“Yeah, kind of. Like I’ve not done my duty or some fucking crazy thing like that. Man, this sucks.”
I nodded but said nothing more. Riley didn't need my Mr. Fixit routine, she needed to come to terms with it herself and the best thing I could do for her was be her sounding board. Listening was more important now and I'd seen the same situation time and time again.
“Man, I missed Iraq 3 and it didn't feel this bad. I feel like I’ve really fucked up. Have I?”
“What makes you think you have?”
“Not being there, man. Not fucking being there for my people.”
“Yeah, but you're out here for someone else though. For Alex, your nephew and his mum.”
“And I feel like I’ve fucked that up too. I had to fall off that fucking ridge, didn't I?”
“If you hadn't you'd be dead along with Piotr,” I replied. “This is where we are. This is what we've got to work with.”
“I know. I just want to carry on and salvage something from it. I just want Alex to be alive so I can take him home to his Mom. Maybe it'll all be worth it then.”
I found myself flinching at the thought of her going back to the States. I got to my feet and checked my watch, wanting to be further down the road before nightfall.
“Let's keep moving,” I said, setting off, trying to push the pain out of my heart. Was I really getting this attached to the former Ranger? Did I really believe that when this was over she'd live with me back at the house like a good wife? I felt my face flush hot with embarrassment. Suddenly it was me wanting to turn around and go home just to get away from the feelings I was getting.
We walked on well into the evening until it was almost too dark to see - the sky being a carpet of cloud that blocked out even the faint glow of the moon. We'd been eager to get past the remnants of a town along our route just in case we attracted the attention of any more hungry wildlife. It'd been a tiring slog but hope for a good nights sleep came in the form of a long, rectangular walled park that was rich with overgrown grass and wild trees that had fought for the scraps of sunlight the ageing oaks had missed. We went in through the rusting steel gate, closing it behind us with a squeal.
“Quaint,” said Riley, looking around.
“Over there,” I said, spotting a pair of perfectly distanced trees under a larger canopy of pine. We hobbled over, Riley favouring her good leg, and I began to hang the hammock up.
“I'll take the floor,” she said, throwing her pack down.
“You bloody-well won't,” I said. “You're in this thing, I'll take the floor. When your leg is healed we can swap.”
“Whatever,” she said. “I don't have the strength to argue.”
I hung the tarp and it felt like I'd taken an age to put it up, I was that tired. By the time I'd finished, Riley was dozing against the tree. I nudged her and led her to the hammock, helping her out of her boots and into Piotr's sleeping bag. She drifted back into her slumber almost immediately.
I hung the rifle on a branch and began building a fire from my bag of dried tinder - leaves and such - and from sticks I found lying around the garden. When the flames were crackling nicely, I sat down and dozed, feeling little or no appetite for food. I grew a little concerned about myself, wondering if the cold was affecting me more than I realised. When I looked over at Riley I could see her breath forming frothy white clouds in front of her and I wondered how low the temperature had dropped.
I sat closer to the fire and tried to warm myself. I fumbled in my pack for my cook kit, my fingers deciding not to respond to my commands, and tried to boil some water. I felt the fear rising up inside me as I realised how cold it'd become; when I poured the water big chunks of ice came out of the neck and clanked into the pan.
As the water reached a rolling boil I poured it into my cup and carried it to the hammock, waking Riley.
“What is it?” she mumbled.
“You need to drink this. I think we've let ourselves get too cold.”
“Hypothermia?”
“Maybe. Let's just warm up a bit to be on the safe side.”
Whilst she was drinking I checked my fingers and then checked hers, making sure she was wearing the socks Piotr had left behind.
“Is it terminal?” she said, giggling at my frantic checks. “Will I die?”
“I'm glad you find this funny,” I said, sipping from the cup when she passed it to me.
“It's a lame excuse if ever I saw one.”
“Lame excuse for what?”
She pulled her sleeping bag open and gestured for me to climb into the hammock with her. I started laughing too and I was glad we were putting coherent thoughts together - at least they seemed to be coherent. I fetched my own top-quilt from my pack, undid my boots and got in beside her. Her hands slid beneath my coat and wrapped themselves around me, pulling my body close to hers.
“Can it take our weight?” she whispered, still laughing to herself.
“I think it just did. For now.” I had to admit, we were warm now at least. Her face was just inches from mine but with the sleeping bags pulled over our heads we couldn't see each other. We could just hear the crackling noise of the fire and the sound of the wind in the trees around us.
“What a day, eh?” she said.
“Yeah, it was a long one,” I replied lamely. I had nothing else. Her hair brushed against my cheek as she shuffled into place and I felt my heart pounding in my ears. Surely she could hear it, I wondered.
“I'm so tired...” She nestled into my chest and sighed. “Good night, Miller.”
“Good night, Riley.”
She raised her head and I felt her breath on my face. Her lips passed near to mine, stopped as if waiting for permission, then pressed against me. Her body arched under my hands as she let out a sigh and I found I was doing the same, as if some automatic system had suddenly fired into life. We broke away from each other and I heard her panting.
