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She didn’t relish having unfinished business between them after dark, but after all she’d been through, she wasn’t about to let him get away now. She took a few deep breaths, remembered that he was probably just troubled and not crazy, and stomped toward the house. She rapped on the door. Then she moved back a few steps to be safe.
The door jerked open and he glowered at her. “What do you want?”
“Hey! Why are you mad at me? I just want to talk to you.”
“I don’t want to talk,” he said, pushing the door closed.
With inexplicable courage, she put her booted foot in its path. “Then maybe you can listen.”
“No!” he bellowed.
“You’re not going to scare me!” she shouted at him.
Then he roared like a wild animal. He bared his teeth, his eyes lit like there were gold flames in them, and the sound that came out of him was otherworldly.
She jumped back, her eyes as wide as hubcaps. “Okay,” she said, putting up her hands, palms toward him. “Maybe you do scare me. A little.”
His eyes narrowed to angry slits, and he slammed the door again.
She yelled at the closed door. “But I’ve come too goddamn far and gone to too much goddamn trouble to be scared for long!” She kicked the closed door as hard as she could, then yelped and hopped around from the pain in her toes.
It obviously had no effect on him. Marcie stood for a moment, staring at the closed door. She took a second to decide what to do next. She wasn’t likely to turn tail and run just because he roared—the big bully—but then again, she wouldn’t confront him right away. Apparently he needed a little time to calm down—and to realize she wasn’t giving up. So she decided her best course of action was to wait. And eat.
She went to the little bug and got the rest of Preacher’s lunch out of her portable refrigerator—the trunk. Then she got into the backseat, pushing the front seats up as far as they’d go, and spread out her sleeping bag to sit on. It was like a little nest; she settled in. And she thought about his glower and his roar, as she slowly opened up the bag and took out the second half of her sandwich.
All right, she thought—it was not supposed to go like this. In every fantasy she’d had about finding him, there had been many possibilities. He could be glad to see her, embracing her in welcome. Or he could be withdrawn. He could even be a raving lunatic, on another planet, totally out of touch with this world. But never had she imagined he would take one look at her, cringe in obvious despair at the news of Bobby’s death and cruelly, heartlessly, meanly, scream at her to go away.
Her mouth was a little dry for eating and she tried some of the water out of her thermos—bottled water had become too expensive. She kept an eye on the front door of the cabin. She could feel the heat on her cheeks, furious that he’d do that to her after she’d looked so hard for him. All she wanted in the world was to make sure he was all right. The asshole. And then she felt her eyes cloud with tears for the very same reasons. His reaction really hurt her. What had she ever done to him? It made her absolutely enraged and broke her heart at the same time. How could he do that? Roar at her and slam the door like that? Without even hearing her? All he had to do was invite her in, tell her he was just fine, explain he wanted to be alone, accept the baseball cards and …
She just let the tears roll soundlessly down her cheeks for a moment. It had been a while since she’d cried. She realized then that her hopes for how this would turn out had been too idealized—exactly the reason Erin had wanted to hire a professional to handle this. Ian Buchanan had gone away, because he didn’t want anything to do with anyone from his former life, not because he needed help. Especially her help.
With a hiccup of emotion, Marcie admitted to herself—she might need his help. This business of moving on, it might have to do with Ian helping her understand his relationship with Bobby and with her, and how everything had changed. Ian’s growling and slamming the door in her face wasn’t going to get her where she needed to go. She was going to have to sit it out until he understood—she wasn’t done with him yet. And this whole business was going to get complicated, since there were good odds he was actually nuts.
She tried to gnaw at her sandwich, even though she now had no appetite. The sun sank slowly, and she ended up wrapping it up and putting it back in the grocery sack, unfinished. The thing was—if you didn’t eat that much, you didn’t feel like eating that much.
The sun dipped below the horizon, the lights in the cabin shone, and a thin curl of smoke rose from the little chimney. She leaned back against the sleeping bag, physically comfortable even if she was an emotional wreck. But the decision had been made—she was sitting right here until she figured out what to do.
On a more practical matter, she really hoped she wouldn’t have to pee in the night. She’d been choosing her sleeping spots carefully, so that if nature called in the dark of night, she wouldn’t have to venture far from the little bug.
She’d never been any kind of camper, never had been good at relieving a full bladder on a whim. Never had quite figured out that squat; it seemed like she’d always wet her right foot. But after a little over a month of searching the hills and sleeping in her car in various parking lots, quiet residential streets, rest stops and country roads, she had it figured out. She could squat, whizz, get the job done, jump back in the car and lock the doors in just over a minute. There were showers available at the YWCA and at workout rooms in community colleges where they didn’t check ID’s too closely. She’d indulged in motels the first week out and then quickly realized her money would go further if she slept in her car. And with no hints of Ian’s whereabouts, she needed to make her money last.
