A Land No Map Can Find

By Beverly Smith

The secret will not be ignored or lost or forgotten. It will not be silenced.
Libby wanted to blame the flood that came and stayed until all hope for replanting was lost, drowned their milk cows, and altered the landscape beyond recognition. For years she believed the flood caused the terrible rift that came between Mom and Dad, for the way her mom grew silent and pushed them all away, and for the anger and sadness that tore her dad apart.
But there is another reason, a betrayal and an act of rage with consequences so devastating, it must be kept secret. Libby witnesses the tragedy, and in her six-year-old mind, mixes what is real and imagined, until the true memory is repressed.
It is decades later when Libby experiences panic attacks which threaten to unhinge her, that the awful memories come back. And she learns, even though her sisters did not know the secret, their lives, too, were changed by it.
A Land No Map Can Find is told from the lens of a child as she grows into adulthood, in a struggle against the destructive behaviors of adults, and the consequences of their actions.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Beverly Smith
• Release date: Sep 2, 2022
• ISBN: 9798986083117

Book preview

To my mother, Gertrude Anna Teske,

with whom I shared my passion for writing and creating.

Table of Contents

Dedication

Part I

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Part II

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Chapter 31

Chapter 32

Chapter 33

Chapter 34

Chapter 35

Chapter 36

Chapter 37

Chapter 38

Chapter 39

Chapter 40

Chapter 41

Chapter 42

Chapter 43

Chapter 44

Chapter 45

Chapter 46

Chapter 47

Chapter 48

Chapter 49

PART I

You can’t keep a secret, even though you never tell it, even though you have no words to tell it. The secret seeps into your dreams and wakes you gasping for air. It leaks from your pores in the night. It surrounds you. The secret lies in the shadows where you think no one can see. It floats around you like a breath, an invisible presence, penetrating every corner of every room you are in. It hovers. It moves through conversations without a sound. It appears in the turn of chin, flutter of eyelid, clearing of throat, tenor of voice. It is there in the quickening of your heartbeat. It seeps out in the dampness under your arms and down your back.

It swells behind the silence of your not telling. The secret will not be ignored or lost or forgotten or killed.

It will not be silenced.

Chapter 1

June 15, 1963

Libby startled awake from a dream that swirled just out of reach. Her heart beat with a strange urgency and she made herself lie still to let the images materialize. In the dream, she is in the cow’s empty water tank. As the herd comes toward her, their plaintive mooing gets louder and louder. Libby squats down in the tank and tries to scoop water from small puddles at the bottom. She cups her hands and rises to offer the precious wetness to the cows. Their massive black and white bodies crowd around the water tank to get to her and their tongues push toward her. Their huge eyes are dark and pleading. Breathy moans come from her as she crouches down again and again, trying to fill her hands with water for the thirsty animals.

She sat up, fully awake, as the dream’s desperate feelings still churned inside. Tiny pinpoints of sunshine pierced through holes in the window shade. Already the heat and humidity felt thick in the room.

Dammit. Dad’s words from downstairs, were followed by Mom’s, Shh, honey. The girls are still sleeping.

Libby eased out of bed, careful not to wake four-year-old Beth, whose thumb poised on her moist bottom lip as if she had just removed it. Across the room, Libby’s big sister Patricia, who had just turned nine, sprawled with her arms and legs touching every quadrant of the bed in her usual sound asleep position.

Libby snuck down to the bottom of the steps and leaned around the corner.

Dad sat at the kitchen table. The ashtray at his elbow was piled high with butts and a fresh cigarette glowed between his fingers. The air around him filled with hazy smoke. He raked his fingers through his wavy black hair and shook his head.

The crop is piss poor, he said. The hay was half dried already when I cut it yesterday. Gotta rake it today, and it’s not gonna make good bales. The cows won’t get much out of it, and we’ve got no oats or corn to speak of. We need rain, by God. We need rain if we’re gonna get more’n a dozen bales out of that field.

A voice from the radio on the counter announced, "Expect temperatures in the nineties by this afternoon, and those temperatures are staying with us for the next few days, at least. Sorry folks, like I said, the drought continues."

