Always to Remember Read online

  Lucian's complaints had only surfaced when Clay returned home to lift the burden from his brother's shoulders. Their parents had dictated that they wanted the farm passed down to their eldest surviving son. Clay was the eldest, and he'd survived.

  Walking into the barn, he inhaled the familiar scent of hay and livestock along with the disappointing smell of rotting wood. He couldn't get credit at the lumber mill either.

  He heard the tinny echo as the milk hit the galvanized pail. The sound didn't have time to fade before another took its place. He knew his brothers sat one on each side of the cow, working together as one. He'd noticed that their being twins had created a certain bond. Sometimes it seemed the brothers didn't even have to voice their thoughts to each other.

  "I know what you're thinkin', and it ain't gonna work."

  Clay slowed his steps at the sound of Josh's voice.

  "It might," Joe shot back defiantly. "It would for sure if you pretended to be sick, too."

  "I don't want to spend the whole day in bed. If this frog-chokin' rain stops, I aim to go fishin'."

  "We'd just be sick till church was over."

  "Nah, Clay'd make us stay in bed all day just to make sure we wasn't sick tomorrow. Ain't worth it, Joe."

  "But I hate goin' to church! I hate the way everybody looks at us."

  "They ain't lookin' at us. They're lookin' at Clay. 'Sides, if you do catch 'em lookin' at you, you just gotta cross your eyes at 'em, and they'll look away."

  "Is that what you do?" Joe asked, disbelief resounding in his young voice.

  "Heck fire, yeah! Sometimes, it's even fun. Did it once to old Pruneface, and she started wobblin' her head like a rooster that was tryin' to decide whether or not it wanted to crow."

  "And did Widow Prudence crow?" Clay asked quietly.

  Startled, both boys jerked back in unison, toppling off their respective stools, their legs flying out, kicking the bucket over and spilling milk over the straw.

  "Oh, heck!" Josh cried as he picked up the bucket too late to save much of their effort.

  Clay grabbed the stool the boy had vacated, moved it to the corner, sat, and drew his legs up so he could cross his arms over his thighs. "Joe, Josh, come here and sit down."

  With their brown eyes focused on him, the boys dropped before him. He resisted the urge to tussle their red hair. Living with his family often made him feel as though he lived with strangers. The boys accepted him because he was their brother. He'd mistakenly thought that was enough.

  He continued to see them as they were the day he left, clutching their mother's apron and crying. They hadn't asked any questions that day because they'd been too young to understand what questions needed to be asked. They were older now, but they'd kept their questions and their doubts to themselves. He wondered if they feared the answers. Before he'd left, they'd loved him. He wanted desperately for them to love him again.

  "I want you to tell me the truth because the truth never hurts as much as a lie." He met each boy's wide-eyed stare and waited until both boys nodded. "Does it embarrass you to be seen with me in church?"

  The boys slid their gazes toward each other, communicating silently what each felt in his heart. Josh returned his gaze to Clay. "It don't embarrass us none to be seen with you. We just don't like the way people stare at us."

  "Do you know why they stare?"

  " 'Cuz you're a coward," Joe said without hesitation.

  Clay felt as though all six rifles had just fired into his heart. He bowed his head, clasping his hands together until they ached and the knuckles turned white. "Is that what you think?" he asked solemnly. "That I'm a coward? Or is it just what you've heard?"

  "It's what they say at school," Josh told him.

  "And what Lucian says," Joe added.

  "Is that what you say?" Clay asked.

  "I tell 'em it ain't so," Josh said.

  Clay lifted his head, his gaze not reflecting the hope cautiously soaring within his heart. "Do you really say that?"

  Slowly shaking his head, Josh screwed his mouth. "I don't tell 'em nothin'. Just let 'em think what they want."

  A bullet slamming into his chest could not have hurt more. "Do you know what a coward is?" he asked.

  "Someone that runs away."

  "Did I run?"

  The boys exchanged troubled glances. "Did you?" Josh asked. "Did you run?"

  "No."

