Fight for Glory (My Wounded Soldier #1)

by Diane Munier

  “Sorry about your ma,” said I. I held my hat. I did not blink, and my jaw was set. We carried grief, my kind, and we kept on. There was always living pushing at the times when you wished to stop and quit, life pushed in rude, and you punched at it, railed at it, but in the end it kept you living. He didn’t know. He’d hung the wreath, but it wouldn’t stop life. I was life. And I was knocking, and if he stood in my path I would keep coming, and in the end, if there was any heart in him at all, he’d understand.

  He stepped back then, his eyes on the floor, his teeth working his jaw. Addie was further back, in the hall, hands over her heart, her eyes so big. She had held back until he stepped open turning himself from wall to door.

  I made myself tear my eyes from her, and I said to him, “Thank you.”

  But it did not stop my feet. I took some steps to her and stopped proper. She was looking up at me.

  “I will get my hat,” she said. And so she turned from me, and my eyes followed her, ears listened for her steps as she was going up.

  I rolled my hat over in my hands. I turned slow to him. He still held the door, eyes on my new boots. “I’ll wait outside,” I said. He did not speak or look, and once I was out, he closed the door.

  But it was not retreat, not nearly.

  The door sprung then, quick and wide, and there she stood, tying that bow under her chin. Her eyes though, they were mine. She walked to me.

  “Where are the children?”

  “Lavinia has taken them,” she said.

  I took her hand, the lightning there like always, and I tucked her hand over my heart and drew her against me.

  “Where can you marry round here?” I said to her before we took a step.

  Her eyes were rich with luster, like the black when I rubbed him with the hay, that inky dark, layers of deep.

  “You are ready for me?” she said. Her mouth a red bow, lips so sweet pulling me into her womanly shore.

  “I am ready in my body, like always,” I said. “But I am ready all the way through. I love you, Lass. From that time in the church.”

  She would think it was the time I took her boldly down that aisle. But I meant that first day, first second I saw her and she rattled me.

  “There is only one for me,” said I, my arms twitching with the urge to crush her against my heart.

  She nodded. “For me, “ she said, “…you.

  I kissed her then, holding back, but my lips on hers with a glowing heat.

  When we pulled back I said, “I’m here to collect. I can’t stay back…I can’t.”

  She nodded. “It’s time. I…pine.”

  I took her hand and led her to the carriage then. “We need a judge,” I told the man.

  Tom Tanner

  Chapter Thirty-One

  In that buggy ride, I got so addled, her next to me, all for me, hands vining round mine, her eyes, and her smiles, Lord those lips lifting for me. Each little lash, the flare of her little nostrils, did ever God make such a one.

  We couldn’t speak…or give guidance to that good driver who had been with me through this most strange journey. He had caught our excitement. We rode to the courthouse then, but they’d have to send for the judge, and he was at the saloon, but he came out, something splattered on his vest, and him chewing, collar half snapped open and him reaching plump hands to fasten it under what used to be a chin but was now whiskers and flesh waddling with each curse as he messed with that button buried in the turkey.

  His cravat tied, he stood before us and said the words, I do not know what they were exactly, but I said, “I do, I do,” and he pronounced us, and said I could kiss her and I never had another’s permission besides my own.

  So I laid one on her, gentle but pressing I tell you and the whole state of Missouri behind it.

  Oh God, my reveille was love.

  She patted my face. I had me no ring, but it would come later. And I would have her now. Well I paid that fella, and he had to smile, he could see it, it was there, by damn for all the world. I picked her up and carried her out of there, her laughing and me feeling I could run up Jake’s ladder.

  Then we needed the boarding house. And that driver was laughing to beat the drum. She said I compromised her, and I guess that’s true, for I kissed her a few times, and it was not the kind ever seen in company.

  She said I looked drunk. And she would know. I laughed, I was drunk on her for sure, or my own need, for it was there, the metal in me, oh yes.

