Homefront Hero

by Allie Pleiter

  “You there!”

  John turned to find a burly-looking man pulling several boxes on a wheeled cart. “Yes?”

  “We need help here. Can y’all lend a hand?”

  Pointing to his leg with his cane, John was forced to concede, “Bad leg. Afraid I’m not much for pulling and pushing.”

  “All I need’s a man who can cut open a box with a knife. Reckon you can do that?”

  John needed something to do, and the prospect of something with his hands, something physical, fit the bill. “I can.”

  “Mighty grateful. We’re as shorthanded as they come today. Head on over here.

  “Dan Colton, of the Chattanooga Coltons,” he said with a wry grin after giving John’s elegant cane a once-over. He set John up with a small knife and what seemed like an endless stack of bandage boxes in need of opening.

  “Nothing to it. Cut this open, put the bandages in this here cart and Travers—” he pointed to another skinny lad “—will wheel it into the building.” He nodded back to the set of delivery doors behind him. “Better to do it out here than in there with all them sick folk.”

  The pace required didn’t offer much chance for conversation, and John and the two men settled into a quiet, efficient rhythm until the first cart had been unloaded. It was a frantic but simple business, the sort of hard labor John had known back in his father’s textile mill, the kind that cleared a man’s head for thinking. He found himself grateful for the activity, for the chance to feel as if he were contributing in some way other than making pretty speeches. The chaos lent him anonymity; when he took off his captain’s jacket, he was just a willing pair of hands like any other.

  When Colton returned with another cart, his expression had darkened. “It’s getting worse by the hour. Mercy, but I never seen anything like what’s going on in there. No wonder they done locked the campus up tight. Ain’t nobody coming or leaving till this thing is done, whatever it is.”

  “The university is under quarantine?” John shouldn’t have been so surprised, not with Camp Jackson already under lockdown.

  “Well, sure.” Colton wiped his face with a grimy handkerchief. “I figured it was the only reason you were still here and not back with all the other soldiers at camp.”

  John let the gravity of his circumstance sink in for a moment. The university was quarantined. There was no going back on his decision now. Quarantine meant no help in, no release out. He was here, and he was going to stay “till this thing is done.” Somewhere in the back of his mind, John had known the irrevocability of his choice all along. He’d known he was throwing away his one chance of escape when he walked onto campus, electing to see Leanne safe rather than board that train. He waited for the panic to hit him, the consequence of his decision to rise up and frighten him.

  It didn’t.

  Instead John couldn’t shake the feeling that as frightening as things were, he was meant to be here. Not just here cutting boxes, but here at the center of this “plague”—and the word was being used all around him now—and with Leanne. There wasn’t any other reason for the inexplicable stillness at the center of his very real fear. He’d never felt such surety giving speeches, even if Leanne thought it a fine use of his “gifts.” He was a cool head on the battlefield, but this was a different sort of focus. Any man with half a bit of sense would have taken the golden ticket General Barnes had given him and escaped all this, but he hadn’t, and he knew he ought not to have.

  This, he realized, must be what valor feels like. This brand of courage was the way the man everyone thought he was would have felt up on that airship. The man who deserved that medal wouldn’t have been scrambling for his life, desperate and terrified, but solid and centered the way John felt right now. Surely there was no less danger—in fact, John would have wagered he stood less chance of getting out of the university alive than he did of surviving that airship’s crash. He knew he could not leave Leanne to face this alone, and whether he succumbed to the virus or not was…

  John stopped his own thinking, realizing he was about to finish his thought with the words, “…in God’s hands.” The surprising realization froze him for a moment, knife midair. He didn’t really believe that, did he?

  “You okay?” Travers was staring at him. “You sick?”

  “No,” John said, “I’m well. Just—” he fished for a word “—startled.”

  Travers wiped his sweating forehead with his sleeve. “Ain’t we all?”

  Was he calm about being here because he was where God wanted him? It seemed a foreign thought—one Leanne might have, but not him. Still, the words had a ring of truth to them. He would not have been able to leave the base with the other medical personnel if he didn’t possess those travel orders General Barnes had given him. He would not have those travel orders if he hadn’t passed the physical exam. And somewhere inside John knew, disconcerting as it was, that he would not have accomplished those laps had he not spied Leanne sitting on the hill praying for him. The fact that he’d seen her at all—and at the precise moment he most needed to see her—seemed too much of a coincidence to put down to luck, for he’d expressly asked her to stay away and Leanne was not the sort of woman to defy a specific request like that. His mind seemed pulled inextricably back to her prayer that afternoon on the bench, the one where she’d prayed over his leg to “Let Your will be accomplished.”

  As he cut open the next box, John found himself entertaining the impossible notion that God’s will had, in fact, been done. In him.

  He was here with Leanne.

  He was in peril but alive.

  And he was amazingly content with all of it.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Leanne had never seen a man die before. The waste of it all, the sheer mass of life draining out of bodies in that building seemed to crush the air from her lungs. Or worse, as if she were breathing in death itself, as if the flimsy, suffocating mask were not keeping the virus out but forcing it down her throat. She stumbled out of the ward, feeling she’d spent three days in there instead of three hours. Despite orders, she pulled off her mask to gulp in fresh air. How alive the world looked, with sunlight and green grass. How thankful she was to leave behind that desperate place of stark white, bloodred and deathly gray.

