Andy Duncan - Fortitude

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Fortitude - a novella by Andy Duncan

Fortitude

a novella by Andy Duncan

My life started over on May 14, 1916, in a hut in the foothills of the

Sierra Madre, between Rubio and San Geronimo, about 300 miles south of

Paso.

Pershing had put me in command of a party of twelve, sent to town in

three

automobiles to buy maize for the horses. That accomplished, we devoted

most of the day to my own project: We went looking for Villa's

lieutenant,

Cardenas. That's what brought us, eventually, to the hut, where we

found,

not Cardenas, but -- I was informed -- his uncle.

"Por favor, Senor, por favor!"

In the thirty minutes since Private Adams had unsheathed his knife, we

had

learned a number of things from this fat uncle: that he did not know

any

Cardenas; that we were filthy American pigs; that he had not seen

Cardenas

in months; that the merciful Jesus would save him; that the Americans

should be crushed underfoot like lizards; that he had seen Cardenas a

week

ago, but not since; that our fathers were bastards and our mothers,

whores; and, again, that the merciful Jesus would save him. All this in

Spanish, though these bandits could speak English as least as well as I

could. Spanish seemed to be a point of honor with them. I respected

that.

"Santa Maria!"

The man heaved and strained against his bonds, trying to avoid the

knife.

His sweaty shirt pulled taut over his belly, and one button popped off

fall onto the dirt floor. I picked it up, rubbed it between my fingers.

Brass.

"Madre de Dios!"

At that moment, with a sudden, sickening exhilaration, I realized

something. I knew I had held this man's button in my fingers before.

I'd

heard these squeals and bleats, seen my men's sunburned, darting

scowls,

suffered the fried-bean-and-motor-oil stink of this miserable hut.

Since my youth I had been accustomed to sudden, vivid memories of lives

other places, other bodies, other times -- memories that lingered,

became

part of my present self. I still could taste the urine I was forced to

drink from my helmet when I was dying of thirst for the glory of

Carthage;

it was brackish and sweet in the back of my throat, and as real as my

mother's orange punch, gulped at the end of a day's sailing off

Catalina.

That son-of-a-bitch helmet -- it leaked like a sieve. But what I

relived

in that Mexican hut was not a life centuries removed. No, I relived a

previous May 14, 1916, when I stood in the same hut, among the same

men,

holding the same button, and was the same person, likewise named George

Smith Patton, Jr.

This was a first, a past life as myself. The initial disorientation

passed, replaced by a giddy surge of confidence. I savored the moment.

Would the feeling last longer than a second or two? It did. In fact,

the

memories became more complete, rushing into my head and filling it the

way

one's youth rushes back because of a piano tune, a whiff of gunpowder,

slant of light.

Some intellectual pissant would call this deja vu. Any soldier would

call

it intelligence, and act.

"That's enough," I said. I flicked away the button. "Let's go."

"What about this rat right here, lieutenant?"

I leaned over him, lifted his bloody chin. "You're a good man," I said

into his face, in Spanish. "You have been very unhelpful. Carry on." I

saluted him, and walked out.

As we waded into the broiling sun, wincing at the glare off the hoods

the Dodges, I said, "Son of a bitch should get a medal. Too bad he's

not

in a real army. Saddle up, boys." The auto sagged sideways as I

clambered

aboard. Waller spat on his hands and went to work on the crank.

"Where to, lieutenant?"

I could remember everything. Everything. I died at age 60 in a German

hospital room, with tongs in my temples and fishhooks in my cheeks to

keep

my head from moving and crushing what was left of my spine --

No time for that.

"San Miguelito," I said.

"But lieutenant," Adams said, "that ranch has already been checked out.

Cardenas ain't there."

"He's there now. Take my word for it, soldier. He's there." The Dodge

farted and shivered and started to chug, and Waller jumped behind the

wheel, shirt plastered to his back. I reached for my cigars as we

lurched

forward, tires spinning in the dirt. I knew the fat uncle would stagger

the door, rubbing his wrists and staring at us as we drove away, and

when

he did I waved and tossed him a cigar. Same as he had before, he just

let

it fall to the dirt. Lay there like a turd. Don't know when they've got

good, these Mexicans.

