Free Miracle at St. Anna (Movie Tie-in) by James McBride Page A

inside a deserted barn in Tuscany, three kilometers beneath the eye of the Mountain of the Sleeping Man, with a dying boy in his lap, trying to make himself invisible again.

6
    THE POWER
    The three soldiers caught Train about a mile up the ridge, sitting in the loft of a deserted barn with its doors blown off. He sat with his back against the wall, rubbing the statue head, his pants caked with mud. The boy, in shock, was cradled between his legs, swaddled in Train’s field jacket. Outside, the sun was disappearing behind the clouds, and it had started to rain. Train’s gun lay near the open doorway, which faced the mountains. His pack lay on the floor next to him.
    Stamps was the first inside the barn and climbed up to the loft, furious, as the others waited below. His nerves were shot. They were at least two miles from American lines. He thought he saw the backs of at least two German patrols to the west as they’d climbed the ridge. He was in a state of near panic. “What’s the fuck’s wrong with you?” he said.
    Train shrugged and turned to the side, his body in a crouch. The boy in his lap did not move. He held the boy up to Stamps as an offering. The kid’s arms draped back, lifeless.
    â€œY’all can take him now.”
    Stamps didn’t want to touch the boy. “Hector, come here and take a look.” Hector, the radioman, was the only one trained as a medic.
    Hector dropped his radio, scrambled up the ladder, took one look at the kid, waved a hand across the kid’s face, and said, “He needs a hospital.”
    â€œI ain’t say put a spell on ’im. Look ’im over,” Stamps said.
    Hector didn’t want to touch the boy. He climbed down the ladder. “Wasn’t my idea to come here,” he said. He felt like he wanted to throw up, he was so scared. He was a draftee, a Puerto Rican. He had no part in this war. He was stuck between colored and white in the division. His cousin Felix had been drafted the same day as he had and had been sent with the all-white 65th Division to France. Felix had written him and told him he was frigging all the French girls he could find. And here he was stuck with these guys, following Diesel the dope, because he looked more colored than Felix. It had been bad luck from the first day. They tried to make him into an Italian translator at training camp because of his proficiency in Spanish. After completing the four-month course, he purposely flunked the final when he was told he would become an officer afterward. He hadn’t wanted to become an officer for this very reason, because he might find himself in shit like this, with somebody asking him what to do. He didn’t know what the fuck to do. The kid was hurt. They needed to get the fuck outta here. He felt like he was losing his grip.
    Stamps looked through the blasted barn’s doorway. He could hear renewed firing in the distance below them. He couldn’t tell whether the firing was moving away or coming closer because the sound reverberated in the mountains all around them, but somebody had gotten a second wind. He turned to Train. “We gotta book outta here now. Train, button him up and let’s go.”
    Train remained curled in a ball on the floor and didn’t move.
    Stamps stepped around to the front of Train and knelt, his rifle slung across his back and his ammo bandoleer packed so full it hung nearly to the floor. Tall, thin, with long arms, a lean, handsome face, and skin the color of chestnuts, he and a small squad had been sent into battle his first week in Italy without ammo and had barely survived an attack by a German patrol. Since that day, he carried enough ammo for two men.
    â€œYou goin’ over the hill, Train?”
    â€œWhat hill?”
    â€œWhat’s gotten into you?”
    â€œLemme be.”
    â€œWe spent three hours looking for you.”
    â€œWell, you can see I’m found. Now