Fight for Glory (My Wounded Soldier #1) (19 page)

“We
wasn’t
on the same side at Belmont or no time,” he said.

I walked quick
off the porch and held my rifle on him cocked and ready. “You boys drop your
weapons or I’ll drop him.” When they hesitated I said, “Now.”

He wanted to grab
that piece in his britches, but I told him, “I’ll take that revolver.” He went
for it slow and I shouted, “Two
fingers,
butt first,”
and he pinched the butt and pulled it free and handed it to me, barrel to the
ground.

I took it and stuck
it round my waist. “Get off,” I said, my rifle steady.

It might have
looked like I had me a plan, but I did not. I just knew that I couldn’t let
these rascals go or
me
and mine would soon be
back-shot in the fields of Monroe-land.
 

I stood back
enough he couldn’t kick me when he dismounted cause he had legs longer than
Abraham Lincoln’s.

“Get your hands
behind your head,” I screamed at him. “Do it!” I yelled when he hesitated
cause
the son of a bitch in me was out now.

He put his hands
back of his head.

“You stay that
way soldier. I mean you don’t move. Clear?”

He stared at me.

“Any of these your sons?”

“What?” said
he.

“Your sons!”

They all stayed
quiet. They’d lowered their weapons, but they still had them.

“You will answer
me, or I will shoot you in the leg.” I pointed my weapon at Sonny’s leg.

“Why you asking?”
he said het up now.

“I reckon that
one there is one,” I pointed at one ugly enough to be his—same unfortunate
eyes.

“That is not my
son,” he said.

“Then if I kill
him, you won’t mind,” I yelled.

“If you kill him,
you’ll never ride out of here,” he yelled.

“Take him,” I
said to Michael.

“If you fight,
he’ll kill you,” I said to the son, my eyes still on Sonny, “and I will kill
your pa.”

Michael took his
revolver and pulled ‘the son’ from the mule. He fought some, but only to stay
on his feet and show some dignity. Michael made him lie down and put his hands
out straight, palms down.

“Who else?”
I asked.

“Pa?” One said. Sonny
rolled his eyes and gritted his teeth.

I told that one
to get off and lie and when Michael went to him he surrendered. It would be
hard to shoot such a nice fellow, but not impossible.

“I ain’t gonna
watch this, I ain’t gonna,” one said, and I shot him as he had raised his gun,
in what could
a been
construed to be a threatening
way. He was not dead, but he wished he was, I think. He had dropped his gun
though, and fallen off his mule, and he rolled around in agony but suddenly
went quiet, while the big animal ran to glory.

Poor Iris.
She’d have more business soon. We stood now, guns
leveled, and we waited.
 

One kicked his
mule and turned him round and lit out, and Michael shot him in the back. His
mule kept going, but he was slumped forward, and he soon fell out of the saddle
laying still as a stone in the yonder field, his butt in the air in a peculiar
way, but that was the way he fell. And I wondered if I had not found Jimmy’s
new pants.

So we had one
more left. I looked at him, and he was beginning to recognize someone crazier
than himself. He threw his gun down and raised his hands.

“Get off,” I
said. He did. Michael took his gun.

“Tie them up,” I
said to William, and he went to his gear on the porch and returned with rope
for tying folks. We tied them to one another.
One big wagon
train of bastards.

The one had died
in the yard, the other yonder dead also, not that we checked, but he hadn’t
moved, and butt up like that, he surely would have.

I moved them
around back of the house and had them set in the yard there. Michael would
stand guard.

“You gonna kill
us?” Sonny said.

I didn’t answer
for like I
said,
no plan but to get the hell out of
there.

William went back
to walk the circle. We all had to look sharp then. I went in to check on Iris
and Jimmy. His fever was lining out better, but she had him so full of witch’s
brew he didn’t come round except to mumble like he was in the war again. That
was better than him crying over Allie like he’d been sometimes during the
night.

“I need to move
him,” I said.

“He’ll die,” she
said.

“We’ll all die
here. Can you come along?
For pay?”

She stared at me.
“I ain’t been off this place for ten year.”

“Things have
changed,” I said.

“My cow.”

“We’ll run her to
pasture and tell that fella probably turned us in to these outside.
Same with their mules.”

I told her
quickly about the two bodies.

“You can’t go
leaving dead folks all over this country,” she said. “Might be I know some of
these.”

“If you come, you
might be in danger,” I said. “It’s just to the train. Say fifty miles, I
reckon.
After that…mayhap you’ll want to keep going.”
I
grinned.

“You got
a darkness
,” she said.

“Yes’m,” I said.

“Your ma…she has
prayed it into submission,” she said. “Stay close to your ma. And…I cannot
leave my garden. But him…,” she looked at Jimmy, “he is a strong man. God may
allow him more on this earth. I can’t see it clear…though he is loved.” Then
she looked at me, “As are you. It holds you in the light.” She looked back at
him, “And it holds him there. It comes from the same strong place…from home.”

