“I’m quoting somebody. Take a wild guess who.”
“Somebody I’d rather not drag into this.”
“If you don’t want to ask your dad, ask your grandpa.”
Grandpa, who was the self-proclaimed straightest talker west of the Mississippi, said he wasn’t at liberty to talk about it either.
“Ask your father.”
The whole line of questioning obviously made Grandpa angry. Sinclair couldn’t tell if he was mad at his father or Pete or both. Everyone seemed privy to some big secret except him. Enough was enough.
His father was in the study with his foreman, Nick. He was ordering him around, as usual, even though the foreman knew a hell of a lot more about ranching than he did. Nick looked happier to see Pete than his dad did. The feeling was mutual.
“I was just leaving,” Nick said, getting up.
“Don’t forget what I told you about those inseminators,” Mr. Sinclair said.
Nick winked at Sinclair on his way out, having already forgotten what he had been told about those inseminators. It was the only way a cowboy like him could tolerate working for a white-collar rancher like Mr. Sinclair.
“Have a seat, Billy.”
“No, thanks,” Sinclair said. “I just want to ask you a quick question.”
“If it’s about that saddle, the answer is still no.”
“It’s about Pete.”
“I seem to recall discussing this already. Several times.”
“You told me he’s not welcome here anymore. But you never told me why.”
His father made a show of checking his watch.
“Got all afternoon? Or should I just list the top ten reasons so we can both get back to work?”
“One good reason will do.”
“I can’t trust him anymore.”
“What did he do?”
His father fingered the railroad spike he used as a paperweight. He started to say something but decided against it.
“Come on, Dad. What’s going on?”
“Let’s put it this way, Billy. I’ve been around hen houses long enough to know when there’s a fox snooping around.”
That’s all he could get out of him. A conspiracy of silence kept Sinclair in the dark. The whole family was in on it, even Candace. She was such a blabbermouth he probably could have coaxed it out of her. But that would have involved acknowledging that she knew something he didn’t know about Pete. There was nothing Sinclair hated more than his sister horning in on their friendship. She had scads of friends, one for every day of the month. He had one. She ought to respect that.
He had no desire to broach the subject again with Pete. The beauty of their friendship was its simple, quiet clarity. Talking, for what it was worth, just complicated things. Candace liked to make fun of them. She’d mimic their conversations, making grunting noises and clearing her throat a few times. She said it was a guy thing, as though that made it shallow. Damn right it was a guy thing. It was a refuge and a comfort. But even their silences were invaded this time. They were fraught and depressing.
Sinclair was initially relieved when Pete finally reached out, as Candace put it. It was such a girlie way of describing what happened in the aspen grove. The idea that he had rebuffed Pete’s so-called cry for help was pure Candace, straight from all the self-help books she was reading when she wrote that goddamned letter. She had a whole shelf of them. Somebody was making good money off people trying to cope with loss. There was a big market for bereavement in the wake of 9/11.
Candace was right about one thing. Pete had an awful lot on his mind that day. It was their last weekend together before Sinclair left for college. They were supposed to go grouse hunting, but Pete said he wasn’t in the mood to kill anything. That should have been a tip-off that something was terribly wrong. A hike was proposed. They set out without a destination, knowing full well where they’d end up. They loved every inch of the forest, especially the aspen grove. It was their real home, not the four walls where they played house with their families. Neither of them ever made the pilgrimage there alone.
The grove was a living shrine to the animals they hunted and killed over the years. They had mounted antlers on the trunks of trees, taking care to replicate the exact height of the animals, which they measured in hands before skinning them. As the trees grew, the antlers seemed to rise higher and higher, totem souls unencumbered by bodies. The most imposing was a moose rack, a gigantic beast Sinclair bagged just east of Yellowstone Park. At sunset its shadow stretched halfway across the grove, a looming apparition that spooked them as boys and humbled them as men.
