The Sound of Silence
By: Rona Y.
For
Helen – thanks for the idea!
He was choking, the noose
tightening round his neck, cutting off his air. Joe tried to drag air in
through his nose, but it didn’t seem to reach his lungs. Oh God, I don’t want to die! Joe thought, as the world began to go
black at the edges.
With a start, Joe
Cartwright jerked awake and sat upright, gasping for breath, his mouth open in
a silent scream. It took a second for his eyes to register that the darkness he
was seeing was just normal night time, not the darkness of impending
unconsciousness. He was safe, alive and at home in his own bed. Joe gulped and
dragged in a deep breath, trying to calm the erratic hammering of his heart.
Hitching himself back on
the bed so that he was supported by the headboard, Joe closed his eyes for a
moment. He desperately wanted someone to come in and talk to him, but he knew
that wouldn’t happen. The nightmares about his recent near-hanging were
persistent, but none of the family knew about them, because Joe had no voice
with which to scream. The noose that had been round his neck had bruised his
throat so badly that Joe might never talk again. And with the broken ankle and
gunshot wound that he had sustained at the same time, Joe could not go and waken
his father, much as he wanted to.
As the sweat began to dry
on his body, Joe shivered. He was reluctant to lie down and go to sleep again.
He knew all too well that the nightmare lurked just beyond the boundaries of
sleep. Again and again Joe relived the moment when he was shoved up the
scaffold steps, tripping over the leg irons he had been forced to wear. Then
the temporary sheriff, McGuire, had removed the irons, tying his legs tightly
together, snugging the noose around his neck and gagging him. And it was then
that the worst of the nightmare began, if the beginning hadn’t been bad enough;
no, it was then that McGuire admitted – only to Joe - raping and murdering
Joe’s girlfriend, Suzanne, and then framing Joe for the crime. Fighting
desperately against the bonds that held him captive, Joe had seen with relief
his brothers arriving with the witness who would prove his innocence. And that
was the exact moment the sheriff opened the trapdoor and Joe plunged down,
down, and started to choke.
In reality, Joe had been
hanged for no more than a few seconds – but in the nightmare, Joe wasn’t
rescued. Dropping his head into his hands, Joe blinked back a rush of tears. When would this nightmare end? he wondered despairingly. Would he be able to sleep properly when – if – he got his voice back?
Throwing his head back, Joe felt his throat gingerly. It had only been
three days since it happened, and his throat was still sore to the touch and swallowing
anything more substantial than liquid was beyond him. The cast was heavy on his
broken ankle, weighing him down and trapping him in the bed. His shoulder,
where he had been shot, throbbed.
With a silent groan, Joe
decided to lie down again, because he was becoming chilled. He wasn’t wearing a
nightshirt, as he usually did, because the material irritated the wound on his
shoulder and he could feel the cool night air against his smooth, bare chest.
He was fighting with the
blankets when his door suddenly opened and Joe winced away from the unexpected
influx of light. “Joe?” said his father’s deep, reassuring voice. “Are you all
right?”
No,
I’m not all right! The words were there, but Joe couldn’t get them to
come out. He tried to smile and shrug, but he couldn’t manage that either. The
despair and frustration he felt were too deep to allow him to lie and he simply
shook his head.
But Ben hadn’t needed Joe
to speak to know that his son was not all right. The look on Joe’s face told
him everything he needed to know. He hurried across to the bed and sat down,
putting the lamp on the bedside table. “Was it a nightmare?” he asked, quietly.
Glumly, blinking back the
betraying tears, Joe nodded. He opened his mouth to try and tell Ben about it,
but nothing happened. Glancing round, Joe saw that the pad he had been using to
write on wasn’t on his bedside table. He started to sign to his father, then remembered that Ben didn’t know more than the basics of
sign language and the basics wouldn’t cover this conversation.
Almost as distraught as his
son, Ben did the only thing he could and reached out to draw Joe into a
comforting embrace, much as he had done when Joe was younger and had wakened from
a nightmare. “It’s all right, Joe,” he soothed. “It’s just a dream; you’re safe
and its over.”
