“Can you believe they don’t serve drinks on the floor?” Reno appeared beside Becca. “What kind of casino doesn’t serve drinks on the floor?”
“I guess you’ll just have to power through sober,” she said and walked away. Reno was still keeping her in the dark, so what reason did she have to be nice?
She spotted King at a slot machine in the corner. It was a touchscreen with panels of cartoonish icons—apples, diamonds, and cherries. Instead of inserting quarters, her father kept swiping a plastic card, like he was paying for groceries. He was on autopilot for failure, losing round after round. Yet he wore a hopeful expression, a boyish look that brightened every time he sat back to watch the symbols flicker across the screen.
“You like watching your old man lose?” he asked.
“Better luck next time?” Becca offered.
“Listen. I’m sorry about what happened at the gas station in Kansas—and back at Kath’s. It’s just that—”
“Don’t worry about it.” Becca sat down at the slot machine beside King’s and swiveled to face him. Hearing his apology and seeing how sincere he looked, she dared to believe that the standoff between them was over. She wanted to somehow confirm this fact, to cement it. She had one card to play, so she laid it down. “Can I tell you a secret?” she asked.
“You’re not pregnant?” King sat back, alarmed.
“No!”
“Well, I don’t know what secret means.” He looked confused, but in an endearing sort of way. He looked like such a dad.
“A few months ago, my college running coach got a call from the University of Oregon.”
“I take it that’s good?”
“U of O has the best running team in the country. People who run for them get sponsorships. They go to the Olympics.”
“And they want you?”
She nodded.
“So you’re going to transfer schools?”
“In the fall.”
King scratched at his beard. “And Ben’s okay with the two of you picking up and moving to Oregon?”
Becca’s stomach dropped. She had not anticipated this question from her father, and, hearing it, she realized she had made a mistake. “I never told him,” she said quietly. “Not that it matters now.”
King was silent.
“Come on, Dad. You saw what he was like at your house. Ben and I are done.”
King’s mouth tightened, like a screw turned too many times. “You married this young man without telling him that you planned to uproot your lives?” His hands gripped the slot machine, the knuckles turning white. “When you marry somebody, Becca, it’s not just about you anymore. It’s about the two of you. There’s no place for selfishness in a marriage.”
King was right, but he didn’t know that she had tried. She’d wanted to share the news with Ben in person—not through a screen. Not on a video chat. And when he finally came home, there hadn’t been a good time. First, there’d been his post-tour protocol at the base, then his official release from active duty. Then they’d dived into late-game wedding preparations. For two weeks they ran on black coffee and adrenaline. And then they got married. During all this, including the week of blissful calm that followed the wedding, Becca refused to do or say anything that might disturb Ben. They needed this time together. Needed it so badly. And didn’t they have the whole summer to talk things over?
But maybe she’d been expecting everything to fall apart. Maybe she’d kept the University of Oregon as her contingency plan. She didn’t want to think of it this way, because that would mean she’d never really believed in Ben. It would mean that there was nobody on the planet that she had ever, in her whole life, been able to trust.
“Don’t lecture me about selfishness,” Becca spat. “For six years, you pretended I didn’t exist. Then you come back and disrupt everything, but the second you decide I’m too much trouble, you push me away.” The amusement-park clamor of the slot machines was overpowering and Becca had to raise her voice to compete. “You don’t have the right to judge me. You don’t even know me.”
Becca rubbed her eyes, disoriented by the flashing lights. When she looked around a few seconds later, she didn’t see her father anywhere. She rammed her fist against the video console. She was about to hit the thing again when Elaine sat down beside her. “So,” she said. “What was that about?”
Becca looked away, afraid she’d start to cry. All of a sudden, like a punch in the stomach, she wanted her mother. “Did you ever wish you hadn’t left your husband?” she asked.
“Not for a second. He was the worst of everything. And there was no fixing him.”
Becca pictured Ben clutching the neck of the fiddle he’d just destroyed, completely ignorant of the fact that only moments before, he’d laid into her the same way. She remembered how empty his eyes had looked, like all the essential stuff had been sucked out of them. “Ben can’t be fixed either.”
“In my experience, honey, there are the men who hurt you and there are the men who try to hurt you. They are not the same breed.”
“Ben knew he could hurt me. He knew it was possible. And he didn’t do anything to stop it from happening. He drank and sulked. He barely gave his meds a try before dumping them. He gave up on me.”
“He’s been back only about two months, right?”
“So I’m just impatient? Are you saying that I should just stick this out for however long it takes him to admit that he’s sick? If he ever admits it?”
“I think you need to decide what’s more important to you, Becca, being with him and accepting the struggle, or being without him and riding free.”
“Why do those have to be the only options? I want different options.” Becca fought back the tears.
She felt Elaine shift toward her, her perfume like an invisible fog. A few strands of frosted hair brushed Becca’s cheek. “Your father just mentioned something about a running scholarship. So why not get on with that? Leave this whole life behind and never look back.” Becca looked up at Elaine, questioning. “I’m not telling you to do that. I’m just reminding you that you can.”
