Fight for Glory (My Wounded Soldier #1) (18 page)

When I reached
Jimmy, some time had gone by and all seemed quiet. Mayhap they slept after the
hard ride. Gunshot out back, William’s way I feared.
Jimmy’s
hand on me, holding me steady.
Michael was out there, he’d go.

But the door
opened and out they poured. Six of them, shouting, guns. We made ourselves
small, barely breathing other side of the wagon. He lifted and shot two as I
did the same. I repeated and another dropped. That big red came charging,
firing wild, and Jimmy dropped him. Then Michael was there and took the other.

Too easy.
We stormed to the door and Jimmy stood before it,
lifted his leg to kick it in and a shotgun blasted through. Jimmy went down,
head off the porch.

“God Almighty,”
he said in surprise. “Am I gutshot Tom? Am I gutshot?”

I went in that
door and rolled to my belly. From in that dark room he shot high and hit the
wall over my head, splinter and dust. I saw it all as I kept going, crashing
into a bed in a backroom. Michael was still out the door on the porch. “Hold it
there,” I called to him.

In that front
room, that killer was on a bed, bone sticking white out of his leg, stinking
like powder and death. Gaylin sat on the floor, bound, knees against his chest,
mouth tied.
I said, it can’t be him.
But it was. I had
to swallow it down. Jimmy hit, William quiet, brother tied.

“You in there,” I
called from the room, “put that gun down.”

“What you come
here for?” he said. “I got money for you boys. Who the hell are ye?”

I reckoned he was
out of his mind for that wound was old. “You shot a lawman out there. Michael,”
I called, “he breathing?” I meant Jimmy.

“Breathing,”
Michael called.

“See to him,” I
yelled, voice like the punisher Jimmy said I was.

I would take this
one in here. Yes.

“Put it down
old-timer,” I called.

“You the law then?
You Sonny?
I was
gonna cut you in. I hurt this leg, that’s all.”

“Put that shotgun
on the floor and we’ll fix that leg. We got a doctor,” I said.

“Can’t do nothin’ for it.
Got to come off, but they shot the
healer. They brung me this one…but he’s no good.”

I rolled in then.
Like I thought, he’d fixed that gun against the side of Gaylin’s head.

“Put it down,” I
said rising to my feet, my Enfield
trained on him.

“You a good man?”
he asked me, his body so bloated and sick, that green leg propped in front
already in the grave and him watching it.

I fired my Enfield and shot him in
the chest. The shot-gun fell heavy on the floor. Gaylin whimpered and cringed
from it. Monroe, if that’s who this was, was done fighting.

I neared the bed.
He still lived. He looked at me while his chest heaved beneath that foul
stained
blouse, that
foul stained skin.

I grabbed that
bone, in all that gory sick, that slick shit, and I yanked hard on it. He cried
out. Then I shoved my Enfield
in his mouth, flecks of teeth flying and on his bloody lips, I rammed that
rifle in, leaned my weight upon it as he choked and gagged. “I am not a good
man,” I said, my finger foul on the trigger.

I shot him
through. The bed broke down.

Gaylin was
sobbing. I shouldn’t a done it. They might say it’s not him with the back of
his head gone and the front no more’n a pumpkin gone rotten. I should
of
stabbed him in the heart. But I was tired.

I wiped my hands
on him,
then
I rushed out to Jimmy. He laid in the
yard, as much blood on him as me, but this was his, and mine came from others.

“Find William,” I
told Michael. He looked pale as Jimmy, but he nodded and ran for the back line.
“Careful there ain’t more,” I called,
cause
they could
come now, pour out of the trees for all we knew. If there was money, they’d be
coming, and us down…I couldn’t think by how many.

“If it’s the
gut…don’t dally,” Jimmy said, a blue tinge in his face.

I was careful not
to disturb the shirt he wore. The bullet went in on the lower side. I lifted
him and looked behind. “Clean through,” says I like that’s the happiest thing.
Nothing like Garrett.

