Sarah smiled and said, “You’ve got some explaining to do, young lady!” They went into the kitchen, made tea, and sat at the table talking until late that night. Roman was run out of the kitchen the one time he tried to come in to listen. “This is girl talk, old man. You just go on to bed,” Sarah scolded him. Roman, pretending to have hurt feelings, turned and left.
APRIL 6, DAWN
Adrian awoke with the sun the next morning. Smelling bacon frying brought him out of a deep sleep, his stomach growling. He was famished. He dressed and walked into the kitchen. Sarah’s prediction had been right: the men started to come in soon after. Sarah and Linda had prepared the night before, and it was an easy matter to feed them all. Adrian was pestered with good natured ribbing and questions while he ate. Finally, after he had finished off a large platter of bacon, eggs, and cornbread muffins, he laid his fork down and began telling the story of his encounter with Rex.
As he began, he found himself falling into a natural storyteller’s rhythm, and everyone listened with acute attention. He watched the expressions on their faces and worked the story. He slowly built tension as he went along, enjoying storytelling for the first time. As he went on, Adrian realized that not only was he actually good at this, but that storytelling could be an invaluable tool in the future. When he got to the part where Rex had him at his mercy and was describing how he planned to take his revenge on Adrian, he knew he had his audience in the palm of his hand. Linda and Sarah had turned pale and looked nauseous. While he felt bad for them, it was still a good feeling, knowing that his natural shyness could be controlled. The men looked grimmer and grimmer as the story developed. At the end, there was a general expulsion of vehement swearing at what a monster Rex had been. Given the nature of the story, Sarah didn’t say anything to the men about their language in her kitchen; she felt the same way.
Adrian was in reasonably good condition again by the end of the next day. He walked the village with Linda, Scott, and Bear. They were greeted happily wherever they stopped to visit, answering numerous questions, shaking hands, and being backslapped. After they had pretty well covered the village, Adrian said, “Linda, I’m going to visit the families of the men that were killed, and then I’m going to visit the men that were injured. It would be an honor to me, and to them, if you would accompany me. It’s going to be a sad and difficult thing, but it’s only right to do it. Will you come?”
Linda said, “Of course. I’ve been visiting them already, as has most everyone else in the village. You know we already held the funeral—one large funeral burying the men in a specially chosen memorial plot. It’s not Arlington National Cemetery, but it’s as close as we can get to it. There will be a monument; one of the newer village men is a stone worker and is working on it now. It’ll be beautiful. But it will mean something special when you visit them. Of course I’d be proud to be with you.”
Over the next three days, Adrian and Linda visited with every family, spending several hours with each. Adrian didn’t want it to be a quick in and out. He hugged and held each of the crying widows and children. He spent hours with each as they honored their fallen loved one by telling stories of their lives. It was one of the hardest things he had ever done, but he did it well and he did it with all of his heart. Linda’s love for Adrian deepened with each passing hour as she watched him showing this gentle and caring side. She often reflected on how lucky Alice had been to have shared her life with him. Linda had had no idea of the depth of his feelings, no inkling that his heart could be that big, or that he had that much gentleness in him. He had been so rough and self-contained during the short time she had known him, but then, she had only known him during a war when he was under tremendous stress and responsibility. As she watched his heart break over and over, she was awed at this side of him that she had never suspected existed. If she had been in love with him before, she was completely lost now.
The night he completed visiting with the fallen men’s families, he called his Army buddies together. They left the village and walked out into the woods where they wouldn’t be bothered. Adrian carried a backpack that Sarah and Roman had prepared for him. It was filled mostly with whisky bottles, but also some sandwiches and water. They built a large fire and began drinking heavily. They told stories about Clif, each one adding details from their many missions and barroom brawls. They laughed often; silences were rare. As they got drunker, they began to sing songs and make toasts to their fallen brother. As the night wore on, they drank more and more, until they were so drunk that they couldn’t stand up. This night was not only a paean to their beloved friend, but also an emotional release after the battle and a reaffirmation of their bonds. By morning, the fire had died down to ash-covered embers, and the men were passed out in various positions around it. It would be several hours before they began waking up, each with a splitting headache and nausea. This level of drinking was reserved only for occasions such as this, and the pain they would feel for the next two days was well worth enduring.
