Bring the Boys Home (8 page)

“We haven’t had a chance to talk much.”

“Jeff and I were talking about it. He says Tom is just afraid again to pay you any attention because he lost his leg, and he thinks you’ve probably changed your mind, and he doesn’t have any money. Also, he knows Dewitt Falor’s courting you.”

“I wish he’d say that to
me
. I could set him straight in a minute.”

“Why don’t you talk to him?”

“That’s not the way it is. A woman can’t just go up and start explaining things to a man. He has to say something first.”

“I guess so.” Leah lay quietly, thinking of the times that she had argued with Jeff. How often she had wanted
him
to speak up and apologize first, knowing at the same time that he was waiting for her to speak. “Life gets complicated, doesn’t it?”

“I’ve never known it to fail. And the older you get, the more complicated it is.” Sarah rose, blew out the light, and slipped into bed.

Leah looked out at the half-moon shedding its silvery beams over the apple tree outside their window.

Sarah was silent for a long time. Finally she turned over and faced Leah. “I love him so much! But he’s just got to say something to me, Leah.”

“I know.” Leah yearned to help her sister but did not know how. “We’ll just pray, and God will tell him to do it.”

“All right. Let’s do that. The Bible says if any two people agree that God wants to do something, it’ll be done—and you and I agree. So let’s pray.”

In the silence of the room, the two girls prayed, first for Tom and then for the other family members.

Leah had always felt close to Sarah, and now her heart went out to her sister. After Sarah had gone to sleep, Leah prayed silently,
God, give Tom to Sarah for a husband. Don’t let him be foolish and silly
.

Then she turned over and closed her eyes. She thought about the war years that had gone by, and she added another prayer, “And thank You, God, for bringing all our men home safe.”

T
he job of putting the old Turner house into living condition consumed all the energies of the Majorses. Nelson, Tom, and Jeff hauled out trash, mopped floors, cleaned windows—those that were not broken—set up an ancient cookstove by bracing its missing leg with bricks, and worked from sunup to after dark every weekday until May.

One Tuesday morning, Tom thought he was getting up earlier than the others. However, he found Eileen in the kitchen baking bread and said with surprise, “What are you doing up this early?”

“Oh, I just couldn’t sleep. Sit down and let me fix you some breakfast.”

Taking a chair, Tom looked at his stepmother’s face. She looked tired. There were lines around the corners of her mouth that showed strain. “You don’t look like you feel well, Eileen. Maybe you better go in and see the doctor.”

Eileen reached over and pushed a lock of Tom’s hair back from his forehead. “Pooh! Who needs an old doctor? It’s only a baby!”

Tom sat sprawled in the chair, his mind going over the day that lay before him.

Eileen soon put eggs and grits before him, then sat down to drink a cup of coffee. “Real coffee tastes good,” she said. “I never could get used to drinking coffee made out of burnt acorns.”

“I couldn’t either,” Tom confessed. He sipped the hot brew carefully. “It was nice of the Carters to set us up in groceries—but we can’t keep sponging off them forever.”

Eileen gave him a quick look. “Things may be hard for a while, but you’ll find work.”

“That’s what I aim to do today. I’m going to walk as far as I can until somebody will hire me to do something. I’m not particular what this time. Just something to bring some cash in.”

“Are you going around to the farms or going to town?”

“Both. I’ll stop on the farms on the way to town. It’s a bad time to be asking for work, especially with so many Union soldiers coming back, but I don’t know what else to do, Eileen. Maybe I can get a job cleaning out stables—or just anything.”

“You’ll find something,” Eileen said. “I’ll fix a lunch to take with you.”

“You don’t have to do that.”

“You’ll need something to eat if you’re going to walk all the way to town and back. Some sandwiches, anyway. And I’ve got two of those doughnuts left.”

“Thanks. That would be a help.”

By the time Tom left, the sun was coming up over the mountains. He walked as quickly as he could, wishing he had a horse. But there was no money for luxuries like that. By the time he had walked an hour, his leg was beginning to hurt. He looked down at the offending limb and knew that he would never make it to town. Yet he could not turn back. He continued to walk until finally the discomfort became unbearable and he sat down on a fallen tree beside the road.

Half an hour later a wagon came by. Tom looked up hopefully and waved.

