A Soldier in Conard County

by Rachel Lee

  He walked over to the wide window that overlooked the street and saw no mercy in the blowing blizzard. Hard to believe that just yesterday afternoon he’d been sitting in the Bakers’ ranch yard enjoying the warm sun and a barbecue. Meeting a number of people with backgrounds like his. A welcoming group on a beautiful day.

  Now he was looking at winter reclaiming the world, as if it realized it should never have let go. Yesterday had been out of sync, and probably all the sweeter for that.

  Out of sync. He rolled the words around in his head, because if there was one thing he’d figured out a long time ago, it was that he was out of sync with the world he was supposed to return to eventually. But now, after being wounded, he felt more out of step than he ever had.

  Ah, hell, no point thinking about it. He wasn’t a brooder by nature, although since getting out of the hospital and basic rehab, he’d been inclining that way. Probably because he didn’t know if the army would take him back in any capacity, let alone special forces. He told himself he could do plenty for his unit without going into the field. There was lots to do, planning missions, setting up schedules... Yeah, he could do a lot of things while leaning on a cane. He could even supervise training.

  The question he wasn’t prepared to answer was what would he do with himself if they insisted on medical retirement. He couldn’t imagine that he owned any skills other than what he’d been doing for nearly eighteen years.

  Crap, was he about to become an outdated-model car?

  He passed his hand over his face and told himself to cut it out. Of course being wounded had left him pondering a lot of things, everything from mortality to a future.

  Remembering Al...well, that didn’t help, either. No, Gil never wanted to forget his best buddy, but that loss was so recent and fresh that when combined with the mess of his own body, he was plumbing depths better left to philosophers.

  He’d had sixteen years under his belt when he buried Al. Now he was past seventeen and less than a year away from another hash mark for his sleeve. What had he thought? That those hash marks would keep coming indefinitely?

  At some point there had to be a reckoning. A time when everything would change. Maybe he hadn’t wanted to think about that at eighteen, but now he was thirty-five going on thirty-six, and somewhere in all that time shouldn’t he have spent a minute thinking about what he’d do when he mustered out?

  Or maybe he’d just believed he wouldn’t survive it.

  Well, didn’t that make him the butt of his own joke.

  He started pacing to loosen up, steering his thoughts into happier lanes. He could think about Miri, for example. The more he saw of her, the better he liked her. And the more he wanted to hold her close and explore her subtle curves until he knew them by heart.

  It might make him uncomfortable, but that was okay. It was the first time he’d felt a spark of sexual interest since Al’s death. At least that part of him was coming back to life.

  She was pretty, attractive, sexy as hell when she moved, even if he suspected she had no idea how she drew a man’s thoughts. But he had sensed something else. If he wanted anything to do with Miri, he was going to have to open up more. As long as he kept his distance and tried to remain essentially a stranger, he wasn’t going to be her type.

  Although did that really matter? She had a life, and he couldn’t look at long term when he felt as if he’d been run through a jet engine and come out the other side in a heap of pieces. Everything was screwed up now. Everything. His body, his head, his identity, his future...

  Yeah, that guy wasn’t going to make it with Miri Baker. She deserved better than that. She deserved not to be hurt.

  After a few toe touches and some other stretching, he turned back to the window, watching the world don a new white cloak. It seemed to be in a hurry, as hard as the snow was blowing. Miri’s porch railing was drifted over now, and he suspected her front steps were buried, too, though he couldn’t see that far through the white cloud.

  A true whiteout. He suddenly remembered sitting in the mouth of a cave watching a storm just like this. The whiteout was so great they’d dared to build a small fire farther back inside. Along with the sting of ice that occasionally struck his face when the wind eddied a bit, he’d smelled hot coffee, rations heating. And he’d heard the voices of his buddies.

  They were a small group that time, meant to infiltrate without drawing attention. Covered in rags that wouldn’t fool anyone for long, up close. One look at their boots would give them away. People in these parts would kill for boots like that, and to see three men wearing them all at the same time? Might as well have worn their uniforms.

  But they’d worked hard at staying out of sight, at avoiding villages and shepherds with their flocks. In short, they’d practiced complete stealth.

  As he remembered that moment, Gil also remembered why they were there. In and out. Randy was the sniper. Al was his spotter, doing all the complex calculations necessary for the shot.

  And neither of them really liked his job. They’d been picked, given an opportunity to bug out if they didn’t want to do it. Of course they’d wanted to, before they actually went. How cool was it to be a sniper?

  Well, they’d found out. Gil shook his head. He’d been the baggage assigned to watch over them and see that they both got out, if he had to carry them on his shoulders.

  They had a job. They did it. And that’s as much as they wanted to think about it. Enough that they were necessary.

  A lot of his life had been like that, he thought now. Doing what was necessary, leaving as little room as possible to think about it.

  Gil heard Miri move almost silently behind him. His senses were still acute.

  “Looks like we still have a storm,” she remarked. “Soup’s simmering on low heat, so whenever you get hungry we’ll eat.”

