27

 

IT WAS THEIR last morning on the road. For Becca, it had been a full eight days since she’d left home, though it felt much longer. Rags appeared and motorcycles were cleaned of their grime, the chrome shined up and the leather brushed down, as though the men were preparing for some sort of mechanical horse show. These preparations were made quietly, almost solemnly, as though this day had been pronounced holy.

After breakfast, a medicine man in a bolo tie and jeans assembled the bikers into a circle. They stood in reverent silence as the man knelt over a small fire with a clay bowl, smoking with leaves. A complex series of smells—shades of sweet and bitter—filled the air. Then the medicine man began to move around the circle, wafting smoke over each man with a feather. In turn, the men cupped their hands and brought more smoke toward their faces, as though dousing themselves.

“Smudging ceremony,” Reno whispered to Becca as the medicine man made his way around.

When he reached her, he stopped. “You are the daughter?” he asked. “The one who requires special prayers?”

Hyperaware of so many eyes on her, Becca looked nervously at Reno. Reno nodded. “I’m Becca,” she said. The medicine man motioned for her to step forward. She looked at Reno again; again he nodded encouragingly.

“Close your eyes,” said the medicine man. Becca did and was aware of his voice, low and melodious. She could almost feel the smoke, like a translucent ribbon of silk, brushing her face. When she opened her eyes, she saw that the men were fixated on her. They not only believed in this ceremony, she understood, but were lending their conscious support to it—to this protective blessing over her.

She stepped back into the circle, feeling unexpectedly re-energized. Now Frank stepped forward and bowed his head. The entire circle, including the medicine man, bowed their heads too. Reno rolled his eyes at Becca, but he, too, bent his head. “Dear God,” Frank said. “We thank You for providing us the road, our sustenance. We pray to You for clear skies, mild temperatures, and safe passage into Utah. In Jesus’s name, amen.”

“Amen,” the men said in unison. All at once, the circle disbanded.

“You ready?” Reno asked.

“I’m ready,” Becca said.

 

As she and Reno traveled deeper into the desert, Becca mulled over the rest of Reno’s story. After losing Willy, Proudfoot became obsessed with Li Sing and Durga. He’d somehow accumulated a wealth of obscure knowledge about the village and the goddess, so Reno could only conclude that either his squad leader had been taken in by Willy’s crazy or he had gone a little nuts himself when the kid didn’t make it out. Meanwhile, Proudfoot never spoke about the mission or what had happened at the weapons hub. It was like Willy had never existed.

After Saigon, Proudfoot seemed to be his old self again, silent and stalwart as ever. Other than that one-time mention of the operation, he did not talk about Li Sing and Durga anymore. Maybe, Reno thought, Proudfoot was putting one over on them. Maybe it was just a big, fucked-up joke. But one night, Reno finally decided to ask about Willy. In response, the squad leader lifted his shirt and revealed the scar on his stomach. Reno was so disturbed that he told King about it the very next day. And from that moment, nothing was ever the same between the three men. King and Reno could not cross the gulf between their sanity and Proudfoot’s madness. And it hurt them, Reno said, to realize that they could no longer depend on their leader—the man in whom they had once put total trust.

After the war, Reno settled in the Tennessee Smokies, found work as a mechanic, and eventually took over the shop. King didn’t do nearly so well. After his parents kicked him out, he’d landed a tannery job in Dry Hills. He held it for a while, but Reno watched him descend deeper and deeper into alcoholism and depression. “Your daddy plummeted through all the circles of hell, and when he hit bottom, he just broke on through and kept going,” Reno said. At one point, King was barred from every bar in town as well as half the businesses. He was fired from the tannery. Barely twenty-five, King lived on charity in a busted trailer.

Now and then, Reno would ride over and drag King to AA meetings. He encouraged King to get a motorcycle, even loaning him the money for a down payment. Sometimes, King made an effort and spent a couple of months sober. In those good times, he and Reno would ride together on the weekends and participate in motorcycle runs with other vets who had also claimed their hard-fought-for piece of America—their open road—with Hondas and Kawasakis and, mostly, Harley-Davidsons.

It was on one of these sober stretches that King met Jeanine. “Your mother was a miracle,” Reno said. Amazed, he watched King go four months, then six months, without a drink or an arrest. He watched King hold on to steady employment at a small company that made custom-order saddles. He saw the two of them even buy a small house together.