With his head nestled on
his father’s shoulder, Joe allowed the tears to fall. He didn’t usually mind if
he cried – Joe’s emotions were always close to the surface – but right now he
felt as though all he wanted to do, all day every day, was cry and he despised
himself for this perceived weakness. It didn’t occur to Joe that he had almost
died three days before and suffered a huge amount of trauma and he was
perfectly entitled to cry. In fact, it was good for him. Stifling his feelings
so as not to worry his family had been the worst thing he could do.
And once the tears started
to fall, Joe discovered that he couldn’t stop them. He cried on and on,
silently, with just his shuddering breaths punctuating the night. Ben rocked
him as he had done on many an occasion in the past, murmuring wordless sounds
of comfort and love.
At length, the release of
the tension – at least temporarily – exhausted Joe and he slid into sleep,
still leaning against Ben’s shoulder. Gently, Ben laid Joe back on his pillows
and it was only then, with Joe safely asleep, that Adam and Hoss came into the
room. Adam drew back the blankets and arranged the fireguard over the plastered
foot, so that the weight of the covers didn’t rest on it directly and then made
sure that no drafts could get in. While he did that, Hoss tucked the covers
around Joe’s bare shoulders, careful to avoid touching the still-sore shoulder.
Ben stretched, realising that he was stiff from sitting still so long.
When they were all out in
the hall once more, Ben glanced at his older sons. “How long were you there?”
he asked.
“Right from when you went
in,” Adam replied. “I heard you going into Joe’s room and I just came to make
sure you didn’t need anything. And then…”
“I came,” Hoss filled in,
although that wasn’t what Adam had been going to say, and Ben well knew it.
Adam was the polar opposite of Joe. Where the younger man was tempestuous,
impulsive, loving and demonstrative, Adam preferred to keep his emotions in
check and private. He loved just as deeply, but he just didn’t show it as
obviously. Adam had been embarrassed to realise that his brother was crying,
although Adam had shed enough tears in his time. Only rarely
had Ben been there to help him through those times, although that was Adam’s
choice, not Ben’s.
“What made you go in?” Adam
asked, deciding that it was better not to mention the tears. “I didn’t hear
anything.”
Sighing Ben made a face.
“As if he could have called,” he mentioned sadly. “I just decided to check on
him before I went to sleep.”
“Was it a nightmare?” Hoss
asked, his genial face lined with worry.
“Yes,” Ben sighed. “And
there wasn’t even a pad of paper by his bed so he could tell me about it.” He
glanced at Adam. “Tomorrow, we’re going to make sure that there’s pencil and
paper scattered all over the house, but especially by his bed, as Joe won’t be
getting up for a few days.” He smiled. “Now, off you go to bed, both of you.
Its late and you’ve got an early start tomorrow.”
“Night, Pa,” they chorused
and obediently went off to bed, as did Ben. But it was quite some time before
any of them slept.
******************************
When he awoke the next
morning, Joe was quite surprised to find he had slept soundly and without any
dreams he could remember. Stretching cautiously, he examined the sunlight on
the walls of his room and decided that it was about
Wriggling into a more
comfortable position, Joe felt his stomach rumble. He wondered how on earth he
was going to attract anyone’s attention to let them know that he was awake and
hungry. Opening his mouth, he tried to speak, but not a sound emerged.
Frustration welled in his
chest and Joe looked around for something to throw, something that would smash and
make a satisfying sound, but there was nothing within easy reach, not even a
glass of water. He could have lobbed his pillows across the room, but then he
would be uncomfortable and they wouldn’t make any noise. Joe was filled with
the desire to hear some noise.
Another desire made itself
apparent to Joe and he sighed before starting the awkward fight with the
blankets so he could slide carefully out of bed to make use of the chamber pot.
The fireguard was great at keeping the covers off his foot, but he found it a
devil of a job to manoeuvre a plaster cast around. He had reached the tricky
stage of leaning on his good arm and trying to reach the covers with his bad
arm when the door opened and Ben came in.
“Let me help you, son,” he
smiled and deftly removed the covers and helped Joe to stand on one leg.
With his bladder empty, Joe
felt much better. He sat on the side of the bed while Ben took away the chamber
pot and eyed his cast ruefully. There was a crutch leaning in the corner of his
room, but until his shoulder healed, Joe wouldn’t be able to use it. He gently
prodded his shoulder and winced. It still hurt – well, it had only been 4 days.
