The Rebellion of Miss Lucy Ann Lobdell (35 page)

“I’ll go where my husband goes,” she said.

“Your husband?” he said. “You call whatever that is your husband?”

I was led outside to a wagon and loaded onto the back where there was a little hay, one blanket, and a hasp to which I was fastened. The deputy snapped the reins, and I began the slow journey from Stroudsburg to Delhi—in irons, like I had killed someone.

Marie walked behind, crying. A mile out of town, the deputy stopped the wagon. “Get on,” he said. Marie thanked him and climbed up beside me. Three days in the back of that wagon was agony. Marie did what she could for me, but the trip was hardly any better for her.

* * *

Late on the third day, we pulled into the yard of the Delaware County almshouse. A man I didn’t know came out, a pistol strapped to his leg. He was with Jennings, a resident I knew. Deputy Hastings got down and went over to the men. A moment later he turned to me. “Mrs. Slater, this is Herm Cranston, housemaster. You are in his custody.”

“Where’s Mrs. McNee?”

“I don’t usually talk to crazy people,” said Cranston, “but the old hag is gone. And you and your kind are one of the reasons. Deputy, if I could call upon you for one last service? Would you help Jennings escort Mrs. Slater to her cell in the backhouse?”

“I’m not going there!” I shouted, suddenly realizing that they were going to lock me up with the insane.

“Yes, you are,” said Cranston, “and that’s where you’re gonna stay.”

Marie tried to say something, but Cranston shouted her down. “Watch yourself, missy,” he warned. “Step on this property, and I’ll have you arrested.”

Marie glared at him. Cranston gave a small smile. “Take the inmate up.” Deputy Hastings took me by the arm, and Jennings led the way. I didn’t fight. It wouldn’t have done any good, and I didn’t want to give this Cranston character a show. We went upstairs, Jennings opened a door, and in a moment, I was alone.

The pen was eight feet square with a bunk, a corn shuck tick, and a slop bucket. The place stank. There was no window, just a diamond-shaped hole in the door and a narrow opening at the bottom. A little later, a bowl of gruel slid through it.

“Who’s there?” I said.

“It’s me, Jennings,” came the answer in a hushed voice. I ran to the hole and peered at him. “I’m sorry for your trouble, Joe,” he said. “I’m not even ’sposed to say nothin’ to ya, and iffen I know Cranston, he’s countin’ the seconds.”

“What happened to Mrs. McNee?”

“She’s gone. You did right, Joe, to leave. Things are bad now. No one works in town anymore. The garden’s gone to hell. Cranston thinks he can get things to grow by pointing his gun.”

“Where’s Marie?”

“She went to town, but Cranston’s expecting somethin’. And he says he’ll shoot anyone trying to get you outta here, including Miss Marie. I gotta go.”

“God bless you, Jennings.”

I felt afraid for Marie, for I knew she would come. In another day, I was more afraid for myself. I was inside a ship that had sunk at sea.

On my third night, I woke to a faint tap on the door. “Joseph?”

I was up in an instant. “I'm here, Marie,” I whispered. “How did you get in? You’re in danger.”

“Never mind that. Listen. I met with Mrs. Caldwell. I think she’s going to help. And I talked to the sheriff, or at least I tried to. He wasn’t happy to see me and said right out that he didn’t want to know anything. He said he hoped you wouldn’t break the law.”

A dog out back began to bark—the neighbor’s bitch.

“Marie, Cranston will shoot you if he catches you here.”

“Then listen. Be ready. I don’t know when.”

* * *

Days went by. Nothing happened, and no encouraging message found its way to me. I began to despair. I could not imagine anyone lasting more than a week or two in this hell before his humanity was extinguished for all time. Why was this allowed? It would be more kind to shoot the insane. Truly.

I tried to think of things to do to keep myself from coming undone. I made a crude clock by marking the travels of a sliver of light that came from the outside through a crack. I tried to think of ways to open that crack so that the light might be a fraction larger. I found a nail that I could grip. It wasn’t loose, but the wood around it was old and dry. I tapped it a little each day with my shoe, and then slipped the lip of my tin plate under the head to see if it would come out. A few days of trying, and I had the nail, about the size of my little finger.

