by Crowe (epub)
“Well sure,” said Scratch, bending down and helping Johnny into a sitting position. “You think I wouldn’t?”
“How?”
“How did I find you? I was in Richmond when I heard a group of soldiers talking about what happened to… how’d they put it… ‘that fella with the golden arm’.” Scratch’s face became stern. “You didn’t do a very good job of keeping it secret did you?”
Johnny shook his head. “No,” he said. “Guess not.”
“No,” agreed Scratch. Johnny’s left arm was lying cold and limp at his side once more. “’Pride goeth before the fall’ or some such nonsense.”
Johnny’s face grew hot and he hung his head in shame. “I just… I sorta liked bein’ someone…”
“Special?”
“Yeah.” Johnny nodded. “They all liked me and havin’ me ‘round. I was special.”
“It wasn’t you they liked,” Scratch said. “It was the arm. It made them feel special having it around. Just like it did you.” Scratch stood and offered his hairy hand to Johnny, helping him to his feet.
“Anyhow,” Scratch continued, “I figured there’s only one man in this army with a golden arm, so I knew they had to be talking about you. I asked them a few questions… you might say I persuaded them to give me some information as to where they last saw you. Then I came out here looking for you. Sure enough, there you were, lying in the briar patch.”
Johnny looked around. Mr. Scratch had dragged him all the way up out of the ditch back onto the side of the road. The mud had hardened, though the ruts from the wagon were still plain to see in the earth. Johnny peeked over the edge of the embankment and looked down into the undergrowth below.
“You found me down there?”
“What? No,” said Scratch. “Right here, by the side of the road.”
Johnny was puzzled. “But Captain Reynolds kicked me down there, off the road.”
“Well, then,” said Scratch, “you must have climbed back up here yourself.”
Johnny shook his head. “I’d have remembered that. Besides, I couldn’t have. My legs ---” Scratch watched as comprehension dawned on Johnny’s face. “Is this a dream?”
“A dream? No,” said Scratch. “Why, when I heard that your legs had been crushed, I thought to myself, ‘Self, you’ve got a perfectly fine pair of legs just laying around, why don’t you go see if you can help that boy out again’.”
Scratch bent down and lifted Johnny’s pant legs. Johnny saw fine gossamer threads sticking out of the top of his boots. Not threads, he thought. Hairs. That wasn’t quite right, either. Fur?
“I’ve had these silver goat legs for a while now. Got them from a man in the Orient. He traded them, actually, for a little bit of knowledge.”
“What kind of knowledge?” Johnny asked.
“Scratch waved his hand, dismissing the question. “Oh, I don’t like to talk about the affairs of others…” Johnny looked into Scratch’s face and saw a grin form on his lips, “but since you asked, I suppose I could tell you. He wanted to know how to build an army. One that never needed food, water or rest. An army made entirely out of earth and stone. So, I might have showed him a thing or two in exchange for those legs you’re wearing right now.”
“Gosh,” exhaled Johnny. “That’d be somethin’ good to have right about now.”
“What’s that?”
“An army like that.” An idea started to form in Johnny’s head. “Say, do you think ---”
“Look here,” Scratch interrupted. “That army served its purpose. Its long gone now, buried away. It’s no use to anyone now.”
“Sorry.” Johnny shrugged. “I just thought ---”
“Now,” Scratch said, favoring Johnny with a hungry look. “if you want to talk about an army…”
“No.” Johnny shook his head. “Sorry I said anythin’.”
“No?” Scratch asked, raising an eyebrow. “Not yet. Anyhow,” he said, brightening. “Like that arm, I never had much use for those legs myself, but I thought they might just come in handy some day, so I hung onto them.” Scratch dropped the pant legs, covering the silver fur. “Lucky you.”
Johnny sat on the shoulder of the road, his legs dangling over the edge, and rolled the pant legs up for himself. What Scratch had said was true; they were two perfect goat legs, made of silver and covered with fine silvery fur. They were attached just below the knees, where the wagon wheel had landed on him, and sewn on with silver stitches that ran all the way around Johnny’s legs.
“It took me a while to fix the boots,” Scratch said. “The hooves didn’t fit too well ---”
“Hooves?” Johnny asked.
“Yeah, hooves. They’re goat legs, they’ve got hooves. Like I was saying,” Scratch continued, “I had to modify your boots a little to get them to work. The toe and heel are stuffed with leaves and moss, and they’re laced from the inside so they can tie around the top of your hooves without anyone noticing them.” Scratch looked at Johnny over the top of his round glasses. “You’re not going to tell anyone about these, are you?”
Johnny shook his head. “No,” he said. “In fact, I’m not so sure that I want ‘em.”
Scratch looked taken aback. “Not want them?” he asked. “Aren’t they good enough for you? I mean, I know they’re not gold like the arm, but ---”
“That’s just it,” said Johnny. “I couldn’t do it anymore. I couldn’t keep on doing mean things to people just to keep this arm happy.” Johnny reached across and lifted the golden arm with his right hand, then released it. The arm flopped down and hung limp at Johnny’s side.
“I see…” said Scratch.
