Fight for Glory (My Wounded Soldier #1) (3 page)

“Missus,” I
whispered. She opened her eyes. I did not like the look of them so far away. “Lift
up.”

I knelt and slid
one arm behind her head, lifting her shoulders. With the other hand I held the
tea and brought it to her lips. I knew it was tepid, so she could take it. She
took a sip and made a face. Well it was strong for a reason.

“Drink it all,” I
said, holding the cup against her bottom lip. She cringed, but she swallowed it
all. I gently laid her down. I felt such hope knowing the tea was inside her.

When I stood,
grinning I think, my eyes locked with Ma’s. She was thoughtful, holding the
newly diapered baby.

Don’t get any
ideas, I thought. She was always shoving someone’s daughter at me. I was
leaving. My plans were set.

I looked at the
missus once more. I had to let her go now. Didn’t I know how to do that? Let
go? I surely did.

Tom
Tanner

Chapter
Three

The first thing I
did when Ma released me from my duty with Mrs. Varn was
see
to her horse. Then I walked the trail that saber made. Even in the setting sun
the trail read easy, so easy William would say it read like a primer, though he
could not read a primer for he’d never been given the chance being both Indian
and Negro. Well, he rode with Jimmy now. Deputy William I called him, and it
made him smile in his silent way.

So I followed
this trail which took me in time to a tributary of the big river. He had made
his camp here, but he’d carried his roll, so he had no intention of coming
back. He’d eaten a chicken, one he surely stole, and he smoked a cheroot to its
tip. My guess was he came here and stayed a couple of days, perhaps he had
watched them before he showed, but that trail looked broken through only once.

Back at the house
I watched the road for our sheriff, a title I had not yet grown accustomed to
when speaking of Jimmy. Since the war he would always be Captain Jimmy. I also
watched for Seth who would bring the box for the mister. I was eager, but I had
to give Pa time to do the building.

Seth was my
youngest brother, and the quietest, my favorite, truth
be
told, though I had not given myself to him as I found him too young and too
composed for my liking. But Pa said there was a call on him, and it seemed so.

They favored
Garrett, these two younger sons, and though Seth was not given to blame, Gaylin
would never forgive me for not bringing Garrett home. My sister now, she was
the soft place, and much as she loved the eldest son, it was always me she’d
pattered after.

I took to digging
the mister’s grave under that tree. As I dug I looked to the lighted window,
and wondered how the missus fared. Whenever I made another clean foot, I went
to the house and inquired. The bloodstains were disappearing in the slow
descent of evening, and I tried to take note not to bring mud on the porch, but
I did some, I came so often.

With the quilt
still up, I did not see, but I checked, and sometimes Ma was in the kitchen and
she would say, “She rests,” or something of this color, and so I would go back
to my digging, my angry digging, for it wasn’t right this war that did not go
away, that we all lived with now, forever changed in ways we could not mend.

The woman had
done the shooting. She had been the David to stand before Goliath. I saw the
tale soon as I’d ridden up. The boy had rambled truth, but the scene put it
together. She was the one. And then she had birthed.
God
Almighty.

Take life, lose
life,
give
life.
All in one, this
innocent.
Did I not say that all was there, in the quiet scene, waiting
to take hold? So I did not trust the quiet, even as I finished that grave, even
as my brother brought me a cup of water and said he’d finished with the chores.

It was a large
thing, this death. I’d known so many battles where we did not have the gift of
mourning, of considering all we’d lost before we were moving again. So now in
peace, this death, this grave, it rubbed in the wounds I kept sealed in my
heart, the angry catter-wailing wounds of loss.

This man had to
have whiskey somewhere. Just one drink, Lord knows I deserved it. I’d find it
in the barn at least. I threw aside the shovel. But before I could get to the
barn Ma called, and I veered from my mission and hurried to the house. From
Missus’ bedside she called me, and I forgot to wipe my feet I was so alarmed.

