She Who Must Know

Vickie Riggan

2461 words

                                              She Who Must Know

“Who wants to take a ride into town with me?” Madeline Hunter asked in as bright a voice as she could summon. She knew the answers she would get from her grown children and nearly grown grandchildren. Groans from her two daughters who had dutifully driven her to the old homestead many times in the past. The teenagers would simply ignore her and continue texting and attacking foreign planets or whatever they do in those video games. 

          Taking her car keys from the hook by the door she tried once more, “Free ice cream for riders!” Sarah, the oldest girl who she had named after her mother, groaned loudly, “Please, Mom, why do you need to go visit dead people – especially dead people you never even knew?” Madeline shook her head and walked out to the carport. “One day,” she thought, “I’ll be gone, and they will want to know the stories of where they came from. One day….” she thought as she backed down the driveway and turned her little car west.

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There’s something truly peaceful about the ending of another day. The sun no longer rules the sky, and the moon is shyly hanging in the east waiting for her turn to light up the dark night. Before the darkness falls, before daylight has totally gone away, there is dusk. This is the time of day she prefers to walk among the stones and ask herself the questions she can never know. Her voice is soft, barely audible as if having a private conversation with a close friend on a crowded bus. 

“Did you suffer John? Was it sudden or were there little warning signs of pain that might mean something was seriously wrong that you, like most hardworking men of that time, chose to ignore? When they found you in the field you were unconscious but still breathing, your horse standing obediently at the plow surely wondering why you no longer demanded he carry on. I truly hope you felt nothing.” 

With these words, she brushed her fingers across the top curve of the old limestone and walked on remembering a time when she could actually read the name and date on the old stone. Time and the elements had erased most of the letters leaving little more than some vague indentions, but she knew this was the marker for her grandfather John Hunt who died when her own mother was a small girl. One of the last to be buried here in the old family cemetery. He was laid here in 1914 with only one more grave added after him – his young son James who survived the first war to end all wars only to be struck down by a lightning bolt along the Cumberland River shortly after leaving the army. 

She walked over to James’ marker and traced the faded U.S. Army emblem that barely showed and thought of how sad it would be to lose a child in the prime of his life. Her grandmother Addie had lived on another 40-plus years after her husband and this child, but surely the pain of losing her young son had stayed with her. Then her thoughts turned to the other children who rested here – Mary Francis taken by cholera just before her 9^th birthday, Addie (named for her maternal grandmother?) dead of unknown cause only 3 months and 10 days occupying this world. The thought of the mother’s pain is too hard to hold onto so she moves on. 

Then she crouches beside the one marble stone. Her hands gently stroke the back of the little lamb and sweep away the dust. Little Inez must have been especially dear to Robert and Ursell. Or perhaps there was more money by then to spend on marble.  “I guess I’ll never know,” she thought, gently wiping dust out of the crevices that spelled out the dates – born June 4, 1912, died August 4, 1913. 

There would be other children after Inez who would live on into adulthood and raise children of their own. These children would leave the family farm and move to the big city and when their parents were too old and frail to continue farm life the children brought them to the city to care for them and eventually lay them to rest in a new cemetery there. She wondered aloud here again, “Do you wish your mother was here with you little one? Did she come here to visit with you in the evenings until the day’s light faded making it too hard for her to walk among the stones? I like to think she did.”

The fading light and fear of tripping over the hackberry roots that rose pushing markers out of the tree’s way and making the walk treacherous were now a real concern for her own safety. Even though she was sure of her way around every grave, even the unmarked ones. The waning light at the gate meant it was time to leave. Once again going with so many questions and still no answers. 

The gate swung heavily on its hinges and the metallic scrape of the latch hung in the cool air of the late summer evening. She shook her head as she walked away. She pulled out her phone and turned to take a photo in the dim, late light. A pinging sound alerted her to a post on one of her social media apps and she shook her head. What would they think of today’s propensity for sharing everything? Private diaries replaced by blogs. Baby’s birth and every little step toward adulthood chronicled in posts with pictures online. No secrets taken to the grave anymore. She shoved the phone back in her pocket and walked away.

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A voice with a soft Virginia drawl rose from the far corner of the graveyard. “She was here again. Did you hear her? The same questions every time. You’d think she would get tired of asking them.”  

“Don’t fret yourself over it, Sarah dear. I rather enjoy the company. Not many of our folks come by to visit anymore. If I have to put up with the same questions every time, then so be it. Nice to know that we are not totally forgotten, but I do wish my stone was readable. I was the first you know. Gersham Hunt, son of Col. Jonathon Hunt of North Carolina. Why I traveled a dangerous trail through unsettled territories to stake this claim and turn this wild land into a farm that would provide a home for 5 generations to come.”

Gersham’s wife Sarah tried to hide the irritation in her voice for each time the visitor left she had to listen to this speech.” Yes, dear, I know. I was on the wagon with you along those dangerous trails. And in case you’ve forgotten, I gave birth to the 8 children who made up that next generation. Except of course for our little Mary Frances the others, 3 girls and 4 boys, lived full lives and made us proud.” 