“Your daddy was in love,” Reno said. “And who could blame him? Your mother was beautiful. And she was tough. I thought, If anyone can save him, it’s going to be Jeanine.”

But even Jeanine, sturdy as she was, couldn’t accomplish that feat. A few years into their marriage, King crashed. After many brutal months, Jeanine dug up some rumors about a vet out in Utah who was healing soldiers from Nam. Nobody knew exactly who the vet was or what he did that worked so well, but everyone seemed to know a guy who knew a guy who’d gone to this place in Utah and was saved. Never mind that there were plenty of men who entered this mysterious place and never came out again, like it was a black hole. King, for his part, didn’t believe it existed, but he was always happy to ride. So he indulged his pleading wife, and off they went.

Three weeks later, Jeanine came back to Dry Hills via Greyhound. King stayed in Utah for nearly a year. When he finally returned to Dry Hills, he arrived sober and with a picture of Durga tattooed on his arm. He told Reno that he’d met Proudfoot in Utah. Only he wasn’t Proudfoot anymore, King said. He no longer responded to that name. Now, he was just the CO. The commanding officer of Kleos.

King claimed to be better, but Reno wasn’t so sure. True, his friend wasn’t drinking. But he was smoking some kind of strange hash. He was sluggish and enervated, but most troubling was King’s new and unshakable belief in Durga’s heart. Jeanine told Reno that King spent long nights on the phone with the CO, often not talking at all but listening to the man ramble on about prophecies and deities and ancient wars. When Jeanine confronted King about these conversations, he became defensive, angrier than he’d been in a long time. The shadow of his rage began to creep back into their marriage. Only when Jeanine stopped asking about the phone calls did the shadow slink back into hiding.

From then on, Reno said, King would make the trip to Utah about once a year. It was like he needed periodic infusions of whatever was there to maintain his sobriety and his sanity. Jeanine put up with it, even though King would leave for months at a time, just take off without warning, eventually reappearing out of the blue and saying that he missed her and loved her and would never leave her again. And then, shortly after King came back from one of his long trips, Jeanine got pregnant. Now she made King promise that he wouldn’t leave again. She made him promise to stop smoking the drugs he’d brought home. She forced him to quit the overnight phone calls.

King did as she asked. But after Becca was born, he slipped back into his old ways: drinking and raging, with scattered moments of calm. Those moments had been Becca’s rare glimpses of King as a father instead of a monster. Finally, her mother had had enough with King’s drinking and rage, so she kicked him out. He retreated to Utah, the only place he knew to go.

Reno had been out to Utah a couple of times to see Kleos with his own eyes. His worst suspicions were confirmed. “The CO’s certifiably insane,” he told Becca. Even though there was no alcohol allowed in the compound, the drugs were concerning in their own way. He added that King was also going to AA on a regular basis. Clearly it was this, and not the CO’s craziness, that was keeping King on the wagon.

Becca wanted to know why King had run from Kleos this last time.

“Well, his leatherworking, which he’s been doing on and off for years, is still in demand and he’d gotten some new opportunities. But more than that, Kath swooped in with her usual handiwork.”

“What does that mean?”

“Please don’t tell her that I spilled the beans . . . but she asked King to come home for you. She saw how you were in need of some fathering, what with your mother AWOL and your fiancé overseas. So your father came.”

All this time, Becca had assumed that she was taking care of King, not the other way around. That’s how Kath had put it to her back in October: “Why not see your father? He’s all on his own and could use a little help around the house.” But the idea that King would have left Kleos even partly because of her left her dumbstruck. He’d left behind his safe haven for her; in his mind, he’d already done so much to help. Becca felt relieved that she hadn’t known. If she had, she probably would have let her father off the hook.

“The business side of things was going well,” Reno continued. “And the daughter side of things seemed to be coming along?”

Becca nodded.

“But then the CO announced that he was passing on Durga’s heart to a new leader, and that upended everything.”

“There’s not actually anything inside the CO’s belly,” Becca said. “Right?”

“Fuck if I know. But Proudfoot is billing this thing as a tournament, like we’re all fucking knights about to joust with each other.”

“And the competition for the heart involves what, exactly?”

