Truth and Truth

"Truth and Truth," a short story by G.D. Peters, was published in Sulphur River Literary Review, Vol. XX, No. 1. The magazine is edited by the Poet, James Michael Robbins, and was released in September, 2004. Copies may be ordered from G.D., or directly through Sulphur River Literary Review, PO Box 19228, Austin, Texas, 78760-9228; a single copy is $7 but a regular subscription is only $12 and will be well worth the investment for this litmag.

Approx. 3,500 words

TRUTH AND TRUTH

G.D. PETERS

On a huge hill,

Cragged, and steep, Truth stands, and he that will

Reach her, about must, and about must go.

John Donne, (1572-1631), Satyre III

One morning on his way to town, a trip he had made every working day (barring holidays and illness) for more than thirty years, Dellan accidentally witnessed a horrifying incident. As he rounded the bend that lies in the constant shadow of Silent Mountain, he saw a military transport pulling off the road. Two soldiers climbed down, and led a man (whom Dellan did not immediately recognize) a short way onto the plain. The man was barefooted and shirtless, his hands bound behind his back, and Dellan guessed he was a villager from the foothills beyond the valley. The man offered no resistance, and waited quietly for a third soldier who followed closely behind, his musket held before him at port-arms. When released, the prisoner made no attempt to flee, but simply watched as the soldier stopped, came to order arms, then leveled the musket at him. He took careful aim, then fired, with precision befitting his military training. A quick clap split the air as the recoil jolted the soldier and the prisoner collapsed to the ground. Dellan was shocked; he had never witnessed an execution. Moreover, there had been no public notice of the trial and sentencing of this man, a routine procedure in capital cases. Dellan ached to know who the townsman was, and what crime he had committed.

But though fallen, the man was not yet dead for he began to stir, twitching his legs amidst a blood-soaked clay. Dellan stood dumbfounded, watching as the man rose slowly to his knees, struggled with his footing and, with great effort, stood again to face his executioner. The soldier once more raised his shoulder-arm, and quickly aimed and fired. Another shot exploded, and the condemned man fell in a heap, his blood spilling over the plain. Dellan stood quite still—a field mouse in the shadows evading the barn owl’s piercing gaze—bewilderment etched on his face, and could not yet believe his eyes when once more the downed man stirred, his legs twitching as he rose for a third time to face his assassins.

Unable to watch any more, Dellan turned his back and retreated toward home but, unbeknownst to him, too late, for he had been spotted. He made it only as far as the water tower before the barn owl swooped down in the form of a military transport, which intercepted him on the road. A packet of soldiers jumped out and fell-in behind an officer, a tall man with a shock of red hair.

“You have been on the road this morning?” he put to Dellan. He was an imposing figure, with an inclination toward a friendly smile which Dellan nevertheless mistrusted.

“Well, I am on the road just now,” Dellan replied, and eyes grew wider on the faces of several soldiers.

The frightening smile left the big man’s face, replaced by a scowl which did not admit of pleasantry. “Please, sir, answer the question. Have you been on the road this morning?”

Dellan had never been afraid to tell the truth; on the contrary, he had always been forthright in all matters, whether great or small. Just now, however, he was distrustful of his instincts. “Yes,” he answered finally. “I have been on the road.”

“And what you have seen?” the officer inquired.

“There are many things to see on the road,” Dellan answered truthfully, although this answer did not much please the big man, and several of his soldiers winced. The officer had been standing with his arms behind his back, cradling a blackjack in his hands, and now jabbed it sharply to Dellan’s gut, bringing the good man rapidly doubled-over.

“I am not talking about beasts in the field,” the officer lowered his voice to barely a whisper. “Nor birds in the sky.”

Tears formed at the corners of Dellan’s eyes as he struggled to take in air. He considered lying about what he had seen, but felt more fearful of that prospect than even his present circumstance, if it were possible. “I am willing to confess it,” he finally choked between gasps of breath.

“Much good may it do you,” the officer calmly replied.

“But I must admit,” he said, coughing up blood, which he spit to the ground. “I do not know what it means.”

“I am willing to believe it,” the officer said.

Dellan righted himself. “A man who was killed,” he said.

“Go on,” the officer bade him.

“And would not die.”

The officer stepped back, regarding Dellan soberly, then turned to his soldiers. “Take him,” he commanded.