One thought in my
mind—Addie. She was my home.

“Oh,” she says. “Yes
it is a woman who steps out of your ma with her own bright light.”

“She is not my
ma,” I said so there
be
no confusion.

“Oh no…but she is
someone’s mother.”

“Yes’m.”

“She will set a
fence around you, but it will not be small. She will give you room to run and
yank you back just in time for you are tethered to her. Stay close to her.”

“Miss Iris…Addie
will not have me.”

“She has already
had you.”

I knew I blushed
like Johnny might.

“You and
her
are tied. Yes tied and cross-tied. Tangled is what you
two are. Yes, trussed and chained. You are…you are one.” She had been looking
off at some weeds hanging from her rafters and I looked there too, but I
couldn’t see anything beyond a cricket helping himself.

“She might marry
Cousin. What about that?”

She looked at me
now, her brows thick and white,
her
eyes blue and
sharp. “She might.”

“That’s it?” I
didn’t like it.

“Yes. But if she
marries him, she’ll pine for you. And you…if this woman won’t have you…just
stay by your ma.” She took a big breath,
then
shuddered.
“Her tether is a noose…but it will keep you from a real noose. Yes…stay by
her.”

I admit I stared
at her some. “Well hellfire. I don’t want to talk about this right now.”

I was thrown, but
there was no time to think on this. I surely couldn’t be clawing now just to
make it home and spend my days with Ma.

“Can you give me
enough medicine to help me get Jimmy to the train? If I can get him to that
train, he’ll live,” I said. Maybe we all would. “I reckon I’d like him as close
to ‘gone to glory’ as we dare get him. I don’t want him to be aware of all his
pain and misery cause we will have to move like the big number nine is
breathing up our asses…excuse me.”

“I want those two
you killed off my land. You have brought too much death here.”

“Yes’m.”

“And what, pray
will you do with these you have tied in my yard?”

“I am marching
these four along with us. If we get shot, even if they miss, I shoot one of
them, right out front for
all the
world.”

“That is the
darkness I spoke of. But it might get you home,” she said, tapping her furry
lip.

Tom
Tanner

Chapter
Twenty-Three

I walked them two
out front, Sonny and the other. Gaylin watched the two after, the sons. His job
was harder for they looked at him sometimes, but not so much as they grew so
tired and their feet dragged heavy as stones.

I had put the
father as lead, for a father should set a path for his children. But I didn’t
say that, thought it only. And I wanted to go to Johnny, then, but I would not
bring him there.

They had let us
pass, but I was not a fool. When we got to that train all hell was what I
feared. But I did not fear so much, for I grew stronger with every step toward
home, and we had made it to terrain I was familiar with, the plains, even as it
was that deceptive quiet I knew so well.

I had pushed
these vessels of wrath, and they were dog tired. We had ridden
slow
, a funeral procession as we led their stinking hero to
the train. If we stopped, Gaylin stood over them with the command to fire
should the littlest thing show itself while William and Michael took note of
our surroundings. William sometimes rode off to see if we were followed, and I
prayed, yes prayed before he returned.

I wanted these
bandits exhausted, and after two days marching, with scant break, they were
dragging chins, asses and feet.

So it was I took
them into the town of Rigsby.
When we arrived, we caused a stir, for two big boys sat on the porch of the
general store, and they knew this Sonny, or knew of him, I couldn’t get it
straight because they were unable to express a thought it seemed, but they were
more suspicious of me than they were of the outlaws. But there was a man there
who fought with the Eighty-First, and he was sheriff. He did not have a jail,
but there were posts with chains and cuffs in a lean-to where deserters had
once been held. I reckoned that could not be a more fit provision.

The sheriff was a
man of some courage, and anxious for adventure, glad to be a part of something
big. He would hold these in chains until he got word transmitted from Springfield about
warrants. I told him we would split the reward if there be one, for I was
turning the prisoners over to him. Well, he needed to make reports on all that
had happened. I told him I would have that done, but when was the goldurn train
coming through that went to Greenup? And was there a doctor for our Cap,
who’s
state had bled into delirium, and become the most
pressing thing about this mess?

I reckoned Jimmy
had been administered too many herbs, and potions, and medicines. Iris had
given me many instructions, but travel had kept me from tending him properly
with the many other pressing matters.

But in Rigsby
there was a doc, and he was sent for. The train was not as obliging. It would
not come until tomorrow, and that was lucky. I did not feel lucky, but it
served Jimmy. I told this Sheriff that he needed to set a strong guard on Sonny
and his band for we had others dragging along we feared, ones who meant
mischief. He mustered deputies pretty quick, and we felt the weight of the
cross lift.