  "Then how come they think you're a coward7"

  "Because I didn't fight either."

  "How come?"

  Clay heaved a sigh. Knowing they would one day ask this question didn't make it any easier to answer now. "It's hard to explain, but my conscience wouldn't let me."

  "What's your conscience?"

  "It's a meeting place for the things your heart feels and the things your head knows. Then they decide what you should believe and how you should live in order to be happy."

  "But you never look happy. Clay," Joe said.

  He offered his brothers a somber smile and laid his palm over his heart. "I'm happy here because I believeI knowwhat I did was right for me. I didn't believe in slavery. I didn't believe Texas had the right to secede. I

  didn't believe we should fight the Northern states, and yet, I could not in all good conscience take up arms against the South, my home, and my friends. But more than that, I would not fight because I believe it's a sin against God to kill another man."

  "They don't say it's a sin in church. They don't think all those soldiers were sinnin'."

  "Different churches believe different things. We've only got one church in Cedar Grove, and I think it's better to attend a church that doesn't believe everything I do than not to go to church at all."

  "Were you the only one who believed all that?" Joe asked.

  Clay shook his head. "No, there were others. One man had more courage than any man I ever knew. We talked about what we believed, and we promised each other we'd stand by our convictions no matter what."

  "What happened to him?"

  Clay swallowed the lump in his throat that always formed when he thought of Will. "He got sick and died."

  "You oughta tell people you ain't no coward," Josh suggested.

  "It's not the kind of thing you can tell people. They'll believe it only if you show them. That's why, even though I hate the way people watch me when I go to church on Sunday morning, I still go. I didn't do anything I'm ashamed of, and I won't run from their opinions. Someday maybe they'll understand."

  "What if they never do?" the twins asked in unison.

  Clay sighed. He'd have a damn lonely life, but the loneliness should belong to him, not them. A man lived or died according to his decisions in life, and Clay had made his decision. The twins were old enough now to make their own decisions. "You don't have to go to church with me this morning, and when the rain stops, you can go fishing."

  The boys looked at each other, their initial relief quickly giving way to family commitment. "Nah, we'll go." Josh said. "Won't we, Joe?"

  Squaring his small chin, Joe gave a quick nod.

  Daring to ruffle their hair, he expected them to flinch at his touch. Instead they smiled. "Then I guess you'd better practice crossing your eyes before we leave."

  The twins laughed as only children can, with an innocence and joy, as they anticipated honing their skills.

  Unfolding his body. Clay walked out of the stall, out of the barn, and back into the storm.

  Sitting upon a raised dais to one side of the pulpit, Meg Warner pressed the keyboard. The haunting melody of the organ touched the church rafters, waltzed along the stained-glass windows where the sunlight cast a myriad of rainbows, and whispered across the congregation.

  Meg knew every face. The old and weathered faces of the men, the aged faces of the women. Noticeably absent were the faces of the young men with whom she'd grown up. With pride, they'd ridden off to war. Never losing courage, they had been vanquished. They had marched into battle side by side, and Yankee guns had
leveled them as though they were little more than wheat growing in a field.

  Meg watched Lucian Holland wander down the aisle and ease onto the edge of a pew. An awkwardness had settled around Lucian when his brother returned, as though he no longer knew where he belonged.

  She lifted her hands off the keys and folded them in her lap. A reverent silence filtered through the church as Reverend Baxter stepped up to the pulpit.

  Meg gazed at her brother, Daniel. Like Lucian, he'd been too young to enlist when the war started. Almost seventeen now, he worked hard to fill his brothers' bootsall three pairs. She could see her older brothers reflected in Daniel's strong jaw, his thick black hair, and his deep blue eyes. His jaw tensed as the church door opened.

  Balling her hands into fists, Meg slid her gaze toward the back of the church. Two boys wearing the same wary expression slipped into the last pew. Meg's heart went out to the boys, dressed in trousers that were a shade too short. Then the door closed, and their oldest brother took his place beside them.