When I rounded
the quilt, there she was, sitting up just the tiniest bit, her hair braided and
lying along her breast. Her dark eyes were open and following me as I walked
beside her. She just looked and I wondered if she was too weak to speak. The
babe was held to her side, and were
my fingers not so dirty
I would have taken that little hand and let it curl around me. But I swallowed
my discomfort and my strong gratitude that this woman lived.

“Thank you,” she
whispered, and then she said the word that would brand my mind, “Tom.”

I didn’t plan to
go to my knees, but she took me there, I guess, for I alone knew all she’d been
through this day. “It was a fine piece of shootin’,” I said. “I’ve seen men
couldn’t do such.” Not to mention her own husband. He had not protected them. He
did not strike me as a man that could, and the anger I felt went to him as much
as that soldier.

She kept looking
at me, but she had tears. I wanted to comfort her, but of course I wouldn’t
with Ma looking on, and me so unfit.

“You’re such a
good man,” she said, and I was sure I’d heard wrong, so I leaned even closer
and my filthy hand started to lay itself on the baby’s head, but I snatched it
back just in time before I defiled her.

“Such a good
man,” she said again, and my face was so close to hers now. It flashed through
my mind to kiss her cheek, and then I could die, but Ma was behind.

So I raised a
little, and got to my feet. I waited for words, but I wasn’t Seth and had no
gift or call for such, so I nodded as I stared at so much beauty, I stumbled
from that room nearly blind. And Ma followed, fussing at me for the mud, but I
went out unable to respond…just unable.

Tom
Tanner

Chapter
Four

It was dark when
Gaylin drove the wagon onto the Varn’s land. “Jimmy is riding trail on Boyle
Monroe. William is with him. When they get back to town they’ll come out. Mullens
sent the box, and we’re to leave it open until tomorrow so they can get their
picture.”

“No,” I said. “We’ll
box this one and you can take him back to town. If we don’t, every dowager will
come out to see. Let them have their sideshow in town, well away from here.”

Whatever Gaylin
wanted to say, it made him kick the wagon’s wheel. I knew he’d speak for he
held nothing. “I ain’t ridin’ with that one back to town in the dark.”

“Seth can come
then, but you be back by mornin’, and take Mrs. Varn’s team in cause Pa will
need these in the field tomorrow. Go to the barn and switch them out. Seth will
be here with a box for the mister anytime now. So get to it.”

“You ain’t my
pa,” he said, and I knew he was soft and tired and I should have mercy.

“And if I was I’d
give you a hidin’ for your smart mouth. Do as you’re told.”

“I don’t need to
go tonight. Soon’s the sun’s up…”

“You’ll go now. I
know you. You run your mouth enough it’s all over town already. They’re
skittish as is with these fellas about. Come morning they’ll be all over here. You’re
taking this body tonight. Change out the horses.”

I didn’t stick
around to get his reaction. I needed to get this soldier’s body out of here. I
wanted to tell Missus she need not look upon him again.

I went to where
I’d placed him earlier that day. While Gaylin changed out the team, Seth
showed, the new coffin made ready using the doors just like I’d said. He helped
me bring the box up close to the mister’s body beneath the tree and though we
kept him wrapped, we brought the heavy coffin to the ground and settled Richard
Varn’s body in Pa’s good carpentry.
 

I knew how it
was…the things folks
did,
the tender things. So I told
Seth to wait on me and I went in to the missus. She was holding the baby, lying
in the bed while Ma cleaned up some.

“Missus,” I said,
“I am gettin’ ready to…bury Mr. Varn and…was there something…?”

She took in a big
breath. “There is…it’s going to seem…foolish. But…there is a hornet’s nest he
found in the woods…and a picture beside…him and Johnny. It is by my son’s
bed…well under it.”

“Yes Ma’am,” I
said. “Then I will bury him out yonder?”

“Yes.” Her face
crumpled for a moment, but she got a hold.

I turned in
search of the nest.

“Mr. Tanner?”

I stopped.

“Thank you.”

I nodded. “And
the other…I am sending him off to town so you need not look upon him no more.”

