“I got my cousin’s boys to help me and we took them out for a little ride. Thought they might need it. I think they appreciated it.”
James looked at the woman who stood by the door of the stall, resting her arms on the top of the door, and idly wondered if she was on the hunt, too. “I suspect they did. Not used to being shut up in a train for days.”
“So, I hear you are heading east.”
“We are. Only left because of the war. Going back home to Maine now.”
She shook her head. “The call to war. Men can’t seem to ignore it. Long way to come to let some fools shoot at you. Should have stayed home. Suspect you could’ve found someone to shoot at you there.”
He laughed. “I could have, except the need to keep the country whole stirred me to go. The worst is trying to accept that you are killing people. Even though they are trying to kill you, it is a hard thing to adjust to. Then there is the fact that it is nasty, dirty, and, certainly, damned uncomfortable. I am a man who greatly appreciates his comforts.” He grinned when the woman laughed.
“I bet. Saw some soldiers, some going and some coming back from a battle.” She shook her head. “Some of the boys returning, too few of them in my opinion, looked like they had aged ten years.” She stepped back and held open the door as he led his horse out of the stall. “Come on. No need to worry. Already did my hunting and caught me a good one: he is only missing a piece.”
“Which piece?”
“Bottom half of his leg. He’s pondering a peg leg, like a pirate,” she said and smiled slightly.
James nodded. “There will be a lot of broken men for a while.”
She nodded. “My man has accepted it, but he is constantly searching for something he can strap on to make up for it. To give him balance, he says. I am glad my cousin stood in her door with her rifle in hand and stopped her boys from marching off. And not just because that would leave her with no one to help her keep the house by working the fields and dealing with the animals. They had only just entered their teen years. Handsome, good-hearted boys. Too damn young.”
“Drummer boys,” he muttered as he started to walk his horse around the building and recalled one horrific memory of finding pieces of a body left on a battlefield, just enough to let him know it had been a very young boy. He had stood there and wept that day, and it still haunted him. He suspected it always would, then frowned as he felt someone rub his back and looked back to see the woman had come up and was trying to comfort him.
“I am fine. It is just a quickly passing memory and I get it often, though it begins to fade.”
“Good,” she said as she stepped back. “This damn fool war left too many of you young men scarred by bad memories. Filled your heads with ugly memories to haunt your thoughts and dreams. Well, you fellows have a safe trip.”
* * *
After settling his horse in the stock car, Geordie stood outside and watched the milling crowds as he waited for Robbie and James to do the same. He could understand Robbie’s dislike of such crowds because he shared it. They were pleasant to mix with on a celebratory occasion, but he would find them a chore when the crowds were a constant part of your life, always waiting just outside your door. He had no plans to live in a place like Boston or New York, but now he wondered if he would find even these small cities cropping up along the train tracks difficult to settle in.
They finally got on the train and found their seats, making sure Robbie would be able to put up his foot. He needed that or he could end up with a bad ache in his leg. This train would take them into Boston with only one switch to a smaller, local train, and Geordie thought it might be a good idea to let Robbie rest for a bit when they got to the city, to get a room with beds and stay a night or two. He considered their finances and figured they could do it. It would be a resting stop, he decided, and one he felt Robbie needed. He was not sure how much rest Robbie would need after the hours, the days, they had spent traveling, but felt sure it would help him as they made their way up the coast.
He watched as a woman they had seen earlier on the streets came in and took the seats across the aisle from them. She settled her little girl next to her, set a cloth bag down by her feet, and pulled out some knitting. He slouched in his seat and wished he could do something like that, as he found riding the trains somewhat boring. The scenery was pleasant, but there were only so many trees you could gaze at and fields you could watch before boredom swept over you. Sleep passed the time, he decided, as he closed his eyes.
Chapter Four
The whimpers of a small child pulled Geordie from sleep. He rubbed the sleep from his eyes as he sat up and looked around. He was not home; he was on a train. Once he had that clear revelation, everything came back to him and he sat up straight. The woman and the small child still sat across the aisle from him. Now six men had surrounded her. One knelt on the seat behind her and played with her black hair, undoing her careful styling and sneaking caresses of her long, slender neck. The others crowded the seats around her, forcing the young girl into her arms so that she could not even attempt to fight off the men. It was an effective trap and he had to wonder if the men had used it often.
“Aw, hell,” muttered James, and he reached for his gun but Geordie reached out to stay his hand.
“Tempting as it is, I dinnae think we can have a shooting match in the train car,” Geordie said softly. “The child or the woman could end up hurt or dead.”
“Can’t just ignore that.”
“Wasnae suggesting that we do. Just that we shouldnae start shooting.” Geordie looked at his brother, who was staring at the scene next to them and looking furious. “Robbie, remember the awkward stumble?”
“Of course I do. Nay that fond of it. It hurts a bit, ye ken.”
“I thought maybe it did, but it is for a good cause this time, nay just a bit of foolery.”
“Ye saying that doesnae really help.”
