Jewel squirmed with the universal “put me down” twisting, arms up, that every child knows, and Ben bent and put her down beside him. She seemed so tiny, looking up at him from below knee level, and Ben felt a wave of regret and shame wash over him. He should have done more. He should have found her and brought her home to his life with Christy. His vision of the girl in his dream blurred as his eyes rimmed with tears. He wondered if his Jewel was even still alive.
I am well, Father. We will be together soon.
He looked down at the smiling face and took her outstretched hand. She turned and began to toddle across the clearing of the village, and he went with her, slightly stooped over so he could hold her hand. After only a few steps he knew where she would take him – far to the southwest corner of the village. He felt his pulse pound a loud protest in his temple. Seeing Jewel was hard enough – the rest of it he really needed to be able to put behind him. He needed to leave it behind so he could start his new life with Christy. Jewel didn’t seem to care about that and tugged him behind her.
The old man sat squatted on his haunches on the brown mat of woven reeds and prodded gently at a steaming bowl of dark brown mush. He looked at least twenty years younger than the man he had seen in real life, and his head and throat were unblemished by the gaping wounds from before. Ben thought he saw a faint hint of glowing blue light around his head and neck, but it went away when he looked more closely. The Village Elder looked up at him with soft, kind eyes and smiled the broad, brown-toothed smile Ben remembered very well. The little girl let go of Ben’s hand and scrambled into the old (young) man’s lap.
The man spoke rapidly but softly in the language Ben remembered but still didn’t understand, and the girl hugged him, slipped off his lap, and toddled away toward a long, low shack with brightly colored cloth hanging from poles along its corners.
Sit, Ben.
The man motioned with long, sallow fingers and another brown smile. Ben sat down cross-legged on the edge of the mat across from the elder. He felt his hands shake a little and reminded himself again that this was just a dream. His subconscious still must be searching for closure on all of this, and hopefully he could find it in this fantasy. He practiced his four-count tactical breathing and felt his pulse slow.
Dreams are reality, Ben. Gammy taught you that, but you would have known it anyway.
I need to get past this – past you. I need to get on with my life.
Yes, Ben. This is a big part of your life, though, and always has been. You have always known this.
I can’t do this. I have to go back.
Ben rose to his feet and looked sadly at the man who still squatted on the mat.
I’m sorry.
The old man smiled again, his eyes light and young.
You have no need. The cycle of the Living Jungle is not something you control, and all is as it must be. You must go back to the beginning, Ben. There you can find the final answers and the path to your destiny.
The beginning? Ben felt his pulse rise again, and his stomach tightened. He could not possibly go back to that morning in the village. He couldn’t possibly watch that horror again. He squeezed his eyes shut tightly and with all his might willed himself away from his dream and back home to Christy. He felt the air around him vibrate as he seemed to float and rise up and out of his misty shroud. Far away, below him it seemed, though, with his eyes closed he couldn’t be sure, the old man’s voice followed him but faded into far away.
When you get there you will find a guide. A face that is familiar and unfamiliar. The answers are there if you find the questions. Look back and ask them, Ben. Then, you will be ready.
The voice drifted farther away and disappeared. The vibrations stopped. Ben slowly and cautiously opened his eyes. He saw trees above him and felt the hammock rock softly beneath him. He reached behind him for Christy and her hand but felt only more hammock. He rolled over.
Ben lay alone and something felt immediately wrong. Why were there trees above him? The smell – the sweet but musty smell of water and rich earth – came to him and, with it, a flash of remembered emotions. He swung his legs out of the hammock and looked around. Right where it should be he saw the ramble shack house with its soft glow from half open windows. He smelled the smoke which, invisible in the dark, he knew curled from the leaning chimney on the roof. He knew exactly where he was.
And when.
This nightmare he knew, and he made no effort to fight it. Years had taught him he would awaken only when released by the power of the dream and so he hopped out of the hammock and walked briskly along the path through the Louisiana bayou. Better to just hurry and get it over with. He followed the worn trail and after a moment the soft glow from the clearing up ahead. He stopped at the edge of the clearing and took a deep breath. Then, he walked boldly into the glow of the camp fire.
No matter how many times he came to this dream it did nothing to lessen the shock each time he saw his grandmother. Gammy – who had bathed him and rocked him to sleep, read him stories and told him Santa made special presents for children of the bayou – stood naked in the clearing. Her bare feet shifted back and forth, ankle deep in the lake of blood, her arms stretched out and upward. Her left hand gripped the handle of the long, curved knife, and blood ran from the bone-colored handle down her arm and across her old and wrinkled breast. In the darkness, the spatters of blood on her face and body looked almost purple. A few feet away the mutilated deer twitched with the last bit of life it had and raised its head to look at him.
The eyes were small and shaped nothing like big doe eyes. They were blue and human-looking and seemed freakishly small and out of place set deep in the deer’s face. The tongue that protruded from the deer’s mouth seemed thick and swollen and, as always, made the words that hissed out, impossible to understand. This time they seemed weirdly familiar – not from past dreams, but from somewhere else. The blue eyes flashed orange and then turned grey and lifeless. The deer’s now dead head fell into the lake of blood with a splash.