Mom turned off the radio and leaned against the sink, her arms folded in front of her. She wore her brown-checked house dress and yellow apron. Her curly brown hair was neatly tucked under a red handkerchief.

It’ll be okay, honey. We’ll figure something out.

Dad nodded and sighed. Yeah.

Mom walked over, slipped her hand in his, and sat in the chair next to him. Libby watched for a long time as they talked, so quiet she couldn’t make out what they said. She imagined their worry shrouded over them in the air like the gray cloud of smoke. And she felt it swirl in her own gut.

An hour later, Libby settled in the tall pasture grass on top of the hill and peered at her dad in the field below as he drove the tractor through the alfalfa. Dad’s faded green cap swayed as he negotiated the bumps. Dust clouds bloomed from the sides of the skeletal looking hay rake pulled behind the tractor as the cut hay trailed after in a thin pale green line. The tractor’s distant putt-putt was the only sound in the heat of the day.

She watched Mom drag the hose into the garden. Her big straw hat shielded her face from the intense sun. Even though Libby was too far away to see, she knew Mom had the hose turned to a trickle as she aimed the stream inside the corral of dirt, Libby had helped bank around each tomato plant.

Libby lay back in the grass and patted the ground to coax Shep to lay down by her.

"The weatherman said it’s gonna be really hot and no rain expected, at least for the next five days. And it’s already been too many days without rain."

She scanned the sky for clouds, gritted her teeth, and squeezed her eyes shut. Please God, you have to make it rain.

She had been praying every night and sometimes in the daytime. But so far, God wasn’t listening. She sighed. We got work to do, Shep. Come on, let’s go.

They forged a new route through the tall grass, meandering so as not to wear a path that could be followed by anyone, especially Patricia or Beth. As they made their way, Libby spotted the gutted rusty truck cab half hidden by scrub trees and weeds. She had plans to gather dead branches and brush to camouflage the hideout even more.

She scanned the field and caught a glimpse of a pheasant with his bright green head and white collar as it disappeared into the grass and trees that lined the creek bank. Shep spotted the bird, too. He barked and took off running.

Hey, leave that bird alone, Libby yelled.

By the time she got to the tree line, the pheasant was long gone and Shep had given up. He trotted to her and nudged his nose against her leg. He sat on his haunches, panting, his tongue hanging out. The heat emanated from him as she knelt to stroke his head and scratch behind his ears.

He looked a lot like Lassie from television, except he was more black than any other color. Libby wondered how he could stay cool with his long coat.

C’mon, let’s get you a drink.

She made her way through the tangle of undergrowth, thorns catching her clothes and scratching her bare legs. When she got to the edge of the creek bank, she stopped to peer down. She wasn’t supposed to go near it unless Dad was around, but as she stood staring down into the shadows, she realized there was no creek, just a trickle of black murky water. Shep was already at the bottom, standing in mud, lapping from a small impression where the water pooled.

Libby stared, wide-eyed, mouth hanging open.

Jeez. It’s gone.

She eased down the steep bank, skidding in the dry dirt, sending pebbles and dust flying ahead of her. She grabbed a sapling to slow her descent, and paused to study the place the creek made a gradual turn upstream, where once the water had flowed undeterred. Now there was no sign of the creek. She’d never seen it like that before. When she and Dad put out the catfish line, the current was always fast and the water deep.

Dad had said, The catfish like to lie at the bottom in the heat of the day. But they get hungry. He put chicken livers on the bait line and said, They’ll get one whiff of this and be biting.

But now there wasn’t enough water in the creek. There couldn’t possibly be any fish left. Libby peered down the creek bed at the dark ribbon of mud, A few puddles glinted in the sun. The sides of the bank were riddled with deep cracks.