I used the nail to widen the crack in the board, but I took care not to work it too hard—I had plans for it. If I were to remain penned up, I was certain that Cranston, at some time, would come to admire his work. And when he did, I would act broken, and I probably would be broken by then, except that I would have saved just a small piece of myself for the occasion. I’d wait for him to relax or turn his back, and then I’d spring up and bury the nail in his neck.

A day or two later, a fever came on. I lay in the darkness, sweating and aching. Now where was the broth, the soft word, or the hand to the brow? I thought about my mother. I strained to remember when I was young and she loved me and took care of me. Why had she changed?

The sickness stayed for a week. When it left, I tried to keep track of the days, but couldn’t. At times, I cried for the lack of anything else. No messages and no Marie. Had she been arrested? I had no way to find out, for the man who brought my food was someone I didn’t know, and he wouldn’t say a thing. I stopped hoping for rescue, because the daily dimming of that hope was more than I could bear. I began to think of other uses for my nail—a particular vein in my arm called to me.

“Joseph, we’re here.” I had heard Marie’s voice before—been woken by her voice on several occasions only to discover that the voice was just a wish inside my head. Marie spoke again, so I answered into the dark. What came in return was something that made me think I wasn’t dreaming. It was a man’s voice I didn’t recognize. “Joe,” he said in a whisper, “we’re going to pry the hasp. You ready?” I said I was, and then I heard some tapping and a few grunts. Then louder tapping and low cursing.

“Joe,” said the man, “it’s stronger than we thought. I’ve got a bar, and I’m ready to do it, but it’s gonna make a lot of noise. You and Miss Perry will be on your own. Understand?”

“Do it,” I said, not lowering my voice.

There were three hard bangs and the sound of groaning wood. The inmates in the backhouse began to howl, along with all the dogs on the west end of Delhi. Three more bangs, and the door flew open.

“God bless you, gentlemen,” said Marie. All I ever saw of my rescuers was a pair of shadows fleeing down the hall.

Marie found my hand and pulled me behind her, down the stairs and out into the yard. Several rooms in the house were already lit. Cranston’s voice could be heard above all. “Herbert, Jennings! Get the clubs!” Then he was on the porch. “What’s going on out there? Don’t play any tricks. I’ve got a gun!”

Marie and I ran behind the chicken coop, which gave us cover till we got around to the side of the house where Marie had hidden her bag. From there we couldn’t see Cranston, but from his shouts it seemed that he hadn’t moved off the porch. Then a shot was fired. It couldn’t have been fired at us, but we ducked anyway and crouched low as we hurried across the front yard, moving toward the road and freedom.

Suddenly, a man came out of the dark. He was coming around the house from the other side and nearly ran into us, a stick or a club in his hand. A terrified moment later we recognized the man as Jennings, and it took about the same time for him to see it was us.

Cranston’s voice came from out back. “Jennings, anything out there?”

I knew that Paul Jennings wished us no harm, but I also knew him to be obedient. I didn’t dare speak, nor could I plead with my eyes because of the dark. I stopped breathing.

“Can’t see nothin’,” he shouted.

W
E WENT FROM town to town, but Pennsylvania was not the friendly place it had been during our crossing two years before. Our clothes were ragged and worn, and that’s all people seemed to see. Some were just plain mean, as though we had insulted them by our misfortune. And people tried to take advantage of us, thinking I wouldn’t notice, but I noticed all right. I saw most everything and wasn’t taken in by their smiles and promises. Once they knew that I was on to them, they wanted us gone, and that meant we had to look for another place. I was tired a lot, and there was a squeezing pain in my head, something that had begun in the backhouse. I tried to hide this from Marie, for our troubles were hard on her, but sometimes I couldn’t. Often the pain would stay all day and into the next.

We tried to find out what had become of Helen, but we were careful not to ask too many questions, remembering what had happened in Stroudsburg. Every now and then we would hear some version of it, and almost every story had Helen back at the Fortnam farm. Some said that she had been driven mad—others were just as certain that she had recovered. Everyone agreed, however, that her attackers had been arrested, and then, without so much as a trial, let go.

