Spring comes late in the Yellowstone. The snow melts, the rivers swell with the runoff from the mountains, and nature becomes frantic with rebirth and renewal. There is a special sweetness imbuing the air and an infectious urgency inhabiting man and beast as the world wakes from its long frozen slumber and bursts back to life. Wildflowers bloom and appear as if by magic from one day to the next, transforming barren hillsides into kaleidoscopes of startling color, purple and red and white and blue. Grizzly bears, hungry from the long winter, gorge themselves on the carcasses of bison and elk that died in the winter, and mother bears with small cubs shambling behind them prowl and forage the valleys and streams. Hawks swoop and eagles cry and dive upon prey and bison herds try to shield their young from the circling wolves. The season of life is short, and there is much to be done in little time.
Springtime found me becoming myself again, altered and broken, but recognizably me. I learned I had been held in Salt Lake City for almost two months, and it took longer than that for my mind and soul to mend to the point that I considered myself functional again. My broken ribs were healing and the weeping bedsores closed. I ate voraciously, quickly packing weight back on to my depleted frame.
Without Crystal at my side, I would have been lost. Her strength and patience was heroic. She soothed me and nurtured me and gave me hope, things she found in some bottomless and mysterious well of reserve, but which must have come at a cost, because she was in great pain of her own.
“Quit apologizing,” she said many times.
“But—”
“Quit saying 'but.' I don't want to hear it. Drink this.”
The worst thing about it for me was that I recognized my patheticness, my uselessness, and how much she needed me to be her rock instead of the lump of jelly I was. I berated myself for it, for letting her down, and I tried to become whole again. Somehow, she never held that weakness against me, and sometimes that made me feel even worse, as though part of me wanted her to accuse me and berate me and tell me what a failure I was as a father, husband and human being. Her trust in me, unwavering and solid as stone, made me yearn to be the man she thought I was. She showed me I could live again, and that living was worthwhile. She expected more from me and I strove to be worthy of her faith.
I was aghast and ashamed at my feebleness when I was near my son. “Dad,” he would say, “let's go fishing today. I found a new spot.” Sometimes I would go with him and we would sit and cast and hardly speak, and I could see him looking at me from the corner of his eye with pity and concern and it shattered me. Like he was trying to protect me.
Yet that is exactly what he did in his own way. He helped me to face the future and to wake me from my sleep. It was early in May and we were camping next to a small stream miles from home. Crystal had insisted that we go.
“Dad,” Ryder asked, “will I ever get big?”
“Sure,” I said. “You're nine. Give yourself another nine years and you'll be bigger than me.”
“Well yeah,” he said. “I know that. Kids grow up. What I mean is, will I grow up. Like, is there time for me?”
The light was dying and low clouds cloaked the Blue Mountains. The trout we had caught that day sizzled in a small pan perched on branches above our fire. Birds chirped and twigs snapped in the woods.
“What do you mean by that?” I asked.
“Like, you know, I'm supposed to grow up. But people say that everybody is going to die soon. I want to be big like you.”
“You will,” I said. “Don't listen to people.”
“But people die,” he said. His voice was small. “Grace won't get big. She...she died little.”
“I know.”
“I don't want to die, Dad.”
“You won't. Not for many years.”
“Promise?”
What could I say? I could utter comforting words, the hollow promises of countless generations of parents as they tried to protect children from a world with sharp teeth. What did the man say to his son at Auschwitz when the glowering SS troops in shining jack boots pried the child from his arms in the shadow of the smokestacks? What words were spoken as Vesuvius blew and ash engulfed Pompeii and families held on to one another while the world ended? Perhaps you say goodbye then, or perhaps you lie. Ryder knew what a promise meant to me, and he looked into my eyes with the fervent hope that my words could make the difference, that by the force of them, it would be thus.
“I promise,” I said.
That was the turning point for me, the moment when I truly began to fight again for his future. I said the words, and it was a promise to myself as much as it was to Ryder, for we were not at the gates of Hell, not yet, and I had to do everything in my power to prevent that outcome while I could draw breath. I was not wallowing in pain, although I was walking wounded and my psyche was fractured. What was stopping me from healing properly was a lack of hope. I'd had it stolen from me along the way and Ryder was reminding me that all was not lost, that there was still fight in me and a reason to fight. I think I had told myself I was used up and spent. I resolved to get back into the fray.