At the bottom, she found a stick and poked holes in the mud. A few feet away, Shep pawed at something brown and shiny. Libby pulled off her tennis shoes and stepped into the cool wetness, feeling it ooze between her toes. She made her way to him to take a look. As she got closer, she smelled the stink of it and saw it was the carcass of a dead fish. She crouched down and studied its still intact head, and dull, staring eyes. Flies crawled on what was left of the body. When Shep began to sniff and lick it, she nudged him away with the stick and said, Shep, you can’t eat that.

She reached down and gathered a ball of mud in her fist and squeezed until a thin, brown trickle ran down her arm. It made her think that what was left of the creek might fight the heat of the day for a while, but she knew if it didn’t rain soon, there might not be any signs of the creek at all, just crusty hard clumps of dirt and big cracks like in the fields between the rows of yellowed corn seedlings.

This is what the drought did, Shep. This is all that’s left of the creek after all this time without rain. And the fish can’t breathe air like us, so they’re all dead.

The dream she’d had that morning came back to her: the empty water tank, the thirsty cows, and her desperate attempt to scoop up enough water to give them. Her pulse beat hard in her head as she thought, we’re going to run out of water if it doesn’t rain. The cows will die.

I gotta tell Dad about the creek.

She turned to hurry back up the bank, but as her toes squished into the mud, then sucked loose, she stopped.

He probably already knows. And I’m not supposed to be here.

Just a few days before, she’d heard him scold Patricia, who was supposed to tend to the cow’s water tank. Don’t let it overflow again. He’d said they couldn’t afford to waste any water.

Libby leaned back and peered at the sky through the scant oak canopy and squinted into the cloudless blue. Where was the rain now? Was it falling somewhere else in the world? Would God save any for them?

She didn’t know how God decided when to make it rain. A week before, in church, the minister had prayed for rain while they sat in the pews and listened and said amen when he finished. When Libby went outside after church, she expected it to be raining. But in fact, it was not.

When they got home, she had tried to ask Mom why God didn’t listen to their prayers, but Mom was busy and told her to go help Beth change out of her church clothes. When she asked Patricia about it, Patricia laughed and said it was probably because Libby is such a brat and didn’t pray right. Libby had told her that was stupid and she knew how to pray just fine. But then she thought maybe she wasn’t listening because she had been looking around to see who else had their eyes closed and who didn’t. Maybe she didn’t pray right.

Libby left the creek bottom to gather branches and stack them around and on top of the hideout. The mud that caked on her feet and between her toes, had dried and flaked off by the time she was satisfied with her camouflage job.

On the way back to the house, she paused at the top of the hill to watch the cows as they left the barn. Puffs of gray dust swirled around their hooves as they trudged in single file through the barn yard to the pasture.

The next Sunday as they all got ready to go to church, Libby decided this time, when the minister prayed for rain, she would close her eyes and concentrate on every word the minister said. She would beg and say please and keep her eyes closed the whole time.

They all piled into the red and white Oldsmobile. Libby sat in the back, gazing out the window, daydreaming she rode a horse and they galloped in the field next to the car. Her black horse had blue ribbons in her mane and Libby wore a white cowboy hat and shiny cowboy boots. The two of them jumped ditches and fences with ease.

She pulled herself from the dream as a dark cloud hid the sun and the shadows disappeared. When she rolled the window down a bit and slipped her hand out, a small drop hit her palm. She searched for more until another drop hit the glass.

It’s raining, Dad. I think it’s raining, she said.

No, it’s not, dummy. Patricia hissed from the front seat. Her fine blonde hair stuck to the seat, and when she turned to make a face, static electricity spread it like a fan.

I felt a drop. See there. Libby pointed at the glass where a few raindrops began to accumulate. Look at the window.

Beth held up her stuffed bear. See the rain, Pink Pooh?

You don’t say. Mom’s voice came out cracked, like she was fixing to cry. Praise God.

Libby watched as Dad reached around Patricia to squeeze Mom’s shoulder. Mom grinned back at him.

The car tires crunched over the church’s gravel parking lot, just as more drops hit the windshield.

Praise God, Libby whispered and started to count. One, two, three …

Beth joined in, giggling. Four, five, six.

As the drops multiplied, Libby ran the words together, Seven, eight, ninnnh … one hundred!

