I ROLLED off of Easy and we lay side by side, sprawled out on the bed, the little oscillating fan from my grandmother’s house moving the lemon-scented air.
“Okay, you’re right. We were going to Ajo anyway. But this way we’ve got a bunch of irregulars waiting to help out.”
“What? Jamie, you’ve been having a conversation with someone without actually speaking.”
I looked down when he moved over, laid his head on my belly. I reached for his head, rubbed the flat of my hand over the bristle of his hair, then ran my thumbs down the back of his neck. He was built like a bull, thick and sturdy. Like he could hold the weight of the world on his shoulders. “I wrote something about that last year. A blog post about staying in the moment.”
“I know. I read it.”
“Thanks for keeping up with me. For reaching out when you were ready.”
He didn’t say anything, his mouth making a lazy path down my belly. “I didn’t plan on this. I came for Austin. I was going to be real formal, keep you at arm’s distance, and let you know I was not a person to be fucked with and I’d moved on.” He took a bite of flesh between his teeth, then let it go and kissed me instead. “I’m still not a person to be fucked with twice. But you just looked….”
“What?”
“Insubstantial. Like you were wasting away. You needed me. I thought you’d be slick and polished and educated and long gone from the likes of me. Whenever I pictured you, you were wearing a dress shirt and a tie.”
“Drifting, maybe. Not wasting away. Not really.”
He pulled himself up, scrunched the pillow under his head, and stared at my profile until I rolled his way. “What?”
“Okay, don’t get pissed off. But I got a problem with this mindfulness thing. Several problems.”
“What? Why?” I started to sit up, and he pushed me back down. We lay together, listening to the fan move between us.
“I totally get how you can use it to appreciate stuff. Everything, really. And the whole meditation thing. Good training for the brain and all that.”
I was feeling a little irked. I frowned into his eyes, the softest blue now, the storm clouds blown away.
“Okay, I was in the shop, and my uncle had an old guy in the chair, and I was waiting around for a customer. So I had my laptop out and was reading your blog. I read part of it out loud to my uncle and the old man. It was the one about desire. How to stop having desire.”
“Yeah, okay. I remember.”
“So my uncle and the old man, they picked up on this flaw right away. I didn’t get it. It’s a ronin thing, I guess. They said that was fine, but it wasn’t our way. The American way. I hadn’t really thought about it, if there was even a way that was American still, today. They said it was in our nature. Shaped by the landscape. We needed a job. A mission, I guess you could say. We were happiest when we had something to plan, something to do. A rescue, a bridge to build, a country to conquer. What they said made sense.”
“Yeah, I get that.” I thought for a moment, lost in the color of his eyes, the mouth smiling so close to mine. “But what happens when it’s over? You climb a mountain, you get to the top. You try to land on the moon, eventually you get there. We go hike up a mountain these days, we’re doing it for fun, for bragging rights. That doesn’t seem like a goal worthy of the effort.”
“So the goal matters as much as the mission.”
“Yeah.” I reached out, unable to stop myself, and traced my fingers over his mouth. “I think that’s the deal. The meditation, the mindfulness. That’s so we can get to a goal that’s worthy of the mission.”
“What we’re doing now. Is it….”
“Saving a friend? Finding a boy who got hurt on my watch? I think so.”
“On our watch. It was on both of us, James Lee.” He studied my face, his big hand cupping my cheek. “What’s going to happen when this mission is over?”
“I’m already working on that. We’ll figure something out for both of us. Together. I’m thinking about it, okay?”
“Okay, Captain. I’ll follow your lead. I always did.” He stretched out, toes reaching for the ceiling. “That’s why you always had so much power over me.”
“Again with this. Maybe you should learn to let things go, Easy.”
“It’s not that simple.”
“You can cut my hair off if it’ll make you feel better. Like an atonement.”
He winced, reached over and grabbed a handful. “I love this hair. I’m the only barber that’s gonna cut this hair for the rest of your natural life.”
“Fine. It’s a deal. In that case, to make amends for breaking your heart when you were twenty-three, I offer up the life of my dog.”
THE NEXT morning, the old man who’d checked us in walked over when we were throwing our gear back in the truck. Tino sniffed the cuff of his pants, started to hike a leg, but Easy spotted the move and jerked him away. The man ran a loving hand over the big rounded hood of the truck. “This is a beauty. Did you put her back together yourself?”
Easy shook his head. “My uncle, mainly. I was his helper. Mostly I searched out nuts and bolts in sizes no longer made in America.”