Can, Becca thought, and should. King had left. Then Jeanine left. Why couldn’t she also leave? Run straight out of this life and into another one. Wasn’t that what she was doing anyway, at this very moment? Momentum, rhythm, stride. She was already enacting the plan.
Becca left the casino and picked Reno’s Harley out of the pack. It looked a little sad among the larger, flashier vehicles. But Reno’s bike was sturdy enough, Becca knew, having now sat on it for over one thousand miles.
Reno’s saddlebags were not locked and Becca found his jacket folded up inside. Covering the back was an enormous embroidered map of Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia. A defiant bald eagle was shackled by a chain to the landmass. Beneath it all ran the words Leave No Man Behind. King had once told his young daughter that many American soldiers went missing in Vietnam, and the army had never tried to find them. They were abandoned by their country, King had said. Some of them are probably still out there. It seemed to her now that this was the legacy of the war—of all wars. In the aftermath, back at home especially, it was every man for himself.
Becca found Kath’s letter in the jacket pocket. She read it eagerly, trying—but largely failing—to parse the meaning. King was in some kind of danger, and Kath believed that Becca could protect him. Part of her wanted to run from her father as she had run from Ben. But then she’d be letting him off easy. Her father owed her and she was going to make him see that. She was going to demonstrate, beyond a doubt, that he was in her debt. It was backward, she knew—sticking her neck out for the debtor in order to collect what she was owed. But it made sense. A heart sense and a gut sense.
She turned her face to the vast, starlit sky. She knew Ben was probably searching for her, that somewhere inside, he knew exactly what he’d done to her. And if he really, truly did not know, then she could never tell him. She could never hurt him like that.
But she was
no longer in his sights or on his team. She was part of this unit now, a member of these special forces that had set out across the heartland to save King.
PART III
* * *
Exposure Therapy
December 13, 1979
Dear Willy,
There are a dozen men here now, all of them wounded. They found their way to me through rumors, stories of a wise man living in the two dead towns. But in truth, Durga brought them to me. Because I am carrying her heart. Because I am anointed. The men call me their commanding officer.
There is a routine to our days. We wake early and exercise. Then we cook breakfast and eat together. Each afternoon we study the ancient warriors. Durga, the writings of Sun Tzu, the Stoics, and, of course, by your example, Homer. When I feel a man is ready, I teach him about the heart. And that’s when the real work begins—the process of a soldier being reborn. There are many tasks and challenges to aid this process, but I ask all of my men to do what I have done: tell their stories, pour their pain into the earth, and mark the spot. Each week we do this and bury more of the dead.
But laying the dead to rest is not enough. We must honor each man’s spirit, let him know that he earned his death fiercely and proudly. For this reason, I have decided to call this place Kleos, from the Greek word meaning “battle glory,” a warrior’s greatest achievement. Kleos is what the war gave to us and it is what I pass on to every man here. I give them kleos, bestowed as from a father to his son.
It is meaningful, don’t you think, that the name Patroclus—which translates to “glory of the father”—holds the word kleos within itself? You should not think for a minute that I’ve forgotten that night, Willy, when you told me about Achilles’s closest companion. I think of it always. I hold that memory inside of me as Patroclus holds kleos. Inside of my belly, the memory of that night writhes like a worm. I should have answered you when you asked me about Patroclus. I know that now. But I was a different man then. A lesser man. Can you understand? Will you ever forgive me for my silence?
I have a story for you, Willy, that I’ve been eager to share. A few weeks ago, a motorcycle pulled up. The driver did not dismount, but the passenger got off and walked with great purpose toward where I stood by the river. She planted herself in front of me. Her eyes were large and hungry-looking. Her ears poked elf-like through her brown hair. She was the first woman who had ever stepped foot on my land. I’d made no rules against this, but the men implicitly understood that if they were in need of companionship, it was best to seek it in town. I had unwittingly taken a vow of chastity. Durga, after all, is female. And her heart is inside of me, like a lover, but permanent.
Which is all to say that I found myself face to face with a woman I should have desired but didn’t.
“That’s my husband glued to that bike up there,” the woman said. “We’ve been searching for you. And now that we’ve found you, I’m hoping you can help him.” Here, her veneer cracked, and I saw tears in her eyes. “He’s so angry. And he’s in so much pain. Can you . . .”
I smiled and reached out my arm. The woman stepped forward until I could touch her shoulder. “I can try,” I said. “But you will have to leave. He needs to be here on his own.”
“For how long?” She swallowed her emotion and fixed her face into a stoic mask.
“I don’t have an answer for that,” I said. But now the biker was approaching. I knew this man, I realized with shock. It was King Keller. His body was large but somehow wasted, as though his skeleton had grown in size as the flesh had shrunk away. He’d been twenty-two the last time I’d seen him, nine years before.
Silently, we took each other in. And then he began to cry. I’d never seen King cry. That wasn’t something we did—certainly not in front of each other. But here he was, weeping. So I did something I’d never done before either: I hugged him.
It was at that moment, feeling King sob against my shoulder, that I truly understood what it meant to be Durga’s anointed.
Currahee!
CO Proudfoot
21
HEY!” LUCY SNAPPED at her nephew. “Put your seat belt back on!”
