"Army habit," I said, alternately chomping some bacon and a piece of yolk-soaked bread. A meal during a mission should always be eaten like it could be your last.
Roosters crowed as dawn sunlight filtered in through the slatted blinds. I helped Gianna clean up the dishes while Ryan finished loading up the car.
She stood over the sink and passed me clean dishes to dry off, an unlit cigarette dangling from her lip. "Must be difficult, huh? Seeing him again."
"Not sure what you mean," I said, hiding my surprise.
"Seeing Ryan after so many years. Don't tell me that's not part of the reason why you stayed?"
"He needed my help."
She handed me the last dish and lit her cigarette. "I know I'm sticking my nose where it isn't wanted. But I think it'd be a shame if you two never addressed what happened between you. It's hard for him to talk about it, so that's why I'm telling you."
We both looked out the window to where Ryan was. I watched him lug a crate of water into the back of the SUV. He had his sleeves rolled up and he wiped his forehead with the back of his arm.
"That guy has been through some shit," she went on. "It's tough for him to get close to people. Anyway. I thought you might want to know."
"What happened with us is over now," I said. "All in the past." I gave her a smile, like I was okay with it. End of story, no need to continue talking about it. But really, I was wondering what Ryan had told her about us. I'd always assumed that I'd been the only one left affected by our time together, that I was the only one who'd held memories, who wondered what it all meant. After all, if he could just disappear like that, how could he have fucking cared?
But Gianna knew about our history. It was real; it existed for more than just one of us.
She nodded, sucking a drag from her cigarette. The smoke curled out from behind her hand as she exhaled. "Well, I'm glad you're sticking around. Ryan is one of the best in this game. Tough as hell and so incredibly talented. But sometimes I think he's got a death wish."
"I know what you mean," I said. I picked up my pistol from the table and slipped it into the holster onto my belt.
The two strays bounded up the road when I came outside, leaping up to my chest to try and land some wet licks on my face. I'd brought some bacon for them and fed it to them by hand. The car was loaded and we were ready to the hit the trail. We had a full day of driving ahead of us through jungle roads and uncertain conditions. I had the usual pre-mission jitters, and the fact that I had Ryan under my care again only made them more intense.
Memories were carrying me back in time again, to two days after our first night together when my squad had been assigned a mission to suss out a group of suspected IED manufacturers on the outskirts of Fallujah. I remembered how fucking difficult it’d been to keep my hands to myself. Ryan was much better at concealing his affectionate impulses than I was, to the point where I sometimes wondered if anything had actually happened between us at all. Then, suddenly, in some empty hallway or behind the ruins of a crumbling building out of sight of the rest of the men he'd jump me, leaving quick but passionate kisses lingering on my lips.
I stuck by him, trying not to be too obvious about the fact that I'd taken him under my protection. Ryan didn't make things easy for me. He was fearless. Where some photojournalists might hide away once the bullets started flying, he would put himself into crazy situations just to get the right shot, being right in the thick of battle alongside the rest of us.
"Don't worry about me," he'd told me. "I know you're looking out for me, but I'm not going to do anything to compromise you or your men's safety. Pretend I'm not there."
I'd told him that would be impossible, that he'd better get used to the fact that I would be protecting him. The danger only served to draw us closer. Every close call and every scrap we got through unscathed fanned the flames of our fervor. Every night, we found ourselves disappearing somewhere secluded, relieving the day's tension with each other's bodies. I fucked him in the back of the cargo truck, my fatigues down around my ankles as I gripped his waist, pressing him up against a crate of ammunition. We did it in the showers, risking someone walking in on me holding him close as we stroked each other's cocks. He would find me on my night watch and suck me as I stood with my rifle in hand, trying to stifle my moans. There was a night where Ryan had actually managed to pick the lock on a storage container, allowing us to use it as a secret hiding spot to do the deed in hot, stuffy darkness surrounded by crates of water and MREs.
Each memory was burning in my mind now, the strongest they'd been in so many years.
"Hey. Hello? Bau?"
Ryan's voice called me back to the present. I realized that I was still crouching there, staring blankly at the two dogs as they rolled around in the dirt. I stood. "Yeah."
"We gonna get going, or just play with dogs all day?" He was leaning against the back of the car, smirking at me.
"Let's do it," I said.
The dogs followed me, watching curiously we got into the car. Gianna waved to us. "Good luck. I hope you find what you need."
Ryan turned us around and started down the muddy driveway. In the side view mirror I could see the dogs chasing after us until we were far down the road. We were off on the first mission together in seven years. I could still remember every detail of his body—and I knew that I wanted him again.
