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He didn’t want to think about this. Couldn’t she understand that? He didn’t want to be haunted by it. He absolutely couldn’t talk about it. He sat at his small table, head in his hands, but the memories assaulted him nonetheless.
There was no such thing as a routine mission in Fallujah. Ian’s squad hadn’t seen much action, but that day they hung tight against buildings while they did their door-to-door search for insurgents. The street was nearly deserted; a couple of women stood in doorways, watching them warily. Then it hit fast and hard. There were a couple of sudden explosions—a car bomb and grenade—and then a breakout of sniper fire. Ian saw one of his marines fly through the air, catapulted by the explosion. The second the noise subsided a little, Ian saw that it was Bobby who was down. He quickly assessed the rest of his squad; they’d taken cover and were returning fire. Bobby, however, got a double whammy—he’d been thrown probably twenty feet by the force of the explosion and by the time Ian got to him, there’d been a couple of gunshot wounds as well—head and torso.
Bobby looked up at him and said in a hoarse whisper, “Take cover, Sarge.”
And Ian had replied, “Fuck off. I’m getting you outta here.” Ian scooped him up, and right that second, he knew how bad it was going to turn out. He knew that fast. Bobby was limp as a hundred and eighty pound bag of sand. Carrying him over his shoulder, Ian got him behind the wall of a decimated building, called for a medic, an EMT who could administer battlefield first-aid. Ian put his hand over Bobby’s head wound in an attempt to stanch the bleeding and waited for help.
The medic who traveled with their squad finally came and opened up Bobby’s BDUs, the desert camouflage battle dress. He rolled him carefully. “It’s through and through,” he said of the torso wound, applying a compress to stop the bleeding. “We won’t know how much damage till we get a closer look. His vitals are hanging in there.”
“He’s gonna make it,” Ian said, though Bobby was out cold.
“We’re not going anywhere fast,” the medic said, getting out his gauze and tape to close up the head wound. “We can’t get a chopper in this close. We’ll have to carry the wounded or use litters.”
“Just keep him going till we get transport,” Ian demanded. But the medic was called to another wounded marine and Ian knew it was down to him to do everything he could to keep Bobby alive, to get him to that helicopter. Bobby was unconscious and barely breathing.
It wasn’t that long, but it seemed a lifetime, before the medic’s radio alerted them to a helicopter a few blocks away in a safe zone. Ian knew in his gut that Bobby wasn’t getting out of this okay, but he refused to think about it. “You’re going to be okay, buddy,” he kept saying. “You stay with me, I’ll get you outta here.”
The minute sniper fire seemed to have abated, Ian hefted Bobby into his arms and began to run down the dusty, bullet-riddled streets of Fallujah toward the chopper and the paramedics who had better equipment than what was available in the field. He took sniper fire in the thigh, but it was muscle not bone, and he ran through the pain. He took another one across the face, but he still couldn’t feel the pain. He felt the fire on his cheek. Then he saw the corner of the building on the other side of which would be medical transport.
He got Bobby to the chopper, where the rescue crew took over. He tried to go back to his squad, when one of the medics snagged his sleeve and said, “Hold up there, Sarge. Let’s have a look.”
Ian looked down. He was covered with blood. He couldn’t tell his from Bobby’s. Right then, his leg throbbed and his face burned; his vision blurred from blood running into his eye.
“Whoa, Sarge—you’re not going anywhere. We gotta look at—”
“Take care of him,” Ian said sternly. “I’ll be fine.”
“Everyone’s getting taken care of Sarge,” the medic said, taking the scissors to his pants, cutting them up to his thigh to expose a bleeding hole.
“Oh,” Ian said. “Damn.” And he swayed a little.
He sat while the medic attended to his face wounds—a cut across his eyebrow and a flesh wound that ran down the length of his check. While this was going on, while they were waiting for a couple more wounded marines, Ian watched as they worked on Bobby.
One of the medics said, “No casualties today.”
Little did they know …
The chopper finally lifted off and headed for the nearest camp hospital. There was a full surgical setup in tents and hastily erected buildings. That’s where Ian was separated from Bobby. Ian was taken into a treatment area while Bobby went straight to surgery. Some young doctor had shaved off Ian’s eyebrow to get a nice, clean stitch on the laceration; the nurse informed him it might never grow back. By the time Ian had a bandage and some crutches, Bobby had been stabilized and airlifted to Germany.