You didn’t count them, stupid, Patricia snorted.

Yes, I did.

Come on now, Mom said. Let’s go in before it really gets started.

Libby watched the drops dot the sidewalk and silently counted to one hundred.

The nursery schoolteacher, Mrs. Avery, greeted everyone as they came in the door. Good morning, girls. Don’t you all look nice in your pretty dresses.

They wore the Sunday dresses Mom had made on the old sewing machine. All were made from the same polka-dotted cotton cloth, but each dress had unique features. Libby’s had fancy buttons down the front that didn’t button anything, but they sparkled in the light. Patricia’s had a ruffle on the neck, and Beth’s had little yellow bows sewn in the skirt.

It’s raining, Mrs. Avery, Beth said. We counted a hundred drops.

Well, well, Elizabeth, we sure do need it.

Mrs. Avery took Beth’s hand and walked her to the pre-school room. Patricia went off to the intermediate classroom, and Libby headed for the primary room, where a few first and second graders were already gathering. She sat on a little wooden chair and stretched her feet out to study her shoes. They were Patricia’s discards, but the scrapes and smudges were mostly her own. The raindrops that still beaded on the black patent leather were God’s, she decided. Her white anklet stockings had already worked themselves down her heels, and Libby tugged them up, careful not to disturb the drops.

The teacher read a story about Abraham and how God told him to sacrifice his only son, Isaac. Abraham agonized about it, but he feared God, which the teacher said meant he had total faith and trust in God. Just as Abraham was going to kill his son, God sent a ram and told Abraham to sacrifice the ram instead.

The picture the teacher held up showed Isaac lying on a rock platform. Abraham stood over him, his long robe billowing in the wind. He had a knife in one hand and turned his tortured face up toward angry clouds. Not too far away, a ram was caught in the brambles.

Libby studied the picture, her elbows on her knees, her chin in her hands. She imagined God’s face showing up in the dark clouds when the teacher read, And the Lord said, because you have done this and have not withheld your only son, I will surely bless you.

When Libby remembered to look, the drops on her shoes were gone.

She waited for Beth outside the pre-school door and took her hand as they left the building. Outside, the sidewalks were dry and the sun a white ball high in the sky.

Dad stood on the steps with another farmer Libby recognized from church. He towered over the man as they talked. When they got next to him, Dad scooped up Beth and held her with one arm. He cupped his other hand on Libby’s head.

When the farmer wiped his face with a handkerchief, Libby noticed his striped blue shirt was damp under his arms where he had sweated through. He said, Well anyway, Lord knows we need it. Haven’t had a soaking since late April. It’s looking like we might be losing all our crops. We gotta have the rain now, or it’ll be too late.

Dad had just answered, Yep.

In church, Libby did her best to pay attention, especially when they stood to pray. She got to thinking about the bible story from Sunday school and was still standing, her eyes squeezed shut, her hands clasped on the back of the church pew in front of her, when Patricia yanked on her skirt and whispered, Sit down, pipsqueak. The prayer’s over.

When they got home, Mom dished up plates of mashed potatoes, green beans, and roast beef, and they carried them out to a blanket under the big oak tree. Dad sat on the blanket facing west, where billowing, white clouds were forming and creeping toward them. Libby watched Mom’s eyes travel from her and her sisters, to the western sky, to the fields with new corn plants, to Dad’s face.

Patricia played along with Beth, filling her spoon with potatoes and holding it to Pink Pooh’s little thread mouth. Mmm. You try some, Bethie, she said in Pink Pooh’s squeaky voice.

Libby studied Dad’s face, deeply browned from the sun except for tiny white lines that fanned out from the corners of his eyes. The western breeze played with his black hair, and his shirt sleeves rippled, revealing the place where the deep tan met the whiter skin. He kept his eyes on the sky as white clouds billowed up and inched toward the midday sun, pushing and teasing, but never quite covering its relentless fire.

By four o’clock the clouds had disappeared, replaced by clear blue sky.

