The Soldier's Wife

by Cheryl Reavis

  “They come busting out of the woods right up there along the buffalo road. Might have believed they was hunting if that one wasn’t bleeding like a stuck hog. Far as I know, we ain’t got no critters up here what shoot back.” He grinned.

  “I ain’t the criminal here!” the wounded bounty hunter said. “He is! He’s the Murphy we’re looking for!” He pointed in Jack’s direction with his bound hands.

  “You just up and pick somebody with the same last name when it suits you?” Benton asked. “That don’t seem like such a practical plan to me. Might be a couple more Murphys around here someplace. You two going to go shooting at them whilst they’re plowing their fields, too? Besides which, one of you nearly got me when I was riding up the path. You think my name’s Jack Murphy, too?”

  “You want to press charges, Benton?”

  “I do,” Benton said.

  “Then I reckon we’ll take them on down to the crossroads and lock them up until we decide what to do with them. You got any objections to that, Jeremiah?” Willard said.

  “No,” Jack said.

  “All right, then,” Willard said. “Let’s go. Benton!” he yelled as they rode away. “Your horse is in the pasture down yonder with Sayer’s cow!”

  Jack could feel Benton staring at him again, but this time he didn’t look in his direction. He had done all the confessing he intended to do.

  “I’ve got to find my revolver,” he said, limping back up the slope.

  “Good idea, son,” Benton said. “Like I said—this ain’t the end of it. Here—”

  Benton took a cartridge box out of his coat pocket and tossed it to him. “Maybe this will hold you until you can get down to the crossroads for some more.”

  Jack gave him a nod and walked on. He stopped long enough at one point to get his bearings and to reach a conclusion. This thing might never be over as long as he was alive, but he was not going to just hand over his life to Elrissa’s husband.

  He found his revolver in the tall grass near the edge of the field, not far from where the horse waited patiently. He picked up the gun and limped the distance over to it and ran his hand along its sleek neck when it gave a low whinny.

  “Old man, I hope you weren’t thinking you’d have some peace when you threw in with me,” he said. “Meeting up in a graveyard like we did ought to have given you some kind of hint.” The animal gave another low rumble and tossed its head as Jack picked up the reins and swung himself into the saddle. He had only ridden a short distance when he turned the horse sharply and began to ride in a different direction, up the steep slope and into the trees. He didn’t stop until he had reached the outcropping of rock where Thomas Henry’s memorial service had been held.

  He dismounted where small patches of grass managed to grow in the rocky ground, then he limped out onto the edge of the world.

  Incredible, he thought, just as he had the first time.

  He half expected to feel Thomas Henry’s presence here, but he didn’t. All he felt was nature—wind and late-afternoon sun and birdsong. And despite Preacher Tomlin’s and Rorie’s opinions, he didn’t sense God’s presence, either, at least not in the way he had as a boy when he’d gone to midnight services on Christmas Eve. He’d felt God then, in the last few seconds when his made-up birthday had ended and the Christ Child’s began. But here, now, there was nothing but the mountains and his own abject misery.

  Such wildly beautiful country as far as the eye could see. It was no wonder people wanted to live here, even if it was hard.

  Be still, Preacher Tomlin had said. And know.

  His mind went suddenly to the Psalm Father Bartholomew had often read to them:

  Wherewithal shall a young man cleanse his way?

  By taking heed thereto according to Thy word.

  With my whole heart have I sought Thee:

  O let me not wander from Thy commandments...

  But he had wandered.

  Thou shalt not kill.

  He had most certainly trampled that one into the dirt.

  He realized suddenly that he did feel something after all, but it had nothing to do with this place. He felt... Sayer.

  Sayer.

  The joy of having her arms around him when she found him alive and unharmed had been like nothing he’d ever experienced. He could have stood there like that with her forever. It had been all he could do not to say something he would have surely regretted. He’d wanted to tell her what seeing her every day, talking to her, sitting down to meals with her, meant to him and that he—

  He gave a sharp sigh. She deserved so much more than Jeremiah “Jack” Murphy and the trouble and sorrow he had caused her.

  Jeremiah, the bringer of bad news and destruction.

  “I love her,” he said out loud to the God he was still certain wasn’t there. “I love her.”

  I don’t know what to do!

  In his mind he heard the words in Thomas Henry’s anguished voice.

  “I don’t understand,” Jack whispered. “Why? Why am I here? Was it Your plan for me to come into her life and make everything worse for her? What did she ever do to deserve that? Can’t You see how good she is? How beautiful? I’ve put her in harm’s way. I know I can’t stay—and I can’t go. I don’t know what to do!”

  His dead captain suddenly came to mind.

  Don’t think about what you can’t do...think about what you can. And do it!

  No, he thought. Not this time. He had single-handedly managed to effect a situation that was the exception to the captain’s hard-and-fast rule.

  He stood there, staring at the mountain ridges just as Thomas Henry’s father must have done, trying to find his way in the shambles of his life, exhausted of mind and body.

  God save thee, ancient Mariner, from the fiends that plague thee thus...

  Today, he had been saved. The bounty hunters were caught, detained. He had a little time at least to...

