And Silent Left the Place

By Elizabeth Bruce

The burden of silence passes from old to young in this lyric tale of violence, redemption, and love reclaimed in the cruel, dry land of Texas. Richard Bausch has said of AND SILENT LEFT THE PLACE: "Elizabeth Bruce's characters leap off the page at you; they have vividness and substance, and the result, reading her work, is that one feels the life t

• Language: English
• Publisher: Washington Writers' Publishing House
• Release date: Mar 10, 2015
• ISBN: 9781941551073

Book preview

Epub cover

Contents

Prologue: The Calder Story

And Silent Left the Place

1: Thomas Riley

2: Rosellen Calder

3: Josue Colón Sevilla

4: The Girl on Calder’s Mare

5: Calder’s Dog

6: Ted Calder

7: Maurilo Rousseau

8: The Damn Horses

9: The Game

10: John Hopper

11: The Search

12: The Dance Hall

13: The News

14: Rosie Pree

15: Laying the Cloth

16: The Coroner

17: The Caravan

18: Leaving Cisco

19: Piece of History

20: Two Old Men

21: Remembrance

22: Darkness

23: Waiting

Epilogue

Acknowledgements

About the Author

And Silent Left the Place

A Novel by

Elizabeth Bruce

Washington Writers’ Publishing House

Washington, DC

Dedicated to My beloved Michael

Printed in the United States of America

Washington Writers’ Publishing House

P. O. Box 15271

Washington, D.C. 20003

This is a work of fiction.

Copyright © 2007 by Elizabeth Bruce

All rights reserved

RIGHT OR WRONG

Words and Music by Jay Livingston and Ray Evans.

Copyright ©1953 (Renewed 1981) by Famous Music LLC

International copyright secured. All rights reserved.

Used by permission.

WALKIN’ AFTER MIDNIGHT

Written by: Alan Block & Don Hecht

©1956 Sony/ATV Music Publishing LLC.

All rights administered by Sony/ATV Music Publishing LLC,

424 Church Street, Nashville, TN 37219.

All rights reserved. Used by permission.

Cover Production by Francis Keller and Elizabeth Bruce

Typesetting/Formatting by Barbara A. Shaw

Cover Photo Courtesy of the US Department of Agriculture

Title Font: Freeware typefact by Ryoichi Tsunekawa, copyright Flat-it (http://flat-it.com/) at dafont.com, contact [e-mail] in JAPAN

Author Name Font: Webly Sleek U by Mat Douglas, Netherlands (Amersfoort), at dafont.com

Author Photo: Francisco Rosario, 2007

The mighty secret knew, but knew alone, And, tho’ impatient, durst not make it known. Restless, at last, a private place he found, Then dug a hole, and told it to the ground; In a low whisper he reveal’d the case, And cover’d in the earth, and silent left the place.

From the Fable of King Midas’ Barber in Ovid, Metamorphoses¹

1Ovid, Ovid: Metamorphoses. Digital Dante: Ovid: The Metamorphoses. www.ilt.columbia.edu ILTweb Digital Dante Project. 12 Apr 2007 . Translated into English verse under the direction of Sir Samuel Garth by John Dryden, Alexander Pope, Joseph Addison, William Congreve, et.al.

The Fable of King Midas’ Asses Ears²

From Ovid’s Metamorphoses, 1 AD

In the epic poem, Metamorphoses, the Roman poet, Ovid, tells the story of King Midas, foolish worshiper of wealth, whom the god Dionysus granted a Golden Touch that turned all things—including Midas’ daughter—into glistening gold. But Ovid also tells another, less famous, tale of King Midas that speaks of his equal foolishness.

Midas, relieved by Dionysus of the cursed touch, renounced all worldly goods and took to the forest. He became obsessed with Pan, the fawn, the flautist, god of nature unrestrained. Emboldened by the adoration of Midas and lowly rustic folk, Pan challenged Apollo, god of music, to a musical dual.

The river god, Timolus, judged the contest. Pan merrily played his wooden pipes, delighting his country followers. Then Apollo stroked his lyre, and his music rose divinely on the breeze. Apollo was the winner, Timolus declared, but Midas disagreed. Enraged, Apollo pronounced Midas unworthy of human ears, and gave him instead the ears of an ass. Humiliated, Midas wrapped his head in a turban to hide the beastly sight. Only the barber-slave who cut King Midas’ hair knew the shameful secret.

Sworn to secrecy on pain of death, Midas’ barber told no one. Yet the secret gnawed at him, and so one day the barber went into the field, dug a hole, and whispered into it the terrible secret: King Midas has asses’ ears. He covered up the hole, and, silent left the place.

But soon the rains came, the reeds grew, the winds blew, and King Midas’ secret was spread throughout the land. His secret revealed, King Midas, it is said, died of shame.