“You are so
splendid sir,” she said.

I went around the
quilt. I could not stay near her. But before I could go look under that boy’s
bed Ma handed me a gray nest, and a picture of such drawn in a child’s hand,
the father and son joining arms beneath the hanging nest attached to the limb
of a tree. They had big smiles.

I took that
outside in time to hear my brothers speculating on the coffin brought from town
for the drifter. “It won’t fit him bent that way,” Gaylin said.

I put those two
things in with the mister then turned my attention to the other.

Well, I had
Gaylin help me lift that drifter’s sad remains and we set him some in that box
in the bed Mullen sent, but he was not quite in, like a box of matches spilt
and scooped and put in the tin but sticking out here and there. So using that
hammer I made that old one fit, and I didn’t ask their opinion. I knew they
heard the bones crack.

I nailed the lid
loosely so Jimmy could have his look-see and told them to get their hands out
of their pockets and take this one’s old dead ass down the road. I was angry to
burst for this coffin had surely been made for a woman or child and not a man
and if Mullen or my brother had no more sense than that there was no one to
blame than their damn dumb selves. And it slammed to me that had I lost that
mother in there I would have needed just this box and I was full up sick of
this world’s sorrow.

“Take him to
Mullen’s and get back. Come morning we got double the work, so don’t dally.”

“Tom,” Seth said,
“I should say words. Once he gets to town…they’ll put him in the potter’s field
most likely. And Mr. Varn…he deserves something.” He already held his hat in
his hand, his blonde hair stuck to his head in the shape of his hat. He favored
Garrett, and Gaylin was the image of my ma. But me, there was an uncle, they
said, but I had Pa’s hands.

I thought about
what it must be like…for them. The smell of that dead body, and I’d been
brutal, but they didn’t know the worry I felt for that woman. Still…, “Go on.”

We jumped to the
ground then, me and Gaylin. That one wore no hat, and I kept mine pulled tight.

Seth said the
words, and I watched him, trying to be patient. I was brought up short to
realize how unsullied he and Gaylin still were. We’d been that way once,
Garrett and me, Jimmy and William. Just country boys ornery, but knowing how to
be good too, full of bluster, laughing our way through.

“Well,” Seth said
when he was done, “We’d best get to it then.”

Gaylin wanted to
argue with Seth about who drove first and that he wasn’t bedding down with that
body beside him. I ignored such foolishness and put out my hand. “Gaylin stared
at my offer, but Seth took it quick. “Careful on that dark road,” I told Seth,
shaking his hand and slapping his shoulder. Then I turned to Gaylin, my hand
still there. He looked at it and took it with grudge. I pumped it a couple of
times, but his arm was heavy. I did not touch his shoulder.
 

So they took off
and it was back to the house where Ma would dish my supper. I went there, and
she pulled the door and warned me about my boots. I sat on the porch and left
them there, studying the stains from where the men fell. I went to the stains
in my socks and started to kick at them, stirring up the dirt, then bending and
scratching at the stains with my hands like a damn rooster, but I couldn’t
stop, didn’t want to. Finally I stood up straight, panting, and looking at the
poorly job I’d done, but I didn’t care, I needed to do it cause it made me so
angry to think of it, and how they’d want to look and bother this poor woman,
this Miss Addie, and how Johnny saw it, and how wrong it was that the mister
had a shotgun that listed right and high and had a charge that had barely been
fresh enough to fire.

I went to the
well and drew water. I peeled to my long johns,
then
I
dropped them, too. I filled buckets and poured them over my head, one after
another. Then I filled the wash pan and soaped myself and stood in it to soap
and scrub. But I couldn’t wash it away, not matter how much I tried.
The stain inside me.

After more cold
buckets over my head to rinse, I put my long johns on, and my pants, letting my
suspenders hang. The shirt I stuck in the pan with the dirty water so it could
soak some of the vileness from it.
My socks, too.
I no
longer smelled like animal shit and death. I went in the house then. “Give me
the washing,” I said. “I’ll put it in the pan so it can soak overnight.”