6
Ryan
The old road took us through grassland to what used to be the edge of the jungle, now a vast stretch of leveled trees like stubble across the landscape. There were massive piles of cut lumber sitting amongst what now felt like a graveyard. Gigantic trucks rolled past us, carrying the logs into town. The clearcutting process was paused for now, the bulldozers and other tools of destruction sitting dormant in the mud. After a few hours of driving, we finally reached the new jungle edge. It was an incredibly stark difference in landscape, a sudden wall of trees that swallowed us whole.
The road ascended up a series of steep switchbacks that brought us over the mountain and deeper into a landscape that hadn't been disturbed by humans in a thousand years, when the ancestors of the native peoples here had planted and maintained vast agricultural fields that'd eventually gone wild and turned into jungles.
I snuck a glance over at Bau. He had his rifle held firmly against his chest and was scanning the windows with alert eyes. I had to smile. I remembered this was how he'd been in Iraq, too. I'd taken so many incredible photos capturing those eyes, the focused gaze of an elite soldier. Many of them had been published. A few of them I'd shown in my gallery in New York.
One of my most prized photos was taken after I'd been knocked onto my back by an RPG explosion. Bau had rushed over to me, taking a knee and firing shots off from his rifle. In my stupor I'd managed to raise my camera up and snap a photo of him towering over me, a burst of flame erupting from the end of his gun as a blur of empty shells cascaded down over the camera's lens. Only one of his eyes was visible, but it was filled with such a powerful intensity that anyone who looked at the picture would find themselves immediately drawn in.
That photograph was hanging in my bedroom. In the end, I hadn't been able to completely leave him behind.
"So," Bau said, breaking yet another silence between us. We'd already spent an entire day together and had barely spoken, asides from logistics discussion.
"So," I replied.
He sighed. "We'd better start talking to each other or else this is gonna be a real long fucking trip. Or, just let me know if you've got an issue with me and we don't have to say a word. Either one is fine by me."
"I don't have an issue with you."
"Okay... But you did?"
"No," I said. "Not at all."
"Well, help me out here. Seven years ago, I woke up and found out that you had jumped on a plane for home, leaving me wondering what the fuck happened."
Tension filled my body, like every muscle had wound itself tight. "I know. And I'm sorry. It wasn't your fault, Bau. That
was all on me." I clenched the steering wheel. Why was it so difficult to talk about this? "I shouldn't have run away like that, but at the time I felt like I had no other choice."
"What happened?"
"I just... I—" My voice caught in my throat. The guilt of it had weighed on me for so long, but now that I had a chance, I still couldn't bring myself to open up about the truth. "I don't know, man."
"You don't know? You didn't have any other choice, but you don't know why?"
"Yeah, something like that."
"I'm just trying to understand. It wasn't my fault but you couldn't even do me the courtesy of telling me you were going to leave?"
"Just leave it be, Bau," I snapped. "Alright? I'm fucking sorry. That's all I can tell you, is that I'm sorry."
He stared silently at me. We were both stewing. This wasn't the way I'd hoped we would address this thing hanging over us. Maybe silence was the best option, after all.
The car began to rattle as we reached a section of the road that had been dusted with a layer of mud and debris. Water was flowing over a section near a few downed trees that lay across the path. I slowed down to a stop, and Bau peered around us. He cranked the lever to roll down his window and instructed me to do the same.
"Why?" I asked.
"In case I need to shoot at something," he said plainly. "You have that gun?"
"Yeah." I patted my hip. "Why?"
He nodded towards the trees sitting in the road. "Looks like there was a landslide or something, but shit like this should always make you suspicious. Get out your pistol. Stay in the car. I'm gonna clear the road."
I unholstered the gun and Bau went outside. He got an axe from the back and set it on the hood. I watched as he walked ahead of the car, his rifle leveled. He moved slowly, like a predator carefully scoping out its territory. He stepped over the trees, which were fairly thin-trunked and only lay about half a foot off the ground. He crouched down to inspect them and then followed their length, checking out both sides of the road. Finally, he came back to the car and grabbed the axe.
"It's safe," he said. "But there are signs others have come through this way. Probably before the trees went down. Tire tracks in the mud, maybe a couple days old."
I re-holstered my pistol and got out of the car to help him clear the road. We worked quickly. I was nervous, but not exactly afraid. I'd been in these kinds of situations many times before, and they always got my blood pumping. It was the same for Bau. The bad energy was gone. We were both focused on getting past this obstacle as efficiently as possible. I unwound the steel tow cable that was attached to the front of the Isuzu and secured it around the center of the trees. Bau hacked at them with the axe, splitting the wood so that we could drag them from the road. With the humidity as high as it was, our shirts were almost immediately soaked through with sweat and condensation. Bau pulled a green bandana from his back pocket and tied it around his forehead. I took a moment to snap some photos of him before running back to the car.
"Ready?" I asked.
"Looks good. Put her in reverse. Slowly, slowly."
I gently laid on the gas, rolling the car back. The cable went taut and Bau kicked the logs free with his heel. I reversed enough to open up a path large enough for us to pass through, and Bau disconnected and retracted the cable. He jumped back in the car and we were on our way.