  “Thanks. I was just looking outside and remembering a time I sat in a cave watching a storm like this.” He turned from the window and summoned a smile. “It’s a whole lot more comfortable here.”

  “I should hope so!” she said with mock indignation.

  He offered up a laugh, a sacrifice on the altar of a normalcy he no longer knew. Well, he suddenly thought, this was getting gloomy and maudlin. He had a whole lifetime to sort through his past, and he didn’t need to do it this weekend.

  He glanced toward the window again. “When is this supposed to be over?”

  “During the night. The wind might keep up another day or so, making it impossible to tell that the storm has passed, but...it’ll ease, too. I imagine school will be closed tomorrow, though. The radio keeps saying the temperature is falling steadily. We’re about fifteen below zero right now, with worse to come, so even if everything clears up and the plows get through, the parameters change.”

  “How so?”

  “Too cold for the kids. What if no one can drive them? What if a bus breaks down? Better safe than sorry.”

  He got it. And glanced again at the window. “The weather changed fast.” As if he hadn’t seen it happen before, often to the complete contradiction of the forecast. Life-threatening emergencies could come out of sudden changes like that.

  She spoke after a moment or two. “If you’re through looking out at the storm, I’d like to close the thermal curtains. The heater is going to be working overtime tonight.”

  Miri drew heavy-looking damask drapes in navy blue to block out the whirlwind. Almost at once Gil thought he could feel the room grow warmer. A figment of his imagination because he could no longer tell what was going on outside?

  He didn’t usually fall prey to such fancies, but nothing was usual anymore.

  “Gil?”

  “Yeah?” He made himself turn toward her, surprisingly difficult when he knew exactly which rut his thoughts were about to fall into. Then she startled him into a whole different rut.

  “Are you
having survivor guilt over Al?”

  He froze. “What makes you think that?”

  “I don’t know. Something about what you said before you left the kitchen. It wouldn’t be surprising, given how close the two of you were.”

  He felt himself icing over. Some things just weren’t meant to be displayed, and that was one of them. All the mixed-up feelings he had about Al’s death... What gave her the right to even ask? Because she was Al’s cousin?

  But then an ugly self-defensiveness surged in him and snaked past his guard, issuing words he would wish unspoken. “Don’t you? Over your parents?”

  Her face seemed to shrink. All the energy seeped from her body. “Of course,” she said quietly.

  He’d attacked and he’d hurt her. He’d thrust a caring question back in her face and awoke feelings that still speared her. That she was probably still dealing with. What was his excuse?

  Without a word, he reached for her and, against all his usual rules, tugged her into a tight hug, loosening his hold a bit only when he felt her arms lift and close around his waist.

  Then, with his face buried in her sweet-smelling hair, he spoke. Murmured, really. Getting enough air to force the words out had become strangely difficult. His chest ached as if wrapped in a steel belt. Nameless emotions clogged his throat.

  “I have lots of survivor guilt,” he mumbled. “Al wasn’t my only loss. As I rose in rank I took on more responsibility. Every loss fell on my head.”

  Her arms tightened around his waist, offering silent comfort. At least she didn’t offer any trite phrases. His feelings weren’t negotiable and couldn’t be swept away by anyone else. It was one of the reasons he preferred not to think too closely. This was something he had to live with. Nobody could make it go away.

  Nor should it go away. He needed to remember his ghosts, because every one of them counted. They should never be forgotten, not their names, not their faces.

  Their sacrifices deserved at least that much. Al was one of many in that respect. Some Gil hadn’t known well at all, but they’d still been comrades. And they all remained indelibly imprinted within him.

  Only now, holding Miri so close, did his soul recognize how much he had been yearning for human touch. Human comfort. A weakness? Maybe. But he needed it more than he could ever recall. Miri leaned into him, her cheek on his shoulder, her arms snug around his waist, and her very presence in his arms seemed to remind him that he was a human being like any other, and that he was entitled to the good things, not just the bad.

  For years now, humor and happiness had been fleeting, as if they had been stolen from more important ventures. He could go to a bar when they were between missions, yuk it up with the others, have a few too many beers and call it fun.

  This was different, and this had been missing for a very long time. This went far beyond fun, reaching places within him that had done without sunlight for a very long time.

  A woman’s embrace. So simple. So profound.

  But it was nothing he was entitled to, as his hip hastened to remind him. Shards of steel and glass seemed to penetrate it, and he suspected if he moved wrong his leg would give way. Without even realizing it, when he had reached for Miri, he’d dropped his cane, so if he wasn’t careful he’d fall himself. Damn cane, he thought, tightening his hold on Miri simply because he didn’t want to let go of this precious time. Infinitely precious.

  But the pain was intensifying because he wasn’t moving, because he’d been standing for so long in one position. There was no way to prevent it from winning. When he needed it, his willpower could be steely, but when it came to his damn hip no amount of willpower could keep it from hurting.

  “Miri...” Her name came out a whisper. He loosened his hold a bit.

  “Lean on me,” she said gently. “Just grab my shoulder. I’ll get your cane.”

  “Are you a mind reader?”