“No clue. But your aunt and I are in agreement that whatever the man has concocted, it could physically and emotionally do your daddy in. I don’t mean to be callous, but there it is.”

 

And now here Becca was, sitting on the back of Reno’s bike, heading for the mysterious place her father called his refuge. How was she going to stop King from competing in the CO’s tournament? His belief went back decades. She couldn’t exactly walk up to him and say, I’m pretty sure you’re involved in a cult, and I think you should come home.

At a gas station in Arizona, Becca asked Reno why he and Kath thought she could help. Reno slid his credit card into the machine and snapped the tank shut. “Because you’re the only thing rooting King in the present,” he said. “In the now.”

“What about Elaine?”

Reno scoffed. “You didn’t notice Elaine’s lips stained red with Kool-Aid?”

So then it’s just us, Becca thought. Like you said before, back when I refused to listen.

 

For days, Reno had been riding near the front of the pack, always a short distance behind King. Now, when the group growled off down the highway, he turned in the opposite direction. After a few miles, he swung abruptly onto a dirt road that led into the heart of the desert. The land opened up around them, expanding like lungs. The sun was a pulsing white spot overhead. Out in these dusty plains, the only markers of civilization were power lines strung between the broad-shouldered metal Goliaths that straddled the desert floor.

Soon mesas came into view, and rock formations that arched dramatically into the air like ship prows. Rivulets of sweat ran down Becca’s back, and sand slipped through the helmet’s face guard and settled in her mouth. Her bruises, though fading, hurt. But at this speed—Reno must have been going upward of eighty miles per hour—she felt drunk. The desert itself was a kind of drug.

They came upon a heap of smoldering logs piled with bones. For a brief moment, Becca felt real dread, but Reno sped by so fast, she doubted what she’d seen.

The road wound the bike around a mesa and brought them in sight of an encampment between scattered cottonwoods. The camp was bounded on the east by the enormous rock formation, on the south and west by open desert, and on the north, as far as the eye could see, by a steeply rising incline full of boulders and cacti. Reno slowed and then stopped.

“Is that Kleos?” Becca asked, pointing at the buildings ahead of them. “It doesn’t really look like a ghost town.”

“The ghost town is on the other side of that rise. It’s where the CO lived when he first moved here. He called it Kleos. Then he built this place.”

“And where are the others?”

“There are three ways into Kleos. A mining tunnel takes you through that rise on the north horizon, but the CO’s men are liable to see us coming from that direction, and if they did, they’d stop us and make us swim.”

Becca raised her eyebrows, questioning.

“It’s part of the CO’s shtick. All vets that come have gotta swim. The route we just took, I discovered a long time ago.”

Becca did not believe that her father would agree to put a body of water between himself and his motorcycle. She certainly couldn’t imagine him swimming. She said as much to Reno, who only shook his head. “It’s a strong hold the CO’s got,” he said. “An iron grip.”

In some parts, Kleos resembled a little village, almost quaint, with the hogans scattered among scrubby trees and cows lowing in their pens. In other parts, it was like the industrial farms that Becca knew from Tennessee: mazes of metal gates and corrugated pens that led animals to slaughter. Reno said Kleos ran on solar power. The men produced their own food and their own medicinal herbs, and they had a warehouse full of hallucinogen-producing hydroponic plants that the CO had cultivated. “It’s not as ramshackle as it looks,” he said. “Proudfoot is nutso, but he and his followers have enough practical know-how—not to mention drug money—to have built quite an operation.”

Becca asked how many people lived here. The camp felt huge to her, like a person could wander around for days, yet so far they’d seen no one.

“There’s about a hundred, but people tend to come and go. I’d say half are permanent.” Reno snorted. “A god needs devotees. He can’t lead if nobody’s following. But a lot of these guys—your father included—weren’t meant to live here, on some stage set.” Reno nodded at the ridge and sky. “King was meant to ride. To love his woman. To be a father to his daughter.”

“Then why does he keep coming back here?” Becca stopped walking, made Reno look at her. She was on the cusp of understanding something vital about her father.

“Because as fucked up as this place can be, it’s a lot easier for a man like King to be in here than out there.”

“I can’t imagine my dad giving up his motorcycle for any amount of time.”

