All the Truth That's in Me (22 page)

“My father’s mare led me to it.” The aldermen must lean over their table in order to hear you.
“The horse Judith Finch had brought back from the battle?”
You will not answer this. It doesn’t matter. No one doubts who Phantom is.
The aldermen confer among themselves for a long moment. There is no sound but the shuffling of feet against wood. I watch William Salt bounce up and down on his heels, eyeing me sideways. Go on, tell them you saw me trying to free Lucas last night. But he doesn’t. He doesn’t want to admit that he couldn’t capture a girl.
The aldermen finish their deliberations. “It appears, Lucas Whiting,” Alderman Brown says, “that you were as ignorant of your father’s existence as we were. Therefore the charges of conspiring and concealing him are dropped. However, you stand accused of fornication with Judith Finch. The mute girl. How do you plead?”
The aldermen scowl collectively at the assembly. Someone is chuckling, low.
You’re unsure of what to say. No one would believe you against Gillis’s testimony.
The gavel bangs. “Since you have both refused to answer the charges brought against you, your guilt must be inferred, and your punishment dealt. For fornication you will both spend three hours in the pillory, after which you will be brought to prison. In the morning, Lucas Whiting will be released. Judith Finch, for concealing Ezra Whiting from us, and the knowledge that he had raided the arsenal before destroying it, you are charged with treason and treachery. You are also accused of whoredom. Your sentence will come in the morning.”
The village rises to its feet to the sound of scattered applause and whispers.
Horace Bron’s heavy hands are stronger than chains around my wrist. He looks as if he wishes someone else had his bailiff’s duties at this moment.
He leads me down the aisle. Schoolboys jeer and insult me, and their parents do not stop them. Mother looks away when I pass. Mrs. Robinson shoots hateful darts my way. I can’t shake the sight of Abijah Pratt’s malevolent eyes. I turn back for a last sight of you in your chair, but the crowd spilling from its seats has swallowed you up.

II.

With a heavy hand against the back of my head, Horace pushes me into the pillory. My wrists lie in two grooves in the wood, my neck in the larger center groove, and the upper board drops into place. My feet stand upon the platform, but my back bends awkwardly.

At least it’s a warm day for November, with the sun at its peak in the sky.
If I raise my head I can see the green, the church, the school, the streets and houses. Tall evergreens rim the village, and naked trees whose yellow-brown leaves lie underfoot. Two hundred or so villagers, with children weaving in between their knees, huddle in conversation.
About me.
I let my head drop. The gray boards of the platform fill my vision. The wood beneath my neck constricts my breathing; when I lift my head my back protests.
Horace Bron goes back into the church and returns moments later with you on a lead like a colt. Your face is haggard, unshaven, and bruised. Look at me, Lucas, but don’t see me this way, strung up like a carcass.
You do look at me. Until they stuff you into holes like mine, you look at me, but what is in your eyes, I cannot tell. The upper slab falls down upon you. And now the thick mast that supports the double pillory stands between us. We’re feet apart but we can’t see each other. Only the town can see us, pinned here like hunting trophies.
My wrists grow sore already, and I’ve only been here a quarter of an hour.
Caleb Wills, Dougal’s lanky little brother, grows daring. He scoops up a handful of mud and flings it at me. It splatters on the boards next to me, sprinkling my face. Caleb waits for someone to restrain him, then gleefully scoops another ball. This time his aim is better.
It is some time before I can open my eyes.
I hear the boys’ whoops as they run off. I know they’ll be back.
They return with handfuls of compost. Cabbages and peppers grown weepy with rot. I can smell them before they throw them at me. Foul, corrupted apples and potatoes, still hard enough to sting on impact. Nor are you spared.
They pelt us while their parents gaze on.
Then:
“That’s enough,” Horace Bron roars. All the brats retreat to their mothers’ skirts. All the townsfolk remember work that needs doing. As quickly as it began, it ends, and everyone flaps off to gnaw on our bones from a safer distance.

III.

Horace Bron returns to his smithy, which faces the common. He can work and watch us at the same time.

Still more than two hours remaining, and no relief to anticipate when this is done.
I wonder what the French girl felt, tied to the stake, while her countrymen kindled flames at her feet. Relief, perhaps, that it would soon be over?
My eyes sting with the cold and with the refuse that splashed them.
My back aches.
But not as much as other things.

IV.

We stand. We droop. We stand again.

We twist our necks so the sinews bear some of the head weight, and not our windpipes.
I can’t see you but I feel your movements through the pillory beams.
We don’t speak. What is there to say?

V.

“I’m cold at night,” he said to me one morning. “Unless you want to share my bunk, use those scraps and old things of yours to make me a blanket, since I’ve given you mine.”

I made him a blanket.
He criticized my sewing. Mother would have done the same, I thought. And oh, how I would have loved to hear her do it.