As we drove I remembered the gunfight that awaited us. I told the men

exactly what to expect. They looked at me like I was crazy, but they

listened. Hell, they were good soldiers. They didn't care whether I was

crazy, they just wanted someone capable to tell them what to do.

Before, there had been some question about who actually killed Cardenas

not in the papers, which gave me all the credit, of course, but in the

ranks, since there was such a volley it was hard to tell whose .45 had

done the job. We hadn't even identified Cardenas until after it was all

over. I'd wasted most of my bullets on some damn horse-rustling nobody.

Not this time. If I had to live the next thirty years knowing I was

doomed

to a worse death than Hitler, then goddamn it, I was going to make use

my other knowledge, too. Shouting to the other cars as we drove along,

described Cardenas and his horse, and made it clear: He's mine.

San Miguelito was just the same. Mostly. Same sun like a hot rough hand

squeezing your temples. Same four bowlegged hombres outside the gate

skinning a cow, hide coming off in jerks and pops. They didn't even

look

up when the shooting started, when the three riders burst out of the

gate

and tried to outrun the Dodges.

That silver saddle made a damned impressive display. Hard to miss. I

fired

two shots, and he hit the ground like one of Caesar's winesacks.

"BANDIT

KILLER," the headlines had said, and they'd say it again.

As we searched the hacienda, Cardenas' wife and mother stood in the

hallway beside a new Victrola and its crate, stared at us. The missus,

about Beatrice's age, rocked a baby in her arms. As I passed, the

granny

spat on me. I shot the lock off the chapel door and kicked it in to

find

three old ladies praying in the corner, holding up their hands to God.

surprises ... although: Hadn't the baby been awake before? Now its

bundled

silence made me suspicious. "Excuse me, senorita," I whispered, as I

gently pulled back the blanket. It was, indeed, a baby: little wrinkled

face, thick black hair plastered over its forehead, sound asleep. I

teared

up. I always had a soft spot for babies. "Congratulations," I told its

mama, and the baby's granny spat on me again. More guts than some

American

boys, sad to say. More guts than that yellow bastard in Sicily would

have,

so many years in the future.

There was one more difference at San Miguelito, a big one. Before, I

had

climbed onto the roof to make sure no one was waiting up there to

ambush

us as we left. No one was, but I stepped on a rotten place and fell

through up to my armpits -- not a prime fighting position! Damned

embarrassing, too. This time I walked a different route, gave the

rotten

place a wide berth, and kept an eye out for similar dark patches.

I was so intent on not falling through that I let a gap-toothed

Villista

get the drop on me. He darted around a corner, pistol in hand, and

Adams

shot him almost before I could look up.

As Adams searched the bandit's pockets, I stood there like a fool,

dumbfounded for the first and last time in the Mexican campaign. "He

wasn't supposed to be there," I said.

"Rats're liable to pop out from anywhere," Adams said. He flipped a

gold

piece into the air, caught it. "Good weight. Don't let it rattle you,

lieutenant," he added, and I resolved to give him a week's latrine duty

for that. In addition to his commendation, of course. Fair's fair.

The rest went pretty much as before. As we drove off, about fifty

Villistas came galloping up the ravine, and we fired a shot or two, but

they didn't chase us far. Wasn't much of a race. God, the speed of the

motored units to come! What Jackson could have done with them in the

Shenandoah, I thought as dust billowed around me -- or Napoleon on the

steppes! I rubbed my shoulder, remembered my last backward look at the

torches and spires of Moscow, felt again the Russian numbness that

always

lurked somewhere in my bones, even as my cheeks began to blister in

this

damnable Mexican sun. I tugged my goggles out a few inches and poked my

face. Beneath my eyes was a sore borderline I could trace with my

gloved

finger. I let the goggles snap back into place. "Soldiers never fight

where it's comfortable," I told Adams and Waller. "Think of all those

Marines sweating it out in Haiti, or in Panama. Why, if they sent us to

the French Riviera, it'd be a hellhole soon enough. How fast will this

thing go, anyway?"

