Touching Stars (24 page)

“She worries me,” Travis said quietly, turning back to Eric. “Very bright and hyper-aware of everything around her. If she can keep just one foot in the mainstream until we get her through high school, she’ll have a fighting chance.”

“You object to nonconformity?”

“Not a bit. I object to watching kids experiment with alternatives that are too dangerous for them to handle. As long as it’s just hair and fashion choices, I’m easy.”

“I was a straight arrow. Well, maybe I flew off target a time or two, but mostly I toed the line until I got to college. How about you?”

“I could hardly wait to get out of here, so I kept my nose clean and worked hard. I graduated early and took off. At the most, I figured I’d come home for Christmas and the occasional week in the summer.”

“And here you are.”

“Funny how things happen, isn’t it?”

Unfortunately, Eric knew that the way things happened wasn’t always funny, including his own reasons for being back in the Valley. “What brought you home?”

“I realized I could be happy anywhere, but here was easier for me than most places. I’m connected to my family’s land, and I finally admitted it.”

Eric wondered what
he
was connected to. The question was an interesting one. “Speaking of happiness…” he said, changing the subject, before he could delve any further. He’d been thinking about something all day as he’d pried cabinets from the wall and floor, and decided to bring it up. “Gayle’s fortieth birthday is coming up.”

“I know.”

“I’m going to give her a surprise party. A big one. Probably at her church, if I can rent the social hall. With caterers and florists and a professional band. Everything in her life is about other people. I want something to be about her.”

Travis gave a low whistle. “You’ve discussed this with her? No, I guess you haven’t, if it’s going to be a surprise.”

“She wouldn’t let me do it if she knew.”

“I don’t want to interfere….” Travis paused, and Eric knew he was choosing his words carefully. “But Gayle told me expressly that she wants to forget turning forty. I think she means it.”

“I was married to her, so I know she hates to bother other people. But this is no bother. She’s gone over and above for me this summer. I want to give something back, something nobody else would think of.”

“She’ll be the center of attention….”

“That’s the point.”

“Yes, I guess it is.”

Eric grinned and slapped Travis on the back. “I’ll need to know who to invite. Her minister can tell me who to ask from their church. Could you give me a list of people in the area who she’s particular friends with? I don’t want to leave out anybody, so be generous.”

Travis gave a short nod. “The boys know?”

“Not yet, but I want them to help me plan it. I hope they can stay quiet.”

“Oh, I don’t think they’ll tell her.”

Somebody came up to ask Travis a question, and Eric saw that the food line had thinned. He went over to fill a plate so he could eat before he offered his services with cleanup. There were ribs and chicken to go with the side dishes, and a salad bar. Noah was manning the latter.

“I spent one semester working in the university cafeteria,” Eric told his son as he dished up. “I can relate.”

Either Noah had forgotten he despised his father or even Eric was better than the middle schoolers he’d been supervising. “At least you were serving college students.”

“Don’t kid yourself. That generation thinks blowing beer out their nostrils is high art.”

“There have to be better summer jobs.”

“Probably not around here. But I might be able to get you one in the graphics department of a television station once I settle down somewhere.”

“Really?”

“Sure. Might not be glamorous, but it would give you a chance to see how things work. And maybe do some creative stuff once they see how good you are.”

Noah managed not to smile, but just barely. Eric chalked up half a point in his favor.

After that he found plenty of people to talk to and did, learning firsthand from two of the campers what they thought of their activities, then listening to Brandy extol the virtues of her group of campers as opposed to all the others. Even after a day on the site, she looked pretty enough to pose for
Seventeen
or
CosmoGIRL.
Ariel had done a three-part series on teenage models and insisted he watch it, so he was something of an expert. Brandy might not be anorexic enough to win a contract, but she was certainly lovely enough. He wasn’t surprised his oldest son seemed to be in over his head.

After dinner ended, he helped Gayle and Noah pile everything back in the truck. By the time they finished hauling food and dishes, marshmallow roasting had begun. By the time they’d scrubbed and folded tables, the kids had moved over to the ersatz theater for the second act of Dillon and Caleb’s play.

Eric took a seat on the rear row of logs and patted the place next to him for Gayle.

