More Love Notes

Excerpt

On a gray, cold day in October of 1862, Declan told Wendell he intended to go to St. Louis and enlist. Wendell had been expecting the announcement for some time. Declan’s father had been angry ever since the Confederates took Independence at the end of August and the affront seemed all Declan could talk about as well.

“I won’t be gone that long,” Declan said as they stood next to Wendell’s garden. “This war won’t outlast the year. And my Daddy won’t let me stay away no how, not even if I wanted to.”

“So you want to go to war?”

“I think there’s cause.” Declan sounded powerfully convinced, and Wendell wanted to throw him down in the mud and beat him. “I know you’re neutral, but my family isn’t. You’ve heard my Daddy talking about it. We gotta put down these Rebels.”

“And you’re the man to do that?” Wendell’s words were as bitter as the bile in his throat.

“I can ride and shoot, better than most men. I’m gonna join up with the Calvary. Like I said, it won’t last the year. I won’t be gone too long.”

“The war could be over a week after you get there, don’t mean you won’t get killed in that week.”

Declan gave him a cock-sure look. He often wore such a look when someone told him he couldn’t do something, or wouldn’t.

“No one’s gonna take me down. You could come with me. You can ride and shoot. Almost as good as me, even.”

Wendell barked out a laugh. “She won’t let me off the farm to go to war.”
“Who cares? Go anyway. You’re a man, aren’t you?”

“And leave her to die? She wouldn’t make it a week without me to tend to things.”

Declan took his elbow and squeezed tight. Wendell looked down at his hand.

“You been under her thumb since your father died.” Declan lowered his voice. “But you don’t have to be anymore, not if you don’t want to. Come with me. What’s she gonna do when you get married, huh? She want you to stay with her then?”

Wendell snorted. “I don’t expect I’ll get married.” He looked up at Declan. “Unless one of us becomes a woman.”

“I would marry you regardless.” He smiled. “But you won’t give me any children.”

“We could always snatch us up some orphans in Platte City.”

Declan laughed, a beautiful sound, more so than the birds in the trees or music from a finely-tuned fiddle. Wendell wished he could bottle up Declan’s laughter and carry the sound with him, so he could listen whenever he wanted.

Declan went off that day and enlisted, like a fool. Wendell stayed bent up in bed all afternoon and night, sick and anxious.

The war did outlast the year, and the next.