Читать книгу Tears of the Silenced - Misty Griffin - Страница 19

In March, we drove back north and, one day, Brian came across an ad in the paper for some land across the Cascade Mountains in eastern Washington. We drove across the mountains to see it. The property was nestled on a mountainside six miles outside of a small town with a population of sixteen hundred people.

It was April now, but there were still occasional snow flurries, and the majestic mountains were capped with glistening crowns of snow. I sat in the truck with Samantha while Mamma and Brian went in to see the

real-estate agent. I saw ranchers and farmers walking by, and I was intrigued when I realized that we were in cowboy country. I thought to myself: This might actually be fun.

We drove the six miles up the mountain on a dirt road. As we approached the six-mile mark, we veered off the county road and drove half a mile straight up the mountainside on a very rutted and muddy path.

“Just so you know,” the cheery real-estate woman told us, “in the winter, the county does not plow this small section because it is a private road. The people who live up here mostly use tire chains and a prayer to get up the mountain in the winter.”

“We have neighbors up here?” Brian asked with a frown.

The real-estate agent smiled and nodded. “Oh, don’t worry; you are not all alone up here. About two and a half miles up that way live the Farrows and about two miles beyond them live the Hawthorns. And,” she carried on, “if you follow the county road a couple more miles up, there are a few more people scattered around.”

I saw that Brian was not too happy at that news, and his forehead was furrowed as we drove up the steep road. Soon, we arrived at what appeared to be a driveway leading to a huge parcel of land.

“Well, here it is—sixty acres of good quality ranch land,” the agent said, as she flashed her big smile in Brian’s direction.

I looked around at the acres of desolate, sagebrush-filled terrain. Free-range cows were munching grass in the distance, and two huge cottonwood trees swayed gently in the spring air. There were some flat areas, but the landscape was mostly made up of one hill after another. Mamma and Brian talked a lot, and my sister and I walked around a little. We discovered a creek across a road with tall aspen trees and green moss. We got back to the car in time to hear Brian tell the agent that they wanted the land if they could agree on a price.

For a moment, my heart stopped. The land was beautiful, but it was in the middle of nowhere. There were no sounds from any other people; the quiet was interrupted only by the occasional mooing cows in the distance or the call of one bird to another. I looked over at Samantha, and although we were not allowed to speak, I could see the same look of sheer terror. What would happen to us here?

After negotiating an agreeable payment plan with the owners, we moved up on the mountain. Even though Samantha and I had great misgivings about moving there, we were looking forward to not being cooped up in the truck and the tents, and Brian and Mamma would not have to worry about the people asking about our not being in school. As soon as we knew we were going to move, Mamma registered with the state to receive her disability, food stamps, and the checks for Samantha and me. She registered in a different county 150 miles south in Wenatchee, Washington, and gave a fake address in that same county. How she never got caught is a mystery. When she had to go into the government office, she would change out of her Amish clothes and into normal clothes.

Brian, too, was in hiding from the state. Besides the 1970s child molestation charges, he also had an ex-wife whom he had divorced right before he met Mamma. When she was only eighteen, he had moved her to an isolated mine way up in the Bradshaw mountains of northern Arizona. Eight years later, she fled the mountain to her parents’ home in Phoenix where she pressed charges against Brian for battery. She dropped the charges during the divorce when Brian agreed to give her full custody of their three children with no contest.

Brian kept a low profile after that, in order to avoid paying child support. The mountain was on the outskirts of a tiny ranch town, only a few miles from the Canadian border. This proved to be the perfect place for Brian and Mamma to wallow in their paranoia about the government, while practicing their religious beliefs and torturing my sister and me.

After we had pitched the tents, Brian announced that we would need a lot of money if we were going to try to build any sort of structure before winter set in. I shivered at the thought of winter; we would have to build a shelter or we would freeze to death. The winters on the mountain could range anywhere from zero degrees Fahrenheit to thirty degrees below zero. Not long after pitching the tents, Mamma and Brian went into town to get supplies and left Samantha and me at our new homestead.

When they returned, Brian and Mamma brought with them shovels, picks, and rope.

“Here we go,” Brian said as he started pulling things out of the truck bed. “We got a generator too, so we can start making things to sell again.”

A few hours later, Samantha and I were put to work with picks and shovels to clear the sagebrush, so we could start building a small shelter. Brian helped some, but he would use the truck and a chain to pull the debris out. I was only eleven and Samantha was only nine: the tools were heavy.

