Fight for Glory (My Wounded Soldier #1) (9 page)

So I lowered my
suspenders, and she looked away, then back again, then away, and I pulled my
shirt off over my head, and chaff flew. I brushed the top of my long johns off
a mite, and went to dig in my wooden chest for my stitching kit. I found a
clean towel and tore a couple of strips, then I went to the table, keeping the
small kit on my thigh
cause
I didn’t want her to feel
the dread of seeing the needle.

I looked at her,
locked eyes with her for a spell, and her eyes went to my throat, my chest,
then to the side. I lifted the rag again, and looked close. I could see some
glass shining in that cut. So I dug out the cloth with my needles. I took the
biggest one, the dull end. I laid it on one of the strips of cloth and poured a
little whiskey on it. I hoped the fact that the bottle had been
faraway
would lead her to believe I seldom used it. I don’t
know why I cared at all what she thought, but I did. I picked up that needle
and went to roll some glass away gently as I could, but one piece was deeper.

“Missus,” I said,
“I’m going to give you some whiskey. I know you are not an imbiber, but this is
for medicine sake. There’s a fellow, Lister, thinks germs cause gangrene and
such, and after the war I believe him. You’re going to need stitches and I have
no ether, so this is the blessing we’ve been given.”

“When I feed the
baby….”

“The baby will be
fine. I’ve heard of giving
them
spirits to put their
cranky selves to sleep. This will pass through you to her, and it won’t be such
a big amount.”

“All right.
But you don’t think I can bear it without?”

“There’s no need
to suffer,” I said. I handed her the bottle. “Two swallows.
A
breath.
And two more.
And I warn you, it will
set your throat on fire, so go easy.”

She nodded, and
what a peculiar sight it was to see her chug from my bottle.

She coughed. She
flushed high red. Her eyes watered. She did it just like I said without
complaint. When she was finished I took the bottle from her.

“You drank that
as fine as any hardened soldier,” I said, and I had to laugh.

She looked
shocked,
then
she laughed, too. Then she laughed
again, too much, and I knew she felt it straight away.

So she gave me
her hand and I continued to purify it. “Missus, this is going to sting like the
biggest hornet God ever made. I’m going to pour some whiskey in here, and when
I do, I want you to say, damn, damn, and holy damn.”

She giggled so
heartily I could barely hold onto her hand.

“I shall not say
such,” she said, still laughing.

“Yes you will. You’ll
want to, I promise. Damn, damn and holy damn.”

She was giggling
so, I poured fast so she wouldn’t see it coming. Soon as that whiskey hit her
wound, she stiffened, and her eyes nearly bugged out, fixed on me like a
double-barreled shotgun. “Damn you Tom Tanner. Damn you and double damn you!”
she cried.

I was frozen
there. She had damned me. I couldn’t believe it. It made me guffaw. I had not
laughed so since before the war.

She pulled her
hand from me and rounded that table, and I was helpless watching this. Her
little soft form in that worn out dress was full of indignation. She had that
bad hand cradled against her breast, but that good hand came around my neck. “I
could choke the very life from you, you devil,” she shouted, but she was not
mad, just full of whiskey and devilment it seemed. I thought, oh Lord what have
I unleashed here?

She was laughing,
and her hand slipped down to my chest, and she laid her forehead on mine, and
she was breathing, and her wounded hand and her breasts were right there just
slightly higher than my line of vision.

“Missus,” I said,
a smile in my words I could not vanquish,
“
you have to
sit, now so I can stitch you up.”

“You un-stitch
me, Tom Tanner,” she said, so close I could count those freckles. “I can’t
figure if you were fashioned by God or the devil himself you are so beautiful,”
she said then, a kind of drunken wonder on her sweet face.

“Missus, you are
feeling the effects, so quiet down and let me take care of this.”
But her words….

“I want you to
take care of something, Tom Tanner, I admit,” and she giggled raucously.