Morford, Mark P.O., et. al. Classical Mythology Seventh Edition: Chapter 11. Oxford Classical Mythology Online. Oxford University Press USA Higher Education Group. 12 Apr 2007 .

²Midas’s Ears. Greek Index. Angelfire. 12 Apr 2007 .

Prologue: The Calder Story

France 1918

Thomas Riley stirred at morning’s first gray light. The gift of another day, Sergeant Riley knew, as surely as he knew that all four of them would die. A.J., Detroit, Danny, and himself. Only ones left alive.

For two nights now, washed in filth and confusion, their trench cut off, they’d waited for the German’s final push.

Thomas Riley opened his eyes. His fever had risen overnight and even in the rank coldness he was drenched in sweat. He moaned and tried to sit but his gut refused and he cursed himself. His weakness of the flesh. A damnation. Bring them back, the Army’d told him, and he had failed.

* * *

Riley looked at the three young soldiers slumped together below him. His charges. All about to die. Like lost brothers, Riley thought, sleeping in the rain. Danny, doe-eyed and the youngest, leaned his lanky body against his buddy Detroit. Danny’s sandy hair stuck to his head. Riley thought of Dolores, his beloved, the wet hair across her face in the warm seawater. Like a newborn. He groaned, Oh Dory, I’m sorry, darling.

Detroit shifted and Riley saw his soldier’s grimy jaw. A boy become a man. Riley heard his own daddy’s words. You do duty, Tom, and I’ll be proud. Got to speak to Detroit’s mama, Riley thought, and let her know her son has died a man.

Riley closed his eyes and the slow rumble of the German tanks, moving bunkers filled with men, called to him. Come Brother Riley, and shed the blood of war.

Riley stirred again and saw Private A.J. Ray. The face of war. Young man cold as rock. You watch your homegrown boy now, hear? the Army’d said. Riley had saluted.

A.J. sat up. He shoved the others with his boot.

Riley’s heart pounded. Earl C. Calder’s tale? he asked. Have you told them that one yet, A.J?

Private A.J. Ray stared at Sergeant Riley lying sick and reeking on the ledge clawed out above the mud.

Sour, Riley thought. That boy’s gone sour.

Who’s Calder? Detroit asked, blinking his dark eyes and tucking the blanket under his and Danny’s shoulders.

Searching for warmth, Riley thought. For hope. For home.

The first-born son of Wilma T., the most powerful madam in all of New Orleans, A.J. replied.

Oh. Figures. You sure know a lot about whores, A.J. Detroit tried to laugh. The air jiggled out of his mouth like Gatling fire.

Watch your mouth, now, A.J. Sergeant Riley’s voice was hollow with fever. A rat darted across the mud. A.J. turned and smashed its head with the butt of his rifle.

Holy shit, Danny cried.

Riley closed his eyes.

She owned half-dozen bordellos, A.J. went on, and had ‘reciprocal agreements’ with every preacher and politician in town.

That include your people, A.J? Detroit asked.

Shit, everyone in Texas lie like this, Sarge? Danny rubbed his eyes and looked at Riley.

Riley thought of the desert, its hard dry ground, and clenched his jaw.

Nobody, A.J. continued, spoke ill of Wilma or the begetting of her only child, Earl. He thrust his hips back and forth and again Detroit snickered in the cold.

Shut up, you, Danny slapped Detroit’s mud-caked arm.

Tell it right, son, Riley muttered.

Well, said A.J, not looking at Riley, at thirteen young Earl demanded the truth of his paternity, so Wilma proudly told him. A.J. leaned forward. The stench of guts and blood hung over them and A.J. spat. He was the only son of P. T. Barnum’s pygmy king: Tom Tom the Blackie, conceived on a wager with P.T. himself for one-twentieth stake in ‘The Greatest Show on Earth’ and a lifetime pass to the big top.

No way. You’re just a liar, A.J., Danny said. No white woman’s gonna bed no midget darky.

Not a midget, a pygmy, Detroit said. Don’t you know what a pygmy is?

It was starting to drizzle again. Riley felt it soft upon his face. Was it over? Someone, maybe Danny, straightened the dirty blanket over him. A.J. bent toward the others, and Riley heard their bellies growl.

Wilma and Earl, A.J. said, had been to the circus many times.

Detroit jerked forward laughing. Go on! he said. A.J. shoved him back with his soggy boot.

Danny leaned close to wave the flies off Riley’s face.

Young Earl, said A.J., commenced to hating the sideshow with a fierceness rarely seen. The night when P. T.’s circus rolled into town, full of Union swagger, young Earl packed his bag and left, penniless save for the gold piece the mayor’d given him once for carrying a note to Miss Ida C. Morrow, one of Wilma’s young ladies in training.