“Is anything still made in America? You boys want to come over and have some donuts and coffee with me? I’ve got cream-filled and jelly-filled.”
Easy came to attention. “Oh, yes, sir. I love cream-filled. Almost as much as I love jelly-filled.”
“I want to show you boys something.”
In the office, he’d spread out an old paper map of Arizona. There was a trail marked on it in magic marker, moving across from Flag to the North Rim of the Grand Canyon. “This was my son’s. He used to go up there to the North Rim, roam around in the woods. Jacob’s Lake is up there, last stop before you get to the canyon.” His fingers traced tenderly over the trail marks. “He was a soldier, like you.”
“Did he make it home?”
The old man looked up into my eyes, shook his head. “Not in one piece.”
“I am so very sorry.”
He waved this away, turned to the plate of donuts, and brought me one wrapped in a napkin. “I suspect you’re a cream-filled man. Here you go, son.”
“Thank you, sir.”
“I was wondering if you had any more of them postcards. Maybe I could look and tell you if they ring a bell. Maybe we could track his route.” He gestured toward the map. “You know, see where he might have gone.”
Easy pulled out the postcards, leaned over the map, and spread them out. “I think we got a clue last night. This one, it’s in Ajo, right? Organ Pipe Cactus?”
The old man nodded, pulled the postcard of the goofy smiling Indian in a neon feathered headdress out of the pack. “This is from a casino outside Phoenix. North of Phoenix. Ajo is down south, damn near on the border with Mexico.” He drew a finger down the map, from Flag toward Phoenix, then down to the border and little Ajo. “That’s a long road, up and down into the mountains. The roads outside Phoenix and down south are getting dangerous. Lots of illegal and drug traffic. Lots of truck traffic from Mexico bringing goods in.”
“Last we heard he was doing it on his bike. Traveling with a little trailer attached for his camping gear.”
He smiled at this. “Boys up here do that all the time. They love heading into the mountains on their little bikes, a nylon tent strapped to their back.” He started to fold the map up. “You boys take this, use it to try and find your friend.”
I shook my head, put my hand over his to still him. “Sir, we can’t take it. It was your son’s. But we can let you know all is well when we find him.”
The old man nodded, cleared his throat. “Thank you. That would be good. I would be pleased to hear that you found him.” He handed both of us a card from the Grizzly Motel, Proprietor, Richard Dawes written underneath, with a phone number and email.
“Thank you for your help and hospitality, Mr. Dawes.”
He and Easy exchanged a look. He jerked a thumb in my direction. “He’s got good manners, this one. The boy’s polite.”
“Yeah, he’s slick,” Easy said.
I looked down in time to see Tino lift a leg on the base of a potted plant tucked into the corner of the reception area. I snatched his leash so hard he let out a squeak, tiny toenails skidding a bit when I dragged him across the tiles. “Did you see those fucking pine trees outside, Tino?”
Easy opened the door for us. “He’s kind of got a blind spot about that dog, though.”
“Poor little thing. How’d he lose his eye?”
Easy reached for another donut. “Bar fight.”
I TOOK Easy’s hand when we walked to the truck. “Think we can take a little break, go for a hike before we head out again?”
“Sure,” he said. “You haven’t been doing your tai chi thing. You feel better when you do that?”
“Oh, yeah. Monstrously better. We passed a sign just before we turned off for the motel.”
“I saw it. Fat Man’s Loop. You show me how to do some of those moves, we get to the top?”
“Yes, I will. We could do the brocades. Silken Brocades. It’s eight positions to balance the organs, strengthen the Qi.”
“I’m with you, James Lee.” He looked down at Tino, who was sitting next to his foot, looking like a normal dog. “Think this little boy can tag along?”
“We could leave him tied to a tree on the trail, come back around to get him.”
That got me a look. “He’s the size of a chipmunk. Some raccoon will make off with him, think he’s snack food. If he gets tired, I’ll carry him.”
We left the truck in the parking lot for Fat Man’s Loop, then climbed up to the trail head. The map showed a rough circle, and we could see the beginning and end loops. It was a bit over two miles, gaining elevation, then losing, and was marked as a moderate hike. We started up, climbing around large sandstone boulders, rusty red streaked with white, as big as Easy was tall. As we climbed, the landscape changed, until near the top, we were surrounded by cool fir trees and could look out over the valley and see the mountains beyond.
“Those are the San Francisco Peaks,” I said when we had caught our breath. “They’re sacred to the Navajo. This used to be Navajo borderlands.”
