Silent Thunder (3 page)

“Why does morning always come on so quick?” I asked, burying my face.

“'Cause that's the way God made things,” Mama said simply.

I kept my face hidden, and couldn't help but smile to myself. Mama really thought I was 'sleep!

Later, it was hard for me to keep my book hid all day while I was pounding bread dough 'longside Mama in
the cookhouse. I kept wanting to go back to the quarters, kept wishing I could pull my book out from under my pallet and look at it—at those curly dancers.

But by late afternoon my mind was far gone from thinking 'bout my book. Missy Claire came fluttering into the cookhouse like she'd been bit by a bumblebee. “Kit, Kit, bring a steam pot,” she squawked. “Bring it quick!”

Kit's my mama, and whenever Missy Claire spoke Mama's name, she dragged it out real slow, made it sound like a long word rather than a short one.
Keep-at
—that's how she said it.

When Missy Claire called Mama, a frown took over Mama's face, same look as when I showed her the book Rosco gave me. A knowing, worried look.

See, whenever Missy Claire hollered for Mama to fetch a steam pot, it was 'cause young Master Lowell's lungs had gone tight, and he was struggling to breathe. Mama boiled the water in a stew pot and took it to Lowell's room.

Even though Rosco was Lowell's body servant, it was Mama who knew best how to stop Lowell's wheezing spells. Today, like always, she poured the steaming water into the basin next to Lowell's bed, draped Lowell's head in a muslin hood, and spoke real soft to Lowell, like she was coaxing a frightened lamb.

Missy Claire always stood back and let Mama do the soothing. Mama spoke gently. “Pull your breath
in through your nose, child, then let it out slow from your mouth.”

Missy Claire stayed behind Mama, looking scared. Lowell was coughing and gasping and whimpering, seemed like all at the same time. Finally, he was breathing regular again. Mama led his head back from the steam and rested it on the pillows she had propped behind him.

Lowell's face glistened from the steam water and from his own sweat. Mama's face was shiny, too. They'd both been working hard.

Missy Claire dabbed Lowell's face with the muslin. “I'll tend to him, now, Kit,” she said to Mama. But it was Mama who had freed Lowell's lungs, not Missy Claire. Missy's tendin' to her son was mostly just sitting by his side, shaking her head, pressing her palm to her cheek.

“Ever since that child been a baby, I been tellin' Missy Claire to treat him with cayenne liniment. It won't cure Lowell, but it would cut down on them attacks,” Mama said when we were back in the cookhouse and she was dumping Lowell's steam water out the back door. “Missy Claire has always been a woman who's set on having the final say.” Mama sighed. “She insists that well water, boiled up hot, is enough for Lowell.”

I sure had better things to think about than Missy Claire's stubborn ways. I turned my thoughts back to my book, back to them pretty, swirly quill curls.

September 1, 1862

T
HEY SAID IT WAS
a white man's war. But if that was true, how come Master Gideon waxed on about “the condition of slavery” and “preserving the slave way” whenever he got to talking about this war they called “the War between the States?” Seemed to me that anything having to do with slavery would surely include nigras. I had never in my life seen a white man who was a slave. So to say this war was only the white man's struggle was a bunch of swine-slop.

Now, don't get me wrong 'bout Gideon Parnell. He was better than most masters. He had a reputation for being one of the most even-tempered masters this side of Richmond. Sometimes, though, he could be downright opinionated. That's 'cause Master Gideon Parnell was a true Secesh if I ever did see one. Secesh through and through—lived and breathed for the South.

If ever the North seemed to have one up on what he called “our beloved Southern soil,” the master's eyes turned greener than a field of envy.

At least Gideon's eyes weren't filled with the hatred I'd seen peering out from other white men. But the sad thing was this: When it came to Lowell, the master could be as coldhearted as they come. I had never seen a man talk about his own son the way Gideon Parnell talked about Lowell.