An appetising aroma
preceded Ben into the room and Joe’s stomach rumbled again. He was dying to eat
something solid, but he knew there was no way he could do that. Swallowing was
a painful experience and when he had tried to eat some bread the day before, he
had almost choked trying to get it down.
Laying the tray on Joe’s
dresser, Ben helped him back into bed and made sure he was comfortable before
putting the tray on Joe’s lap. Steam rose from the bowl of soup and Joe decided
that it was chicken soup, from the smell. And lying next to the bowl was a pad
of paper and a pencil. Joe looked up at Ben with a smile.
“I’m sorry it wasn’t there
last night, Joe,” Ben apologised. “I’ve got paper ready for you everywhere
you’ll need it.” Joe smiled his thanks
and started to eat the soup; it was chicken. “And once you’re finished eating,
if you feel up to it, your brothers will bring you downstairs for a while. Does
that sound all right?”
Not to be stuck in his room
alone? That sounded more than all right to Joe. He nodded vigorously and
mouthed ‘thanks’. Ben smiled. “Well, eat up every drop of that soup, son,
although by the way your stomach was rumbling, I don’t think that’s going to be
a problem. Would you like to have your coffee downstairs?”
Again, Joe nodded.
Initially, the hot soup had felt very uncomfortable as it slid down his throat,
but now he’d had a few mouthfuls, his throat wasn’t as sore. Joe wondered if he
could manage to eat anything more substantial and then he found a tiny bit of
chicken and nearly choked to death and discarded the notion.
“All right?” Ben asked,
worriedly. He hated to see Joe like this. The ugly bruise on his neck was
merging into the rope burn and it looked extremely painful.
Sighing, Joe nodded,
although he wasn’t really. Picking up the pad he wrote, I’m just tired of this, Pa,
that’s all.
“I understand,” Ben assured
him. Smiling, Joe continued to eat, not telling Ben that he didn’t really
understand. Joe could not remember a time when Ben had ever been completely
unable to talk. Joe was not sure how he was going to face an entire life like
this, if the worst happened and he never recovered his voice.
***********************
The trip downstairs did
much to lift Joe’s spirits, as his brothers kidded him heavily the whole time
they were carrying him down, threatening to drop him and then complaining
loudly about how heavy he was. Joe wished he could kid them back, but by the
time he was able to write down his repartee, the conversation had moved on and
the retort had lost its impact.
After lunch – beef broth this
time – Joe fell asleep for a while and wakened, once more out of the same
familiar nightmare. He sat up abruptly and almost fell off the sofa. He glanced
round the room, trying to calm himself and saw that Ben was nowhere in sight.
Panicked, Joe pushed off
the blanket and started to rise, forgetting for a moment how onerous a chore
that now was. He made it halfway to his feet when a wave of dizziness struck
and Joe lost his precarious balance and fell to the floor. He let out a grunt
of pain as the impact reverberated through his injured body.
Panting, Joe forced himself
to relax before he attempted to get up. He tried to use both arms to push
himself up using the table for support, but his right shoulder wasn’t having
any of it. Sitting back onto the floor, Joe sighed. He would have to do it the
hard way, then!
He’d made it as far as his
knees and was wondering how on earth he was going to manage to get back onto
the sofa when Ben’s voice called, “Joe!” Moments later, his father’s warm hands
were helping him up and back onto the sofa, where Joe lay back against the
cushions and allowed his father to lift his legs up for him. “Are you all
right?” Ben demanded, seeing how pale Joe was. “What happened?”
Opening his mouth, Joe
abruptly remembered that he couldn’t talk and made a motion for a pencil. Ben
obliged at once and Joe quickly scribbled down his tale. He lay back, watching
Ben’s face as his father read the note and saw Ben’s annoyance that he had been
out of the room when Joe needed him. Swiftly, Joe reclaimed the pad.
Pa, you can’t always be there for me, he wrote. I just forgot that I couldn’t
get up, that was all. I just wanted to get away from the dream. I’m fine.
“All right,” Ben nodded. He
patted Joe’s hand. “Doc Martin should be here in a little while.” Joe made an
expressive face and Ben laughed. “That’s quite enough, young man,” he scolded
Joe gently.
Unrepentant, Joe made
another face and stuck out his tongue. Then he grinned. Ben grinned back. “Do
you want something to eat? Or a cup of coffee or hot
chocolate?”