I wanted to avenge this crime, but as it was, I couldn’t even feed my wife. And beyond that, I could feel myself slipping back into that dark place—the one I knew well from my years alone. Voices echoed strangely now, and heads began to look large. I could hear people talking about us, though they might be miles away. I trusted no one and saw twisted faces behind every smile. I didn’t know where it would go or what would become of me, though I had seen what had happened to my mother. Marie begged me to be better with people and trust them more. I did make myself act better, though I couldn’t trust them no matter how hard I tried.

* * *

That winter we found work at a farm in Monroe County. We received no money, but Marie kept telling me not to say a thing. So I held my tongue, even though I knew what they were up to. But all my minding my manners did no good, for one day the farmer announced that he had heard about us and didn’t want us around anymore.

We walked a long way, and just as I thought we would die of neglect, we found work. It was on a farm that belonged to an older, childless couple north of Waymart. The Matlows were strict and stingy, but Marie told me to behave myself, and I did. Weeks went by, and nothing bad happened. We had Saturday afternoons and Sundays to ourselves, and on these days, we explored the upper meadows and ridgelines and found a shallow cave in a rock outcropping. Remembering our camp at the Spencer farm, we made the cave our new camp and stayed there on warm nights.

We did all that the Matlows required and got paid with thin soup. So as not to spoil something else for us, I spoke as little as possible. But they kept asking questions—questions about us. Marie could always answer these questions in a way that seemed to satisfy them, but sometimes Marie wouldn’t be there. And I couldn’t keep track of everything she had said, and even when I could, it never came out sounding right when I said it. And every time I told them something about us, which usually wasn’t true, they’d go ahead and ask another question.

Then one morning Mr. Matlow said that he was going to the village and would be back in the afternoon. I didn’t like the look on his face. A few hours later I was out back tending the hogs when a carriage pulled up. Out jumped a man with a pistol strapped to his leg—that devil Cranston! I had been betrayed. All their questions so that they could get some reward.

Cranston came toward me in an easy manner, thinking perhaps I didn’t recognize him. I wasn’t going to let him slap irons on me, like that fiend Briscoe, so I waited, and when he got close, I hit him hard in the knee with the bucket. That put him down.

“You didn’t fool me,” I shouted, “and you’re not going to catch me neither.” I ran down the road and then up into the forest. I went to the cave, thinking that Marie would know to find me there.

The next day Marie did come. She looked like she hadn’t slept the night before, and she was crying. I was certain that Cranston had done something mean to her, but she was angry at me. “Joseph,” she demanded, “why did you do that to Mrs. Matlow’s brother?”

“He was no brother,” I said, thinking that they had lied to her. “It was Cranston. You know, from Delhi.”

“Oh, Joseph,” she said with a sob, “it wasn’t. I saw him. I guess you could say he looked a little like that man, but not that much.”

I wasn’t sure if Marie had seen the same man. Maybe they had played a trick on her. I said that I would die before getting locked up in the backhouse again, but Marie didn’t seem to care about that. She said I was lucky that the man wasn’t badly hurt, or the sheriff’s men would be at the cave instead of her. She said she would keep working for the Matlows, but I had to promise never to go there. She would bring blankets and food. She said I needed to calm down and forget about the backhouse.

* * *

I stayed at the cave, and Marie came by every couple of days. I didn’t mind being by myself—I had done it for years. Sometimes I’d snare a rabbit, and I’d have that rabbit roasting when Marie came on Sunday. When the berries started coming, I went out and picked—picked enough so that Marie was able to trade for them. And as long as I stayed in the woods, I was all right. But as soon as I went near any settlement, I wasn’t. All things made by man seemed ugly, the same way things had looked when I spent my years alone in the woods.

With so much time to myself, I thought about everything. I thought about this earth, and about God, though I no longer thought about preaching the Good Word—I was cured of that. I didn’t pray much, but when I did, it was to ask God to bring His judgment in time for me to see it. Let it come. Let His judgment rain down from the sky. I thought it was overdue, for if we humans had been sent here to do the Lord’s work, then surely by now He must be disappointed.

That thought was not new to me. It came to me first when I was living in the woods some ten years before. The war had started, and they had built a small factory in the next valley. It was to tan hides in the acid made from tree bark. They called the new town Acidalia, as though it were a flower.