Fight for Glory (My Wounded Soldier #1) (22 page)

Tom
Tanner

Chapter
Twenty-Seven

I remembered how
in the war, William, our flag bearer, would run close to the reb line as he
could without getting shot. It was a dangerous practice, and we took it
serious. He’d press hard to get our flag out front of the others and plant it
for the twenty-seventh.
Us
breathing up his ass, him
calculating how close to those rebs he wanted to crawl. He’d set our goal, and
on we came then, one bloody inch, one bloody mile we pushed that line. By God,
we pushed that line.

When we got going
I tell you, pluck, oh my God, “Well, who the hell you shooting at?” we’d say,
firing ourselves into such a tizzy we’d as soon club a man to death with our
guns as shoot him. Or choke him with our hands, beat him with a rock, and some
of us already dead with wounds that would go gangrene, or the dysentery already
working its fingers in our innards.

But when we
pressed that line we said, no weapon shall prosper against us and no wall of
flesh, gun and good intention shall keep us out. We were the fearsome sons of
the union.

We’d argue some
when the battle was over who’d pressed forward the hardest, made it there
first, met the line or broke past it.

We fought the
rebs. And we fought one another. And ever since that war ended we’d been
fighting ourselves.
And trying to look passable while we did.

Jimmy Leidner. I
went against him my whole life.
First for Garrett.
You
had to know my big brother, you had to know.

If you did, you’d
want to walk in his sunshine too, he was that way. We were close, joined at the
hip, he’d tell folk.
Me not able to voice how that unfolded
inside like a sheet blowing on the clothesline, just big and proud.
It
meant something, oh God, it filled me and I walked in its warm fragrant shine,
I did, I did. Baptized by a brother’s love, held in the confidence it inspired,
in the grit of his protection. He delighted in me.

But Jimmy…I
thought him a better copy of myself for when he came to live with us, I got
shoved aside. Well the knife got in then, don’t you wiggle it, don’t you dare,
but Jimmy knew just how to do it and I took him serious.

He loved him just
like me, more, for I had William. That was the thing. He loved Garrett fierce. I
never wanted to give him mercy but when Garrett died I had the guilt, but Jimmy
had the nothing.

You couldn’t tell
so much by looking, but you had to know first, and though he appeared to be
everyone’s friend and neighbor, Jimmy Leidner did not let you in. So when it
was time and he saw me balking, time to put Garrett out like I’d promised,
Jimmy stayed on me, stayed on me to do it
cause
he
couldn’t bear the suffering, but he couldn’t do it himself. He couldn’t do it. And
he knew me. He knew I would do the hard thing.

And if I didn’t,
it would break me down, shatter me down, and he knew it. So he let me take it,
and he hid behind me, and tried to talk me out of what I was feeling from being
the one without me knowing…he couldn’t do it.

I was strong as
him. Just as worthy. That’s what I always doubted, but that’s what he knew,
only he thought me better, and he pushed me and he pushed me. And hard as it
was, I was better for it. He made me figure out myself. I couldn’t hide around
him like with Garrett. I couldn’t be tolerated like with William who had to get
away from me regular to stand it.

So Jimmy had
feared me and fought me all that time, all that time it wasn’t just me. It was
me and him, struggling, even on all counts, and Garrett and William were on the
outside of it. All this time he’d seen himself the prodigal, and me the
judgment on him, the good son, right all the time and not a drop of mercy.
By damn.
 

No wonder he
wanted Allie. When I thought it over, she was the one. Others he used, but her
he had always treated like the sweetest rose.
Called her
little puss.
But it was Allie, so of course she was our little doll. Yet
now I reviewed his efforts, they rang steady and true in my mind. He’d let her
in longtime back. She got over the line and stuck in her flag. It was like
Addie and me, and I had no right to stand in the way of it.

Well I didn’t
ever want to see it,
cause
I wasn’t gonna give him
another. But there again, and this here’s the hardest of all, my family ain’t
never belonged to me.

Addie knew me. She
told me I lived by two sets of rules, one for me, one for everyone else, and
mine
were the harder…like I was God she said.