They liked to pretend nobody else knew about the grove. It may have been true. The terrain was steep and there was no trail. The only other evidence of visitations was deer and bobcat tracks, and holes left by bear digging roots. There was a streambed nearby, almost always dry in summer and raging with runoff every spring. In September, they gathered pebbles, which they carried in their pockets to protect them from teachers and other civilizing threats. In May they put them back where they had found them. Up there it was never hot and bothered the way it was on the valley floor. There was always a breeze, uphill in the morning, downhill at night. Aspen leaves were forever quaking, a hushing sound that made the two of them even quieter than usual.
Neither of them said a word until they crested the ridge. They dropped over into the Eagle Mountain watershed, much wetter and wilder than the grazing land below. In the distance, a bright white line traced the blue ridge of the northern Rockies. They had been hiking for two hours, long enough to hit their stride and settle into one another’s company. Sinclair was surprised when Pete broke the silence.
“Did you talk to your father?”
“Yup.”
“What did he say?”
“Something about a fox in a henhouse.”
“Whatever that means.”
“You tell me.”
“Did he mention a girl?”
“Nope.”
“Then he lied.”
“Wouldn’t be the first time.”
Trashing one of their fathers was usually a surefire way of bonding. But the gesture felt empty. The fact that Mr. Sinclair was an asshole wasn’t enough to repair the damage their friendship had suffered over the past few months. Sinclair assumed it had something to do with the fact that he was on the verge of leaving for college, separation anxiety or whatever Candace’s self-help books would have called it. The last thing he expected to come out of Pete’s mouth was reference to a girl. They could see the tops of the aspen trees below, shimmering silver against a backdrop of dark pines. Sinclair was determined to finish the conversation as quickly as possible. There’d be hell to pay if anyone talked about girls once they reached the grove.
“A girl.”
“Yup.”
“What a relief.”
“I’m glad you think so.”
“I thought it was something serious.”
“It is serious.”
“You got her knocked up?”
“I never said that.”
A red-tail hawk was hovering over the grove. Sinclair couldn’t reconcile the pure serenity of its flight with the garbage pouring out of Pete’s mouth. This was the kind of conversation other men had in smoke-filled bars, half drunk on tequila. Anywhere but here. Anyone but him and Pete, who steered clear of tequila.
“Are you sure it’s yours?” Sinclair said.
“It’s not about that.”
“It’s never about that. But it happens.”
“Shit happens, that’s for sure.”
Sinclair could feel Pete looking at him. He pretended not to notice. They were traversing the last escarpment descending into the grove. He slowed down, letting Pete take the lead so he wouldn’t have to make eye contact.
“I was hoping you’d talk to the girl’s father,” Pete said.
“It’s your mess. You talk to him.”
“He doesn’t like me.”
“And I�
�m supposed to tell him what a great guy you are.”
“Something like that.”
“So you can marry some girl you got knocked up.”
“Forget it, Billy. I’m sorry I even brought it up.”
Pete peeled off and headed straight down the hillside. They never went that way. He slipped on some shale and cussed it out. Sinclair stuck to the game trail. By the time he reached the grove, Pete was already sitting under the moose rack. He wanted to sit down next to him. He wanted a lot of things he was pretty sure he could no longer have.
“You’ve known this girl for what? Six months?”
“Years.”
“First I ever heard about it.”
“You get ornery when I bring up girls.”
“She’s got you where she wants you, that’s for sure.”
“I love her, Billy. Can’t you understand that?”
If he hadn’t said that one word, things might have worked out differently. Love. Their intimacy was predicated on never betraying each other with language. Sinclair had always known they would both eventually marry and have children. That was part of being a man, too. But their families would complement, not replace, their bond. Let women use words with careless abandon, emptying things of their intrinsic value. Let them wax poetic about romance and crushes and even passion as long as they shut the fuck up about love.
Sinclair recoiled from the word as if from a blow. Punching Pete in self-defense seemed the most appropriate response. Instead he marched to the other side of the grove. He and a mule-deer rack watched the sun sink in the western sky. He was careful to think about nothing, the only real way to keep language at bay. Pete was watching the moose shadow spread across the grove. When it reached Sinclair, he got up and started climbing back up the hillside.
