The Soldier's Wife

by Cheryl Reavis

  “Take a bucket—say you’re on your way to the spring so you won’t look like you’re all worried about him and tracking him down like a hound dog,” Rorie said. “Men don’t like that.”

  Exasperated by the suggestion that she needed some kind of ruse to justify her concern, Sayer headed for the back door—empty-handed.

  “I’m telling you. It’s the truth,” Rorie said mildly.

  Sayer hesitated, then returned and picked up one of the buckets. She knew nothing of men’s foibles and wasn’t likely to ever learn. Perhaps she did need something to hide behind, and an empty water bucket was as good an excuse as any.

  “Take your time. I’ll finish these here dishes,” Rorie called after her as she opened the back door. “Leave the door open so’s we can get a breeze through here!”

  Sayer left the door ajar. The wind was picking up, though the thunder didn’t sound any closer. Rorie would definitely have the strong draft she wanted.

  Sayer didn’t see Jeremiah anywhere at first glance. She walked to the barn, leaving the bucket on the ground outside. The horse and mule were in their stalls and decidedly interested in whether or not she intended to feed them. She didn’t call out for Jeremiah. She climbed up the ladder a few rungs until she could see into the hayloft where she knew he slept on a cot Mr. Garth Senior had made for illnesses and visitors—when he wasn’t sleeping rolled up in a blanket on the front porch. His belongings were there, but he was not.

  She climbed down again, and because she had the bucket, she picked it up and began walking down the path toward the spring, remembering suddenly that Jeremiah had carried her bodily up this path the day she’d hurt her head. How happy she had been at that moment.

  Because I thought he was Thomas Henry.

  Well, she had no confusion about who he was now. She just—

  Just what?

  I just want to make sure he’s all right. I want to see him for myself and make sure. That’s all.

  At the sharp turn in the path, she spotted him. He was lying on a flat rock that hung over the spring a few yards past the collecting pool, his hands behind his head. He gave no indication that he heard her coming. She thought that he probably didn’t because of the wind stirring the treetops. Perhaps he was asleep.

  And perhaps not.

  “Don’t worry,” she said when he turned his head to look at her. “I’m not going to ask how you are.”

  He actually smiled, clearly remembering that he had said the same thing to her. “That’s good to know,” he said. “I’ll even return the favor.” He looked away and closed his eyes again.

  She waited patiently with the bucket until he opened his eyes and looked at her.

  “I’m all right,” he said pointedly.

  “I’m pleased to hear that. And do remember that I didn’t ask.”

  He smiled again. “So you may think. But I believe I heard the question as clear as can be. Is that something all women do—ask without asking—or just you?”

  “I couldn’t say. It’s not something I learned, so it may be a God-given talent. Something He thought we women needed—since men prefer us to be seen and not heard. Thomas Henry—”

  “Don’t,” he said, sitting up. “Don’t tell me anything else about Thomas Henry.” He was looking at her—staring at her—as if he wanted to make her turn away, but she didn’t.

  Blue eyes—not brown. Blue.

  He seemed so...

  She couldn’t find a word for the emotional turmoil she could see in his eyes.

  What terrible things he must have seen, she thought again, just as she had the night he told her the details of Thomas Henry’s death, only this time she didn’t say it out loud.

  “Why not?” she asked after a moment.

  “You need to fill your bucket and go,” he said instead of answering.

  “I’d like you to tell me.”

  “It’s not something you’d want to hear.”

  She continued to look at him, and he gave a heavy sigh.

  “This is a day for you to remember him, not me.”

  “I see,” she said.

  “I doubt that.”

  “I can see that you’re worn-out with remembering,” she said. “And I know it’s not Thomas Henry that’s troubling you, because you didn’t know him that well. It’s the others, I believe. The ones who were with you in the war. The ones who are gone now.”

  She stopped because she thought he wanted to say something, and surprisingly he did.

  “A lot of us joined the army together,” he said. “A merry band of orphans, or so we thought. But we were...cannon fodder because we wouldn’t leave anyone behind if we were killed and because we would fight and fight hard. So many of us were lost, the generals shifted the ones who were left into another decimated company—in a different division. It never felt...right being with those other soldiers. None of them were from Kentucky and they weren’t...like us. I still can’t— That’s the hardest part—”

  “What is?” she asked, because he was suddenly lost in another place, another time, one far from the rocky overhang by the spring. The water spilled quietly into the collecting pool. A flock of crows settled noisily in some nearby trees and insects still buzzed in the air despite the coming storm.

  He finally looked at her. “Believing it. Comrades—some still boys—some you’ve known since you were children. One minute they’re there, alive, talking like always. Talking about the weather or how they’re hoping for this or that—a letter, a chance to sleep, an apple pie. Fred, he was always talking about apple pies.” He gave a sudden smile that just as suddenly faded. “And then Fred, and the rest of them, they’re gone in the time it takes a heart to beat. You know they’re gone because you’ve seen it with your own eyes, but you still don’t...believe it. Even now I think I’m going to run into one of them somewhere.”

  “Yes,” she said quietly.

  He gave her a quizzical look.