Robbie stood up while Geordie made a big show of helping him. Together they staggered into the aisle as they drew abreast of the seat where the men were harassing the woman; they feigned a small tugging argument with Geordie saying they needed to go left and Robbie adamant that they should go right. Then Robbie stumbled, conveniently whacking a couple of the men with his cane as he fell heavily on the man sitting next to the woman. Geordie saw the punch Robbie gave the man and knew they could count that one out. He actually had to bite back a laugh when the little girl hit that man in the head with her wooden doll.
Geordie stumbled back when Robbie made an attempt to sit up. He felt a man move behind him and swung as he turned toward him, knocking him out by slamming his elbow into the man’s jaw. Robbie got to his feet, flailing his cane around again until he caught the man standing behind the woman, square in the face. It was clear to see that Robbie had practiced flailing his cane around.
James slid over the back of his seat and across the aisle, then, a moment later, Geordie saw the man facing the woman being grabbed around the throat by James and being held tightly until his thrashing body stilled and he slumped down. It was something James had done when he and other soldiers were creeping around doing a little spying on the enemy and he apparently had decided to keep and hone the skill.
James moved to stand beside Geordie as a couple of the porters rushed in. While James talked to them, Geordie dragged the unconscious men more fully into the aisle, then sat down facing the woman. Out of the corner of his eye he noticed Robbie sitting down in his seat and watching him, all the while using his cane to whack any man who showed signs of regaining consciousness.
“Are ye hurt, ma’am?” Geordie asked the woman, deciding she was pretty, nicely rounded yet slender, and probably several years older than him. She was also weighted with sorrow and pain, but was that pain emotional or physical? “Do ye need a healer?”
“No,” she replied, brushing her long black hair back off her face and smiling faintly. “Thank you for your help.”
“It was no trouble.” He
watched as more men arrived to drag off the ones they had left in the aisles. “Looks like they willnae be able to trouble ye again.”
“Where you from? You talk funny,” said the little girl, who was ignoring her mother’s whispered scold.
Geordie looked at the child and smiled faintly, suspecting it was a scold she heard often. She was a small copy of her mother, although her black hair was very curly, and her big eyes were a deeper blue. “I came here from Scotland with my family. We all talk this way.”
“Is that far away?”
“Pretty far, aye. Ye have to sail over the ocean. What is your name?”
“Morgan. I was named after my daddy, but he got sick from something he got in the war.” She held up her doll. “He made this for me.”
“Verra nice and a good weapon.” He shared a grin with the child and then watched as the woman blinked back tears before he looked back at the child. “Did your da decide to stay home, or do ye live just up the track a ways?”
“No. My daddy went to live with God. We miss him a lot but it is a good place. He will be with a lot of his family and friends. We are going to stay with my grandmother in Boston.”
“I am truly sorry about your da, Morgan.” He looked at the woman. “And my condolences to ye as weel, ma’am.”
“Thank you kindly. And you, too, sir,” she added with a smile and a nod to Robbie, who was struggling to settle back in his seat. “And my name is Jane Benson Haggert.”
He nodded. “I am Geordie MacEnroy.” He pointed at Robbie. “My brother, Robbie.” He then pointed at James, who sat beside him and grinned. “And this disreputable fellow is James Deacon.” He winced dramatically when James jabbed an elbow into his side.
“Very nice to meet you. And fortunate.” She frowned. “Are you only now headed home after the war?”
“Nay. I suddenly wanted to see the ocean. Robbie decided he wouldnae mind visiting it, too.”
“I am headed home after visiting my commanding officer, once he settled down somewhere and got married,” said James.
“Why east? Most men seem to be rushing west and there is an ocean there.”
“Weel, I suspect they are flocking there because they think they will find gold and get rich,” said Geordie. “Nice dream, but it doesnae leave a place to have a quiet sit to watch the ocean. The East doesnae have that scourge, and once ye leave the cities there are a lot of quiet places, if I remember right.” He glanced at Robbie, who nodded. “The time to go hunting gold in that place was when it was first found, nay years later. Now ye just get the ruffians who will shoot ye for a nugget or two. Ye only have the desperate and the deceitful, now.” A look passed over her face, which made him sigh. “Your husband went there.”
“He did. Took us with him. He knew he was sick, suspected it was something that could kill him. He wanted to leave a legacy for us. Whatever had burrowed into him did not want to wait for him to accomplish that. It robbed him of his strength, so the doctor said we could bring him home. He got fretful near the end. Kept telling me to watch for it in Morgan.”
“He thought it was something one could catch?” asked James.
“No, but he said his father had died of something similar, so there might be a weakness.”
Geordie just nodded. “Just keep recalling those words, that he said there might be a weakness.”
“Oh, I will,” she said and smiled, holding Morgan closer when the child leaned against her. “To tell the truth, I do not really think it was what he feared it was. In the war he was shot several times, then was caught close to explosions so fierce he and some other men were tossed into the air. Something inside may have been weakened, maybe even bled, because he did start getting some horrible bruises, and it took a while to break him down completely. Some organs may have been badly damaged, so they could no longer sustain him. But he spent his last days with us, so I can thank God the doctor who tended him sent him home with us. Seeing as he could stand and shoot, since he was still in the army, he should have been returned to the battle as that was what they usually did.”