  If Meg had been struck blind at that moment, she still could have told the world what Clayton Holland would do, for he'd done it every Sunday since he'd returned to Cedar Grove. He would bow his head as though in prayer. Then he would lift his gaze to the minister. His eyes would stray only when the twins fidgeted. And while he never took his eyes off the minister, so Meg never took her eyes off him.

  It fueled her anger and hatred to watch him, to be reminded once a week that he lived and breathed while her dear husband and three brothers lay cold in their graves. They had fought valiantly and died bravely defending the honor of the Confederacy while Clayton Holland had bared the yellow streak racing down his back. She knew it was childish to think that one more man on that battlefield would have made a difference, out she resented Clay for turning his back on the South and being rewarded with his life.

  Reverend Baxter's words droned on with Meg paying scant attention to their meaning. Her thoughts darkened until they resembled the storm that had blown through in the early hours before dawn. The nightmares always came with the storms and lingered for days like the puddles after a rain.

  With her dreams reverberating with the roar of guns and Kirk's agonized screams, she would awaken bathed in sweat. She imagined that the last thing Kirk had heard before he died was the sound of rifle fire or the blast of a cannon, when he should have heard her voice reaffirming her love. The last thing he had felt was the hard ground when he should have felt her gentle touch comforting him. Hundreds of men had surrounded him, but without her at his side, he had faced death alone.

  "Meg?"

  She snapped her gaze up to Reverend Baxter's. He bestowed upon her a congenial smile and nodded toward the organ. She transferred all her heart to the music as the congregation lifted its voice in song.

  From the corner of her eye, she glimpsed Clayton Holland and his brothers as they quietly rose and walked from the church. She poured her energy into the keyboard, allowing the force of the song to wash over her, cleanse her in ways Reverend Baxter's sermon never could.

  As the final note died away, she bowed her head for the closing prayer. When Reverend Baxter's voice fell into silence, people scuffled out of the church, and Meg closed her music book.

  "That was lovely, Meg."

  She bent her head back to meet Reverend Baxter's amber eyes. He was a towering man. A sparse mustache lopped his warm smile. She returned his smile. "Thank you."

  She started to rise and found his hand beneath her elbow, assisting her.

  "I suppose you have a fine meal planned for this afternoon. Will you have your apple cobbler on the table?" he asked.

  "Of course. We'd love to have you join us."

  His smile broadened. "Wonderful. I'll ride over after I've visited with my parishioners. In an hour or so. Will that be all right?"

  "That'll be fine." She skirted him and walked from the dais. Her steps echoed through the church as she continued along the aisle. She stepped into the sultry heat, avoiding the puddles dotting the ground.

  She stopped numerous times to visit briefly with old friends, girls with whom she'd grown up, wives and mothers of men who would never come home. They snared a bond that a war had forged. She worked her way through the gathering until she finally reached her father's wagon

  "'Bout time, girl," her father said as she approached. "Thought I was going to have to go into church and get you myself."

  "I invited Reverend Baxter to join us for dinner," she said as he helped her onto the seat of the wagon.

  "You invited him? Or did he invite himself?" her brother asked from the back of the wagon.

  Turning slightly, she slapped his arm. "Daniel Crawford, you have the manners of a Yankee. I invited him, just as I said."

  "I bet he did some powerful hinting, though," Daniel teased, his blue eyes sparkling. "I think he's sweet on you, Meg."

  "Don't be ridiculous. He's twice as old as I am. Besides, I don't ever plan to marry again. I could never love anyone as I loved Kirk."

  Her father glanced at her, his bushy white eyebrows shifting up over blue eyes that greatly favored hers. "You can't spend your life in mourning."

  "Why not? You have."

  Thomas Crawford tipped his hat back off his brow. "It's different with me. Me and your ma had fifteen years to make memories and five children. Those memories will carry me through until I join her. You were left with much less than that, girl."

  "It's not the number of memories a person has, but how wonderful they arc. My memories of Kirk will sustain me."

  Sadly, he shook his head. "Still, you might consider the reverend. You have a good heart, Meg. You'd make a fine preacher's wife, and it wouldn't be such a bad life."

