Blind Tribute by Mari Anne Christie

Author:Mari Anne Christie
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Historical Fiction, Civil War, Journalism
ISBN: 978-1-370-30697-8
Publisher: Whaley Publishing
Published: 2017-06-17T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Forty

* * *

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

April 19, 1863

The unloaded gun clattered onto the hard-packed dirt at the far end of the outdoor shooting gallery—the third such incident since Harry and Dax had first walked through the sporting club door, and the primary reason Harry wasn’t yet allowed to use bullets. It wasn’t the weight of the pistol stymieing him this time, but rather, his still-painful hands, his two missing fingers, and his belligerent need to be right, even about his own incessant whining.

Harry had visited eight times already, but his trainer hadn’t made much headway re-teaching Harry how to use a pistol, rifle, foil, saber, or knife, not to mention the hand-to-hand fighting he had promised as Harry’s scars eventually toughened up.

The lessons were demoralizing, as if Harry were a ten-year-old first learning how to hold a gun and knife. The harder he tried to use his hands, the more impossible he proclaimed the task. But he was determined to never be caught unawares by an attacker again. Dax shared the sentiment, citing his own need to win any bar fight he might encounter.

Harry picked up the gun again.

The shooting gallery and a gymnasium were separated by a large lot that comprised two lawn tennis courts, an archery range, and a field for team sport. Harry couldn’t see into the gymnasium through its shortened, second-story Corinthian windows, which had been designed to minimize the noise of the guns and outdoor games.

That structure enclosed the less dangerous exercises, some of which Harry would join in later: calisthenics, gymnastics, running, even weight lifting once his hands were in better order. These activities, to the knowledge of the Quaker girls, were the only reason for Harry’s attendance at the club. Pacifistic as they were, they would be horrified to think he was relearning to use violence at expert level.

But upstairs, a man could engage in any of the combat sports: blade fighting, wrestling, pugilism, and other interpersonal warfare—with the right incentive, the least noble variations. Some of these lessons and matches had spilled out onto the broad lawn this afternoon, to take advantage of the sunny day.

Harry tried not to watch Dax outside the building to his left, running knife drills on a straw man with a different instructor. Harry would have been jealous of Dax, working on anything but shooting, except for the fact that Harry couldn’t hold a knife any better than the pistol. Dax, by contrast, hardly seemed to notice the muscle stripped from his forearm by another man’s hook.

Dax was left-handed, but had never been trained out of it because he’d never gone to school, so a partially paralyzed right arm wasn’t the tragedy it could have been. His larger problem was depth perception, given his missing eye, a problem Harry shared. Dax had a balance issue only as long as it took to lean to the right, and he’d quickly learned the maneuver Harry was watching him employ with the instructor: holding his arm as though in pain, so he could use his infirmity as a trap.

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