Page 121 of Always to Remember
Meg rose to her feet, spun around, and slapped Daniel across the face with a force strong enough to send him staggering back.
“How dare you!” she hissed. “How dare you judge this man and condemn him to death!”
Daniel regained his balance, squared his jaw, and took a step toward her, his blue eyes blazing. “How dareyoudefend him!”
She angled her chin. “Who better than the woman who loves him?”
He jerked back as though she’d hit him again. “You don’t mean that, Meg. You can’t fall in love with a man by watching him sit in the back of the church.”
“No, you can’t,” she admitted softly. Her stomach tightened, and her mouth went dry. How often had Clay felt this slight trembling of nerves and continued on, standing his ground? “I fell in love with him by spending my days in his company. I asked him to carve a monument to honor our heroes. I thought the task would serve as a punishment for him. I thought it would make him face his cowardice. Instead it made me face my own.
“Every day, I went to his farm and watched him work, waiting for that moment when he’d drop to his knees and ask for forgiveness.” Sighing deeply, she glanced at the still figure lying in the mud. “Eventually, I realized there was nothing to forgive.”
“My brothers are turning in their graves,” Daniel said vehemently.
“No, they aren’t, not in the graves Clay dug for them. He got to Gettysburg after the battle. The Yankees were dropping the Southern soldiers into mass graves. Clay buried every man from Cedar Grove in a separate grave away from the battlefield.”
“I swear, Meg, if you’re telling the truth, if he touched my brothers, I’ll shoot him dead before the sun sets.”
“Why?” she asked softly.
“Why?” He took a step toward her. “Why? Because he’s a coward, and I know they’d rather lie in a mass grave than have his hands touch them.”
“I don’t think so, Daniel.” She placed her hand on his arm, and he wrenched free. So much bitterness, so much anger, so much hatred. “Mama Warner left me a letter that Kirk wrote her. He told her that he wrote Jefferson Davis asking that he exempt Clay from serving the Confederacy. He said every man in his company signed the letter. Every man, Daniel. That includes our brothers. They knew Clay wasn’t a coward.”
“That’s a goddamn lie! He didn’t fight!”
“He did fight, but he fought for what he believed in, not what they believed in. And he fought as bravely as they did.”
Meg swept her gaze over the gathered people. “When was the last time any of you talked with Clay? Who among us asked him why he didn’t enlist? I know I didn’t. I assumed he was a coward because he didn’t follow my husband and my brothers. Like your sons, they were soldiers, yet they saw honor where we didn’t. Clay would lay down his life for any one of us. He just won’t kill for us.”
Meg didn’t think it was possible for the crowd to become more somber. People shifted their gazes as though they didn’t know whom or what to look at.
“Father, forgive them for they know not what they do,” Dr. Martin said in reverence. He twisted in the mud and planted his arm across his thigh, leveling his gaze on the silent crowd. “Those were the words Clay spoke as he stood awaiting his execution. Funny thing, though. After he said his prayer, they couldn’t find a soldier willing to shoot him.”
Meg knelt in the mud as Clay’s eyes fluttered open. Dr. Martin held up two fingers. “What do you see, Clay?”
Clay shook his head slightly. “Nothing. It’s too dark, but I want to thank you for coming, Doc.”
Dr. Martin’s worried gaze met Meg’s before he turned his attention back to Clay. “It’s always a pleasure treating you, you know that.”
“I don’t want to die,” Clay said quietly.
“I don’t think you’re gonna die.”
“One might miss, maybe two, but not all six. Not six Southern boys with rifles.” He closed his eyes. His face grew ashen, and Meg felt the icy fingers of death wander slowly along her spine.
Pulling himself free of the mud, Dr. Martin stood. “I need someone to carry him to my office.”
“I’ll carry him,” Robert said.
“He’s always been like a son to me. I’ll help you,” Kirk’s father said.
Meg watched Robert slip his arm beneath Clay’s knees as Kirk’s father took Clay’s shoulders. Together, they carefully lifted Clay out of the mud.
She glanced one last time at the somber faces surrounding her, then followed Clay in silence … alone.
Sitting beside the bed in Dr. Martin’s office, Meg made herself loosen her grip on Clay’s hand. He’d lose use of it as well if she continued to hold it so tightly.
