Fight for Glory (My Wounded Soldier #1) (12 page)

Tom
Tanner

Chapter
Sixteen

Seth drove the
loaded wagon to Addie’s farm. I swear he hit every dip and critter hole in the
road seemed like.

“He’s a nice
fella,” he said to me, meaning Cousin.

That was all he
said then. And the longest three miles were finally over when he pulled in
front of Addie’s house. I climbed down from the wagon. Johnny ran out of the
house and plowed in to me. It was all I could do not to howl it hurt that bad.

“Mister Tom,” he
said, his bib still tucked into his collar, and a smear of jam on his cheek.

Addie had called
to him from the house. She was on the porch now and our eyes locked and her
hand went to her mouth, then her other hand over it. But she dropped her hands
quick and said, “Johnny get in to table and finish.”

“Don’t go,”
Johnny said to me, still gripping my legs. He wiped his mouth and I think his
nose on my pants,
then
looked sincerely back at me.

“Run along and
listen to your ma,” I said in that funny way with my lips so swollen.

He ran back in
then. She came to the stairs then toward me. Lavinia looked out the door,
then
Cousin, but my eyes were for Addie. She had her morning
look, the softest beauty, though she was tired. I wondered where they’d all
slept. Ma had helped her make fresh ticks so she would have those.

She was near me
now, her little gasp. I forgot why she would gasp, but I was marked, yet that
little sucking in her breath, I liked it, for all of her sounds were like music
to me.

“Your beautiful
face,” she said, her fingers touching lightly this egg that was on my forehead.

I flinched a
little. She found me beautiful? I nearly laughed, but I was touched and all.

“You come on in
and I’ll tend these cuts.”

“I’m alright,” I
said, wanting nothing more than her attention.
Her touch.
I ached for it, truth
be
told. I felt tearful, but I
knew they would never make a show, so I could stand there a little while. “What’s
he here for?” I said, and she could hear the tone, though I’d tried to keep it
out.

She pulled her
hand back and looked warily at me. He had come out on the porch and spoke now
to Seth about scythes and harvesting.

“Never gonna make
it in them duds,” I said, butting in, and ignoring Addie for a minute. I
expected him to help with the harvest case he had any doubts.

“Oh, I’ve brought
others,” he said cheerfully.
Though I was not his favorite,
not by a long shot.
He well remembered those two balls, and not the ones
between my legs, though he well knew they were hanging fine, but the ones I’d
pummeled him with in the game. He rubbed his ribs now where I knew he bruised. Well,
I wasn’t proud.
Or sorry.

Being family to
Addie and the children didn’t mean he was good enough. No one was good enough
for them. I had to test him, figure him out, and I already knew some things. He
wasn’t given to temper, and he wanted to play fair. Not saying he wouldn’t
cheat, but if he did, you wouldn’t know to look for it, he was that polite.

Cousin went in
the house then, I presumed to change out his duds. I looked at Addie. “What’s
he here for?”

“He…Richard’s
father died two years back. His mother is ill. She…wants to see the children.”

I knew my face
fell, but it was so mangled, I hoped she didn’t see it.

“He wants to take
you away?”
Cause that’s what I heard.

“Now, he…he’s a
good man, Tom. There’s money, though Richard’s father left us nothing…it all
went to Quinton. It was his thought…that if I was agreeable…we could go home
and see…perhaps….”

“He wants to
marry you?” It’s not that I hadn’t heard of such, folks married quick all the
time. But who did he think he was not asking me first? “Did you tell him about
me?” I asked. “I wasn’t shy about my attentions yesterday. Remember that home
run? Is he blind as well as foolish? Did you tell him I delivered Janey? Tell
him that!”

“Tom,” she pulled
me further along the front of the house, and I went with heavy steps, but I
went.

What could I
offer that would compare? I was going to lose her. Mayhap I already did.

“You left with
him without even saying good-bye to me,” I said.

