Margaret from Maine (9781101602690)

A PLUME BOOK

MARGARET FROM MAINE

 

Dr. Ted Taigen

 

JOSEPH MONNINGER
lives with his wife in a converted barn near the Baker River in New Hampshire.

Margaret from Maine

A Novel

Joseph Monninger

A PLUME BOOK

PLUME

Published by the Penguin Group

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Penguin Books Ltd., Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

 

First published by Plume, a member of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

 

 

Copyright © Joseph Monninger, 2012

All rights reserved

 

REGISTERED TRADEMARK—MARCA REGISTRADA

 

ISBN 978-1-101-60269-0

CIP data available

 

Printed in the United States of America

Set in Horley Old Style MT Std • Designed by Eve L. Kirch

 

Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise), without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.

 

PUBLISHER'S NOTE

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

 

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This novel is dedicated in loving memory of my mother, Mary Deborah Brennan Monninger.

When lilacs last in the dooryard bloom'd

And the great star early droop'd in the western sky in the night,

I mourn'd—and yet shall mourn with ever-returning spring.

—Walt Whitman

Lilacs

Chapter One

T
he last sound Maine Guardsman Sgt. Thomas Kennedy heard was the whine of a mosquito. At least he thought it was the last sound, although what he thought and what actually occurred had little to do with each other. He raised his right hand to brush it away, conscious of the heat under his helmet, the dry, sweltering sweat that soaked his uniform. And now a mosquito.

As his hand lifted, he saw a glint—just a fracture of light—and he glanced down at Private First Class Edmond Johnson, who happened to be changing the back rear tire of the team's Humvee. In that instant, many things did not make sense.

What were they doing here, in Afghanistan, to begin with? How had he come all this way—from Bangor, Maine—to be standing beside a beached Humvee, beside a private named Johnson who had arrived at this point in time from Solon, Maine? And where, after all, had the flash of light come from? They were in a dry, featureless plain, and the mountains, arguably the most rugged mountains in the world, were too far away to provide a sniper with sufficient height. So how could there be a flash of light, gunfire, when all the world lay flat and even and empty?

That's when it occurred to Sgt. Thomas Kennedy that a mosquito is not always a mosquito.

Because he felt his hand shatter, the bones flying apart under his skin, his cheek exploding so that he tasted teeth and blood in the same instant.
Oh,
he thought. Just that. What they had feared, what they had all feared, had finally arrived. They were pinned down and a mosquito is not a mosquito and he turned and spread his arms—ridiculously like a crossing guard—and tried to protect Private Johnson.

The second bullet went through his shoulder and he only felt it spin him. It didn't hurt. It felt like a bird. Someone yelled at him to get down, but Johnson still kneeled behind him, completely exposed, and Sgt. Kennedy spread his arms to expand his protection, and he knew that was a bad idea. He hardly even
knew
Johnson. The kid had arrived a month and a half ago from Basic, and he was supposed to be an excellent mechanic, a diesel engine mechanic for Freightliner, but taking a bullet for him was another matter. But Sgt. Kennedy was fourth-generation Maine, and it was part of his Yankee nature to use things up, so it made no sense to him to let two people get shot when one was already plugged. It would be like punching a hole in a second bucket when the first was already punched, and so when the third bullet hit him, in the right knee, he figured he was done for anyway.

He kept standing, shielding Johnson.

Strangely, Sgt. Kennedy knew, absolutely knew, that what he was doing would be called brave. And that was simply curious. Because it didn't feel brave. It all felt stupid, and he thought of Margaret, the new baby, the dairy cows plodding quietly into their milking stations, and he wondered why the sniper couldn't see how the entire thing was absurd. Why were they shooting at each other? He had no idea what an Afghan wanted in this world, but he figured that most humans wanted to live a peaceful life, and so as he held out his arms to protect Johnson behind him, he could not imagine that the sniper would not cease. Couldn't the sniper put the situation together? They were just grunts, just stupid soldiers doing what they were told, and if the milk prices hadn't fallen through the floor, Sgt. Kennedy would still be on the sweet dairy farm in Maine, watching his herd. But the farm had debt, and the military promised to help, and now here he was with a man shooting at him.

Sgt. Kennedy held up his hand to tell the shooter to stop, but instead he felt the fourth bullet go into his shin.

And then it became a perverse game.

See if you can knock me down.

Sgt. Kennedy was a big man. He had played center for Millinocket High School, All-County selection, and he had hands as strong as any man he had ever met. His strength was always a
fact
. He knew it existed inside him, in a deep, quiet place, and he had scuff-ups with stronger-looking kids, more-muscled men, but Sgt. Kennedy had always come out on top. Maine strength, they called it Downeast. It came, he felt, from growing up on a farm, handling cattle, pushing and shoving the goofy bastards every single day of his life. He had lifted more calves than he could count, had engaged in wrestling matches with Holsteins, their warm flanks pressing him into the stall walls until he had pushed back, used his bulk and strength and shoved.
Moooooooo over,
was the joke they used on the farm.

And so that. That was his strength.

The last bullet, the one that did him, as they say, shattered his spine at the spot where neck and backbone joined. He fell like a Slinky. So much for seeing if they could knock him down. He went slack, his body piling up on top of itself, and vaguely he heard more bullets ricocheting off the Humvee. So it turned out that the mosquito was not the last sound after all, but he didn't make a conscious correction. In the last nervous jolt he would ever know on this earth, he remembered a fall day right before he enlisted. It had been a perfect autumn day, no insects, and the farm ran all the way to the pine forest. And he had seen Margaret walking toward him, her hair blowing in the wind, and the backs of the cattle catching the sunlight. It was a happy memory. The white farmhouse shone in the sunlight, the red barn beside it, and Margaret raised her hand to wave. And then, like a movie ending abruptly, the image fizzled and his spine snapped in two, and Sgt. Kennedy of Bangor, Maine, fell into the puddle of himself and became a brown box of meat stored forever, an electric hum not dead but no longer viably alive.