Emerald Rivers: The Emerald Series, Book Five

By Kelly Savage

Can a stone be cursed? The ‘Karensa Emerald’, a mystical healing stone found by a Cherokee shaman in the mid-1800s traveled west on the Trail of Tears to Oklahoma. In Book One of The Emerald Series Karensa Moorehead inherited it - and its blessing or curse. During her short, often violent life, Karensa had children by two very different men: John Jean Cappen, a missionary doctor on the llanos of Venezuela and handsome, passionate Bart Grant, a sheriff in Arizona. In Books Two through Four the children came of age. Their children are now adults and in 2013 the emerald is about to pass to a new owner. Will they be blessed or cursed? Book Five of The Emerald Series finds three generations of Grants and Cappens facing life and death choices along the Orinoco River in South America, along the banks of the Roaring Fork River in Aspen, Colorado and in Nova Scotia and Labrador. The action filled family saga continues from Venezuela to Canada, adding Sioux, Apache, and Inuit descendants.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lulu Publishing Services
• Release date: Mar 22, 2019
• ISBN: 9781483498690

Book preview

Rivers

CHAPTER ONE

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2013, Intertribal Sundance

Fort Washakie, Wind River Reservation, Wyoming

The sun beat down relentlessly on his head, partly covered by a crown of sage leaves wrapped in cloth. He had similar bands on his wrists and ankles. The sweat streaked down his face, dripping onto his chest, which was pierced and pulled taut against the sagewood pegs, one over each nipple. Four days ago he had run out of saliva from blowing the eagle bone pipe and going without water. Last night he had been allowed a little water before the sweat lodge and this morning’s ordeal, the Gazing at the Sun Leaning piercing. He leaned further back and visions swam in and out of his mind.

He was ten, playing Cowboy and Indian with toy six shooters behind the trailers in the park where his family’s doublewide sat in front of a gully. Behind the trailers the Bighorn Mountains loomed majestic and commanding. He feigned being hit and rolled down the dry wash, the grey dirt coating his plaid shirt and frayed jeans and getting into his thick, black hair. His two brothers laughed and followed, tumbling down until all three were in a pigpile, wrestling and laughing at the bottom of the draw with their border collie Shep dancing around and barking at them. It was a perfect September blue sky and big cloud afternoon. There had been a hint of the coming cold in the morning air when they had gotten up for school but by afternoon the sun was shining clear, if not hot. They would all catch hell from Mom when they came in for dinner but they had changed out of their school clothes into their chore and play clothes so she’d mostly fuss about the dirt they’d track in. He heard her calling, Clint, JW, Roy… and pushed his younger brothers off, scrambling up the crumbling sides of the arroyo. He looked up, holding a dirty hand against his forehead to shut out the glare of the late afternoon sun and saw an eagle circling above, watching their play. Something inside of him connected with that magnificent, regal bird and he lost all sense of time and place as his spirit soared high above the little Wyoming trailer park. He knew then that this day would come, that this sacrifice would be asked of him. His brothers were pushing him and he heard his mother’s voice louder now.

Clint was suddenly back in the present and his fellow Sundancers were shoving him back from the sacred tree he had danced too close to.

Run backwards as fast as you can! and he was pushed.

His trembling legs found a hidden strength and he ran towards the sound of his mother’s voice as she encouraged him to pull free of the two rawhide thongs attached to the pegs.

With a sudden burst of pain, he fell backwards and the thongs snapped out of his chest, flying back to the pole, the sacred Sundance tree. They hit and ricocheted off, dangling, covered in his blood beneath the arbor. The drums beat louder and the Sundance Chief led those gathered around the arbor in a song of thanksgiving to WakanTanka, the Great Spirit.

He was aware of gentle, cool hands caressing his sweat-smeared face and chest and then he felt her long hair sweep down over him as she whispered,

I’m here, cowboy. It’s all over, just relax. Breathe.

Clint looked up into her green eyes and all the pain and suffering fell away. His torso was across her legs as her pregnant belly had replaced her lap. He felt her fingers smoothing back his sticky, wet hair as she rocked him for what seemed like minutes but was only a brief pause in his struggle.

It’s not … all… over, he whispered almost soundlessly. His mouth was so dry it hurt to swallow.

Kara looked up and asked his mother,

Does he really have to do the second piercing? Hasn’t this been enough?