VI.

He didn’t need to lock me in that second night. I was still too frightened by all I’d seen, and by the man who had threatened me, to think of escape. Such thoughts and boldness came later.But he locked me in anyway. He said he had a delivery to make. He took something large, wrapped up in a blanket.

VII.

Lottie was in love. I knew it must be why she had run away. I worried about her, but not like others in town did. I was certain she was alive, hiding somewhere with her fella. I hoped she’d come tell who the boy was. She was sure she’d be married soon. Love brought her no better luck than it has brought me.

VIII.

I picture the dress, dangling from the miller’s hand. So limp and crumpled, faded and devoured. It is strange to me to think that I once envied her that dress. I thought about that even during my years with him. How ironic it was that I had once envied Lottie her two fancy dresses. Much good they did her. Even so, I thought about the brown one, so elegant, nothing like the dress I wore out until he replaced it. Its beauty was long faded.How little do things like dresses truly matter, then or now.

IX.

What was Abijah Pratt doing outside my house with a lantern? Why would he still hate me so? Lottie died long ago.

“Judith.”
The voice seems to come from far away.
“Judith. Are you all right?”
The back of my neck bangs against the top plank of the

pillory.
You. You’re speaking to me.
“Um-hmm,” I answer. “You?”
I can only imagine how you must look in the pillory. “I can think of other places I’d rather be.”
My laugh is weak.
“Not I,” I say. “I love it here.”
You laugh, and for a moment I could forget where we are.

But the laughter dies away, and we’re left no closer. “I’m sorry,” you say.
“Why?”
You aren’t finding words. “For . . .”
“For thinking you mightt love me?”
“What do you mean?” You sound angry.
“Nothing,” I say. “Ssorry.”
Your anger rises. “What?”
“Doesn’t matter, Lucass,” I say. “I’ll be dead by tomorrow noon. Find anyone you will, marry her and raise a dozen babies.”

“What do you
mean
, you’ll be dead by tomorrow noon?” I rotate my head from side to side, searching for a comfortable spot. “They won’t restt until they can blame someone for Lottie.” Oh no, don’t cry now! “Now that I’m a wantton and a whore, I’m no loss.”

All I can hear is the sound of your breathing. Supper smells begin to drift from village chimneys.
“Judith.”
“Mm?”
“Judith. Listen to me.”
Something in your voice stops me from ranting more. “I am.”
“I love you.”
Oh, help.
“Since I was a boy I’ve loved you. Do you believe me?”
I’m waylaid by tears that aren’t from the cold. And I have no way to wipe them off my nose.
Your voice is warm and loving. “I need you to believe me.”
I sniffle. “I do.”
“Good,” you say. Your voice changes. “Then I’m going to tell them that I did help my father abduct Lottie Pratt.” “No!”
Horace Bron looks up from his anvil across the way. “No,” I repeat with more control.
“I’ll do it,” you say. “And you will go free.”
“No I won’t,” I cry. “They won’t let me go free.”
You are silent for a time. “Then, if not that, when they release me I’ll find a way to rescue you.”
“Oh? And then whatt?”
“Then we’ll ride away on Phantom and start our life together.” You sniff. The cold has congested you. “Maybe we can find my mother.”
Oh, my dear. You still think of her. Of course you do.
“Why do you sound reluctant?” you ask. “Don’t you love me?”
Let me not weep any longer. Not in this place.
“Lucass,” I say, “would you love me if your father had . . . forssed himself upon me?”
You do not hesitate. “Yes,” you say, bravely and well. I pause to savor what this means.
“And if I’d . . . forssed myself upon you, that night in the woods?” I almost smile, imagining your discomfiture.
“Yes,” you say, not without embarrassment.
I can barely bring myself to say these words. “And if I had triedd to sedusse Rupertt Gilliss?”
You’re quiet a long time. “I would still love you,” you say slowly, “but it would be hard to overlook that.”
I’m pilloried in the center of town, torn and tattered, and smiling. The sun begins its descent in the sky, and I’m chilled to the bone, but I’m happy. I wait for a gawking child to pass before I speak.
“Would you believe me,” I ask, watching up and down the street for anyone to come by, “if I said none of it happened?”
How I wish I could see your face.
In the west, clouds pile on the horizon. The air grows colder.
Blood’s not flowing to my fingers properly anymore.
“None of it?”
“None.”
At first I assume you’re pondering this, until I feel the pillory boards shaking.
You’re crying! “My . . . father didn’t hurt you?”
There is no need for me to protect you from him anymore.
“He cutt out my tongue. But he never forssed me.” This word is the one good thing I’ve gotten from knowing Rupert Gillis.
Your crying dries up. “Then he did this to you.”
“He was inssane, Lucass,” I say. “He said it was to protect me. He also said it when he first took me away.”
“Protect you from what?” you ask.
I am not sure how to answer this question. I have never been sure. “It was a disstortion,” I say. “A lie. His great fear was being discovered. He said my ssilence would protectt me, but it only protectted him.”
This troubles you for a time. I understand.
“And the schoolmaster?” you ask.
This question angers me, and I don’t try to hide it. And the ache in my back is now a stabbing pain. “Lucass. Am I a whore?”
“No.” At least you sound sure of yourself.
I must be strict with you. You’ve insulted my judgment. “How couldh I
ever
favor Rupertt Gilliss?”
I hear you chafing against the neck opening of the pillory. “He’s so . . . educated. Good with books and speaking. Someone like you would fancy that.”
I am too shocked to reply well. I laugh out loud. “Is
that
what you think?”
“Well, isn’t that why you went to school?”
Incredible.
I think of Gillis’s ruler stinging my hand. “I wentt to learn. And help Dharrel.” You sniff some more. I still can’t believe it. “You thoughtt I wentt to be near
Gilliss
?”
You actually thought so! And you’re piqued with me, even.
You clear your throat. “When Mother left, she . . .” This is painful for you. “Her beau was a scholar. Aiming to teach.”

