Under His Watch: A Brothers Synn Novel

by Light, Victoria

  He smiled. "You'd better try, Ryan."

  I lay down on the cot and Bau set up a perimeter of mosquito netting around us. I stared up at the jungle canopy cutting shapes out of the night sky. There was a time when being alone like this would've been a fucking godsend. We used to take any opportunity we had to be intimate.

  I hadn't thought about that stuff in a long time. I'd managed to push it out of my head, because it'd been too damn painful to relive. I'd never known anyone like Bau before. The things I'd felt for him made me feel like I'd gone crazy. I hadn't thought it would be possible for me to feel that way about another person. I wanted him to be near me all the time, to be mine forever. It terrified the hell out of me. That was why I'd had to do something to protect myself. That was why I'd had to leave.

  "Tell me about what you've been doing all this time," I said.

  "Go to sleep, Ryan," he said with a sigh.

  "Tell me about your boring life. Maybe it'll help."

  He snorted. "Yeah, whatever."

  I turned onto my side, resting my head on my arm. "I'm waiting."

  Bau stared silently at me out of the corner of his eye. He sniffed and rubbed his nose with his knuckle. "I did another couple tours in Iraq and in Afghanistan. When I was about thirty I realized that I wanted to do other things outside of the Rangers. So when my time was up, I didn't re-enlist. Went back home with the idea of starting up a private security business, only I had the notion that I was going to do it on the East Coast. New York."

  "Seriously? Why New York?"

  "Why do you think?" His broad chest rose with a long breath. "Because I knew that's where you were from."

  My heart jumped. "Oh." I was trying to sound unaffected. "You were... trying to find me?"

  "No. I never even looked you up." He laughed to himself. "I had the dumb thought that I might run into you. But I wasn't looking for you. Anyway, there was an accident back home. Killed both of my parents. So I moved back to Los Angeles and set up my business there at the family ranch. My brothers both finished their time in the Marines and came back, too. Got the whole gang together."

  "I'm sorry to hear about your parents," I said.

  "It's alright. So, uh... What about you? Did you look me up?"

  "Well..." I coughed. "Um. I mean..."

  "What, are you embarrassed?" he asked, grinning.

  "I looked you up. You were part of my exhibition on the war."

  "I was part of your exhibition?"

  "Yeah. Of course you were."

  "You never reached out to me."

  "I know," I said sadly. "I'm sorry."

  Bau rubbed his chin, stroking his stubble. "How did it go? Was I a hit?"

  I smiled. "You were a huge hit. Award winning."

  "No shit?" He thought about it for a moment. "I'd love to see those photos someday."

  For a moment I considered telling him about the photo that hung in my bedroom, but decided against it.

  "Sure," I said. "I'd love for you to see them."

  "What have you been doing all this time?" he asked me. "Hm?"

  "Didn't you say I should go to sleep?"

  "You're right, you might put me to sleep."

  I grinned at him. "Tell me more. You... seeing someone?"

  Even in the darkness I could see the surprise written on his face, and I immediately wished I'd kept that question to myself.

  "If you mean a relationship? No. Got no time for those. Plenty of other things, just not a relationship."

  "Plenty of other things," I repeated. “Like what?”

  He laughed. "Jesus. You're worse than my aunt. What the fuck are these questions, anyway?"

  "I don't know," I admitted. "I'm glad you're getting some. To be honest, I haven't been with anyone since you."

  He made a weird choking noise. "Wait... is that jealousy I hear?"

  "What?" I sat up. "No. I'm serious. I'm glad for you."

  I didn't know why these things were tumbling out of my mouth, and even stranger was the very fact that I was feeling jealous. I had no right to feel jealous, or any sort of way. It was completely irrational, and I knew it.

  Bau laughed again. It was unrestrained and loud, but it seemed like he just couldn't help himself. "This is just too good," he said, smacking his knee with his fist. "What, did you think I would be all hung up on you and not fuck anyone else?"

  "Hey," I hissed. "Aren't you being too loud?"

  "I know, I am," he said between deep belly laughs.

  "It was just a fucking question."

  "Yeah. It sure was a fucking question. A question about fucking." He giggled.

  At that moment, my ear caught a noise cutting through the cacophony of jungle sounds. I froze, straining. What the fuck? I pushed my finger to my mouth and hushed him.

  "You're the one who asked, Ryan," he said.

  "No, shhh! I fucking heard something."

  Bau went silent, his fist tightening around the handle of his rifle. Both of us sat hunched forward, straining to listen.

  "There," I whispered. "Do you hear that? Is that what I think it is?"

  He nodded. The moonlight glinted off of his eyes, which were wide with shock. "Yeah. Is that a baby?"