It is his choice to do two, the tall, stout, sixtyish Sioux woman said softly, He pledged two to the Great Spirit for his people — and for you and the two babies.

Kara’s black-lashed emerald green eyes were filmed with tears.

It’s too much, she said, shaking her head, the hair brushing his bloody chest, I’m afraid he’ll die. He’s too old for this.

Then Clint drew a shuddering breath and sat up. The Sundancers were congratulating him. He painfully kissed his wife, his cracked lips bleeding against her soft, full ones, and then, with effort, stood up, his naked, tanned long legs looming above her. All he wore was a thin shawl that she and his mother, Dona Linda Little Raven, had painstakingly woven with native-dyed wool in a red, yellow and blue star pattern. It was wrapped around his waist like a kilt.

It is a good day to die! he croaked with a wide smile as the others drew him back beneath the arbor where he’d be pierced for the skulls the next morning.

Kara got up off the ground with the help of Dona Linda and Clint’s father, Wayne. She was eight month’s pregnant with twins and as big and clumsy as a house.

With one last long look of love at Clint, she turned and let them lead her away to their pickup truck.

I’ll never understand this, she muttered, struggling to get up into the dusty double cab Dodge Ram.

Wayne started the engine as Dona Linda, who went by just plain Linda, handed her a bottle of cold water from the cooler next to her on the back seat.

Linda leaned forward as she explained,

We believe that the Sundance was given to us so we could give back to Creator a gift that would make him think kindly of his earth-colored children and answer our prayers. We can’t give horses, blankets, corn or really anything other than our own flesh and blood as Creator has made all of the horses, et cetera so the only thing we possess that we can call ours to give, is ourselves.

Kara shook her head, took a deep swig of water. She felt guilty for eating and drinking while the man she loved was going without food and water but Linda and Wayne had insisted she keep up her strength for the babies.

But Creator made his body, too, she argued back, so what’s the difference?

They’d gone over this before but Linda knew Kara was very upset over seeing her husband suffer so she patiently replied,

The deer, elk, buffalo — they all sacrifice to Creator, too, when they are killed by humans. And we always give a prayer of thanks in honor of their sacrifice when we kill them. But they are subservient to humans, as are animals in the Christian belief system. Humans are made in the likeness of Creator, God. We were given the animals and plants for food and clothing and to use to make our houses, articles and medicines. Even your Bible says this stuff. And in the Old Testament, even humans were offered as sacrifice like Abraham was going to do to his son Isaac.

Yeah, but Jesus came along and made the ultimate sacrifice and His death on the cross took away the need for any more human sacrifices, Kara stubbornly added, rubbing her abdomen where two babies’ bodies were moving around, jabbing her with little limbs. She realized as she said it that the martyrdom of Catholic saints would blow her argument out of the water.

Well, the Lakota never felt he died for our sins, Linda said curtly, You know, even with all the missionaries and converting, we still feel we have to do a personal sacrifice when we are given the vision to do so.

Kara bit her lower lip, which still had some of Clint’s dried blood on it. She was overwhelmed by guilt. He was doing all of this because of her: because her body had been so defective that it hadn’t been able to bear live children after thirteen years of trying. These twins were technically old enough now to survive a premature birth, but after the heartbreaking sixth month stillbirth a few years back, she felt she would only believe in them being born alive and healthy when it happened. She thought it was ironic that her grandmother, Karensa, had been almost constantly pregnant (when she probably didn’t want to be) and had delivered kids in primitive places but that she, Kara, had miscarried several times and then had a stillbirth. The only reason these twins were viable was because she had an operation to correct a tipped uterus and stitches had been put into her weak cervix. Yet, she remembered from reading her grandmother’s diaries that the last set of twin births had not gone well and one was stillborn. That was Matt’s sister, Christina. Who was buried in the mud of the Llanos in Venezuela. Twins had been on both sides of her grandmother and John Jean’s families but had skipped a generation. Karensa’s children had not had twins but Kara was carrying fraternal ones, both on the big side, according to the ultrasound. Her uncle Matt had a pair of fraternal grandkids but the other kids had either not had kids, like the priest Abraham, or had adopted, like Aaron and Maureen in Venezuela. Kara’s cousin Ted might have some if he had more children, but if her uncle JB ever married, he wasn’t likely to since the twin gene was from her grandmother’s Moorehead side and John Jean’s Cappen side and JB only had Bart’s Grant genes.