He’d been carrying Tino the last half hour, and he set him on the ground now. Tino rolled over on his side, pretended he was roadkill. “We’re at the top. You gonna show me that thing?”
“The Silken Brocades,” I said. “This is the first one. It’s called Holding up the Heavens. You move your legs into horse stance, see?” I bent my knees and moved my legs apart like I was riding a horse. “You push your hands up and take a breath in, like you’re holding up heaven, then move them back down and exhale.” I demonstrated the move.
“That sounds so easy.”
“Give it a try,” I said. “It’s all in the rhythm. The benefit, I mean. Moving to the rhythm of your breath, your hands, the air around you.”
He followed me, pushing those strong arms up, then exhaling and moving them down. We were breathing together, his eyes fixed on my face.
“Keep going,” I said, and moved closer to him.
I kissed him, felt him breathe through his nose, then exhale, his breath touching my mouth. I moved my hand down his chest, into the waistband of his exercise shorts. It was chilly so far up, too cold for our light clothes. I slid my hand down into dense, damp curls, wrapped my fingers around him. I knew what he would smell like, the sweaty skin and damp hair between his legs. My mouth went dry.
“Keep breathing,” I said, talking to myself, and kissed him again, felt him swell and harden in my fist.
Tino leapt up like he’d been hit with a cattle prod, barking like a maniac.
I stopped and closed my eyes. “I hate that dog,” I said against Easy’s mouth.
“Somebody’s coming,” Easy said. “Though you are welcome to keep your hand there if you want. As long as you want.” I pulled it out, and he reached down, picked Tino up in one hand.
We could hear someone coming up the trail, huffing with the exertion of reaching the summit.
“So. That was Holding up the Heavens. There’s seven more in the Silken Brocades.” I cleared my throat, stuck my hands into my own pockets.
“Why don’t I hold up the heavens and you can give me a blow job.” This was said in my ear, very quietly.
I backed up, tripped over a rock the size of my fist, and he reached out and caught me by the shirt and hauled me up.
“Yeah, okay,” I said, and smiled at the elderly man who came around the corner, geared up with day pack, walking stick, sun hat, and water bottles. “We can do that. Very soon.”
The man stopped, gave Tino an admiring look. “That’s a very little dog for hiking! He must be stronger than he looks!” He bent over, petting the tiny walnut head, then pulled his fingers back when Tino snarled at him. “What a sweetheart. How’d he lose his eye?”
“Knitting needle,” I said. “He’s looking for a new home.”
Easy pulled the little dog away, tucked him inside his shirt. “No, he’s not.”
We nodded goodbye and headed to the downward side of the trail. “I am not giving you a blow job while you’re holding that dog. Or if that dog is watching. Just so you know. Otherwise, anytime, brother.”
Easy was quiet for a moment. “I suppose he could stay in the truck for one night.”
We drove south, through the wild Kaibab National Forest, and then into the Coconino. There were plenty of camping and hiking spots, but I didn’t see how Austin could have gone through these forests on a bike. The terrain was rocky, mountainous, and the elevation was so high that even the days were cold. That would change when we went down into the valley, headed for Phoenix, but I wasn’t sure we were on the right path.
Easy looked over at me. “What’s wrong?”
“Would he have really traveled down this way on his bike? It seems crazy. I mean, we know he was in Flag, but maybe he got down to Phoenix a different way. Hitched with a trucker or something.”
Easy stared out through the windshield. “He was so worried about you when he woke up in the hospital. He kept saying, Is the captain hurt? Did he step on it? I only stayed with him a couple of hours before they medevaced him out, but the whole time, he was asking if he’d done his job. He was your spotter. It was his job to keep you safe. Now he can’t even keep himself safe. He’s lost all his filters, you know? If he ever had a sense of something off, of danger, he has totally lost it. He’ll go anywhere, walk into any building, juke joints on the wrong side of town on Saturday night, wanting to dance with all the women; a pack of junkies in the park, walk right in with them all open-faced and smiling; and try to make friends with the biggest rabid dog he can find.”
I stared at the green outside the window, the dense black and green of the forest. What were we going to do when we found him? Pack him back to his mom in Tennessee? What if he got another harebrained idea to see America? We could spend the rest of our lives tracking him down, trying to keep him safe. But what was the alternative? Was he somebody else’s responsibility? The Army’s? The VA’s? Maybe the best way I could spend my life was looking after that kid who’d tried to protect me, who’d look at me with big soft eyes and blushed. He’d been young for nineteen. Maybe he’d always be that young.