  How thankful she was to see John waiting for her.

  She had no strength to draw lines of faith or sense, she merely fell into his open arms and let him hold her up. How many times had she been his support? Today he was the strong one, and she was glad of it to her weary bones. “It’s awful in there. Ghastly. There are so many of them, all so sick. We haven’t enough of anything.”

  He didn’t say anything. What was there to say? He had no words for such a calamity any more than she. She clung to his shoulder, letting the soothing rhythm of his healthy breath and the steadiness of his heartbeat return her to the outside world. “Let’s get you inside,” he suggested after a moment or two.

  “No, please, not yet. I need to be outside for just a little while, to feel the breeze and see the sun.” Today felt a hundred years long, and although the sun was low in the sky, she needed every last scrap of it she could find. “There’s a garden over behind that building. I used to go there when I was a student.”

  “Of course,” he said, following her.

  His limp was pronounced as they set off, and Leanne was glad it wasn’t far. “It hurts, doesn’t it?” She ached everywhere; she could hardly imagine how John’s leg must pain him after a day like today.

  “Hardly seems to matter in all this, does it?” He assessed her face as they walked. “You are all right? Not feeling ill?”

  “I can’t feel anything. And yet I feel too much of everything. Charles Holling, someone I knew back in Charleston, he died. Practically right in front of me. He begged for death, he was in so much pain. I couldn’t…”

  John tightened his grip on her arm. “Don’t. Try not to dwell on it, try to be here, now, not back there.”

  “How? How do I
do that?”

  John’s shrug reminded her that he had been in battle, had seen landscapes strewn with bodies worse than what she had just seen. “You force your mind to stay where you need it to be. You tell yourself over and over you’re here and alive. Over and over until you start to believe it.”

  “I can’t.”

  He stopped and turned to her, taking each of her shoulders in his grasp so that she felt the cool of his cane press up against one arm. “You can. You must. Look into my eyes and say it—‘I’m here, I’m alive.’”

  “I’m here, I’m alive.” Her words had no strength.

  “We’re here, we’re alive,” he repeated, eyes locked on hers.

  “We’re here, we’re alive. Thank God, we’re here, we’re alive.” She brought her hands up to clutch his arms, craving the feel of his strength.

  “I do, you know,” John said softly. “I don’t know how to begin to explain what had happened to me this afternoon, but I do thank God we’re here and alive. I realize God kept you safe and kept me with you.”

  “John.” She exhaled. Was he saying what she thought he was saying? “You shouldn’t be here. You could have saved yourself from all this. You’re too important.”

  John’s hand came up to cup her chin. “I couldn’t leave you. I needed to be here. I ought to be here.”

  Her breath caught as he ran his thumb across the curve of her cheek. “You ought to be safe.” She fought the surge of feelings his words sent over her. “They’ll need you back at Jackson. You ought to leave.” She was trying hard to mean it.

  “I cannot. You know the quarantine order, no one can come or go until it is lifted.” He said it with a complete lack of panic, when Leanne thought he ought to be feeling as though he’d hung himself by his own choice.

  “No.” She turned her head away. “Now you’re trapped here because of me.”

  “Everything has lined up to such order. Don’t you see it all fits only one way? You prayed for me, prayed that the outcome would be not what either of us wanted, but God’s will. This is. I see that now.”

  Astonishment filled her heart to overflowing. “John?”

  “You’ve done the inconceivable, Leanne.” He almost laughed, his astonishment evidently no less than her own. “You’ve saved the last soul on earth I would have ever thought possible.”

  Her eyes welled up, and John smiled as he wiped the single tear that stole down her cheek. To know such joy, now, seemed impossible. “Surely you don’t think yourself so unworthy?”

  Leanne placed a hand on John’s chest and felt his heartbeat pounding under her palm. Alive. Here. Now. The darkness that had always lurked in the corners of his eyes had vanished, an unlikely, irrational peace of in its place. “To be frank, I don’t know what I think.” He pulled her closer. She did not resist. “I’m quite sure, however, what I feel.”

  Leanne could scarcely draw breath. The world had unhinged itself in a single day, coming apart at the very seams, and yet here was this wonder unfolding at the very same time. It seemed unthinkable that God’s will had been done, and yet John could believe that answer to her prayer more swiftly than she. To think that he had walked knowingly into danger, for her. It was a heroism too great to bear. “I’ve no words…”

  None were needed. He bent his head and kissed her softly, and she felt life blooming back into her. Then his kiss was not so soft, and she found herself returning the urgency in his kiss with a vitality she thought all but gone. His embrace pushed back the despair, blocked out the sick ward’s horrors. When John pulled back to look at her, his eyes burned fiercely with the sense of “here now and alive” she desperately needed.