But there is no
such thing as a wound like this being good. Ball drags through a man it takes
what’s in its path and that can stay in and cause the trouble, that’s if he
ain’t ripped beyond hope in there and bleeding where you can’t see. Lord, God,
I am put here again.

They surely had
whiskey. I knew William was out. That was fool-hardy. I laid Jimmy flat.
“Gotta stop this blood.
Stay put,” said I, and he laughed a
little.

I went in the
house first, tore around, found a blanket, took my knife and cut and ripped it
in strips, none too neat. Gaylin yelled, but I couldn’t look at him. Jimmy took
all my
mind.

I took those
strips out there, and dropped on my knees by him.

“You remember,”
he whispered,
cause
he’d be talking the whole way to
Hades, “that time we was laying out in that field at Belmont?”

I didn’t answer,
I moved him to get a good tight wrap around him and he broke in a sweat. I did
this three times.

“We rousted those
Rebs, we
was
whooping, but here they come again. We
fought that day…God…and after we was so tired, looking up…and those two doves
white in the sky, all that smoke clearing…you remember? Garrett
said,
looka there. It’s a sign. Peace will come.”

I wondered when
that would
be?
For now, I had to keep moving. I pulled
the blanket tight as I could and tied over it with a thinner piece. It would
have to do.

Gaylin was still
yelling up a fuss. I went to him now, knife out and cut through the convoluted
ropes they tied him with. He was frantic, ripped them off, and the tie around
his mouth. I wished we could keep that one in place.

“Whiskey?”
I said. He only cringed a second before he stood,
nearly fell, and half crawled to the old man’s body and moved it aside and
pulled the bottle from beneath it.

I snatched it
from him and went out. I knew he followed me. “Look around for the money,” I
said to him.

He was rubbing
his wrists and staring at Jimmy.

“Get in there!” I
yelled.
Reminded me of Johnny…that day.
But he
listened to me.

“Any loot…
go
get it. We can’t stay round here,” I called.

Where were
Michael and William? Where were they? I couldn’t keep Jimmy in the open. I hated
to take him in the house with all the filth. I kicked the door off its hinges
and took it into the yard and called for Gaylin. He came back out and helped me
get Jimmy on that fractured door and then we carried him onto the porch at
least.

“Get to that
loot,” I said. I lifted Jimmy’s head a bit and held that bottle to his lips. “You
want Boyle Monroe? Well here’s his backwash.”

He laughed, then
he coughed, and I like to never
got
him to take a
swallow.

Gaylin came out
carrying a couple of heavy bags. “They brought this in today,” he said, his
throat sounding raw.

“That’s good. Take
one of Jimmy’s revolvers and stand a guard over him. Don’t shoot Michael or
William. Anyone else, have at it, and I mean don’t hesitate.”

I went for the
horses then.

“Where you goin’?”
Gaylin called, but I ignored him. I’d
already given him his orders. I ran to the horses, hoping I’d cross paths with
Michael and William. I did not. I found the animals tethered where William had
staked them, and I rode mine and led theirs in. At the house, Michael was
kneeling one side of Jimmy, William the other. “Where you been?” I said to
William.

He held his arm. “Had
me
holed up, but I got him.”

I’d hear that
tale later. My relief at finding him alive was tremendous.

I told Michael to
get in there and check under the floor for loot. I loosened Jimmy’s role from
the back of the saddle and tossed it to William to spread over him. “You shot?”
I asked.

“Knife.
Go on, it’s not deep.”

I ordered Gaylin
to help me clear that hay wagon, but leave a bed. I went to their shed and
found some close to rotten harness. I set Gaylin to hitch two of their horses
to it. They were wore out as ours, but I’d sooner theirs dropped.

I would drive
this myself, as we’d keep to the high road now, and I would take what came, and
they’d best know what they were doing or we’d leave a trail of bodies from here
to Springfield.
I’d put Gaylin facing rear in the bed with Jimmy and the wrapped up stinking
remains of Monroe.

Michael found
some money. We’d turn that in.