  “A people reader,” she retorted. “I could feel a tremor. Get yourself balanced.”

  So he gripped her shoulder and took all his weight on his other leg, which of course was no longer perfect, but for the moment...

  Miri bent slowly, as if to give him time to adjust, then as she straightened he felt the head of his cane press into his hand. When she was upright and he was stable, she stepped back, tilting her head and eyeing him. “Why don’t you get a walker?”

  “Because if I’d had one, I wouldn’t have been able to hug you.”

  He watched the color flare in her cheeks, enjoying it, then the play of a smile around the corners of her mouth. He wondered if her lips were as soft as they appeared. “Good point,” she said. “Ready to eat?”

  She handled it so easily, avoiding any awkwardness that might have arisen from his spell of weakness. A remarkable woman. An amazing woman. “Sure,” he said, realizing that he had grown hungry. “Just give me a few minutes to work out my stiffness.”

  She pursed her lips. “Are you supposed to get any more physical therapy?”

  “Eventually. They want some more healing first and I’m looking at another surgery down the road.”

  “Well, I guess I can see that,” she said. “I’m sure some things can be taxed only so far.” She turned. “I’ll go set out the soup and crackers.”

  He watched her walk away and felt a huge heap of loneliness in her wake. Dang. He never felt lonely.

  * * *

  Miri didn’t know quite how to take what had just happened. The man of granite had reached out to her, obviously seeking some comfort, but how much comfort could she offer? He spoke of survivor guilt about others, as well as Al. And he probably had more problems than that. She couldn’t think of a darn thing that could help him.

  Who was she, anyway? A music teacher. Training as a teacher and a musician didn’t exactly offer a lot of psychological insight. Or any methodology that she’d have felt safe applying to another human being with a major problem. Mostly she was trained to know when she should get a student to the school psychologist.

  Good as far as it went. Not good enough to help Gil in any meaningful way. If he even wanted help.

  She poured the soup into her grandmother’s tureen, covered it and set it on the table beside the ladle. She skipped the matching soup plates, because it was a cold day and even indoors with the temperature set at an energy-saving sixty-eight degrees, the soup would cool fast enough in deep bowls. Right then she was reaching for warmth.

  And Gil. She realized she wanted him to open up to her, and she supposed his revelation would qualify as momentous for him, but for her it was only a tiny peek. Maybe the only peek she’d get into the soul of a totally self-sufficient man.

  But as she put out napkins and a bowl of oyster crackers, she wondered if she really wanted to get inside that man’s head. Al had considered it important not to talk about where he’d been or what he’d done. When he came home, she’d had the sense that he was wearing a mask the whole time, trying to be the Al everyone remembered, concealing the Al he’d become.

  Why should it be any different for Gil? Maybe it really just was as simple as knowing that someone who had never gone where they had could ever begin to understand in any meaningful way. She suspected that much was true.

  How much isolation could a person live with? Or flip the question around: How much did she really want to know about what isolated him? Words could skim the surface. Hollywood could romanticize it or glorify it. But the gut understanding?

  She shook her head at herself and tried to move past the minutes when they’d held each other. It could never be more than that, a moment of tenuous connection. She would never fully understand where’d he’d been, and maybe he’d never be able to fully come home.

  But she knew what had really disturbed her: how she had felt surrounded by Gil’s arms. She’d occasionally had boyfriends who hugged her, but nothing had ever felt to her like being in Gil’s arms
. Everything else in the world had simply vanished. For those few minutes, nothing else had existed beyond her and Gil, wrapped together, while deep inside she had felt herself melting.

  Softening. The sensation was amazing. Every bit of tension had fled her body, leaving her warm and soft and in another world. She’d like to feel that again.

  It was at that instant that she realized she was undergoing an emotional earthquake. She’d never dreamed that a simple invitation to her cousin’s best friend, asking him to stay with her while he was in town, could turn her upside down. Sudden fear gripped her. Fear of herself. What crazy thing was she getting into here? She’d never been a wildly impulsive person, but had chosen to live her life in the calm waters at the edge of life’s seas.

  Yes, she’d met tragedy. Everyone did. What had happened to her parents had been especially gruesome. Al’s death had carved a hole in her. But otherwise she was inclined to be levelheaded and sensible. Unlike some of her friends and acquaintances, she felt no desire to stir life up with drama, either major or minor. Real drama came along often enough to convince her she didn’t need to manufacture any.

  Indeed, she avoided it. The loss of Al was still recent enough to sting. To make her ache with the hole he’d left behind. But she could accept that easier than she’d accepted the loss of her parents, probably because Al had been away so much of the time. Little in her life acted as a reminder that a part was missing.

  That would all be different for Gil. Al had been a big part of his life for many years now, always there, a part of most everything they ever had to do. Now for Gil there’d be a big hole. And from what he’d said, there was more than one.

  She suspected that his wounding had given him too much time to count his dead. That just added an extra agony to everything else he was dealing with. Too much time to think.

  At last she heard him coming. She wondered if the cold was affecting him, because his step seemed heavier somehow.