“Gladly.” Erin got out of the vehicle without another word, and Annie showed up, weaponless, and sat in the passenger’s seat without so much as a greeting.
“Shaping up to be another day in paradise,” he muttered.
They chewed up the miles for three hours without stopping and crossed the border into Arizona. They then turned north on a state highway. The entire time, Stryker’s eyes clicked to the four points of the compass with the monotony of a clock ticking minutes away.
He was listening to John Prine’s song Sam Stone on his mental CD player. It was a song about a drug addicted VietNam veteran and his death. He wondered about the price men paid for surviving combat as he replayed the song. The most poignant line was the veteran’s child saying, ‘There’s a hole in Daddy’s arm where all the money goes.’ It almost brought tears to his eyes every time the refrain repeated and he imagined the helplessness of a child watching an addicted parent destroy everything around them.
After WWII everyone referred to morphine addiction as “the veteran’s disease.” Stryker knew the same was true of his generation of warriors. He knew the ones that succumbed to drugs and alcohol were painted with the same brush, but could not understand how the general public could be so unfeeling about them. Or, how that lack of concern could span generations, and several different wars, that all brought the same result for veterans.
He often wondered about how much the U.S. had worried about helping poor people overseas, when his country had close to one hundred thousand veterans who were homeless, jobless, and addicted. He considered it again, and decided it really didn’t matter anymore. They were all dead by now.
“Nothing ever really changes,” he muttered, looking over at Annie, who was sound asleep with her head leaning against the passenger’s door.
They started climbing to higher altitudes as they traveled farther north, and Stryker noticed the beginning of a chill in the air. He again pulled over, with the other Humvee stopping behind him. Annie rose, left the vehicle, and headed into a clump of trees on the side of the road. Erin and Haley silently followed.
Stryker did his business on the other side of the highway and walked back to the Humvees. He plucked a jacket from the back of the vehicle, and put it on.
Erin returned before the other women. Stryker handed her another jacket. “I don’t think we can make it to Annie’s house in La Verkin today. We probably don’t want to roll up on a strange house after dark anyway.”
“I guess,” she replied.
“Are you pissed off at me?”
“No, I’m disappointed.”
“Why?”
“Because, for the first time since we met, you put your own comfort ahead of the good of the group.”
“Another way to look at is might be that I put your well-being ahead of the group.”
“That might be,” she admitted after a moment’s thought.” I know Haley is not what we both would hope, but she is my sister. If you want to be with me, and then you’re with my family as well. She’s all I have left, and I don’t want to think of her as expendable.”
“I never said that.”
“You certainly implied it.”
“Yes, I did,” he replied after a long pause. “I’m sorry. It was a bad moment.”
“Stryker, I lost my parents, Gramps, and everyone else I ever relied upon. I can’t lose the last tether I have to feeling good about things and having some hope that this, someday, will all be fine. You can’t crap out on me and get self-centered and more worried about your comfort than our safety. I won’t put up with it.”
Stryker thought about it for a long time, mulling over what she said, and knowing it was true, but unwilling to accept it. He finally gave in to truthfulness.
“I’ve lost my edge,” he said. “Ever since that last fight with ISIS, I’ve had trouble focusing and my situational awareness has been spotty at best. I’m sorry. I am doing my best, but struggling with it.”
“Is it PTSD?”
“It doesn’t feel like it. Once I went through counseling, the PTSD sort of disappeared. I don’t feel out of control, I just can’t seem to focus as well or really get things dialed in the way I used to.” He shrugged helplessly and fell silent.
“If you can figure out what you need to get back on track, let me know and I’ll do whatever I can to help you.”
“I know.”
Annie and Haley emerged from the thicket of trees, grabbed water bottles, and stood next to them.
“Is everything okay?” Haley asked, seeing the look of concern on their faces.
“No,” Stryker replied. “I just told Erin that I am losing my edge and I took it out on you two by making you ride together.”
“What?” Haley said. “We were having a great time.”
“Annie talks to you?” Stryker asked.
“Of course.”
Stryker faced Annie. “Why don’t you talk to me?”
“You still scare me.” She looked away.
“Okay, Haley, you ride with me and Erin and Annie can ride in the other vehicle.”
“What the hell is going on?” Haley asked.
“Beats the shit out of me. Let’s just get on with it and we can sort it out later.”
They all remounted their vehicles and Stryker pulled out, shaking his head and wondering what had just transpired. The part about him losing his edge was definitely on him. But Annie’s continued fear of him and odd behavior was grating.
“Okay, what was that about back there?” Haley said after a few miles.
“I’m not really sure. I think it boils down to the fact I’m getting tired and cranky, and I’m using that as an excuse to not really pay attention to what I need to focus on.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means that failure is contagious and I am the one who is letting everybody else down. I’ve seen it in the military. A few guys don’t carry their share of the load, and pretty soon the entire unit is substandard. The officers learn how to accept it, and it becomes an illness that can go on for years.”