I realized
something, and it was a hard thing, but true all the same. It’s going against
my own code made me sick. More than anything I went through in the war, or even
today. It’s going against my own code made me sickest of all. I was here to
lead and protect, I’d always known it. And when I could not…well I wasn’t God,
was I? I had to let myself by. I had to let myself live.

The road home was
a glory trail. They
was
waiting in Greenup, the boys
said, to dance in the streets and sacrifice the virgins in our honor. William was
already gone. Michael and Gaylin were curious. But me, my heart was down the
track back the way I came from when I passed my woman and my children. That was
my trail, my glory and my life. I was going for them. And nothing would prosper
against me.

Tom
Tanner

Chapter
Twenty-Eight

Gaylin was
worried for me and wanted to tag along.

“You go on home,”
said I. “They got to have them a hero back home.”

“You can’t go,”
Jimmy said, “who will talk for us? We got money comin’. We got to get ourselves
to Springfield.
You don’t know these boys. They’ll dog us out of it. You think they’ll pay
William straight? We got to band together and shoot that place down, tear it
down, rip it up, we got to…we got to…don’t you be goin’ now. What about my
weddin’? Where’s my black? Twenty battles and never a scratch on him, never a
burr in his tail, not one I let stay anyways.”

“By the time
you’re home the boys will have a hard time not believin’ they
was
with us,” I said, hoping Jimmy would have the strength
to regale them like was his wont. “This story will grow from a clod of soil to
its own country on its lonesome.”

“
You seen
my black? Did we bring Tusaint’s mount?” Jimmy
said, pulling on my arm. I took him in my arms then, and lowered him down best
I could. Then he laid right back, groaning and breathing hard. “Damn. I got to
get off
my feet, that’s
all,” he said.

I looked at
Gaylin and he ran for Michael.

“We brought your
stallion, remember?” I said sitting beside him. “He tried to kick the livers
out of those handlers.” Every time he said something loco I answered him back
like it made sense. I knew it was the laudanum in the alcohol. He’d been at it
too much, but Michael was seeing to it.

“They didn’t
handle him right! If I’d of seen, I’d have shot them through. He run off you
think? Boys said he wasn’t in that stock car.” He was swallowing hard. Well
we’d kept him pretty doped most the time. Even when he was looking at you and
talking he didn’t know what the hell was going on. He kept swallowing.

“If he
run…
mayhap not too far,” I said.

“It’s better
then. I don’t want to know. Reckon one of those braves took him? Don’t tell me
it was one of those outlaws,” he said, the tears leaking. He was that done in. “Those
braves…they was good boys…coming home. Wouldn’t mind so much if they took him,
but I’d kill them if I seen it.”

“Ease
yourself
,” I said. “We made it out. It’ll wash in the end. He’s
running free is what I think.”

“Well he did like
to take the lead,” he said. “Remember how it was Tom? How we were then?”

“We ain’t so
different now.”

“No? We’re lovers
now,” he said, laughing weak.

“I don’t want to
know,” I told him, for the object of his love was my baby sister. I was easing
off, but he shouldn’t push it.

He laughed more,
but he went to crying just as quick. I wasn’t sure if I should leave him. What
if he was dying? I put my hand on his arm, and he gripped over it. I must see
him settled.

I knew what it
meant to him, that horse. He liked the flash and dash of that stallion. That
horse was tied to his breads, and his
willy
, plain and
true…but his heart, if there’s a difference for a fella…tied there too.
 

“You did look
fierce upon him with that nickel harness and braided mane,” I said, remembering
how he’d dressed him for that march around the square when we came home.
“From warhorse to parader now.
He’s been family, that
black.”

He was laughing
again. Michael brought the laudanum. “How much has he had?” I asked.

“Not so much,” he
held it to the light trying to weigh it. “
I been
too
busy to watch. They have a hospital they are taking the wounded to over Dixon. Ambulances on the
way that rider said,” he referred to one of the dispatchers came on quick to
assess the damage.