“Miller, I'm afraid...” she whispered.
“Afraid of what?”
“I'm afraid that what I feel is just the danger and when it's over we... I mean... Fuck! You hear about this all the fucking time, people getting it on and falling in love during a crisis and the next thing you know - bam! - they're fucking hating each other and...”
I placed my finger gently on her lips and smiled in the darkness.
“We're not going to fuck,” I said, laughing. She began to laugh too.
“Yeah, I seem to remember saying that,” she said. “Can I say it though?”
“Are you sure you want to?” I asked.
“How do you feel? I mean, am I just being a dick right now or what? Don't leave me hanging here, Miller. Do you?”
“Do I what?”
“You know, do you feel that too?”
“If I think I get you, then yes. But we might both be confused about this.”
“Oh fuck,” she said, the whisper long gone now. “I've fucked it up, haven't I?”
“I don't think you have,” I said. “I feel the same way.”
“You do?”
“Yeah. Do you?”
“Yeah, I just said that.”
“Did you?”
“Yeah, are you listening? I said I love you, don't you remember?”
“You didn't say it like that.”
“Oh.”
“Oh.”
She pulled in closer to me. “I love you, Miller.”
“I love you too.”
During the early hours of the morning the cold got the better of us and we both led there, awake and shivering. It wasn't enough to pose a danger but it was enough to stop us sleeping. I checked my watch and the display lit up our cosy cave under the bags with a strawberry-red glow.
“What time is it?” asked Riley.
“Not quite 2am,” I replied.
“Jesus, how fucking cold can it get? I need to use the ladies room too and I’ve been putting it off for the last hour.”
“Same here.”
She wrigg
led out of the bag and I heard her tramping through the snow. She came back a few minutes later letting a gust of ice-cold air in with her.
“Oh my god I think we're going to die!” she said, rubbing her hands together and blowing into them.
“My turn,” I said and rolled out of the bag, sliding into my frozen boots without thinking too much about it. It was dark save for a clear sky above and the snow seemed to shine with its own light. I walked away from the hammock, past the ashes of our fire and found somewhere to relieve myself. The park was silent. There was a faint breeze blowing in from the north, perhaps through the bare trees near the wall, but the only real noise was coming from me as my jaw chattered with the cold.
I hurried back to the hammock and slid in under the bags. Riley was still shivering and together we rattled away until some kind of warmth was generated. It might have been soul destroying, waiting there for the morning to come if it hadn't been for the fact that her lips were soon pressed against mine and her firm, athletic body was entwined with my own.
“Will we end up stuck together?” she said, giggling.
“Maybe. Won't be a bad way to die,” I said, a heat spreading through my soul that no winter could ever chill.
“True enough, Mr. Miller. What's your first name anyway? I think it's my right to know now that we're going out.”
“Going out? How old are we?”
“Yeah, good point. Dating? Courting? What would you call it?”
“I'm not sure. We'll think of something.”
“Well?”
“Well what?” I said.
“Your name?” I told her what it was. “Really? I can see why you stick to Miller then. That's pretty fucking bad.”
“It wasn't really my choice at the time.”
“Your Dad?”
“I guess so,” I said. “I never knew my mum so I couldn't tell you.”
“Didn't your Dad ever talk about her?” said Riley.
“If he did I don't remember. My earliest memories don't have any reference to her. I kind of grew up with just my Dad and anyone who was there to learn from him.”
“Was that hard?”
“It's all I knew until I was old enough to understand what the world was like outside of England. When I started going out with Dad on his journeys I started to ask questions about the towns and stuff. It took a while to get used to the idea that the rest of the world was a frantic mass of people.”
“You're telling me,” she replied.
“When I started helping out with the classes it was the soldiers who helped me come out of my little reclusive shell and start interacting with them. I was a bit weird back then.”
“You still are in your own special way,” she said, laughing.
“Very funny. Do you want to know the story or not?”
“Sorry.” I knew she was still smirking despite the darkness.
“Anyway, in answer to your question, Mum never got mentioned and I guess I never asked.”
“Strange,” she said. “I just assumed it would have been a big deal for you.”
In the darkness I shrugged, thinking that maybe it should have been more of a deal than it was. The woman who gave birth to me, who was more than likely dead, had never known me and I'd never known her. I didn't know how I felt about that.
“What about you?” I asked. “You told me about your Dad but what else do I need to know now that we're 'going out'?”
“Well, there's not much more to it. I joined up, been there up until recently when I retired to go private. Regretted it ever since.”
“Really?”
“Yeah, the Rangers were my fucking life, man. It wasn't just the 'army' - it was family. I hated having to leave but I couldn't stay. Not after France.”
“So you went private.”
“So I went private.”
“And here you are,” I said. “Out in the middle of nowhere with a strange loner who has no Mum.”
“Boohoo,” she said. “You'll survive. Things just got better for you now I'm here.”
“Oh, really?” I said, laughing in spite of the violent shiver-spasms that came now and again.