“Headed for town, young fella?” The driver was a big, husky man wearing a pair of faded overalls and a straw hat. “Get in and rest your bones!”

“Thanks.” Tom climbed awkwardly up onto the wagon seat.

“Hurt your leg, did you?”

Here it comes
, Tom thought.
Can’t dodge this. I’ll just have to tell the truth
. “I lost it at Gettysburg. Confederate army.” He looked at the man and waited to be told to get out.

But the man studied him thoughtfully. “Gettysburg, eh? That was a pretty bad fight. I was there myself.”

Tom waited for him to continue.

The man grinned. “Actually, I was in the Confederate army myself. Name’s Jud Mullins.”

Tom took the thick hand that the farmer offered, and a wave of relief washed over him. “I was afraid you were going to say you were Union army and put me out.”

“That sort of thing could happen. There’re still pretty strong feelings,” Mullins said.

“Do you have a farm around here, Mr. Mullins?”

“Yea, a little place. Don’t believe I caught your name.”

“Tom Majors. My pa and my brother, we all fought. Were in the Stonewall Brigade.”

“You tell me that!” Mullins gave him an extrahard look. “That was the fightingest outfit that I ever heard tell of. I heard old Stonewall liked to walk you fellas to death. Called you his foot cavalry.”

“He was a hard man, General Jackson, but a good one.”

“So I heard. Fine Christian. Too bad he had to get kilt.”

“Jud, do you need any help over on your place? I’m looking for work.”

“Well, now, I wish I could say I did. But the truth is, it’s just a little place, and the plantin’s over, so—”

“Sure, I understand.”

The wagon rattled on over the washboard road, with Mullins avoiding such potholes as he could. The two men talked about the war. They had been in many of the same battles. Finally, they came to Pineville.

“I’ll be goin’ home at about midday, if you want a ride back. Might be a little bit easier on that leg of yours.”

“That would be a help, Jud.”

“I’ll be at the general store about noon. If you’re not through, I can maybe wait on you a little bit. It won’t take me long to do my business.” He grinned, exposing a large gold tooth that glistened in the sun. “Mostly I sit and play checkers and tell lies about the war. You might come on down.”

“Might do that, Jud.”

Mullins stopped his horses at the edge of the village, and Tom got down. Waving to the friendly farmer, he went into the blacksmith shop where he found Clyde Potter pounding on a horseshoe.

“Hello, Clyde.”

“Well, bless my heart if it ain’t Tom Majors! I heard you was back!” The burly blacksmith put down his tongs, wiped his hands on his apron, and crunched Tom’s hand in a bone-crushing grip. “I’m mighty glad to see you made it.”

“Thanks, Clyde. You’re still shoeing horses, I see.”

Clyde shrugged. “It’s about all I know.”

“Do you need any help?”

“Did you learn blacksmithing in the army?”

“No, but I’ve got to learn something. I’ve got to have work.”

Potter scratched his head vigorously. “I wish I could help you, Tom, but there’s just not really enough business here for me to take on anybody else. I’ve got one good hand, and the two of us can handle about all that comes our way.”

“You have any idea where I might get work?”

Potter named off a few possibilities, and Tom shook hands with him again and left.

For the next two hours, he went into store after store, omitting none of them except the dress shop. At each place the answer was the same: No help wanted.

Finally, discouraged and tired, Tom sat down on a cane-bottom chair in front of the hardware store and ate the two sandwiches and the doughnuts that Eileen had given him. He was thirsty, and he got a drink from a pump down the street. The water was full of iron, but at least it wet his throat.

Taking a deep breath, he looked up and down, trying to think of another place to go.
I guess I might as well go on home
, he thought.

Just as he passed one of the town’s three saloons, the batwing doors suddenly burst open, and he was almost pushed off the sidewalk into the street. He caught his balance by grabbing one of the uprights supporting the shed roof that covered the walk.

“Why don’t you watch where you’re going, Reb?”

Instantly Tom grew alert. He turned to find the two men who had just exited watching him in a strange manner. He knew both of them. Buck
Noland and Arlo Simms were typical town no-goods. They worked when they had to, drank when they could get liquor, and fought for no reason.

Noland was a broad man with pale hair. He surveyed Tom for a moment and said, “I heard you was back from the war. I guess we whipped up on you Rebels, didn’t we?”

