Last Stand at Saber River - Leonard Elmore John - Страница 17

“I haven’t thought.”

“I thought you might have given Martha careful consideration.”

“Why?”

“As a way of getting at her husband.”

Vern looked at her now.

“What do you mean?”

Lorraine smiled. “You seem reluctant to use force. I doubt if you can buy him off. So what remains?”

“I’m listening.”

“Strike at Cable from within.”

“And what does that mean?”

Lorraine sighed. “Vern, you’re never a surprise. You’re as predictable as Duane, though you don’t call nearly as much attention to yourself.”

“Lorraine, if you have something to say-”

“I’ve said it. Go after him through Martha. Turn her against him. Break up his home. Then see how long he stays in that house.”

“And if such a thing was possible-”

“It’s very possible.”

“How?”

“The other woman, Vern. How else?”

He watched her calmly. “And that’s you.”

She nodded once, politely. “Lorraine Kidston as”-she paused-“I need a more provocative name for this role.”

Vern continued to watch her closely. “And if he happens to love his wife?”

“Of course he loves her. Martha’s an attractive woman if you like them strong, capable and somewhat on the plain side. But that has nothing to do with it. He’s a man, Vern. And right now he’s in that place all alone.”

“You’ve got a wild mind,” Vern said quietly. “I’d hate to live with it inside me.” He turned away from her and walked down the steps and across the yard.

You shocked him, Lorraine thought amusedly, watching him go. But wait until the shock wears off. Wait until his conscience stops choking him. Vern would agree. He would have it understood that such methods went against his grain; but in the end he would agree. Lorraine was sure of it and she was smiling now.

Cable passed through the store and climbed the stairs to the bedroom where Martha was unpacking. He watched her removing linens and towels from the trunk at the foot of the bed, turning to place them in the open dresser drawer an arm’s length away.

“The children will be in here?”

Martha looked up. “Clare and Dave. Sandy will sleep with me.”

“With Luz here, I think you’ll get along with Janroe all right.”

“As long as the children eat in the kitchen.”

“Martha, I’m sorry.”

She saw his frown deepen the tightly drawn lines of his bruised face. “Someday I’m going to bite my tongue off. I shouldn’t have said that.”

“I can’t blame you,” Cable said.

“But it doesn’t make it any easier.”

“If you weren’t here,” Cable said, “it wouldn’t even be possible.” He moved close to her and put his arms around her as she straightened.

“I want to say something like ‘It’ll be over soon,’ or ‘Soon we’ll be going back and there won’t be any more waiting, any more holding your breath not knowing what’s going to happen.’ But I can’t. I can’t promise anything.”

“Cabe, I don’t need promises. Just so long as you’re here with us, that’s all we need.”

“Do you want to leave? Right this minute get in the wagon and go back to Sudan?”

“You don’t mean that.”

“I do. You say it and we’ll leave.”

For a moment Martha was silent, standing close to him, close to his bruised cheekbone and his lips that were swollen and cut. “If we went back,” Martha said, “I don’t think you’d be an easy man to live with. You’d be nice and sometimes you’d smile, but I don’t think you’d ever say very much, and it would be as if your mind was always on something else.” A smile touched her mouth and showed warmly in her eyes. “We’ll stay, Cabe.”

She lifted her face to be kissed and when they looked at each other again she saw his smile and he seemed more at ease.

“Are you going back right now?”

“I have to talk to Janroe first.” He kissed her again before stepping away. “I’ll be up in a little while.”

Janroe was sitting in the kitchen, his chair half turned from the table so that he could look directly out through the screen door. He paid no attention to Luz who was clearing the table, carrying the dishes to the wooden sink. He was thinking of the war, seeing himself during that afternoon of August 30, in the fields near Richmond, Kentucky.

If that day had never happened, or if it had happened differently; if he had not lost his arm-no, losing his arm was only an indirect reason for his being here. But it had led to this. It had been the beginning of the end.

After his wound had healed, seven months later, with his sleeve in his belt and even somewhat proud of it but not showing his pride, he had returned to his unit and served almost another full year before they removed him from active duty. His discharge was sudden. It came shortly after he had had the Yankee prisoners shot. They said he would have to resign his commission because of his arm; but he knew that was not the reason and he had pleaded with them to let him stay, pestering General Kirby Smith’s staff; but it came to nothing, and in the end he was sent home a civilian.

He had not told Cable about that year or about anything that had happened after August 30, after his arm was blown from his body. But Cable didn’t have to know everything. Like soldiers before an engagement with the enemy-it was better not to tell them too much.

Stir them up, yes. Make them hate and be hungry to kill; but don’t tell them things they didn’t have to know, because that would start them thinking and soldiers in combat shouldn’t think. You could scare them though. Sometimes that was all right. Get them scared for their own skins. Pour it into their heads that the enemy was ruthless and knew what he was doing and that he would kill them if they didn’t kill him. Beat them if they wouldn’t fight!

God knows he had done that. He remembered again the afternoon near Richmond, coming out of the brush and starting across the open field toward the Union battery dug in on the pine ridge that was dark against the sky. He remembered screaming at his men to follow him. He remembered this, seeing himself now apart from himself, seeing Captain Edward Janroe waving a Dragoon pistol and shouting at the men who were still crouched at the edge of the brush. He saw himself running back toward them, then swinging the barrel at a man’s head. The man ducked and scrambled out into the field. Others followed him; but two men still remained, down on their knees and staring up at him wide-eyed with fear. He shot one of them from close range, cleanly through the head; and the second man was out of the brush before he could swing the Dragoon on him.

Yes, you could frighten a man into action, scare him so that he was more afraid of you than the enemy. Janroe stopped.

Could that apply to Cable? Could Cable be scared into direct action?

He eased his position, looking at Luz who was standing at the sink with her back to him, then at the screen door again and the open sunlight beyond. He had given his mind the opportunity to reject these questions, to answer them negatively.

But why not? Why couldn’t Cable be forced into killing the Kidstons? He had been a soldier-used to taking orders. No, he couldn’t be ordered. But perhaps now, with his wife and children staying here, he would be more easily persuaded. Perhaps he could be forced into doing it. Somehow.

In Janroe’s mind it was clear, without qualifying shades of meaning, that Vern and Duane Kidston were the enemy. In uniform or not in uniform they were Yankees and this was a time of war and they had to be killed. A soldier killed. An officer ordered his men to kill. That was what it was all about and that was what Janroe knew best.

They could close their eyes to this fact and believe they were acting as human beings-whatever the hell that meant in time of war-and relieve him of his command for what he did to those Yankee prisoners. They could send him out here to die of boredom; but he could still remember what a Yankee field piece did to his arm. He was still a soldier and he could still think like a soldier and act like a soldier and if his job was to kill-whether or not on the surface it was called gunrunning-then he would kill.