“You were hurt. I
had no opportunity to get to the barn. Do you think I wanted to come here not
knowing how you were? But what can I do, Tom? You’re going west. You’ll be on
your journey quicker than I’ll be on mine! You have no conscience about leaving
us, so why should I answer to you now! Do you think I’m some delicate girl
straight out of boarding school! I have children to think of. He’s offered
security. He can offer Johnny a path and a home run doesn’t compare!”

I was stuck now. She
had found me out to be a fool. I was mad…angry…ready to rip into somebody’s
gizzard. I stared at her. I was small in her eyes and she didn’t know the half.
I couldn’t blame her. Much as I wanted to shake her…or beg her…I couldn’t blame
her at all.

“If he wants to
be generous and do right by you all, there needs to be no strings,” I said with
heat. “If he’s got strings, he’s serving himself at your expense. He’s taking
advantage.”

She shook her
head and licked her lips. “If I go home and…we marry, interest in the store and
other holdings will go to Johnny. He…feels it was wrong for Charles to cut the
children out of his will.
Johnny particularly being the
grandson.”

“Guess Janey
don’t need to eat,” I said crabby.

“Janey would have
a good life, and be able to make a fine match. That’s the way of it, Tom. Whether
you agree or not I have to….”

I took her the
rest of the way around the house and pushed her against it. I leaned on her
then, I never felt such a thing as this fear…not since Garrett. I was just
breathing, looking at her, into her soul I knew, and I was so undeserving. I
hadn’t told her like I planned to. But who knew this fella was round the bend.
 

“Tom?” she said,
but she was breathing close.
God almighty.
Her breasts
up against me at last, her round womanly form. I could kill Cousin. God
almighty I was afraid to take my hands off the wall. I felt like if I did, I’d
be a crazed man, touching what could never be mine.

“This is how it
is with us,” I said softly to her,
cause
she was
bringing it out. “I’m not a good man. There’s something wrong with me, inside. I
got nothing but my two hands and a little money for signing for a second go in
the war. I was going to use that to stake my trip, and buy some machinery for Pa.”

“What,” she
swallowed, “what are you saying?”

“I can’t give
what he can, I know. I take myself away because I got to. Folks are getting hurt.
I see it. I don’t long for going west no more. I don’t long for anything…since
the war. It’s like…something in me…you were the first thing…and the children. But
I got to let you go, I’ve known it from the first. I just…couldn’t. I wanted
to…just for a bit….”

She pushed me
back and I stepped away. I could see Seth and Cousin headed for the barn. Johnny
was running after.

She was mad. She
started out low and talking quick, “I have children, Tom. Richard’s mother is
dying and she wants to see them. I don’t have to know what to do now. I have to
see to this farm and I’m going to have to take the children to her or I won’t
be able to live with myself. She’s lost her husband and her son, and she wants
this one thing, and Richard left me penniless, and…I have to figure things out
and sometimes I just don’t know everything,” she started to cry. Then she got
louder, “I have thrown myself at you Tom Tanner and you have not given me one
splinter of hope, not one, no matter how I degraded myself, and until this
moment I have had to pull in my heart and try to hold it together while you
insist on taking yourself into the sunset and as faraway from me as you can
get.” She was really crying now, mad as a rooster
cause
there was this great shaking going on in the core of her. I could feel it
shaking me, “And I’m supposed to what…what am I supposed to do with you looking
at me, with that pitiful face? Am I supposed to turn away from the one who has
had the courage to be forthright and honest and…it is not this attack of indecision
that I should be repentant about, it is the fact that…the fact that you have
come to confuse and confound me once again from what is so obviously beneficial
and right!”

They all came
from the barn now, for she had been yelling her diatribe for
all
the
world, and I expected Pa and Ma next for surely they heard this from
three miles away.

“Adeline, are you
alright?” Cousin called walking carefully our way. Seth was further back,
holding Johnny.

“Yes,” she yelled
over her shoulder. That made me feel a little better,
cause
he needed to stay back. Then to me, “I am going to see Richard’s mother and do
what best serves my family. And for all your cruelty to Quinton, and don’t you
deny you think him weak, he is man enough to be blunt.”