You'd have thought Lowell was the nigra of one of them cotton-country masters, the way Master Gideon put him down, knocked at his pride, and cursed him at every turn. Made me feel nothin' but pity for Lowell. Made me want to tend to him with as much kindness as I could manage.

That boy had everything I didn't—hard-soled shoes, a feather bed, and a teacher lady to show him books. But he didn't even have what it took to fight for his own breath. That was a soul-sorry shame, if you asked me.

But for all the talking Parnell did
about
his son, he didn't ever talk
to
him. Really, I had never heard him say a single word to Lowell—not a one! It was as if Lowell was dead. Or like he just wasn't here in this world.

Truth is, Master Gideon probably talked to
me
more than he even talked to his own boy. That was a sad state of things, since the master didn't hardly pay me no mind, except for once a year on my birthday, when he had Mama bring me to his study for a look-see.

Like with Lowell, the master was blind to me every other day of the year. I sure hated them birthday look-sees, hated feeling like I was an auction horse on display. Far as I knew, Summer and me were the only ones Master Gideon called on this way. Somethin' strange about it. That's why I never spoke 'bout them birthday visits to nobody. Even though the master was civil when we met, looking on him so close—and having him take to looking at me—always put a shudder on my insides.

But at least on one day out of a whole bunch of planting and harvesting seasons, the master would grant me a word or two. Heck, as uneasy as I felt about them birthday meetings, I knew that even a horse needs talkin' to from his master, every now and again.

You'd have thought Lowell would try to get his pa to speak to him by speaking to his pa. Maybe asking his pa some kind of important question so he'd
have
to answer. But Lowell was as tight-tongued toward Master Gideon as Master Gideon could be toward him. He didn't hardly say nothin'. Even when he was telling me to do something, it came out all soft and whispery, with no more than a few words at a time.

And to make it worse, Lowell's words got all tangled up on his tongue before they came out.
Stuttering
is what I'd once heard Miss McCracken, Lowell's teacher, call it. But when Miss McCracken asked Lowell to read out loud during his lessons, he had the most clear way of speaking that I ever did hear from a boy my own
age. It was as if his books made him strong, somehow.

Today I was mucking the hay in Dash's stall when I heard Master Gideon telling Horace Bates, the county doctor who'd come to check on the master's gelding, Marlon, that Lowell was nothing but “a lump of coal that's smeared the Parnell name.” (Doc Bates was an all-purpose medicine man. He tended people, mostly, but knew a good lick about animals, too.)

Master Gideon knew I was mucking right near where he was, but that didn't stop him from speaking his true mind about his son. That's something I never fully understood about white people—the master, Missy Claire, and the few others I knew. They talked about private things straight-out, like nigras were some kind of mutes who couldn't hear a word they said.

I was looking down at my pitchfork and clearing the hay of Dash's droppings while I listened to Parnell.

“My boy's a runt. Nothing but a measly bag of bones and poor lungs. Claire and me, we've been cursed, I tell you. Cursed with a sick-bodied child.” Master Gideon sucked on his teeth as he spoke. The way somebody sounded when they were fed up. He seemed to be caught in his own thoughts, just talking out of his head.

“Every man in the Confederacy who's got a boy old enough to fight has sent that boy off to uphold the South's rightness. And you can best believe that anybody who's got a boy out there fighting is bragging to
high heaven about it. Just yesterday I was coming out of the town council meeting, passing by Littleton Square, when I ran into Travis Stokes and Nathan Wilcox. All they could talk about was their sons ‘putting their lives on the line for the flowering South.'”

Master Gideon let loose a sigh. “And then,” he said, “Stokes had to rub salt on my sore by pulling out a letter his boy, Ben, sent home from the Battle of Shiloh. Stokes, that braggart, was waving that confounded letter around like it was the Confederate flag.!”

Marlon, the master's horse, blew out soft breaths against his horse lips while Doc Bates examined him. “Not every boy is meant to be a soldier,” Doc Bates said.