From behind the iron bars of his cell, Dellan watched as night descended upon the valley. In the distance he saw the craggy peak of Silent Mountain, majestic and serene in its preeminence on the horizon. He heard soldiers in the courtyard as they moved about the fort, from the barracks and mess hall to the PX and its adjoining buildings, and he heard the quiet, measured changing of the guard outside the bolted door at the front of the stockade. He turned and sat quietly on his bunk, resting his face in his hands, and wondered what he had done to bring this nightmarish tempest raining down on the tranquil pastoral of his life. He had lived peacefully with his wife and daughter among his people in the valley, had never crossed the authorities, nor been in trouble of any kind. He remembered a time when there had been hushed rumors of good citizens vanishing like this without warning, at the hands of the military, but he had dismissed them as idle speculation. What reason would the authorities have to harm him, he had done no wrong, and had spoken only the truth. He wondered, too, about the condemned man at Silent Mountain, and why he had received such brutish treatment. But he had only questions, he could fathom no answers.

After a time he heard a transport stopping outside the stockade. Soldiers scrambled out, moving sharply and whispering in muted tones. There was a restrained stampede of activity in the outer room, and sharp commands barked by the tall officer—his voice unmistakable. The large door opened and Dellan watched as two soldiers dragged a lifeless form down the hallway, stopping at the cell opposite his own. The prisoner’s hands were bound behind his back, and he was barefooted and shirtless. The officer supervised as the soldiers opened the cell and dragged the man inside, dropping him unceremoniously to the hard ground.

“Please sir,” Dellan called to the officer, “I have told you the truth. Can you tell me why I am being held?”

The soldiers locked the cell and left, and the officer followed, with neither a look nor word toward Dellan. But Dellan had seen this prisoner before, and could not understand why they were jailing a corpse.

Night saturated the valley, impervious to the travails of a quiet man. After many hours Dellan grew tired and stretched himself across his narrow bunk. The dead man, at last, had remained dead, and Dellan finally closed his eyes and slept a restless sleep, plagued by images of his wife and daughter, and the comfortable home that awaited him in the foothills. When he awoke, the night and its silence had pressed in around him, and a long moment passed before he remembered where he was and how he had come to be there. The moon had worked to its height at the top of the horizon, past the northern rim, and cast a dim light that floated past Silent Mountain, through Dellan’s cell, and across the narrow corridor as if guided by the hand of darkness. Dellan’s eyes followed the light and he drew back suddenly, startled to find another pair of eyes regarding him closely from beyond the shadows.

The dead man had once more miraculously revived, and sat now on his bunk, shrouded in darkness at its furthest corner, his legs drawn up and arms wrapped about them. What is more, at this close distance, and with the light of the moon reflecting fully from his face, Dellan recognized the beleaguered man and could barely believe his eyes, for he was Luther, the dissident and revolutionary who had disappeared from the valley many years ago. Luther had been a farmer in the foothills across the valley, but when several of his townsmen and family members had disappeared under mysterious circumstances, Luther had questioned the authorities, calling into doubt their tactics and policies. Of course he was assured there had been no wrong-doing, but he remained unconvinced, and the disappearances mounted. When he was no longer able to bear silent witness to these injustices, he left the foothills on a great quest to find the truth. He roamed the valley, counseling others in this regard, and was persecuted and tormented by the authorities until finally he, too, had disappeared like all the rest. Dellan and his townspeople assumed Luther had simply found his way out of the valley, questing for truth beyond the purview of Silent Mountain. He was horrified, now, to learn the true nature of Luther’s fate. There had never been any announcement of Luther’s arrest and trial, nor public notice of his execution. In fact, it had been so long since Luther’s disappearance that the people in the valley had gradually forgotten about him altogether, about his protests against injustice and his quest for truth. Dellan wondered, now, how long Luther had been imprisoned in that cell, and how many times he had been assassinated.

“You are alive?” Dellan ventured.

“I seem to be,” the man said, and Dellan was struck by a remarkable quality in his voice, calmness in a man who had, only this morning, thrice been executed. Perhaps it is easy to remain calm, Dellan considered, if you know that they cannot kill you.

“I was sure, when they brought you in, that you were dead,” Dellan said.

“I do not know,” he replied.

