Love is a Wounded Soldier (4 page)

The most visible animal was a doe, of that
I was certain, but the second animal was obscured. Head held high, the doe
surveyed the area. I tried not to look her in the eye. They can sense that. She
put her head down, pretended to graze momentarily, and jerked it back up, as if
trying to catch a careless predator off guard. Then she tiptoed toward the
spring, snatching a bite or two of foliage as she oscillated her tail
vigorously a few times, as though signaling her partner all was well.

I stared at the second deer as it
cautiously emerged from the shadows. My eye caught part of a leg, a flank, the
outline of an antler. My mind pieced the rest of the body together. Finally, it
came into clear view. It was a nice 8-point buck, with a respectable set of antlers
that I knew I wouldn’t be able to resist showing off to anyone who would show
even the most remote interest.

The doe daintily sipped from the pool as
the buck walked with a monarch’s air toward the salt lick. I slouched down even
further so I could look down the barrel without moving the end of it but a
hair, and put the iron sights on his chest. He was a good 50 pounds heavier
than the doe. I knew he’d be tougher; tougher to eat and tougher to transport
back to the house. And the extra meat on him would probably go bad before we
could finish it, anyway.

I grudgingly pried my sights off him and
fixed them on the doe, following her as she walked toward the salt lick,
waiting for an opening. She stopped and looked back at the buck.

I could feel the blood in my ears as I
exhaled slowly and caressed the trigger. It felt good. Slayer touched off with
an angry roar and pounded my shoulder. I could see the doe drop to her knees,
pick herself back up again and run drunkenly for a few yards before finally
losing her equilibrium and falling over. She kicked twice and lay still.

The buck ran too, but he just made a little
half circle and ended up even closer to me, confused as to where the blast had
emanated from. He stood 10 yards from me, nostrils flared as he sampled the
air, his erect ears flapping and twisting to catch any breath of a sound. His
head pivoted nervously to and fro like a windmill being buffeted by contrary
winds. Oh, he was grand! As I peered over my rock, I made a small kissing noise
with my lips, like you’d make to a horse. Wild-eyed, he crouched for a
millisecond, as though winding every fiber in his body to maximum tension, and
launched himself straight into the air, touching down ten feet away and
crashing his way through the woods with great bounds, covering 25, even 30 feet
in a single bound.

I got up stiffly and walked over to where
I’d last seen the doe. She was nestled in some tall grass. I squatted down,
laid my rifle on her belly and rested one knee on her chest. Dark, frothy blood
bubbled from the entry hole. Lung shot. Quick and painless, just the way I
liked it. The thrill of the hunt mixed with the somberness of the kill, and I
murmured "Thanks" as I stroked her slender, hirsute neck. She was a
fair size, so I elected to return home, bring back a horse, and have him drag
her home where I could then dress and skin her by lantern light.

Firearm slung over my shoulder, I strode
jubilantly across the face of the land. The moon rose, as if to apologetically
compensate for the sun’s absence, I thought, much like my mother attempted to
substitute for Moses. I thrust those thoughts aside and found the first star.
It looked like a peephole into God’s heaven. The sky was clear, the air pure
and exhilarating. The moon hung like a great creamy opal set in an ebony sky.
God’s
in his heaven, all’s right with the world
.

I began to sing softly, as I had breath,

“Oh Lord my God.”
Step, step, over a
fallen log
.

“When I in awesome wonder.”
Up a steep,
short incline.

“Consider all the world thy hands hath made.”
My pace quickened. I needed to hurry back to my doe before the varmints got to
her.

“I see the stars, I hear the rolling
thunder, thy power throughout the universe displayed.” My breath ran out, and I
panted a little. Part of me wanted to sing out loudly, as though the ridge was
my stage and all the world a rapt audience, but it almost seemed irreverent to
break the tranquility of the night. I followed the ridge to where it leveled
into the plateau that was our homestead, and emerged into the clearing.

“Hmm hmm hmm hmmmm, my savior God to thee,”
I alternately hummed and sang in time to my footsteps.