Joe nodded and Ben cursed,
for in asking three questions with yes or no answers in quick succession, he
had no idea what Joe was agreeing to. “Something to eat?” he asked and Joe
shook his head. “Coffee?” A nod.
“Coffee it is then. Are you sure you wouldn’t like chocolate?” He all but
slapped himself then, for he had done it again.
Realising, Joe forced
himself to see the humour in the situation. Snatching the pad back, he wrote coffee.
“Coffee it is,” Ben smiled.
“Don’t worry, Joe, I’m sure I’ll get the hang of this soon.”
Still smiling, Joe watched
his father disappear into the kitchen and then the smile faded and he closed
his eyes. The tears burned behind his closed lids as he hoped fervently that
his father wouldn’t have to get the hang of anything soon.
The coffee was just
arriving as Paul Martin came in. He took a cup gratefully and sat making
chit-chat with Ben while he drank it. Joe felt quite excluded. Several times,
he had a witty retort on the tip of his tongue, but before he could make a grab
for the pad, the conversation had moved on.
At last, Paul started to
examine Joe, asking him questions that he could answer with either a nod or
shake of his head. Joe winced several times as Paul gently felt his throat and Joe
wondered if he would develop an aversion to things around his neck. Certainly,
when Paul had his hands there, it was all Joe could do not to flinch away. He
felt quite sick, too and wondered if anyone had ever thrown up over the doctor.
The thought almost made him smile.
“Joe, you’ve got a big
swelling on your voice box,” Paul said at last. “We call it a haematoma. I
hope, once it has gone, that your voice will come back, but I’m afraid that I
can’t promise. I don’t know if the voice box itself has been damaged, or if
it’s just the pressure from the swelling that is preventing you talking. But in
the meantime, here’s something to keep you all busy of an evening. Joe, you
know most of this as it is.” He dropped a book into Joe’s lap and Joe
recognised the sign language book he had used to teach Ann Croft. “That should
help speed up communications a bit, once the others have learned it.”
Grinning, Joe signed thanks, doctor, and began to thumb though
the pages, stopping every now and then when a familiar sign caught his
attention. Ben looked over at Paul and met his eyes. “Thank you,” he said,
softly. Paul nodded.
“You’re welcome,” he
replied, equally softly.
******************************
It wasn’t as simple as
that. While Joe knew the signs, and just needed to familiarise himself with
them again, the others were learning from scratch. Ben spent quite a bit of
time poring over the book, but Adam and Hoss were only at home during the evening
and one book between them didn’t seem to be working. Joe would start off
signing something enthusiastically, then remember that
the others didn’t know what he meant and he would allow his hands to drop. As
well as that, his family weren’t always looking at him, so he could sign
something and they wouldn’t see, and Joe realised that even if Ben had known
signing that afternoon, it wouldn’t have helped him, as Joe had really needed
to shout to get his father’s attention. At the realisation that his difficulties
weren’t really over at all, Joe sank back into despondency.
At length, Ben noticed that
Joe was looking fed up. “Joe? Are you all right?” Joe nodded, figuring that it
would be too much trouble to either sign or write down what was wrong. “Are you
tired?” Again, Joe nodded, for he was tired – tired of being unable to speak,
tired of being unable to get around under his own power. “Would you like to go
to bed?” Ben asked and Joe nodded for a third time.
“Let’s go then,” Adam
declared cheerfully. Joe strangled a desire to thump his brother for his
unwonted cheerfulness. “And then I can come down and do some intensive study on
this book.”
Smiling, Joe realised that
they were trying. He nodded again, and wondered if his head would come loose,
with all the nodding and shaking he had done recently. An added problem was
that his head felt really heavy on top of his neck and Joe had to make a
conscious effort to hold it up. He guessed that the muscles had been damaged by
the noose, too. It wasn’t a pleasant thought.
By the time he had been
carried upstairs and Ben had helped him remove his clothes, Joe was exhausted.
He allowed Ben to fuss with his bed covers, adjusting the fireguard and making
sure there were no drafts to plague Joe during the night. He was drifting on
the outer fringes of sleep as Ben leant over to brush a kiss over his brow. Joe
smiled sleepily and squeezed Ben’s hand. “Good night, son,” Ben whispered and
watched as Joe slid into a deeper sleep.