Travis ambled out in front, and the kids quieted almost immediately. Eric knew what a feat that was. Travis made a few jokes, and the laughter was heartier than warranted. Clearly the kids liked and respected their camp director. Eric watched as he bantered with the campers.

“How many of you have decided after digging and screening all week that finding artifacts isn’t worth the trouble? That there must be better ways to authenticate the past?”

“Every teacher should be this good,” Gayle said.

“Quiet men like Travis have a different kind of charm. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve seen it in the best statesmen and international leaders. You don’t think much about them, then one day you realize they’ve set the world to rights while nobody was paying attention.”

“You like him, don’t you?”

“I don’t know him that well. I’m not sure he likes me, but I’d say he’s a good man to have as a friend.”

“I’ve always thought so.”

Something about her tone made him turn. “The two of you…?”

“Just two busy people with busy lives who find a minute now and then to share a little of them.”

The kids had grown quiet. Dillon and Caleb came out the way they had last week, carrying their notebooks. Eric realized that Travis had given his son and his friend exactly what they would need to make it through middle school unscathed. Travis had given them a place where they could shine. Dillon, quirky and awkward, seemed neither here. He was unruffled, in command, and clearly a star in the making. This was the Dillon these kids would remember.

The gift was enormous. For a moment Eric felt a stab of jealousy that he hadn’t been the one to offer it.

1865

B
lackjack slept soundly, never waking when my mother and I went together to check on him. He was feverish—she determined this by resting the back of her hand against his forehead—but never so hot that she chose to awaken him. She told me that sometimes sleep is the greatest healer, and that there would be time when he awoke to deal with whatever complaint had brought him to us.

Distrust was as widespread through our countryside as hunger or the freshly mounded dirt in our graveyards. I looked in on him twice to be certain all was as she said. He slept as if he were preparing for a deeper, more permanent, sleep. He didn’t wake at the sound of my footsteps nor when I went through his leather bag to see if I could find out more about him. Uncle Eb had already removed a Colt Navy revolver before leaving us alone with him. He had taken it to his own cabin for safekeeping.

There was little else in the bag. A change of clothes, a few grooming items, but no military or personal papers. The bag could have belonged to anyone.

As the day progressed Uncle Eb and Ralph plowed fields in anticipation of planting. I thinned rows in Ma’s vegetable garden, where thickly sown turnip and mustard were a solid carpet of green. She would cook what I pulled that night without the fat that had so often seasoned greens when I was younger. We would douse them with vinegar, instead, and be glad we had both.

An hour before supper, Ma came for me, taking the sack from my arms and instructing me to wash at the pump. Then, when I joined her, she told me her intention.

“Once I have to put supper on the table there’ll be little time for nursing. I want you with me when I wake him.”

This was no surprise. I was tall and strong enough to give the stranger pause, even with my thin arms and meager chest.

She brought a basin of water she had warmed, and clean cloths. I brought the basket with medical supplies.

“What if he dies here?” I asked. “Would we be blamed?”

“Who would know?”

I wondered how many men like this one were buried far from home, with no one to write their families and detail their fates.

“It’s the chance he took when he rode off alone,” Ma said, as if she were reading my mind.

She had tied a clean apron over her faded blue dress and taken a moment to pin back the loose tendrils of her pale hair, so that she looked as if her day had been less tiring than it was. I wondered if the stranger would still find her as pretty as I believed her to be.

From the bedroom doorway I saw that Blackjack continued to sleep. He hadn’t moved since last I’d seen him. Even his forehead seemed creased with the same amount of intensity, as if he worked even in dreams to master his pain.

“They’ll continue to come,” Ma said. “For months they’ll come. And then I fear even worse to follow.”

“What do you mean?”

“With their president dead, who will remember and remind them what we’ve already suffered?”

“You think Abraham Lincoln would have been kind to us?”

“Kind? I don’t know, but fairer than the men who’ll replace him. And they’ll send more men like themselves to bring us to heel. At least with the war we foolishly believed we might win. Now we can only watch as our losses are calculated.”

I hadn’t thought very far into the future, and Ma had rarely talked this way. The picture she painted was bleak, even frightening. And fear had been our companion for too long already.

She seemed to realize she’d gone too far. She drew back her shoulders. “But at least the war ended before you grew old enough that the army came for you. This is one day and one man. We’ll do what we can with both.”

