The Heart You Carry Home (22 page)

“Aunt Lucy!” Jacob screamed. “Lucy!” He looked at Ben, panicked. And Ben immediately understood why. As far as he could see in both directions, the opposite bank was empty. Lucy was gone.

A
FTER LEAVING THE
Shiprock casino, the bikers set up camp on the property of a local Gulf War vet and waited for the stragglers to arrive. In the civilian world, the men were loners, but out here, prowling the highways of the American Southwest, they were a united pack, traveling as one.

After their fight at the casino, King was back to ignoring Becca, but she felt oddly cared for by the others. The next day at lunch, the men made space for her. They gave her sunscreen and told her to use it. They showered her with snacks. Unprompted, Dooley offered her a clean towel, and Frank gave her a pocket Bible with the subheading
Hope for the Highway
. Becca knew that they'd been talking about her situation; the men believed she was a battered wife, which was not at all how she thought of herself. She was running toward a new future. And yet, standing on solid ground, without the road to distract her, she found that Ben easily crept into her thoughts.

Late in the afternoon, she sat on the steps of the Gulf War vet's trailer and watched his young daughters chase their dog. The poor animal resembled a stray more than a pet, and it reminded her of a story from Ben's first tour. He'd been in a firefight, taking cover in an alleyway, when a feral mutt had wandered by.

“The dog was clearly starving,” Ben had told her. “It was as much a veteran of the war as any of us, just out foraging for scraps. And right there in front of me, while I was returning fire, it got hit.”

Ben knew that he was supposed to ignore the dog. He was supposed to keep shooting. “I'd been trained to block out distractions,” he explained. “And a dog dying slowly not three feet away—well, that was a distraction.” But he couldn't keep shooting. The animal yowled. It was bleeding from the neck. And Ben couldn't focus, so he crouched down and leaned into the alley to pull the dog out of the street. In that brief, unprotected moment, a bullet whizzed by his ear. Millimeters from his brain, he said. Because of a dog! Ben was so terrified, so furious with himself, that without another thought, he shot the dog between the eyes.

“You did it a favor,” Becca had said. “You put it out of its misery.”

“I know, Chicken. But I didn't kill the dog to ease its pain. I killed the dog because it was preventing me from doing my job.”

Ben said this like he was expecting her to be disgusted, like he wanted her to call him a brute. But she found his truth-telling brave. What had happened to that honesty? When they'd met, she could ask him anything about his first tour, and he never made her feel embarrassed or regretful or stupid. Even in the first months of his second deployment, Ben eagerly told her detailed stories. On the video chat, he seemed like flesh instead of a set of pixels. But then the stories dried up, and he became two-dimensional, a clone. She'd gone on the research binge because she was desperate to retrieve the flesh-and-blood version of Ben. The real Ben.

When she told her father that Ben had become reluctant to talk, King told her not to take it personally.
It's hard to explain to somebody back here what's going on over there,
he'd said.
You don't want to make things harder for him.

But what about me?
She couldn't stop herself from wondering, even though she knew that civilians had no right to ask such a question. The soldiers in danger—their needs came first. But she couldn't wholly commit to this code of conduct. She needed parity; she couldn't help it. King, meanwhile, seemed to sense that she was struggling, so he gave her a gift—well, it was more like a loan.

There are other ways to understand what he's going through,
King said and handed Becca his copy of
The Iliad
. Becca would come to understand that her father had an affinity for this particular book, but at the moment, she was dumbstruck. Epic poetry?
Her
father? Still, she devoured
The Iliad
, followed by other books and articles and movies. She felt prepared for Ben's return—at least, as prepared as she could be with only secondary sources at her disposal. When Ben was finally home, he spent hours clicking through the photographs he'd taken overseas. He avoided her, left home for hours at a time, and snapped at her when she so much as opened her mouth. He refused to touch her. He was acting, she realized, exactly like a spurned lover. Except that the other woman happened to be the war.

Now, sitting on the trailer steps, Becca thought about Reno's motorcycle jacket and the eagle shackled to Southeast Asia. All these vets were still trying to get over that destructive, codependent relationship.

“Hey. Mind if I join you?”