I spent the next weeks shooting and training with the platoon of men Hawk had sent to defend Lamar. At first, I was shaky, but after a short time I was able to outshoot any of them. Perhaps the long line of warriors I had descended from gathered about me like guardian angels and gave me strength. The young soldiers shook their heads in baffled amusement and then respect at my rapid progress. We went on long runs in the mountains and practiced our hand to hand combat. I came home at night to Crystal exhausted but fulfilled. She recognized the change immediately.
“Where are you off to so early?” she asked the morning after Ryder and I returned from our fateful camping trip.
“To see if I can still shoot,” I said. It was not light outside yet.
“Well, all right,” she said. “Anything I need to worry about?”
“Nope. I'm squared away.”
“Shoot straight,” she said. That night, we made love for the first time since Grace had been taken.
*
In my absence, Elijah and Abraham had taken over leadership in Lamar. I gradually integrated myself back into the life of the town, but old Eli bore most of the burden.
“What you're doing is far more important than deciding how many chickens somebody owes,” he said with a sly grin. He was bent by the years and had taken to using a cane. He had chosen a great white gnarled staff and it made him look even more like a black Moses.
“I'll be leaving again soon,” I said.
“I know, son. You go where you're needed. We'll manage here.”
“The people are afraid.”
“That they are,” Eli said. “But we're a tough bunch. We're all glad to see you back on your feet. I think seeing you down scared folks more than anything.”
“I tried,” I said, searching for words. “I failed. I lost. I'm not giving up any more.”
“Right,” Elijah said. “You pick your butt back up until they put you down for good. I'm happy to see that gleam in your eyes again.”
“Yes sir,” I said.
We spoke of faith and forgiveness and loss and the essential elusiveness of God's plans. I unburdened myself of much of the pain and anger I had stored away. I was still struck by the lack of justice as I perceived it, by the unfairness of the world we lived in. As always, Eli pointed out the God was not the bad guy in all of it.
“It's up to you to make it right,” he said. “To do what you can do to make the world a better place.” I did not disagree.
*
Shortly before my departure back to Jackson, Crystal and I invited Abraham and Angela over for a steak dinner. My old friends came into our home and filled it with laughter and light. Abraham had looked after me throughout my convalescence as he had done in years before, with cajoling humor and a gentle spirit.
He and Angela had gotten married several years earlier and had managed to form the kind of bond that appears to have a sense of destiny about it, a wonderful inevitability. Abraham was six foot four and black, while Angela was a diminutive blonde, yet they seemed so perfect for one another, so in love, that I could not imagine them with any other people. That Angela had been my first childhood love and best friend did not alter my perception of the couple, and there was no lingering wistful feeling in me for what might have been, no awkwardness about the four of us being together.
We sat at our round wooden table and drank blackberry wine and ate steak that melted in our mouths. There was a fleeting moment of sadness when Angela sat in the chair Grace had favored, a place that until then had gone unused by some unspoken agreement in our family.
“I'm pregnant!” Angela gushed.
“That's wonderful!” Crystal replied. She reached out and held Angela's hand. “I'm so happy for you. Are you hoping for a girl or a boy?”
“Abe says he doesn't care,” Angela said. “But I think he really wants a boy. Me, I'm happy either way.”
“I just hope he's healthy, that's all that matters to me,” Abe said.
“See?” Angela said, and we all laughed.
Ryder was playing with a toy stethoscope Abe had brought him. “Maybe we have two future doctors in the room,” Abe said.
We spoke of trivial things and avoided talk of the war. No one mentioned Gideon or Salt Lake. Abe detailed his new medicinal greenhouse, where he grew plants and herbs and synthesized them into useful homeopathic remedies. Angela told us about the infirmary and Crystal talked about her school. We talked about the geothermal plant, still in its early stages, being built to take advantage of the abundant energy beneath our feet. I sat back and soaked it up and felt normal again, restored. I drank in the memories and the rich friendship and replenished my soul. I knew I would need to remember the taste in the coming months, when I would be far away and thirsty.
That night, when Crystal thought I was asleep, I heard her crying.