Libby watched Mom put her hand on Dad’s arm and stand on her tiptoes to kiss him on the lips as he headed to the barn to do chores.

Libby ran upstairs to get her best rock from its hiding spot under her socks in her dresser drawer. She passed Mom on her way to the porch. Mom, her brow furrowed, her lips moistened again and again, scrubbed the potato kettle at the sink.

Libby shoved her feet into her old tennis shoes and went outside. As she crossed the yard, Dad appeared in the milkhouse doorway. One hand on his hip, the other shadowing his eyes, he looked west where all remnants of clouds were gone.

Shep joined Libby as she made her way into the pasture and up the hill. When they got to the hideout, Libby used a stick to bang on the roof before she swept the day-old spider webs away. It was dark inside, and she waited a few seconds for her eyes to adjust.

The shoe box, hidden under dried grass, laid in the corner. Libby took out the small yellow feather. She ducked her head and scrambled out of the cab, pulled her headband down over her forehead, and put the yellow feather behind her ear.

Days before, she had gathered sticks and made a mound to look like a fire. She had been dancing around the fire doing rain dances, but now she knew about the sacrifice God wanted Abraham to make, so she decided she needed to make her own sacrifices, too.

She took the small perfect rock and crouched by the mound of sticks. She peered up toward the sky. It’s not much, she whispered. Not like Abraham’s sacrifice.

She ran her fingers over the smooth surface and held it up to catch the light in sparkles. She loved the rock. She’d found it once when Dad let her go with him to the creek to check the fish line. It’s yours, God. She raised her folded hands toward the sky, squeezed her eyes shut and whispered, Please, send lots and lots of rain.

The rock looked small and insignificant on the pile. She was going to have to make more sacrifices. She scrambled into the truck cab, took out the shoe box, and selected the tiny mouse skeleton she had found in the basement. She added it to the pile.

Pointing her stick toward the sky, she chanted, Hee-ah, ohh. Hee-ah, ohh. Her feet punched the hard ground, and her knees lifted high as she circled the pile.

Hee-ah, ohh. Great Spirit, bring rain to this land.

The Navajos Libby had seen on television, did dances around their fires to honor the Great Spirit and to ask him for stuff, like helping them win a battle. She circled the small mound, thinking the Great Spirit and God were the same thing, even though Patricia said the Indians were heathens, which she said meant they didn’t believe in God. Patricia bragged all the time that she was nine already and had three more years of learning things than Libby, so she was way smarter. But Patricia didn’t know half the stuff she acted like she knew.

It’s gotta rain now, she said to Shep. We’ll do our rain dances and make sacrifices every day until it does.

She checked the feather behind her ear and commenced to stomping her feet and chanting. She hoped God was watching.

Chapter 2

Looks like we’ve got no rain in the forecast this fine June day. It’s going to heat up, and by three this afternoon, temperatures will be in the mid-nineties. Hot as blazes, folks.

Mom, Libby yelled. The weatherman says it’s going to be hot as blazes.

Beth sat next to her at the breakfast table, swinging her legs and scratching day-old mosquito bites that dotted her arms. She echoed Libby’s words in breathy chants.

Hot as blazes. Hot as blazes.

Rubbing her eyes, Patricia shuffled into the kitchen. Her blond hair tangled in a mess around her face.

Patricia, is it swearing to say hot as blazes? Beth asked.

Patricia yawned. What?

Hot as blazes. Hot as blazes.

No, but that’s what it is. That’s why I couldn’t sleep anymore. It’s too hot.

Beth clapped. Yeah, it’s hot blazes.

I wish we were rich, so we could have air-conditioning.

Yeah, it’s hot as hell fires, Libby said.

Hell fires. Hell fires. Beth said, laughing and spitting milk, so it ran down her chin.

Patricia frowned at Libby. Now you got her swearing.

It’s hot as … a monkey on a tin roof.

Beth, her mouth full of cheerios, giggled. Yeah, a monkey on a roof.

Patricia slumped down at the table and studied a jar in front of her. She picked it up and shook it and said, "Libby, dang it. You should have let the