Becca looked up to see Reno standing before her. She made room for him on the steps of the trailer, and he pulled a cigar from his pocket and lit it up.

“Why do you smoke those things? They're nasty.”

“What's got your knickers in a twist?”

“You.”

“Fair enough.” He nodded. “I've been an ass.” Reno sucked on the cigar, blew smoke, then sucked again. Becca could tell that he wasn't savoring the thing. He was medicating. He scratched at the thinning hair on the crown of his head. “I've been holding off explaining things because I can't figure out what in God's name we're gonna do when we get to where it is we're going.”

“What we're going to do about
what?
” Becca said, exasperated.

Reno breathed deeply. “You seen your father anywhere?”

“He's been in his tent all afternoon.”

“Sulking like Achilles. How fitting.”

“What are you
talking
about?” she demanded.

Reno looked around. He seemed nervous. “All right, then, Becca. Let's talk.” He cleared his throat but didn't say anything further. She waited, but his hesitance was almost visible, thick as cigar smoke. Reno really didn't want to share this story, Becca realized. He was afraid of it. And so, what she'd been asking of him—to tell it—that was no simple thing.

B
EN SWAM BACK
across the river, but Lucy wasn't there, so he returned to the opposite bank. Dusk had begun to fall. “Let's go find that man,” he said. Jacob nodded, sullen. “It was very brave of you to jump in the river like that,” Ben added. “And also really stupid.” He squeezed Jacob's shoulder and finally the boy smiled a little.

They climbed the hill and stood at the top of the rise, shivering in their wet clothes. A vast desert sprawled out below. About a hundred yards out, an encampment of low-slung buildings glowed among sparse trees. The camp was tucked into the shadow of an enormous mesa and illuminated by tall floodlights. It looked like a military installation.

“Look there!” Jacob tugged on Ben's arm. In the distance pulsed a bright bubble of light. A large fire.

“What is it?” Jacob asked, transfixed.

“Trash? In Iraq, people were always burning trash.”

“But why all the way out there?”

The kid had a point. Why dispose of something in the middle of the desert unless you wanted to keep it hidden?

By the time they'd picked their way down the rocky slope, it was completely dark, and Ben wished for his night-vision goggles. They passed through a stile, then stopped short. Before them stretched a vast graveyard: row upon row of wooden crosses. Ben knelt down in front of one. Hanging from the neck of the cross was a pair of dog tags with
Pvt. Pablo Rodriguez
stamped into the metal.

“Ben?” Jacob's voice was small and scared.

Ben let the dog tags fall back against the wood. “Come on,” he said, and he took Jacob's hand. “Let's go find your mom.”

Jacob was shaking with cold, so Ben lifted the child onto his back. The kid weighed about the same as Ben's armor, the difference being that now Ben was protecting the load attached to him instead of the other way around.

The crosses led Ben straight up to the compound's entrance. Standing beneath the floodlights was the old man from earlier. “Took you long enough,” the man said. Ben eyed the guy's liver-spotted face and sunken cheeks. He eyed the hunting rifle strapped to his back. “Name's Arne,” said the man. “Welcome to Kleos.”

Yeah,
Ben thought.
Warm welcome.

“Can I see your tags?” Arne asked. “I need to verify your identity. For security purposes.”

Ben always wore his tags, but he wasn't eager to show them.

“We can keep standing here staring at each other,” said Arne, clearly impatient, “or we can get going.” Ben pulled the tags from his shirt and held them out. Arne nodded and headed into the camp. His black motorcycle vest had a single large patch sewn on the back: an ancient Greek battle helmet with blackness where there should have been a face.

As they walked, Arne pointed out the trailers and hogans and concrete buildings that contained sleeping quarters and the mess. He pointed to the barns and said, “You'll probably start out with shovel detail, but if you stick around and the CO sees you progressing, he'll move you to something more dignified.”

Ben ignored all of this. “Where's the woman who was with us earlier?”

“She was driven in. Through that mining tunnel Reno told you about—the tunnel he should not have mentioned in the first place. That man's got no respect for us.”

“And we need to find this boy's mother,” Ben said eagerly. “She's with the Hands of God Church?”