The undertaker,
who also barbered, and would let a man rent his washtub for a bath out yonder
of his shop, soap and towel included, was building a casket for Monroe big enough to hold
his bloat, and also the loot, though I did not mention the loot. I just ordered
a box that was deep and insisted came time to move that body he let me and the
boys do it
cause
we were that particular. End of
diatribe.

Well they were
pretty admiring of us and the pluck it took to bring down Monroe. I was never so glad to have the
stinking beef jerky remains of that one to silence any doubt that we were not
as crazy as we looked.

We carried Jimmy
into the Doc’s table. Doc lived with his widowed sister, and she seemed to care
not about the shiny table the way Ma might if she had such. It was not the
first time, she said, that a patient had been on that table for sundry reasons.
Her name was funny…Rayetta.

Sounded foreign
to me, and she looked like a Jenny besides. But it turned out she was one of
those that would not go for Garrett
so
much as me.

Yes, she was
pretty, but I could not consider such. I thought of Addie, because any pretty
girl of her age took me to thoughts of her. I felt this tremendous loyalty to
my Addie, even though she was possibly marrying Cousin. If Iris was right, she
would be miserable, and there was some satisfaction in that, for I did have
that dark side and I had never denied it. So yes, I wanted her miserable if she
chose him. Yes I did.

But after we got
Jimmy settled and the doc was looking him over, and asked me to move out of the
light, I knew something was afoot. She was giving me smiles, and I was stinking
and greasy trail dust, and that was all. Jimmy was heinous with the dead man’s
smell. We deserved live burial.

The others went
straight to the
bathhouse-barber-undertaker’s
. But I
stayed back for I was the captain of this ship that must not sink.

So I was anxious
as he examined the wound and started the same steps I saw Iris go through. He
cut off clothes, and Rayetta went out, but I stayed put, and we covered Jimmy’s
privates with a little cloth. Doc washed my pard who was once again soiled. And
his clothes were burned, along with the bandages. Doc said whoever tended him
had saved him thus far for the wounds were draining, but still hot to the touch,
still poisoned. He was mad that Jimmy had been moved, and he was stern with me,
but I worked it out by clenching my hands and my jaw and my butt-cheeks. I said
it don’t matter long as he did Jimmy some good. I couldn’t kill everybody could
I?

Jimmy was drunk,
best way to explain it. He was saying ridiculous things, then he got quiet,
then he thrashed. I showed Doc the ointments and such, but he had no respect
for them. He did understand the laudanum, and when this Rayetta brought me some
clean duds that
was
some man’s who didn’t need them
anymore, I did not ask why. They were washed and smelled so much better than
anything I’d worn since the days of Ma’s
noose, that
I
felt like things might finally be going my way.

So after my bath,
and my hair was cut, even though it was sunset now, and some kind woman let us
eat at her table for twenty-five cents, beans and bacon, bread and coffee, I
went back to the Doc’s in them clothes that were a bit tight but fit pretty
good. Well Michael had whistled at me, and had a laugh, but leastways I didn’t
have to pick from the undertaker’s clothes like some I knew.

Rayetta had a
good eye. But she was so proud of them clothes she kept looking me up and down.
And it made my privates itch. I was wagon sore is
all.
I was sore every which way and the soap had been the kind took off skin. I felt
like a spring snake. But that bath and those clothes made me human again. Not
to mention those three plates of beans.

So the others,
that
be
Gaylin and Michael, not William as he’d be off
somewhere you’d never think to look, were bunking out back of the sheriff’s in
a bunkhouse kept there from the war. But I couldn’t stay so far from Jimmy. Not
with that fever and him so poorly. So that brought me back to the
doctor’s,
and Rayetta’s dewey looks.

I asked if I
could hold vigil in the one chair they had in there looked substantial enough
to keep a fella from pitching onto the floor if he closed his eyes. I’d as soon
lie on the floor and planned to once they were out of there. They said oh sure
it was fine, and she kept fussing over me like I was her husband came back to
life.

I did not want
pie. Well I did, but no, I would not keep taking favors. And I had never worn a
dressing gown in my life. Not since I was a baby anyway. Privates in the wind
like that with this lonely woman about…
not hardly
.

“You’re a hero,”
she said. “They’ll have a parade for you boys time word gets to Greenup. Sheriff
sent a rider ahead. They’ll send a telegraph to Springfield soon as they get to Raymond. That
handsome face of yours will be on the front page of every paper. The girls will
be swooning.”

She kept rubbing
her hand over the tops of her breasts. I tried not to see it, and I kept my
eyes glued on the many items in the room. Most fascinating was the skeleton
hanging near the wall. “Is that real?” I said.

She laughed. “No
darlin’.”

