Fight for Love (My Wounded Soldier #2)

by Diane Munier

  So we confirmed our love with many sweet words and kisses and somewhere in there I drifted off for it was morning too soon and we had not moved from our cocoon of love.

  Tom Tanner

  Chapter Twenty

  This house, oh Lord, this house. It was the “I” house. It said lookie me. That was not my intention or the thing I served, but that is how it was taken. Everyone I’d ridden with in the war had an idea about it and everyone planned to help one way or another cause I’d been to town ordering this and that and it was the talk, I tell you.

  As serious cold settled in I dug the cellar. Gaylin would come some in the evening and we would freeze our behinds while we waited for the ground to thaw so we could dig. We always had us a fire going to soften the earth, and the light didn’t hurt neither, though we’d hang the lantern, then we’d dig some more. Well, it got into a man. You could see the goal so clearly, it got under you and you itched to get at it. So once that got in him like it was in me, we just stayed at it every spare minute seemed.

  Sometimes he brought Rosie. I didn’t have a thing against her but those concerns. She liked to cook Irish, and that was fine. She told a good story, though I did not look at her much, and when I did I couldn’t look for long. I wanted to show respect, but it was confusing. And I had never had my say, and it wouldn’t matter if she weren’t in the family. But since she was…well I had a feeling and I wasn’t sure where to go with it.

  I had tried to go to the proper chain of command, to Gaylin, but I’d gotten nowhere. It was Tulley. It was her ties to Springfield. I needed to know. I had spoken to the Marshalls brought our money, but they were from Chicago way and had no knowledge of him. They offered to look into him and wire information to Jimmy, but I heard only that he was not wanted in these parts far as they could tell.

  Buster and his pards had not come through Greenup, but around. They were well informed on the payout, knew the day, the amount, where we could be found. And they were from the same neck of the woods as this Tulley. Generally, these types…same bed, or one favor for another.

  How hard would it be to find her? Did he want to find her? She said no. But she was a liar. She did not tell her aunt. She had this whole other wharf life and according to her, the aunt did not know. Well, Springfield wasn’t that big. Was such a thing possible? She either lied to the aunt or lied about the aunt. And here she was staying at Ma and Pa’s. Then she was here with my family. In my family. That’s why I couldn’t look at her. I did not trust her.

  Well, Johnny was openly hypnotized in her presence. I had to save him repeatedly from embarrassing himself when Rosie was around. And she knew how to talk to any of Adam’s ilk. Didn’t matter age or size. It was just there. And Gaylin thought it was pretty darling seemed like, but I did not feel the least bit sanguine about it.

  She had a way of moving was a little too loose. She had the parts, pretty big on everything and so she needed to be extra careful seemed to me. But she was just the opposite. Yes, I had witnessed the dancing, not yet with Ma, but with my Addie, my beauty. One night in particular we had been digging late, but it was a Friday and Johnny did not have school next day. And that’s the night the dancing showed itself.

  My Addie looked so fetching no matter what she did, but this Rosie, it was too…too…and too. I had to take Johnny outside and set him some made-up on the spot work, like, walk yonder through these bitter winds and make sure I latched the pasture gate. He was getting so rowdy I nearly dragged him out, but I figured cold air never hurt.

  Lord the work of a father for he wanted to dance, he wanted to dance with Rosie. I had told him I’d be making him dance with the strap and that shut him up, but I wouldn’t have done it.

  Well back inside and she was making music now, showing Janey how to beat the pan with the spoon. And Johnny was all wound again, dragging the stick across the washboard, and her singing out and high stepping. I did not want to ever see that woman’s drawers again, but sadly I did and from my own chair.

  And Gaylin couldn’t laugh hard enough, like she was created to spread it around like dandelion seed and we should be saying ‘whee.’

  I was never so glad when my Addie planted herself on my lap. I put my arms around her, and rubbed my face in her hair. I stared at that Rosie, hidden in Addie’s brown locks like I was hunting ducks, just peering through the cattails with a bead on Rosie. How in tarnal did I inherit you? I thought.

