Chapter 1: Pt. 1, Ch. 1: A Hell Fighter

Part 1: New York City, September, 1919 

Chapter 1: A Hell Fighter 

People eyed Terrell with suspicion as he walked down Fifth Avenue, the respect his uniform commanded apparently not enough to lessen the contempt they felt for him. After living through the past summer, he returned their contempt a thousandfold. 

The parade through Harlem back after the war’s end had been a brief respite from the America he had grown up with as a boy in North Carolina. Marching side by side with his brothers in arms, a Croix de Guerre displayed proudly on his threadbare uniform, he foolishly deluded himself into believing that their actions in France would make a difference to white folk who would never even see them as men, let alone countrymen. Even a month later, he watched without a bit of resentment as the 27th Division paraded through the New York streets cheered on by the crowds.

But now, at the end of a long, red summer, he felt no rush of pride as he watched General Pershing and his men march past, and he certainly did not share in the jubilation of the crowd. His sister wondered why he bothered to attend the event at all. He had thought it only right to pay his respects to the 1st Division, the memory of how their men had defended him and the rest of the 369th down in South Carolina in the back of his mind, a memory that filled him with gratitude, though not without a hint of shame, shame at constantly feeling himself under the heel of some white man’s boot. 

The debt he owed them, however, put him under no obligation to join the crowd in their joyous anthems, not when through it all he heard the mournful wails of thousands watching their businesses, churches, and homes set ablaze, of his brothers in Virginia, attacked by a white mob just as they were returning home from fighting in their war, of Eugene Williams, stoned and drowned for daring to let the current drag him into the whites only section of Lake Michigan. 

And yet the people he passed as he walked down Fifth Avenue expected him to smile, to share their joy. How dare he be less than grateful for being dragged to this free land in chains? How could he not be overjoyed at the victory his men had won for America’s supposed democracy? A democracy where blood ran red in the streets and the brothers of the slain were expected to cheer on those who had slain them. 

For they who wasted us required of us mirth. 

In over half a century everything had changed and nothing had. 

Not long after entering the Upper East Side, Terrell felt the familiar weight of being seen as one of America’s problems. It mattered little what uniform he wore, what honors he had been given. The onlookers he passed would always see him as a problem, and he would always feel his guard go up when he walked through a crowd full of white folk, though the rich ones were at least less likely to get violent than the poor, physically speaking. Still, he found his pulse quickening, his heart racing, his breath shortening as he avoided suspicious eyes. 

Or was it the procession of men marching in full uniform and gas masks that made him gasp for air? It was hard to say, but before long, he had lost sight of his sister as she forged through the crowd. He tried to catch his breath. He tried rushing forward to catch up with her. He had nearly reached the end of the block when one of the shop windows to his right caught his eye and turned his stomach. He cried out, stepping backward into the crowd.

He was immediately met with a whack to the side of the head. He fell to the pavement in a heap, but still he could not pull his gaze from the window. Reflected there were deep craters in the street where mortar shells had come crashing down, the buildings behind him burnt to rubble, bodies strewn across the street as.stretcher-bearers rushed to sort the dead from the wounded. The deafening machine gun fire filled his ears as, already back on his feet, he turned to look at the street behind him, thinking of how to be of use. 

The street was just as it had been a minute before. The buildings were whole, the sky clear, and the group of onlookers watching the parade of soldiers. All had returned to normal, save for the constant sound of machine gunfire. 

A cop aimed a kick at his side, knocking him back to the ground. He chanced a look at the shop window just as a mortar shell came down. The cop was screaming at him, but the gunfire drowned him out. He felt a sharp pain to the back of his head, and then nothing. 

When Terrell woke, he tasted blood in his mouth, his head was throbbing, and he was being carried, slung across someone’s back. He must have been taken prisoner after the fight. No, that was wrong. The cop must have carried him off once he was knocked out. He prayed he would be dumped unceremoniously in an alley in a more familiar neighborhood, rather than in a jail cell to wait the night out. Based on their encounter thus far, his hopes were not high.

He drifted in and out of consciousness until he woke up on the sidewalk leaned against a cold brick wall. The police officer who had carried him off was nowhere in sight, but Terrell was not alone. 

“What in Lord’s name,” said the young woman who stood over him, “did you think you were doing back there?”

Terrell spat out a mouthful of blood and checked his surroundings. The officer must have gone back to the parade, by some miracle of God convinced to let a negro go free. “I… It was a misunderstanding, ma’am.” 

She was no more than sixteen, by the look of her, and she only stood around five feet tall, but her tone commanded as much authority as his sergeant or his gran. Though she wore loose fitting trousers and a long overcoat, he could still make out a woman’s figure. Her dark hair was set neatly in curls that framed her face, her skin a rich brown that brought to mind the changing leaves of early autumn, made only richer by the late afternoon sun, but the look she fixed him with plunged him straight into the depths of winter. 

“You’ve got a lot of nerve acting the way you were wearing that skin color.” She shook her head, bending down to get a look at his head. “You could’ve been killed, you know that?” She took a rag out of her pocket and dabbed at that cut on his forehead. “When a cop knocks you down, you stay down. I know by your accent your mother must’ve taught you that much.” 

