Fight for Glory (My Wounded Soldier #1) (26 page)

So that night, as
we camped out in the woods, we had poked four sticks in the ground near our
fire, and I put our boots on them, upside down to dry them quicker. When he was
asleep, fast like always, I stared at the boots, him and me, the big and
little, and I wondered at it again, the way I’d hit him going down, and swam
right to him on my way up. I wasn’t gonna think about how it could have gone,
and me having to tell Addie. But we weren’t home yet, not by a longshot, so I
reminded God about that prayer, and I planned to never let my eye off Johnny
until I got those little boots home for good.
For I could be
a very determined man.

Tom Tanner

Chapter
Thirty-Five

Johnny’s fire had
to come from her. I reckoned the father didn’t have it. But knowing him, I was
learning her. That’s what I figured.

We had us a
ticket, but I’d no draw to get trapped in the passenger car, not me and not
Johnny. So I’d tossed this little hellion in a freight car at the station and
climbed in after. Here we were, riding the rails, him finding his legs,
standing and watching an old boomer play his harmonica.

This boomer and
the three others were worried the bully would come round, but if he did, he’d
meet my gun. I would take a beating from no man. It wasn’t in me. And I felt no
fear of such and we had paid.

Pretty soon one
of the men
were
teaching Johnny how to clog to the
music. He was not shy and getting pretty riled and loud, but I figured he’d
been confined all day, so he had to let it out some way, and these were getting
so liquored, they seemed primed for a doings. When they passed the jar, I could
not take a sip with Johnny looking on and me acting the pa. And the handle felt
like a preacher’s collar, the starch scratching my neck, but the more I wore
it, the more I hoped it would fit Addie’s bandana.

Yet I was barely
out the gate, and it was fairly wearisome to be on sentry without pause, but it
was the job, and I had signed the line and took the badge.

He was getting
fancy
now,
and rowdy as hell I knew, but I let him
have more rope, long as he didn’t fly out the door. But when I heard him yell,
“Shit-fire, you see that Pete, I stomped half up the damn wall.”

“Johnny,” I said,
but he didn’t hear me for the row, the laughter, the pipe so loud, and the
sound of the wheels on the rails. It was no good if he learned to talk like an
old tramp. Then I’d have her fire. But I let him go while he grew too big for
his boots and his britches, and I kept my eye on him as I’d promised to do.

Mayhap I should
have made him sit still like an everyday person in the passenger car, but truth
be
told I was having trouble settling myself.

So we laid on our
bellies up top for a spell and looked at God’s country, but come sunset I
brought him back down and here we were.

Right before the
sun was up we got close to Rigsby. The boomers started to jump off then, and I
roused Johnny, but he fought me on it. Since I had tickets, I let the train
pull in to the station. I got serious then. “This is where we get off,” I said,
and he begrudgingly got on his feet. We took our gear and jumped off, then
headed to the livery.

First thing I saw
was that black, and he was just as eager when he saw me. I went to him and
petted him in silence. Wound would scar but it was healing. Johnny already knew
to respect this reunion from the time he’d spent on our farm. He knew the
horses would pick up on his feelings. He stood beside me quiet.

William was there,
too. He’d waited two days, and was full up on Rigsby. Even though they knew he
was a deputy they had refused to release the horses to him. Well he didn’t have
money to pay, but since we’d been riding for the law, the government owed the
keep. And they knew it. And had it been anyone but William to come for these
animals we knew they’d have released them.

All the more
reason to hightail it to Springfield and make sure we got what was coming. So I
pushed my note at them, ready to ram it, too. What we settled on
was
the mules that belonged to Sonny. These we left so they
made good on us like always. We did not part easy.
And would
spend no spare minute in Rigsby.
It was a new day. We bought what we’d
need for the next leg of our journey and packed up, saddled up, and tethered
up.
 

Johnny rode
William’s saddle horse cause that horse was more sanguine than most folks that
said yes to Jesus.

Jimmy’s black was
full up of himself. He was moving a little stiff but we’d get him loose.
 
I rode my horse. William was on Tusaint’s
mount, and leading Michael’s. So we started home. Johnny had not ridden much
distance, but he’d get some iron in his backside now.