Sinclair often wondered whether he would have run after Pete if he’d known he was suicidal. Incompatible emotions blocked his grief, equal parts guilt and anger. No matter how many times he rehearsed their final conversation, he couldn’t envision a better outcome. The cardinal rule of friendship was that men never allowed women to come between them. Pete had offered him a false choice. Sinclair could have either betrayed their friendship by helping him or by refusing to help him. Catch-22.
The military was as close to an ideal masculine community as you could get. But nothing, not even the US Marines, was a safe haven. The threat was ubiquitous. The sight of mothers in combat zones. Letters from home fraught with worry. He had seen his buddies break down crying reading them. But love of wives and children never compromised their blood brotherhood. When duty called, they answered with unflinching loyalty. Even Trapp, the most devoted husband in the whole platoon, had his priorities straight. His wife had threatened to divorce him if he redeployed to Iraq. He had done it anyway. She eventually came around, of course. Deep down, women want to be married to men, not cowards. They try to domesticate you, fully expecting you to resist. Pete should have resisted.
Semper Fidelis wasn’t just a martial ethic. Without being faithful to one another, men couldn’t be faithful to anyone else. They couldn’t even be men. Compromising this fidelity was hazardous for everyone concerned. Sinclair had witnessed the devastating results both on and off the battlefield. Pete was dead. Nine enemy corpses littered the courtyard below. Different contexts masked the same tragic flaw. Men self-destructed when they betrayed what they held most dear. Each other.
Wolf’s squad was stripping weapons and ammunition off the dead insurgents. The one in the police uniform was clutching an M16. He had obviously had more luck in previous encounters with coalition forces. American rifles were the ultimate status symbol, proof of having killed an infidel invader. Like scalps, only much more useful. Radetzky intervened, waving the squads on to the next set of compounds. Colonel Denning had issued another blanket order. Every company in the battalion was expected to reach Phase Line Freddy a full six hours ahead of the original timetable. Defensive measures, including destroying enemy ordnance, were too time-consuming to accommodate the accelerated pace. Radetzky knew that every weapon left behind could be salvaged by insurgents, eventually killing one of his men. The Iraqi National Guard was officially AWOL.
“Who’s going to watch our backs?”
“Yours truly,” Sinclair said.
“Not unless you’ve got two sets of eyes,” Radetzky said. “We need you out front.”
“Meanwhile our asses are hanging out to dry,” Wolf said.
“Offense is the best defense.”
“You keep saying that. Like you’re trying to convince yourself.”
“They can’t shoot what they can’t catch,” McCarthy said.
“You heard the man,” Logan said.
“Get the lead out!”
Everyone understood the dangers involved in abandoning armed corpses. They forged ahead because they were trained to follow orders. With the exception of Wolf and Radetzky, who felt responsible for their squads, they obeyed with alacrity. An accelerated campaign was a double-edged sword, but the excitement outweighed the risk. At this rate, barring unforeseen resistance, the city would be theirs by the end of the week. Sinclair felt proud to be a part of what promised to be a crowning victory in Iraq, second only to the blitz on Baghdad.
This section of East Manhattan, bordering on the industrial sector, was like a massive smoking gun. Evidence of recent occupation by enemy units was everywhere. Syringes. Dirty dishes. Trashed bathrooms. They kept alternating rooftop and street-level entries whenever possible. Walled-up staircases and other makeshift fortifications tapered off. There were still plenty of booby traps, but most of them had been wired too hastily to pose much of a threat. Unlocked doors were a dead giveaway. Welcome mats were sinister reminders that hospitality had become lethal. The pace imposed by Colonel Denning technically forbade taking time to search for traps. But Radetzky slowed down just enough to test the waters. When in doubt, they fragged the joint with grenades before diving in.