Dellan leaned forward and lowered his voice. “You are the man I saw executed this morning, in the shadow of Silent Mountain.”

“If that is so,” the man said. “I have no recollection of this morning.”

“Are you not Luther, who protested against the tyranny of the authorities, and disappeared many years ago?”

“It may be so, but I no longer know who I am, or may have been,” the man said.

“But how can it be that you are alive?” Dellan asked. “I saw you shot three times this morning, at close range.”

“I cannot say,” he replied, “for I do not remember anything about this morning or yesterday, or yesterday’s yesterday or those that came before it.”

Dellan regarded the man with great wonder.

“And what have you done that they have imprisoned you?” he asked of Dellan.

“I?” Dellan protested. “I have done nothing, save witness your execution.”

“And you told no one what you saw?”

“I told the officer; I told the truth,” Dellan replied.

The man shook his head. “It may be that we have wandered astray,” he finally said.

“Astray?” Dellan asked.

“I am afraid we dared to imagine that our lives belong to us,” he said.

“Well,” Dellan said, “but do they not?”

“Do not believe it,” the man concluded, and in that instant the first veiled moment from a distant sun poked a pinprick through the dark chalice of night, promising to drain its brooding blackness, drop by drop. There was a faint light of hope on the farthest horizon as the heavy door at the end of the hall swung open, and in that moment Dellan realized how comforting his darkness had been, a temporary shelter from his deepest fears.

The tall officer came toward them down the hall, his cadre of soldiers in tight formation behind him. They stopped in the corridor, facing the opposite cell, and the officer addressed the rebel Luther.

“You, get up,” he said, and the prisoner silently obeyed.

One of the soldiers unlocked the cell and swung the door open.

“Where are you taking him?” Dellan heard himself protest, as though his mouth had a mind of its own, with a will that was separate from the more prudent one which silently decried this heresy inside his head.

The officer turned to him.

“You had better worry about what is happening to you,” he cautioned, before marching Luther from the corridor. But Dellan already knew the answer to his question: they were taking him again to Silent Mountain.

The hammering began just after the soldiers had taken Luther away: a detail of half a dozen men cutting and nailing planks of wood, building something in the clearing behind the prison. Dellan watched them from his cell, measuring and sawing and hammering, a cacophony which lasted throughout the interminable day, as the hot sun rose in the sky. The men had begun their detail in full dress uniform, but by quarter-morn their tops were unbuttoned, and by midday stripped off entirely. He watched the sweat dripping from their faces, falling in droplets onto freshly cut stacks of pine. The officer had not returned with Luther, but Dellan knew they would be back. And he had a further distraction, for while resting late in the afternoon he heard a familiar voice at the front of the stockade, which caused him, literally, to jump from his bed. The voice belonged to Willow, and in it he heard great fear, a reminder that he had been missing from his home a long time. Perhaps now he would be freed.

“Jailer!” he cried, hoping she would hear him. “Soldier, she is my daughter!”

But no answer followed, and the stockade went suddenly quiet. Dellan pressed his face to the bars of his window, but saw only the structure rising in the foreground, whose ghastly shape he now began to discern.

Time passed less surely then, as Dellan’s head raced with thoughts of home and family. He was certain Willow had come to report his disappearance, and no less certain she had been rebuffed in her inquiries. Moreover, he had lost his only chance to tell his people what was happening to him, and what had become of the dissident, Luther. He neither noticed the soldiers as they donned their uniforms and departed the clearing, their work finished, nor registered the solemn silence that washed through the clearing when they had gone; rather, he was consumed by his thoughts until the transport returned, stirring him back to the moment. He pressed his face to the bars of his window, hoping to see Willow jumping down from the wagon, but all he could see was the outline of the apparatus the men had constructed in the clearing, freakishly silhouetted by the light of the moon, which had once more begun its ascent in the dark skies above the valley.

There was a commotion at the entrance, and Dellan turned as the soldiers burst through the heavy door, dragging Luther’s lifeless body along the corridor. They opened his cell and dropped him inside as the tall officer stood regarding his lifeless body, shaking his head as if in disbelief. Finally, he turned toward Dellan.

“You had a visitor today,” he said.

“She is my daughter,” Dellan replied.

