Free Listen to the Mockingbird by Penny Rudolph Page B

even treat the men to a special banquet.”
    999
    For some wholly irrational reason, I looked upon our arrival at Fort Craig as an end to my ordeal. Exhausted but relieved, I unpacked. Now things would return to normal. All of this would become what it really was: a horrible dream.
    The first week, I spent all my waking hours making our little mud house tidy and homey. Because Andrew still was under court-martial for the stolen hat incident, he was not assigned to active duty. He had not yet begun to chafe at that, regarding himself as quite clever to be paid for doing nothing. He was cheerful and even helped me polish my grandmother’s silver.
    I told Winona that Andrew had harbored some odd ailment that made him understandably ill-tempered, but he was now recovered and himself again.
    Her face went deadly serious, her eyes hard at the corners. “No, Miss Matty. Do not fool yourself.” And then she disappeared, leaving me with a puddle of something cold in my innards.
    A few days later, I rose, dressed and prepared to do some visiting. Several of the other officer’s wives had sent servants with invitations to come for tea as soon as we were settled.
    Andrew had left early on some business of his own, Winona was preparing some sort of stew that had to simmer many hours and I spent the day laughing and chitchatting, and sipping tea. By late afternoon, I was feeling quite my old self and almost eager to go back to my little mud house to have dinner and exchange the day’s stories with my husband.
    At home, I freshened up, washed my face, braided my hair again and changed my shirtwaist. At full dark, Andrew still had not appeared. I lit two oil lamps and the fire Winona had laid. Trying to sound cheerful and unruffled, I suggested she take a big portion of stew back to her own cabin. Something unavoidable must have detained my husband. I would serve him myself when he got home.
    Having dined on nothing but tea and sweets all day, I was hungry; and after another hour, I ladled some stew onto a plate and was just sitting down, carefully not thinking about what might be keeping Andrew, when the door burst open.
    “I see you have disobeyed me.” His words were slurred. He slammed the door behind him.
    I had jumped when the door was flung open, but now the familiar false calm descended upon me like an armored cloak and I looked up at him. “Winona has made an excellent stew, Andrew. I’ll get a plate for you.” I started to rise but he slammed me back into the chair.
    “You’ve told them, haven’t you! That’s why they won’t put me on active duty.”
    My telling someone something was a frequent theme, and I no longer tried to understand what I was supposed to have told to whom. “No, Andrew. I’ve only been getting to know the ladies. Captain Blair’s wife is delightful and funny and—”
    I got no further because Andrew yanked me up from the chair by my hair and dragged me toward the hearth, where he pushed me to the floor.
    Cold metal pressed my cheek. It took me some time to realize it was the muzzle of a pistol.
    “You’ve told them about old man Peters and they’re going to cashier me. Probably send me to prison. I didn’t mean to kill him, you know; but he wouldn’t get out of my way.”
    Numb with fright, I sat rock still. Well I knew the danger of trying to reason with him. He moved the gun to my temple and pulled back the hammer. Then he pulled the trigger.
    The click-click seemed to echo endlessly. I had stopped breathing and was certain I would never breathe again.
    He pulled my head back, shoved the revolver close to my face and opened the cylinder. All the chambers were empty but one. He snapped the cylinder back into the gun and pushed the muzzle into my ear. At the click of the hammer being cocked, I closed my eyes, absolutely certain I was going to die.
    “If you scream,” he said quietly, “you assuredly will be dead before anyone comes. And as it happens, I have several other bullets I