A hazy, brutal shape loomed before his vision, haloed in snowglare. He moved his hand, which had been holding his head, and squinted upward.
Shannon. Just looking down at him. Smeared in grime and sweat.
Behind him the courtyard and its walls were covered in a gentle inch of snow, which now threw the morning sun in Black’s eyes. The Humvees were gone, muddy ruts and bootprints the only sign of their former presence. He tasted multiple flavors of smoke.
Someone had propped him in a folding camp chair in the breezeway and put a field jacket on him. A fresh IV line snaked out from beneath the coat. His head pounded like a dozen hangovers. He realized he was shivering.
“Found your pack,” Shannon grunted.
Black lowered his head and saw his assault pack, which he had left in Pistone’s hootch two days before, hanging by its straps in the corporal’s huge hand. It sloughed to the stone in a slumping heap of canvas by Shannon’s feet. Black heard two dull objects move against each other inside it.
Black stared at the pack dumbly. His jaw felt slack, as though his mouth were hanging open.
He raised his head and looked up again. Shannon was looking away.
“Might need that,” he said to the breezeway wall.
Black looked past him at the silent hills, now mottled in gray. The side of his face throbbed.
“Corel—” he began, and erupted in a fit of coughing.
When he finished he saw Shannon looking down at him again in distaste, brow curled as though trying to solve a problem in his head. He produced a dirt-stained, half-drunk water bottle from a cargo pocket and held it out silently. Black took it and drank, water running down the sides of his mouth.
When he looked up Shannon’s hands were shoved in his pockets and he was looking away again.
“Empty pair of flex-cuffs,” he muttered.
Behind him the wind on the slopes raised white swirls from dusted tree limbs. Soldiers and medics hustled to and from the courtyard. Most carried ammunition and M.R.E. cases, which they stacked against the breezeway walls.
Black tried to remember how long he’d been watching them. How long he’d been conscious.
“Oswalt,” he croaked.
“He’s cool.”
“O.P.”
Shannon turned and eyeballed the soldiers coming and going before he spoke.
“Ain’t no O.P.”
Black looked past Shannon at the snow-powdered hills.
A medic sergeant appeared, the same one from the night before, informing him that his MEDEVAC flight would be arriving in a few minutes. His tone made it clear that there would be no dicking around and Black would be getting on the bird.
The sergeant stomped away, barking at his junior medics.
It took Black a moment to realize that Shannon was still standing there. He’d momentarily forgotten.
He noticed for the first time that Shannon’s body armor and weapon were stacked against the breezeway wall nearby. He looked up at the hulking soldier, who stared intently down the breezeway, hands in his pockets again.
Soldiers came by with cots and cases of medical supplies. Everything in the outpost was being assembled close to the courtyard.
“I didn’t—” Shannon blurted out suddenly.
Black looked up. Shannon, looking out at the hills, shook his head and exhaled in muscular exasperation.
“I didn’t know Sergeant Merrick was fucking investigating anything,” he said in an angry gush of words, “until he told you out there yesterday.”
He crossed his bulging forearms.
“I didn’t know who knew what or who wanted to know what.”
He glared at the soldiers hustling about the courtyard and shoved his hands back into his pockets.
Black watched the soldiers too.
“Bullshit,” he sighed wearily.
Shannon uncrossed his arms and looked down at Black a long time before he spoke.
—
From above, in daylight, it looked so ordinary. A valley like all the rest. Mountains like any others. From up here they could’ve been the mountains back home. Like with his dad and brother.
They flew just below the level of the ridges, hazy sunshafts winking, flashing across into his eyes. He watched out the chopper door as the coils of black smoke receded, its origin shrinking to a dot in the crook of the snow-dusted valley sides.
Did Brydon go with Caine, when he went out to do his business?
He had dreaded asking the question.
Naw. That wasn’t the dick Caine fucked him with.
Black looked around the interior of the helicopter. There were other soldiers there, strapped into the narrow seats. Lesser wounded like himself. After the criticals and the bodies.
One of them, caked in ash and dried blood, saw Black looking at him. He smiled and gave a flip of the chin. Black looked away.
What was Caine doing outside the COP?
You know what he was doing.
Where is he now?
Shannon had told him, watching Black’s reaction coolly. When he spoke it was without triumph and without pity.
I told you the day I met you, Lieutenant. You fuck with this valley and it will fuck you back.
“HEARD WHAT YOU DID, SIR,” the soldier in the bird called over the rotors and wind.
Black turned his head and looked at the kid blankly.
“HEARD WHAT YOU DID.”
What he did.
How did Caine know where to go looking for Corelli?
He hadn’t expected Shannon to know.
That was probably me.
Shannon’s big brows curled at him.
Thought you were a paperwork bubba.
Long story.
The soldier in the helicopter nodded at Black enthusiastically.
“FUCK YEAH, L.T.!”
They’d gotten below the snow line. Scrubby slopes sped past the open doors.
What were you gonna be, Lieutenant? Before you ran away from it to be in the Army?
It was the second time that week someone had asked him that. He said so.
Yeah, well, whatever it was, you might want to just go do that. Army ain’t for you.
The medic sergeant had come back then, and told Black his ride was almost there.
See you later then.
But Black called to Shannon, over the rising noise of the approaching helicopter.
Why did you refuse the order that night?
It was the only thing he’d really wanted to know from him.
When Caine told you to go after the girl?
Shannon had got a distant look in his eyes.
Didn’t know if it was a girl or boy.
Black told him. Shannon’s assessment was succinct.
Goddamn.
Two medics had come up the breezeway, ready to help Black aboard. Shannon bent to gather his gear.
Yeah, well, anyway, I don’t give a fuck about no hajji kid.
That Black believed.
But Caine was an asshole.
He shouldered his load.
And so are you.
And he’d turned and stumped away down the breezeway, a hulking, moving island of calm in the blowing snow.
Mountainsides fell away. The broad plain opened below them. The chopper banked and adjusted course, bound for home.
Clear of the valleys, they picked up speed. The sound of the wind and the engines was deafening in the open compartment. But all Black could hear was what Shannon had told him. About Caine.
Sergeant Merrick found him.
Where?
The big corporal looked steadily into his eyes.
Like Parsons.
Like who?
Their altitude was appreciably dropping, the air warming.
They crucified his ass.
Black looked out the door and saw Omaha in the distance.