A smile curved her lips as she recalled the scene before coming to the Sundance in the parlour of her Aspen house.

Linda and Wayne had driven the brand new Transwest Newmar Mountain Aire bus-style luxury diesel RV from the dealer in Grand Junction to the ranch house. Kara’s mother Katrina had insisted on it as a condition for allowing her daughter to go to the Sundance in her late-stage pregnancy. Kara’s mother had invited herself to stay with Clint and Kara in the old Grant ranch house outside of Aspen after Kara had passed a critical viability date and the birth truly looked like it would occur. The doctor had insisted that Kara take it easy and Katrina arrived to ensure she stayed off the horses and stayed in bed or on the couch as much as possible. Kara resented this but knowing how much the babies meant to all of them, allowed herself to be supervised. At thirty-six she was close to being past child-bearing and these babies would probably be the only ones she and Clint would ever have.

As the Transwest RV was a deluxe, all luxury model with a big, comfortable king-sized bed and all the bells and whistles and air conditioning Katrina had allowed Kara’s uncle Karlton to buy it as a gift so Kara could stay in it most of the time at the Sundance.

After they had all inspected the brand new interior with its white tile floors, some off-white carpeting, white leather couches and all new, modern appliances (and the guys had inspected the engine, tires, etc.) they had gathered in the parlour for sandwiches and drinks. Linda was beaming and excited about Clint and his piercing commitment. She proudly said,

The Sioux have a belief that twins are very special, that they choose to share a womb as their souls were closely connected to each other in a previous life, as husband and wife or lovers, brothers and sisters, or—

Katrina had gone completely white and dropped her glass of lemonade on the rug in front of the couch.

Linda immediately went and knelt before her, mopping up the spill. She was afraid the seventy year old woman had had a stroke but then she saw a similar look on the face of Katrina’s twin, Karlton. He, too, looked stricken.

Oh, shit, Kara had muttered under her breath, realizing the gaffe. She laughed and called to the elderly housekeeper Anna to bring a mop from the kitchen as she breezily covered the awkward silence with, Hey, you know what, Mom? The decorator called and is bringing samples of stuff for you to have fun with in the nursery while I’m gone. You’ll have carte blanche to design it.

The conversation then veered off into fabric colors, wallpaper designs, mobiles, crib styles, etc. as the men drifted back outside to take the RV for a test drive. Karlton politely excused himself and put on his Stetson, walking out to his horse, tied at the front porch rail. Kara waved back to him from the window as he mounted the Arabian and headed for his neighboring ranch. Crisis averted but for how long? Once born, would the boy and girl twins revive memories her mother and her twin brother Karlton repressed? If you stood them side by side they were almost identical, her mother five-eight and slender; Karlton over six feet, likewise slender, both with high cheekbones and light brown skin tones from her Cherokee grandmother. Karlton had dark auburn to black-brown hair like Bart and her mother had black but they both had fiery auburn highlights from Karensa. Silver generously streaked his hair but her mother covered hers with expensive dye jobs. They both had green eyes — Katrina’s like Kara’s a bright clear emerald green — but Karlton’s were more of a hazel green. Her step uncles (twins, too) in Venezuela had taken totally after their father, that prig John Jean. Matt had a mixture and even though he didn’t have Bart’s genes, he had acquired some of his characteristics from being raised by him. Kara wondered what his twin would have looked like had she survived. But then, if she had, her grandmother might not have left the Llanos and run off with Bart… funny how life did that. One action led to unforeseen consequences down the line.

CHAPTER TWO

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Wayne pulled up in front of the bus-style RV with its swirled stripe of black, grey and pearl. It was parked under trees for shade and hooked up to the electric, sewer, cable TV and had Wifi. All the comforts of home. Wayne had built a collapsible deck with nice steps and attached it to the side so Kara didn’t have to struggle with the steep steps of the RV. The RV had double pull outs so the interior was nice and wide. Linda and Wayne’s fifth wheel was parked next to it and Kara could smell the tantalizing aroma of spaghetti and meatballs and garlic bread coming from the grill where Linda’s daughter had put everything on to warm while they went to the Sundance.

Linda brought out a huge bowl of salad with dressings and put it on the table with salt and pepper. Kara had to be careful of the salt as her feet and ankles were so swollen she had to wear flip flops instead of the Frye or cowboy boots she favored.