Down the second row a little west of his parents Enoch Hunt rested comfortably beside his beloved Lucy. Though their lives were short he was comforted by the knowledge that he had loved and been loved in return. From his place of eternal rest he had watched generations after him come to bury spouses who were somewhat less bereaved than he thought they should be. But it was not his place to judge he decided long ago. 

Finally, darkness fell and the full moon created shadows across the valley where the little family burial ground lay. The farm was gone now, moved out by the growth of the big city 30 miles away. What was once a day’s ride by wagon was now just a 20-minute drive on the new highways and so more and more people had pushed their way into the countryside. The old log farmhouse that once stood surrounded by fields of corn and tobacco had been replaced by sprawling strip malls and rows upon rows of condos and townhomes. There at the end of one of these townhome communities the little graveyard held its own; surrounded by a new black iron fence and a state historical marker briefly explaining the significance of the farm that once stood on this land and those who had lived their lives there was all the acclaim given to a proud family. 

John Primm Hunt, the man who had died while tilling this very land, finally spoke. “I think we should answer her,” he said.

No one responded.

“She is the only one who seems to really want to know.  She comes here often with her questions. Not just about how we lived but why. So many questions that she seems to need answers for. Why don’t we help her?” he asked his ghostly neighbors. 

“But how can we tell her?” This question came from the soft voice of John’s mother Julia Primm Hunt. “She doesn’t even know I’m here. My stone was made but never placed so no one knows I’m lying here. Yes, I think I would like her to know. But who is she John? How do we know that she will care about what we tell her?

“I don’t know her name for she never tells us about herself. She only brings questions. But something about her face reminds me of one of my daughters, maybe Ruth or little Sarah. It’s her eyes, I think. And the way she holds her mouth while studying the dates on our stones. But I am satisfied that she is the one to know. She came to visit us when the farm still stood and the little road back to us was full of ruts. One summer the tenant farmer didn’t mow around the fence, and she waded in knee-deep weeds full of chiggers to check on us then stopped at the house to give him Hell for not taking care of us. Now that we are here, in the shadows of a growing city, she still comes to visit. So yes, I think she is the one to tell our secrets to.” With that, John grew silent and waited for the others to answer.

Finally, young James spoke about what the others were thinking. ” How will we do it Father? How can we answer her? “

A silence followed his question that seemed it would last for all eternity in a place that knows of eternities on end. The silence was broken by the strong orator’s voice of William Gersham Hunt, grandson, and namesake of that first brave Hunt and father of John. “Yes, son, I think you are right about this woman. She does have that determined set of her mouth much like my mother Lizzie,”

Elizabeth Anne Ogilvie Hunt uttered no remark from beneath her crumbling limestone marker but to herself thought that she liked knowing very much that some part of her lived on through the future generations.

The great orator’s voice broke through the darkening night once more. “We shall have to come together as one spirit to reach her, to cut through the veil between our world and hers. But I believe we can do it if we all work as one. Our combined energies will be stronger, and I believe she will hear us if she is listening for us.”

Multiple voices rang out from behind the stones. “Yes, she will hear us.” “Yes, it will work with her.” “Yes, we must try.”

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Once again, the full moon played at rising into the late afternoon sky. The sun had begun to sink behind the high-rise office buildings to the west and the late October sky was filling with shadows. This was her favorite time of day to visit the old family plot. The traffic noises rose faintly from the interstate highway a few miles from here, but here she listened carefully only to the sounds she knew and found comfort in on her visits. The mockingbirds argue with grackles in the old hackberry trees down by the creek at the end of the road. The metallic click of her car door locking when she clicked the button on the key fob felt silly, but she realized it was a habit of the world she lived in these days. 

These nights, though, she blocked out the modern world around her. These full moon nights were for the world she craved to know more about. It seemed right to be here tonight. Tomorrow would be her birthday. Her 70^th though it hardly seemed possible. But tonight, and all her nights like this, she was an eager young student with an open mind looking for answers, seeking clues. 

The early evening breeze was cool, and the weather forecasters were warning of much cooler temps by Halloween. A thunderstorm passing through the area earlier in the day had brought a front down from the north pushing the temps down with it. The shadows were falling earlier tonight yet somehow the air felt lighter around her as she walked inside closing the gate behind her. A light wind blew across her face like the soft caress of a mother’s hand on her child’s cheek. She pulled her scarf up around her neck to block the breeze. 

She took out her phone to try taking a photo before entering the burial ground. She knew it was silly but the fact that her ancestors were marked by a state historical marker made her proud. All the more reason to strive for the answers she so craved about their lives. She pressed the camera app and lined up the marker with the full moon hanging in the sky behind it and clicked the shutter a couple of times. Then she opened up the photos to see how they turned out. A couple were good, so she wouldn’t delete them. She started to delete the final shot but something stopped her. It wasn’t bad. The sign was readable, and the moon was in focus behind, but she must have some moisture on her lens, she thought. It almost appeared like figures walking among the stones. She lifted the latch that held the old iron gate closed around the garden of her past and walked in leaving the old iron gate to creak and groan softly in the night gusts.

Then she heard it. She was sure she had heard it. Just one word but it was clear and somehow, she knew there would be more. She stood there impatiently waiting with her hand resting on Gersham Hunt’s headstone. There. She heard it again.

Madeline!!!