  “It’s how I felt when my mother died,” she said. “It was so...quick. I used to think she had to be in the house somewhere—in the next room or out working in her flower garden.” She looked up at the darkening sky, then back at him. “I still remember her, though. Do you remember your mother?”

  “No. Well, I have one memory. At least I think it’s a memory.”

  “A good one?”

  “Yes. I believe it to be.”

  “Will you share it?”

  He looked at her a long moment. “I...made her laugh,” he said, and Sayer smiled.

  “How?”

  “I told her where I thought the wind came from.” He gestured toward the trees around them swaying back and forth in the wind. “I said the trees waved and they made the wind. And I was very sure about that.”

  “A quite logical conclusion,” Sayer said, still smiling. “What did she say?”

  “Nothing. It made her laugh. I don’t think she laughed very often.” He stopped and gave another heavy sigh. “I shouldn’t be telling you any of this. You have your own sorrows.”

  “I did ask,” she said. “Out loud. And if it helps you to speak of it, then I want to hear it.”

  “Nothing helps. And I can’t extend you the same courtesy.”

  She looked at him—until he looked away.

  Please, Lord, she thought. Will You help Jeremiah find some kind of peace? All those warriors in the Bible—did You not help them when their hearts were heavy and sad like his?

  “Don’t do that, either,” he said.

  “What?”

  “I think you were praying for me just now. Don’t.”

  “My prayers are mine, Jeremiah Murphy. But I am sorry about intruding. I don’t want to do that.”

  She picked up the bucket and walked toward the collecting pool, stopping long
enough to pick a few stalks of mint that grew near the water’s edge. She crushed some of the leaves in her hand and savored the minty scent that rose from her fingers. Her mother had always put mint in her tea, and crushing the leaves was a way of conjuring her memory—something Sayer definitely needed today.

  She stepped close to the collecting pool and filled the bucket, careful not to stir up the sand and mud in the bottom or to put more water in the bucket than she could carry without spilling it. When she lifted it out and turned around, he was standing there, waiting to take it.

  “I can do it,” she said. “I’m used to carrying water to the cabin from here.”

  The wind blew her hair across her face, and he reached out as if he meant to take the strand and tuck it behind her ear. But then he apparently thought better of it, and his hand fell.

  “You don’t have to carry water for me,” she said, making an attempt to step around him and dropping the mint on the ground in the process.

  He picked it up and handed it to her, and he didn’t argue with her. He simply took the bucket from her hand. “I want to. And it’s got nothing to do with Thomas Henry. After you.”

  She frowned and in lieu of getting into a tug-of-war over the bucket, she walked ahead of him up the steep path, trying not to dwell on his remark by being far more mindful of the possibility of snakes along the way than she had been when she came down here looking for him.

  “I think I’m going to ask how you are after all,” he said as they walked along. “I don’t mean how you are about Thomas Henry. I know you’re sad about that. I was wondering about that place on your head. How is that?”

  “Well, it doesn’t hurt anymore, and I think I’m in my right mind—most of the time. But I wouldn’t ask Rorie to bear that out, if I were you.” She couldn’t see his face, but she had the distinct feeling that he might be smiling again.

  “I’ve got some good thick pieces of oak wood split,” he said as they struggled to make the steepest part of climb. “I think I can use them for steps along here. I’ll see to it when I’ve caught up with the plowing.”

  She stopped walking, disconcerted suddenly by the domestic turn their conversation had taken. It was the kind of conversation she imagined a man might have with his wife. “Please. I’ve imposed on you enough. You don’t have to make steps,” she said, looking into his eyes. “You don’t have to do the plowing. You’ve done what Thomas Henry asked you to do. You’re free to go now.”

  “I can go,” he agreed, “but I don’t think I’d be free.”

  The ground was nearly level now, and he stepped past her to carry the bucket the rest of the way to the cabin. She watched him go, more disconcerted than ever. She was certain that she didn’t know precisely what he meant by his parting remark—but then again she was very afraid that she did.

  She took a deep breath and looked up at the sky. Beautiful, just as Mrs. Tomlin had pronounced it, but a storm was coming. If she’d learned nothing else in her life, she’d learned that there would always be a storm of some kind on the horizon. As she walked on, and in keeping with that conclusion, yet another problem came to mind.

  Halbert.

  She still had to worry about Halbert Garth. She was surprised that he hadn’t come to the memorial service. She would have thought he would want to pressure her about handing over the land again, if nothing else. Halbert Garth wasn’t one to let an opportunity pass him by, especially when she was certain to be at her most vulnerable. A chance to badger her on a day like today should have seemed golden to him. He wasn’t the kind of man who would have been the least bit deterred by the presence of other people, especially people who had no authority and no power to cause him harm, and whose good opinion he would never crave. There was little doubt that he would have known that Preacher Tomlin and the congregation were coming up here. Isaiah said there was no rest for the wicked. Perhaps Halbert had other irons in the fire besides trying to steal away the Garth land, and he’d been busy with them.

  When she reached the yard, Jeremiah was taking the water bucket inside, and he didn’t immediately come out again. Sayer assumed that Rorie had pounced on him and by now had him seated at the table eating his delayed meal of ham and cheese and corn bread.

