Jordan's War - 1861 (16 page)

Chapter 21

It was just before
dawn when Jordan reached the top of the mountain. His face was scratched and
bloodied from the low hanging branches and his feet ached. But his discomfort
was nothing when compared to Henry’s agony and Jordan wondered how he stayed
upright in the saddle for so long. His eyes were closed and he hadn’t spoken a
word in over an hour.

“You all right?”
Jordan asked. He asked the same question about every ten minutes. He was
exhausted and he was afraid if Henry slid off the horse, he’d never notice.

“Uh huh,” Henry
muttered through his dry, cracked lips, just as he did for the last fifty times
Jordan had asked him.

Jordan felt a
surge of relief wash through him as the sun’s first amber rays illuminated the
south pasture. Soon he could see the barn, and at last the farmhouse. He
quickened his pace and hoped Henry hung on. Otter announced his return with his
usual barking and soon Rusty joined in.

Jim walked down
the path as fast as he could. At first Jordan thought was either Jake or Gunner
but realized his mistake as Jim got closer. He clutched one of Pa’s rifles as
he walked.

“Jim!”
Jordan hollered. “Get Grandma! Henry’s hurt.”
He knew not to say
shot as the Home Guard could be anywhere.

“She knows,” Jim
said. “Let me take the horse.”

Grandma was on the
porch, pacing back and forth with her hands clasped in prayer. Selie was in the
rocking chair. Willow poked her head out the door then ran back inside. Gunner
and Jake raced out to Jim and Jordan. He didn’t see Ma anywhere. Henry leaned
out of the saddle but Jordan steadied him.

“I’ve smelled
Grandma’s poultice all night long,” Jake said. “Did you find Eamon?”

“Yep,” Jordan
said, his voice croaked from exhaustion and walking all night in the mountain
air.

“Where’s Finnian?”
Gunner asked. “Is that Henry?”

Just when Jordan
thought he couldn’t walk another step, he stopped staring at the top of his
boots and looked up. The house was only few yards away.

“You boys take the
horse and get the saddle off,” Jim said. “Then run along and stay out of the
way. Take Selie with you. Henry’s going to need a lot of attention.”

Jim did his best
to get Henry off the horse by himself, but ended up needing Jordan’s help.
Together they carried Henry inside and lay him down on Jim’s temporary bed the
front room. Henry groaned in agony.

Grandma followed
Jordan and Jim inside and walked uncomfortably close to Jordan.

“Where’s Finnian?”
Ma asked the moment Jordan walked inside. “Did you find Eamon?”

“Yes,” Jordan
said. “Uncle Tate and Henry met us on the turnpike. They rode off in another
direction after the soldiers started shooting.”

“Where any of them
shot?” Ma asked.

“I don’t think
so,” Jordan answered. He didn’t mention the shot he heard when they were at the
spring.

“Oh, praise
Jesus,” Ma said and walked back into the kitchen.

“What is it
Grandma?” Jordan asked when she took his arm and sniffed his shirt.

“Death,” she
muttered.

“Me?” Jordan
asked, his eyes wide.

“No,” Grandma said
and rolled her eyes.

“How close were
you to camp last night?”

“Pretty close I
reckon,” Jordan said. “Henry was too. Does he stink?”

“He smells of his
own wounds,” Grandma said. “You’re not hurt.”

“I did smell
something funny last night,” Jordan admitted. “No one else seemed to notice
it.”

“It’s sickness,”
Grandma said. “Just like I told that Sergeant. It’s already taken hold.”

“What sickness?”
Jordan asked and sniffed his shirt. “Am I going to get sick?”

“It’s ready,” Ma
said and removed a pail of boiling water from the fireplace. Willow carried a
tray with some rags, a few knives, witch hazel, and a tin cup of whiskey.

Grandma leaned
over Henry and cut his shirt away from his shoulder carefully with one of the
knives. Jordan winced when he saw the mangled flesh still oozing watery blood.
He’d seen injuries like this many times on deer, turkeys and such, but never on
a human.

“Has he drunk any
water?” Grandma asked.

“No,” Jordan
answered.

“Has he vomited?”
Grandma asked.

“No,” Jordan
answered.

“He’s lost quite a
bit of blood,” Grandma said and rubbed his limp hand. “No time to waste.”

Willow set the
tray down on a small table Jim had scooted over to the davenport. Grandma
picked up the cup of whiskey.

“You ain’t going
to make him drink that are you?” Jordan asked.