“Well knock me
down with a feather,” I said. I kept looking at Jimmy. If he could hear, he
was loving
this.

Guess a fella
like me could make a living filling dead man’s shoes. I reckoned in time these
women would find them fresh troops, but until they did the call of duty might
pop up anywhere. I hadn’t even been washed when she set a bead on me. Now that
I was…washed…she was slurping her spit.

“You can go on to
bed, Missus. I can get the doc if he gets worse. Where is the doc anyway?”

“Oh, he has a
baby coming few doors down.”

I gulped, and she
heard it. Well I’d been there, the birthing. But Janey came quicker than most. “Well…I
am purely worn out. Guess I’ll turn in.”

“I can’t bear to
think of you on that chair, Tom dear. You got a sweetheart back home?” She was
swaying side to side while she did that rubbing.

“Yes,” I said,
feeling some kind of rudeness getting far as my throat. I didn’t know what was
likely to burst out of me if she didn’t back off.

She was doing
that rubbing again, lower this time, near the tips. The breast tips.

I put my eyes
back on Jimmy. I kept staring and willing her away. I jumped and rattled the
bed when she touched my shoulder.

“You sure have
been fighting a long time, haven’t you soldier?”

“Ma’am,” I said
standing. I was trying to turn her way, but there wasn’t enough space what with
the bed, the chair and the small table with the medicines and wash pan and her
corralling me.

“Don’t fight so
hard, soldier. We ain’t all enemies, you know.” Her hands were on me, sliding
up my fresh shave, the place where Iris slapped me.

“Get…get off me,”
I said.

“Tom?” Jimmy
said.

I turned to him
then, and I think I knocked her against the wall, but I didn’t give a hoot.

“Hey pard,” I
said, grabbing his hand, never so glad to see him.

“Man the guns,”
he said.
Then louder and crazier, “Line ‘em up!”

“Shhhh,” I said. “I
did. The guns are lined.”

“Man the guns,
man the guns,” he yelled.

“We’re manning,”
I said trying to find him in those glassy eyes.

“There’s hell to
pay, hell to pay!” he screamed. Sounded like Chattanooga, but I couldn’t bet the farm. It
could
a been
Alabama
like as not.

“We done paid it,
Cap,” I said, looking over my shoulder to see if she was still around.

About the time I
grew hopeful, she came in carrying a silver tray with some kind of alcohol in a
fancy glass bottle, and two little glasses. She was in her nightdress. I could
see some skin round the collar bones and deeper, all in that little glance cause
those buttons wasn’t fixed.

Lord, God, I
didn’t trust her with Jimmy. A picture flashed in my mind of her manning the
gun so to speak, and it made me shudder. I took to mopping his head with the
water setting nearby for such and pondered how I’d just as soon deliver that
baby myself and get the doc back here.

“You never did
tell me about that sweetheart,” she said pouring that fruity smelling stuff.

“Ma’am,” I said,
and she cut over me.

“Rayetta,” she
said.

“That is some
handle,” said I, “but I am about to shame myself in the hopes of keeping you
from doing the same. There
be
one woman for me. That’s
all.”

She studied her
drink, then downed it in one go. Then she looked the devil in the eye and said,
“I ain’t asking for marriage.”

I nodded. “What…what
outfit your husband ride with?”

She picked up the
other drink and downed that too. Then she held the glass over her heart and
looking off said, “Hundred and fourth.” She said it hateful.

“Where did he
fall?” I said.

“Hartsville.”
She set the glass on the tray then. “Is she
pretty?”

“Addie?” Confound
it I had no intent to say her name and there I’d spilled it like confetti.

“Addie? My my,”
she said, a regretful gleam in her eye. Oh Lord, her hands went for the open v
of that gown, like she was gonna rip ‘er down. I felt my chin bobbing.

“Addie? Oh
Addie,” Jimmy sighed.

What in tarnal? I
shook him a little, but he just grunted and smacked his lips. But when I looked
up, there they were, two fine breasts poking forth like the prows of a
battleship. I hate to say the cannon responded, but it did. I hated myself for
it, but Lord, God….

“Put them away,”
I shouted.

She laughed, as I
was unable to stop noticing them. They were staring, it seemed, and I stared
back. Jimmy grabbed the front of my shirt and yelled, “Stand tall, stand hard!”

And that’s what I
did, barely scraping past them as I fled like she offered me two fried eggs and
I had the dysentery.

I ran to the
bunkhouse, only collecting myself before I went in. “Michael, get up,” I said,
authority in my voice, me half pulling him out of his sleep.

“What?” he said
rousing himself and lifting his
gun.

“It’s me!” I
said. I should
of
known better than to wake a soldier
that way. That revolver was nearly up my nose. “I need you to stand vigil with
Jimmy until the doc gets in there.”