An animal scream from his Gammy’s throat shattered the night, and then she babbled more unfamiliar words. Then, she dropped her head and looked at him. She stared a moment at him with eyes that glowed red, like the last embers of a hot fire, and she extended a bloody and bony finger towards him and screamed again.
* * *
Ben felt relief that this time the scream he heard in his dream did not come from his own throat, but he snapped his eyes open anyway, his fingers sore where they gripped tightly the rope edge of the hammock. Inches away from his face, Christy smiled at him and reached out a soft hand to stroke his cheek.
“Hi,” she said softly.
Ben smiled and swallowed away the remnants of the dream (dreams) and reached up and pressed her hand to his lips.
“Hi, yourself,” he said and felt his breathing slow.
“Bad dream?” she asked but they both knew she knew the answer. They had been together a long time.
“Yeah, kind of,” he said. Why did he always say that? “What time is it?”
“A little after twelve,” she said.
Ben stretched out his back, knotted and sore from the tension of his mystical excursions, and tried to appear casual and normal. He turned to Christy again and kissed her softly on the cheek which brought his favorite smile to her face.
“Wanna go for a walk?” he asked.
“Sure,” she said but didn’t move to get up. “Are you sure you don’t want to nap a little more? You traveled so long and so far.”
Ben smiled at her constant concern for him. He used to ask about the paradox – the way she worried incessantly about little things like naps and surfing when the water was too cold, but never said a word or batted an eye about him jumping out of a helicopter into the ocean at night with a full combat load. She would just shrug when he teased her about it and told him she could only control the things she could control, and the other things were just who he was.
“I feel pretty
good,” he said. “Slept on the plane.”
“Okay,” she said. He guessed she had learned the futility of trying too hard to take care of him. “Want me to grab two beers?”
“Do we have any champagne?” he asked.
Christy laughed out loud.
“Why on Earth would we have champagne?” she chuckled. “I can’t get you to even try red wine.”
Ben laughed, too. “Well, if we’re gonna be an old married couple, we gotta start drinking old married couple stuff,” he said and caressed her face.
“Is that what you think married people drink? Champagne?”
Ben shrugged. “Maybe. Isn’t it?”
Christy laughed again and shook her head as she swung out of the hammock. “I’ll grab us some beers,” she said and disappeared through the screen door. Ben swung out of the hammock, as well, and smiled again. He wondered if he had ever been this happy. For a moment, he flashed on the old man’s eyes and the smell of Jewel against his neck, but shook it off.
Maybe that dream will close the chapter. I feel terrible about a lot of what happened, but it is what it is. Time to move on.
“Your beer, old soon-to-be married man,” Christy said as the screen door banged shut behind her. Ben decided the dream had been his farewell to the haunting from all that had happened in Africa. He took the cold beer from Christy and then took her hand and led her down the three wooden steps to the beach.
They walked for a while and sipped the ice cold, frothy liquid, the clear sky and bright sun warming their skin against the chill in the air. Ben watched the waves roll gently on to the sand and thought for the ten thousandth time how lucky they had been to find this town house on the beach. He loved these walks together.
And, we’ll do them forever.
He smiled and squeezed Christy’s hand, and she looked over at him, her eyes happy. He took a swig of cold beer.
“So how do you wanna do this?”
She flashed a seductive smile at him and grabbed his butt after looking around. “Do what?” she asked coyly.
He laughed.
“You’re hard to satisfy,” he said.
“Nah,” she said and sipped her own beer. “Just like to get satisfied again and again.”
“I’m talking about the wedding,” he said.
Christy squeezed his arm and laughed again. “Who are you?” she asked. “And what have you done with Ben Morvant?”
“I’m serious,” he said. “I want to get married like yesterday, but I want it to be perfect for you.”
“That’s my SEAL,” she said. “The decision is made, so it’s time to plan the op and execute, right?”
Ben shrugged and laughed good-naturedly at himself.
“I guess that’s about right. So do you want a big wedding, a little wedding, church wedding – What?”
“Okay,” she said and stopped. She plopped down in the sand and patted the beach beside her. “Let’s talk about it then.”
Ben sat beside her and took her hand again.
Now we’re talking. Let’s get this thing organized and move along.
“Okay,” he looked at her expectantly.
“Okay,” she said and her eyes danced with happiness. “I know you don’t want a big wedding…”
Ben raised a hand and opened his mouth to protest, but she cut him off.
“and neither do I,” she reassured him. “I don’t need a church wedding, but I want a minister to give us a Christian wedding. I would like our friends there, and I want to fly my mom down.” Ben looked at her and waited for more, but she just smiled and raised her eyebrows.
“That’s it?” he asked.
“That’s all I need,” she answered.
Ben shrugged. No wonder he loved her.
“I thought women dreamed their whole lives about their wedding day.”
“Not this one,” Christy took a long pull on her beer. “I have been dreaming for a while about the man I would marry and spend my life with, and you’ve already given me that.”