As dusk fell, Brian came out and said we could come in for the night. We had only cleared five square feet but could do no more. Mamma gave us some soup, and we collapsed on our blankets and fell asleep to the lonely howl of coyotes that seemed to say, “You are all alone, so very alone … and defenseless.”

It took us nearly two weeks to clear a chunk of land fifty feet wide by fifty feet long. While working, Samantha and I stumbled upon an old piece of cement that was sticking up from the ground. It turned out to be part of the basement to a house that had been on the land in the thirties. We were excited with our find and ran down the cement steps into the underground room which was only ten feet by ten feet. Of course, there was no hidden treasure, but it was still fun to see how old it looked. We did find a few mason jars of canned plums that still had their seal. Brian seemed pleased with our find and even let us eat the fruit. They were surprisingly delicious, even though they had been there at least sixty years.

Brian decided that we would construct a small building on top of the basement and stay the winter there. However, lumber was expensive, so we would have to sell a lot of our crafts in town to buy the needed supplies.

It was May and a rainbow of different colored flowers covered the mountains. They nodded their pretty heads in the warm spring air and brought a smile to my otherwise sad face. Wild cherries were blossoming along the country road; there were miles of apple, cherry, and peach orchards down in the valleys. All the way to Wenatchee, all you could see was orchard after orchard. When they were all in bloom, it was a masterpiece to behold. Springtime made everything look alive and beautiful, but there was also a sense of urgency in the air. We had to prepare for the oncoming cold that would kill every form of life if it were given a chance.

That first week of May, we loaded our wares into the truck and headed to Wenatchee to pick up Mamma’s government checks. They did not come to the post office in our little town because the P.O. box had to be in the same city as her fake address. Every month, Mamma and Brian made this trip to pick up the checks and food stamps. Since Mamma did not have a job and the government did not know she was making money on the side with crafts, we qualified for all kinds of government aid.

Just a few miles outside of Wenatchee, Brian and Mamma set up our table with Amish dolls, Amish cookbooks, and Brian’s music boxes. A lot of people set up stands to sell their vegetables, so Mamma thought it might work to sell our items.

We did pretty well that day and sold more than half our things, and Brian was able to buy some of the much needed lumber for our winter shelter.

As the summer progressed, Mamma and Brian started bringing home goats and other farm animals from the auctions. Samantha and I loved playing with the goats, but we did not get much time to do so as our list of chores seemed to grow with every day.

Samantha and I would now have to get up before the adults. We were to heat up water for coffee, make breakfast, put Brian’s shaving things out and then wake them up. After breakfast, we would clean the two tents and then help Brian and Mamma with building, pull sagebrush or take care of the animals.

My sister and I were in charge of virtually everything since Mamma had complained to Brian that she did not want to be stuck with the work around the tents. She believed that we were capable of doing more than we already were.

As early fall approached, old Jack Frost revisited the mountains. A shiver ran up my spine as I watched the geese fly south and the goats’ fur become fluffier.

Life in the new shack was tight, and Samantha and I were only allowed inside to sleep, cook and eat. Everything else was done under the giant cottonwood tree, which had a lean-to tarp nailed to it.

While Samantha and I worked, Brian and Mamma often argued. Mamma would then storm off in the truck and go into town, leaving us alone with Brian, who would look for reasons to beat us. When they were not fighting, Mamma would often bury herself in a romance novel while Brian would call me to the loft for a massage. This was often used as a pretext to molest me. My legs would shake as I climbed the ladder. I would sometimes push Brian off me, but he would then get angry, and for the rest of the day he would walk around and find things to beat me for.

A lot of times, he would scream at me and tell me I was worthless. I would never amount to anything. Once, when I was ten, he told Mamma that I was seducing him and that she should tell me to stop. I remember how my face burned and how I blinked back tears as Mamma told me it was wrong to seduce men. I wanted to tell her that Brian was molesting me; I wanted her to believe me and hug me and tell me it was going to get better. But I felt she already knew, and if I said anything, she would blame me. I don’t know how any mother could look into a ten-year-old’s tear-filled eyes and tell her to stop seducing her fifty-something-year-old stepfather.

And so, as I climbed the ladder to the loft, I would let my mind travel to a better place. I had learned to drift away to pleasanter places when things around me got to be too much. Most of the time, I was a missionary doctor saving AIDS patients in Africa. Sometimes, my daydreams were so real I could almost smell the rain forest and hear the monkeys chattering to each other as they swung from tree to tree. It was a great fantasy, but not one that was attainable for a girl no one even remembered existed.