Reno nodded gravely. “You know that thing vets always say: freedom isn’t free. But the problem is, when you pay for freedom with blood, like we did, it changes you. Makes it so that freedom—sustained, prolonged—is hard to come by. The bike helps, sure. But you can’t ride a motorcycle twenty-four/seven. The men here, they’re like convicts who can’t make it outside the prison.”

Men liked Kleos, Reno said, because it reminded them of the military. Proudfoot had them follow strict daily regimens based on their spiritual progress and healing. Most of it was repetitive physical work. “Mr. Miyagi bullshit,” Reno said. “And some of it’s seriously twisted.”

“Is Proudfoot a shrink or something?”

“Who needs to be a medical professional when he can be a demagogue?”

“And people can just wander in?”

“We’re in the middle of nowhere. It’s pretty impossible to drop by accidentally. But Proudfoot knows better than to put the compound on lockdown. Nothing draws attention from the outside world more than a big old fence.”

“So it’s not really a cult. I mean, if you can leave whenever you want.”

“Ah,” Reno said, his eyes brightening, “but that’s the old man’s genius. Proudfoot claims to be healing them, but really, he’s just brainwashing them and drugging them and making them dependent. He puts the choice to stay or go—to be healed or not—on them. Those are powerful chains, psychologically speaking. But like I said, your dad keeps shaking off the shackles. That really gets the CO’s goat. King was there when all of this began. But if the man who saw Li Sing with his own eyes and watched Lai die isn’t a true believer, then who could ever be?”

“And somehow, you steered clear.”

“Not everybody who went to war comes back a total mess, Becca. I was able to compartmentalize, to more or less keep the worst of the war locked away. Your father was unlucky. But for whatever reason, I’m not fucked up enough to need this place. CO knows I’m a waste of his time.”

Hearing this, Becca felt awash in sadness and pride for her father. He must possess incredible strength to keep breaking free, especially when that freedom was so difficult. And yet King did not seem to recognize his own power. Becca wished that she could show him. She wished that he could see himself standing out in the world, on his own legs. He had a strong heart already. He didn’t need another one.

“Look,” Reno said. “We found them.” Picking up the pace, he led Becca through a group of hogans and trailers and into a clearing. On one side stood sixty or seventy vets, all of them wearing black biker vests that displayed a gold helmet in the military style of ancient Greece. Across from them, a cluster of Native American women swayed in prayer, their hands pressed to their hearts, their eyes shut tight. Between them stood a line of men holding rifles. Becca glanced at Reno; the guards and praying women—what was going on? But Reno’s eyes had drifted to a wooden platform high above the crowd. There stood a man imposing and still as a cement block. Gray hair cascaded from his cheeks and chin, and his large blue eyes glowed like neon. He wore a gray robe, like a monk’s, that reached his feet. So this was Proudfoot, the fabled CO.

The look he gave to Reno was inscrutable, but the one he turned on Becca was clear enough. It said, Welcome, but you really shouldn’t be here. Perhaps I’ll have the nice men with the guns show you out.

And maybe he would have, if it weren’t for the bikers approaching the CO from behind. The men were soaking, their legs muddy. At once Becca saw that her father was in pain; his meaty face was flushed red. His ponytail hung down his back like wet rope. She ran toward him, but halfway across the arena, hands caught her. Almost robotically, the guards separated into three groups. One pushed the Native American women back, one kept the bikers at bay, and the final coterie pointed their weapons at her.

“Oh, let her go,” the CO said and waved his hand dismissively, as though he considered Becca nothing more than a nuisance. The guard holding her released his grip, and she ran to her father.

“Go back to Reno,” King huffed. He was shivering in the sopping clothes. Becca thought of his lumbering body swimming the river, his cheeks puffing as he struggled to keep the water out of his mouth. She thought about his heart beating so much harder than it was used to. She felt a swell of anger toward Proudfoot.

“Friends and comrades!” the CO announced with a tooth-filled grin. “Welcome to Kleos. You have come a long way to be here. You have crossed the killing fields, humped through the jungles, weathered the assault of unending slurs. You have wandered through alleyways strewn with needles and broken glass, battled bureaucracies, swallowed too many pills. You have struggled through marriages with women who never knew you—and who could never know you. You have disappointed friends and family, abandoned children and been abandoned by them. And now you have arrived here to compete for the heart of Durga. After all of these trials, you have come to find your peace.”

