“It’s healing fine. But I sure had to lie in that goddamn bed a long time. I’d have gone nuts if I hadn’t had so many visitors.”
“Well, after all, you’re a bona fide hero.”
“You mean I’m a bona fide dumbass. I got shot. If I hadn’t lowered my rifle to see what I shot, like a greenhorn, I’d be called Stumpy.”
“Heroes get shot too, you know.”
“Bullshit. Heroes get dead. I got lucky.”
“No, really. You and Eddie accounted for seven bandits, plus you saved a farmstead. That’s not just luck.” Santee grunted. “Mike and I think you deserve a promotion.”
Santee looked alarmed. “Oh, Jesus!” he said in emphatic disgust. “No I don’t. You’ll want me to take on some new job I’ll hate. I like what I’m doing! Leave me alone.”
“Look, you’re wasted just making lists of guns and pouring powder into little shell cases. You know so much more than that.” Frank looked him straight in the eye. “Please, Santee, we really do need you. Your experience is just too valuable for us not to tap into. What’ll it take to get you to say yes?”
Santee closed his eyes and thought for a long time. “Okay,” he said finally. “Here’s what I could do. You guys are going to have shavetails, right? Wet-behind-the-ears second lieutenants in your new army, right? Eddie going to be one?”
Frank nodded, silent.
“Well, I could talk to them. Not all the time, not every day, my patience would go, but I’ll talk to them. Everyone else is going to be teaching them how to give orders. I’ll talk to them about what it’s like to get orders, and what happens when they fuck up. Maybe, just maybe, one of them won’t get their jaw busted by a sergeant.”
Frank sat back and beamed at him. “That’s one of the best things you could do! From what they tell me, those kids in our officer candidate class really need it, the Americans and Germans both. Half of them want to be their unit’s best friend, and the other half want to be their lord and master. Neither way works worth a damn, and someone’s got to teach them that.”
They talked a while longer and worked out the details. Santee still refused any official army title, so he’d continue as the Chief Weapons Scrounger, even though most of the actual scrounging was now done. He’d still manage the inventory and oversee the reloading program, but for most practical purposes he’d be a roving instructor for the new officers they’d be training.
“Maybe I’ll call the course ‘Command Is a Loaded Gun,'” Santee said, thinking about what he was agreeing to.
Frank grinned at him. “I think the Army will still want to call it ‘Principals of Leadership’ or some such boring thing. Not that much has changed.”
* * *
After Santee had said goodbye and limped out onto the street, he stopped and shook his head with a rueful grin. “Damn, they roped me in again. I’m lucky to make it out of there without them making me a goddamn officer,” he said to nobody in particular, and headed home.
THE SEWING CIRCLE
by
Gorg Huff
Delia Ruggles Higgins was five foot nine, whipcord thin, and a self-described packrat. As of the Ring of Fire, she was fifty-nine and had been a widow for seven years. She had graying hair and black eyes. She figured she had “gracefully surrendered the things of youth.” Not without regret, but with what she hoped was grace.
These days she ran the storage lot that had been her living with her late husband Ray, and still was now that he was gone. For the last four years she had also managed her daughter Ramona, who had a true knack for picking Mr. Wrong. Ramona and her boys David and Donny had moved back in with her a few months after Donny’s dad had dumped her and gone back to his wife. David was small for his age, skinny with brown hair. Delia was expecting a growth spurt anytime now. Donny was thin too, but his growth spurt was still probably some years away.