Holy Lord. I
couldn’t let her degrade herself. She would never forgive me when she came to
in the morning.

“Missus,” I said
firmly, “I know the whiskey takes over, but you want to be careful to remember
yourself. Just rest and let me sew this wound.”

I got up to lead
her to her chair, and she went along giggling like a loon. I sat her then, and
as I turned to leave, felt a slap on my rump.

I turned like I’d
been shot. She had her good hand over her mouth and she was giggling with
fever.

I felt a big
smile break out, but I said, “Now Missus.”

I hurried to my
side of the table and sat, trying to play the good doctor, but I was feeling that
slap like I’d been branded. I had to try three times to get my shaking hands to
thread the sharpest needle. She was laughing to beat the band. It made me laugh
and shake all the more. I was so hard down below I could have used it for a
spike.

When I got that
needle ready I put out my hand and she laid hers upon it. “Look yonder,” I
said, and she looked away. “See that union coat hanging on that peg?”

“Yes sir,” she
said,
a little giggle. I made the first stab then, but I was
gentle as her skin was like butter.

She gasped.

“Well Jimmy came
riding hard with the Springfield
paper. We had war. Abe Lincoln was calling for the boys to save the union. But
I didn’t want to go. Now Jimmy and Garrett, they thought it was our duty. I
didn’t feel any kinship to the idea. William and
me
were going west. We were going to be cowboys at that time. That’s all we wanted
to do. Drove the
girls
crazy cause we weren’t set to
marry. We wanted to have our adventure
first,
and
maybe instead of. But Jimmy wouldn’t let up, and the climate was war everywhere
we went, and pretty soon we would be sons of disgrace if we didn’t sign up. So
we did.”

I was making the
last stitch then. Her eyes were tearing steady, but they had been on me the
whole time. I liked her eyes on me. I had not told this story before, but with
her…I wanted to.

I snipped the
thread, and wrapped the cut in the clean strip. I sewed it closed, and sat back
admiring my work, still holding her hand.

“You are always
helping me,” she said. I kept looking at her, her hand in mine the strongest
thing.

“Come here,” I
said, and she stood, our hands staying joined as she rounded the table.

She stood beside
me then. “Ever long, Tom, for a woman to rub your shoulders after a day in the
field?” she said.

I swallowed that
big feeling again. I had not longed for such before now.

“When I see
you…when you walk in the house….”

“Missus,” I said,
“the whiskey loosens the tongue. I must be a gentleman here and bid you care in
giving words to….”

“Quiet, now Tom.
Hasn’t your ma told you not to interrupt a
lady?” She was so cute I could barely contain my delight. And I ached for her
words. I wanted to hear everyone. I wanted to know what she would never say. And
I didn’t want to know. Lord what would I do with it? I was evil, right
now,
I was reprobate through and through to compromise her
this way.

“I feel so safe
with you,” she said. “And I wanted to feel that with Richard. But I never did. It
was always me out front. With his father Charles. He…couldn’t stand to him. I
never told you, Tom. I was ashamed to say it, you being a hero in the war.”

“I’m no hero,” I
scoffed.

“Listen to me. You
are everything a hero is. But my husband…he didn’t answer the call. I did not
know he was ever called. I reckoned he was too old. He was older than me. By
fifteen years. Along I came and I was swooped up. He worked in the store, and
I’d been a humble girl. I could scarce believe he took an interest in me, but I
did work hard to get him to notice, oh my. I’d walk by there after school. It
was my first time away from home. I was a teacher. I was so proud. And he was
so fine, you know. But he couldn’t stand up to Charles. But I could. And I did.
And Richard chose me. And we came here for a new start because his father
disowned him. That was the price for marrying me. But he must have been in
contact with his father because they conspired to keep him out of the war. That’s
what that soldier said. That’s why he came for us that day.
To
settle.”

I knew this from
Johnny. But she needed to tell it, it seemed. So I listened.