Man, am I starved! Kara exclaimed as she waddled onto the deck. Then she felt guilty again, thinking of Clint and his self-sacrificing.

Linda laughed and told her that the next night was feast time and she had venison (from a deer Clint shot) marinating for stew and there would be fry bread and lots of traditional foods, plus watermelon for the Sundancers for the feast that would be laid out at the Sundance grounds.

So Clint did all that whistle blowing and dancing the last three times he came with you guys? Kara asked as she tucked into a big plate of pasta. Her abdomen was so big she couldn’t pull her wrought iron patio chair close to the table. She’d be so glad when she had her old body back! Now she knew just how her grandmother had felt when she was very pregnant with Matt and his sister. Thank God she wasn’t down in that hell hole in Venezuela!

Yep, he lost about thirty pounds of water each time but after a few days of stuffing himself and drinking everything in sight, it came back on, Wayne said with a laugh.

I’m sorry I couldn’t get away from the ranch to go with him, Kara said, really only half-sorry. Since she and Clint married thirteen years ago she had gone with them to several powwows as Linda and Wayne rented spaces and sold hand-made Native American items. She really didn’t care for the scene. It was too noisy, crowded and commercial. She preferred her Rocky Mountain meadows and forests and the sounds of nature and livestock.

Well, we all understood. It was his vision and his commitment and now it looks like it was worth it, Linda replied, gesturing with a piece of garlic bread at Kara’s pregnant bump.

A dusty Ford F10 pickup carrying Clint’s brothers and sister pulled into the space behind Wayne’s pickup. They got out, grabbed beers from the cooler and got plates of food and plunked down on the deck, all talking at once about Clint’s piercing and how proud they were of him.

Kara yawned, then burped, then apologized but said she had to go lie down.

But save a piece of that chocolate cake for me! she yelled as she went into the chilly RV.

She wedged herself into the bathroom (spacious by most RV standards), peed (her bladder was always tormenting her these days) and flopped onto the super nice, thick, soft goose down featherbed duvet her mother had bought to match the white decor. She had been alone now for five days as Clint did four days of the eagle bone whistle ordeal, then today the piercing and he wouldn’t be allowed to leave the arbor until after he had tortured and mutilated himself one more day. During the four days of preparation when he helped get the sacred cottonwood tree and set it up and make the arbor (and did a lot of chanting and whatever with others to prepare himself), he had been allowed to come home in the evenings, cleansing himself of her at the Sundance sweat lodge every morning. She missed him terribly. They always cuddled and found something to quietly laugh about in each other’s company. The years hadn’t lessened the passion even though he had some grey hairs in his long, thick mane and she had noticed a few wrinkles near her eyes. In a way, she was almost glad he was doing the piercing thing as she knew she had a hell of an ordeal ahead with labor and delivery of not one, but two babies. Big babies, too. So it was only fair he should suffer, too. Hers was a high-risk pregnancy on several levels and she had undergone a lot of tests to make sure the babies were normal. Before getting the results each time she and Clint had asked each other whether they would terminate if the babies had Down’s Syndrome or other serious birth defects. They had been torn between a fierce desire to have children of their own and whether they had the right to knowingly bring children into this world that would have to suffer every day. On one hand, the answer was a simple one: all life was precious and if the babies were mentally or physically challenged it would be God’s will that they parent them and give them a lot of love. Yet, from her work with the handicapped and Down’s Syndrome children in her therapeutic riding stable, she saw how hard it was for these children to perform even the most basic tasks. Life to them was like moving underwater. Yet she also saw the way they and their parents’ beamed when they managed to stay on the saddle and walk a horse around the rink. It was a tough decision and Kara couldn’t find a clear right or wrong answer. She was just thankful that the tests had all been normal. If nothing went wrong with the labor and delivery, she and Clint should be holding a squalling baby boy and baby girl soon. They hadn’t finalized names yet as Kara favored her grandmother’s name, Karensa, but her mother wasn’t happy about that choice. Clint liked the name Jesse for the boy but Katrina wanted Lawrence in honor of Kara’s father. Kara’s mother was very domineering in her old age. Kara thought with a smile that she actually had always been that way but it just seemed worse now.

As was her habit, she took her grandmother’s diaries, written in old composition books, out of the nightstand drawer and re-read the dog-eared passages.

