Generations

by jfclover

*~*~*

Metal-framed beds line the gray, cracked walls as far as I can see.  Mine is third from the end, and from what I can tell, there are no vacancies.  War has put half of my battalion into the hospital ward in Chenonceau, France, and I’m grateful to be alive. 

War isn’t what I expected, but I didn’t listen.  I was too eager to join up, too anxious to run off and become a hero.  Pa begged me to stay home and work alongside him, but my namesake understood, said he often thought he should’ve fought the war of his generation, but he remained at home on the Ponderosa with his Pa and brothers instead. 

Gramps is a wise man, and before I enlisted, he had a few words to say.  “War is war, Son.  Whether it’s in your own backyard or halfway around the world.  Young men die, and the politicians bask in the glory.  War is a waste, a damnable waste.”  But he would never say no to my leaving home to fight the ongoing war of my generation.

*~*

The army doctor says the wound will heal and that I’ll be sent back to the States on the next ship leaving port.  My life as a soldier ended with one single shell from a Gewehr 98, the rifle used by every frontline German soldier. 

Some would say wrong place, wrong time, but I’m a proud soldier, and combat is combat.  My grandfather will understand.  I’ll go back to working the ranch as though I’ve never been away, and he won’t ask any questions.  He’ll know when the time is right. That’s just his way.

When I was a young boy, and if I prodded long enough, Gramps would let a story slip.  My favorites always included guns and gunfights, the rough and tumble world that had been sentenced to death by a more civilized attitude, were unique to a boy like me.  When he talked about the golden age, when the wilds of Nevada was a different place and that the Code of the West ranked high, I was all ears.

“Start at the beginning,” I’d say.  “Tell me about the Code.”

With wild white hair flowing nearly to his shoulders, Gramps would tilt back on two legs of his chair and cross his arms over his chest.  Every story was a joy to hear, but there was one that always stuck with me. 

“I was old enough to know better,” he said, “but when a gunslinger challenged me to a gunfight, I should’ve laughed in his face.  I should’ve walked out of the saloon and never looked back, but I was too prideful to pull off anything that sensible, and I let him goad me into a gunfight.”  Gramps looked me straight in the eye.  “Over a spilled beer.”

“A spilled beer?  Are you serious?”

“I sure am, and let me tell you.  Your great-grandpa wasn’t happy with me at all.”

“I bet.”

Gramps smiled at the memory.  “I don’t think he’d ever been that upset with me before, but at the time, I didn’t think I had a choice.”

“But you did.  Right?”

“You always have a choice, Son.”

“Yeah.  That’s what Pa says.”

“You’re pa’s a smart man.” 

Pa and Gramps didn’t always agree.  They were both strong men with strong opinions, but I wasn’t interested in opinions.  I wanted to drag any old memories out of Gramps that he was willing to share.  He wasn’t eager to discuss his younger days, but when I’d talk him into taking me fishing, I could often get him to open up about the wild west, which I was happy to call the days of his youth.  He lived through the early days of Virginia City, and of Nevada becoming a state, and it was never a big deal to him, but times change, and for me, he told of adventures of days gone by.  Adventures that would never be possible again.

“How many times were you thrown in jail?”

Gramps rolled his eyes at the question.  “I don’t have enough fingers to count.”

“That many?”

“Yes, but I was always innocent.”

“That’s what they all say.”

“Yeah, but in my case, it was true.”

“How many men did you kill?  How many notches on your gun belt?”

Seeing the flared nostrils and pinched lips, I knew I’d gone too far.  He didn’t like the question, and since the fish weren’t biting anyway, he pulled his line from the water and stood.  “It was a different time.  I’ve told you that before.”

“I don’t mean to pry, but—”

“Yes, you do, Son.  There are things a man doesn’t talk about.”

“And that’s one?”

“Yes.”  His eyes were sharp and penetrated clear through to my soul.  “It’s not something I’m proud of.”

When he left our favorite spot and moved down the stream to fish from a good-sized boulder, I realized the conversation was over, and if I were smart, I would never ask that question again.

*~*

The hospital mattress isn’t the best.  All the lumps are in the wrong places, but I haven’t complained.  Why bother?  I doubt anyone will care about such things.  I should be grateful that I survived the battle, not going on about a well-used bed. 

I’ve been fussed over since the day I was born.  I never wanted for anything, but I wouldn’t say I was spoiled, just one of the lucky ones, and I owe it all to my great-grandfather, who came west close to a century ago.  He started the ball rolling, and three generations later, we owe him for much of what we have today.

Although I’m an only child, I never thought of it as a hindrance.  When Pa had to be away on ranch business, Gramps kept me entertained, and with a nudge or two, I’d get a couple more stories that had nothing to do with ranching or cattle or mining or timber.  Like the time he and his brother brought home a circus elephant.  That was another time that Great Grandpa had a conniption fit.  It seems he had a few when Gramps was a young man, and it seems that my grandpa was usually the reason why.

The stories Gramps tells of him and his brother, Hoss, keep me laughing until my sides nearly split.  I wish I could’ve known the man, but he died before Gramps married, lost that wife in a fire, and married again.  Soon after, my father was born, and I came into the world almost twenty years later—at the turn of the century.

The Cartwright name lives on, just like my great-grandpa intended.  We’re a long, uninterrupted lineage of men.  I have cousins I’ve never met.  Three more men who are older than me but live too far away to visit.  As I found out after I enlisted, the world is becoming smaller all the time, so there’s a chance that before I die, I’ll meet my long-lost kin.  My pa and my grandfather haven’t met my great uncle Adam’s grown sons either.  It would be the trip of a lifetime.  Maybe someday.

I’ve learned enough about war and the reason men like me think they should puff out their chest and march around a parade ground and then board a ship to a faraway land.  And when I return to the Ponderosa, I can tell Gramps that he was right, that war is a damnable waste.  And, if I’m lucky enough to live a full life, I’ll be able to tell my sons and grandsons the truth, just like Gramps told me.  But like my grandpa, I won’t hold them back.

Men don’t fight wars in their own backyard.  They search them out and travel thousands of miles to get themselves killed, but I’m a lucky man.  My wound won’t be the end of me, and I’ll have a story to tell when I return home.  I’m told that the USS Leviathan has docked, and I will board tomorrow morning.  Maybe I’ll be home and driving up the mountain to the Ponderosa, and to Pa and my namesake, Grandpa Joe, before the holidays.  Seeing the men I cared for most in the world on Christmas Day would be the best gift of all.

The End

2025