I didn’t tell her that I had wished every night that I was seventeen so I, too, could fight for freedom without her permission.

Blackjack didn’t wake when Ma crossed the room or when she spoke to him.

“Wake up now, Mr. Brewer. It’s time you opened your eyes.” She spoke louder. “Mr. Brewer. Wake up now.”

He slept on, although I saw him swallow.

“Mr. Brewer.” She put her hand on his shoulder and shook him lightly. “Wake up now.”

He sat up so quickly I was unprepared for what happened next. Blackjack grabbed my mother’s hand and twisted her arm, pulling her down as he did until she was sitting half on top of him.

“Who are you?” he shouted.

I was between them in an instant, yanking his hand away from her and shoving hard against him. Ma scrambled back to her feet.

“Enough,” she told me as I made ready to slam my fist into his shoulder. She grabbed my arm. “No. He doesn’t know where he is.”

“Who are you?” he shouted once more. His expression was wild, his face distorted. He made as if to try to grab her again, and I shoved him back against the pillows.

“You’re in a bed in my house,” Ma said more calmly than I would have expected. “You rode here this morning. You’ve slept all day. But it’s time we had a look at your injuries.”

He seemed to come to his senses a little at a time. First his eyes roved back and forth, as if he was taking in every detail. The room was not yet dark, and he seemed to find satisfaction by the end of his examination. Then he looked at me, studying me just as thoroughly. Finally he took my mother’s measure.

“Where is your house?” he asked at last.

“On the banks of the North Fork of the Shenandoah River. Near Toms Brook, south of Strasburg.”

He chewed his lip, his gaze wandering the room again.

“You don’t remember coming here?” she asked.

He didn’t answer, but I sensed he was preparing to bolt. I readied myself to stop him, and Ma did, too, but more directly. She drew the pistol my father had left with her and aimed it in his direction.

“I can and will use it,” she said. “But only to protect myself and my son. You’re safe unless you try to hurt us.”

Oddly, this seemed to calm him. I suppose that even in his state of mind he realized that if she did wish him harm, she had the means to deliver it. The fact that she hadn’t shot him seemed to allay his fears.

The fight went out of him. “I told you…I was on my way to Winchester?”

Ma handed the pistol to me. “You did. We stabled your horse and brought you to this room after you fainted. Now it’s time to take stock of your injuries.”

“I’m sorry for the trouble I’ve caused.”

“So am I.” She reached down and laid her hand against his forehead. “You’re running a fever. Higher than you did earlier, I think, although that’s not unusual in the evening. I’ve heard no coughing. Does your breathing give you trouble?”

He answered her questions until she seemed satisfied. She wrung out a cloth and sponged his flushed face. “Robby, get Eb and bring him up here. He’ll get our guest into a nightshirt, so we can examine him.”

I was hesitant to leave her alone with Blackjack, but she nodded, as if she understood. “Mr. Brewer and I have an understanding. He’ll be the gentleman his speech indicates.”

Blackjack’s eyes caught mine, and he gave the slightest of nods.

Downstairs, I set Ma’s pistol on the mantel. Outside, I ran to the cabin, calling for Uncle Eb even before I climbed the front steps. Both he and Aunt Cora hurried back to the house with me, Uncle Eb to help and Aunt Cora out of curiosity.

“Your poor mother’s already got her hands full,” Aunt Cora said after Uncle Eb outdistanced us. “We could keep him at the cabin.”

The house had more room. And I couldn’t imagine getting our guest down the stairs in his condition. When we arrived, Ma came out to the hallway and told us Uncle Eb was helping him undress. She had provided him with one of Pa’s old nightshirts.

Perhaps I was just curious to learn more, because the interlude that followed seemed to take hours, although more likely it was only minutes. At last the door swung open and Uncle Eb came out. “Leg’s broken,” he confirmed. “Not much above the ankle, and he’s been on it too much. Splint’s bowed, plus it slipped. He’ll need to stay quiet a while once we make sure the splint is right again.”

Ma nodded. Uncle Eb had no training as a doctor, but he’d done his share of doctoring anyway. And Aunt Cora could walk the woods and climb into the mountains to find remedies for the digging or picking.