The four of us
then laid the bodies in the yard in a straight line. If there was a price and
they weren’t snatched away the marshals could come and get their picture and
maybe we’d get more pay. Now none of it mattered as I had a wounded man in need
of a healer.

Tom
Tanner

Chapter
Twenty-Two

We traveled all
night and came on her place in gray morning. This was ramshackle, like so many
round here, porch sagging, the roofline bowed, like it had coughed dust and
never got its wind back.

From beneath the
porch a dog charged, hackles and growls, a hellhound foaming.

A shot rang out. Dog
stopped so fast his hinders lifted before he fell.

That be William’s
quick shooting.

The door opened
and a big gal filled it, petticoat as gray as the earth, and hanging like some
curtains I’d seen, all crooked and bedraggled.

She chewed her
pipe and I asked myself—this
be
a man in a woman’s
dress and bonnet?

But no, she said,
“I’m called Iris. Who you
be
?”

“Men in need of a healer.
They say it’s you, and we got good
money and no time to waste,” I said.

She wanted more
though. “Who you
be
? Yanks it sounds like.”

“You
be
a Yank yourself,” said I, playing Jimmy’s part now as he
had finally succumbed to a stillness I never hoped to witness.

“Well, that dog
had me trapped for three days. He was a good ‘un ‘til he went mad.” She walked
to the wagon. “The smell of death is with you.” She covered her mouth and nose
with her apron as she looked in the bed. “The one is past healing,” she said
meaning the one wrapped, bloated and stinking—Monroe, as Gaylin had confirmed. “Gunshot?”
said she looking at the live one now, though by his color, he was low on blood.

“Yes,” said I,
already fixing to move him in with everyone’s help. “You know what you’re
doing?”

“Do you? Why not
put this one in the ground?
Cemetery up the hill from the old
war.
Put him there.”

“Can you help us
with our wounded?” I said, and she would help us, one way or another.

“Bring him
inside,” she said. “And plant the other.”

Gaylin was in the
wagon’s bed, along with Michael who had no trouble standing on Monroe so he could get a good grip on Cap,
while William and
me
stood on the ground and reached
over. We lifted him then, and his groan was like music to me, though we felt
his sick heat. All night as we journeyed I had called to Gaylin to know if
Jimmy lived. His moaning was all we had to go on.

We were still in Monroe’s country, but
hoped the money and hope of such would be a bigger draw than following us. Michael
had stuck a few dollars through the puncheon floor in Monroe’s house in the hopes they would spend
time digging there. I thought it a fool’s hope, but then this whole journey
was.

In Iris’s house
it smelled to high heaven, but she’d been trapped in there. Why she hadn’t shot
that animal is anyone’s guess. Maybe she was not armed. “I got buckets to
empty,” said she.

“No. Gaylin will
do that. You see to this one,” I said as we lowered Jimmy to her bed.

He was a fierce
sight, bandages red through, him smelling from soil, but not outstanding here,
and we’d had Monroe’s
ripeness all the night through. She had no pull-back in her about letting Jimmy
lie where she did herself, for he was foul. We had been so busy churning
miles,
we had not been able to see to him beyond moving him
from the worst of the peril. Yet death stalked him, rode with us all, and we
could not get shod of it not matter how hard we drove.

William joined
Michael outside. I laughed to think how this place and its smells must have hit
him like a fist. Him and Michael would see what was around and set up a guard. Gaylin
had yet to protest that I put him on shit duty. He was so worried over Jimmy he
stood there watching. “Will he live?” he asked, like this old woman would know.

“Get to the
buckets,” I said.
“What else Ma’am?”

“Fetch me water,”
she said. “Boil some. Get me broth from the stove. Milk my cow for she has been
wailing. And my roof needs patch.”

“He will see to
it,” said I, looking at him like he needed to move, but I did not know about
the roof.

“And bury the
dog, but careful of the madness,” she said, cutting off the foulness of Jimmy’s
shirt.