How she wished her grandmother was there to talk to! She had bravely gone through a pregnancy on an island in the Pacific, not knowing if she and Bart and the others would ever be rescued. She had gone through a hellish delivery in Mexico without any anesthesia and then two more in that dinky village near the Orinoco River with John Jean and his strict admonitions to be strong replacing epidurals or knock out gas. And then that awful rape by that crazy James Bryce in Nevada. Her abdomen hardened with Braxton Hicks contractions as she read about the bed with the mirror over it and the crazy guy’s assault. Thank God her grandfather found him and killed him. It was like killing a mad dog, she thought wryly. But she felt bad for the baby and her grandmother and all the sorrows she had to suffer. She’d been blessed in one thing though: she and Bart had a deep, lasting ‘soul mate’ type of love. Kara felt that she and Clint had the same type of love and she wasn’t willing to lose him to some stupid Sundance, dammit! She was going to stay for the whole thing tomorrow and if he collapsed she was going to breach protocol and pull him out!

She could hear ravens croaking in the nearby pines and birds making settling-in chirps and clicks in the overhanging branches as the sun set. Wyoming was as beautiful as Colorado, she mused, and maybe even a bit wilder. It certainly was sparsely populated. She and Clint had spent a lot of time here in the first years of their marriage as he proudly wanted to show her Yosemite, the Big Horns, the Wind River Range and the other mountain ranges where he had worked on ranches as a teenager and young man. He and the other young bucks had done winter duty, staying with a herd of Angus and Herefords or sheep through the worst months then getting them safely to the spring-summer-fall pasture lands. But her favorite memory was of their marriage at the Medicine Wheel on Summer Solstice. One of his Sioux great-uncles was a medicine man, holy man or shaman, whatever term you preferred, and he married them in the native fashion using a strip of red cloth to bind them together. Kara could still smell the sweetgrass and sage and hear the eagles above. Clint walked her around the 80 foot diameter and they stopped at each of the 28 spokes. He told her the Crow youth still used it for vision quests and added, The Sun built this Medicine Wheel to show us how to build a tee pee. He said it was sacred on many levels and the Shoshone believed little people lived in caves beneath it. The Cheyenne used it as a pattern for their Sundance medicine lodges. He brought her back once on their anniversary for the Summer Solstice observation where three bright stars aligned over the mountains with an East-West spoke of the wheel. It was the highest place around with 180 degree views and she felt the night sky there was totally clear and magical. The stars seemed so close she felt she could reach out and touch them. Kara understood on one level why Clint was doing what he was doing and how his spirituality was a deep part of himself. Unlike Colorado, Wyoming hadn’t been built up by silver and lead mines. It belonged to the cowboys and Indians. But now, of course, some of it was being taken over by oil and gas pipelines and coal mines.

Which brought her thoughts back to Colorado and the problem she and Karlton were having with that damned old mine that straddled their ranches and was leaking toxins into the Roaring Fork River and down to the Colorado. They’d been working with the EPA on stabilizing it but had had to pay hefty fines for a problem neither one had created. All mines leached arsenic, cyanide and mercury. Luckily, they only had minute arsenic and cyanide levels but the mercury was getting into the fish. And then that group of environmentalists came in and camped near it, brandishing protest signs and getting media attention.

With a long sigh, she closed her eyes. No, she wouldn’t think about it now. Now she would send prayers to Clint to give him the strength and endurance he would need tomorrow. He had used up everything today and Kara prayed the skull dragging piercing would go quickly. Linda said he’d dance four times around the tree before pulling loose so he wouldn’t have to hang from the thongs for hours like he did today.

Kara said a prayer for him and caressed their love babies, praying they would know their brave father.

Well, like Scarlett said in ‘Gone with the Wind tomorrow is another day," she whispered with a smile as she gave herself up to the darkness and the sounds of nature outside the bedroom windows, deliberately tuning out the talk and laughter from Clint’s family on their deck — and the ‘shit kicker’ country and western music they liked to play on their radios.

I love you, Clint, she whispered as she tossed and turned, trying to find a comfortable position with a belly full of moving, kicking babies.