  She couldn't imagine that it would be such a good life either. She didn't get that warm melting feeling inside her whenever she looked at Reverend Baxter. "I'm thinking of planting petunias around the boys' graves," she said to change the subject.

  "Damn it, Meg! They ain't boys!" Daniel cried.

  Thomas glared over his shoulder. "Don't use profanity around your sister."

  "But she keeps calling 'em boys. They were soldiers."

  "You're right, Daniel," she said kindly, trying to soothe the guilt she knew still filled his heart "But in my mind, I still see them as they were the day they left. Remember how Kirk and I came over for breakfast, and we all had to go into the kitchen and watch Michael shave for the first time that morning?"

  "I wish I'd been old enough to fight with them. If only I'd been born sooner" Wistfully, his voice trailed off.

  "You wanted to go," Thomas said gruffly. "That counts for a lot."

  "Wantin' to go don't count for nothing. Pa. I should have lied about my age. I should have gone"

  "We should have gone!" Thomas bellowed pointing a finger toward the far horizon and a wagon rolling off into the distance. "By God, he should have gone."

  Meg heard the bitter edge in his voice, unusual in the man who had held her on his lap when she was a child and laughed until his burly body shook. She couldn't remember when she'd last heard him laugh, and she knew she wouldn't hear him laugh today.

  The war had cut deep wounds into the hearts of her family and the whole town of Cedar Grove. Every Sunday, Clayton Holland reopened those wounds when he stepped inside the church.

  Sighing into the night, Meg buried herself beneath the quilts. After Reverend Baxter finished his meal and left, her father grabbed his bottle of corn whiskey and headed to the barn. She knew exactly how long it took him to drink himself into oblivion because he did it every night. At just the right moment she'd walked to the last stall in the bam and draped a blanket over the man who had once tucked blankets around her.

  Daniel was nowhere to be found, and she was certain he'd run off to meet with his friends and talk about a war that had ended long before they were ready for it to end.

  Meg wished it had never started. She longed for the days before the war, for the father who had held her
on his lap, for the brothers who had teased her. She longed for the man who had loved her. Touching her breast, she remembered Kirk's caress. When they became man and wife, she was seventeen, he an older and wiser nineteen. For less than a year, they shared the pleasures of marriage.

  She'd loved Kirk with all her heart and soul. She'd wanted to grow old holding his hand. She'd wanted to bring his children into the world, but they had not been blessed with children. Now, alone in her bed at night, the emptiness was often a searing pain that engulfed her.

  She let her hand whisper across her stomach as his had so many nights, but she dared go no farther. Her hand was not his, rough and callused from working the farm. Her hand was not his, gentle and patient with love.

  "Always wear your hair down for me, Meg love," he whispered as he fanned her ebony strands across his chest. Then his mouth took possession of hers, and she threaded her fingers through the thick pelt covering his chest.

  "Touch me, love, touch me," he rasped. Slowly, he glided her hand along his stomach, lower lower, still until he groaned, "God, I love you, Meg." Then he showed her, in all the ways a man could, how much he loved her.

  Her tears slipped onto the pillow. She'd been afraid whenever those around her talked in quiet voices about the possibility of war. The small word conjured stark images of blood and death. Kirk consoled her, calmed her fears. Then, just as quickly as lightning flashes through the sky, people no longer mentioned the word in hushed whispers, but yelled it across the land.

  It never occurred to them that he would not enlist. When the South asked her people to give their sons, Meg gave her husband. Willingly. Proudly.

  And three of her brothers.

  That last morning, when they gathered in town, the men had looked dashing in their hand-sewn gray uniforms. Full of confidence. Full of life. Perhaps death had come to them because they dared to laugh in its face and believe they were invincible. They were certain their presence alone would vanquish the enemy.

  With pride, she had presented a large Confederate flag to the company, a flag she and the other ladies of Cedar Grove had worked day and night to complete in time for the soldiers' departure. The men accepted the silk offering with a whoop and rebel yell that still echoed across the land.