I’da see’d Ida too, Danny said. See’d her once and raised her twice.

Shut up, dummy, Detroit said. She’d have raised you like a goddamned ear of corn plump and ready for picking.

A.J. slapped the mud. Earl’s leaving upset his mother greatly, impudence being a quality she could not abide in anyone besides herself. She dispatched all her cooks and yardmen and bookkeepers, and even her young ladies in training to go looking for young Earl.

Mama looking for her lost boy, Riley thought. The air above them smelled of smoke and rain.

So what happened? Danny asked. To Earl?

Miss Ida found him. Holed up in the back of a peddler’s wagon, hiding from the Yankee feds. ‘Forlorn’ was the word she used years later to describe the young man. ‘Lost’ and ‘alone’ were others. ‘Scared’ and ‘indifferent to the desires of old men’ was the way Earl later described young Ida that day, herself then barely fourteen and decidedly partial to pretty-faced young boys with deep blue eyes, of whom young Earl was a prime example.

Like you, prettyboy, Detroit shoved Danny and he slid sideways in the trench.

Shut up, y’all, A.J. said. And let me finish.

Yeah, said Danny. Shut up, Detroit.

Shut up, Sergeant Riley thought. That’s what Dory’s mama says. He groaned and curled inward even more.

Well, Earl and Ida lit out of New Orleans under cover of darkness, A.J. said, in the stolen peddler’s wagon filled with powdered snails and hickory switches reportedly blessed by the circuit rider and his boss, God. They made it across the Texas line in five days time, stopping only to swap Confederate horses with whichever unfortunate farmer had gone to town for the day.

What? When the hell is this? Danny asked.

Right after the Civil War, you idiot, Detroit said.

By the time they reached Port Neches, the peddler’s food had run out. Hunger, said A.J., set them to thinking.

Hunger’ll make a man crazy, Danny said.

Yeah, like now, said Detroit.

Quiet, Riley said, lying still. Tell it right, soldier.

A.J. looked at Riley, his mouth a sneer. He slid his thumbnail through a crack between his lower teeth, then cleared his throat as Riley looked away.

Young Earl, A.J. said, swept Miss Ida off the wagon, kissed her once upon the lips and pointed to the tall grass beneath their feet. ‘This here’s our gold mine, Miss Ida,’ he said, ‘this here’s what we sell—blades of grass walked on by the Savior himself, Jesus Christ, the son of God.’

Detroit laughed. And we’re supposed to believe this? he asked. Just how stupid are you Texans?

Danny glanced at Riley through the rain. Is this right, Sarge? You and A.J. are from the same part of Texas, right?

Hushabye, Riley rasped. Closer than the rumble of German tanks came another sound. Something moving above them.

‘Oh Earl.’ Miss Ida replied, A.J. said in a high voice, speaking quickly. ‘You mustn’t say that. God will strike us down, surely.’

‘It’s God’s idea, Miss Ida,’ A.J.’s voice shifted low. ‘We must help ourselves, lest we perish from want.’

A.J. bent away from the sound of tanks crushing bodies in their paths. His voice grew faster and lighter. So Miss Ida and young Earl made their way across Texas selling blades of grass Jesus walked on and switches dipped in the River Jordan by John the Baptist himself.

Shit, you some kind of tall tale teller, A.J., Detroit laughed and grabbed the leg of Danny’s ragged uniform.

A.J. rubbed his nose. The stench of rot surrounded them. They arrived in south Texas with their pockets full of gold and Union dollars. The last act of the Hapsburg Prince Maximilian, ruler of Mexico under Napoleon III, was to sell young Earl C. Calder and Miss Ida C. Morrow the land that’s now the vastest ranch in Texas. The rest is pure history.

Like us, Sergeant Riley thought. We’re pure history too.

Suddenly, A. J. stood and grabbed his gun.

Above them came another sound, a crack, a twig, a bone. Hope, breaking.

And Silent Left the Place

South Texas

April 7, 1963

1: Thomas Riley

Thomas Riley finally broke his word that time the winds came up. Rose up sudden and fierce, they did, all fury and wildness, then nothing.

People still speak about it. Curious, they say. Winds of change.

A wakeup call, the preachers said. Get ready.

Ready came the rattling sound of sand. Chirping noise, hard to hear above the ground even from the first inch of air that hovered above the desert like breath.

To hear rattling sounds a person had to get beneath the land.

Thomas Riley had figured that out and dug a hole down in the ground years ago. Ten by ten by ten, it was. Big enough for a man. Big enough for ten men. Plenty of darkness for a grown man left alone.

Fortified with boards, that hole, criss-crossed on the sides and up above like a