“I wasn’t… I didn’t mean to… I was—”

“You were somewhere else, I know.” She locked eyes with him briefly, her eyes the same unyielding black as his own. “I’ve seen that look before.” She stood before he could reply. “You seem alright enough to me. Can you make it home from here without doing something—”

Before she could finish, a cry sounded from nearby. 

The girl tore off down the street without a word. Terrell scrambled to his feet and stumbled dizzily before running after her the best he could. 

He bumped right into her as she stopped short at the next street corner. She never lost her footing. A little ways down the street, a child lay on the ground, apparently unconscious, as a young man rummaged through his pockets. The woman was on the thief before he even noticed them, but he evaded her outstretched hands and fled before she could get a sure grip. As she pursued him, Terrell crouched down to check on the other boy. 

“Rosa,” the boy muttered as Terrell gently woke him. His eyes fluttered open for a moment before closing again. A few more unintelligible words escaped his lips. 

An anguished cry from not far off told him the woman had caught up with the thief. But who had caught who? He squinted in the dark to find the source of the girlish scream, and found the dark-haired woman had the thief pinned up against the brick wall by his shirt collar. She spoke in a low voice he could hardly make out while the thief struggled to escape. 

“He didn’t have nothin’ anyway,” protested the would-be thief, not a boy at all, but a pale, scrawny Irish girl with cropped, light brown hair. “I swear, I didn’t take nothin’.”

“You nearly took his life,” the dark-haired woman snapped, dragging her by the arm back to where Terrell knelt by the still-unconscious boy. “Look at him.” She jerked the girl’s arm angrily. “He’s barely more than a child.” 

You are reading story The Forest of Cinder at novel35.com

“Neither’s she,” said Terrell, observing the boy’s attacker. She was tall, nearly a head taller than the one who held her captive, but she still had the wide eyes, unkempt hair, and round freckled face of a young girl. 

The boy on the ground stirred. 

“Easy.” Terrell stopped him from rising too quickly. “Who’s Rosa?” he asked, checking to see if his head was bleeding. 

“Rosa?” The boy muttered, looking up at him warily. “Come conosci…”

“I don’t under—”

The dark-haired woman cut Terrell off in the same language. Seemingly relieved to find one of them understood him, the boy began speaking rapidly with the woman as she interjected with curt questions. 

“He’s looking for his sister,” she said, looking expectantly at the girl she still held by the arm. 

“I didn’t take her,” the girl replied defensively. 

“Then why did you tell him you knew where she’d gone?”

“I thought he’d have money.”

“Why?”

“He’s a Jew, isn’t he? All Jews have money.”

“How do you know that?”

“Everyone says –”

“No, how do you know he’s Jewish?”

The girl shrugged. “I’ve been tailing him since he left the temple.”

The woman pursed her lips and gestured towards the young boy with her free hand. “She looks like him. They’re twins. Have you seen her or not?”

“I haven’t. Can I go now?”

“Absolutely not. You’re going to help us find her.”

“Why should I—”

“You told him you would help him, and he got a lead pipe to the back of the head for believing you. The least you can do is keep your word.” She pulled the boy to his feet with some help from Terrell. “You can go,” she said to Terrell dismissively. “You seem fine to me.” 

Terrell looked around at his present company. The thief was tall, but thin as a rail. Like the dark-haired woman who still clutched her arm, she wore men’s clothing, but it was threadbare, ill-fitting, clearly secondhand, whereas the other’s were tailor-made. No doubt she could defend herself well enough on the streets, but more through cunning than strength, and she could hardly be expected to do much to defend either her captor or victim in the event that the three of them ran into trouble.

The boy still sat on the ground against the wall, dusting off the cap that had been knocked from his head. He was short, a growth spurt or two shy of his full height. He was stocky, but baby-faced, with timid brown eyes deep-set under knitted, worried brows. His olive skin was light for a child at the end of summer, and his dark brown curls were still neatly tamed despite his recent ordeal. He was soft-spoken, and though Terrell could not understand a word he said, it was evident his speech carried no further than where the dark-haired woman coaxed him.  

Though the dark-haired woman was grown, she was still just barely more than a child herself, set to bring two children to search for a missing girl in Lord knows what neighborhood. On top of it all, the sun was already getting low. 

Terrell’s sister would be sore at him, ignorant of what had led to his disappearance, but he could explain it all when he found her at home later. She would understand. She knew the madness that could arise around the disappearance of a young girl. If Terrell’s presence in the small search party could prevent a mob from storming their neighborhood later that night, she would want him to be there. 

“I want to help,” he replied, supporting the boy under the arm. “I’m Terrell, by the way.” 

The woman looked at him, expressionless, before dragging the girl back towards the dimly lit street. “Fine. The boy’s name is Rocco.” She gave no name of her own. 

 

You can find story with these keywords: The Forest of Cinder, Read The Forest of Cinder, The Forest of Cinder novel, The Forest of Cinder book, The Forest of Cinder story, The Forest of Cinder full, The Forest of Cinder Latest Chapter