“No hospital for
me,” Jimmy assured us. “I’m going home, dammit, Tom, don’t you ship me off. I’ll
shoot the man tries to put me in one of them meat wagons. You think my black
was hell? You ain’t seen hell,” he warned. Then crying again, “Where’s my
horse, my black? Where he
be
, Tom?”

I kept my hand on
his arm. He knew he was out of his head, and I felt him struggle to quiet down.

“How long out?”
I asked Michael.

“In the night,”
he said.

Well the boys
would be here before that. They already rode the bank looking for the place to
cross, and when Cap saw them he’d take heart.

“The boys are
coming,” I said.

“Oh Lord,” he
whispered, “
do
you see them Tom? Look a there, do you
see?” he pointed overhead, and I dropped on my back next to him, scooted so our
heads were near.

“It’s like that
day,” he said.
“I seen ‘em, the white doves…I seen
him…Garrett.
He talks sometimes in my head…just a word he says.” Tears
are coming on him.

“He’s beyond,” I
said.

“Not for me, pard.
I carry him. I always will.”

There was a day,
yesterday mayhap, I’d of resented it. I would have wanted to rip that thought
from him.
But not today.

Today he was the
tabernacle and Garrett, he was sealed inside. And I wanted him there.

“You got to leave
him, Jimmy, it’s not your time.”

“He told me that.
When I was shot…I never said it.”

“It’s the
laudanum.”

“No. Those flying
fish mayhap, but not this. He was there, I saw him, and I looked down at myself
on the ground, and you were runnin’ here and there. And Gaylin stood by me,
that gun shakin’ in his hand. I knew it then…I was goin’. You and Allie…God
I’ve loved ya’s then…it all come on me. But I saw him…and my ma. I walked that
way and there was light…and peace. And I wanted to go, but he put up his hand
and shook his head. “Not yet,” he said. “Be brave.””

We looked at the
sky, its gray blanket over us and this scarred place.
But
like always…the worst brought out the best.
The evil sparked the good. The
dark welled up and the light grind of help brought hands and hope. We fought
the
dark,
we scraped and laid them straight. We bore
the image of Satan and the image of God.
Wounded.

During that night
the wagons came to take the wounded. We’d liquored Jimmy up good so he was
passed out. I let him go
then,
Jake and Harley were
going with him to make sure he got cared for. After a few days rest, and baring
something grim taking hold, they would take him by train to Greenup. We hoped
to regroup in a couple weeks.

I used Addie’s
words when I last looked on Jimmy. “Live,” I said. It was command and prayer.

I turned my face
then, pulled my gear upon my back and did not look back. I had me a gal to
fetch. As I walked away from all I knew, I felt the next bend of my life
opening now like the widest doors I’d thrown myself against, and instead of
holding fast and breaking me, they were yielding.

I walked those
first ten miles.

Tom
Tanner

Chapter
Twenty-Nine

I had to look
sharp for I was in a new place, but it held me no fear. I let the thoughts of
her take me then. And I had these miles to cover, but a part of me was not
there, but yonder, with her.

I knew her to be
St. Louis way, and once there I would track her down, I would find her the way
I had found William or Jimmy a time or two, I just went in and let the great
something lead me. I couldn’t explain it, but we were tethered, chained Iris
said, and so we were, and that’s how our trains crossed, we were moving toward
each other and nothing could change it.

I let my mind go
to her, and my longing went free like I lifted the floodgate.
Brown hair thick in my hands as I moved her mouth toward mine.
I would fall on
that lass
. I would love her without
holding back now. Stampede.
Charge into the fray.
Fight
where I could do the most good, that’s what
Jimmy
told
us at Belmont. “Where should we fight?” one asked.

“Fight, Son,
where you can do the most good,” he said.

I remembered…I
remembered her standing in the moonlight, showing herself to me, all her skin
and all her sin. Oh I saw that girl, like a horse that was bold and shy all at
once, but there was no hold back in her that night. Standing there like one of
those myths…a goddess is what I meant to say.
Like she rose
up…or dropped down…from somewhere else.
And there I was…just a man.