****************************
Choking – oh lord, he was
choking! Someone help me! Joe
screamed silently against the gag. He fought the bonds that held him, to no
avail. His legs were bound together and his hands were tied behind his back and he was going to die!
With a gasp that
masqueraded as a scream, Joe jolted awake, his heart racing and his breath
sobbing in his ears. He had become entangled in the blankets and they were
twisted around his legs, holding him tightly, amplifying his fear.
Freeing his hands, Joe
managed at last to tug the covers loose and sank back in relief. He was shaking
like a leaf and his heart beat still hadn’t slowed down. I want these dreams to stop, Joe thought. He forced himself to take
deep, calming breaths and at last felt his body respond. His tense muscles
gradually loosened.
I
can’t go on like this, Joe thought, washing his shaking hands over his
face. I’ll go mad if I don’t get some
real sleep soon. He closed his eyes, but sleep was far away. He shivered,
suddenly cold and pulled the covers up to his shoulders and then discovered
that his feet were sticking out and getting cold.
Heaving a sigh of
resignation, Joe sat up and tried to arrange the blankets so that his feet were
covered, but he couldn’t manage to get the blankets settled properly over the
fire guard. He struggled on, cursing silently, becoming more and more
frustrated. Eventually, Joe gave up and resigned himself to having cold feet.
He lay for a long time,
staring into the darkness, forcing himself to think of the comforting things that
meant home to him. Gradually, this had the effect of calming him enough that he
slipped into sleep once more.
***************************
“Joe isn’t sleeping
properly,” Ben told Paul, twisting his hat between his hands. “He looks
dreadful.” He glanced up at Paul. “And when the nightmares come, he can’t even
call to us.”
“I should have thought of
this before,” Paul commented. “I’m sorry, Ben. Joe is bound to have
nightmares.” He scribbled on his pad. “Give him this at night, Ben and he
should sleep better. Once he’s back in the habit of sleeping all night, you can
give him less and less until he’s not getting any at all, and that should
help.”
“Thank you, Paul,” Ben
replied, gratefully.
“Apart from that, how is
he?” Paul asked. It had been several days since he had seen Joe. “Any sign of
his voice coming back yet?”
“No,” Ben replied, his
voice low and his tone depressed.
“It’s only been a week,”
Paul sighed. “And I’m in uncharted territory here, Ben. I’ve never dealt with
something like this before.” He rose and walked with Ben to the door. “How’s
the sign language coming along?”
“Slowly,” Ben admitted. “I
understand a few words, and so does Hoss. Adam is getting on better than we
are, but that’s no help when he’s out during the day.” Ben made a wry face.
“But we’ll get there.”
“Of course you will,” Paul
encouraged him. He didn’t like to say that Ben, Hoss and Adam might have the
rest of their lives to practice.
But that thought had
already occurred to Ben.
*******************************
As he came slowly awake,
Joe realised that he had slept all through the night, with no dreams that he
could remember at all. It was only as he became aware of the niggling headache
that he understood why he had slept all night; he had had a sleeping potion.
Normally, that knowledge
would have sent Joe into a tearing rage, furiously denouncing his father for
tricking him, informing Ben curtly that he was a big boy now and able to deal
with any nightmares that came his way. Then, he would storm out of the house
and slam the door behind him before jumping on Cochise and having a good gallop
to relieve his hurt feelings.
But after his first
peaceful night’s sleep in more than a week, Joe wasn’t going to quibble with
the methods used to gain such rest. He hated feeling ‘hung over’ the morning
after taking a sleeping draught, but that seemed a small price to pay for the
dreamlessness.
In fact, Joe was so quiet
that day that Ben wondered if the sleeping draught was such a good idea. Joe didn’t
lose his temper even once and ‘said’ almost nothing. It was almost as though
the drug was still in his system, and Joe was tranquilised. In a way, it was.
Joe had almost forgotten what it felt like to sleep for more than a few short
hours at a time, and hadn’t realised how tired he had become. The previous
night, he had slept for nearly 12 hours and was feeling more at peace with
himself than he had for a long time – not since the whole nightmare began.