I don’t know when
her hands, the good and the wounded ended on my shoulders, but when she sat on
my lap it seemed right. I held her in my arms and she rested there, her head
slowly coming to my shoulder. Her hands in her lap now as I had my arms around
her, her small womanliness like glory to me, her hair like silk under my cheek,
my rough beard catching on the strands, my rough hands catching on her dress.
Chaff falling onto her from my hair, and me smelling like a
barnyard animal.
But she didn’t seem to
care,
she made me feel like a king.

Long minutes
passed. “Tom…you’re beautiful, inside and out. I love your face…and that day I
saw you washing at the well…I ain’t ever going to get that out of my mind.”

Oh glory I was
going to burst. It was all I could do not to push her down on me. My arms
tightened around her.

“Your chest, your
arms, Tom…you’re the most beautiful man God ever did make. It’s not the devil. I
was wrong. It’s God. It could only be God.”

“Hush, Addie,” I
said,
my voice shaky.

“I pine for you,
Tom. I serve you at the table, and I nearly drop the mashed potatoes or the
green beans. If I brush your sleeve, I burn. And the good book says if you burn
it’s
better you just….”

“Missus,” I said
giving her a tiny shake. I was breathing irregular, and her little round rump
was right on the source of my agitation. I was only a man, for pity’s sake. Not
a hero. Not even good.

“Alright,” she
said. “You can go on west and break my heart. But for the rest of my days I’ll
see you at that well…for the rest of my days….”

I held her so
tight. I exploded. My shame was beneath her. I was sweating and gulping. And
when I could bring myself to, I looked at her sweet face. And she was asleep.

And I studied her
then, this little ball of fire that untied all of my knots and tied them back
again…in bows.

I held her as
long as I could, and it was not long enough. My ma was the one to come and
fetch me to my senses. “Tom,” she said, and it was rebuke.

“It was her
hand,” I said. “I had to stitch it.”

Her eyes went to
the whiskey, then back to me holding her that way. “Bring her to the house,”
she said, and it hit me harder than Gaylin ever could.

And so I carried
her into her room. My ma did not speak to me, and Allie barely looked at me,
but hid a smile. I laid Missus on her bed. She muttered in her sleep. I turned
away, for I was done looking. Allie was rocking the baby in the kitchen, and
she gave me another one of those smiles.

“Tom,” Ma said
before I could escape, “she smells of spirits.”

“Yes, Ma,” I
said, my voice strong, “I stitched that hand.”

Ma studied me. I
knew she wondered how far it went with me…the dark streak she had not imagined
when I came home. But I was of her cloth, and so I looked back. I had never
disrespected my ma, but I had broken her heart many a time. And now I was
breaking Addie’s and that felt worse. I turned and went out.

In my room I
gathered clean clothes and I headed to the pond. I needed baptizing after this
day. Duty called me, I was not deaf, but it was something more. It was her.

Next day the
gavel fell. They were bringing cousin Lavinia in. I did not have a grudge
against that woman. I’d grown up knowing cousin Lavinia, and though she was
always a little too prim for my liking, though she sometimes found me crude,
and though she cried easy when I put that baby opossum in her bed, or hid her
knitting so high in a tree Garrett had to risk life and limb to fetch it, I had
nothing against such a one at all.

Her husband
Lemuel had been killed in a small skirmish in Kentucky. She mourned him hard, Ma said. I
knew she granted him sainthood now he was up there playing a harp as Ma had
read me her letters, but I kept my opinion under my hat.

Lavinia was
coming to winter over with us. That’s how Ma put it, but I knew what it was. She
was being brought in to chaperone Addie and me, and I had barely two weeks
before I left…though I was very torn.

Ma said they
thought her a good companion for Missus. Did Ma and Pa think I had no
understanding of their wiles? And what about what Addie thought she needed? Hellfire
is all I could say about this.

But that was not
the half of it. More was on the way.

