Wynne's War Read Online Free Page A

from all over the stands, and the price is pushed to nine, nine-fifty, a thousand, sold for a thousand dollars to the man in the silver Stetson. And Elijah turns and rides back down the concrete tunnel past the owners and handlers, dismounts the horse, and quickly mounts the next, a nervous bay he must lean and speak to, and he feels her gentle and soften between his legs—“Now that’s a good girl, that is very good.”
    Afterward, lying in bed with hair damp from his shower, Elijah would stare at the ceiling with his heart pounding high in his chest, still feeling their pulse in his legs and the articulated working of their spines, and he is in absolute love, this boy of thirteen years, father dead, abandoned by his mother, you’d certainly never know. His grandfather is a war hero and his grandmother devoted and doting, and the horse beneath him is every horse that ever was, eyes like stars and a coat like shining brass, galloping up, up, up, out onto the pastures of the night.
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    He went up the short flight of steps, past the guards, and into the aluminum-sided building that rested off the ground on concrete slabs. He’d grown up in a double-wide of similar manufacture, but this prefab had been built to military specifications and its roof was rigged with a satellite antenna and radar and electronic senders and receivers for which he knew neither the names nor purpose. The temperature outside was 107 degrees when he’d checked it after lunch, but this building was kept a consistent 63. All of the soldiers wore jackets, and a few of the women had stocking caps pulled over their headsets. He dug his ID out of his pants pocket, showed it to a sergeant seated behind the sign-in desk, and was directed to a row of what looked like the carrels in his high school library. There were four of them, and each was equipped with a computer and telephone. He went to the first nook, pulled out the chair, and sat. He spent a few moments collecting himself and then reached for the phone.
    He heard the metallic click of the satellite hookup and then the sound of the digital ring. When she picked up and said hello, her voice was surprisingly crisp and he had to steady himself all over again.
    â€œTeresa,” he said.
    â€œHello?”
    â€œAunt Teresa? Can you hear me?”
    â€œElijah?” she said. “Hello?”
    â€œIt’s me,” he told her.
    She said, “Hold on a second, hon,” and he could hear static. “Let me get to this other phone.”
    He brushed a hand across his face and leaned against the desktop, propping himself on his elbows. There was another click, and he heard her ask her husband to hang up the extension.
    â€œElijah?” she said. “You there?”
    â€œYes, ma’am. You hear me all right?”
    â€œI hear you good. Can you hear me?”
    â€œLoud and clear.”
    She laughed nervously. “We’re building a room onto the south end of the house, and that phone in the den—you can’t hear anything on it. Are you home? Did they send you back home?”
    â€œNo, no. I’m still over here. I—”
    â€œOh, Lord Jesus. Are you hurt? You’re hurt, aren’t you?”
    â€œNo,” said Russell, “I’m fine.”
    â€œNo, you’re not, either. I can hear it in your voice. You better tell me what happened.”
    â€œIt’s nothing,” he said. “I yanked out my shoulder a little. That’s not even why I called.”
    â€œYou’re not hurt?”
    â€œNo, ma’am.”
    â€œYou wouldn’t story to me?”
    â€œNo, ma’am. You know I wouldn’t. They’re just assigning me to another post.”
    â€œDid you get the shirts we sent?”
    â€œI did.”
    â€œDo they fit?”
    â€œThey fit real good.”
    â€œI was worried they wouldn’t fit.”
    â€œNo,” he told her. “They’re perfect.”
    â€œAnd you