“Giving Thanks”
(post script)by
Susan Balnek-Ballard
Saunders never thought of Hanley’s voice as being melodious. For the most part, he’d
only thought of it as being loud.
But now, laying here, only a scrap of blanket between him and the ground and in a
semi-stupor, with little to do but listen, Saunders realized how full of music the Lieutenant’s voice
was. Saunders couldn’t quite make out any words, only the deep drone, hardly fluctuating, sort
of like the resonant notes of a base cello adding substance and heart to a piece of classical music -
Tchaikovsky’s perhaps, or Beethoven’s. The sound of it lulled the wounded sergeant, and gave
him a feeling of peace, something he hadn’t felt in days.
Hanley knelt at Saunders’ side, questioning Doc. “How’s he doing?” while laying a rough
hand gently on the sergeant’s unbandaged shoulder.
“Okay...he’s doing okay, Lieutenant, all things considered. If Caje hadn’t of found us
when he did...well,” Doc hesitated, his gaze shifting from Hanley to Saunders. “He’s got a pretty
nasty infection in the wound. Caje kept him from bleeding to death, but there wasn’t anything he
could do about infection.” Doc seemed resigned to this turn of events. He had two other
wounded men to tend; they were miles from home and help. It was cold and rain or snow was
threatening. He was doing his best but it seemed damned little.
Wearily, Doc got to his feet. “I gave the Sarge morphine so he’s pretty out of it.” It
seemed the soft spoken medic had read Hanley’s mind. The lieutenant had wanted to speak to the
sergeant. He needed to talk to him. Saunders was an excellent non-com and took a great deal of
pressure off the always overworked lieutenant. Hanley just needed someone to talk to, to discus
things with. He also needed reassurance that Saunders was okay, that he’d pull through, needed
that from Saunders himself.
The sergeant heard Doc’s voice - not as low as Hanley’s or as full of melody, but softer,
and then Hanley’s rumble.
Saunders concentrated, forcing his fuzzy mind to move, to shift past the morphine to the
point where he could actually open his eyes. He saw Hanley, sitting on the damp ground close to
his pallet, knees drawn up, head buried in hands. Sensing he was being watched, Hanley lowered
his hands and met Saunders’ bleary gaze. The sergeant was surprised not just at how bone tired
the officer looked, but how defeated, dejected. And also how the smallest hint of a now visible
grin could change that entire picture. Hanley still looked exhausted - only sleep would cure that,
but the defeated look vanished as though Saunders had only imagined it.
“Don’t ask,” Saunders stopped Hanley’s question before it could be offered. His voice
was barely a whisper, the words slurred. “I feel like hell.”
“I believe ‘feel’ is the important word in that sentence.” Hanley smiled broadly now.
“Caje...where is he? He’s okay?”
“Caje is fine, worn to a thin line though. He’s getting some sack time. We’ll be moving
out for home as soon as Doc thinks everyone is stable enough. Murphy and Littlejohn were
wounded and we lost Curtis in that last fiasco. I don’t have to tell you...it hasn’t been good.”
Hanley fumbled in his jacket, searching his pockets in vain for a smoke. He gave up. “I’m gonna
see if I can’t bum a cigarette off Kirby.” He paused a moment, then added, “Good to see you
awake, Saunders.” The smile returned. “Get some rest.”
Saunders obliged and fell into a deep fever and morphine induced sleep. When he woke,
he was being carried on a make-shift stretcher and the pain he felt was achingly vivid. His jaws
began to ache from grinding them together to keep from crying out at each jolt and bump. Doc
appeared at his side without being summoned. The medic somewhere along the line had
developed a sixth sense when it came to the needs of his patients. The sharp quick prick of the
needle and pain became hazy and faded.
The autumn weather was fickle and perverse and the squad hadn’t been on the move for
an hour when the lieutenant made the decision to head for cover. Another hour passed in driving
cutting sleet before the men made it to the stone house Caje and Saunders had found the day
before. Caje warned Hanley about the armed civilian they’d encountered. The lieutenant seemed
much less concerned about one armed man than about the welfare of his wounded and exhausted
squad.
After ordering a cursory search of the outer buildings and finding them deserted, Hanley
sent Kirby, Billy and Coyle up to the house itself. They were to find it deserted as well. Kirby
signaled the all clear and the lieutenant and the men moved up and into the shelter.
The interior was pretty much as Caje and Saunders had left it, devoid of furniture, bare
and as cold and damp as a tomb, or so Kirby put it. A withering glare from Hanley shut him up
before he could make any further observations.
One of the smaller rooms did have a child’s bed in it, a mattress on a frame and some
blankets. Doc had the most seriously injured man, Saunders, placed there, closest to the kitchen
and whatever facilities were available.