  7

  Bautista

  The old road took us through grassland to what used to be the edge of the jungle, now a vast stretch of leveled trees like stubble across the landscape. There were massive piles of cut lumber sitting amongst what now felt like a graveyard. Gigantic trucks rolled past us, carrying the logs into town. The clearcutting process was paused for now, the bulldozers and other tools of destruction sitting dormant in the mud. After a few hours of driving, we finally reached the new jungle edge. It was an incredibly stark difference in landscape, a sudden wall of trees that swallowed us whole.

  The road ascended up a series of steep switchbacks that brought us over the mountain and deeper into a landscape that hadn't been disturbed by humans in a thousand years, when the ancestors of the native peoples here had planted and maintained vast agricultural fields that'd eventually gone wild and turned into jungles.

  I snuck a glance over at Bau. He had his rifle held firmly against his chest and was scanning the windows with alert eyes. I had to smile. I remembered this was how he'd been in Iraq, too. I'd taken so many incredible photos capturing those eyes, the focused gaze of an elite soldier. Many of them had been published. A few of them I'd shown in my gallery in New York.

  One of my most prized photos was taken after I'd been knocked onto my back by an RPG explosion. Bau had rushed over to me, taking a knee and firing shots off from his rifle. In my stupor I'd managed to raise my camera up and snap a photo of him towering over me, a burst of flame erupting from the end of his gun as a blur of empty shells cascaded down over the camera's lens. Only one of his eyes was visible, but it was filled with such a powerful intensity that anyone who looked at the picture would find themselves immediately drawn in.

  That photograph was hanging in my bedroom. In the end, I hadn't been able to completely leave him behind.

  "So," Bau said, breaking yet another silence between us. We'd already spent an entire day together and had barely spoken, asides from logistics discussion.

  "So," I replied.

  He sighed. "We'd better start talking to each other or else this is gonna be a real long fucking trip. Or, just let me know if you've got an issue with me and we don't have to say a word. Either one is fine by me."

  "I don't have an issue with you."

  "Okay... But you did?"

  "No," I said. "Not at all."

  "Well, help me out here. Seven years ago, I woke up and found out that you had jumped on a plane for home, leaving me wondering what the fuck happened."

  Tension filled my body, like every muscle had wound itself tight. "I know. And I'm sorry. It wasn't your fault, Bau. That was all on me." I clenched the steering wheel. Why was it so difficult to talk about this? "I shouldn't have run away like that, but at the time I felt like I had no oth
er choice."

  "What happened?"

  "I just... I—" My voice caught in my throat. The guilt of it had weighed on me for so long, but now that I had a chance, I still couldn't bring myself to open up about the truth. "I don't know, man."

  "You don't know? You didn't have any other choice, but you don't know why?"

  "Yeah, something like that."

  "I'm just trying to understand. It wasn't my fault but you couldn't even do me the courtesy of telling me you were going to leave?"

  "Just leave it be, Bau," I snapped. "Alright? I'm fucking sorry. That's all I can tell you, is that I'm sorry."

  He stared silently at me. We were both stewing. This wasn't the way I'd hoped we would address this thing hanging over us. Maybe silence was the best option, after all.

  The car began to rattle as we reached a section of the road that had been dusted with a layer of mud and debris. Water was flowing over a section near a few downed trees that lay across the path. I slowed down to a stop, and Bau peered around us. He cranked the lever to roll down his window and instructed me to do the same.

  "Why?" I asked.

  "In case I need to shoot at something," he said plainly. "You have that gun?"

  "Yeah." I patted my hip. "Why?"

  He nodded towards the trees sitting in the road. "Looks like there was a landslide or something, but shit like this should always make you suspicious. Get out your pistol. Stay in the car. I'm gonna clear the road."

  I unholstered the gun and Bau went outside. He got an axe from the back and set it on the hood. I watched as he walked ahead of the car, his rifle leveled. He moved slowly, like a predator carefully scoping out its territory. He stepped over the trees, which were fairly thin-trunked and only lay about half a foot off the ground. He crouched down to inspect them and then followed their length, checking out both sides of the road. Finally, he came back to the car and grabbed the axe.

  "It's safe," he said. "But there are signs others have come through this way. Probably before the trees went down. Tire tracks in the mud, maybe a couple days old."

  I re-holstered my pistol and got out of the car to help him clear the road. We worked quickly. I was nervous, but not exactly afraid. I'd been in these kinds of situations many times before, and they always got my blood pumping. It was the same for Bau. The bad energy was gone. We were both focused on getting past this obstacle as efficiently as possible. I unwound the steel tow cable that was attached to the front of the Isuzu and secured it around the center of the trees. Bau hacked at them with the axe, splitting the wood so that we could drag them from the road. With the humidity as high as it was, our shirts were almost immediately soaked through with sweat and condensation. Bau pulled a green bandana from his back pocket and tied it around his forehead. I took a moment to snap some photos of him before running back to the car.

  "Ready?" I asked.

  "Looks good. Put her in reverse. Slowly, slowly."