“And he made me my doll, Lily. I gave her a girl’s name.”
Geordie almost laughed, for she sounded terribly condescending. He had to smile when the child frowned at her mother, obviously blaming the woman for her own name, which did not sound sufficiently girlish. “Morgan is a very nice name.”
“I named you that in honor of your father. You should be proud, young lady.”
Morgan sighed heavily. “I know and I am. Just wish his name had been Julia or something,” she added in a soft mutter.
Geordie had to bite the inside of his cheek to keep from laughing aloud. “That might have been difficult for him.”
“Maybe,” she muttered, then suddenly smiled. “But it would have been great for me.”
Geordie saw Jane grin then quickly don a serious face and close her eyes. Geordie noticed those eyes looked bruised, but without a closer look he could not be sure if it was because of actual bruising from a blow to the face or because she was tired to the bone and probably still grieving a bit. From all she had said, he imagined watching her husband slowly die had been no blessing and probably still robbed her of sleep.
He had seen too many deaths like her husband’s. It was a true curse, but he seemed to be around whenever a man got that sort of injury, the kind that damaged the insides in ways many doctors could not fix, sometimes did not even see, at least not the ones who came to small towns or were in a medic’s tent on a battlefield. He knew what the bruises she mentioned had been. Kicked by a mule or caught in even the edge of an explosion could leave a man with injuries one did not see, at least not until one recognized what those growing bruises meant. They meant a slow death and quite possibly a painful one.
But he saw no reason to bring up the subject of internal injuries. Stirring up the woman’s bad memories and pain gained nothing. At least she was right about the doctor sending the man home. The doctor had probably known what was going to happen, had seen the signs of what was coming, and was kind enough to allow the man to be cared for by family until the end came. He suspected the woman knew it too.
And there were undoubtedly hundreds of widows who had suffered so, he thought. Widows, mothers who lost their sons, fatherless children. War was a vicious waster of lives, destroying not only the men who so proudly marched off to join the fight but so many people around them.
It destroyed places as well, he thought, recalling too many savaged towns he had seen. He could only pray that his people had learned something from the bloody mess. Then he thought about the place he had come from in Scotland and all the blood repeatedly spilled there and sighed, shaking his head.
He glanced at Robbie and noticed his brother was already sound asleep. James was asleep as well. He wished he felt sleepy, but unfortunately he did not. Even the woman had gone to sleep, but her daughter was wide-awake. The little girl looked at her mother, then looked at him and grinned as she advanced in her seat until she sat on the edge near the aisle.
“You all done reading your book?” she asked as she hugged her doll.
“Nay. Just tired of it for now. Thinking I might try to sleep like my companions.”
“And my mum.”
Her mother opened her eyes and looked at the child. “Not sleeping,” she said in a voice that strongly hinted that she had been. “You shouldn’t bother the man, Morgan.”
“I wasn’t. Was just talking.”
“It is all right, ma’am. I was only wondering if I could sleep like my companions are. But, afraid I did that coming here.”
“It is the motion of the train.”
“Aye, a wee bit like a rocking cradle.”
“Where are you going? Boston, like us?”
“I think we will stop there for a change of trains. We are then going up the coast, might stop somewhere along there or go on to Maine with James at least for a while. Robbie and I are going to see the ocean, and once we get to the coast we can choose where
we stay.”
“Oh. So you have no plans to be at a set address?”
“Only his for a bit. But if ye ever need a hand”—he dug a small scrap of paper out of his pocket—“this is James’s address, his parents’ house, where he will be staying. Before the war, I would have said he was going to go back to Maine and settle down. Now I am not sure he kens where he wants to be.”
“I think there will be many men who are roaming about looking for a place to settle.”
“I fear so. Anyway, notify him, as he will ken how to notify us. We might even be there already.”
“Thank you,” she said and pulled a piece of paper from her bag. “This will be our address. I always find it a comfort to simply know someone is near or reachable.”
They only talked for a few moments more before she clearly needed to go to sleep. Geordie thought hard on where he and Robbie would stay. He did not want to impose on James’s parents and he did not want to stay in Boston. That city had certainly grown bigger than it was when they had first arrived in America. He hoped there would be something in-between that was reasonable.
Someplace near enough to the ocean so that he could walk the shore whenever he wanted to. That was the whole point of this journey. He was determined to find someplace to stay near the ocean. A small part of him was a little worried that he might decide to stay, but he ignored that worry. He suspected he would fight that battle right up until he had to get on his horse and head home. Would he turn to a new life or would he ride back to his ever-growing family?
Not a question he would easily find an answer to. He would have to keep it to the fore of his mind as he searched for that answer. He would also have to be brutally honest with himself, he thought, and grimaced, as he knew he had no history of that and would have to find it within himself. Once a person settled somewhere, it could be difficult and costly to turn back, so he needed to be absolutely sure he wished to settle.
“Ye arenae looking cheerful or expectant as one would expect when ye are making a trip ye so wanted,” said Robbie as he woke up and tried to stretch out the aches caused by sleeping in his seat. “Having second thoughts?”
The Scotsman Who Swept Me Away Page 4