Adrian had gone through many changes since the grid had dropped. He had fallen in love, married, and settled down, then lost the first true love of his life and had wanted to die himself. He had wandered into the deep forests of the mountains to live out his life alone, and then had nearly gone insane when attacked by the cannibal raiders, and viciously killed most of them. When the cannibals had taken hostages and he’d turned to the nearby village for help, he had realized that he had at least some small talent for organizing and then leading men into war. They had won that war with no loss of life, and Adrian had come to understand just how lucky that was.
He had come home to lead men into battle again, and had won, but at a price. He had lost good men with families that would mourn their loss for the rest of their lives. He had lost Clif, his best friend. Quiet Clif was gone, and it hurt. All of these events had humbled him in ways he had never expected. Then he had started falling in love again, but at the wrong time. Too soon, he’d thought. He hadn’t finished saying goodbye to Alice, and he needed more time to grieve—more time to say goodbye. He still had traveling to do, and a feeling that something is waiting on the coast. Adrian had learned the most when he was paralyzed, facing a hideous future of disconnected insanity. He had overcome that paralyzing drug to move his hand just a few inches, had channeled every ounce of his being into making that one move, and had done it. That was a lesson he believed had a purpose. There was a need for it somewhere in his future. Maybe it was a lesson for every day of the rest of his life, to understand how lucky he was to be whole, or maybe there was another, larger purpose. But now, it was time for him to go. He headed back home to prepare for the journey and say his goodbyes.
APRIL 14, EARLY MORNING
Adrian was tightening the cinch on the horse, getting ready to leave. Bear had doubled in size in the six weeks at Fort Brazos and was a yearling now, no longer needing to be carried across the saddle. Bear could run alongside now, casting about as he chose. Adrian still expected him to chase off after a rabbit someday and never come back, preferring the free life. Adrian didn’t expect Bear to remain at his side until old age. Even his horse had regained its weight and vitality and seemed anxious to be going.
Adrian gave Roman and Sarah long hugs and shook hands with everyone in the village that had come to see him off. There was a lot of handshaking and backslapping, and a few hugs from some of the widowed women. There wasn’t a person in the village who was able to walk who hadn’t come to see him off. It was a big send-off, and Adrian was smiling hugely. “Well, looks like I have a big family!” he said, and got a cheer in return.
“Linda, would you walk with me a ways?” he asked softly. The crowd, knowing he wanted privacy and well aware by now of the feelings between them, didn’t follow. Adrian took the horse’s reins and Linda’s hand and began walking away. When they were out of earshot, Adrian said, “I hate to leave, but I swear I have to. It’s a mean thing to leave you now, and hurts me to hurt you. But please understand an
d believe me when I say it would be meaner to stay. Something’s up in Corpus Christi. I have to go check it out. There’s nothing specific; I just get the feeling that something big is up since they don’t want to talk over the open air, but I need to go down there in the worst kind of way. I still owe a duty to the military, even though I was in the Army, not the Navy. If they need me for something…well, I just have to go. I feel drawn, like there’s something I’m supposed to do there. Part of it comes from those strange dreams of the future I told you about. Part of it…a large part of it, honestly, is that I’m still saying goodbye to Alice.”
Linda replied softly, “Adrian, you go do what you have to do. You take as much time as you need to say goodbye to her. I understand that. I’ll be waiting for you. Forget what I said before—there won’t be anyone else for me. Never again in this life. Two great loves is more than any woman can expect. I had one, and now…well, now I have another one, as hard as that is for me to believe. I’ll be here. You just take care of yourself and come home to me as soon as you can.”
Adrian gave her a long hug and a lingering kiss. It was a sad kiss, yet full of passion. Not trusting himself to say more, he mounted the horse, turned, and rode south. Linda watched him ride away. She was dry-eyed, steady of mind. She knew he would be back when his heart would let him, when his heart could allow itself to belong to her, and knowing that she could wait for him however long it took.
Adrian didn’t look back. A single tear slid down his cheek. He thought, I thought I had done hard things before, but now I know better. Nothing has ever been this hard, or felt this right.
Adrian disappeared into the woods, the wolf running in front of him in great leaping bounds, eager to be in the woods again, the horse eagerly moving into a fast trot.
THE END
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