All the camp business faltered and got quiet as our little procession

drove in. We took it slow, giving everybody plenty of time to look, and

many fell in with us, walking alongside. Cardenas' lolling head on the

hood seemed to return the soldiers' stares. By the time we hauled up

the

brakes and let the engines die in front of the command tent, dozens of

doughboys were standing around, whistling and muttering the Old Man did

and nothing else I could hear. Two or three had potatoes and paring

knives

in hand. Never again, I thought, no more of that for me. Then Black

Jack

stepped out, standing ramrod straight as usual, a mustache for a mouth.

The men and I stood in the autos and saluted, and then I stepped down

and

stood at attention and said, "We've brought in Cardenas, sir."

Pershing nodded. "So you say, Lieutenant. Which?"

I grabbed Cardenas by the hair and lifted. His eyes were black with

blood,

and his face was a little burnt from the hood. Pershing acted as if he

didn't know what to do with his hands, finally put them behind his back

and said, "Yes. That's him."

I let the head down gently so as not to dent the auto. Pershing looked

the other two bodies strapped across the other two hoods. He stepped a

few

paces toward the back of the automobiles and nodded when he saw the

sacks

of grain.

"General, there's a fourth bandit, but he's stowed in the back. No

room,

you see. He's the one who would have shot me, if Corporal Adams hadn't

got

him first."

Adams smiled and nodded, then looked mortified, as if he feared smiling

and nodding were uncalled-for.

"Good job, Corporal, good job, Lieutenant, good job, all of you,"

Pershing

said, turning back toward his tent. "I'm sure commendations will be in

order -- and if the Army gave medals for dramatics," he murmured as he

passed me, close enough for me to smell the jalapenos on his breath,

"then

you'd certainly have a chestful of those, wouldn't you, Patton? Report

after you bury them. And Patton -- you're lucky you remembered the

maize."

How could a letter-perfect salute look so perfunctory?

I stood at attention and held my salute as he stalked away. I had been

thinking in the Dodge about the strange opportunity afforded me, and now

wondered again, as I watched my idol stride back into the command tent,

why I had been given another chance. Did Pershing have anything to do

with

it? Did Villa? I thought not. Even in childhood I had been convinced

that

my destiny was to lead a great army in a great battle in a great war,

perhaps even the greatest war in the history of the world. That had

proven

true once, and I believed it would prove true again. No, I knew my

destiny

would not be achieved on some dusty road in Mexico, chasing the minions

a murdering border bandit. My destiny lay where it always had lain, in

Europe, against the Nazis. But how much could I change along the way,

and

could I change it for the better?

Pershing vanished into the shadowy triangle, and the flap snapped down.

Behind me a Dodge backfired, and my head jerked as if struck: Mannheim,

December 9, 1945. Hap Gay said, "Sit tight." At ten miles an hour, the

loudest sound I ever heard. Silence. My head! Oh Jesus my back! The

Cadillac's glass partition was spiderwebbed with gore. I sagged

sideways,

blood in my eyes, tried to wipe it away. Will it away. My arms wouldn't

move. I couldn't sit up. My head lolled on Hap's shoulder. "Hell," I

moaned. Drool on my chin. "Oh, hell."

The wind kicked up, blowing that acrid needling Mexican dust into my

nose

and throat. Coughing, I forced myself back to the present, back to

Mexico,

1916, thinking: Even if I can't live a better life, I damn well can die

better death.

I dropped my salute, whirled, and bellowed for the ditchdiggers.

Before,

they had been found asleep in the back of the mess tent after a

half-hour

search. This time I had them front and center in five minutes flat, and

they shouldered their shovels with wary glances, wondering how in the

hell

I knew.

That night, alone in my tent, I sat, knees wide apart, hunched over the

upended trunk that served as a makeshift desk. I opened one of the

tablets

I'd been carrying since West Point: class notes, battle scenarios,

quotes

from Clausewitz, snatches of poetry, pledges to myself. "I hope I have

got

enough sence to be kiled in a great victory and be born between the

ranks

in a military funeral and morned by friend and foe alike," how old was

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Andy Duncan - Fortitude

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