I felt the
tempest, and I held myself in place. “You want blunt? I have known nothing but
hard work and heat and sweat and duty. I have lived under the shadow of others
and have lifted them on my back all my life. I went to a war I did not want and
I lost the hero…and everybody knows this and hates me all the more for it. I
could not save him, not even when I dragged a sawbones in at gunpoint to stitch
him up, there was no saving him, and so…I…and so I…and we had said…we said….we
did say…we…we….”

“Tom!” she
hurried to me, gasping and looking at me, and I didn’t know where I was going,
just this terrible regret, so much regret, for I loved him, loved him with all
my heart. He was the sun, the glory of our family, my brother, my blood, my
skin and bones, Garrett…Garrett.

I was on my
knees, her with me, her arms around me, and I didn’t know how I got there. I
mourned him in the war, but I couldn’t feel, and I thought that a blessing, I
just killed and killed and killed, and that’s how I put it to rest, put him to
rest, me and Jimmy, William, at night we’d go out, at night, at night.

I looked beyond
and they were all there now, staring, even Lavinia and Johnny, though Cousin
sent them into the house. He wanted to keep them safe.

I was a monster. But
worse, I scared Addie, and my hands on her small arms, they were too tight. I
removed them quick and tried to stand, and then I did, and I wanted to help
her, but she scrambled to stand, and I looked at Cousin, and he was holding
that corn knife like he thought of using it, and if they wouldn’t have to see
it, I wished he would use it, like that old one did on her husband, and I
understood it, Johnny said he did not fight. I understood.

I had worried
Seth as well. I did not know how I lost such control. I did not show myself
that way. I had known I am unfit for good company. I came home knowing that was
my fate. That’s why I went to Springfield
to save my money and buy a rig. I was looking for a solitary life.
Or not life…the edge of the earth to fall off.
But once
again I did what was asked. I came here when I knew. I knew.

I looked at Addie
then, her so pale and worried. “I’m sorry,” I said. “I’m…sorry.”

“Tom,” she said,
but no one could help me.

“I shouldn’t have
done you…that way.” I walked away from her then, away from them all. I would get
her crops in, do this last thing. Then I would be on my way.

I was raised to
believe hard work cured all ailments. And so we worked harvest. At noon, Addie
sent dinner by Johnny’s hand. We ate in silence.

Seth and Cousin
traded off cutting and standing the sheaves. Johnny learned to make a sheaf,
and it kept him too occupied to talk.

But Seth and
Cousin liked to talk, and that was fine. I learned a lot by being quiet. Cousin
knew the good book, not like Seth, but more than me, enough they could talk about
it. When Cousin tried to draw me in a time or two, I took no notice. My body
moved from practice. I felt better now from the good hard work. We covered half
that field of corn. Tomorrow, weather good, we’d finish.

We bedded in the
barn, Seth and me. In the morning we’d finish harvest. Then I’d be riding out. I’d
set my face west. I tried not to think about her across the yard in the house,
lying on a tick, him being close.
Him wanting her.
I
tried not to think of his hands, never done a day’s work, blistered today,
despite his gloves. He hadn’t complained, but it wouldn’t
of
done him any good. I tried not to hear her words over and over…he was blunt. All
I had
was
that damn home run. And the way I’d pressed
myself against her…God forgive me.

“Tom,” Seth said.
We were lying in the hay, ten or so hands apart.

I did not
encourage what he would say. I was spent and empty now.

“I know you ain’t
been happy since you come home.”

I listened.

“But…I don’t want
you to go. I have to pray everyday to be joyful that your calling is yonder. Tom?”

I still did not
answer.

“You’re my
brother. I loved Garrett. Love him still. But you’re the one I wanted to be.”

I shifted a
little, rolled onto my back. I should have bedded outside so I could see the
stars.

“Don’t be like me,”
I said, hoping that didn’t get him talking more.

“It’s like the
war took you both,” he says, and I can hear the choking in his voice.

He was right. But
I couldn’t let him know it and carry all that sorrow. “I ain’t dead,” I said.