“Have you thought about when we find him? What are we going to do with him?”
Easy made a fist, hit the steering wheel a couple of times, softly, rhythmically. He’d done that before, when we were deployed, to get some of the tension out. “Of course I’ve thought about it. I’ve been riding herd on him since we got home, Captain. I’ve been watching out for him while you were out in Albuquerque teaching yoga at the YMCA. You never even thought to check in, make sure he was okay. Or check in, make sure I was okay. Because FYI? I wasn’t.”
“I thought to check in, Easy. I just didn’t do it. I didn’t have the right. I thought you both would be better off if I left you alone. Why would either of you want to hear from me? I hurt him, I hurt you. I just needed to stay away and stop hurting everybody.” My throat felt thick, full of rising sorrow.
“That is pretty stupid thinking for a man with a degree in psychology.”
I had nothing to say to that. He was going to work through this or he wasn’t. He was going to stay pissed and angry, or not. He would blame me for what I’d done to him when I realized we were both in the Army, heading for the same unit. He would blame me for walking away after Austin got hurt. Not anything close to the way I blamed myself, but he didn’t need to know that. I wasn’t going to explain myself again. I didn’t think I could listen to myself, to those same thin justifications I’d used all these years like rags covering my bones. All I could do…. What could I do? I could stay by his side. I could stay with him, stay with the kid. Be there.
I looked over at him, the profile, the rock jaw, and the bristling flattop. “You know I love you. I always have.”
He acknowledged this with a little huff of air through the nose.
We drove for a while in silence. I wondered if I had been trying to deflect this conversation by telling him I loved him. Maybe. I’d said it to him before. He knew it was true. Easy was a man who knew how to look, and my feelings for him were usually written large across my face. But I also knew my own culpability. A person who spends years meditating can’t deceive himself. I’d felt guilty and responsible, so I stayed in hiding. I didn’t want to face this, or have this conversation.
“I’m sorry I didn’t come and find you. Austin too. I’d done something I couldn’t take back. Just that one moment, you know? I couldn’t live it over again. And once it was done, it was done. And I could never fix it. He was hurt. The damage was done. I felt like I had to atone. Put myself in limbo or something.”
Easy stared over at me. “Limbo? Is that some Catholic thing? What the hell does that even mean? James Lee, you didn’t lay the IED in the road. You didn’t tell your spotter to get out of the vehicle, start jumping up and down on the spot where he’d seen a wire buried.”
“That’s what got him hurt. Once you’ve got an injury to the brain, it’s probably for a lifetime. That’s what TBI is, right?”
“Yeah, he’s got a TBI, but that wasn’t what got him hurt. What got him hurt was he had feelings for you, had a big thumping heart of an adolescent crush on you. And you knew it and didn’t do anything to stop it. He was acting like an idiot to impress you. That’s what got him hurt.”
I stared out the window again.
“You did the wrong thing with me, pushing me away. I was a man, and we were lovers. We were in love. We could have made it work, and fuck the Army. It was real. Austin was just a kid. He depended on you, looked up to you. You were his captain, and you got a kick out of all those young boys crushing on you. Big black eyes, ripped muscles, silky black hair. You looked like some vid star, and they would have followed you into hell. Not because you were their leader. Because you were you.”
I closed my eyes. I wanted to be anywhere but inside this truck, with this man shoving his angry truth in my face. Did I really do that? Did I take advantage of those kids, play them when I should have been thinking how to keep them safe?
“I loved you then, Jamie, and I still do. But that doesn’t mean I don’t see you. I see who you are. And if you even think about trying to walk away again in the fucking middle of this, I’m going to break you into pieces. I won’t let you do it to me again.”
That’s exactly what I was thinking, about walking away. I was picturing walking down this road, my thumb out, anonymous, no history, drifting across America with the truckers, listening to them talk, and meditating. Not doing anyone any good and not doing anyone any harm. Was that the balance I was looking for, between harm and good? Was it a worthy goal for a life, to try to stop hurting other people? Or did I have a tendency to leave when things got too hard and too real?
“I have about said all I’m going to say on this. Oh, one more thing. We had peanut butter and jelly for supper and donuts for breakfast. I’m hungry. I’m stopping at the first diner I see that has burgers on the grill. And you can stop crying anytime.”
“I’m not crying,” I said, wiping my eyes with the heel of my hand. “I’m allergic to the dog.”