I nodded to
Gaylin, his ire building now, and I took that as a good sign for he had been
too quiet. I was a finger’s pinch from having him put Monroe in with the dog, but if Jimmy lived he
would never forgive me for costing him his reward. Truth
be
told I wouldn’t mind that money myself, but that stink was hard to abide, and
when the real rot started in, how I hated that smell and us without a cheroot
among us. Yet he served a good purpose for all the loot we’d taken was stashed
beneath him. If someone had the pluck to plumage his bloat, then they had the
pluck to win the prize I reckoned.

Soon as we got
near the railroad we could ship him to Springfield
if they had an undertaker and if someone was fixing to die and by chance they
had a coffin.
So many ifs.

“Get a fire
started under my wash pot,” she said.

“Hear that?” I
called to Gaylin as he went for the buckets.

“Yes sir,” he
yelled back, and I smiled.

But my smile fell
as she hissed over the wound. Seeing that red tunnel of suffering marring Jimmy
was not easy. She went for soap, and called for the water, and I went to the
spring for some. I quickly dumped a bucket over my own greasy head, and shook
it off like a dog would do, and I was back in quick. She had me pour some in
the pot, and I quick built the fire, but not too quick for I had to go out for
wood. She had only two logs cut, so I called to Gaylin who was returning with
the buckets, “She needs wood. And kindling, and get those buckets washed fore
you bring them in.”

Mayhap God had
sent us to her as he had surely put her in our path.

Inside she had
Jimmy naked now, and she was not frail about such. She told me to take out the
clothes and burn them, save the boots. I picked them up and took them out. It
fell to the ground then, the knot of blood soaked bandana. I threw everything
on the fire, but this I put in the wash pot. I was hopeful it could be saved. But
we’d have to find Jimmy some pants, that
was
the
thing.

Inside, she had
begun washing Jimmy with the cold water because the fever was on him. She told
me to rub his feet.

“What?” I said.

She did not
repeat, but gave me a look reminded me of Ma, or Pa I should say, so resolute
was she. So I laid down my pride, and rubbed the stinkingest feet God ever put
on a man. She showed me places to press as she moved down and washed first one
foot, then the other. She said to rub and press those places, so I did. We had
teased him about these toes before, fore they were as long as some men’s
fingers, and I’d seen him strike a match with them. We couldn’t take away his
pluck no matter what we said. Hit him with a hammer, he’d rise up and shoot you
with a cannon. I laughed at that, and she ignored me, but he seemed to pull out
for a minute and looked at me, and I know I saw him smile when he realized it
was me doing all that rubbing. “You ain’t in heaven, boy, not yet,” I said, but
he did not respond.

Well she gave me
some grease to rub on his feet then. I didn’t know this could ease his
suffering. She gave him laudanum, but not too much. She used the hot water and
soap on that wound, and oh if I’d slapped his revolver in his hand he’d of used
it on her I think. He called her dirty whore so many times, and that did make
her laugh. I knew then he was out of his head, and she was no lily.

I asked her about
the whiskey for the wound and she said it wouldn’t go deep enough, but she had
things, teas and herbs that would work from the inside.

Well I decided to
trust her and pray and hope she knew something. I had no more faith in doctors
since the war. I found the healers to sometimes have less pride and more
patience. But I did not wish such a fate on Tusaint, and I pushed it away.

When Gaylin next
came in I reminded him about the horses, not that I needed to. He said Michael
had returned and was working on it. William would go further and see more, so
that was good as I had feet to rub.

She watched over
that wound. She used her own brews, and went back and forth from bedside to
stove
a number of times, dried weeds hanging overhead,
things in bottles and salves she smeared it with. She worked and she ordered
us, and she kept the sweat off him.

She let her broth
cool, not a speck of meat in it, mostly carrots seemed like. I asked her what
she had for store, and she said she mostly lived off her garden and what folks
brought, and she had the cow for milk, and berries grew, and the neighbor
brought her the hog’s head in the fall. If a plant could be eaten, she knew it,
she said. Knowledge came through her ma and on back.

When Gaylin
brought the milk in, she fed some to Jimmy. The laudanum kept him under pretty
much now, and I hoped he dreamed good things.