Saunders awoke with a dry mouth and a tormenting thirst and in a place that was
unfamiliar. Even the softness of the bed and the warm covers did little to assuage his discomfort.
The room was small and the bed took up the better part of it, small and dim. The tiny window
allowed very little of what light there was into the room. Sleet beat against the lead framed panes
and Saunders could hear the muted vices of the squad from somewhere distant. He waited,
hoping someone would appear, someone who would offer him water. He waited and his suffering
became almost more than he could bear. He closed his eyes but something in the room made him
open them again, slowly, deliberately. Whatever or whoever was there unnerved him, made a
chill run from his spine up to his brain. He shuddered, then shivered at what he perceived to be a
draft of frigid air. There was no draft, his shivering was caused by his own terror. At the foot of
his bed stood a man, huge, as tall as Littlejohn or nearly so, but twice as broad. In his beefy hands
he held a shotgun. The weapon was pointed at Saunders and the man began yelling. The words
were in French but Saunders understood their meaning. It was then that he also recognized the
voice. This was the same man whose voice he’d heard the night Caje had brought him here; loud,
very angry, very threatening. Saunders was paralyzed. Didn’t anyone else hear?
Helpless, Saunders struggled to sit up, to back away, to get away, but he could barely
move. Pain arced through him. Past the dryness in his throat and his terror, he screamed. “Caje!
Caje! He’s here! He’s here! CAJE!”
Hanley, drinking a cup of tepid coffee, whirled at the sound. The cup dropped from
suddenly nerveless fingers.
“Gawd almighty! What the hell?!” Kirby swore, but remained rooted to the spot.
Before the scream could echo one more time through the vacant house, Hanley had pulled
his .45 from its holster and bolted into Saunders’ room.
The sergeant appeared ghostlike - white faced, sitting half way up in bed, eyes staring at
something only he could see, mouth open as if to scream again.
Quickly, Hanley checked the room, the window. He knew no one had run out since the
doorway was visible from the main room.
Holstering the .45, Hanley went to Saunders, picked him up as easily as if the sergeant
were a child and carried the man into the main room.
“Kirby, you and Coyle get in there. Pull the mattress off the bed and bring it in here. Lay
it next to Littlejohn.”
When Kirby failed to move, but stood, starring open mouthed toward the room the
screams had issued from, Hanley raised his voice.
“Kirby! Move it! Now! You too, Coyle!”
Kirby snapped out of it and grabbed the red-headed corporal by the sleeve, dragging him
reluctantly along. Saunders’ screams had badly frightened every man.
Saunders lay in Hanley’s arms shivering violently from what? Cold? Fear? His head
lolled against the lieutenant’s shoulder.
When the mattress was in place and Saunders laid back onto the bed, Hanley asked him,
“Who was there, Sergeant? Who was in the room with you?”
“Where’s Caje, Lieutenant? Where’s Caje? He’d know, “ Saunders whispered. He
accepted a long drink of water from a cup Hanley held for him.
“Caje is outside, double checking the outer buildings.”
Shuddering, remembering, Saunders attempted to answer the lieutenant’s earlier question.
“It was a man, a man in the room, the man who wouldn’t let us stay here before. He had a
shotgun...he would’ve killed me.”
“No, Sarge...he couldn’t have.” Caje appeared suddenly beside the lieutenant. “He
couldn’t have because he’s dead.” In his gloved hands, the Cajun held a long barreled shotgun.
He passed it over to the lieutenant. “He’s dead, Lieutenant and his wife and daughter too. Found
‘em out in the barn. Two of ‘em were covered with hay; the other, the man, was back in the
corner. Too dark to see ‘em before.” Caje became suddenly very uncomfortable and his hands,
when he searched his pockets for a lighter, trembled visibly.
“Lieutenant...those people been dead for days, maybe even a week Doc said. All three
were killed by a shotgun. Probably this one here. Doc says maybe the man killed the woman and
child, then himself.” Even several deep drags from the Lucky couldn’t stop Caje’s shakes. The
squad members were totally quiet, each listening intently to the conversation between Hanley and
the scout.
“If they were already dead, Caje, then who...?” Hanley couldn’t finish. It didn’t add up.
Didn’t make sense. Hanley didn’t believe in ghosts. There had to be an explanation. Had to be.
Saunders was so ill with fever he could’ve easily seen or heard something that was only a figment
of his tortured imagination. But what had Caje seen that first night? Who? People who only
resembled that dead family? After all, a shotgun would do a great deal of damage. Caje could be
mistaken....Yes, probably just a resemblance.
Whatever the explanation, as soon as the storm broke, Hanley had the men saddle up and
move out. Not one man mentioned the stone house or what may or may not have happened there.
The book was closed, the ending never written.
Copyright 11/99 - Susan Balnek-Ballard. All rights reserved.