Ben poked the sand with his feet. There must be more to plan than this.
“Where will we do it?”
“How about the beach behind the lodge over at the Officer’s Club on base?” she asked. They had been to a retirement party there a few months before the last deployment. It would be perfect.
“Perfect,” He looked at her and squeezed her hand. “What will you wear?”
Christy laid her head on his shoulder and kissed his hand.
“I’ll buy a nice dress,”
“A wedding dress?”
“If you like,” she said and looked up at him. “It’ll have to be on sale, off the rack, and fit perfectly to meet our timeline.”
“Which is?” Ben asked. He wanted time to put it together but really would love it to be tomorrow.
“Two weeks?” she asked. “Is that enough time for you to be sure?”
He hugged her tightly.
“I’m already sure,” he promised. “I’ll barely be able to wait that long. Can we get it all together by then?”
“Sure,” she said. “What’s to do? We order some food, get my mom a ticket, and tell a few friends where to be.” She pulled her head from his shoulder and kissed his cheek. “The rate limiting step will be giving your teammates enough time to get some clean clothes together,” she laughed at her own joke.
“We’ll do dress uniforms,” he said. “Everyone keeps one of those squared away, just in case.”
Christy turned away and looked out at the ocean, and he wished he hadn’t said that. They both knew what those dress uniforms were kept pressed and in plastic for. They had been to three ceremonies for fallen comrades together since they met. After a moment the awkward silence melted away, and he shooed it farther by taking her hand and pulling them both to their feet.
“Come on,”
“Where are we going?” she asked.
“We gotta go get you a ring,” and hugged her again.
“Okay,” she said with little girl-like excitement in her voice.
They walked back down the beach at quick pace towards their town house, hand-in-hand.
Chapter 14
Reed tipped back the Bud Longneck and wondered if everyone felt this way on the first day or two. That detached feeling – like being the new kid in school, a feeling he knew well after growing up a Navy brat – usually stuck with him for a couple of days and just felt so wrong when he was surrounded by people he loved. And, he really did love these people.
His dad smiled at some joke he had just made, and Reed tried to laugh appropriately and hoped no one could tell how far away he was. They had been close for the last four or five years after a long and bitter period after his mom had given up and left. Reed had been in high school, and Dad had been retired for two years or so. Reed believed now the retirement had been the death of their marriage. Not that it had been great before that, but the time away at sea, and more important the homecomings, had always been just enough to fan the dying embers his parents seemed to have left. But once Dad was home every day – well, he guessed they learned some things about each other and their marriage that neither liked.
The waitress approached, and Reed raised his nearly empty bottle.
“Sure,” she said. “Anyone else?”
“Another round,” Dad said, and three other heads nodded.
“And, some more fried oysters and bread,” his brother Carl added. Reed liked Carl a lot more since he had met Caroline, the pretty girl beside him. There had always been a strain with his brother – they were as different as night and day and had been since they’d been little kids. But after Reed graduated from high school and joined the Navy, things had gotten even worse for a bit. Reed always thought it had been because his brother was in college and had become a pacifist of sorts while Reed was training to be a killer in the Navy SEALs. September 11th had changed all that, and Reed would always remember the night his brother had hugged him and told him through tearful sobs how prou
d he was to be his brother. Reed had just gotten back from Afghanistan.
He shook his head and tried to dial back into the conversation. Dad’s girlfriend Jessica, whom he had reluctantly admitted to himself about a year and a half ago that he liked a lot, had said something about the news. Reed looked up but was relieved to see eyes focused on Dad and not him.
Just a few days and the depression and constant emotional reminiscing will go away.
“What do you think, Rocky?” his dad asked.
Reed shook off the twinge of annoyance. He had decided a while ago to not let the nickname bother him. He didn’t mind the name, but to him it belonged to Mom. Just as he opened his mouth to sheepishly admit he had no idea what the hell they were talking about, an Aerosmith song chirped from his belt and saved him the embarrassment.
“Excuse me just a second,” he said, hopeful he concealed his relief. He snapped his cell phone out of its holster and headed to the door. He felt even more relief to see Ben’s name flashed on his phone and not some other non-team person who would make him feel awkward and out of place.
But just for a couple of days. Probably the other guys feel this way, too.
“Whassup, bro,” he said into his phone as he stepped out into the chilly air. He stuck his finger in his ear to block the roar of an FA-18 fighter jet that roared in from the ocean across the street, headed to a landing at Naval Air Station Oceana only a few miles away. The tremendous noise drowned out what he thought he heard. “What did you say?”
“Fuckin’ fighter jocks,” Ben’s voice said through the phone. Reed heard a lightness and little boy happiness in the voice that made him feel great. He had been worried about his friend all day, he realized.
“Screw that,” Reed said, still unsure what he had heard. “What did you just say?”
“We’re getting married,” Ben said again with a happy laugh. “We’re at the jewelry store right now picking out rings.”
Reed closed his eyes and felt a big grin spread across his face. He couldn’t have gotten happier news.
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