“So, beggin’ your pardon, but if I have to do ---”
“Is that all?” Scratch interrupted, laughing. “Look, I can see that the arm was more than you could handle. I get that now. But these legs… why, they’re nothing like the arm at all!”
“You mean there’s no magic in them?”
“Well of course there’s magic in them,” said Scratch. “Silver. Goat. Legs. What part of that makes you think there’s not some kind of magic at work here, hmm? They don’t make these in the non-magical variety, not that I know of anyhow. But no, you don’t have to do any sort of meanness to make the magic in these legs work. All you have to do is run.”
“Run?” asked Johnny.
“Yes, yes. Go on, try them.”
Johnny got to his feet - hooves, he corrected himself. He took a couple of steps forward, unsteady at first. He felt like a newborn foal learning to stand and walk. The more steps he took, the more comfortable Johnny became with the legs. They moved nothing like his old legs at all. The gait was all different and they hinged and moved in different spots, but in no time at all Johnny found himself at ease with their rhythm.
Johnny crossed the road and back. He stopped next to Scratch, beaming. This might be all right after all.
“I didn’t say ‘walk’ ”, barked Scratch. “I said ‘run’.”
Johnny took two loping strides down the road. Everything felt fine. Confident, he sprinted forward, but nothing in him could ever have imagined prepared Johnny for what happened next. The world around him blurred and lost focus as he bolted down the road. He had never moved so fast before. Johnny howled with laughter and the sound ripped from his mouth while he ran on, pushing himself to go faster still. He tried to stop, didn’t slow down enough first, and toppled head over hooves in the middle of the road. Johnny got back up, still smiling, and brushed the dust from his clothes. This was more than just all right, it was extraordinary.
Johnny sprinted back to Scratch, remembering to slow down first this time to avoid crashing. Scratch ignored his arrival and was looking down the embankment into the undergrowth. Johnny walked up beside him and cleared his throat, trying to get Scratch’s attention.
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“They sure are fast,” Johnny panted, trying to catch his breath.
Scratch ignored the comment. “This where the Captain pushed you over?”
“Kicked me over,” said Johnny. “Drug me out of the mud and---”
Scratch shot out a rough hand and shoved Johnny hard in the middle of the back, sending him sprawling into the scrub brush below.
Johnny looked back up at Scratch. “What’d you do that for?” he shouted, picking the burrs out of his hair.
“Wanted to show you something,” Scratch called back.
Johnny looked around, didn’t see anything but more bushes, briars, and thorns.
“Not down there. Up here.”
“How am I supposed to get back up there?” Johnny asked.
“That’s what I wanted to show you. Those are goat legs. They’re not just good for running, you know.”
Johnny waited for Scratch to say something more, but he didn’t. Not just good for running, he thought.
It was so simple that Johnny felt foolish for having taken so long to figure it out. Placing one hoof in front of the other, he started to climb. Contrary to what he had expected, it was almost as easy to climb the near vertical face of the embankment as it was to go forward on level ground.
“So you like them?” Scratch asked when Johnny reached the summit.
“I love them,” replied Johnny. “Just so long as I don’t have to do anything mean…”
“No, no, no. Like I told you, all you have to do is run. Or climb. You just have to stay active. Wear them out by the end of the day, otherwise…”
“Otherwise what?” asked Johnny.
“Well, they’re magic,” said Scratch. “If you don’t wear them out, then I’m afraid that they, too, just might get a mind of their own.”
“You mean get me into trouble?”
“No, not trouble,” said Scratch. “They just… they’ve got to run.”
Johnny looked from his left arm hanging useless at his side down to his legs. He sure wouldn’t be much use to the army or Anna Lee or anyone else for that matter missing his legs. Still, his experience with the golden arm hadn’t ended well at all. Nothin’ mean, he thought. Johnny looked up the road and remembered how it had felt to take off running, the world flying by and the wind blowing through his hair. As long as they don’t get me into trouble…
Johnny used the next two days to clear his head and focus on what lay ahead for him. Mr. Scratch had told him that once the calendar had flipped over to June, that General Lee himself had relieved General Johnston and taken command of the army. That army was on the move once again, driving the Federal troops to the back to the north, the Union plan to lay siege to the city having failed. Scratch had also convinced Johnny that he wasn’t really much of a foot soldier now, having one arm that wouldn’t work and hooves instead of feet. It was an easy sell; with all that Johnny had experienced of the fighting in the past few weeks, he thought that he had seen enough of the front lines. So, Scratch had told Johnny where to go and what to do, pointed Johnny in the right direction and told him to run. Johnny had done just that, spending the last two days running in the warm sunshine and sleeping in the evening. Johnny took care to ensure that that his legs were worn out proper by the end of the day.
He wasn’t about to make the same mistake twice.
The sun was sinking low when Johnny stopped by a stream for a quick drink of water. Finding a low bank to drink from, Johnny thought that he must be close to where Mr. Scratch had told him to go. He thought maybe he should have met who he was looking for by now, but still there had been no sign of the Confederate troops. Johnny dropped to his knees and knelt out over the water, his face inches from its moving surface. Ordinarily he would have cupped his hands and drank that way, but his left arm had remained useless since the incident with Captain Reynolds. Johnny pursed his lips and plunged them into the water, taking a long drink from the stream. The cool water felt good against his hot, parched throat.