The men were rapt. The only sound was the faint mumbling of the women in their prayer. Even King, who was clearly hurting, kept his eyes locked on the CO. And then, all of a sudden, the CO threw off his robe. His belly loomed over the crowd like a moon, bald and pale. It was bisected by a Milky Way of shiny skin—the scar. The lesion was grotesque, but Becca was unable to look away. A cry rose up from the men. Except for King. He’d been reduced to a wide-eyed child.

One by one, the CO called out to each man, addressing him by his name and military rank. “Do you agree of your own free will to compete for Durga’s heart, accepting the physical and spiritual sacrifices therein?” Becca watched each one step forward and give his assent. Meanwhile, her father wasn’t doing well. His breathing was labored, and the color had drained from his face.

Suddenly, his legs buckled and he collapsed.

“Dad!” Becca screamed and dropped to her knees. The CO halted his roll call and shouted for medics. Two of the guards rushed over, joined by Reno and Elaine. Elaine was also soaking. Her shirt clung to her breasts, and mascara ran down her face.

“A hospital!” Becca pleaded.

Reno shook his head. “Ain’t no hospital anywhere close.”

“I’m fine!” King gasped. “Just the angina.”

“His nitroglycerin pills,” Becca cried. “Check his pockets.” But the pills must have been in his saddlebags. Across the river.

“He’s in no shape to compete,” Reno said.

“No!” King coughed. “I have to.”

“And have a heart attack?” Becca demanded.

“I have to compete! I have to!” King craned his neck toward the platform. Everyone did. And Becca realized something: the CO could prevent her father from competing. With one word, he could send King home.

“He’s sick.” Becca stood up. “Just look at him!”

“It’s my business,” King said, wheezing, still on the ground. “You don’t know. You’re not even supposed to be here. Tell her! Elaine, tell her!”

“Honey . . .” Elaine reached for Becca’s arm, but she jerked away. Everyone looked up to the CO, awaiting his verdict.

“I’m sorry, King,” the CO said finally. “I can’t allow it. Not in your condition.”

King exploded. “You can’t take this away from me. You won’t, you son of a bitch!” The exertion caused him to double over again but then he struggled to sit up. His face prickled with sweat. “I’ve waited too long for this chance,” he cried. “I deserve this chance!”

“I’ll compete for him!” The familiar voice made Becca’s heart slam into her spine. “Let me take his place,” the voice said. “If I win Durga’s heart, he can have it.”

Becca turned. Surely she was imagining this—Ben, standing not ten feet away.

“Let me do this for you, Chicken. Please.”

“Ben.” She did not recognize the sound of her voice speaking his name. She did not understand what was happening. She heard herself chant: “Momentum, rhythm, stride.” Only she wasn’t running anymore. Her feet were fused to the earth.

“All right,” the CO said. He looked intrigued—almost delighted—by the sudden turn of events. “But King must be present to complete the final challenge, provided Sergeant Thompson makes it that far.”

Reno looked at Becca and his expression indicated that things were spinning wildly out of control. “Wait!” she yelled. “Ben!” But nobody was listening.

“Do you, Sergeant Benjamin Thompson, agree of your own free will to compete for Durga’s heart, accepting the physical and spiritual sacrifices therein?”

“I do,” Ben said.

“No!” Becca shook her head madly. “Ben, no.”

“Specialist King Keller, do you agree to let this man take your place?”

King did not hesitate. “I do,” he said.

“Very well. Arne, take King to the infirmary.”

“Ben!” Becca cried again. But the CO’s voice boomed through the clearing. “There will be no further conversing with civilians.” One of the guards slung King’s arm around his own shoulder and walked him into the trees. The others led the vets in the opposite direction. Just as Ben was about to leave the arena, he turned. At the wedding they had stood apart and faced each other in just this way. “Ben, no.” Becca shook her head, tears budding in her eyes. But the guards prodded him with their guns and he turned away.

A rough hand touched her shoulder, startling her. It was Reno. “Listen to me,” he said. “I’m going with them. I’ll keep an eye on your boy. Okay?”

Becca nodded dumbly, not really understanding.

“Keep your wits about you. We’ll figure this out.” Then he jogged off after the group.

The Native American women began to file out in an orderly fashion, like congregants exiting church pews. And that’s when Becca saw the face, white like a patch of sun-faded stone in a brown canyon wall. Her mother.