  To what? He didn’t know. But he was alive and Sayer and the others were safe. He was grateful for that, and he hadn’t strayed so far that he couldn’t say so.

  He took several limping steps farther onto the overhang. He had to brace himself in the strong wind.

  “I thank You,” he whispered. The prayer—if that’s what it was—was immediately snatched away and carried...where? To God’s ear?

  Are You listening? I’m here. Where are You?

  Be still and know. Preacher Tomlin’s admonition was clear enough, even for him.

  He continued to stand there, his thoughts chaotic as they always were after a battle.

  “Sayer,” he whispered, and the love he felt for her once again washed over him. He had given Thomas Henry his word that he would help her, a token promise that had meant nothing to him that night on the battlefield. It meant something now. It meant everything now.

  He bowed his head. “Help me, Lord,” he whispered. “Please! I can’t do it alone. If it is Your will that I’m here, I don’t have to know why. I don’t have to know what’s coming. Just help me keep them all safe.”

  What was it Thomas Henry had said in his delirium? The fragment of a verse from the book of Psalms.

  Jack looked out at the mountains, trying to remember, and it suddenly came to him. “...teacheth my hands to war and my fingers to fight….” Skills both he and Thomas Henry had once had. And David. God’s warrior.

  After a moment, he began to focus on the incredible beauty of this place. He was still troubled, still worried and afraid, but it wasn’t the same somehow. He could feel the...determination rising in his heart, and he was grateful for it.

  He looked up at the sky. “All right, then,” he said, much as he had that night on the battlefield when he’d made the decision to answer Thomas Henry’s desperate call. He would do the best he could to stay aler
t for whatever might come and to protect the people he loved. He had always done that, and he wouldn’t stop now.

  He turned and walked back to where the horse grazed among the rocks.

  When he reached the cabin, Rorie informed him that, according to Benton, the bushwhackers had been caught. He could feel her watching him closely as she said it.

  “Where is he now?” Jack asked as he dismounted. The pain in his knee escalated, and he had to grab on to the saddle to keep from falling.

  “He got his horse and left.”

  Jack glanced at the musket propped against the wall on the porch and handed her the box of cartridges Benton had given him.

  “We going to need more of these or not?” she asked.

  He looked at her without answering.

  “That’s what I was afeard of,” she said. “This kind of thing ain’t never over till somebody’s dead.”

  He looked around because Sayer and the girls were coming out of the cabin. Sayer was carrying what looked like folded men’s clothing, and the girls were trying not to giggle.

  “I got the soaking tub ready,” Rorie said at his elbow.

  “What soaking tub?”

  “The one you’re getting yourself into,” Rorie said, causing the girls to have to put their hands over their mouths. Clearly there was a conspiracy afoot, and he was in no mood for it.

  He looked from Beatrice and Amity to Sayer—whose facial expression he couldn’t read—and back to Rorie. He had no trouble reading her face.

  “Get yourself on over there behind the privet hedge,” she said. “You can’t half walk as it is. We got to get that knee to where it’ll heal. Soaking it—and all the rest of you right along with it—is the best way to do it. If we take the soreness out, you won’t be favoring it. You favor it too long and it won’t bend no more.”

  “I don’t—”

  “I ain’t asking! I’m telling. You done caused me enough worry and aggravation today and I ain’t going to set back now and let that knee of yours fester just so I can have some more. You can do what I say or I can lay hands on you and throw you in the tub myself. And don’t you think I can’t! I have had enough!”

  Sayer walked up to him—when he wasn’t prepared to have her so close. She looked so pretty to him despite the events of the day. He wanted to reach out to her, and he couldn’t.

  “I believe I’d listen to her, Jeremiah,” she said, looking into his eyes. “These were Mr. Garth Senior’s. He was tall like you. I think they’ll fit.” She pushed them into his hands, then turned and headed back to the cabin.

  Beatrice and Amity ran up, each of them handing him a sock before running away again to catch up with Sayer.

  “We still have what’s left of the picnic. When Rorie says you’re done, you can come and eat, if you want,” Sayer said over her shoulder.

  But she didn’t wait for him to decide. She and the girls went back inside, leaving the door open. He could hear the girls giggling again, and Sayer shushing them. After a moment, Amity and Beatrice began to sing.

  The clothes Sayer had handed him smelled of cedar. He glanced at Rorie.

  “I have to stay ready. I can’t stop for a soak—I don’t know if—”

  “I’m going to keep watch, Jeremiah. Me and that there horse of yourn. And Sayer and the girls, too. You can trust us. Ain’t nothing going to get past all five of us. Well, go on,” she said. “Before that there water gets cold.”

  “I didn’t get ordered around this much in the army,” he said, but he limped in the direction she was pointing.

  He pushed his way through the hedge. There was indeed a long, troughlike wooden tub behind it, and a weathered straight chair with a big steaming iron kettle sitting on the wooden seat alongside a sliver of soap. Several pieces of flannel were draped over the back.

  “Take your time,” Rorie said on the other side of the hedge. “And don’t be worrying, because I got my musket handy and I usually hit what I aim at. Now throw them dirty clothes over the hedge so’s we can do something about them. Maybe me and Sayer can get the blood out and the knee patched.”