I devoured that
woman, and it worried me some, but not so much now. For at that station it was
there, her eyes telling me…the way she held me against her…she was mine.

We were lovers,
Jimmy said, and we surely were, the time of war behind us. Married men we’d be,
William too, if he ever came back from running with his tribe. Trading our
rifles for roses I reckoned. I laughed at that.

I heard it then,
an animal of size, and I thought of my rifle at my back, but I was not here to
kill anything. I stood still. My heart picked up. I asked God…I said…let him
come to me if he’s there…and I’ll know Jimmy lives…I’ll know you’re with me.

He stepped out
then, and I saw that red gash deep on his flank. I was bruised myself, scraped
on my back and shoulder beneath my torn shirt.

He took some
steps and looked at me. He nickered, blew through his lips, telling me it had
been hard, and he didn’t want to trust me at all.

I knew. He tried
to fight, but they’d shoved him on, and then all hell broke loose. I’d make no
demands. So I looked at the ground, and I clicked to him, the way Jimmy would. Then
I took some slow steps in the general direction of where I’d been headed. I
didn’t look at him. I wasn’t telling him what to do.

Well he shook his
head at me and told me off a little. He didn’t like me moving before he thought
things over. But I moved
slow
then, and he crashed
around a little, telling me he wasn’t going to follow someone he couldn’t
trust.

I was past him
now, but I knew those dark eyes were on me, and he came after in his own way,
angry, hurting, leaving his blood behind.

And we walked
that way, him behind like my reluctant shadow. I just kept going I never looked
back, but I took it slow for we were both hurting.

I was alive. That
sky was so blue. I listened for him, each step, sometimes he’d fall back, or
take off, but he’d come again, and I didn’t stop until I found good water, and
I sat to eat my cooch one of the boys gave me. And I washed it with a drink of
that whiskey. Then I doused me good, and I laid there with my head in, and when
I lifted my face above the water, he was beside me taking a drink. I turned my
head a little and made the sound. He spoke to me then, moving his big head
closer. He smelled over me like a dog and bit me on the ear
some,
and I stayed still while he worked me over. He wanted Jimmy, but he’d take me
over nothing.

I rolled on my
back then, and he snorted all over my face, and I laughed, and he pawed the
ground a bit. I sat up and peeled off my shirt. Now I couldn’t get rid of him,
and he snorted snot in my hair.

“Damn you,” I
said, rolling away. I stood and peeled off then,
bare
as him. He snorted at that wound on my shoulder. I stepped into that stream
then, that water
so
cold on my feet, and the rocks
sharp as hell, and I went to my pack and took soap from my kit. I washed then,
and that soap burned all my scraps and cuts. And I rinsed me down. He stepped
in the water. He was more dog than horse, and you could see Jimmy in the way of
it, all the time spent babying this damn horse. I soaped my hair good. I’d
shave my whiskers, too, and set my mirror on a rock, and he came for a look and
knocked it down.

And after, I laid
on my back, the water chilling my
willy
, and me
letting the crud and the stink wash away. I wished I had me some clean
britches. I had the shirt Jake gave me. It was cleaner and not torn. I was
saving it for when I found Addie, but I would wear it now so should I come on
folks I wouldn’t look war torn.

I’d lost weight,
but not muscle, that I had plenty. When I dressed, I felt better than I had in
days.

I wanted a look
at that cut, but he was mad about it. I clicked to him and talked to him. I had
rope, so I made a halter and after an hour I got it on him slow, so slow, and I
could tether him then, and I washed it careful. In the worse part it was deep
as the tip of my finger. I needed grease to harden it up. I ran my hands over
him, sometimes I went so
slow
, my eyes closed like
William taught me. He was sore, but sound. I carried water in my hat for the
rinse. He seemed to know, damn horse, just like a human it seemed. He gave me a
kiss when I was done, and we were pards then.

I put my gear on
my back and took that rope in my hand, and walking
slow
I led him like Mary with the lamb.

I told him
stories then, what I’d fix first at Addie’s house. How the windows fit poorly,
and Johnny needed a room of his own. And most the time…he agreed.