By the time he saw the men on horseback it was too late, they had spotted him first.
“Stay where you are, son,” said a man behind Johnny. Johnny pulled back from the creek and rose slowly to his feet, his good hand raised above his head, the other hanging limp at his side.
“Turn around.”
Johnny rotated his body to face the soldier. The man rode high in the saddle, the wide brim of his hat hid most of his face, but Johnny could make out the beard and mustache under the shadow. A long feather poked out from his hatband. The man was clever, he had gotten around Johnny without his knowing and sat so that the boy had to look into the setting sun in order to face him. The soldier was armed, too. He had a revolver aimed at Johnny’s chest.
“What’s your name, son?” asked the soldier.
“Johnny. Johnny Crowe, sir.”
“What’s your business out here, Johnny Crowe?”
“I’m looking for General Stuart, sir,” said Johnny. “General Jeb Stuart. I’m here to join the cavalry.”
Muted chuckling broke out around Johnny. He turned his head and saw that he was surrounded on three sides, with the spring at his back.
“Well, Johnny Crowe, you have found him… or should I say he has found you? I’m General Stuart.”
Johnny raised his good right arm and saluted.
“But,” General Stuart said, looking around, “there seems to be one little problem.”
“What’s that, sir?” asked Johnny.
“You seem to have left your horse at home.” More chuckling from the mounted men, who didn’t try to hide their amusement this time.
“I don’t have a horse, sir,” said Johnny. “Had a mule once. Name was Bart.”
The men couldn’t contain their laughter anymore.
“Well, son,” said Stuart, “I’m not sure why you thought you could join the cavalry without a horse.”
“Don’t need one, sir,” said Johnny.
“Don’t need one? You do know that the cavalry is a mounted division, don’t you?”
“Yes, sir,” said Johnny, “only it’s just… well… a horse would just slow me down, sir.”
General Stuart hung his head, his chest heaving. At first Johnny thought the General had come down with a fit of some kind, then realized that the General was laughing at him. Johnny felt his face get hot as the blood rushed to his head.
“I’m faster than any of you!”
General Stuart’s laughing slowed to a stop as he regained his composure. “Now, you might be faster than me on foot ---”
“No,” Johnny interrupted, his right hand on his hip. “I’m faster than you on that horse of yours.”
“Look, son,” said the General, becoming serious. “I think you’d better head on up the road, see if there’s a division ---”
“I already done that,” said Johnny. “I already fought like the rest of ‘em. That’s why this arm here don’t work.” Johnny nodded to his left. Tears stung his eyes and he fought to push them back. “I can’t do that no more. But I can run, I can climb, and I can do both faster than you or any man on a horse. And I can scout and I can… I can…”
General Stuart put his hand on Johnny’s shoulder. Johnny couldn’t fight them anymore, hot tears streamed down his dirty cheeks. The General felt pity for the boy, it was clear from the way it just hung there that the boy’s left arm was no use to him anymore. The General squeezed the boy’s shoulder with his gloved hand and was disturbed by just how cold it was, like an unlit stove in the middle of winter. He had no reason to doubt that the boy had been wounded in the fighting, and what did it matter that the General thought the boy should count himself lucky that he had been able to escape with his life? The boy had spirit, which was probably what had seen him through those dark times of his recovery. Didn’t he deserve a chance to prove
himself?
“You really that fast?” The General asked.
“Yes, sir.”
“All right, then,” said Stuart, laying his other hand on Johnny’s right shoulder and spinning the boy around. Stuart leaned forward and pointed toward a rock bluff about a mile upstream. “I’ll tell you what. If you can beat me up to the top of that bluff, then you can join my cavalry. How’s that work for you?”
Johnny stared at the bluff in the distance, then turned to face the General. There was a look of satisfaction in the boy’s eyes that Stuart hadn’t seen there just moments before.
“That’ll work just fine.”
General Stuart wound his way up the hill toward the top of the bluff. He had ridden hard at the start, fueled by the excitement of the challenge, then checked his speed, feeling foolish. This was no challenge; how had he been goaded into this so easily? Stuart knew that his flourishes sometimes rubbed the other officers the wrong way, but for all his theatrics, the General always maintained a level head and control of the situation. What had the boy said and done to trick the General into giving him this “opportunity” if it could even be called such? It was almost as if someone had coached the boy on how to manipulate him, which was an unsettling thought.
The further he rode the more the General worried about the boy. He had been so sure of himself, so certain that he could do the ridiculous, the impossible even. No man on foot could beat a mounted man up to the top of the bluff. Stuart had looked back once to see how far behind he had left the boy, but Johnny was nowhere to be seen.
Maybe he just turned and went back home, thought Stuart, his horse trotting up the hill. It would be better that way, better than breaking the spirit of this poor young man who had already suffered so much ---
“General,” the boy greeted, interrupting Stuart’s thoughts.
General Stuart looked up. Sitting on the edge of the bluff, his feet dangling over the side, was Johnny Crowe.
“How did you…?”