Ben had driven the car into Monument Valley, where the rock formations resembled monstrous petrified cacti. Jacob was kneeling on the seat, his face pressed to the window, his open mouth fogging a circle of glass. He made a show of sitting down, but seconds later, he was back up, eager as a puppy. Lucy’s orders were no match for the command of that extraordinary rock, its brown and orange and red washes of color flashing against the sky.
“All of this used to be underwater,” Jacob announced as they passed between two enormous buttes. Ben considered the possibility that they were moving through some giant’s decorative rock garden. At any moment, the car could be mistaken for an ant and squashed.
“Now, that can’t be true,” Lucy said, swiveling around to eye her nephew. “We’re in the middle of the desert.”
Jacob squeezed his lips like a fish and giggled.
“I’m pretty sure he’s right,” Ben said. “You can see the striations on the rock walls where water used to be. This was probably the bottom of an underwater canyon. Really, we’re driving across the ocean floor.” Ben glanced in the rearview. Jacob was smiling with triumph.
“Well, I don’t like to think about that,” Lucy said, folding her arms across her chest. “I can’t swim. And this talk makes me think about flash floods. I’m a flash-flood-aphobic.”
“The water left millions of years ago, Aunt Lucy,” Jacob said.
“I know that,” she answered testily and ended the conversation by turning on the CD player. David Grisman’s “Wayfaring Stranger” rose from of the speakers. “Hick music!” Lucy announced. Though Jacob had easily recovered from Ben’s fury back at the Four Corners, Lucy was taking longer to forgive him.
“You don’t like it?” Ben asked.
“I like my music harder. I guess I got a lot of rage.”
“Wouldn’t you say that I’ve got more?”
Lucy nodded. “Headbanging as anger management. You need some Metallica or Anthrax.”
“Maybe,” Ben said and thought about Becca asking him—no, begging him—to play the fiddle. “It’ll make you feel better,” she’d assured him. “Like your old self.” But he couldn’t touch the thing. The mere thought of playing brought to mind that horrible vision: his dad standing on the street in Iraq, the smell of Coleman’s Humvee, and “Sally in the Garden”—notes that seeped into him like some kind of poison gas. But wasn’t music just sound? Invisible waves, no more real than the snipers and bombs he imagined surrounded him here in America.
“I used to play a lot,” he told Lucy. “I performed, actually.”
“Like on tours? Ooh, I bet you had groupies.”
“That’s generous of you.”
The Death Star coughed and shuddered and the three riders fell quiet. The car had over a hundred thousand miles on it. For the first time, Ben was thankful that Miles had given it an inspection, even if the tune-up had come with a Breathalyzer. “I think we should give her a rest for the night,” Ben said.
“We can stop in Kayenta,” Lucy said. “But you have to promise me something.”
“All right.”
“Let me play your sponsor tonight.”
“I’ll be fine,” Ben said. “I’ve been sober for four days.” But even as he said it, he heard how ridiculous the number sounded.
“Which is wonderful,” Lucy said. “But you’re still bouncing, and back there at the Four Corners . . .”
“I said I was sorry,” he snapped. Lucy just looked at him. Not judging him, or asking anything more, just waiting.
Ben breathed in and out a couple of times. “I’m sorry,” he said. “You’re right.”
Kayenta was a Monument Valley outpost, a frontier town for tourists. Ben drove along the main strip, past cheap restaurants and chain motels and stretches of lumpy earth resembling soil that had been turned over but not yet replanted. They
followed signs to the Diné Inn, a motel that looked like an overly long railway car. The only other vehicle there was a Nissan so dusty, it resembled a tumbleweed. The place was a lot more Psycho than Ben would have liked.
After dinner, they inspected the map, tilting their heads together over the diner table. Ben could smell the sweetness of Lucy’s shampoo and Jacob’s soap-scrubbed, faintly chocolate scent. The proximity of these bodies—their warmth and life—put Ben on an odd type of alert. He felt as though his heart were pumping too close to the skin. Like it might burst out of him and sit there, pumping on the table. It was not a pleasant feeling and yet he wanted to freeze this moment. He wanted to sit right here, as part of this trio, absorbing the human-ness of his companions.
“So where are we going?” Ben asked, hoping that he had managed to gain Lucy’s trust despite the incident at the Four Corners.
“You’ve got Internet on your cell phone? The place we’re going isn’t on this map.”
Ben handed over his phone and waited. Lucy looked from the phone to the map on the table and back again. Finally, she pursed her lips and glanced out the window.
“I can’t find the place,” she said quietly. “I assumed it would be here somewhere, but it isn’t.” Lucy shrank back as though afraid that Ben might scream at her. But Ben felt none of the stringent anger or panic from earlier. He felt neither disembodied nor detached from himself. If anything, he felt too present. And so he was able to see the situation for what it was: a problem that needed to be solved.
“It’s okay,” he said and looked at Jacob, who was also following his aunt’s lead and cowering into the booth. “We’re doing the best we can, right?”
Lucy relaxed a little. “My sister told me the church was on a mission to someplace named Kleos. It’s supposed to be near Navajo Perch, Utah. That’s all I know.”
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