They Can't Take it All
"Lydia!" I called, "You can’t!" What was I to do? She was in as much anguish as I was. There was nothing we could do to stop the intrusion on our hope this time. I needed to go to her but my legs were listening to the vines of terror. They wouldn’t- couldn’t hear me. The roots of altered reality had already penetrated my brain’s response. We were both watching in horror as the soldiers entered the house and we heard the muffled cries. Cries I would never be able to erase from the tucked corners of my existence. The portals that registered to our brains could only take in the impulses sent to us thru the hazy sunlight. Our eyes are only simply able to take in chemical signals. They never really comprehend what is the necessary steps of all that is to come. It is the brain’s position to embrace, anticipate and calculate. The eyes are merely messengers of this catastrophic injustice. Oblivious, neutral as the dry, carpet of my childhood that I lay on, tinged gold as the summer’s heat dried up the last of moisture in the dying grass. What about John’s childhood? Will he ever be able to roll in the grass again? Carefree and innocent? My heart’s breath beat thru my chest. Words cannot be allowed to come forth. They would validate this moment and I refused to give them that power. I can believe. I can believe. Oh! Lydia knew as I did. Johnny could never come back whole again! They would take him and force a man’s world down his throat and into his pores until he oozed death. No matter if his life would be spared, he would never come back whole. His soul would be sucked from him like the stagnant, fetid, muck that took my boot. I was looking for her, my mare. I heard her soulful cries reverberating thru the sickly shadows of trees all around her. I had to save her. She was our field nanny. The only one who could care for us now. "It’s okay, Jilly" I crooned. She needed to feel safe with me. Her struggling was taking her deeper and tighter wound thru the tangled web of roots and sucking quagmire. I needed to show strength and surety so she would let me lead her to the stones of safety. My boot was a small sacrifice for her life-giving strength. She alone could pull the haymow, the wagon to trade our small meager goods. Even in her uneven gait, her gaunt, protruding shoulders, she was the muscle Lydia and I lacked. Would John-John be their field nanny? He is too small to shoot a musket. Will they hitch him to drag the black death cannons, or worse, chain him to pull their cart of sacrificial lambs? Would he be haunted by the moaning of death already flown from the bits and pieces resembling humanity?
How do I go to her? Lydia will see thru my crooning mask of strength and assurance. I cannot pretend today, this moment, this threshold. "We tried, momma, we hid him well" I moaned. They knew, they found us. We were like rabbits worn from the chase and unable to find the hole down, down to the safe warren. We couldn’t find it and ran past it. We were caught, entangled with briars and given up for a sacrifice. Why couldn’t I have listened better? Oh my baby Jo, you are lost to me! "Lydia I am so sorry; they will take us too! You know that!" I move forward with bitter determination and push her down into the stark grass while a bed of nails pierces our own souls as well as flesh. My strength comes back, "Pray with me," I hoarsely whisper. "Momma said to pray!" The words that surface are dust devils in my throat, not allowing more than a guttural intonation of spectral groanings. God will know what I mean. He must know. He is our only chance of not being seen. God knows I have to release our little 8-year-old lamb.
As we approach the empty shell of a house, I remember the good days. It has been over a year since they came and took Daddy. He barely had time for last minute instructions all for momma. I listened. I was the oldest. I knew momma might not be able to do it all alone. She wasn’t listening. She thought they would care about our God. She thought fervently they would know what the word Quaker was. Our clothes show everyone. Our ways are not theirs. They didn’t care. They needed bodies. Big able bodies. John wasn’t big enough then. John was a child compared to daddy. Now things are different. They need any body. Any body that can pull or push. The dust settles down the road perhaps a mile away. We waited til I knew they would not see us approach the old house. Thank you Lord they didn’t take Jilly. How I wish they would have traded Jilly for John, but she was old and spindly looking. John has grown 4 inches since Daddy was taken. Maybe they didn’t know how old he was? Maybe they didn’t care.
Our hands are encrusted with the dust as we look down, not sure where else to look. We were heading to the creek with buckets, 4 to be exact. I need to remember it all right now. I cannot forget anything. 4 buckets. The troops were with a man I heard be called Major Stewart. I must remember. 4 buckets. I knew they were coming but I was suspecting they would use the road, the woods, looking for deserters. I knew John could run and see Mrs. Randall if anything happened to us. He would be safe. Oh how foolish I was! If only I had made 2 trips and not taken Lydia. I needed 4 buckets today. We didn’t get water yesterday because of the talk at meeting. Elizabeth, my best friend, was saying her pa heard about men in the area, soldiers looking for able bodied males. Oh if momma were back. She had to go and find word of her husband. As far as we knew, the government needed momma to identify a man who had lost his memory. The comrades said his name was Jacob Cobb. Momma had to come now or they would not take care of him anymore. She was only to be gone a week. Now it had been more than a month.