X.

The church bell strikes the hour. Two o’clock. We have another hour to go. I’m cold in every place I can be cold. I wonder if I’ll last the hour. Yet it cannot end. These will be my last moments with you.

You spoke of escape, but you’re as bone-weary and famished as I am.
How will they kill me? I wonder. Stoning? Hanging? No such thing has happened in Roswell Station in my lifetime.
“Judith,” you say, “did you speak truly when you told me that my father had not killed Lottie Pratt?”
What I’d give to rub my neck. “I never liedh to you, Lucass.”
I see a speck approaching slowly on the long westward road, coming from the direction of your house and mine. What used to be mine. I watch it move to pass the time.
It’s Goody Pruett, carrying something in a basket. The sun moves faster across the sky than poor Goody can walk down the road.
“Then how did he come to have her dress in his house?”
I’d been wondering that myself. There must have been something confused in my memory. When he brought her body to the house, and then, when he took her to the river . . .
Goody Pruett approaches and crosses the common to where we are. When she tries to climb the steps to the platform, Horace Bron sees her and runs out to help her up.
“What is it, Mrs. Pruett?” he asks.
“Got soup for them,” she says. “They’re spent, and it’s much too cold to stand still this long. They need something to warm their bellies.”
The smell of the soup reaches my nostrils, and my mouth fills with water. Bless Goody Pruett forever. I watch Horace, anxious at what he might say. He says nothing, though. Only looks on as she unwraps the cloth around her kettle of soup.
“Carry on, then,” Horace says, jumping down off the platform. “Holler at me when you’re ready to come down, and I’ll fetch you.” He walks away.
“Thank you, Goodhy,” I say.
She eyes me sharply. “So you
can
talk.”
I nod my head. Soup! Give me the soup!
She eyes me appraisingly. “Sound a bit garbled, but it’s speech. I’ll be darned.” She clamps the kettle of soup to her side and dips a large spoon in. She tips the spoon against my lips and warm chicken broth flows in.
I know you’re next to me, just as famished, but I slurp the broth hungrily, as fast as she can give it to me, until I feel the warmth inside me. Then I can close my lips when she offers more. “Now Lucass,” I say.
She shuffles over to where you are. It’s maddening to watch her arm raise the spoon and hear you drink, but not see your face.
“So are you sweet on her?” she asks you. Always direct, our Goody.
You gulp your soup. “Yes, ma’am.”
“And why not?” She leans back to look at me. “And you’re sweet on him?”
I feel my face flushing. I’m in the stocks, and
this
embarrasses me? “I am.”
She feeds you another bite. “Course you are. You’d be a fool not to be. Goody Pruett was a girl once herself! Always told your mother you were no fool. Clever little slip of a thing you were. Didn’t say much, but took everything in with those big cow eyes of yours.”
Cow eyes. It’s fitting.
She gives you more soup, then returns for a second course for me.
“So what Goody wants to know is why you didn’t speak up for yourself in there. Because something’s not right about this. That’s plain as turnips. Something ain’t right, and why didn’t you say so?”
I’m at a loss. My reasons seem less clear to me now.
“They’dd never believe me,” I say.
She scrapes the kettle. “You don’t know that.”
“Not even my mother believes me.”
She gives you the last scrapings. I’m full now.
“Ah,” she says, “there’s a heartbroken woman for you. Loved your father like nothing Goody’s seen. There’s no justice in this world, the things that happen to people.”
Father. I remember the way Mother’s eyes watched him. Like she could never get enough. She spent her life loving him, like I’ve spent mine loving you.
Goody stoops to pack up her things. She stands with her basket on her arm. “So, now, Judith Finch,” she says. “What does Goody Pruett do to help you?”