“Hush up or I’ll
make you sit outside,” Ma warned.

“Oh, he’ll be
wanting this soon enough,” Grandma said. “But the first drink is for me.”

Willow dipped one
of the rags in the bucket of hot water, wrung it out as best she could and
handed it to Grandma.

“Ahhhh!” Henry
said and sucked air through his clenched teeth.

“I’m sorry son,”
Grandma whispered and wiped the sweat from his forehead. “But that bullet has
got to come out. Here, drink this.”

Jim helped Henry
sit up a bit and Grandma held the cup to his lips. Jordan was sure he’d spit it
out, but to his surprise, Henry kept drinking until Grandma pulled the whiskey
away from his lips.

“Give me the first
wrap,” Grandma said. “It’s not deep at all. Ain’t nothing broken.”

Willow handed her
the wrap of cold water and salt. Grandma held it to the wound and Henry
screamed in agony.

“I’m sorry baby,”
she whispered.

Henry’s eyes
rolled back in his head and his breathing was fast and forced.

“You’ve got to do
it now,” Ma said. “Or he’s going to die.”

Grandma handed the
salt wrap back to Willow and grabbed the longest knife off the tray. Ma moved
around to Henry’s head and placed a leather strap between his teeth. Grandma
dug the blade into the wound and pulled back flesh with her free hand.

Henry screamed and
spit out the leather strap.

“Hold him,” Ma
yelled at Jordan.

He rushed over and
grabbed Henry’s right arm and held it still but turned his head away, too
sickened to watch anymore. Henry’s screams got louder and more tortured as
Grandma got closer to the bullet.

“I got it,” she
said. “Damn mini-balls. Well, here’s one man it didn’t cripple.” She tossed the
metal ball onto the tray. “Willow, give me the poultice.”

Willow handed her
the wrap. It smelled worse than the one Jordan had to wear after Gus ran over
him.

Jordan softened
his grip on Henry’s arm and Henry stopped fighting him.

“Go get him a
shirt, Jordan,” Ma said. “All we can do now is wait.”

“And pray,” Willow
added.

Chapter 22

Henry whimpered
for a few minutes before he drifted off to sleep. At least Jordan hoped he was
sleeping. He’d stopped thrashing and crying a while ago, but Jordan kept hold
of his wrist and focused on each pulse. The morning breeze was dissipating with
each refreshing gust. The poultice was overpowering with the wind and would
soon be unbearable in the stagnant mid-day air.

“What happened
down there?” Jim asked when they were alone.

“Pa and Uncle Tate
went into the camp to get Eamon,” Jordan said. “I suppose one of the soldiers
saw them and started shooting.”

“How many soldiers
where there?”

“I don’t know,”
Jordan answered. “It was dark.”

Jim leaned forward
in the chair, picked up the cup and drank the rest of the whiskey.

“You didn’t want
any of this did you?” he asked when he saw Jordan staring at him.

Jordan shook his
head, stood up and stretched his back. He would love to open the door but one
never knew who was watching the place. His whole body ached and he could only
walk for a few minutes before he had to sit back down on the edge of the bed at
Henry’s feet. His eyes burned from exhaustion, but he didn’t want to sleep.

“Did Willow
leave?” Ma asked as she came back into the room.

“Yes,” Jordan
answered.

She picked up the
tray and stared suspiciously at the empty tin cup.

Jordan pointed at
Jim when Jim wasn’t looking.

“She said
something about praying,” he added. “God’s got to be tired of hearing from her
by now.”

“God never gets
tired of hearing from his children,” Ma reasoned. “I never get tired of hearing
from you, do I?”

“Sometimes,”
Jordan said. “Why doesn’t God do something about the war?”

“Well,” Ma said.
“I suppose he’s just like any other Pa. Sometimes you just have to let your
children work out their problems on their own.”

It made sense to
Jordan, but this war wasn’t a fist-fight. Folks were dying.

“Take Henry’s
boots off,” Ma said. “Jim, here’s another blanket if he starts to shiver.”

Jordan bent over
and struggled with the countless knots holding Henry’s boots on. It took him a
few minutes but he finally pried the last one off and put them in the corner.
His feet smelled almost as foul as the poultice.

“You two stay here
and look after him,” she said. “Someone’s got to tend to these fields or we
won’t last the winter.”

“Don’t you want me
to help?” Jordan asked. He never got out of chores, not even when he was sick
with the fever.

