I tossed one of the captain figures up in the air and caught him, not the one that looked slightly like me, the other one. The one who had been wearing the wrong uniform, the one who had lost, I used to feel sorry for him, now I felt sorry for me. He was still living in comfort back home and he had been given a chance to redeem his reputation in battle. The real loses had been taken by the winner, I was the one in semi self-imposed exile on the frontier. Back when I still heard the news of the world I used to hear his name every once in a while, he hadn’t even fallen into obscurity, I had though. I wondered if he ever thought about me, the man who had accepted his sword before the gates of his fort. I wondered if he ever thought about getting his revenge and almost wished that he did. Of course he wouldn’t do it though; it wouldn’t be gentlemanly to attack someone just because they defeated you in a battle. The war was over now, it had been for years, decades, most people had moved on.
I was just putting the finishing touches on an Indian scout when my neighbor drove up in his wagon. I didn’t give him the chance to knock on my door, I went outside to great him right away, and give him his money. You’d think that since I was hiring him he’d give me a little respect as his employer but there you’d be wrong.
“Never stops amazing me, the great captain of the war hiding from his creditors way out here. Kinda funny when you think about it, you needing a common soldier like me for everything.” I found myself wanting to punch the gloating man in front of me but I needed him. March an army hundreds of miles, underfed, through swamps and across rivers, take a fort manned by a superior force from the enemy, and end up a nobody. I tossed my money to my neighbor, helped him unload my stuff from his wagon, and closed my door on his still boasting face without saying a word.
I went to the box I kept my money in under my bed. It was tucked way back; I didn’t trust my neighbor to not outright steal from me if he knew where my money was. It was depressing to think of how much fuller that box would be if I hadn’t financed a lot of that final campaign on the fort with my own money. Of course if I hadn’t used my own money we wouldn’t have won but my patriotism had waned as the government had continued to ignore my requests for reimbursement. I also wouldn’t be living in this cabin and therefore wouldn’t have the box under my bed. I might have even had a real bank account, living up to my well born family standard rather then be the one they didn’t talk about. Alright so I hadn’t exactly spent my own money on that last expedition, I had spent other people’s money with the promise to pay it back. Not one night do I not regret that.
As the sun set I fell into bed. If I went to bed early then I wouldn’t eat dinner, thereby saving food, and I wouldn’t use up so many candles. I buy my candles from the neighbor’s wife. I think sometimes that I keep that family in work so much that they only pretend to farm. It can’t be helped though. Even if I save my money for the rest of my life I will never have enough to pay for the bills of a whole army. I wonder if when I die they will at least give me a burial with the honors I am due, I doubt it. I’ll probably be buried by the neighbor and his boy behind the cabin. What an appalling thought.
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