One day in October, Mamma came back from the welfare office with a worried look. She told Brian that, because she had filled out her government paperwork stating that Samantha and I were being homeschooled, the state wanted us to come in for standardized testing. Mamma and Brian argued for a couple of days. Mamma then dusted off math and spelling books for Samantha and me. We were to study between chores. Brian was angry and accused us of being lazy, sitting around looking at books. Mamma, though, seemed worried that they might go to jail for not having us in school.

Brian reluctantly consented for us to study and allowed for no more than an hour a day; we had to get as much done as possible in that time.

While we tried to follow the instructions in the books, it was difficult, and we got most of the problems wrong. Unfortunately, our school sessions only lasted about two weeks; Mamma somehow got around the state testing.

We continued to do lessons sporadically in case someone from the state started asking questions or wanted to see our school work. I do not know how much it helped since we were not doing the lessons correctly or regularly.

The last week of October brought snow flurries and a cold north-easterly wind that whistled through the ravine and up the mountains as if it were a herald announcing the arrival of old man winter. I looked forlornly at the flurries and wrapped my thin black blazer tightly around my shoulders.

Even though it was the end of October, the thermometer dropped to the mid-twenties in the early morning hours. A thin layer of ice could be seen on any standing water, and my teeth chattered constantly.

I had low blood pressure and poor circulation, which made me sensitive to the cold. I began developing first-degree frostbite on my hands and feet. The tops of my feet and hands itched terribly, and I scratched them until the skin came off. My feet hurt badly. I put cotton balls on each bloody toe before putting on my thin socks and my thin black canvas shoes. Thankfully, Samantha was not sensitive to cold and did not have to suffer the ridicule from Brian for being a weakling.

One day, Brian and Mamma finally came back with coats and boots that they had bought at the Army surplus store in town. Samantha and I were happy with the long, dark green trench coats that were the same length as our long dresses. They were not very thick, so we improvised by wearing our blazers underneath. The thick, heavy leather boots were great too because we could wear four pairs of socks inside them, and our feet were no longer numb.

Even with the new winter clothes, I could never get warm. The winds that blew across my cheeks and up my dress made my teeth chatter as I went about my daily chores. Up until the snow came, Mamma was unyielding in her rule that Samantha and I take cold baths outside. When the snow started to fall, Mamma started letting us bathe inside. But the house was not much warmer. As the winter grew colder, even Mamma forgot about bathing for a while. It was just too cold. Later, we would start taking showers in town during the cold months at the park. They had showers in the restrooms that took quarters. While this was nice in some ways, after getting out of the shower room the freezing wind would send my teeth chattering uncontrollably.

Later that winter, the sores on my feet covered the top of each toe and were so painful I could not walk. The rough army boots and my constant scratching wore the skin away. When I took my boots off each night, I would painfully pull off the bloody cotton balls and dab each toe with peroxide.

By mid-December, my toes began to get infected. It was a surprise when Mamma took me to the doctor in Wenatchee and we found out that I had frostbite. It was strange, but Mamma liked to go the doctor. Whenever she went to Wenatchee, she would make a random appointment for herself. When she ran out of reasons to go, she started taking me. The visits were free. I would sit fully clothed and silent as the doctors would ask about my upset stomach, headaches, etc. We never followed through with any treatment, but I could tell Mamma loved the attention.

I am still amazed that none of the doctors and nurses tried to get me alone to question me about my odd behavior, but then they could not see the bruises because I was clothed from head to foot.

That winter, however, all ten of my toes were bloody. I am surprised that Mamma was not worried about getting in trouble for her neglect. The Amish act and the clothes served her well and no one seemed to question that I might be abused.

On Sundays in the evenings, Brian read aloud to us. We would sit and listen as he read old books Mamma brought home from the library. We were never allowed to touch these books, and only Brian was allowed to read them to us. His reading was a regular ritual.

Even though we loved stories, we would listen with mixed fear. The slightest thing would set Brian off, and when he switched from one of his supposed nice moods to an angry one, his eyes would become crazy and I often felt I would pass out just from looking at him. These were the most eerie moments—without logic or sense. One minute, he would be reading about the Oregon Trail and laughing about something in the book. His laugh was strange and did not sound like a laugh. Samantha and I would laugh nervously, hoping he would keep reading. Then, out of nowhere, he would see a fork on the table, or he just plain did not like the looks on our faces and he would erupt. Samantha and I would jump up defensively, but we knew if we tried to run, we would get a worse beating once caught.