  What a splendid strength John had; how grateful she was for his presence. The wonder of his fresh faith offered deep encouragement—had she really been so weary just moments before? John pulled her tightly to him, and she marveled how perfectly her shoulders tucked under his, how her head fell naturally against his shoulder. “I’ve still no words,” she said against the warmth of his chest.

  “Rendered you speechless, have I?” His tone was almost a laugh, and she felt herself smile. To smile, in the face of all this. What a gift that was.

  She looked out at the fading daylight, thinking today’s tragedies would only double with the coming darkness. It seemed as if dawn could only bring worse news. “Whatever is to become of us?”

  John’s chest expanded with a sigh as large as her own. “God only knows,” he said. Kissing the top of her head, he added, “And goodness, I actually mean that when I say it now. It’s going to take me a little while to get used to all this.”

  He did not say what she knew they both were thinking: a little while might be all they had.

  * * *

  The next day became a surreal, catastrophic struggle of life and death. John continued his work with the supply effort while Leanne and the other medical staff fought for life inside. He caught glimpses of her as they worked through the day, but rarely had time to say much more than a few words. Now, grateful for the dusk that marked the end of a long day, John and Leanne found half an hour to sit on the steps of a nearby building and share what meager food either could roust up for dinner.

  John had coaxed some priceless meat—a pair of sausages—out of the cook in an effort to restore Leanne’s appetite. He’d planned to let her eat both of them if he could, despite the fact that they smelled wonderful enough to set his own mouth watering. All of his world had the most awful smells these days, but he would gladly forsake the savory meat if he thought he could convince her to eat it. Leanne’s color gave him pause. “Eat, my dear.” Her shy smile, the one that always appeared now when he used the term “my dear,” tickled him. He put the tin plate on her lap and stretched out his leg.

  His confounded leg. He’d overused it in the worst way today. The thing ached to the point of distraction now, but all his pain medicine was still back at Jackson and anything they had here must be saved for patients. “This long day’s end is only the beginning.” He pointed to the plate. “You must eat more.”

  Her gaze was on the horizon, the purple dusk now barely visible through the trees. “Is this what war is like, John?”

  He’d had the same thought dozens of times today—that this was a war. “Yes.” He found himself hard-pressed to elaborate on such a drastic declaration, but her silence worried him. “This morning I couldn’t help thinking I didn’t need to go back to the battlefield because the battlefield has been brought to me.”

  When she still offered no reply, he took her hand. “You’d think that would be an awful thought, but it’s not. I know I ought to be here. I’ve had my eyes opened in so many ways. I’m seeing God’s hand in places I always put down to luck and self-importance.” He put his arm around her shoulder, drawing her to him. She felt too thin, too void of the vitality that had charmed him back before the world fell apart. “That’s you. That’s you in my life and I wouldn’t trade that for twelve shiny medals.”

  Leanne softened against his shoulder. The structure’s thick wooden front columns, still warm from the strong fall sun, baked his aching back. The soreness in his leg eased up the smallest bit. He offered up a word of thanks for the moment’s peace in a day of struggle, and the prayer came as easy as his breath.

  He felt her sigh against his ribs. “I fought so hard to resist you. I suppose you know that.”

  Her admission made him chuckle. Was she unaware how hard he’d fought to resist her? “Well, I have often heard how irresistible I am. And here I am bearing sausages. It took six compliments to lure these out of the kitchen, so we’re feasting thanks to my legendary charm.” He tipped her chin toward him. “But you are not eating nearly as well as you should. I am worried about you. Let me care for you, Leanne.” John swallowed, realizing he was dancing around what he really wanted to say. “For I do care for you. A great deal.” He kissed her forehead and thanked God again, grateful to be granted this time with Leanne. “We must be the only two people in the world
to have any reason to be thankful for this.”

  “And hate it at the same time. John, I feel too much all at once. I’m so happy, and yet so tired and so sad. And frightened. And worried. How can I feel hungry on top of all that?”

  “Every soldier knows a body needs to eat, hungry or not. Your strength is important.” He broke off a bit of sausage and held it in front of her as one would a small child, tucking it inside with a smile when she relented and opened her mouth. She consumed the luxury dutifully, without enjoyment, but she ate two more bites besides.

  They sat without conversing. Around them the sound of hammers pierced the gathering dusk alongside birds and crickets. Mere months ago the constant hammers at Jackson had meant building—barracks and structures that sprang up in astonishing speed as Camp Jackson burst into being. Now the hammers were building only one thing: coffins. Twenty in the past four hours alone. Eventually, Leanne looked up at him. “I do wonder if we are at the end of the world.”

  He could hardly blame her. He’d had the thought himself walking past the outbuilding they’d set up as a morgue two hours ago. Still, it bothered him to see her optimism failing, so he attempted a jest. “Are you saying my faith is a sign of the apocalypse? I had no idea I was so influential.”

  She didn’t laugh, merely pulled a telegraph paper from her pocket. “Dr. Madison dropped this off earlier.”

  “Madison’s here?”

  “He was on campus lecturing an orthopedics class when the quarantine order came. He chose to stay and help however he could.”

  John found his presence oddly comforting—a small piece of his past that had traveled with him to this surreal present.