“Do you have a translation for that?” she asked.
“It means I am focusing on the things I don’t like, and not on what needs to be done.”
“Am I one of the things you don’t like? You have been pretty terse with me lately.”
“Yes.”
“What don’t you like?”
“You won’t fight when we need you to.”
“Well, that’s not going to change,” she replied after a moment’s thought. “I don’t want to kill people.”
“What if they want to kill you?”
“I guess I’ll defend myself if I have to, but you led us into a lot of fights we didn’t have to get into. That’s on you, not me. And, I would add, most of us told you we didn’t want to get into those fights, and you ignored us and insisted that we did. We went along with it, but I don’t think most of us wanted to fight any of those battles.”
Stryker was a bit floored by that statement, until he realized it was true. His eyes continued to scan the landscape. The music played in his head and several minutes passed, as well as two small towns. Power poles lined one side of the highway, and then swerved into the towns from along the main road.
“I guess I don’t have a choice,” he finally said. “I love this country, I love its people, and I love all that it’s given me over my lifetime. I can’t stand on the sideline and watch people destroy everything about this place that made it great. I don’t want what was a civilized society with rules and standards replaced with chaos and debauchery. I just can’t do it.”
He fell silent, embracing the truthfulness of Haley’s statement, but not willing to compromise his own ideals. “I won’t ask anybody else to help me from now on. It’s obviously not high on anybody’s agenda but my own, and from now on, it is my agenda only. I won’t back off, but I won’t ask anyone else to help.”
“That may get you killed.”
“A lot of things may
get me killed. I just haven’t run up against one of them yet.”
“You will, sooner or later,” she answered with a disturbing certainty.
“You might be right. But, I will die knowing I never backed away from anything, I never gave up, and I never let you down. Your gramps died the same way.”
Stryker knew the last statement was a low blow, but he also knew Haley had to get a lot harder to stay safe, and he was less concerned with her feelings than he was with getting the message across.
You either lived by a creed and adjusted your actions to another standard, or you lived without any guideposts to ensure your behavior was something you can live with. There were no exceptions, no situation that gave you a pass, and nothing that stood between you and becoming something you didn’t want to be, except yourself.
That creed, and an undying commitment to it, was the only thing that separated the weak from the strong, and the survivors from the dead. Stryker wanted Haley to stay alive for a long time to come.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Several hours later, they entered the suburbs of Saint George, Utah. The southern side of the town was preceded by several affluent looking suburbs, a regional airport, and golf courses on both sides of the road. Stryker sat in the passenger seat, his M-4 between the seat and the floor of the vehicle, and he watched the countryside go by.
Haley had remained silent for most of the trip and was not really any better company than Annie had been. He understood she was unhappy with him, and while that didn’t make him fell content, he could live with it. She did seem to be a competent driver, and Stryker was grateful for that.
As they got closer to downtown, Stryker admired the rock formations that surrounded the town. They were a deep red color and seemed to have been sculpted by a ragged knife dragged over the face of the formation. The dying sun gleamed off the rocks, giving them a shiny and unearthly look. He searched his memory, and remembered photos he once saw in a travel book of Sedona, Arizona. He realized they were almost identical. It was a breathtaking sight.
They were passing yet another golf course, when he spotted a man on a riding lawn mower, apparently maintaining the fairways of the facility.
“You see that?” he asked Haley.
“Yes,” she replied. “What the hell is he doing?”
“Mowing grass, so far as I can tell.”
“But why?”
“No idea.”
“You think we should stop and talk to him?”
Stryker saw the sun was not that low in the sky, and said, “I don’t see why not. We have daylight left, and he may know something useful.”
Haley exited the freeway, with Stryker pointing an upraised hand toward the exit, and the two vehicles got off the interstate, passed under an overpass, and drove down a service road until they arrived at the golf course. Stryker examined the man as the mower approached. He was unarmed and wore a welcoming smile. He pulled up next to them, turned the mower off, removed work gloves, and approached Stryker with his right hand open. Stryker’s hand hovered over his pistol and he watched the man closely.
Erin pulled up behind him and got out with her M-4 slung over her shoulder.
“That’s close enough,” Stryker grumbled.
The man pulled up short, and looked disappointed. He was shorter than Stryker, but stocky, with sandy hair and wearing goofy looking golf clothes. He even had a hat on with one of those strange little golf balls on top. He stared at Stryker with washed-out blue eyes in an impossibly long, thin face.
“You’re not very friendly,” he said.
“And you’re not armed.”
“Why would I carry a weapon? You ever try to swing a golf club with a rifle in your hands? And, in case you haven’t noticed, there are no people around.”
“I’ve never tried to swing a golf club at all.”
“You’re missing out on a great sport.”
“I can die happy without wearing nutty clothes to chase a little white ball around the golf course, and spending a fortune to do it.”
“I get that. These bastards used to charge me sixty bucks for one round of golf.”