In Iraq, working alongside Bau was always a thrill ride, and I was surprised to realize that nothing had changed. We still had that connection. I wondered if he could feel it, too.
The road passed through areas of jungle that were in the process of being cut down or had been cleared away some time ago, replaced with logging equipment or planted over with rows and rows of young mango and rubber trees. I pulled over to the side of the road to get some photos of the plantations. We walked down a path running alongside a dirty irrigation ditch and I paused to snap some shots. Bau stood behind me, his hands resting on top of his rifle. Sweat glistened on his arms and his cheeks. I raised my camera and pressed the shutter.
"Don't waste your photos on me," he said.
I replied by snapping another. He flicked me off, and I laughed.
We continued on, passing a small house that seemed to be cobbled together from bricks and corrugated metal. "Look at all this," I said, gesturing to the razed landscape. "Thousands of different species destroyed just to grow, what? Two things? Then they'll cut down more jungle to build houses that won't last a decade." I pointed to the green mountain in the distance. "The rains rushing down from those hills will wipe everything out in landslides worse than anyone here has experienced."
We found a lone man walking through the field, a large plastic bucket strapped to his front for harvesting mangoes. I approached him and asked in Spanish if it was his farm, and he told me that it was and gave me permission to take photos of him. He didn't even blink an eye at Bau's rifle.
"I'm surprised you're here," he said.
"Why is that?" I asked, taking a few steps back to take a shot of him with the fields in the background.
"Well..." He scratched his chin, looking vaguely uncomfortable. "Just because of the landslide. Not many have come through since. Especially foreigners. It's very sad, you know. Many lost everything, including their lives."
I got the sense that there was another reason. I exchanged a look with Bau, who I could see had the same feeling.
"Have you seen any unusual activity through here recently?" Bau asked him. "We're going to be stopping near that village tonight. We have some supplies and might be able to help anyone who's still there. Anything we should know?"
The farmer waved his hand. "No, no, no. There's no one there anymore. But..." He lowered his voice. "I've noticed cars coming down the main road in the night. I could see the headlights. Bad people, maybe. That's all I want to say. I've been left alone, and I want to keep it that way."
"Don't worry," Bau said. "What you've told us won't leave our lips."
We went back to the car and continued driving. It was nearing evening and we wanted to make it to the site of the village to set camp for the night.
"Sounds like what Gianna told us was accurate," said Bau. "We need to be careful. We park off the road. No fire, no lights, and trade watch shifts."
"I agree," I said.
After another two hours of driving, just as the sun was starting to go down, we arrived at our destination. At first, it seemed like the road had suddenly ended in a mass of rocks and mud, and it took us a moment to realize that we were looking at the result of a massive landslide. After some scouting we found a small path that had been cleared leading into the forest, marked with tire tracks. We followed it and found that it took us over a narrow part of the debris mound. I engaged the SUV's low gear and slowly climbed our way over the mound, praying we wouldn't get stuck or roll over.
"Jesus," Bau said, looking out the window.
I turned to look and realized with horrified awe that we were looking at the covered remains of the village. With the fading sunlight it was difficult to see at first, but I could slowly make out the forms of rubble jutting out from the mud: overturned houses, the end of a truck, shattered concrete, and scattered brickwork. No matter how many times I experienced it, this kind of destruction never failed to humble me.
"Pull over there," Bau said, pointing.
We parked a short distance away from the road near a pile of cinder blocks and what looked the remains of a wall. We got out and did our best to camouflage the car using fallen vegetation and mud. Then I followed Bau as he scoped out the area. We had headlamps but kept them off, relying on the remaining sunlight to see.
As confident as I was in my experience, I couldn't deny how thankful I was to have Bau by my side. Sure, I would've persevered through, but this entire situation was far beyond what I'd been expecting. With all the difficulties getting into the country, I'd gotten a little overzealous and hadn't exactly heeded Gianna's warnings like I should've.
We moved silently, con
scious of the fact that below our feet lay the remains of a whole town. The jungle, however, was anything but quiet. An entire symphony of wildlife played music into the night, a reminder of how incredibly diverse this place was.
"It seems like we're alone," Bau said, lowering his rifle. "But it's fuckin' hard to say, considering I can barely make out my asshole from my elbow in this light."
We set up camp next to the car with the wall to our backs and a view of the road at our front. We kept our lights off, but thankfully the moon was out and bright enough to provide enough light for us to see each other. Bau passed me an MRE pack—freeze-dried, ready-to-eat Military rations—and we had our first meal in the jungle.
"I'll take the first watch," Bau said, sitting on a small folding stool. "You get some sleep."
"Doubt I'll be able to sleep," I said. "I'll keep you company."
Under His Watch: A Brothers Synn Novel Page 5