Tom
Tanner

Chapter
Eleven: Church, Part One

Pa brought cousin
Lavinia home on my last Monday morning before heading west. Sorrow had aged
cousin Lavinia by robbing her countenance of shine. It was as if the light
inside her flickered in the storm of life and went out. Her smile was feeble,
her shoulders bowed in.

“Lavinia?”
Ma said.

“Yes, Elizabeth,” she answered
as I stepped forward to help her down from the wagon, “I am still in here.”

“Cousin,” said I.

Allie threw
herself at Lavinia, nearly knocking her over. Gaylin caught them both and
righted them. “Did you bring the ladies’ magazines,” Allie asked.

“I did,” Lavinia
said,
the first sign of life showing in her expression.

Ma introduced her
to Addie, and Addie embraced Lavinia. What a fine hen party it was. I went to
the barn along with the other menfolk. There was grain to flail and machinery
to refine.

At dinner we
gathered, the table full to bursting with folks and food. Addie worked hard,
even with her gloved hand. Her face flushed red from the heat. I had seen her
that way in the birthing. How close we had been.
Were now,
truth
to tell. In lovemaking, she would flush that a way. Not that I was
authority on the matter, but it would stand to reason.

Johnny had
elbowed me. Seth had finished Grace, and Pa waited on me for an answer to a
question I never heard.

“Sir?”
I said.

“Seth is to be
ordained this Sunday.”

“I know this,” I
said, for it had been heavily discussed around here as Ma was making over
Garrett’s nearly new suit for the occasion so Seth could wear such.

“We was wondering
if that would be the day to get everybody in a game of that baseball we hear so
much about,” Pa said.

Addie was near me
now, serving me enough corn cakes to feed a train-car of hungry beggars.

“Reckon so,” I
said, barely able to pull in my mind for her little hip had nudged my elbow and
left it stinging.

“Do your elders
allow such on the Sabbath?” Lavinia asked, not allowed to help serve on this,
her first night here.

Hell if I knew. I
looked to my food and cut into the corn cakes.

“We can surely
ask,” Pa said. “Seems like just the thing to bring us back.”

“Did your church
divide over the war?”
Lavinia again.

“No,” Ma spoke
this time. She was proud over their church remaining intact. But that was only
because the rebs had been the minority and driven out shortly before the war
started. They weren’t ridden out on the rails, but our congregation took a
strong stand for the Union and if you didn’t
agree, the door was broad. “Our church was the mainstay of this community all
through the war. With the size of our losses, we have leaned heavily on the
Lord and one another,” Ma said.

“It’s so
everywhere, Elizabeth. There’s hardly a family has not been touched with
grief,” Lavinia said dabbing at her mouth with her napkin.

“We lost so many
at Chickamauga,”
Ma said, too much pain, too bitter. We all grew quiet, eating and drinking to
hide our shock that Ma would bring it up. She did not speak of it ever. But
every son and daughter knew that battle well.

That Sunday I
pulled the two-seater buggy out and made sure it was clean, that a hen had not
roosted in the boot, or a mouse in the seat. Pa drove the four-seater. So we
stood in our Sunday bests and waited for the womenfolk. Ma and Allie packed the
boots of both carriages with food for the picnic lunch after service. Seth and
Gaylin ran around accomplishing little but raising dust. Finally Johnny
appeared, his ears seeming to hold up his hat it was so oversized. Ma had dug
it from the chest. It had belonged to me, then Gaylin, then Seth. Now Johnny
must have it as if it was a crown of glory. He carried Janey’s satchel which he
gave to me to add to the booty.

As soon as Addie appeared
I went to her. “You ride with me Missus,” I said. Well we got a few looks, from
Ma for sure, from Gaylin. It made better sense for me to bring Allie and
Lavinia and let Addie go where she could have a full seat with the children,
but sense be damned I wanted her with me.

So we crowded in.
I told Gaylin to stay out front enough we didn’t chew his dust. He and Seth
rode the mares, and too many times I knew him, off in his head and pretty soon
the rump of his horse was damn near in my lap.