“Robby, you can help him bathe,” Ma said. “While I look at his leg. He’ll need a real bath soon, but washing will do the trick for now.”

Blackjack was sitting up when we went into the room. He looked pale and listless, but he seemed aware of where he was and why. I wrung out the cloth in the basin and asked if he preferred to wash himself, but he gave a slight shake of his head. I told him I would do it, then, and began.

I doubt he was very aware of my attentions. He groaned a little as Ma investigated the leg, which seemed to be encased in something akin to barrel staves.

“Eb’s right,” she said at last. “It will never heal if you insist on using it. Riding, walking, and I suspect you’ve done more. You have to decide if you want to lose it, or if you want to be better than new.”

“I’ll take the latter.”

“Ma…” I had progressed from Blackjack’s neck to his arm, giving him the sort of bath I most preferred for myself, quick swipes that concentrated on my neck and palms, places Ma was sure to examine with the most interest. I unwrapped a ragged bandage from his left hand and whistled.

She looked up. “What is it?”

“Come look at this….” I pointed.

The stranger realized what I’d said and made to bury his hand in the covers, but Ma lifted it easily. “What sort of injury is this?”

He shrugged, as if it was nothing. “I fell from my horse. Scraped my back and the back of my hand, but it’s nothing to worry about.”

The hand was deeply gouged, almost as if something had purposely set about tearing away the flesh. The edges of the wound were dark, as if dirt or something worse was embedded there. It wasn’t as deep as some, but the bandage that had covered it was filthy, and the wound was angry and oozing.

Ma looked at it with distaste. “I’ll apply a poultice, but that’s the most likely cause of your fever.”

“I heal quickly. I’ll pay for your time and trouble.”

“I’ll be glad of it, thank you. I’m going to fix this splint. It won’t be comfortable when I do.”

“A soldier learns to ignore pain.”

“Odd,” she said, without looking up from the splint she was untying and readjusting. “I don’t take you for a soldier.”

“Why is that?”

“Your hands are too soft.” Now she did look up. “As Robby most likely noted as he washed them.”

“I am—was an officer, ma’am, and I had men who took care of my needs.”

“Yes, so you said. And that’s why you have such a fine horse.”

“That’s correct.” He smiled, and despite his wan complexion, the smile brightened the room. I saw that Ma noticed, because she looked away.

“I’m so grateful to you for taking me in,” he said. “You might have left me where I fell. I was lucky to meet up with good people.”

“Gratitude is always welcome.”

I watched as Ma manipulated the bandages and splint, and I saw him wince. At last she straightened. “That will do for now, until Eb can fashion something better. If you let the leg rest, I think the swelling will go down and it will heal straight. In a while I’ll be back with that poultice and some supper. The food may not be what you’re used to, but you’ll find it sufficient.”

“Again, my thanks.”

Ma took the basin and rags I’d been using. She nodded and left, with the rest of us trailing behind. As Uncle Eb and Aunt Cora went downstairs, I took one last look at the stranger, whose eyes were now closed.

In the hallway, I found Ma staring at the only picture of my father we owned. All that was left of Lewis Duncan was a framed oval on a hall table. He had not been young when he’d married her, and certainly not young when I was born. His face had been square, and he’d had a bristly mustache that almost hid the shy smile that was usually in evidence. I wished that in this photograph the smile had been captured, too, because this stern, unsmiling face seemed a stranger’s.

Ma was looking at my father with eyes that had just beheld a younger, more handsome man. Under those circumstances, any woman would find Lewis Duncan wanting.

“He was a good man,” I said, my voice low. “There are none better.”

“He left us to fight. At the time no one demanded he go.” She sounded cold, and she isn’t a cold woman.

“They would have made him serve anyway. He did what he thought he had to,” I said.

“And now you and I are left to do the same.” She lifted the photograph and raised it closer to her face. “I warned him that leaving us to fend for ourselves would end badly.”

“How can you blame him for doing what was right?”

“Right? Are you like him, then?”

She set the photograph back on the table before she looked at me. “‘If it be aught toward the general good, set honor in one eye and death in the other and I will look on both indifferently. For let the gods so speed me as I love the name of honor more than I fear death.’”

She quoted often and well, and I had been raised on my grandfather’s collection of Shakespeare’s plays.
Julius Caesar
was my favorite.