When Hoss and Adam returned
that evening, Joe even found a little of his old sparkle, mischievously teasing
Adam by sign language for a few minutes. However, Hoss, who had followed the
start of the signed conversation, had lost the thread half way through by
looking away and the jokes weren’t as funny when they had to be repeated.
Despite his misgivings, Ben
once more doctored Joe’s after supper coffee and it wasn’t long before his
youngest indicated that he was tired. Ben knew that Joe had been grieving for
Suzanne, his murdered girlfriend, and that had tired him out, too. But the
thing that really tired Joe was the depressing thought that he might never
regain his ability to speak. What was he going to do then?
**************************
As Joe’s shoulder healed,
he was allowed to go about on crutches and he was soon venturing out to the
corral and barn. To begin with, this
cheered Joe up a bit, but an overheard conversation between two ranch hands
stole the joy out of this small progress and plunged him straight into
free-fall.
“I hear Joe ain’t never
gonna speak agin,” Dusty told Slim.
“I heard that it ain’t
really his throat what was damaged,” Slim replied, unaware of Joe’s presence
outside the barn door. “I was told that he ain’t right in the head. That’s why
he’s been kept locked up in the house. They was makin’ sure he wasn’t gonna
hurt nobody.”
The bang of the door on the
side of the barn made both cowboys flinch violently and they looked round,
shocked rigid. Joe was standing in the doorway, his green eyes blazing. Words
weren’t really necessary, although they were pounding away inside Joe’s
head. He opened his mouth, in the hope
that the words would come, but they didn’t. Impotently, Joe debated throwing a
crutch at them, but he knew that would just confirm the rumours.
But luckily, Joe wasn’t
alone, although he hadn’t realised that. Adam was in the hayloft, checking over
the number of bales of hay and estimating how many he would need to have
brought up to restock. Frozen with horror as he heard the men giving voice to a
couple of the scurrilous rumours that were circulating round Virginia City,
Adam got almost as big a shock as the men when the barn door banged open.
Seeing Joe’s set face and
blazing eyes, Adam decided to step in. “As you can see,” he began sternly,
causing the men to jump again, “my brother is completely in his right mind.” He
climbed down the ladder. His anger made him want to jump down, but common sense
told Adam that it might be a dramatic movement, but it was also fool-hardy.
“But you two clearly aren’t. Come over to the house and I’ll give you your
wages, because you are both fired!”
Spluttering indignantly,
the men glanced from one brother to the other and their protests died unvoiced.
Both Cartwrights exuded dark menace and neither of the
unfortunate cowhands wanted to provoke them any further. Death seemed quite
preferable at that moment to facing an enraged young Cartwright.
As he stepped past Joe,
Adam rested his hand briefly on his younger brother’s shoulder, but there was
no comfort he could give. Joe wasn’t stupid. He knew where those rumours had
come from and he suspected that it wouldn’t be the last time he would hear
about it either. Tears burned in his
eyes, but Joe refused to let them fall. He did throw a crutch into the recesses
of the barn, but regretted his impulse at once, when he had difficulty
retrieving it. Mercifully, by the time he had done that and made it back inside
the house, Slim and Dusty were gone.
*********************************
As they often were, the
rumours were persistent. Slim and Dusty served as an example to the rest of the
cowhands and they were careful not to repeat any of them where they might be
overheard, but that didn’t stop the townsfolk. As the story was passed on from
person to person, it became embellished and before long, there was even a
suggestion that Joe was guilty of Suzanne’s murder and that he had, in turn,
framed the temporary sheriff.
When this rumour reached
the ears of Roy Coffee, the usual sheriff, he took steps to deal with it and sent
away the rumour-monger with a sore ear. McGuire had been taken away for trial
and
*********************************
Although Joe went out daily
to spend time with Cochise, he had become much quieter again after the incident
with Slim and Dusty. He abandoned his attempts to communicate in sign language,
because the only one who was making much progress with it was Adam. Part of
that was Adam’s determination to learn, and he tended to hog the only book they
had, thus making it more difficult for Hoss and Ben to do any learning. Part of
it was that neither Hoss nor Ben was willing to admit, even to themselves, that
Joe might not talk again.
There was progress. The
swelling in Joe’s throat was slowly going down and he was able to eat small
pieces of solid food, which was a considerable relief. Even allowing for Hop
Sing’s talents, there is only so much soup a person can eat before getting
tired of it. A big juicy steak was still beyond Joe, but at least he could
manage mince.
