Read Online Gwyneth Atlee by Against the Odds - Free Book Online Page A

that
he would see it all once more. Once more and forever, every time he
tried to sleep.
“The bodies looked the same. Didn’t matter if they hailed from
Massachusetts or Kentucky, from Florida or Texas. Didn’t matter what
color their skin or whether they ate Boston beans or black-eyed peas
before the war. They all bled the same.”
He could see the disdain fading in her eyes, followed quickly by the
dawning of comprehension about what this war had really been. Not
some grand adventure made more noble through its inconveniences
and sacrifice, but all the carnage, all the waste.
“Thank God I never had to fire any heavy weapons,” Gabe continued. “Pulling the trigger of my Henry rifle was more than enough.
Sixteen shots, that Henry had. Sixteen chances to crack open another
man’s chest or spew his brains all over his comrades or tear off one of
his legs. But when I was called upon to fire, I still did it. To the very
best of my ability. I killed my share of Rebels. Sometimes I wanted to
just kill them all so I could hurry up and be quit of this place. That’s
all most of us wanted, to get finished and go home.”
Eve refused to meet his gaze now. Her mouth had flattened to a
taut, grim line. But she did not get up and run shrieking from the
room, as so many women would have. Even if she had, though, he
might have gone on talking just to free the words that had lingered so
long near the graveyard of his soul.
“I might have finished up a hero, the way I shot those Rebs. Might
have.” Gabe shook his head. “If we hadn’t gotten backed into a tight
spot. We were close enough to bayonet each other instead of shooting.
I was fighting hard, too, because I knew the minute that I stopped,
some Johnny would run me through. I didn’t want to end up all
in tatters like those corpses, didn’t want my family to have to bury
its last son. I think I was wrong, though, not to realize there are worse things than dying. Maybe you were right about the price of
self-respect.”
The kitten hopped off her lap and trotted toward him, its neck
craning with cautious curiosity. Keeping its back paws on the floor,
it lifted the front ones to the bunk’s edge near his shoulder and
stared at him, its green eyes blazing.
Gabe barely saw the kitten but wouldn’t have touched it, anyway.
Tiny and appealing as it might be, it remained a cat.
“You said you didn’t want your family to bury its last son. Did your
brother, or perhaps I should say brothers, die in the war?” Eve asked.
Her voice surprised him, she’d been quiet for so long. He shook his
head in answer.
“Matthew drowned two years before the first shots. I was there. I
saw him break through the river ice. I went in, too, thinking I could
find him. But it was as if he’d fallen into a hole leading to the center of
the earth. I never saw his face again, except . . .”
“Except?”
“Except after it became so pale and bloated I didn’t even know
for sure it was my brother. And then again, that last time, my last
battle.” He looked up at her, trying to mask his desperation for
acceptance with a challenge. “I came eye to eye with a Rebel boy
with Matthew’s face.”
Tears welled in her eyes. Dared he hope they were born of understanding? Or did she still pity him, or worse yet, fear he was insane?
He couldn’t care about that. He had to get this all out, for he sensed
he’d never summon the courage to tell his tale again.
“Of course, it couldn’t have been Matthew. He’d been dead for
years. But at that moment, I-I saw my brother. It was an awful shock.”
He paused and asked himself again whether his mind manufactured
that vision later to excuse what happened next. No, it could not be. He
remembered it too clearly. Matthew’s pale blond hair, his eyes flashing
with what looked for all the world like recognition.
He shuddered with the memory of it, still absolutely vivid despite
the months that had passed since then. A perfectly clear moment that
would last him