  But when she couldn’t see, I had to smile. She was just so god-awful full of life. Well Addie caught me. She turned quick and saw that smile, saw I’d been watching Rosie and her “step, clop, hop,” as she was telling the eager student Johnny Varn how to make a fool of himself.

  “You want to try it, don’t you?” Addie said, kissing me quick.

  “I want to try you,” I said low in her ear, “that’s what. Fact is I will soon as these get out of here.”

  She slapped at me and laughed. Then she was off my lap, lifting her skirts and doing the steps and I stood like I’d heard Sonny coming down the chimney. But Rosie grabbed onto me then, and one-two-three she was saying, leading me around the table in spite of my leaden feet. I did not know what to do, Gaylin clapping and laughing, Johnny too, Addie laughing. I nodded and tried to pull away, but Rosie brought my hand back to her waist, and the feel of it was wrong, not my Addie, but a heavy-duty movement there, and I pulled back and waved them off and shook my head and dropped back into my chair like I was one hundred and sixty already.

  Addie came back to my lap. She was laughing so and put her forehead on mine, and Gaylin and Rosie were dancing now, Johnny jumping, wild again. And all this without any real music.

  “Scare you a little?” she whispered laughing.

  “I ain’t scared of nothin’,” I said, “’cept you maybe.” We laughed and kissed some more. I pulled her to me then and we kissed more yet and Johnny whooped and I heard him say, “They’re always kissin’,” with disgust, but he was so wild, he didn’t stop to ponder. I held her to me then and rocked her slow, and we just were there. We just were.

  Tom Tanner

  Chapter Twenty-One

  “Too much snow today,” I said looking into the gray light through the ice covered window. “Stay abed,” I said to Johnny and Addie while I built up the fire and threw on those hickory logs I’d brought in last night, for they burned hottest.

  Once I got the warmth built up good, I bundled and cracked the door open. We had to hang a horse blanket over it from inside to help keep the wind out for I had made it quick and it fit rough. Well, the snow had drifted onto the porch, and I started to cut a path. My legs were long and the snow hit to my knees. I kicked it pretty well clean so I could stack wood and it wouldn’t melt all over the house.

  I had the water buckets, and the pump was froze so to the well I went. My hands were working slower in the cold, but I hauled two buckets. Time I got back to the house a light crackle of ice was on top. I sat a bucket on the hearth, but I didn’t like to do it, didn’t like the arrangement of it, for she could strain her back so I put the dipper in for if she would just use that and not try to fill the pan, but you couldn’t tell her nothing on this.

  She wasn’t built for hauling and it made me mad for some reason the way things were so hard here. Spring couldn’t come soon enough. The best thing about this weather was the hours I had to wrap myself with her. Then the children, the times. Ma said to never wish your days away, to find the good thing, the beauty, and so I knew I should, and it weren’t hardship, for she lie abed with Janey now, the baby fat and nursing, Johnny in the other, head bent over his book. We had it all.

  Outside again I filled the sled with wood from the overhang side of the barn, and pulled it to the porch. I pitched it up there and went back to haul another load after I milked. Once I brought that milk in, the first bucket was icing. I set those inside, and she was up cooking fry bread and eggs with ham. I kissed her then, and she yelped over my cold face, and the cold hand I put back of her neck, and I laugh
ed.

  Outside I brought another load of wood and corncobs for kindling. Then I gathered the few eggs and spread hay in the stalls. I filled a can of corn for the hand mill and took this inside with the eggs.

  I put this on the table. Johnny was up, grabbed a plate and back to his bed and his book of sketches. Ma and Pa would have never allowed. We did not lie abed unless sick and never for a meal. But it gave me pleasure to spare him on a morning like this. He was drawing war scenes now as I had described them. Sometimes he had me draw the cannon, or how the lines were set, the us against them, blue and gray and he could hear those stories forever. Made me think about them and the way of it then. I was barely ready and I wiped them down before I told them, but still I could smell, I could hear, and see, oh God, sometimes I thought I dreamed it. And sometimes I dreamed it still and woke in a sweat and held her against me and said to my soldier’s heart, it is now, it is now.

  Well, we are one in these United States. It is pounded into us and out of us as this country is forged. My kind fight the wars, till the soil, pay the piper and carry on. We carry on.