“No,” Ma said. “We
have enough hands. Get Grandma if anything happens.”

“Yes ma’am,”
Jordan said. “Where is Grandma?”

“Out and about,
gathering some ginger,” Ma said. “She’ll be back in a bit. If she doesn’t come
back to the house, then she’ll probably be her store room.”

Jordan leaned his
head back and closed his eyes. He listened to Jake and Gunner hollering
outside, but soon their voices faded and he was left in the silence of a late spring
morning. It was pleasant despite the smell. Jim would cough every now and then
but even that didn’t bother him. He wasn’t ready to sleep yet.

“Why’d you leave
the mountain?” Jordan asked, without even opening his eyes.

It was silent in
the room and Jordan opened one eye just to make sure Jim was still in the room.

“Stupidity I
reckon,” Jim said. “I was young and itching to do for myself.”

“Why work in the
mines?”

“That’s where all
the money was being made,” Jim said and shook his head. “Or so I was told.”

“What’d your pa
say when you left?”

“Nothing. Abe was
a man of few words. Had a firm hand though. ”

“He had to say
something.”

“Nope, not one
word.”

“Didn’t you ever
want to come home?”

“Sometimes,” Jim
answered. “Especially when times got tough, like right after Kate and the baby
died.”

Jim’s blue eyes
glazed over and a distant smile came across his face.

“Why didn’t you
just come home?” Jordan asked. “You have a perfectly good house right here. And
there’s plenty of land. . . . and family.”

“It’s not that
easy,” Jim said. “I’m stubborn, my pa was more stubborn. and the years just
slipped away.”

“I’m glad you’re
here,” Jordan said. “Gunner don’t need to be working in the mines.”

“Amen to that,”
Jim said.

Jordan leaned over
and curled up next to Henry. Soon he was sound asleep.

Jordan was
awakened by a light tapping at the door. He sat up and looked around. He was
alone. Henry was still sleeping and there was no sign of Jim or Grandma
anywhere.

His heart stopped
when he peered out the door and saw Sergeant Hummel and another soldier
standing just outside. He couldn’t hide because they were looking right at him.
He rubbed his eyes and stood up and motioned for them to come on in. He was too
dizzy and weak to stand up.

“Is your Pa home?”
Sergeant Hummel asked. “I checked at the barn on my way in, but only that one
man was there and he didn’t know anything . . . or so he said.”

“No . . . Pa’s not
here,” Jordan said, wondering how Jim got all the way to the barn and what
exactly he was doing down there.

“Do you know where
he is?”

“No.” Jordan
couldn’t think of a lie, so he resorted to vagueness.

“Is your ma or
grandma home?”

“Yes . . . I think
so. I was sleeping.”

“Can you get them
for me?”

“I suppose.”

“What happened to
him?” Sergeant Hummel asked and pointed at Henry.

“Pitchfork,”
Jordan lied. “We were messing around. He called Eamon a bad name and I got a
little carried away. It’s alright now though. I feel real bad about it.” Jordan
put forth his most remorseful look and hoped it would fool them.

Sergeant Hummel
walked over and pulled down the blanket. The poultice covered the wound so he
couldn’t see too much – just a little caked blood on his skin.

“Are you sure it’s
not a gunshot wound?”

“Sergeant,” the
other soldier interrupted. “That’s Tate Sinclair’s boy. I hardly think. . . “

“I’m not asking
you to think,” the sergeant snapped. “But doesn’t it seem odd that a prisoner
escapes, this boy’s cousin so I am told, and he just happens to be lying inside
the house of the escaped prisoner with a suspicious injury?”

“Yes sir,” the
soldier said.

Jordan looked past
them for any signs of Luke Vander. He didn’t see any other men and there were
only two horses outside.

“It’s from a
pitchfork. I’m not lying. Grandma’s the closest thing around here to a doctor,”
Jordan explained. “Everyone comes by here when they need fixing. It doesn’t
matter if they like us or not. It’s a lot closer than riding to Hillsboro.”

“Run and get your
Grandma boy,” Sergeant Hummel said.

“I can’t leave
him,” Jordan said. “Grandma told me not to.”

“Then we’ll find
her,” Sergeant Hummel said and walked back outside and slammed the door just a
little too hard. Dust flew around the room and sparkled in the stream of
sunlight from the window.

“Everybody’s out
in the fields,” Jordan hollered.

He should go warn
everyone, but they’d surely see him and besides, they could lie just as well as
he could.