*
I learned the details of my rescue in bits and pieces. Chilli and Arthur had made it back to Jackson in the Chinook, but Max had not gotten to the aircraft in time. He had evaded capture and lurked about in the foothills near the city.
My ultimate deliverance hinged on two unlikely men, although it was Max who carried out the wet work. The Governor had learned, as he ingratiated himself to the Gideonites being confined in Jackson, that Scott Murphy, the drunken former husband of the very lady Chilli was seeing, had become an acolyte in Gideon's organization. Chilli got the message through to Max on a radio. When Max made contact with Murphy, the man agreed to help out of a sense of personal debt to me for saving his boys from cannibals years before on our train ride west. He paid with his life. Murphy stole a set of the black clothes of the elite and met Max on the edge of town. They entered the Temple in the dead of night and carried me to a waiting jeep. Max killed several men quietly in the process. Murphy intended to come back to Jackson.
There was an unexpected checkpoint and a brief but fierce gun battle on a side road leading from the town, and it was there that Murphy was shot through the heart. When Max ran out of fuel, he carried me over his shoulder through the snow and mountains until he found a small group of Mormons willing to give him a horse. Max had to put a blindfold on me for the entire journey to keep me calm and quiet. Eventually he called in for an extraction. The feat became legend and songs are still sung about it. I am humbled and in awe of the tenacity and grit it had to take for Max to pull it off. I don't believe I could have done it.
*
As the season warmed, I got daily coded updates from Jackson. The war had continued without me, mostly in the form of small skirmishes and probes, each side looking for weaknesses and trying to consolidate resources. Help came to Jackson and Lamar, first at a trickle, and then a steady stream, as groups of men and women migrated to answer the call. They came from the north, from Canada and from the plains. Some trained to fight and others were willing to work to produce food and weapons.
Sharp Knife and Mike appeared with a contingent of fifty well-armed fighters. They stayed in Lamar for a few days before moving on to Jackson.
The refinery at Sinclair, Wyoming had successfully fought off multiple attempts to destroy it, and the rail lines were functioning again. Jackson had fuel, the life blood of our armor and our Air Force. The snow on the high passes was melting fast.
*
The day before I left, Crystal and I took a long horseback ride, staying close to the Lamar River winding through the valley. The river was swift and strong. Gunmetal clouds clung to the peaks and ridges in the distance, and far off we saw a double rainbow, one below the other, arcing across the valley.
“Are you ready to go back?” she asked.
“I am.” My horse nickered and nipped at the hind quarters of her mare. “Are you really okay with it?”
“William,” she said, “I'll miss you, but you're needed there more than you are here. We'll be all right till you get back.”
“I'm sorry I wasn't able to be there for you after Grace.....” I let my voice go. She slowed her horse and brought herself alongside me. “We haven't really talked about it. I feel like we should say something.”
“We feel guilty,” she said. “That's not going to change anytime soon. You did everything you could. I want you to know I believe that.”
I needed to hear it, to know it. “If I hadn't slipped—”
“No. You did what you could.” She reached over and patted my leg. “We're sad because we miss her. That's okay.”
“So you forgive me?” I asked, holding my breath a bit.
“There is nothing to forgive. This world is hard and it takes more than it gives.” She gave me a sad smile, looking past me. “We're lucky to have loved her. That's what matters now. We have to honor her by being strong. By giving Ryder a chance.”
“Yeah,” I said. “You're a tough woman.”
“I don't think I have a choice about that.”
The ride was a long farewell, with more than a small bit of sadness to it as we each grappled with what tomorrow would hold for us. Much was left unsaid, and there was a sober distance between us that I had never felt before as we mourned a future we had hoped for and lost, while trying to accept a new one. We had dealt with our issues differently and independently, but had not faced them as partners, as a team. I knew we would have to come to a new understanding of what our family was, changed and reduced by tragedy, but a family still. I think we recognized we were not whole and we were hurting and frustrated because we did not know how to put the pieces back together.
“I think you're a really good man, William. The best. It's good to see you strong again.”
I did not say anything.
“Part of what I love about you is your sense of duty,” she continued. “It drives me crazy sometimes. It's a lot of what makes you who you are. I just miss us.”
“Me too,” I said.
“Are we going to be okay?”
I tried to give her a confident and roguish smile. “I promise.”