  We went in that place and old spinster asked what we wanted and I said, “A room for me and my wife. Mrs. Tom Tanner.”

  And we were hungry. So she said the diner was open for dinner, but we were getting to the line. So I looked at Addie, and she looked at me and said, “I can wait.”

  Well I knew our time was narrow. The children returning, she said.

  No dinner, I said, paying for the room.

  “I’ll send bread and meat,” she said.

  And I said real quick, “No. No one bothers us.”

  “Water?” she said like she never heard of a man and wife needing respite.

  “No one bothers us,” I repeated.

  I picked up my girl then. She was such a little thing. No telling how far I could carry her.

  But I got my answer. Top of the two flights I was breathing a bit. Got her to the door and stood aside to let her get corralled.

  Then I went in swift and shut that door, and put the chair under the handle. She laughed at that, even as she was taking off that hat, and setting it on the table there. I threw mine across the room and went for the shirt. My pack was in the carriage, and that fellow went for a drink, on me. Someday soon we’d have all the time we wanted, but this here was a ‘at long last.’ And I meant to have her…and let her have me such as I was.

  I pulled off the shirt but kept on the bandana. “Don’t pay these scrapes no mind,” I said when she put her hand over her mouth and stared at me.

  I went to her then and my fingers went to that endless row of tiny buttons. “Let me,” I said, my hands shaking some and having no precision. But this was a thing my mind had been on…that I’d be the one to take off her dress this time.

  So she stood patient, looking at me, grin on her face but her eyes a little sad over the wounds. And I bumped her under the chin a few times, once making her teeth clack a little. “Sorry,” I said kissing her sweet, but I never gave up.

  I needed to learn such now, tiny buttons, and how those frills hooked and tied. Well I was curious, like it was this secret thing and now I had a ticket in.

  I was nearly done when her hands went to my britches. I just stopped, looking at her hands working them open. I forgot everything, but I was there, just there and breathing, her hands small on me, but feeling like the biggest thing…on the biggest thing. I was ready to burst.

  I had to take her hands away. Let us get to that bed I paid for at least. “Lass,” I said, having some corset ribbons knotted now and thinking of my knife.

  She took over for me then, but I watched, such a sight, even as I stumbled out of my boots and britches. I was so glad for those new drawers, but they were off me quick.

  She was nearly bare but for the bloomers, and those breasts, what was God thinking to come up with this? How is it they fit my hands? “Am I hurting?” I said, afeared, that’s all. I was rough. She was cream.

  “I like it,” she said, voice like thread running a seam through me, through me.

  I kissed her into the tick then, into it. Just that, kissing and pressing on her skin. I had finished that time, her on my lap, carrying that in my mind like a sin. But one I wasn’t sorry for. I wasn’t sorry for nothing with her, and that was the truth.

  Oh, she moved on me, took me in her hand like I was hers and moved against me, and I said, “You got to stop, I can’t rub on that velvet and last,” and I kissed her some more, and my hands found her then and I pressed on her and moved. She wasn’t hard to read, I felt her over, and she yelled out and I covered her mouth
with mine and oh God I kissed her.

  I filled her with my flesh, and I stilled in her. “Girl,” I said. “I’m so glad I lived. For you an’ for this.”

  She moved a little, hunkered down and grabbed my backside. “Give…me,” she said voice so deep, us so deep into one another. And I gave to her then, the way of it, Lord…Lord, I made a sound, and something more let go in me than the rush of life springing from me. I finished in her, and my heart, my God I felt so weak, so limp I didn’t know if I could move. She had to help me, God’s truth, I could not move on my own. I had waved that white flag, and surrendered to her.

  She rolled me onto my side, and I didn’t know I was crying too, it’s like everything came free again, but I wasn’t sobbing like that last, just wet cause times had been trying, I guess, and now we were together. We were man and wife.