Ian stayed in Iraq. His injuries left some ugly scars but his recovery was relatively short. While Ian was behind the action for two months, he wrote letters to Bobby’s wife, letters telling her he was sure Bobby would be fine. Marcie went immediately to Germany and wrote back to Ian. Then she followed Bobby to Washington D.C.—to the Walter Reed Medical Center, and they wrote some more.
While Ian went back into action, Bobby went from Germany to Walter Reed to a VA hospital in Texas, then home to his wife. Ian kept up the correspondence—he heard from Marcie all the time and answered her every letter. She said things like, “He’s still pretty much unresponsive, but they’re working with him in physical therapy,” and “He’s not on a respirator or anything,” and, “I swear, Ian, he smiled at me today.” She said there was some paralysis and they feared brain damage, not from the bullet wound but from brain swelling. “Feared,” she had written. And “some paralysis.”
It was a few months later when she wrote to Ian again, “We have to face it—he’s not going to recover. He’s paralyzed from the neck down and he’s conscious but unresponsive.” The news hit Ian in the gut like a torpedo. He reread the previous letters; there wasn’t a hint of doom, yet the facts were there. A combination of his denial and her hope had kept the inevitable bad news at bay.
And then Marcie wrote, “I’m so relieved to have him home.”
Ian was given medals for saving Bobby’s life. Every day he asked himself why he should get medals for that, for saving a man to live in a dead body.
Since Ian had the basic information about his friend, he thought he was prepared for the visit he would pay when he was next stateside on leave. Marcie was so excited to see him, to throw her arms around him and thank him. He wasn’t sure what he had expected, but it sure as hell hadn’t been what he’d seen. Just from earlier photos, he could tell Marcie had become thinner and more pale, even more fragile-looking. She was so tiny, so frail.
And Bobby? The man he’d seen did not resemble his friend. This man was a wasted, emaciated version of Bobby—his musculature gone, staring off at nothing, being fed through a tube, not responding to his young wife or his best friend. Bobby was gone, completely gone, yet his heart pumped and his lungs spontaneously filled with air. It was a travesty. And Ian had accepted medals for that?
* * *
Ian opened his eyes and they felt gritty. Sandy. He’d been literally transported to the past, a thing he’d been running from for years. He’d never been entirely sure if what happened next was due to the whole Iraq experience, or to the events that changed Bobby’s life so irrevocably. Whatever it was, it came to an ugly end when he got back from Iraq, a mess, his head all screwed up. He’d visited Bobby for probably less than fifteen minutes and it devastated him to see what he’d done—saving Bobby to live a life like that. He called off his wedding, tearing Shelly to shreds. He reported back for duty, not the same stalwart man, but a wreck who was impossibly short tempered. There was a phone call from Marcie’s sister saying it would be nice if Ian could at least be in touch with her—she was up against so much with Bobby, which added guilt to his growing list of demons.
Ian suddenly couldn’t stay out of trouble. Rather than being an example, he was a problem. He ended up spending a couple of nights in jail for stupid, random fights, and his father told him he was never so goddamned ashamed of him in his life. Ian’s response to that was to screw up enough so the Corps suggested it was time for him to exit and see if he’d be better as a civilian. He couldn’t face any of it. He had let Bobby down, disgraced his father, shattered and abandoned his woman. And he hadn’t been there for Marcie, who deserved better from him. He just wandered off, trying to figure out his head, but the task proved to be impossible.
He didn’t want to see Marcie now. He didn’t want to relive all that. There was no way he could apologize enough, no way to undo what he’d done. She should go away, let him figure out how to coexist alone with his monsters, someplace where he wouldn’t do any harm. He’d found some contentment here; there was nothing to be gained by going over the details again. God knew, he’d been over the details too many times, often without meaning to.
He had such horrible guilt. If Bobby was condemned to wasted life, why should he just pick up where he left off and thrive? Couldn’t, he couldn’t. But he could avoid hearing all the details of the traumatic last few years.