“And now, all you do is mow the place and you get it for free.”
“Yes, but I only mow one fairway at a time, and play it for as long as I can, and then I do the next one. You guys don’t have time for a round, do you? I’d be happy to teach you the sport if you’re so inclined.”
“Nope, but the fact is we are heading north, and wondering if you know anything about what is going on around here?”
“Well, nothing has gone on for close to two years.”
“You alone in this town?”
“Nope, my brother is here too. He’s gone right now though. Everybody else is dead,” he added with a cheerful smile. “We checked all the houses in town, and found nothing but bodies. Some of them were pretty ripe.”
“Where is your brother?”
“He’s off flying.” The man paused. “He was a commercial airline pilot and found a bunch of planes at the airport that he likes to play with, so he takes off every morning, flies over the interstate looking for people, and then comes back here before dinner.”
“Does he find anyone?”
“Sometimes. But it doesn’t really matter because he doesn’t want to land on the freeway, which seems sort of dumb to me. It’s not like there’s a lot of traffic out there. They all seem to be going someplace or at least that’s what he tells me.”
“We haven’t really seen very many people since the die-off,” Haley said.
“I haven’t seen but a few people myself. I guess we all should consider ourselves lucky to have survived.”
Stryker looked at the man more closely. He understood the challenges of being alone for long periods of time and finding ways to fill your day, but he didn’t understand a man who spent his time mowing a golf course. That was beyond him.
“Well, we’d better get going,” Stryker said.
“You guys going to spend the night here?”
“No,” Stryker lied. “We’re going farther north.”
“Well, God speed.” He turned back to his mower and moved off in the distance. They watched as he drove away from them, turned on the mower blades, and continued cutting the grass.
“That was seriously weird,” Haley said.
“Yes, it was.”
“Where are we headed now?”
“To the furniture outlet north of the downtown area. I saw it when we crested that hill back there,” Stryker replied.
“Why there?”
“It has beds and a place to eat dinner.”
“Okay.”
“Look, I have no idea if this guy is some kind of freak or what. But, he doesn’t need to know where we are staying, and if he had to guess he would guess a hotel, so we just don’t go there.”
“Do you have any idea how paranoid you are?” Haley asked.
“Do you have any idea why I am so paranoid?”
“No.”
“Then walk a mile in my shoes. Live with the idea that everyone you see might want to kill you, and you will have some idea. I get that you’re not happy with me, but I am going to keep you alive, even if you fight me on it.”
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
They pulled into an empty parking lot in front of the furniture store, and Stryker walked to the storefront. He studied the open door, and moved through the building on cat’s feet, and then emerged in front of the building and gestured the women to come in.
They got out of the vehicles, and Stryker joined them in front of the building.
“Get all the stuff we need out of the Hummers and go inside,” Erin said to Haley. “We’re right behind you.” She turned to Stryker. “We need to talk.”
“Okay,” he replied. They waited for the women to disappear into the store, both standing with the butts of the carbine resting on cocked hips, and watching them enter the building.
“Are you okay now?” Erin asked.
“Yes.”
“What has changed?”
“I have.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means I’ve pulled my head out of my ass, and decided to man up and do what I should be doing.”
“You sure about that?”
“Yes.”
“Okay, welcome back.”
“Thanks.” Stryker looked away for a moment, then looked back at Erin. “I’m sorry I sort of checked out there. It won’t happen again.”
“If it does, I have your back.”
“It won’t.”
“Okay, let’s get inside and get something to eat.”
“After you,” Stryker replied with a low bow, sweeping a hand to his side. He stood up. “I mean it, Erin, and you can rely on me again. I need you to know that I am on top of things now.”
“Never doubted it after you said it the first time.” She walked into the building and Stryker followed her, wondering how he ever won over such a wonderful woman, and then rejecting his doubt. There was no room for uncertainty now. He had to keep his head in the game and do what needed to be done.
After dinner, they sat in the glow of the camping lantern in the back room of the store. It was windowless, and the door to the showroom was closed and locked, so no passersby could see the light in the room. They dragged mattresses from the showroom and sat on them as they spoke.
“We’ll have you home by ten o’clock tomorrow morning,” Stryker said to Annie. He paused. “And my harem will be down to two again.” When he looked up after chuckling to himself, he saw that Annie did not seem amused.
“We’re not a harem,” she said.
“I know. It was just a slip of the tongue,” Stryker replied. Anxious to change the subject, he asked, “What kind of name is La Verkin anyway?”
“It comes from the Spanish word for ‘virgin’. It was originally named by Spanish and, much later, the area was settled by Mormons from Salt Lake who were looking for farmland. I guess they didn’t speak Spanish because they starting calling it ‘La Verkin’ and it just stuck.” She looked away. “The funny part is that the river that runs by the town is still called ‘The Virgin River’ so for some reason, they adapted the name of the town, but not the river for which it was named.”
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