William never
questioned me about Johnny being along. We hadn’t gone far when I told him,
“Got married in St. Louie.”

He stared at me a
minute. He grinned big and nodded. Then he laughed. “You’re Pa now.”

“Yep.”

“They told me you
went on. I figured you would bring her back.”

“She’ll come
after she takes care of matters in St. Louie.”

“What did he
say?”

“Cousin?
We didn’t ask his blessing.”

He laughed again.

Johnny was behind
a bit. The black
was wanting
to lead so I widened the
distance.

“Figure Lenora
waited?” I said.

He shrugged, and
I knew he didn’t want to answer. Finally he said, “If Mose didn’t drag her home.”

My turn to laugh now.
I could see Mose doing just that. I
wondered for Allie.
For Ma and Pa. Gaylin.
Jimmy…always
him.

Johnny was so
excited. He was a cowboy now. He
kept wanting
to run
that horse, and I said, “Keep it slow there Johnny. You run
,
this black will break my arm. After days in close quarters he wants to run to
lather.”

“Don’t need to
use your foot,” William said to Johnny who pumped his legs too often. “Squeeze
with the legs, gentle.”

“My legs are too
short,” he said.

“You got plenty,”
I said. “Sit straight. Little squeeze with your legs and let up. That’s right. You’re
telling him you know where you’re goin’ and he can relax and just be a horse.”

We fell into it
pretty soon. There I went thinking of Addie. Ever since Johnny finally fell
asleep last night and that car quieted down I’d been looking out that wide open
door at the stars, thinking about our short time of bliss in that boarding
house bed. It sat there waiting to be turned over and over in my mind, her skin
and love so wild and gentle, sparking me, and stilling me down. Day come I
could have her with me…she was my Promised Land.

“Tom?” Johnny was
saying.

“What’s that?” I
said.

“What happened to
the black?”

“We had a mishap
on the train. He was on the stock car and I never seen how he got out, but I
found him in the woods…or he found me.” So I told him some of the story then.

After that,
Johnny took a special liking to the black. He was a fine horse, even with the
wound. It just added to his character, seemed like, and Johnny was fascinated
pretty much.

“He’s a brave
horse,” Johnny said.

“He is,” I said.

“Can I ride him
sometime?”

“Let him get some
of the piss out of him, and we’ll see,” I said. If Black didn’t calm down, I’d
ride him myself for a while.

William had
camped with the braves for a couple of days. They were Choctaw passing through,
he said. He had smoked the pipe with them. I knew how that went.

Johnny had his
hundred questions then. William answered what he could, and I learned a few
things, that these braves had served in the south. Never forget the sight of
them diving in that river and pulling folks out. It was good for Johnny to hear
of it. His life had been small, same as mine before the war. But now he’d been
to St. Louie, took him a dunk in the Mississippi, and clogged past midnight on
a train. He rode trail now behind a scarred black horse, and William told him
about the braves who saved folks even if they’d fought for the wrong side cause
came down to it, we all died and went into the big, he said.

William rode
ahead then. He only had so many words in him. That black like to
had
a spell he was so fixed on what was ahead. He was a
picture of worry, stretching on where you had no business. But that’s what it
was like to be him.

I used the hand
signs to show Johnny the hawk stretching wide in the sky. He knew now that
meant we needed to get still and look sharp. He fell in then, and we covered
the miles.

That night at the
fire, after William had cooked two rabbits and made biscuit, Johnny sat so
close we shared my saddle for a backrest. We stared in the fire. William smoked
his pipe. William had told me all the news he thought I needed to hear, I
reckon. Anything he knew came through the sheriff in Rigsby. The army killed
those boys of Sonny’s and some others. The papers had carried the tale all
around he said.

I thought about
Addie, for my mind never left her at all. I wondered how it went for her now
that he knew we were married. He would play the gentleman. But he had been
livid when I told him the news.

“Can I ride the black
tomorrow?” Johnny asked again.

“We’ll see,” I
said.

“Tom?”

“Yes.”

“If you were a
horse…would you be the black?”