He looked at his watch. It was ten o’clock and he had to pee. He’d been in some flashback for more than a couple of hours. He seriously considered using the small pot he kept for emergencies, but it was time to see if she’d gone while he was in that other world.
He put on his jacket to take a trip out back, hoping beyond hope that when he opened the door, that little Volkswagen would be gone.
But damn, it was right there—covered with a thin layer of snow. It made him furious and he let out a loud, scary roar. But there was no response from within the car. He banged on the window. “Hey! You! Get outta here! Just go home!” Still, there was nothing from inside. He put his big hands on the top of the little car and began to rock it, shake it. When it settled, there was no movement, no sound.
Shit, he thought. It’s freezing. She wouldn’t fall asleep in there while the temperature dropped and the little car was covered with snow? No one would be that stupid. He pulled open the passenger door. She was gone.
“Goddamn it!” he cursed, turning around in a circle. “Goddamn you, Marcie! Where the hell are you?”
The night was silent. The snow drifted lazily to the ground. Then he heard the vague squeak of hinges and he looked across the dark. The outhouse door was open, drifting in the gentle breeze.
Dread colder than the winter sky filled him, and he ran to the little hut. She was slumped in the open doorway, her upper body inside and her legs covered with snow. Holy Jesus, she’d been like that long enough to have a dusting of snow on her legs.
He didn’t even think—he lifted her into his arms quickly and put his lips against her forehead to judge her body temperature. She was cold as ice. He ran to the cabin with her in his arms, conscious of the fact that she wasn’t stiff, wasn’t frozen solid, and he did something he hadn’t done in so long—he prayed. Oh God, I didn’t mean to roar like that—I just thought it best for both of us if she went away! Please, let her be okay! I’ll do anything … anything … When he got her inside, he put her on the couch, then rushed to put a couple more logs into the woodstove.
Then he hurried back to her and checked for a pulse. She was still okay, though hypothermic enough to induce unconsciousness. He knew what he had to do and started getting her out of her cold, wet clothes. First the quilted vest, then the boots and jeans. At least they’d been thick denim jeans and solid leather boots; it might’ve saved her from frostbite. She flopped weakly as he pulled her sweater over her head. Then he threw off his own jacket, ripped off his shirt, tore off his boots and shed his pants. He covered her small body with his and warmed her, skin to skin, holding himself up so as not to crush her with his weight.
He turned her face so that it lay gently against his shoulder. After minutes passed, he could feel the chill leaving her body. His arms trembled from holding his nearly two hundred pounds off her, keeping flesh on flesh, and the strangest image came back to him. Drop and give me twenty! And twenty! And twenty! God, how many pushups had he given, then demanded ….
He warmed her for an hour, while at the same time, the woodstove heated up the cabin. Her breath was soft and even on his shoulder; her body still and warm to the touch. He stayed over her a bit longer than necessary. Somewhat reluctant, he pushed himself off her, then wrapped her in a soft old quilt that lay at the foot of the couch.
Dressed again, he fed the woodstove and put a kettle of water on the cookstove.
Inside his one-room house was a couch, a table and two chairs, the clawfoot tub, the woodstove and a Coleman cookstove that ran on propane gas on the counter by the sink. There was a thick, rolled pallet he slept on and a stack of dry wood beside the woodstove. He had a few cupboards and a sink with a pump. There were two large trunks and a small metal box in which he kept his possessions and few valuables. Leaning in the corners were fishing gear and two rifles of the caliber to hunt game on the land that had become his. He had a stack of six books from the library; every two weeks he went to the public library using the card that had belonged to old Raleigh, the man who had lived here before him and died here, leaving a letter saying Ian could have the property.
He checked Marcie again. She was all right, sleeping soundly. So he took his trip to the outhouse and he made it real fast.
Ordinarily he’d be asleep long before now, there being little else to do. But instead, he sat in a chair at the table and opened the book he was currently reading. When the kettle whistled, he turned off the flame and checked on her. She was warmer and breathing regularly, so he read a while longer. Then he recharged the kettle, checked her again and found her the same.