  I am whittling, but it is surprise, Christmas surprise for my girl. I decided to make her a spoon, cherry-wood from a tree I’d found early winter. The bowl of this spoon was deep enough to hold a serving of soup or stew. The long handle with the two hearts entwined, it took me some precision, but I enjoyed it so to think how it would fit her small hand and she could stir, as she had stirred my very heart, she could mix as we were mixed now, one with another. When she felt the hearts the rise of them…she could remind herself…of how I loved her.

  So when I whittled, she was not allowed to come close and look. I worked with my chair turned away. I was to the place where I’d work it with the cut glass until it was smooth, and then the oil on it.

  This house was bursting with secrets. I knew she also toiled on something. Johnny as well. It was hard in this small room to find space and give it, but we did. And so our dark days and nights did pass.

  Gaylin and Rosie came on the sled, bells ringing on the clear Sunday morning before Christmas. Gaylin took Johnny for rides then and we could hear the bells ring each time they passed and both them yelling.

  Rosie came in to be with Addie. I could always find something to keep me going outside, but a man came in before he froze.

  What in tarnal did I come in to see but Rosie wearing men’s britches. I gave no more reaction than I did when Johnny was up to highjinx. But I’d seen, and Addie gave me a look as if mayhap it was my idea and it were not.

  “Hey my beauty,” I said low to my wife as I went to the hearth for coffee. She lifted her cheek when I kissed her though she did not give me my smile.

  So I played with Janey once I got settled in. She was looking at me, her eyes like those of an older child, her watching me serious and I sucked in my cheeks and when I left off my lips made a sucking sound. By damn if she didn’t do it right back at me and I told Addie and she and Rosie came to see and I couldn’t get her to do it again.

  “Can I hold her?” Rosie asked. Seemed she couldn’t get enough of Janey. So I looked to Addie and handed Rosie the baby.

  Well, I knew how smart Janey was. Just like her Ma, beauty and brains, and I said that.

  “Beauty and brains,” Rosie repeated, looking at me as if I must give account.

  When I didn’t answer she said, “I never heard that brains mattered to a man.”

  I smiled and looked away from her. She’d spoke her own truth, no help from me. Brains had not been high on Gaylin’s list it seemed. And that was no remark on hers…but his.

  “Oh…how do you live with that smirk of his?” Rosie said to Addie.

  There was a pause, then Addie, who had been stirring cornbread stared at Rosie. “Are you saying this in fun?” she said, serious as Janey had been. She walked to Rosie and took Janey.

  Rosie had her hands on her hips and she threw up her chin, swaying side to side, “Are we not to pass judgment on the Lord and Master then? Will we go to jail?” She looked from Addie to me, her face and voice a challenge.

  “There is no….” I started to say.

  Addie stopped me with, “Do not fight me when I’m fighting for you.”

  Then she turned to our new sister, “Rosie…he is the Lord and Master here. Make no mistake.” Her brow was raised and she stared at Rosie for a very long minute.

  Rosie laughed then, her eyes skirting me. “Well, he’s not my master. No man will master me.”

  “Looks like one did, and you stole his britches,” Addie said taking Janey behind the curtain and leaving me on my own with this one.

  I had known less tension in a gunfight than what I’d just felt in this room. I had no idea where it came from…yes I did…it came from Bertha, for she had definitely just made a show, and the laundry girl who carried a knife had answered.

  Rosie looked me over, her lips twisted in disgust. She went to the table, lifted her leg over the bench and sat. She was a crude one. I wondered if she’d had a mother. She had coffee and she got out her flask and put a good dollop in. Then she looked to me, brows raised, “Master?”

  I just stared. She shouldn’t have spirits without asking Addie. It was a Sunday, we’d not had dinner, and the children. Addie was touchy about it after Richard. She’d drawn a line for him and had no inclination to take it down.

  Well, she capped the flask and put it under her shirt. She stared into the fire.

  I cleared my throat. “Do you hear from Springfield?”

  She looked at me. “What makes you ask? It can’t be you trying to be friendly,” she said.