“How great thou art.”
Step step.
“How great thou art.”
Step step.

I continued to hum under my breath as made
my way toward our barn to rouse old Shiver. He only had one good eye, and must
have been 200 years old, but he sure knew his way around in the dark. Light
shone from a crack in the barn door.
Ma must have gotten a late start on the
chores tonight.
I leaned Slayer against the barn and opened the door.

“Ma?” I called, shutting the door behind
me. "Ma, I got one!" Silence. “Ma, are you in here?” The only reply
was our hens murmuring and muttering to each other, like a commune of gossipy
old women.

Ethel, our most dependable milk cow, slowly
turned her head in her unflappable way and stared at me with her big eyes over
the side of her stall. I looked on the ground and saw the toe of a brown shoe
jutting out of her stall. I felt sick. I sprinted toward her.

Motionlessly crumpled on the ground lay Ma,
drenched in a pool of milk, her milking bucket lying on its side underneath
Ethel.

“Ma!” I screamed. Kneeling down beside her,
my back toward Ethel, I turned her head to face me. She was breathing, but
unresponsive. Ethel was crowding us, pressing her belly against my back.

“Give us some room, you piece of shit! Damn
you!” I smacked her flank, and she shifted her bony frame over.

I turned Ma’s body over and held her face
in my hands. Her forehead was cut open just under the hairline, a gaping gash
that revealed the white of bone, ringed with blood. I brushed off the bits of
straw and dirt that were stuck to her nose and cheek. She looked like breathing
death.

I picked her up and could feel the wetness
of her milk-saturated jacket. She wasn’t a big woman, but carrying her limp
weight was still a strain. Her breaths were long and labored as I carried her
to the house and struggled to open the door. Finding the knob in the darkness,
I opened the door and crab walked in to avoid hitting her head on the door
frame.

I laid her down on the kitchen table and
frantically searched for matches and a lamp. After finding them, I lit the
lamp, gingerly lifted Ma off the table, and carried her into her bedroom. I
grabbed a comforter out of the closet, threw it over her, and covered her with
another thick flannel blanket for good measure. Now I needed help.

Moses was gone. He had been for a day and a
half now, and he’d taken the car. I’d either have to ride horseback into town
and get Dr. Sanderson, or else ride to the nearest neighbor who owned a car,
the Moores. I bolted to the barn, my mind on fire and my lungs aflame.

“Shiver, get up!” I shouted frantically at
the horse as I snatched a bridle from where it hung on a rusty nail. He was
lying down and seemed a little nettled as I urged him up, untied him, and
shoved the bit into his mouth. Not wanting to squander time, I forwent the
saddle, hopped on his back, and spurred him out the door and into the night.

My eyes adjusted to the blackness slowly,
so for the first while I had to rely on Shiver’s horse sense to navigate.
Fortunately, he knew the way into town, so all I did was encourage him,
smacking him with the ends of the reins. He wasn’t built for speed, he was made
for pulling a plow, so once I was convinced he was doing his best, I just
settled down with my body bowed over his withers, grabbed a handful of mane,
and rode.

It would be a few minutes before we would
reach the Moores' place, which gave me time to think. I thought about Ma, how
pale, how lifeless she’d looked. I wondered if she was going to die. Teeth
gritted, I could feel the tears begin to flood my eyes and I fought to keep my
lips still. I needed to preserve my composure, even if no one was watching. It
wasn’t a good practice to be losing control, even in private. Nonetheless, the
tears trailed one after the other from the corners of my eyes and the wind
created from riding blew them back almost to my ears before they dried. I
reached up with one hand and wiped the wetness from my eyes and the salty
drippings from my nose off of my upper lip. A few strands of Shiver’s coarse
mane blew into my open mouth, and I pulled them out. Then I sobbed. Sobbed out
of fear, sobbed about the unknown, sobbed because I thought my mother might be
dead.

As we neared the Moore place I could see
there was light coming from the house through the trees. I reined Shiver into
the long driveway and we galloped toward the house.