Ma bundled it up.
There was more than would fit in the pan. I took it, and she stopped me. “It’s
like with Grampa, remember how it was? You were always the one who would do the
hard things.”

I would build the
fire in the morning, but for now it could soak. It took me several trips to
fill the wash kettle, and I was able to fit all of the bloody mess in there.

Back inside, my
eyes went to the blanket. Ma worked with the milk Seth had brought in earlier. “Thought
we’d take turns on the small bed. You could spell me and I’ll spell you. She’s
too weak to be left unattended.”

Her eyes shot to
me, but her mouth was set.

“Yes Ma’am.” I
said. I told her about sending the boys on. She was uneasy with what had
happened, but I assured her the soldier had traveled alone.

So I ate some of
the stew and put my dish to sink. Ma finished straining the milk and covered it
with a cloth.

“Is she fit?” I
asked.

“She’s bleeding
heavy, but it’s easing some. She’ll be weak from the loss of it, and she’ll need
help for a good while.”

I nodded, looking
at the quilt again. “I’ll take first watch,” I said.

“You’re done in,”
she said, ready to argue.

“It’s settled,” I
said, standing and walking around the quilt.

The baby had a
cradle now that had been in the attic since the boy. Ma had cleaned it and
readied it, and she slept there all bundled. I put the cradle by Ma’s trundle
so she could bring her to the missus should she waken, and I went round the
curtain to keep vigil.

She
laid
there, and it wasn’t right, but I stood watching her
sleep.
Just the night before she’d shared this bed with her
husband, and rightly so.
Now here I stood, when I should be in my room
in the barn three miles yonder, nursing my whiskey and my sad stories. Shit.

I took the one
chair and pulled it up close to her. I sat, and the chair creaked, and I knew
Ma would know just where I was.
This woman.
It was
natural I’d feel kinship after what I had shared with her this afternoon. I
wasn’t a fool. Not love-struck. I hadn’t had me but one woman one time, and
that was because Jimmy had convinced me I was going to die the next day, but
that’s a campfire and whiskey story for another time, but I’d seen nothing
though she let me put it in her glory hole and I thought I went blind when I
spurted my seed.

But that had
nothing to do with this. I shouldn’t think such a thing in here. I didn’t know
how long I would have to be near Miss Addie and her brown satin hair. She was
my angel. And that was a thing so embarrassing…but she was. I had never known
someone so sweet and brave. Ma had fixed her up, and I saw her thin pale beauty
like she wasn’t real. Her lashes were thick and dark on her pale cheeks. She
was freckled, but not too much. Her lips were a curve and a bow.
Her nose and ears shell-like and delicate.
Her skin like the
milk after Ma strained it pure.

And I would spend
this one night looking.
For I could not sleep.
It’s
then I went back to the war…and Garrett. But now, I
didn’t need sleep, I craved the comfort of just looking on her. That would be the
greatest gift God could allow a son-of-a-bitch like me.

But when dawn
came and the rooster crowed, I found myself leaning on the bed, my head beside
hers on the pillow, one hand twined in her hair, but the other beneath her full
breast. I saw it there as though it had detached from me and climbed there to
nest. Yet when the horror speared me, the hand jumped, rough, callused,
snagging the quilt. And I lifted
quick
, my neck
protesting I moved so fast.

She woke with a
start, me so close and looking like a fiend I’d wager, with the way my hair
could stand on end, and the guilt that made me speechless.

“Mr. Tom,” she
said. Then she calmed, seeing it was me. “Oh, Mr. Tom,” she whispered, and her
arms reached and came around me, and she pulled my head to the place where the
baby nursed, the place my hand had sought in honest sleep, and she cradled me
as she cried. “Oh Mr. Tom,” in the softest voice, in a voice dropped and
broken, and I smelled her smell, and I wanted to turn my face into her gown and
breathe again.

“Lass,” I said
finally, as I gathered her in my arms and kissed her hair. “Lass,” I said
again. And there was no stopping me.