  I shifted a bit. She was right, friendly had nothing to do with it. “After that scum…they hang together. If there’s something I need to know…,” now this next part hurt me, but I needed to do it, “…since you are family, you need to tell us so we can protect you if you are in any circumstance.”

  She ignored me long enough I wanted to ring her neck. After a few more sips she said, “Don’t worry, I bring you no trouble. Your kingdom is safe. Master.”

  I knew Addie nursed the baby and that would hold her from yelling out. But it was only a curtain and Rosie needed to remember Addie was just the other side. I was touched she would fight for me, not so touched she had quoted me, but not upset by any stretch.

  “That Tulley…is he a concern?”

  She laughed at this. Then she took a big breath and let it out. “No. He’s dancing a jig right now that I left.”

  “How’s that?” I said.

  “Oh you’re smooth,” she said poking fun again. She finished her coffee and straddled the bench, facing me. “Gaylin didn’t tell you…he wouldn’t. He’s…good.” She looked past me and smiled. “I got in some trouble back home and they sent me to my aunt’s boardinghouse. I’ve always attracted too much attention from men.” She looked at me, held my gaze with challenge.

  I gripped the arms of the rocker more tightly, but I did not back down. I wanted to know.

  “My aunt worked me hard. And…I lost the baby. Sometimes Tulley stayed there and he was always nice. He didn’t like what she did…how she treated me. But my father…he was so mean. And my aunt told him everything. So when Tulley…when I took up with him…well he was just fun. But I didn’t let my aunt know cause she would have written my father. So I had me a time. But Tulley…so I was there one night…supposed to be with him…and when he went with some of the others and ignored me…well, I never was one to take that…so I climbed up…and they went wild. Well…he didn’t like it. He was so mad. So that’s why I did it at first…but then…it didn’t matter. He made money…and it made me feel better. I made money too. I was saving to go to California. I thought if I just could get there…but then Gaylin. I don’t know why I’m telling you all this. I don’t want anything. I’m just Gaylin’s wife. I love Ma and Pa. I wouldn ‘t hurt them. Do you know how lucky you are?” She said to me.

  Addie came around the curtain then. She was buttoning from Janey. Janey
should have been asleep in her cradle.

  Her eyes were on Rosie. She went to her then and put her arms around her from behind. She put her dark glossy hair against Rosie’s bright locks. “Lucky to have you with us now,” Addie said.

  Rosie put her hand on Addie’s arm and burst out crying. “I…,” she said, “Janey…it’s helped. Gaylin brings me so I can hold her.”

  Addie patted her and held on like she did to me sometimes. “When you feel the need, you come to us and you can hold her all you want.”

  Then Rosie looked at me. “You should know…he grew to hate me. But they loved me up there. So he was stuck…Tulley. That’s why I said the day I left he danced a jig. He won’t be coming for me.”

  I wanted to ask more, sinner that I was. She was money to him. She had uncommon looks, the kind men liked, and I’d seen how they were with her up there. And I’d seen her empty face. I’d thought her bored, but she was empty. I wasn’t completely appeased, but I did understand some more about her. “What about your father?”

  She shook her head. “I was only cattle to them…to them all. They used me. Gaylin is the first….” She cried and Addie comforted.

  I did not know. I would give her this doubt, but I would watch. But here’s what changed. She was family to me now. For the first time I saw who was in there and mayhap Gaylin had been thinking with more than his willy. She came out of trouble. No more than me. Gaylin was good. Until Monroe he was pure about so many things. If this was who was meant for him, I could see how he’d been prepared, for our foray into Monroe land had taken his innocence and given him the pluck to take her on.

  Mayhap I was wrong. But…I seldom was.

  Tom Tanner

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  There was a round of books making it through the family, sent by Allie. Well, we had not been able to see them for Christmas, but they hired one of the fellas and he delivered the books to Ma’s, then a new apron stitched for Addie and also a lady’s hat, a cup and ball for Johnny, and now we heard that thing popping in and out of the cup morning and night, and plenty of paper for sketching and a fat pencil, a doll she’d sewn for Janey, with a dress and coat and bright yarn hair and a bottle of whiskey Jimmy sent me. And lots of candy, Lord.