“Come on, Shiver!” I prompted. “Yaw!” I
kicked his ribs a few times. He found another gear.

“Good boy,” I patted him, “atta boy!” I
pulled him up in front of the house and jumped off, rubbing my eyes and face in
an attempt to erase any signs I had been crying, and began pounding on the door
with both fists.

“Mr. Moore!” I yelled. “Preacher, it’s
Bobby!” I continued hammering, and I saw one face peer out from behind the
kitchen curtains as I felt footsteps approach the door. The door opened and
13-year-old Ellen Moore stood before me.

“Bob—” she started.

 “Ma’s been hurt!” I interrupted, “I need a
ride to Dr. Sanderson’s
now
!”

Seeing I didn’t have time for pleasantries,
she turned and called loudly for her father, who was already moving toward the
door with some urgency.

“Bobby’s ma needs a doctor!” Ellen told
him.

No call to action was necessary from me; he
yanked his coat off its hook, his hat from above it, and kissed his wife. “It
could be late,” he said, and she nodded understandingly.

“Joseph, take care of his horse,” he
directed Ellen’s twin brother.

We walked hurriedly to where the car was
parked. He started it and drove over the front yard instead of backing it up
and turning around. As we left, I could see Joseph leading Shiver away.

We turned onto the road and the car whined
at being awakened so rudely and pushed so hard.

“What happened to your ma?” Preacher Moore
inquired cautiously, as if he wasn’t too sure if he should burden me with
questions.

“I . . . I don’t know,” I said. “I got back
from hunting and she was lying in the barn, beside one of our cows, knocked out
cold with a big cut on her head. I think she hit her head on the trough, but,
I—I don’t know why she fell.” The preacher listened thoughtfully.

“Maybe the cow took a fright and knocked
her off balance,” he stabbed.

“I don’t know. Ethel is the calmest cow in
the county, so I wouldn’t think her to be to blame. Ma was lying almost right
under her and she never stepped on her, and she must have been lying there a
while.”

“Hmm,” he said, and fell back into silent
reflection.

He didn’t slow down as we approached Coon
Hollow, we just rumbled right along until we had to make a left, two blocks
past the saloon where Moses sat voiding the warranty on his liver. Had I not
been so distraught about Ma I would have been enraged to see his car parked out
front, but I hardly noticed.

The preacher turned the car sharply into
Dr. Sanderson’s driveway. We skidded to a halt, and he leapt out and sprinted
to the door. After a vigorous pounding, the door opened, and I could hear a
curt exchange of words. He loped back to the car and threw it into reverse.

“He’s on his way,” was all he said.

I looked anxiously in the side mirror,
hoping Dr. Sanderson would be tailing us closely, but he was nowhere in sight.

As we began to round the last jog in the
road before home, I caught a glint of light in my side mirror and swiveled my
head to look back. There was another car behind us about a quarter mile.
Good,
surely that will be Dr. Sanderson.

The car hesitated a little as we ascended
the incline of our driveway, and the preacher found a lower gear.

We jumped out of the car before it had come
to a full stop, leaving it to shudder a few times before it died. As we entered
the front door, I could see the light from Dr. Sanderson’s headlights flood the
tree tops as he turned into our driveway.

Once again I felt the rhythm of my heart in
my ears as I snatched the lantern off the kitchen table and led the preacher to
Ma’s room. The lantern cast larger-than-life caricatures of us on the walls.
She lay still, and as I moved closer, I saw her mouth was open slightly and her
eyes were half open.
She’s awake!

“Ma!” I exclaimed excitedly, moving up to
the bed. She didn’t even twitch. I looked over at the preacher and saw his eyes
welling with tears.

“Ma?” I said. I reached over and touched
her hand. Her cold hand. I turned silently and saw Dr. Sanderson enter the
room.

“Is there something you can do?” I pleaded,
trying to keep my voice steady and low to avoid sounding hysterical. He stepped
briskly forward and took her wrist for a few seconds.