  We lay that way a long time, me on my side, her lying in the bow of my arm, me looking my fill, touching my fill while she talked then and played with her bandana still around my neck. When she got going it poured out. Well, it was Johnny. He’d given her a time and then some. He hadn’t wanted to come to St. Louis, but after they’d seen me at the station it had all been downhill. He’d done some things… “Needs him a hidin’,” is what I said cause I felt the need to say something, but truth be told I didn’t know what to do about it. He had stuck his bare rear at her other day. I’d of chased that rear to glory and tanned it good. That I did know.

  I told her some then about the wreck. Then I backtracked a little, but she got more upset, so I eased off it, not wanting to bring it here. I felt ready for another go, and she surprised me and got on me and sat back and in it went like a homing pigeon to roost. Oh she brought some sounds out of me only a wounded man should make. But Lord, I was beside myself. Marriage had redeemed me.

  Tom Tanner

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  I was just a man. But I felt like a king. I had my queen. I had slayed all the dragons in my way, and I had her.

  So leaving her again was killing me. But here’s what had to be. I brought her home after two hours with her in that boarding house in a hired bed. I was used to hanging my hat, so to speak. But she deserved more.

  She had talked in the bed, and she talked in the carriage. I loved her words, her thoughts, and God above, her voice. And her attention, let’s not leave that by its lonesome.

  With the mother just died, the wake would be in place on the morrow. Presently, she was gone to the undertakers for embalming. The rich had more ideas on how to spend their money, but since the war it was fashionable to preserve themselves so they could get the honor due them and still smell good before their seed was planted.

  It would be a matter of two weeks before the business would be settled. That was Addie’s guess, though she couldn’t ask with the death barely settled on Quinton. He’d known his aunt as mother and doted on her.

  So Addie needed the few days to handle things for she had no call to ever return, and felt she must be there for the settlement. Quinton had offered a generosity to Johnny and hoped to see to his education when he grew old enough. If Johnny would desire such, Addie felt she owed him that opportunity and Richard would have agreed.

  Course Quinton had hoped to make Johnny his son, but even still, he would see to him, and thereby acknowledge Richard Varn’s contribution to the building of his empire. Secretly, and probably pridefully, I hoped I’d helped put the fear of God in Cousin on that one. Too bad for Janey though, not that she would need him. She’d be saddled with no pa but me. And I planned not to be a hardship. Richard Varn had put her in, but it’s me pulled her out.

  My people took in others and loved them fierce. And I was their cloth.

  But like Addie, I was being pulled at. I did not know how Jimmy fared. I had business of my own, for the good of this, my family, I needed to pay attention to the money I had coming. Jimmy was right about the reward. If we didn’t stand up and press, they wouldn’t come looking to hand it to us. For sure, they’d figure William wouldn’t be able to call them out, and they’d just as soon cut the rest of us. There would be stories and a lot of tongues flapping. We’d started this thing, and we needed to see it through. My gut told me William was with the horses. Those animals would pull at him like Jimmy pulled at me. We knew it wasn’t finished, not even close. There were sheaves to bring in, and winter was upon us in symbol and truth.

  I had a house to ready. There was so much when I thought about it, I couldn’t let myself think about it yet. For I had learned to parcel my load and lift it in pieces, not all at once.

  “I will go for home, and take Johnny by horseback with me,” I said. “You come on the train with Janey and Lavinia when you’re done here.” I did not like it, not with the picture of that train and those dead ones so fresh. But that had been a savage act. The army would bring peace, mayhap. I could take no chances with Addie and Janey, not them. But if I held too hard I would lose it all. I told myself to take courage, and I heard Jimmy again, “Fight where it counts the most.” Having Addie’s hand in marriage, my next battleground was Springfield.

  “You’ll take Johnny?” she said. She saw the sense in all but this.

  “It will help him, I think,” I said, for I did not have words to back me up, just a knowing, a hope. “I will bring him to Ma. By the time he gets there he will have calmed some and he can get started in the new term at school. And you’ll be on our heels.”