“You were in the army?” Tom asked innocently, knowing that Noland had used every trick in the book to stay out.

“None of your business!” Noland said. Then he grinned. “Arlo, here’s a good example of that Southern white trash we whipped up on. Ain’t much, is he?”

Arlo Simms was as tall and thin as Buck Noland was thick and strong. He had a pair of pale hazel eyes and a wide mouth, almost like a catfish’s. “He ain’t much at that, Buck!” Stepping closer, Simms said, “I said you wasn’t much, Reb. What you gonna do about it?”

The two men obviously wanted trouble, and Tom swiftly decided to avoid them. “I’m not going to do anything except go home.”

He started down the walk, but Noland grabbed him with a thick arm. “I’ll tell you what, Reb,” he said. “I’m gonna take you in the saloon and buy you a drink, and you’re going to drink to General Ulysses S. Grant, and you’re gonna cuss Robert E. Lee and Jackson and all that trash.”

“Let go of my arm, Noland!”

But Tom had little chance. The two men bracketed him at once and dragged him into the saloon. At once Tom saw Dewitt Falor at the bar, and again the alarms went off.
Falor put them up to it
, he thought.

“Hey, looky what we got here, Dewitt,” Noland said, smirking. He kept his hold on Tom’s arm as did Simms on the other. “We got us a Rebel here. He don’t look so tough to me.”

Tom knew Falor only slightly. He was two years younger than Tom, and his father owned immense land tracts as well as some of the businesses in town. Falor was a rather bulky man with tow hair and close-set brown eyes. He was wearing expensive clothes. There was a whiskey bottle on the bar in front of him, half empty.

“Well, now,” Falor said, grinning, “you fellows done captured yourself a prisoner. How you doing, Majors?”

Tom was gripped so firmly by the men that he knew that only by putting up a tremendous struggle would he get loose—which was exactly what they wanted. He said quietly, “Hello, Falor. If you’ll tell your friends here to turn loose of me, I’ll just get out of your way.”

“No, you’re going to have a drink,” Noland said. “Pour some whiskey out there, Dewitt. Majors here is going to drink to General Grant.”

Falor said with surprise that was obviously an act. “Is he now? Then I guess he’s been converted.”

“That ain’t all,” Arlo Simms said. “He’s gonna cuss Robert E. Lee and Jackson.”

“I’m glad to hear it,” Falor said. He poured some whiskey into a glass and held it out. “Here you go. You can drink to Grant first and cuss Lee later.”

“I don’t want to drink.”

Falor’s eyes grew cold and hard.

Everybody in Pineville was aware of Tom’s interest in Sarah Carter. And Falor was used to getting
what he wanted. Maybe, Tom thought, he saw his chance to strike a blow at an adversary.

“You’re gonna drink this,” he said.

“No, I’m not!” Tom struggled to get free and found his arms clapped tightly together. “Turn me loose,” he said, “or we’ll have trouble.”

Falor dashed the glass of raw alcohol into his eyes.

Tom gasped with pain and was forced to shut his eyes.

Falor drew back his fist and landed a staggering right that caught Tom in the mouth. He was knocked backward, torn from the grip of Simms and Noland, and he tasted blood where his teeth had cut his lip. He was struggling blindly to get up when he heard Falor say, “Bust him up, fellas. Teach him what it means to be a Rebel.”

Tom fought as best he could, but the situation was hopeless. He was still half blinded by the whiskey and stunned by the vicious blow he had taken. Simms’s and Noland’s fists struck him repeatedly in the face and in the body, and, though he tried to fight back, Tom soon sensed himself slipping away. And then he felt himself being lifted and dragged across the room.

“Throw him out of here!” Falor’s voice seemed to come from a long way off.

Somebody pitched Tom through the front doors. He hit the wooden sidewalk and rolled out into the dirt of the street.

Half conscious, he was struggling to get to his feet when he felt a strong hand on his arm.

“Come along, Tom.” It was the voice of Jud Mullins.

Falor and his two friends stepped outside and looked at the big farmer. “That trash a friend of yours?”

“You might say so, although I just met him. Come along, Tom,” he repeated.

“Maybe we ought to bust him up too. He’s another Reb,” Noland said and took one step forward.

He stopped abruptly, however, for from beneath his clothing Jud Mullins produced an enormous .44 and held it directly on Noland.