“Yes, she came to report your mysterious disappearance,” the officer said. “How unfortunate. Well, but we will contact her if you happen to turn up,” he said, and Dellan could only hang his head, his hopes for an end to this nightmarish ordeal now greatly diminished.

“In any event,” the officer added, “your trial is in the morning.”

“Trial?” Dellan said. “What trial?” but the officer had gone, and Dellan could not imagine what he had meant. What basis was there to subject him to a trial? For that matter, what right to imprison him at all, segregated from his home and family. What had he done, but travel the road on his way to work, the same as he had done day after day and year after year. True, his eyes had seen something, but eyes will see a thing if they are left open, and is that not why they were created?

His eyes, at present, fell upon the lifeless form of Luther in the cell across the way, and Dellan could not help but wonder what brand of madness had infected his people, peaceful people as he had always known them. Had this evil been ever present, as Luther had warned? Had his people been blind to it all these years? Dellan did not want to believe it, but given his present circumstance, what was he to conclude? Luther had been right, all those years ago, warning his people of bitterness and hatred. Never a political man, Dellan had not concerned himself with affairs of state. The authorities had never bothered him, and he had never any reason to doubt the faithful execution of their office or their duties. But here, lying in the opposite cell, was one man who had doubted, who had spoken out against falsehood and deceit, and challenged his people to stand in defiance of tyranny, to root out the truth from every crevice and shadow. And now he lay motionless in a jail cell, the victim of another in a seemingly endless barrage of violence designed to silence a voice that had long ago ceased to sound. They had captured Luther, and tried and sentenced him, had taken his freedom and his life, and yet failed to silence him. They had placed him before a firing squad and assassinated him three times each day, and still he breathed. Now they proposed to hang him. Dellan laughed at the futility of their design; did they believe that would achieve any different result?

He slept that night amidst a maelstrom of thoughts—both fears and suspicions—which kept him from finding any meaningful rest. And when he finally awakened, he found his counterpart once more huddled in the corner of his cell, watching him through the shadows.

“Have they killed you again?” Dellan asked of Luther.

“It may be,” the man replied. “I have no recollection.”

“I am to be put on trial in the morning,” Dellan confided.

“That is unfortunate.”

“But if I were shot, I would not rise from the dust as you have done.”

“You would not desire it if even if you were able,” he confided.

“Perhaps not. But the soldiers have not been idle in your absence.”

“Good soldiers are never idle,” he replied.

“No,” Dellan said. “In the courtyard they have built a gallows.”

Dellan was abruptly awakened by the jangling of keys against the iron lock of his cell. He jumped from his bunk expecting to find the soldiers taking Luther once more to Silent Mountain. Instead, he found two soldiers standing over him, the tall officer just behind them.

“Get up,” he said to Dellan. “Your trial is concluded.”

“Concluded?” Dellan said. “But I have not left this cell!”

The soldiers grabbed him by the arms and lifted him from the bunk.

“You have been sentenced,” the officer said. “It is time for the sentence to be executed.”

“Sentence?” Dellan asked, “what sentence? I am already in prison!”

The soldiers pulled Dellan from his cell, leading him down the corridor. He turned his head in time to catch a glimpse of Luther, sitting in the corner of his cell, his legs pulled up and arms wrapped about them.

“Help me,” he cried to Luther, “whoever you are!”

But the man only watched him, as a cat watches the wind.

“But I have done nothing,” Dellan cried. “What greater sentence can I serve, I am already imprisoned!”

The soldiers led him through the stockade and out onto the street, pulling him against his will as he now began fitfully to struggle, fearing he was being led to the whipping post.

“Wait, please,” he called. “Somebody, help me!”

But the soldiers pulled him along, and rounded the corner, carrying him toward the courtyard behind the prison. Suddenly all logic fled from Dellan’s mind, as they turned the corner to where the gallows awaited, ominously shadowed by the morning’s first light.

“What?” he said, twisting and craning his body, turning to see the tall officer behind him. “Am I to be hanged!”

The soldiers led him toward the infernal contraption, and up the steps to the platform.

“This cannot be!” Dellan shouted. “Somebody tell them, I have done nothing!”

His hands were bound behind his back, a blindfold tied over his eyes.

“Why is this happening to me?” he protested. The noose was slipped over his head. “I told only the truth!”

The sound of his words echoed back at him across the courtyard as the trap fell away beneath his feet.

The End