Master Gideon sniffed. “Horace, we got Union soldiers closing in every day. And every man in this county who's got a son of war age is talking proud about his boy out there protecting our Southland.”

Then the master did something I ain't never heard him do. He spat. “Besides,” he said, “you know I've had my eye on a seat in Congress for as long as I can remember. It's hard enough being the only member of the town council whose boy is not putting in for the war. If someday I'm to represent the state of Virginia's better interests, I must free myself of anything that's considered objectionable—of anything that would prevent me from winning the confidence of the majority.”

Doc Bates didn't say nothing right away. I could hear
Marlon's hooves crunching the hay beneath them. The doc spoke like he was losing his patience with Parnell. “Your son is not objectionable, Gideon. He's got an affliction that has little to do with your ability to win people's confidence,” he said. Marlon let out a quick, tiny neigh. “This horse has got colic,” Doc Bates said plainly.

It was as if Master Gideon hadn't heard Doc Bates's words. He was still deep in his own agitation. He said, “The Union's got nigras fighting for them, you know—escaped slaves. And now I'm hearing that just this month the War Department authorized General Rufus Saxton, some military governor of the South Carolina Sea Islands, to organize five regiments of black troops on the islands.” Parnell got a desperate sound in his voice. “This letting nigras fight so close to home makes me uneasy,” he said. “I guess I should take comfort in the fact that they're still slaves, living under Southern law. What a shame it would be to let them South Carolina coloreds think they got a chance at freedom. I hear them nigras up North think being soldiers is going to set them free.”

Now I was listening close. You never saw me muck a stall so slow, so's I could hang around and hear all of what Master Gideon was saying. If I'd have been a horse, my ears would have flung forward right then. I even raked Dash's hay just a bit more quietly. I didn't want to miss a word.

Doc Bates spoke next. “Well, Gideon, I'll say one
thing about coloreds. They sure got a way of sticking together. If all the coloreds in Virginia put their minds to it, they
could
have an army of their own . . .” Doc Bates's words trailed off into a moment of silence. Then he said, “It ain't such a far-off notion.”

Master Gideon sounded a single huff, like he was quickly dismissing Doc Bates's theory.

“Don't worry, Gideon, I was just speculating,” Doc Bates said. “And don't get yourself all worked up over some crazy Union antics.”

Both men were silent for what seemed like a long moment. I rustled more hay to give off the sound of hard work.

“General Grant
may
be full of wild ideas for his Union troops,” Parnell said, “but the truth is more and more nigras are taking up arms.”

I could hear the disgust in Parnell's voice. He went on in a flurry. “It's bad enough that Confederate forces are letting slaves get into the thick of the fighting, but the thought of coloreds using bullets and cannonballs on behalf of the Union makes me queasy. It's a wonder I can sleep at night knowing the Yanks are fortifying their efforts with black hands.”

That's when I heard Master Gideon clear his throat. It was as if he were about to make some big announcement. But when he spoke again, he spoke real low, real soft, not like he was hiding his words, but like he was ashamed of what he was about to say. “But I'll say
this—and I'll only say this to you, Horace, seeing as we've known each other since the cradle—even if them nigra soldiers are falling all over themselves, at least they're
in
the war, and that's more than I can say for my own flesh and blood. Imagine it, coloreds to arms!”

I could hear Doc Bates closing up his medicine bag. “Don't put yourself into a dander about it, Gideon. Worrying doesn't solve anything.”

Doc Bates and Master Gideon passed Dash's stall, where I was making like my hay-pitching was serious business. The two men didn't so much as glance in my direction. Doc Bates had a hand on Parnell's hefty shoulder. “Marlon will be just fine so long as you keep him active. If the colic persists, feed him a little mineral oil.”

I peered through the barn slats, watching the doctor and Master Gideon make their way back toward the entrance road to Parnell's place. “I wish you had a potion in that bag that could cure my boy,” Master Gideon said.