Then she remembered—that was an outhouse out there, wasn’t it? Wow, how hilarious to think she’d be glad to see an outhouse! Life had gotten real interesting.
Drew and especially Erin would absolutely die if they found out she’d been sleeping in the bug. She shook her head. I’m as nuts as he is, for sure. And then she noticed snow flurries against the window of the bug. Very pretty, light, fluffy snowflakes in the waning light with a narrow streak of sunlight in the west through the clouds—the flakes glittered as they fell. The view over the ridge was amazing—there was a rainbow shining through the snow drifting down onto the tall pines—it was magnificent. She just couldn’t be upset in this place. Not with Ian, in any case. Maybe he had forgotten they were friends.
He probably wanted her to think he was crazy, roaring like that, but she wanted to believe that, underneath the bluster, he would still be all the things Bobby said he was, all the things he’d been in their early letters, before Ian got out of the Marines—strong, compassionate, gentle, loyal. Brave. He’d been so courageous to do what he had done.
With the snow lightly falling, and the sun causing the rainbow to fade into dusk, she relaxed and closed her eyes for just a second. To think.
Three
Ian tried to keep himself from looking out the window; he’d be damned if he’d open the door. The silence in the mountains was such that if she’d turned the ignition to start the car, he could have heard the click. So he refreshed the fire in the woodstove, fired up the propane cookstove and heated large pans of water for a bath.
He’d made it a year in this cabin without a tub, shower or electricity, but he had made a few adjustments; he bought a generator and wired up a couple of lights inside. He found an old clawfoot tub in a salvage yard that he’d repaired and patched, enabling him to wash out of something larger than the kitchen sink.
It was always a shallow bath—a couple of pans of cold water hand pumped into a pot in the sink from the spring-fed well under the house, and a couple of large pans of boiling water didn’t make for a nice long soak. In the winter, he got in, got clean and got out real quick. He would probably never have plumbing other than the pump; he worried about money and he wasn’t skilled enough to do the plumbing himself. He hadn’t had a real honest-to-God shower in years. But he was a guy—he didn’t exactly primp. This was all he really needed. It got him good and clean.
After a quick scrub and some clean clothes, he warmed some stew on the stove, leaving it right in the can with the paper ripped off the outside. He wanted to see where she was, what she was doing, but he wouldn’t let himself. He’d ignore her, refuse to talk to her, and she’d go away. Soon, he hoped.
After all this time, Ian had managed not to dwell on everything that came before the mountains, but one look at that fiery red mane and her flashing green eyes brought everything rushing back. The first time he’d seen that beautiful little face had been in a photo that Bobby carried with him.
That kid was something else. Ian had been twenty-eight and Bobby twenty with a couple of years in the Marines when they first met. Bobby already had himself some stripes. Ian was just getting a new command and he took to the kid immediately—he was funny and fearless. Big, like Ian—about six feet of hard body—and no attitude. At first, Ian just worked him to death, but found himself responding right away to Bobby’s incredible endurance and commitment. It didn’t take long before Ian was mentoring him; teaching him and building him into one of the best of the best. Also, he was having a beer with him now and then and talking about home, about things that were not military—sports, music, cars and hunting. And then they went to Iraq together.
They got out pictures of their girls and read the letters they got to each other, sometimes leaving out the more personal parts, sometimes not. Bobby had married his girl, but Ian had been engaged less than a year when they went to Iraq in the same unit.
Ian had Shelly back then. While he was gone, she was planning a wedding that would take place when he got back. Bobby and Marcie were hoping to start a family. Their women were beautiful—Marcie was small and fragile-looking with that great mass of curly red hair and a completely impish smile. Shelly was a tall, thin, sophisticated-looking blonde with long straight hair. Ian remembered that Marcie had sent Bobby a pair of her panties that he proudly showed to the guys, but no one was allowed to touch. Shelly sent Ian a lock of hair, but he’d have rather had panties. Marcie sent Bobby a picture of herself in her underwear on Bobby’s motorcycle; Shelly sent a picture of herself posed in front of a Christmas tree, wearing slacks and a turtleneck sweater. Their girls also sent them cookies, books, cards, socks and tapes, anything they could think of. When the flak jackets ran low and soldiers started buying their own, Marcie and Shelly sent their men armor as well.
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?”
