THE NEXT AFTERNOON, they climbed into a plateau of boulders spotted with moss like balding heads. Soon a glinting river appeared and, not long after, a house. It was mostly a carcass, a building gnawed to the bone, and it sagged on the slope across the river. “We’re getting close,” Ben said. Sure enough, the full town appeared around the next bend. Crumbling concrete buildings were scattered alongside the road. Across the river were more disintegrating houses.
When Ben spotted a couple of motorcycles and a van parked beside a caved-in cinder-block building, his heart leaped into his throat. The structure was as Reno had said: a mouth of broken teeth yawning at the sky. Affixed over the doorway were two signs. One read U.S. Post Office. The second read Kleos.
Jacob picked his way around the trash, busted tires and rusted bedsprings, until he reached the first cabin. A plastic chair missing one leg lay overturned on the sagging porch and half of the roof was gone, like a giant had come along and taken a bite out of it. “Curtains!” he called to the adults. “Do you think this is somebody’s house?”
“Come back here,” Lucy ordered. But Jacob wandered over to the next cabin and disappeared from view.
“Want me to get him?” Ben asked.
“Nah. Let him poke around,” she said. “You stay in earshot!” she yelled.
The wind knocked the post office’s barely hinged door against the frame. This place was creepy and far too reminiscent of bombed-out neighborhoods in Iraq—places that looked dead but often were not. Standing out here, Ben felt exposed, certain he was being watched.
Jacob reappeared down by the river. He chose a stone from the bank and skipped it across the water. He did not seem unnerved by his surroundings. How blissful to feel that kind of ease, Ben thought. To carry out a simple activity without psychological or emotional interruptions. To let the world fall away. Playing the fiddle, laughing with Becca, even some parts of soldiering had once provided him a similar release.
Ben turned from the boy only to hear Jacob shouting. The kid had found someone.
A man descended slowly between the busted shacks and stopped just above the mess of seep willow and arrow weed that grew along the opposite bank. Ben and Lucy joined the child at the water’s edge.
“You Reno’s guy?” the man called out, cupping his hands around his mouth to amplify his voice. He looked to be in his sixties and had a stubbly white beard. He wore jeans and a black biker vest.
“Yeah!” Ben shouted back. “He said you could give us directions to the mining tunnel?”
“He would,” the man replied and Ben realized that Reno’s name was not exactly an open sesame. “Tell me your division, rank, and number of tours,” he called out, “and we’ll talk.”
“This some kind of interview?” Lucy murmured.
Ben answered the questions.
“Active duty?” the man shouted.
Having finished his contracted service, Ben was now Individual Ready Reserve. Theoretically, the army could still call him up, but as long as recruiters like himself continued to peddle their wares successfully, the chances of that were slim. “IRR,” Ben answered.
“You better be telling the truth about that,” the man called back. “If you’re AWOL and the CO finds out about it, you’ll be very sorry that you lied.”
Ben didn’t understand what any of this meant, but first things first. “We’ve got our car up on the road,” he shouted. “Where’s the overpass?”
The man laughed. “No overpass.”
“You got a boat then?” Lucy said.
“Soldier, if you want to get here, you’re gonna have to swim.” He turned around and started back up the rise.
“We’ve got a child with us,” Ben said.
“And I can’t swim,” Lucy added.
The man looked over his shoulder. “Your friends aren’t my concern. You, soldier, can swim. Or build yourself a raft. Or a goddamn bridge, for all I care.” The man resumed his retreat.
“Hey!” Ben yelled. “Do you know a woman named Jeanine Keller?” But the man had disappeared over the rise.
“There’s got to be a bridge.” Lucy scanned up and down the river. “Or we can look for that mining tunnel your friend Reno mentioned.”
They drove twenty miles in each direction, without luck. Nor did the river appear to narrow at any point. Back at the defunct post office, they pulled in beside the motorcycles and van.
“Who the hell do these vehicles belong to?” Ben demanded.
“Mom!” Jacob exclaimed from the back seat.
“What nonsense are you talking?” Lucy said.
“That’s Mom’s van.” Jacob scrambled out and pointed to a decal in one of the van’s windows: a Jesus fish surrounding a hand. “Hands of God! I want to swim across with Ben.”
“Nobody’s swimming,” Ben said. “We’ll find another way.”
But in a flash the boy took off, a silver bullet flying toward the river.
“Come back here!” Lucy bolted after him. But the boy did not stop. He plunged into the water, lost his balance, and slipped under. Almost immediately, the current began to pull him downstream.
Lucy was in the river up to her knees, screaming, pleading for Ben to do something. Jacob’s head popped back up, but the river sucked him farther and farther away. Ben dove in; his body spasmed with cold, but he fought the numbness and swam out, using the current as a boost. Jacob was flailing and crying, pulling himself under with his own hysterics.
“Float!” Ben called out. “Turn on your back!” He swam harder, pushing his arms through the water like it was a heavy blanket that he was trying to shove off his body. Finally, he came within reach of the boy. He grabbed at Jacob but managed to catch only a fistful of jacket. “Fuck.” He spat out a mouthful of dark water. He grabbed again. This time, he caught Jacob’s arm. Holding the boy to him, Ben scissored his legs and pushed at the water with his free arm, maneuvering both of them out of the current. When they reached a muddy pocket of bank on the far side, Ben hauled the kid out. Gasping, he grabbed Jacob and pulled the child in tight. It was all he could do to keep from bursting into tears.
“Ben? Are you okay?” Jacob whimpered.
But Ben couldn’t let go. He pressed Jacob’s drenched, dark head and frail body to his chest. He needed to be sure that the child in his arms was real. Real and still alive. And in this moment, he felt sure that he was holding on to Majid, which, somehow, was the same thing as holding on to Coleman. “You’re okay,” Ben whispered. “You’re all right.”
Jacob squirmed in Ben’s tight embrace. “Ben!” he cried. “Ben! Aunt Lucy?”
Ben let go and felt the bodies of Majid and Coleman evaporate. “Let’s go,” he said, steeling himself against a loss that felt far too visceral. He helped Jacob out of his coat and wrung out the water. Then they climbed up the slippery bank. They’d traveled farther downstream than Ben had realized and the desert willows grew thick enough to obscure the opposite bank. Trudging along, Ben felt like he was on a mission with his platoon. His adrenaline was still pumping from the rescue, and he felt oddly exhilarated, energized in a way he hadn’t been in weeks.
“Lucy!” Ben shouted, thinking they must be fairly close to their starting point. There was no response. Jacob looked at him, worried. Ben forced a smile. “We’re almost back. See, it clears up over there, and those are the shacks we saw driving in.”
Jacob took off again, scrambling ahead. Ben hurried to catch up. He emerged from the willow thicket to find Jacob standing in the exact place where the old man had stood.
“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.