regain his footing. He stumbled around the alley calling for Estelle. Only rats and a stray cat responded by scurrying away. An angry voice from a second-floor tenement ordered him to be quiet. Fearful of the consequences, he staggered home. By the time he