That hair … It was everywhere on the couch pillow, thick and springy. If he didn’t have so much beard of his own, he could have enjoyed the feel of it against his face. He bunched some of it up in his hand and it was soft and thick. He couldn’t help but think of that girl, all of twenty-three and already a wife of four years, tending to a man who was nothing but flesh and bone. God, what kind of life must that have been?
Several more times, he reheated the water for hot tea, read, checked her. And then he heard a snuffling on the couch. A dry cough. He looked at his watch—a ten-dollar thing that had run for four years—and saw it was almost four o’clock. He went and knelt beside the couch. “You gonna wake up?”
She lazily opened her eyes and jolted awake, scooting up on her elbows. “What? What?”
“Easy. It’s okay. Sort of.”
She blinked a few times and then her eyes were wide. “Where am I?”
“I brought you inside. I had to. You were on your way to freezing to death. You must not have a brain in your head.”
She squinted at him, pursing her lips. “Oh—I have a brain. I’m just not real experienced in mountain life.” She struggled to sit up. “Gee, if I’d known you got your eyebrow back and grew your beard in red, I might’ve found you sooner. I’ll get out of your hair, which I notice, you have plenty of.”
“You’re not going anywhere,” he said, putting a big hand against her sternum, holding her down. “You’re stuck—and so am I.”
“No problem,” she said. “I sleep in the car every night. I have a good sleeping bag …”
“Did you hear me? You were passed out on your way back from the john, covered with snow and damn near frozen to death. You wanted to see me, you’re going to get your wish.”
Her eyes widened suddenly. “I’m … ah … naked under here?”
“You’re not naked. You have underwear. I had to get your wet clothes off you. That or just let you die. It wasn’t an easy decision,” he lied.
“You undressed me and wrapped me in this quilt?” she asked.
“Pretty much,” he said. And felt your small, soft body against mine for an hour, the first female body that’s been against mine in five years. Until tonight, he hadn’t thought he missed that feeling. “What happened out there? How’d you end up in the doorway of the john like that?”
“I don’t have the first idea. I was so glad there was an outhouse for once and I wouldn’t have to squat behind a bush. I was going to make it quick, but I was so tired I could hardly move, and that’s the last thing I remember till I woke up.” She coughed. “I didn’t think I was so tired I’d fall asleep on the way.”
“You didn’t fall asleep,” he said. “You lost consciousness. Hypothermia. Like I said—half frozen.”
“Hmm. Well, I have to pee now,” she said. “And I’m feeling really, really hot in here.”
So, she’d been half-frozen before she made the trek out of her VW He stared at her for a minute, then went over by the stove where he had her wet clothes draped over one of his two chairs to dry out. He felt them, then he went to one of the two trunks, opened it and pulled out a flannel shirt of his own. He took it to her and said, “Here, just put this on.” Next he reached behind the woodstove and picked up a navy blue porcelain pot with white dots that was probably fifty years old if it was a day. When he turned back to her, she was sitting up and buttoning the flannel shirt. “Use this.”
“For what?”
“To pee in.”
“I don’t think so,” she said. “Maybe, if you’ll give me my jeans and boots, I’ll just step outside …” Then she coughed again, several times.
“No, you can’t do that. And you better not get sick. I don’t have time to deal with a sick person.”
“I’m not sick, just a little dry in the throat. I could use a drink of water, but not until I take a trip out to the—”
“Let’s be clear,” Ian said gruffly. “I’m not letting you back outside. Not for a few more hours at least.” The kettle whistled. He shut off the propane stove and shrugged into his jacket. “I’ll step outside. You do your thing. Then you’ll have a cup of tea and go back to sleep.”
She just stared up at him with eyes that were dull green and very wide. She wiggled a little in discomfort. “Do you have any … tissue?”
He sighed deeply, letting his eyes fall closed impatiently. After handing her the pot, he went to one of his cupboards and pulled out a new roll of toilet tissue. Then he went out the door, hoping it wouldn’t take her very long to do her business. He shivered out there for five minutes and then he tentatively knocked on his own front door. He was answered by a round of hard coughing and he didn’t wait for further invitation.
She was leaning back on the couch looking flushed, her skinny bare legs sticking out from beneath the huge shirt, holding the pan possessively on her lap. She looked up at him and said, “What should I do with this?”