  And so he was. He didn’t say anything when she came in, and neither did she. She could feel Rorie’s intense interest in the situation, and she stood awkwardly for a moment, then lay the mint on the edge of the table and set about finding a place to put all the supplies Preacher Tomlin’s wife had ordered Willard to stack out of the way—supplies Jeremiah had bought, she suddenly remembered.

  “If you’ll give me a tally of the amount you spent for all this, I will repay you,” she said without looking at him. “It may take a while. If you would give me an address where I can send the money after you leave—”

  “You don’t owe me anything. Thomas Henry meant for you to have it. You still have some credit down at the general store.”

  Sayer looked at him. She knew perfectly well that she was supposed to infer that this was somehow Thomas Henry’s money he’d been spending, but that couldn’t be. Thomas Henry had sent every penny home—when and if he got paid—and his paydays had been erratic at best during the last year of the war. Besides that, the money he would have gotten would now be worthless.

  “I don’t see how—”

  “Best not to go looking a gift horse in the mouth,” Rorie said from the rocking chair where she was sitting and rocking and smoking her pipe. “You decided yet how long you’re staying, Jeremiah?”

  “Until you run me off,” he said easily because that was their usual banter.

  “Well, that might be sooner than you think,” Rorie said.

  “I don’t doubt it.”

  Rorie let him eat the rest of his meal in peace, and when he’d finished, he got up from the table.

  “I hear tell Benton is wanting to have a word with you. Sadie Mitchell, she told me that when we was putting out the food and waiting for the memorial service to be over,” Rorie said as if she’d only just remembered it. “She said he’s wanting to see you about something. He didn’t tell Sadie what it was, though,” she added with enough significance to suggest that this would be a good time for him to enlighten her at least.

  But he chose to let the golden opportunity pass him by, and the promise of rain that had ended Thomas Henry’s memorial service early arrived in a sudden heavy downpour. Sayer moved to close the back door.

  “Thank you for keeping the meal for me,” Jeremiah said, still not inclined to comment on whatever Benton might want, and he included Sayer in his appreciation. “If you’ll excuse me now, I’ll take my leave.”

  Sayer nodded in his direction, then moved the box she’d been emptying to the table. She wanted to sit down in the chair Jeremiah had just vacated because she was suddenly as exhausted as the sleeping girls. But she kept removing items from the box—a side of bacon, a large chunk of cheese wrapped in vinegar-soaked cloth, several pounds of beans, real coffee with such a tantalizing aroma that it made her stop long enough to sniff the cloth sack. How long had it been since she’d had coffee? So long that she couldn’t remember the last time. There were several small, cylindrical packages in one corner of the box. Those she could identify by the smell, as well—peppermint sticks.

  “That boy sure don’t mind the rain, I’ll say that for him,” Rorie said, leaning sharply forward in the rocking chair so she could see out the window.

  “I suppose after four years of war, you get used to it.”

  “Did you find out where he’s been and what he was doing while he was gone?”

  “No,” Sayer said, placing the peppermint sticks on the table. The girls would be so happy to have these, not to mention Rorie. She handed her the one with her name on it.

  “Well, look at this. Ain’t nobody give me peppermint sticks since
I was a young-un and I recited all my Bible verses in Sunday school.” She tore off the paper immediately and began to eat it.

  “You’re not going to save it?” Sayer asked.

  “At my age, putting things off ain’t a good idea—especially when it’s something you dearly want,” Rorie said, taking a big bite and clearly savoring the taste. “Did you ask him where he went?” she asked around the candy.

  “No, I didn’t ask him,” Sayer said, and Rorie gave a sharp exhalation of breath.

  “Well, what did you think I wanted you to go see about him for?”

  “I don’t know,” Sayer assured her. “You never said.”

  But that small but pertinent fact apparently carried no weight at all.

  “We’ll just have to corner him later, that’s all,” Rorie decided. “Or I will. I’m thinking you ain’t no good at it. It must have something to do with Benton, though, don’t you think?”

  But she didn’t wait for Sayer to answer.

  “So tell me about the memorial service for Thomas Henry. I reckon I could have got up there if I’d used the walking stick Jeremiah cut for me and if I took it slow. But I figured I ought to be the one watching over putting the food out—since I’m staying here and all. Was Preacher Tomlin and the rest of them a comfort to you?”

  Sayer didn’t want to talk about whether or not she was comforted. All she could think about was that she had clung to Jeremiah’s arm as if she were drowning. She began telling her about the outcropping of rock where Thomas Henry’s memorial service had been held instead.

  “The view of the mountains is so vast and open—Amity was afraid. It’s good that Preacher Tomlin knew it well enough not to let the children in the congregation come. The little boys would have been daring each other to hang off the edge in no time.”

  “Did you have any singing?”

  “Mrs. Tomlin sang ‘Bright Morning Stars.’”

  Rorie hummed it softly to herself for a moment. “I do like that hymn. I hate I missed it. She ain’t like most of them women in the choir. She’s somebody what can carry a tune. You know of anybody around here what sings better than she does?”