CHAPTER THREE

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Johnstown, Llanos, Venezuela

Dr. Aaron Cappen stripped off his latex examining gloves and flung them into the covered trash bin against the wall of the exam room. He took a handkerchief from his white coat pocket and wiped the sweat off his deeply wrinkled lean face. Although he was almost seventy years old he was still strong and his back was still straight. He took a deep breath and pulled himself erect, all six feet two. His fine hair had been almost platinum blond but was now white and thinning on top. Behind bifocal rimless glasses his eyes were sunken but still had a glitter to their amber when he was upset, as he was now.

It’s Chika, he sighed with exasperation, referring to the new virus they were battling named chikungunya but shortened to chika.

The patient, a young pregnant woman, nodded silently. She shivered and moaned from the fever and muscle pain.

I’m afraid I have no acetaminophen or even aspirin to give you, Aaron said with a frown, then added, but an associate, Rev. Shumu, has prepared a syrupy medicine made from plants in the jungle that his tribe used for pain. I can’t vouch for it, but it seems to help our patients. It’s not in any pharmacopeia and I don’t know the exact chemical formula which makes me hesitant to try it on you since it could affect your fetus.

His nurse translated in rapid Spanish. Aaron could speak and understand Spanish but always felt more comfortable using English.

The woman said she was willing to try the syrup and the nurse helped her off the table and brought her to the general ward. Aaron watched her shuffle out and wondered if they would find that the Chika virus acted like Zika on the fetus. He certainly hoped not for that led to microcephaly — children born with small heads and small brains. The chronic form of Chika was similar to Lyme’s Disease and settled in the joints, causing arthritis — for which they had no anti-inflammatories or analgesics.

Aaron’s oldest son, the third-generation of Cappen doctors, entered the room as his father sighed deeply and sat down heavily on the cracked and taped leather-topped stool next to the almost empty cabinet of supplies.

Father? John Cappen asked, stepping closer and putting his hand on Aaron’s shoulder. Unlike Aaron, John (pronounced Juan in South America) was dark-skinned and medium height with black hair, dark brown eyes and a slight paunch. He was an adopted Venezuelan orphan, as were his five siblings.

It’s all right, John, Aaron said, patting the hand, I’m just so very tired from trying to do the job God gave me to do without the necessary tools.

I know, John said softly, cleaning off the stainless steel counter with bleach spray, But someday soon it might change. Chavez tried to do too much in too short a time and the country just couldn’t afford it. Maybe with Maduro things will get better.

Aaron shook his head.

I don’t think so, son. In the past, the foreign aid groups and church groups were allowed to fly in medical supplies. Even though we were out here in the backwaters of the Orinoco we got basic supplies of antibiotics, vaccines, dressings and pain medications, he winced a little at the last words as he recalled his past battle with opiod addiction, Now, the government has banned all imports and Maduro is cracking down hard on those who smuggle food or medicine into Venezuela. It’s sick and twisted and so anti-human that I often wonder if Chavez and Maduro were/are associated with the Antichrist mentioned in Revelations.

John let out a little laugh.

No, they were — are — just ignorant, power-hungry tyrants. He quickly looked around to make sure no one overheard in the hallway.

This Chika virus, it is so depressing. There’s no real cure or prevention, other than eliminating the mosquitoes—

John cut in, Yeah, and we know how that went. In the sixties the government supposedly sprayed and eliminated malaria in Venezuela, even got international praise for it, but you came down with it when you went to rescue Mother. So they didn’t get it all, obviously, and it came back, worse than ever. Of course, they are blaming it on illegal mining but the infected mosquitoes had to be here in order to breed.

Well, I think I was near the border when I got it, but you are right. They pretend and get praise but they don’t fool their citizens. But the corruption was never this bad before Chavez. Venezuela was a rich country, believe it or not. It was oil rich and all around this village there were vast herds of healthy, big cattle. When Chavez expropriated the oil fields and created a powerful gang of ultra-rich Venezuelan oil families, and drove the Americans out, he bit the hand that fed us — literally. Do you know, people in the cities are eating garbage —are eating disgusting scraps thrown into garbage cans?

John nodded, Yes, and they are eating cats and dogs and rats and pigeons, anything to try to survive, even zoo animals. That’s what the refugees tell us when they come through. But, as with the Chika and malaria and malnutrition, we are supposed to keep silent.

Maureen, Aaron’s wife, suddenly popped her head in the door.

"Another boatload has just arrived. I didn’t think they could get any thinner, but these are