“Sure enough,
Grandma,” he said.

I climbed in
then, Johnny nailed to my side which put Addie all the closer. I liked feeling
them all close, I admit. That baby was going to be as pretty as her mama if a
thing was possible. Today…Addie wore her black dress, fancy stitched,
her
waist so tiny I could span it with my hands and they
would touch, not that I had. Her bosom and waist, a little doll she was. When
she walked her skirts swayed in such a way…different than most…and her not
aware of it…aware of herself really…how singular she was…how lovely.

So I took off
first, no hankering for Ma to be staring back at me all the way to church.

“You gonna play
that baseball game, Mr. Tom?” Johnny asked.

“Maybe so.”

“Mr. William says
if they could
of
played baseball instead of having a
war you’d of beat those rebs all by yourself.”

William had been
coming for his lessons, and she had sat with him going over the primer. I had
heard him once, tripping over the letters, but determined.

“Maybe,” I said,
feeling a little braggeredly about myself. I was hellacious in that game, I
admit. It brought out the devil in me.

I caught Addie’s
eye a time or two. She had her hair done up in back, and a black bonnet on that
made her eyes look like midnight. Her lips were so red and sweet. Seemed like
her smile was quick for me, and I liked it so much, deep in myself something
moved when she lit up for me like that.
 

I clicked at the
horses and they picked it up and it jarred her too much and the baby cried. I
didn’t know what got in to me to do such a thing. “Sorry, Missus,” I said.

She shushed the
baby and spent most of the time looking at me. I had on my white shirt and
black string tie, but my jacket was under the blanket in the boot. I had rolled
my sleeves on my arms. My hands were strong and my arms burned so brown in the
sun they looked dark as William against that shirt. I was a strong man and I
didn’t mind her knowing. I had my black hat on, and my hair was long around it.
But it was well brushed. I had shaved. I hoped I cut a fine enough figure to be
worthy of her looking.

At the church
house I pulled up in the spot my pa had used since I was in knickers. I was out
first, around the boot where I grabbed my jacket, then to the side to help
Missus. I put on my jacket quick and grabbed the baby, settled her on one arm,
then held out my big eager hand and Addie put her small white one in it. My
fingers closed on hers, and I had to mind myself not to press too tightly. She
stepped easy to the ground, her midnight eyes on me.

“Thank you, Tom,”
she said.

“Addie,” I
whispered, like it was some kind of an incantation on my lips.

Then she turned
to fuss over Johnny. I stood patiently holding Janey, staring at all who stared
at me cause that’s how you handled it round these parts, you stared them down until
shame took them over and they moved on.

Once she had
licked her hand round Johnny she turned and readied to take the baby, but since
the little lass was content, I gave Addie my arm and we got in line with folks
as the church slowly filled.

My family already
sat up front, nearly filling the pew, but this day was a big one for Seth, so
we were all expected to fall in, and Missus was one of us now. I led her so she
couldn’t balk, and I kept Janey to bait her along. But I was protecting her,
plain and simple. So we walked that aisle together, and eyes were on us, and
tongues did wag but none would have the courage to cross me, and Lord help them
if they did.

We sat, a tight
squeeze, Johnny next to Gaylin, Addie next holding Janey,
then
me on the end. She was pressed up against me and I put my arm along the back of
her, on the pew, because there was barely room for my shoulder. Now I was
satisfied, and even when the preaching stretched on, I was having my own sermon
in my mind. If I stayed…I may never get a chance to go. But wouldn’t I be
giving up one dream for another? She would be my dream come true, the one I
never knew I had. If I let myself, I could love Johnny and Janey like my own. This
big feeling of love had never happened to me before. But first I’d have to tell
her my worst story so she’d know the real me. She needed a chance to say no.

We stood then and
sang. I lost track of myself with the singing it just felt so good to let it
out, I’d been holding so much in, more than I knew, all of my feeling for her,
all of my hopes dashed, all of my hopes made new.