“I’ll take care of it,” he said. She didn’t move. “Let me have it now.” Reluctantly, she gave it up. “I’ll be right back.” And again he left her, this time to pour the contents down the outhouse hole. And as he was returning he thought, she’s sick. No question about it. She’s been sleeping in her damn car—who knew for how long?—and got weakened. She must have had a bug in her that was ready to strike, and that bad chill just added to her troubles.
He said nothing as he came in the cabin. He put the pot back behind the stove for her use if she needed it. He washed his hands, made her a cup of tea, and while it steeped, he poured a cup of water and brought her three aspirins.
“Huh?” she said. “What’s this?”
“I think you have a fever. Might be from damn near freezing to death, might be from something else. First we try aspirin.”
“Yeah,” she said, taking them in her small hand. “Thanks.”
While Marcie took the aspirin with water, he fixed up the tea. They traded, water cup for mug of tea. He stayed across the room at his table while she sipped the tea. When she was almost done, he said, “Okay, here’s the deal. I have to work this morning. I’ll be gone till noon or so—depends how long it takes. When I get back, you’re going to be here. After we’re sure you’re not sick, then you’ll go. But not till I tell you it’s time to go. I want you to sleep. Rest. Use the pot, don’t go outside. I don’t want to stretch this out. And I don’t want to have to go looking for you to make sure you’re all right. You understand?”
She smiled, though weakly. “Aw, Ian, you care.”
He snarled at her, baring his teeth like an animal.
She laughed a little, which turned into a cough. “You get a lot of mileage out of that? The roars and growls, like you’re about to tear a person to pieces with your teeth?”
He looked away.
“Must keep people back pretty good. Your old neighbor said you were crazy. You howl at the moon and everything?”
“How about you don’t press your luck,” he said as meanly as he could. “You need more tea?”
“If it’s all the same to you, I think I’ll nap. I don’t want to be any trouble, but I’m awful tired.”
He went to her and took the cup out of her hand. “If you didn’t want to be any trouble, why didn’t you just leave me the hell alone?”
“Gee, I just had this wild urge to find an old friend …” She lay back on the couch, pulling that soft quilt around her. “What kind of work do you do?”
“I sell firewood out of the back of my truck.” He went to his metal box, which was nailed to the floor from the inside so it couldn’t be stolen if someone happened by his cabin, which was unlikely. He unlocked it and took out a roll of bills he kept in there and put it in his pocket, then relocked it. “First snowfall of winter—should be a good day. Maybe I’ll get back early, but no matter what, I want you here until I say you go. You get that?”
“Listen, if I’m here, it’s because it’s where I want to be, and you better get that. I’m the one who came looking for you, so don’t get the idea you’re going to bully me around and scare me. If I wasn’t so damn tired, I might leave—just to piss you off. But I get the idea you like being pissed off.”
He stood and got into his jacket, pulled gloves out of the pockets. “I guess we understand each other as well as we can.”
“Wait—it’s not even light!”
“I start before light. I have to load the truck.”
And he was gone.
Marcie reclined on the couch and closed her eyes. At first she heard the heavy thumping of logs being stacked in the back of the truck. Then she heard some soft whistling while she dozed off. Very pretty whistling with a distinct melody. She wasn’t sure what woke her, but when she opened her eyes the cabin was dimly lit with the first rays of dawn and she heard … singing. A beautiful male baritone. She couldn’t hear the words, but it was him and it took her breath away.
And she knew something. If you’re angry and in pain, you can’t sing. Can’t.
Four
Snow didn’t fall all the way into the valley, down near the ocean towns of Eureka and Arcata. But up here it was overcast, damp and chilly, and more snow was forecast. Ian had his truck parked along the road leading to a busy thoroughfare just before seven o’clock. At that juncture, he caught people on their way to work and, after four years, he was selling to the same customers over and over. Since he didn’t have a phone and no one knew where he lived, they watched for him to show up. Five cars right in a row pulled up and he made deals for as many half cords of wood. He took addresses in his little notebook and promised to deliver the wood in the next couple of days. Two of them he’d done business with in the past and accepted their checks, but the other three would have their wives give him the cash upon delivery.