If everything went according to plan, the Thundering Third would dovetail with Battalion 1/5, forming a mile-wide offensive. Pivoting west as 2/1 moved east out of the Jolan District, they would squeeze the life out of remaining insurgency strongholds. The prevailing mood was grimly exuberant. Then their momentum was unexpectedly derailed. The other half of the company was taking continuous fire from a mosque a quarter of a mile from Sinclair’s position. He had first noticed its mosaic minaret at high noon, glinting in the blindingly blue sky. Failure to distinguish between light refracting off of mosaic tiles and gun barrels would put the entire platoon at risk. Any doubts about the source of all that glinting were dispelled when the mosque’s imam started broadcasting double-barrel prayers, amplified to high heaven by mammoth loudspeakers mounted on the dome. His ranting and raving sounded anything but pious to Sinclair. The fact that mosques maintained their status as neutral zones made him all the more wary of their veiled threat.
Even before the attack, radical clerics had broadcast holy hatred five times a day, seven days a week. On patrol, the platoon tried to tune out the call to jihad while meeting and greeting the Iraqi people. This ideological disjuncture took its toll on soldiers and civilians alike. Even their most successful peacekeeping missions were accompanied by ominous undertones. A handful of Fallujan imams cooperated, allowing patrols to search their mosques for weapons caches and bunkers. They were vastly outnumbered by collaborators inciting people to arm themselves against Christian crusaders. The call to arms wasn’t exclusive to the militia.
Al-jihad fi sabil Allah!
Fard al-kifayah!
All who believed were commanded to fight in the cause of Allah. Women and even children were enjoined to do their communal duty. No wonder families were still embedded within the insurgency in East Manhattan. Minaret broadcasts had drowned out coalition injunctions to evacuate the city. The fact that this particular imam was still preaching confirmed that Sinclair’s company was approaching occupied territory.
Radetzky decided to duplic
ate the strategy that had led to the destruction of the cell the day before. Colonel Denning tentatively authorized the plan, pending the findings of exploratory feints. Five platoons in the vicinity of the mosque were ordered to suspend search-and-destroy missions in order to surround the target. Extra rooftop coverage was dispatched to act as the eyes and ears of the offensive. Sinclair and Logan were stationed together atop a compound with a clear view of the mosque’s palatial entrance. Even when its speakers were silent, its imposing architecture broadcast an unmistakable message. Imams were the keepers of the keys to the city. No one dared challenge the authority of Fallujah’s spiritual leaders.
After the grueling pace of the past two days, it was a relief to be ordered to hold one position. With just the two of them on the roof, it was like being back at the base. They lapsed into their almost domestic relationship, enjoying the familiarity of one another’s company. Logan scanned the area with binoculars, and Sinclair probed suspicious nooks and crannies with his rifle scope. Orphaned cats and dogs prowled alleyways, looking for something to eat. They could hear them pawing through overturned garbage cans, fighting over scraps. Otherwise the neighborhood was conspicuously quiet, not so much abandoned as holding its breath. Even the mosque had fallen silent. Then Radetzky started mobilizing exploratory feints, testing the waters to see what they were up against. Every time a decoy unit of marines advanced, it was bombarded with unprecedented firepower, including missiles and mortars.
“They’ve stockpiled some big babies in there,” Sinclair said.
“Time to roll in the tanks.”
What seemed like an obvious game plan wasn’t forthcoming. The delay seemed inexplicable given the rush to reach the phase line.
“I smell a rat,” Logan said.
“Baghdad?”
“The CPA.”
“Better known as Confused Political Assholes.”
Every time Centcom authorized a mosque attack, the Coalition Provisional Authority tried to pull the plug. They were provisional in more ways than one, allies only insofar as they needed Americans to enforce their newfound authority over sectarian insurgencies. Even then, mosques were sacrosanct, a perennial reminder that Allah was the true authority in the region. Radetzky refused to confirm or deny Logan’s conjectures that the CPA was obstructing the offensive. Even more tightlipped than usual, he ordered his men to hang tight. Sinclair still had faith in the coalition. He offered a more humane explanation.
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