Читать книгу The Price Of Silence - Kate Wilhelm - Страница 5

The Bend News, July, 1888

Four people perished in a fire that destroyed the Warden House last week in the town of Brindle. Dead in the fire were Mrs. Michael Hilliard, Mr. Joe Warden, the original founder of the historic inn, Mr. Harold Ivers, a traveling salesman, and Miss Dorothy Conway, an employee at the inn. Surviving the blaze was Mr. Michael Hilliard, and Daniel Warden, aged eight. The cause of the fire is unknown.

The fire bell woke me up that night. I ran to Ma’s room, but they weren’t there, and I ran outside. Ma was in the street, and across the way I could see the fire. The flames were shooting up high, with great showers of sparks. People were running everywhere, dipping water from the creek, throwing it on, other people were screaming and yelling. Horses were going crazy, plunging into the creek, up the other side. I stood next to Ma and she put her arm around my shoulders and held me tight. I wanted to get nearer, but she wouldn’t let me go.

The roof crashed down and made a geyser of ashes and sparks. The smell was terrible and the smoke made my eyes tear and I felt I was choking. Mostly I remember how afraid I was.

Pa came and when he saw me, he told me to get back in bed. He sounded mad and I ran back in and got in bed. But in a little while I got up again and listened to what they were saying. Pa said Brother McNulty would keep Daniel Warden with him, raise him with his own children. But Joe Warden, Janey, one of the girls and a traveling man had been in the building. “Gone,” he said. “God’s judgment, His punishment.”

I ran back to bed before they saw me. I knew Pa would give me a whipping if he found me up again. And I thought about Janey and another girl burning up. I had never heard of Janey, and I hadn’t known another girl lived right there in that house.

The next day Ma kept me in the kitchen with her most of the time. Because of the revival, and Reverend McNulty and his family, we were feeding a lot of people every day, and I peeled potatoes until I thought my fingers would fall off. It was so hot with the fire in the stove all day, my hair was sticking to my head, and my skirt sticking to my legs. I asked Ma who Janey was and she pinched my arm and said I must never mention that name again.

After we ate dinner and washed the dishes there was the tent revival and Reverend McNulty talked about sinful women and hellfire and brimstone. He was red-faced and yelled a lot, gesturing while he preached. He scared me. And it was so hot in the tent, it was like we were getting a taste of hellfire.

The day of the funeral everyone from town went, and folks came in from the countryside and even Bend. Pa talked about Joe Warden first, then Reverend McNulty talked a long time and Pa said a long prayer. Men lowered the coffin all the way and Pa threw in a handful of dirt and said, “Ashes to ashes, dust to dust.”

No one had much to say over the traveling man, just things like God rest his soul.

I thought they’d go on to the other two graves already dug, but Pa told me to get back in the wagon. I waited until he went to talk to somebody else and asked Ma if they were going to bury Janey and the other girl, and she pinched my arm harder than she ever did before. She said, “I told you never to say that name. Now get yourself to the wagon and wait.”

I climbed up in the back of the wagon and waited a long time. A hot wind kept blowing grit and dust everywhere, and there wasn’t any shade. Just the dry dirt and sage and rocks. I was itchy all over and so dried out I couldn’t have cried even if I’d wanted to. Since Pa was the regular preacher, it always seemed like everyone wanted a word with him, and we were almost the last ones to leave. The horse had just started to walk when I saw Mr. Hilliard standing by one of the other open graves. The men brought the coffin and put it in and began to shovel dirt on top. Mr. Hilliard just stood there. I don’t think anyone said a thing. At least no preacher said anything.

At first I thought Mr. Hilliard looked funny in his long black coat and a stovepipe hat, but then I felt sorry for him because he looked lonesome all by himself by the men shoveling dirt. I didn’t know whose grave was being filled in.

Our house was crowded again all afternoon until dinner time, and then there was the revival in the tent that was like an oven. I was glad enough to get to bed that night, and Ma said she was ready to drop.

But I woke up again, freezing cold. All the feather beds were put away for the summer and I went to ask Ma for a cover, but they weren’t in their bed, and I heard Pa’s voice in the sitting room. They were on their knees and he was praying about God’s judgment, but Ma was crying. She had on her robe with a blanket around her, but she was shivering and crying, and I started to cry too. I ran to Ma and she pulled me under the blanket with her. She was shaking all over and I was, too. I never had been so cold in my life, even in the winter, and I thought we were dying.

I must have cried myself to sleep, sitting on the floor with Ma, wrapped in the blanket. When I woke up again, I was in bed and it was already hot.

I didn’t get an answer to my question about Janey until I was a grown woman and married. My friend Eliza whispered that Janey had been married to Mr. Hilliard, but she was one of the bad girls at that House, and she either drowned her own baby, or else she was with a man when the baby wandered out to the creek and fell in.

I can’t remember that anyone ever said her name out loud, and I know I never did after that.

This is what I remember about the fire and the days after. Annabelle Bolton. November 5, 1943.