When it was
Seth’s turn to preach he did a fine job, calling us to forgive one another and
go on to build this country strong
under
one flag.
One God.
The old ones prayed over him, and about that time,
before another round of singing, the baby started up, and so Missus moved to
take her out, and I was right behind her. When Johnny made to come I sent him
back. He kicked the floor and went to Gaylin.

So we met
outside, her and
me
, the singing pouring from the
building as we walked through the breeze and I went to the boot for her satchel
and another blanket. We walked to the rock wall around the cemetery, and she
laid the blanket down and put Janey there so she could change her.

I sat on that
wall, my hands gripping the edges of it, thinking of times I ran along it, my
pards with me, and life so full of possibilities.

She was my
possibility now.

She made to nurse
the baby under the blanket. I knew Janey liked it quiet while she suckled. So I
sat there while Addie mothered. Some of the graves were new. Most I knew or
knew of. Many had fallen in the war. Some were friends. And my family, my
uncles, Ma’s folks, my grans. But here she was…among the ghosts…and this new
life,
her the
source of it…for me.

Janey fell asleep
and Addie held her there. She would smile at me, but there was no need to
speak. We were twenty-hand apart, but never closer I don’t think.

So the service
ended and out came the women and the men set up tables under the trees, and
colorful quilts covered them, then so much food. And folks prayed and the
menfolk ate first, then the children were served, then the women filled plates
and finally sat while the children ran and went off to the ravine to wave
sticks at one another or play hide-and-seek.

And Ma came, and
took the baby to the chair Pa brought out of the church for her. And she sat
there and held Janey, and the women came to have a look, and Addie and Lavinia
and Allie got swallowed by the womenfolk. And Jimmy came, too late for the
preaching, but I doubt anyone took note they were that glad to see him, our
hero and defender, our good sheriff. Jimmy sat, center of the crowd as he
fielded their questions about Boyle Monroe. I stayed away, not wishing to hear
it. Jimmy was looking to gather the biggest posse in the history of our county,
one hundred men, men who’d never got their chance to fight in the war, or men
who did and wanted one last chance to ride the glory trail.

What a natural
politician he was turning out to be. Nothing good ever came of trying to herd
one hundred sodbusters looking to turn their hoes into spears, when four men
who knew what they were about could bring that outlaw in with hard riding and
hard tracking in one month’s time.

Jimmy knew this. Yet
he fiddled to them and how they danced. The talk was big all “Yeahs, and
huzzahs.” Just like before the war.

I looked in time
to see Johnny and a group of boys hitting one another with long sticks. Johnny
had taken off after a boy some bigger than him, and when he caught him Johnny
took his stick in two hands, reared it over his head and brought it down on the
bigger boy’s back. That boy howled like a coyote and Johnny took off running,
but only for a short spell before he turned again ready to fight. When that big
boy charged, Johnny blocked his attack by holding his stick level in front of
his face. The big boy’s swing came to naught, and knocked him off balance. The
big boy went face down, and Johnny took advantage and brought his stick down
into the middle of that boy’s back like he was sticking him with a bayonet. I
recognized the move as I’d seen it done too many times and had used it myself.

And this the one who sassed his ma.
His ma didn’t know about
her baby boy, and that’s how things started, and didn’t I know. I headed over
there. That big boy was staggering on to his feet, angry tears on his red face,
and him looking to murder Johnny. Johnny was on the run, and I had to walk a
piece to catch him. I called him stern and he came to me, his eyes looking
round me for the day of reckoning.

“Johnny you go
sit by Granma,” I said stern.

“We’re playing
rebs,” he said like that explained it.

“Well the war is
over for you. Go sit by Granma until you can act like a big boy and not a
back-stabbing renegade.”

I admit I didn’t
know a thing about fathering, but I knew right from wrong, even though he might
have been playing me. I was probably saving him from a whooping cause that big
kid was going to figure things out eventually, and get a good lick in or two.