Thankfully the garden was well planted and produced more than we needed or more than we could put up. Going to town helped to buy flour and salt. Soon the fresh green beans, cucumbers, tomatoes and butter squash would be gone. As the cool nights take over, I can plant more spinach and peas, but can I keep going all winter? I need momma home. The other Friends live so far away. It takes nearly an hour to take the wagon to town or even to meeting. Without Jilly, we couldn’t take our produce and eggs to trade twice a week. We have no cow for butter or milk. I am so glad I don’t have to do the milking and straining as well. I can barely keep the home and food as it is. A 12-year-old can only do so much and with Lydia being 10, she is not anymore capable. I am rambling now to Lydia. She doesn’t know I have to. I have to anticipate, calculate or I will melt in despair. I so need Lydia. She pulls me and Little John into the other realm on those candle less nights. Who will tell the stories to John tonight? I hope, I pray there will be another young man with Lydia’s gift to look beyond your nose, your feet, beyond the very breath you take in. There, in another realm of comfort and adventure. I escape there often, to Lydia’s world. On the nights we sit and listen, she would take us away on the ideals of another realm where peace is common not the exception. Heroes are waiting to be needed. I need her like she will never know. She wouldn’t know how many times I went to her realm. It was there I found my strength. I found my humanity. A place where I could truly be all I pretended to be for them.
"Mrs. Randall’s, we need to go there." I blurt out not realizing why the urgency is so real. I had this same urgency this morning. But, then. I misunderstood that one didn’t I? I knew there was danger in this day. The night always has danger, but the day was different. You could see in the day and get a false sense of confidence. I knew something was coming. It woke me earlier than I usually rise. With no rooster, I wake with the sun, but not much earlier. This morning’s dawn had not come yet when I woke. It was as if there had been a mosquito biting me, drawing out my blood while I could do nothing to fend it off. Replacing my vital fluid with a false juice that irritates and swells into discomfort. That was how the dawn came. With an edge of swelling discomfort and an itch that irritated me deeper than I can remember feeling. Was God warning me or preparing me? I am not sure which. What did He want me to do with it anyway? How can a little child fend off this demon dog’s bite and snarl? I woke knowing we needed to get water for the chickens and Jilly. I took Lydia to the creek with 2 buckets and my 2. Surely the house would be safer for our sweet baby John. I knew danger was around in my bones. They shook with fear. Surely I should have left Lydia to watch and I could make 2 trips. But, I thought it might make for a faster effort to make one trip and then we could be watching and ready to spring into the hole in the ground, the hidden cellar so much like a rabbit warren. At the creek I listened. I really listened. But what I heard was the doves cooing above in the peaceful boughs of the willow and cypress and the wind played "tickle me" with the branches and they sighed in answer. I heard the creek gurgling as it chased baby bubbles of life from the crawdads, enjoying the last vestiges of summer. Even the waving grasses bowed their heads to the softly whispering wind as it called to the sun to feed life nourishing rays to this place of serenity. We hurried back but dropped our buckets when we heard the cries ring out. It was slow motion that I heard, no felt it as my gut was being slowly pulled up through the blood as it rose to my ears. We ran, but realized too late. We were too late. They came and took.
Last time they came and took, which is why we don’t have many animals left. The last time they came thru and ravaged our land of able-bodied men and animals, our strong stallion James went with them. Jilly had just foaled last time they came through and took Papa. She was weak and the new colt could not give them much. We had to sell our little Mercy. Born in March, she received a name from Lydia foreshadowing how she would save us. She was sold for precious grain later when we could not plant grain in papa’s absence. Now as the September months draw to a close a year and a half later, I wonder how we will survive. What will we sell? The rooster was taken in the night by a fox or coyote. We never did find which one, but that meant that the chickens could no longer produce fertilized eggs, no new chickens. "We can’t eat them now," Momma said. When they get old we can, but for now they need to make the eggs for eating and selling. We have plenty of land, but it is fallow in hay this year. Papa could plant grain, but I was too little. Those men came and took the other males in our town, so only those with older girls could plant grain.
Now, the itch came back, only this time it said to go see Mrs. Randall. I would not ignore it this time. God will protect us, if I listen to Him. "Lydia, we must hurry to town, now!." We quickly got the water for the very thirsty chickens and took Jilly and a few belongings with us. Enough to wait out the winter if we needed to. If we were not coming back, someone could help us get the chickens later and clean out the garden produce. Mrs. Randall had a young set of twins, a 2-year-old daughter and a 4-year-old son. She would welcome us into her home as helpers and offer us protection as well. We needed to calculate a plan til Momma returns.