I thought some. It
was a good question. “Well…like to think I have a little of him in me.
Got some saddle horse in me, too.
Flash don’t mean
reliable.”

“But the black
has spirit,” he said.

“Yes. He’s got
enough for two.”

“What about me?”

“Well, you’ve got
some of him for sure.”
Too much of him.

“What about
William?” he said.

“Ask him.”

William shrugged
and smoked.

“He’s brave,”
Johnny said.

“He’s brave,” I
said not knowing if he meant William or the horse.

“I like his
scar,” he said.

“Why’s that?” I
said.

“It shows he’s
got mettle,” he said.

I nodded.

“Like Ma when she
shot that soldier,” he said.

So it was this
again. I didn’t expect him to speak of his Ma, I thought he’d say he had
mettle, or I did, or even William. But just like me, his mind was on her. He
missed her. So much he saw her in a horse. Is that how it was?

“You’ll see her
soon,” I said. She’d been deep in my mind, but I hadn’t thought to bring her up
to him. Of course they only separated that one time when he came to our farm. She’d
still been near. I knew she’d had a time letting him come with me, but I hadn’t
thought about him struggling.

“Me an’ my ma
have mettle,” he said, but I felt the shift, the ‘shit on you,’ in his voice.

“Yes,” I said,
wondering how it was he compared himself to her this way. I didn’t understand
so much about them, but didn’t boys compare themselves to their pa?

“One time…Ma
broke a chair over my pa. The whole chair came apart. It flew all over.”

William was
looking at me, but he kept puffing.

I didn’t want to
ask. If it needed to be told, and it surely did now I knew about it, I would
have to ask her. It wouldn’t be right to pull it from Johnny, would it?

“He went in the
barn like always. Shut the door, and we couldn’t go in. Just leave him alone,
she said. And I didn’t go in. But I’d sneak out the window and crawl over
there, and I’d listen.”

William showed
nothing. Just the pipe and that blank face he wore so well.

I waited, too.

“He’d stay in
there two, three days.” He shifted a little and settled lower, his head on the
saddle. “He hated us.”

I had to ease up
on my jaw. My teeth were grinding so hard I felt a pain in my temple. It had
been a long day. Why would Johnny say such? It was strong words for a boy.

I slid lower too,
folded my arms over me. What kind of dog’s life had they had over there?

Damn, I’d get it
out of her, every last bit.

“Tom? You made my
ma cry, too.”

“Johnny….”

“That day you left
us. Ma cried a long time. She was so sad.”

“Johnny…that was
something….”

“I don’t like it
when my ma cries. You left us.” All of a sudden he was sitting up looking back
at me, face all riled.

William got up
then. He took his roll and walked out of the ring of light from the fire. I
knew he’d bed closer to the horses.

“Go to sleep,” I
said.

He moved his
blanket further from me and rolled in it. But his face was toward me, and he
was studying me. I stared back. I could do this all night if I had to.

“You made me go
back,” he said.

“You couldn’t go
with me. Understand? I couldn’t take you.”

“But you left.” There
had been some sand in the word ‘left.’

“I won’t go again
once we get this business settled. I got to go again I’ll be coming back.”

He rolled away and
gave me his back. “You made her cry.”

I pulled on his
shoulder enough to flatten him. “Listen to me…I ain’t gonna go on about this.
Me and her
are married. That makes me a pa to you. When you
say “I do,” it means you will. Whatever it is, you will do it. So I made a
promise to her first and to you and Janey. You got that? I didn’t come in to
take her away, I came in to be with her and you and Janey. I made a promise to
you all.
That other…that was before the promise.
Now
it’s all different. It’s forever.”

He was staring at
me and we were that way for another span. Lord God, he had her pluck. Now I had
two and mayhap three when Janey showed her colors.

I backed off
first and resumed my position against my saddle.

He got up on his
elbow. “Like Grampa?”

He meant my pa. Lord
help
me I could never be good as Pa. “I will try my
best to be like him with your ma and you children.”

“If you’re mean,”
he said, “she’ll fight you. And…I’ll help. Just so you know.”

“I will never be
mean to her,” I said clear.

“Promise?”

Lord he was
pushing it. “I do.”