  She hung on my arm and stared at me hard. I reckoned she had not trusted another with him before in such a grand way. And I had the wounds. And trouble was my middle name, though I planned to turn over a new leaf now I was married and a pa. But oh, she was torn.

  “Don’t look at me with those eyes that get me,” I said laughing. “I can tell you this…he’s at that place he leaves his ma and turns to his own kind.”

  “He is eight,” she fought me.

  “He has seen things. And he’s full up on it. He’s knows the helpless place, too much. He got took there, and many men don’t come out, yet he is…eight.”

  “I never wanted this,” she hissed. “I meant to keep him from it.”

  I thought she meant that day she shot the one. But this was more, old sorrow in her eyes, oh that was what I saw when I looked so deep. That fist in my stomach started to tighten. There was so much I never heard. She never told.

  I just looked at her. “Tell me,” I said.

  She shook her head.

  “Tell me,” I said, hands on her arms. Then I softened and slid my arms around her and held her. I cradled her head against my chest. “Tell me,” I said soft.

  “I know you won’t look down on me for it.”

  “I will not,” I said tightening my arms.

  “You will understand.” She put her hands on my arms and lifted her head to me, “It’s why I love you so.”

  I looked at her, my beauty, my love. I nodded.

  “I will tell you. But not on this day.”

  I breathed in. This was not a day for sad stories. “Fair enough.”

  We stayed that way, wrapped in one another in that carriage.

  After a while she said, “Johnny is yours too, now, though I may have to be reminded how to share the load.” Then with fear, “I don’t know how!”

  I smiled as I rubbed the back of my fingers over her soft cheek. “Reckon I can borrow him a spell. Then I’ll give him back. We can do it like that. Like churning butter, our hands on the rocker, first you, then me.”

  She nodded at me. “You’ll want to…give him back.” And we laughed.

  “Thank you,” I said. I kissed her forehead. Then her nose. She giggled like a girl. Oh, she did please me.

  Tom Tanner

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  I left that girl, my woman, standing on that curb by that Sycamore, but it was the wrong Sycamore. And I twisted round looking at her like a boy going off to war, the heart within me tempted to rip.

  But the boy was with me. And here’s how it was betwee
n me and Cousin. I took Addie to his house and we went in that big mansion and here he came like he was the pa and I’d kept her out late. “I need to speak with you,” I said to him before he could say it to me.

  Well, he saw my arm upon her, my wife. He saw her face, mine too I reckon, biblical knowledge upon them, for there was no denying the shine. Before he could say something we’d both have to cotton to, I said, “We are married.”

  Well, Addie and me never talked about telling him. He surely knew how it was with us, he’d seen it time and again now, and frankly I was not willing to draw him a story. He flushed that deep red, easy to see he was so lily white.

  Truth told I did not want his money anywhere near my family. Not a filthy farthing. But for her. Not Johnny, but her. She had it coming, but it would never be enough. For they’d hurt her. She’d not told me, not yet, but it brought her to Illinois and she’d suffered when she shouldn’t, and by God he was going to pay her retribution. It’s all that kept me civil, knowing that money was God to his kind. So give over, dig into your golden calf, boy, but you ain’t buying a thing, is what I knew.

  Oh, I was a mean son of a bitch inside when it came to matters about her. And his look had me going. Up until now, he’d still had hope. If I wasn’t so full on Addie’s sweetness …it was hard to tell.

  “She wants to stay on….” I began.

  “I was hoping to wait until after the burying,” Addie said in a soft voice that threw some water on me. I figured mayhap she could handle Cousin better than me. So I put my top lip against my bottom one and held on.

  About then I heard him. “Tom,” he yelled from somewhere above. Here he came sounding like the drummer boy before a charge, rat-a-tat-tat. He came in then and like usual, didn’t slow until I was nearly knocked down.

  He’d gone wild. Lavinia was behind, breathless from trying to catch up to him.

  “Where’s Janey?” I said.

  “Hello, Tom,” she said soft. “She’s sleeping.”

  I nodded, one hand holding my hat, and the other on Johnny.