On Paul’s advice, Ben had
drastically reduced the sleeping draught in Joe’s coffee each night, and
thankfully, the nightmares stayed away. Joe was still taciturn, his notes to
the family scribbled and almost illegible, short and to the point.
What
am I going to do if I never speak again? Joe asked himself, daily.
He knew that there were certain jobs on the ranch that he could still do – he
could still break horses, although he liked to think that speaking was an
integral part of his success. A soothing word was often enough to give a horse
encouragement. But going on a round-up or cattle drive was clearly going to be
out. It was essential to be able to shout to warn of danger, or a straying cow.
He wouldn’t be giving many orders, he reflected. Would he be stuck with doing
the books all the time? To someone with as restless a nature as Joe, a desk job
just seemed like the worst thing he could imagine.
How
much more time do I give myself before I have to make some kind of decision? Joe wondered.
His impatient nature demanded a decision at once, but another part of Joe told
him that it was too soon. He was still recuperating. At length, he made a sort
of decision. I’ll wait until my ankle is
better, Joe thought. Then, I’ll
decide.
As he lay down to sleep, he
couldn’t help but wonder if he could bring himself to leave his home.
***************************
A day or two later, Joe was
slowly making his way down stairs for supper. He was no more than a step or two
from the top when the door opened to admit Ben, Adam and Hoss. He waved and
forced a smile, and continued to watch as they called a greeting to him and
began to take off their gun belts. This was the time Joe hated most. This was
when he would have to listen to them discussing what they had done all day and
he would have nothing to contribute to the conversation. Absently, caught in
his despairing thoughts, Joe moved the crutch down to the next step, without
looking at what he was doing, and missed the step entirely.
With his balance gone, Joe
groped wildly for the banister with his other hand and missed. He felt a shriek
torn from his throat as he toppled down the stairs, to land with a thud in a
crumpled heap on the landing.
“Joe!” Ben leapt across the
room and knelt by Joe’s side. “Joe, are you all right?” he asked, seeing blood
on his son’s face where he had hit it on the railing of the landing.
He was appalled when Joe
began to laugh. Joe laughed so hard that he was soon gasping for air, mopping
at the blood running from his nose, coughing and choking.
“Joe?” Ben exchanged
wordless glances with his other sons, wondering if Joe had somehow hurt himself
very badly.
Still laughing, Joe grasped
Ben’s arm. Suddenly, his laughter died and changed into a hiccup, which caught
on a sob. “I’m laughing,” he whispered. “I shouted when I fell. I can talk
again.”
It was as though a dam had
burst. Joe talked seemingly without a pause as he was picked up and carried
over to the couch. After a time, his voice grew tired and Joe fell silent, but this
time he had no fears that his voice wouldn’t come back again. Somehow, he knew
that he had come through the other side of his ordeal and was taking the last
steps in his road to recovery. Even the painful bruise he would have on his
face, as a result of his tumble down stairs, didn’t depress him. Joe felt so
high that he was quite surprised not to find himself floating near the ceiling.
The simple explanation was
that the swelling on Joe’s voice box had gradually been diminishing, and had
that day just disappeared. But Joe had become so used to not talking, and was
so depressed, that he had given up attempting to talk, resigning himself to
life as a mute. Quite possibly, he might have been able to whisper for several
days by then, but he wasn’t aware of it. His throat didn’t feel any different –
it was no longer a chore to hold his head up and hadn’t been for well over a
week. It had become natural again and Joe never gave it another thought. He had
been eating larger and larger pieces of food with less and less problem, again
without noticing, because the improvement had been so gradual.
At length, exhausted by his
euphoria, Joe slid into sleep. Ben belatedly realised that he hadn’t washed to
blood off Joe’s face. He hurried to do just that, careful not to waken his
sleeping son. Somehow, he knew that Joe would be all right; that he had come to
terms with what had happened to him and he gave thanks to the Almighty that it
was so.
“I don’t care if they do
say ‘silence is golden’,” Ben told his other sons. “I hope I never hear that
kind of silence again.”
The End
As ever, thanks to my dear
sister Claire for the title. What would I do without you, sis?