Arne didn't answer, but he motioned Ben into the laundry building. Ben helped Jacob into overly large sweatpants, a man's T-shirt, and a hoodie that came down to the boy's knees. Then he changed quickly into a pair of khakis and work boots. After this, Arne took them to a cinder-block building. “You may not speak with the civilians inside,” Arne said. “If you do, there will be consequences.”

Jacob squeezed Ben's hand and Ben returned the pressure. He forced a smile and urged the boy inside. There, on cheap dormitory furniture, sat a cluster of Indian women. Immediately, one of them jumped up and ran to Jacob. “My baby!” she cried, rocking the boy madly. Ben felt a wave of relief that intensified upon seeing Lucy safe and sound. Ben opened his mouth, but Lucy's finger flew to her lips, her eyes imploring him to keep quiet. But Ben had lost his words anyway, because there, beside Lucy, he saw a pale figure; gaunt, with an angular face and sharp, critical eyes. The woman wore a short-sleeved cotton dress and a gold cross. She looked very little like her daughter.

“Jeanine!” Ben said. “Are Reno and King here yet? Is Becca with them?”

Arne walked toward Ben holding a small object in his hand. “I told you to keep quiet,” he said.

Jeanine gave Ben a you-asked-for-it smirk as Arne lifted his arm. A crackling sound escaped from his hand and Ben felt live wires tightening around his abdomen. He fell to his knees in agony. When he opened his eyes, Arne stood over him, pointing the Taser at his face. Jacob was crying. Lucy's eyes were averted, her expression slack and helpless. Nobody tried to help him.

“Get up, soldier!” Arne ordered. “The CO is waiting to see you.”

“Does anybody want to tell me what's going on?” Ben demanded, pulling himself up. “Any of you? Jeanine?” Jeanine's face was stiff.

Arne nudged Ben with the flat head of the Taser. “Let's go,” he said and prodded Ben out the door.

They continued through the camp for a good twenty minutes before entering a slug-shaped building. They climbed down a metal staircase and into a fluorescent-lit bunker. The hallway was narrow and punctuated by rooms harboring hydroponic plants. Somewhere a generator hummed. After a while, they reached a second metal staircase and climbed up and out into a white-walled garden. The perimeter was lined with sprouting basil, cottony sage, and thick bouquets of mint. The air smelled of sweet smoke. Above them loomed a massive, darkly hulking form, like a giant suspended wave.
The surge,
Ben thought and pushed the thought away. This must be the mesa, and its orientation suggested that they had just gophered their way beneath it.

“Wash,” Arne said and pointed at a burbling fountain.

Keeping his eye on the old man, Ben walked over and rinsed his face and hands. “Is it safe to drink?” he asked. Arne nodded. Ben gulped down a couple of mouthfuls, buying time. Was he going to be imprisoned here? Could he manage to take Arne down? Was there any way to scale the walls?

“Come,” Arne said and led Ben toward a wooden door across the garden. Ben hesitated, but Arne pushed the Taser against Ben's back. Ben wasn't sure what he'd expected to find behind the door, but it wasn't this: a perfectly square room with a wall of windows and a golden statue the size of a small child. The statue was a woman astride a tiger. She clutched weapons in her multiple arms. Could this be Durga, the mythical heroine from Becca's childhood?

But Ben's attention was diverted from this question by the room's other centerpiece: a man. He was a giant of a human being. His bare upper body had the heft and pallor of a concrete block. His eyes bulged with eggy whites and blue irises that had a crystalline, marble-like quality. Quite possibly, one eye was glass, but the man observed Ben with an expression that seemed almost clairvoyant.

“Welcome,” said the man in deep, rumbling voice. “I am CO Proudfoot, your commanding officer at Kleos. Have a seat, soldier.” The CO nodded at a small wooden chair, but Ben didn't move.

“I'll be just outside if you need me,” Arne said and gave Ben a look of warning before exiting the room.

“Arne's a hoplite,” the CO said, nodding as the door closed. “He is one of a dozen guardians of Kleos, named for the citizen-soldiers of ancient Greece. They are the oldest, most loyal inhabitants of this place.”