That wound began
to draw. She changed the bandages. I had seen to the horses as we’d pushed them
hard. I had also tried to clean up some. I was starving. Michael went down the
road and got us chickens and eggs. He shouldn’t
of
done it, exposed us, but they already knew as they’d seen us moving. So he and
Gaylin plucked those birds off and cooked them outside. They made two dozen
eggs and with salt and the healer’s biscuit. We ate like kings.

She couldn’t
imagine roasting meat and wasting all the juice. But we put eggs in broth for
Jimmy, and she got him to take a few spoonfuls before she sent him back to
glory with the medicine. But the fever was fierce, and she tended him without
let up. I spelled her so she could eat and clean herself.

Gaylin did the
washing. I found him asleep while it boiled. “These about done you reckon?” I
said, lifting some with the paddle. I saw the bandana right off, it already
red, so who could tell, though the white parts were pink. I picked this out of
the lump.
Them
clothes and such were hot to the touch,
but we hung them about, and I sent him in the house, and he came out with more.
We put them through. I threw in my shirt as it was full of dried blood. He did
the same. We stood there looking at our boiling clothes, me wearing that wet
rag tied over my dirty hair, and I swear my thoughts eased.

I put my hand on
the back of his neck then. We kept staring into the wash. “We’ll get on okay,”
I said. “
I been
in worse.”

He nodded then,
his hands on his hips, but one arm faltered and he nearly threw it around me I
think, but he let it drop.

“I’m proud of
you,” I said, and he stared at the ground and nodded again. But I couldn’t say
too much, for we were not yet home and we must stay strong, and I could feel
the storm in him that must not yet break him.

Iris
sewed William’s arm and bandaged it good. So we slept and William and Michael
took turns on the line. And until the next day, our greatest battle was keeping
Jimmy alive.

They came the
second day. William warned us they were coming, riders, he’d said, armed.
 
We were about and waiting, weapons primed and
ready to kill need be.

“Let me go out,”
Iris said, livid that they would take such a stand on her property. “I will
meet them with you and demand peace.”

“No,” I said,
loud and close to her face.

She slapped me
then, hard enough my ear did ring.

I rubbed my jaw. “Guess
you use violence when it suits you.”

Oh, she did not
like that.
Took to muttering as she went back to Jimmy.

I took his nickel
badge. That and my Enfield.
I had become him now. On the porch I stood.
Them on six
mules, fanning in the yard, two had dismounted, and held weapons.

I held that badge
high for them to see. “We are the law,” I said. “State your business.”

“Why are you
here?” one in the lead said, a heavy man, thick with some age, and eyes I did
not trust for they sat irregular, one up, one lower and turned in.
 

“Who is asking?”
I said.

“What outfit you
ride with?”

Well he knew the
rifle. “Twenty-seventh,” I said.

“Was with you at Belmont,” he said.

“We were on the
same side,” I said like we were puppies in a basket I guess.

He laughed. “I
reckon.” He spit.

I spit.

“You an officer?”
Him.

“I am if it will
help our cause.” Me.

“What
cause
that be?”

“My cause.
State your business.”

“Healing,” he
said,
leg over the saddle and on the ground swift. “They
call me Sonny.”

I did not move. He
wanted to test my mettle, I had me some and that he knew from the line of
bodies we’d left at Monroe’s
camp.

“Halt there.”

He did, but he
smiled and spat again.
“A bit touchy.”

William and
Michael had showed from around the house. They held their rifles at the ready. His
eyes went there.

“Your business,”
I yelled.

“There’s money
due me.”

“Outlaw’s money?”

“You three
alone?” he said.

“Four,” his man
called out, for Gaylin was in the treeline, standing in sight now.

“You fight us the
twenty-seventh will ride up your butthole and out your throat,” I said.

They had a confab
then. It wasn’t talk, but looks at each other.

He got on his
mount, as did the two. He glared at me and I guess I was supposed to piss
myself, but I felt my finger twitch I was so in the mind to shoot him. I knew
they’d be the ones to snipe us soon we hit the road.