“Yeah, I'm like a fucking personal army - a bodyguard for you. You should be grateful I came here when I did.”
“How's the leg?”
“Ah, that was just a minor set back.”
“Looks like it was me guarding your body from where I was standing.”
“And now it's yours to guard as often as you like,” she said. “Though I think you need to pay closer attention.”
“Why?”
She stopped laughing and lifted my hand to her breast, twisting so that her legs slid between mine. Our lips met, parted, tongues exploring each other, hands roaming soft cool skin. Then she moaned and gently pulled back, stifling a sob.
“I'm scared, Miller. I'm scared to go on.”
“Scared? Why? Of what?”
“I'm scared of what might happen when we get there. I'm scared that we've just found each other and that we can lose each other just as quickly. Miller, I’ve been waiting fucking years for someone like you, someone who... I don't know... is the same as me, someone who isn't some wet weekend looking for an emotional crutch or a fucking sted-head looking to treat me like a whore. Now I think I’ve found what I’ve been looking for and we've nearly been killed twice, maybe even three times if you count the soldiers.”
“I understand,” I said - and I did. I knew it the moment she chose to carry on. All I wanted to do was take her home and carve out some kind of life for ourselves with the time we had left. The last thing I'd wanted was to carry on for another hundred miles risking everything just for someone who I believed was already dead by now.
“All my life I’ve been making my own decisions, being what I thought a woman should be - strong, independent, empowered. Now I'm scared that I'll fuck it up, that I'll make a bad call and send us to our deaths by carrying on with something we should just walk away from.”
“That's part of being autonomous,” I said. “The chance that we'll make the wrong call and people will get hurt.”
“I know that, so what the fuck do I do? I'll be a complete bitch if I go home without finding out what happened to Alex. How could I face my sister, Miller? 'Yeah, sorry I didn't save your son, I was too busy making out with a guy I met over there'.”
“I know.”
“And yet, if we go, there's a good chance there'll be more soldiers there - soldiers who want to kill us, thinking we're terrorists. One of us, or both of us, could be dead by the end of the week and it'll all have been for nothing...”
I kissed the top of her head, realising I was as close to her as I could be yet unable to even comment on what she was saying. I agreed with it all and I knew what I would do, what I wanted to do. She just had to realise that for herself. If I didn't let her do that then our relationship was doomed from the start.
We fell silent for a while and we must have fallen asleep because the next time I looked the dawn was coming and Riley was snoring softly in my arms. I looked at my watch. It was just after seven.
“Riley?” I whispered in her ear.
“Yeah?” she replied.
“Time to go.”
She opened her eyes and groaned. “So it wasn't all just a big nightmare then?”
“No, my love. It's very much real.”
We ate a large breakfast and drank the last of the coffee given that we were in pretty bad shape. We were both exhausted and hungry and without the calories in our stomachs our condition would only worsen as the days wore on. In the old days we could have jumped on a train or driven a car and been there in a matter of hours. Now it was a matter of days and without a shop or a restaurant for thousands of miles we'd have to find our next meal ourselves. The last few MREs would have to be saved until we were too desperate to do anything else.
The rifle only had two rounds left so by mid-afternoon I decided to find somewhere to camp where we could lay some snares. I'd s
een plenty of fat rabbits on the path and the thought of a couple roasting over a fire was too much to pass up. There was a farm about half a mile off our track and I diverted us in that direction as the snow began to fall again. It was only a light dusting but the thick white cloud cover was threatening more for tonight.
In one field was an old cowshed and I chose it for shelter given that these buildings had already stood the test of time. Dad had told me how most of them were over a hundred years old and if they'd planned to fall down it would have happened by now. We passed through a rusting gate made of tubular steel that hung precariously on yawning hinges that'd pulled away from the brickwork. There was the faint smell of animal but the ground was hard packed and the roof was still in one piece.
I laid out Piotr's tarp on the floor and helped Riley to sit down on it. She dropped her pack, sweat gathering on her brow despite the cold and drank half a litre of water without stopping.
“Man, I'm fucked,” she said.
“Let me get a fire going and then I think it's time to get those stitches out.”
“Really?”
“Yeah, 'fraid so.”
Within spitting distance was a densely packed strip of woodland that grew pretty close to a fast running stream. I gathered some small branches and carried them back to our shelter, building a fire to start warming the place up with. Once I'd collected enough wood to see us through the night I built it up until we had a hazy warmth inside the shed that made our eyes heavy.
“Come on, let's get it over with,” I said, getting out my tweezers and scissors.
“This is going to hurt,” she said, lying back and unbuckling her trousers, pulling them down to her knees. I looked at the thin line of thread that had done a great job of helping the wound to heal. There was a crusty red track around each puncture but after cleaning it away with some antiseptic wipes I began the slow work of pulling out the thread one stitch at a time.
Riley barely flinched throughout the procedure, but when she saw me throw the cord into the fire she let out the breath she'd been holding.
“How is it, Doc?” she asked.
“Looks nice and clean. The scar will be vivid I'm afraid.”
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