Joshua Simon - Forgotten Soldiers

I asked Zadok about Uncle Uriah.

“He died a year before we got that letter I told you about.”

“That long ago?” I shook my head in disbelief. Lasha never said a word about his death or any of the other stuff everyone endured in her letters.

“Yeah, losing the farm really brought him down,” said Zadok. He walked a few steps ahead. “He started drinking away what little money Ma earned cleaning people’s homes. One day he and Ma got into it. Both said a lot of bad things to each other. Uncle said some stuff about you too, blaming you for our troubles. Ma slapped him for that. That ended the argument. Uncle Uriah left.” He kicked the dirt. “They found his body the next day. He hung himself out in the apple orchard.”

“Molak be cursed.” I blew out a slow breath. “I’m sorry. I should have been here.”

“It’s not your fault, Pa. Ma never blamed you. She said that you were doing the right thing, something I should be proud of no matter what the rumors said. We knew you weren’t killing kids and stuff. Right?”

I recalled the young soldier near Myra’s age I had killed in our final mission. I thought of the dozens of others, some older, some younger, who had tried to kill me. I looked away and chose to ignore his question. “How does Myra feel about everything?”

“Oh, she hates you.”

Gods, that wasn’t exactly what I meant.

Zadok continued. “Even though she thinks you’re dead.” He looked up. “But you’re here now, so you can explain everything to her and make it right. We can be a family again.” He frowned. “Well, mostly.”

Though Zadok seemed to be in better spirits, I was still hesitant to press him about the particulars regarding Lasha’s death. I had only been reunited with my son for a short period. The last thing I wanted was to push him into a place he did not feel comfortable going.

My hope was that Myra might be able to fill in the details where Zadok could not.

“Did things get any easier after Uncle Uriah died?”

“No. You would think so since there were fewer ways to split the food and we didn’t have to worry about him drinking all the time. But after they found his body, the people Ma used to do work for asked her not to come around anymore.”

“Why?”

“Because they got to thinking that something was wrong with us on account of her.”

“What!”

He kicked the dirt again. “Yeah. They said it started when your Pa died just a few weeks after you married Ma.”

“A rattlesnake bit him,” I said cutting in. “That had nothing to do with your Ma.”

He shrugged. “They said we were cursed like the farm. Grandpa died. You went off to the army, and everyone thought you died too. We lost the farm after three generations of nothing but prosperity. Uncle Uriah hanged himself. .” He sighed. “Ma kept looking for work, but no one would hire her. Not even to wash clothes or scrub floors.”

“What did you do for money?”

“We had no money. We slept in the woods and mostly foraged for food. Even with the few things we managed to trap or catch, we were always hungry. Myra was getting pretty angry then. She used to ask Ma why we didn’t just go live with her family down south. But Ma said it was too dangerous to travel that far alone, and besides, how would we pay to travel.”

“Then what happened?”

“Well, we had been living like that for months. It wasn’t ideal, but we got by. But that was during the warmer months. Early that winter, before it got too cold, we huddled around a small fire trying to stay warm. I was shivering hard. Ma started crying. She got real angry and began stomping around the fire, swearing. That was the only time I ever heard her curse. It kind of scared me. Finally she stopped, kicked out the fire, and took us by the hands. She dragged us back to town in the middle of the night without a word.”

“To go where?”

“Somewhere she said she should have gone a long time ago, but pride wouldn’t let her. She said alive or dead she hoped you’d understand she had no other choice. After that, we all shared her room at the Soiled Dove. Well, except when Ma had to use it to work. Then me and Myra would have to try and sleep behind the stairs in the common room.”

Zadok stopped talking then. I’m not sure why. Perhaps he saw something in the look on my face that begged him to.

I fought hard to keep the tears at bay, figuring the last thing he needed to see was his Pa cry for the third time in one day. Despite my best efforts, more than a few escaped. I couldn’t stop thinking about how I had failed everyone I loved.

His hand slipped into mine. I squeezed it, remembering how it felt to hold his hand years ago when things had been so much simpler.

We walked in silence away from town toward Jareb’s plantation. Buzzing cicadas from the surrounding fields drowned out our footsteps.

* * *

The cicadas stopped and only the gods know how long we walked with no sound but our feet scraping dirt.

Those were the same gods who I had always cared little about, and in light of what I just heard, cared less about than ever before. Their existence and influence no longer mattered to me. My dislike of them turned to hate. It would take a proverbial miracle for me to ever show them the respect their priests demanded.

However, even if the gods existed only in the minds of men, I’d curse their names and every bit of their attributes. I figured that if they were indeed real, cursing them was the least I could do to recompense them for all they had done for me.

People held different opinions on the role the gods played in our lives. Some felt that they intervened only when necessary, and took a passive approach to our lives. Others believed everything we did, down to the smallest detail, like wiping our noses on a sleeve instead of a handkerchief, had already been predestined by the deities who looked down on us.

Both viewpoints had their flaws. It either meant the gods let bad things happen to people or actually made them happen.

Thinking of all that my family and I had been through with not even the support of each other to lean on pushed aside some of the despair welling inside of me. Anger took its place. Before long, my jaw ached from clenching it.

“Pa? Are you going to be all right?” Zadok asked.

The sun had finally begun to set, bathing the rolling countryside in reds and purples. The bruised appearance of the landscape mirrored the ache coursing through my insides.

Was I going to be all right? I didn’t know. But saying as much wouldn’t have done Zadok any favors. So, I lied.

“I will be soon, son.”

“What are you thinking about?”

“Your mother.” I decided to take a small chance. “Someone killed your mother at the Soiled Dove, didn’t they?”

“Yes.” Zadok put his head down. “It was a. . customer. . as Ma used to call the men. He was drunk and. .”

I let go of his hand, and placed an arm around his shoulder. “It’s all right. I don’t need you to tell me everything about that night. I just wanted to know if my suspicions were accurate.”

I felt him relax slightly.

“Do you remember what happened to the man who killed her?”

He nodded. “The sheriff gave him ten lashes and ordered the man to pay restitution to Omri for damaging his best worker for future money lost. Omri is the owner of the Soiled Dove.”

I felt sick again, bile creeping upward. I managed to swallow it back down. My throat burned. One of the last conversations I had with Ava came to mind. “What if that had been Lasha?” she had asked me when referencing a whore who had been beaten by a soldier.

At the time, Ava had been making a point about the women working our camp. Lasha had not made the decision to enter that life easily, or selfishly. She did it to care for our children. Pressed with a tough decision, she gave herself away like a piece of meat so that Myra and Zadok could survive. Did that make her a whore? Gods, my head spun just from thinking of that word in association with my wife. Or did it make her a dedicated mother whose unselfishness continued to shine even in the darkest of moments? Did it just prove that she had been every bit as remarkable of a woman as I always knew she was?