The Last Good Day, стр. 2
Something had happened to his hat so he brushed his fingers through his thick black hair several times to smooth it down and made a scoop with his good hand in a wash bowl and splashed water on his face and beard. A nurse brought him a small bag with a shoulder strap and he hung it over his shoulder. The other patients were staring at him. He was definitely out of place wearing a ragged blood-stained Confederate uniform in a Yankee hospital.
He made his way to the Provost Marshal’s tent and went in. A big burly man with a red beard and sergeant stripes on his sleeve was packing rifles in a crate.
“The doctor said the war was over and I can leave.”
“We kicked your ass,” the sergeant said.
“He said I could get a horse and my personals here.”
“Yeah, for some reason they wanted to save your ass. Don’t know why. The only good Reb is a dead one.”
“Why don’t you just shut up and give me my things.”
“I’d rather shoot you,” the sergeant said. “But then I’d have to clean up the place. You have to sign an allegiance form to the Union before you can get a receipt for your things.”
“It don’t matter now. Give them to me.”
The sergeant handed him the allegiance form, receipt and a pencil, and he signed them. The sergeant reached in a cabinet and picked up a small box with Major Rance Allison on the outside.
“This is all we found on you. Officers get their side arms if they had one. You didn’t.” He opened the box and took out a picture, a battle order and a letter. “That your wife and kid?”
“Was,” Rance said. “I had a gold watch my grandpa gave me with my name on it. Where is it?”
“Don’t know anything about that.”
“You expect me to believe that?” Rance asked.
The sergeant stared at him for a second, shook his head no. “I didn’t get it, you must’ve lost it on the battlefield.”
“Maybe,” Rance said.
“You can pick a horse out of the ones we captured. There’s a sign on the gate says ‘rebel horses.’ Had to shoot the ones that were wounded, was harder than shooting Johnny Rebs.”
“What about a saddle?”
“Don’t get a saddle. You’re lucky to be getting a horse. If it was me, I would let you walk home.”
Rance put the picture and letter in his coat pocket, crumbled up the battle order and dropped it on the ground and walked out.
As he approached the corral he saw his buckskin. He was still alive and well. He walked up to the gate and called to him.
“Buck, come here,” he said and whistled.
The horse turned toward him, shook his head and trotted over to the gate and rubbed his nose on the major’s coat.
“Missed you, fella,” he said and patted the horse on the neck. The horse had a bridle on, with the reins folded and tied to the bridle. He pulled them loose and lifted them over the horse’s head and led him out the gate and closed it. He hung the first-aid bag around the horse’s neck, grabbed a handful of his long black mane with his right hand, lifted the stub of his left arm over his back and pulled himself up.
Doctor Jennings appeared and held out a twenty-dollar gold piece for him to take.
“I don’t want your money,” Rance said.
“Don’t be stupid. Take it, you have to eat. I overheard you in the tent. I’m sorry about your wife and daughter. I lost my wife in the war, too. She was a nurse at Gettysburg. We don’t have to be enemies anymore.”
Rance reached down and took the gold piece. “Thanks,” he said. “What you going to do now, doc?”
“Stay in the army, I guess. They still need doctors.”
“I’m sorry about your wife,” Rance said.
Doctor Jennings nodded. “If I was you, I would get out of that confederate uniform soon as I could,” he said and walked away.
It was a bright and clear day under a high blue sky as Rance rode out. A rumbling wind whistled through the leaves on the cottonwood trees and blew the lingering smell of death across the silent battlefield as he rode away from the camp.
He wasn’t sure he wanted to go home. The pain was not just in his arm. Everything he loved was gone.
2
Hours later he stopped at a small winding creek, laid the medical bag on the bank and waded into the creek up to his waist to sooth his horse-sore ass while Buck drank.
As he stood there, a red robin flew to a tree on the edge of the creek. Then another, both perched on a limb overhanging the creek, chirping at each other. No sounds of cannons or gunfire for the first time in four years. The war was really over.
Rance got out of the creek, picked up the bag and led Buck to a large rock to climb on. He heard hoof beats and saw three riders atop a nearby hill, coming his way at a full gallop. There was no way he could outrun them riding bareback with one hand. He drew Buck close and waited.
Two men wearing dirty Confederate uniforms rode in leading a third. The birds flew away. One was a sergeant, the other one a corporal leading the third rider’s horse. The third man was wearing a Union uniform, his hands tied to