  I gently laid on the gas, rolling the car back. The cable went taut and Bau kicked the logs free with his heel. I reversed enough to open up a path large enough for us to pass through, and Bau disconnected and retracted the cable. He jumped back in the car and we were on our way.

  In Iraq, working alongside Bau was always a thrill ride, and I was surprised to realize that nothing had changed. We still had that connection. I wondered if he could feel it, too.

  The road passed through areas of jungle that were in the process of being cut down or had been cleared away some time ago, replaced with logging equipment or planted over with rows and rows of young mango and rubber trees. I pulled over to the side of the road to get some photos of the plantations. We walked down a path running alongside a dirty irrigation ditch and I paused to snap some shots. Bau stood behind me, his hands resting on top of his rifle. Sweat glistened on his arms and his cheeks. I raised my camera and pressed the shutter.

  "Don't waste your photos on me," he said.

  I replied by snapping another. He flicked me off, and I laughed.

  We continued on, passing a small house that seemed to be cobbled together from bricks and corrugated metal. "Look at all this," I said, gesturing to the razed landscape. "Thousands of different species destroyed just to grow, what? Two things? Then they'll cut down more jungle to build houses that won't last a decade." I pointed to the green mountain in the distance. "The rains rushing down from those hills will wipe everything out in landslides worse than anyone here has experienced."

  We found a lone man walking through the field, a large plastic bucket strapped to his front for harvesting mangoes. I approached him and asked in Spanish if it was his farm, and he told me that it was and gave me permission to take photos of him. He didn't even blink an eye at Bau's rifle.

  "I'm surprised you're here," he said.

  "Why is that?" I asked, taking a few steps back to take a shot of him with the fields in the background.

  "Well..." He scratched his chin, looking vaguely uncomfortable. "Just because of the landslide. Not many have come through since. Especially foreigners. It's very sad, you know. Many lost everything, including their lives."

  I got the sense that there was another reason. I exchanged a look with Bau, who I could see had the same feeling.

  "Have you seen any unusual activity through here recently?" Bau asked him. "We're going to be stopping near that village tonight. We have some supplies and might be able to help anyone who's still there. Anything we should know?"

  The farmer waved his hand. "No, no, no. There's no one there anymore. But..." He lowered his voice. "I've noticed cars coming down the main road in the night. I could see the headlights. Bad people, maybe. That's all I want to say. I've been left alone, and I want to keep it that way."

  "Don't worry," Bau said. "What you've told us won't leave our lips."

  We went back to the car and continued driving. It was nearing evening and we wanted to make it to the site of the village to set camp for the night.

  "Sounds like what Gianna told us was accurate," said Bau. "We need to be careful. We park off the road. No fire, no lights, and trade watch shifts."

  "I agree," I said.

  After another two hours of driving, just as the sun was starting to go down, we arrived at our destination. At first, it seemed like the road had suddenly ended in a mass of rocks and mud, and it took us a moment to realize that we were looking at the result of a massive landslide. After some scouting we found a small path that had been cleared leading into the forest, marked with tire tracks. We followed it and found that it took us over a narrow part of the debris mound. I engaged the SUV's low gear and slowly climbed our way over the mound, praying we wouldn't get stuck or roll over.

  "Jesus," Bau said, looking out the window.

  I turned to look and realized with horrified awe that we were looking at the covered remains of the village. With the fading sunlight it was difficult to see at first, but I could slowly make out the forms of rubble jutting out from the mud: overturned houses, the end of a truck, shattered concrete, and scattered brickwork. No matter how many times I experienced it, this kind of destruction never failed to humble me.

  "Pull over there," Bau said, pointing.

  We parked a short distance away from the road near a pile of cinder blocks and what looked the remains of a wall. We got out and did our best to camouflage the car using fallen vegetation and mud. Then I followed Bau as he scoped out the area. We had headlamps but kept them off, relying on the remaining sunlight to see.

  As confident as I was in my experience, I couldn't deny how thankful I was to have Bau by my side. Sure, I would've persevered through, but this entire situation was far beyond what I'd been expecting. With all the difficulties getting into the country, I'd gotten a little overzealous and hadn't exactly heeded Gianna's warnings like I should've.

  We moved silently, conscious of the fact that below our feet lay the remains of a whole town. The jungle, however, was anything but quiet. An entire symphony of wildlife played music into the
night, a reminder of how incredibly diverse this place was.

  "It seems like we're alone," Bau said, lowering his rifle. "But it's fuckin' hard to say, considering I can barely make out my asshole from my elbow in this light."

  We set up camp next to the car with the wall to our backs and a view of the road at our front. We kept our lights off, but thankfully the moon was out and bright enough to provide enough light for us to see each other. Bau passed me an MRE pack—freeze-dried, ready-to-eat Military rations—and we had our first meal in the jungle.

  "I'll take the first watch," Bau said, sitting on a small folding stool. "You get some sleep."