  He stood for a moment, looking at the tub. It was both inviting and a great source of aggravation.

  “You see the soap?” Rorie called.

  “Yes, I see it,” he said, rolling the clothes Sayer had given him and wedging them onto the seat of the chair.

  “You know what to do with it?”

  “I used to. Maybe it’ll come back to me.”

  “There’s a little bit of honey on a strip of flannel there on the chair for you to bind your knee with when you’re done.”

  “Where’s the cabbage?”

  “You don’t need cabbage—and you won’t if you do like I tell you,” she said. “Now get busy!”

  He shook his head and began to strip off, throwing each subsequent article of clothing over the hedge one at a time. The revolver he laid on the seat of the chair where he could reach it if he needed to.

  “You’re going to be glad you done this,” Rorie assured him.

  He didn’t reply, mostly because he didn’t want to have to admit that she was probably right. The water in the tub was much warmer than he expected, but he emptied the kettle into it anyway and got in, easing his knee under the water eventually, sinking low and closing his eyes.

  He was so tired. He could smell the evergreen smell of the hedge, hear the birds chirping as they went in and out among the branches. The girls were back to giggling, and Sayer was singing that song again.

  I go away, behind to leave you

  Perhaps never to meet again...

  He closed his eyes and tried to let go of the strain of the past few hours. What a joy it would be to live his life here in this place—with her. A life without Farrell Vance and Halbert Garth and all the battlefield ghosts that haunted him.

  Thomas Henry’s life.

  He suddenly thought of Fred and his apple pie. Were there apple pies in heaven? He wanted to think so—

  “Jeremiah,” Sayer said quietly on the other side of the hedge, startling him back into reality.

  “What?”

  “We’re— I’m...glad you’re safe.”

  * * *

  “May I borrow the scissors, if you please?” Amity said. She had already requested Sayer’s small mirror on Jeremiah’s behalf and had taken it to him.

  Sayer glanced at Rorie, who couldn’t keep from grinning. The back door was open and she could just see where Jeremiah was sitting on an upside-down barrel under the lean-to roof trying to shave. Mr. Garth Senior’s clothes had indeed fit him and fit him well. She could also see the musket propped and ready, and the still-saddled horse standing quietly not far away.

  “Scissors,” Sayer repeated, turning her attention back to Amity.

  “Yes, please,” Amity said.

  “What in this world does he want scissors for?” Rorie asked.

  “He doesn’t,” Amity said. “I do. I tried to hold the mirror for him when he shaved, but I was too wiggly. So I thought I’d cut his hair—it really needs it. He’s got all kinds of things in his saddlebags, but no scissors. So can I borrow them?”

  “May I borrow them, and no,” Sayer said.

  “But I know all the rules,” Amity said, looking hopefully at Mrs. Garth’s wicker sewing basket where the scissors were kept. “Number one, don’t cut yourself. Number two, don’t get them wet. Number three, don’t lose them. Number four, remember they are not supposed to take the place of a saw—Mama made that one when Thomas Henry tried to cut off some cherry-tree limbs with them—they weren’t very big, but he got into trouble anyway, didn’t he, Beatrice?”

  “Yes—and you forgot one,” Beatrice advised her.

  “No, I didn’t.”

  “Yes, you did. Be sure to pu
t them back in the sewing basket—or else.”

  “Oh, yes. That’s right. Or else,” she said.

  “I’m glad you know the rules,” Sayer said. “Do you happen to know how to cut hair?”

  “You just...snip!” Amity said, showing Sayer how it was done with her fingers. She looked at Beatrice for support, but Beatrice apparently hadn’t forgiven her for telling Jeremiah she wanted to know if he had a sweetheart.

  “There’s a little more to it than that,” Sayer said.

  “Well, can—may—I try?”

  “No.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because we got to be able to recognize him when you’re done,” Rorie said. “We ain’t wanting to shoot him for a stranger. He’s already come close enough to being shot today.”

  Amity gave a heavy sigh and went back outside.

  “Those men are in the crossroads jail—why don’t I feel like this is over?” Sayer said, more to herself than to Rorie.

  “Because it ain’t. Not by a long shot. All we done is live to fight another day. I’m telling you, it’s getting hard to keep up with which Philistine to worry about.”

  Sayer could hear Amity and Jeremiah talking.

  “Oh, no,” Amity said at one point, causing Sayer, Rorie and the reluctant Beatrice to look toward the back door. In a moment, Amity came inside with the mirror and a slight frown.

  “He doesn’t look like Jeremiah since he shaved,” she said. “He says I’ll get used to it, but I don’t know.”

  Sayer put the mirror away and when she turned around, Jeremiah was standing in the doorway. Amity was right. He didn’t look like Jeremiah—at least not the Jeremiah they all knew.

  “Say something so we’ll know it’s you.”

  He tried not to smile. “It’s me,” he said.

  Sayer walked closer, looking at him closely. “Yes, I do believe it is. You look very dashing, Mr. Murphy,” she said, her relief and her joy at seeing him translating into a sudden, mischievous urge to tease him. He clearly recognized her intent, but incredibly, he actually blushed.