“Oh no you don’t,” he stomped his foot, sick of the damn thing.
The pup looked up at him and back down at the boot without startling away.
That gave him pause. “What do you think of this?” He rapped his hooks sharply on the table top.
The pup looked up at the underside of the table for the source of the noise and then its eyes tracked back and forth between him and the table.
Stan rapped again.
This time the puppy watched him instead of the location of the noise.
“Smart little fella, aren’t you?”
In response to his compliment it jumped up and yipped in delight. Then it raised a leg to pee on his boot.
In a single motion, Stan scooped it up with his good hand, two steps to the door, and he tossed it into a snow drift.
That turned into another excuse for a dozen circles and then it peed where the front porch post disappeared into the now yellowing snow. It eyed the low steps with some confusion, but had soon struggled back up onto the porch. Once it reached him, it sat and tipped its head as it stared up at Stan to see what he would do next.
Stan looked down at his good hand and flexed his fingers against the strangeness. It was the first living thing he’d touched since the Afghan boy. He tried to wipe off the sensation on his jeans, but the warmth wouldn’t go away.
Stan spent some time gazing out at the hoof prints in the snow that proved Ama Henderson had indeed been here and he hadn’t imagined her. He looked down. He hadn’t imagined the goddamn dog either.
3
Stan reached out.
The little boy looked so scared.
Five Special Ops soldiers were enough to scare anybody. It was kind of the point. Lucy, fifty pounds of war dog, was no less daunting a sight. Her body armor included goggles against wind and sand, and a Kevlar vest that also sported a camera that could feed visible and infrared imaging directly to a screen that Stan wore inside his wrist. She also had pouches for food, water, and doggie first aid. To the little boy, used to painfully lean feral mutts, she probably looked as alien as the soldiers did. She could work on or off leash, but in the village he kept her on the long lead, more for the villagers’ peace of mind than for any real need.
The boy sidled closer as the team eased forward across the village square. It was the edge of evening, the worst visibility for the locals. There was a rumored Al-Qaeda nest two blocks up and one block over. Their team was being sent in to roll it up and look for any intel.
He and Lucy worked to make sure there weren’t any IEDs in their path. Check that—they knew there were IEDs; it was up to him and Lucy to tell the team where.
The boy came closer, desperately clutching a toy truck. He was close enough for Stan to see that it was a real toy, not just some piece of scrap metal turned into a pretend truck. He knew that was a clue of something, but he couldn’t come up with what.
To get down to the boy’s height as he edged closer, Stan took a knee—placing one in the dirt, his other raised with his foot planted so that he could push off into a sprint if called.
He reached toward the boy, saying meaningless noises to calm him.
Take them back!
But he kept murmuring.
Shoot him! Chase him away! Scare him! The boy was on the edge of running away in fear as it was.
Instead he beckoned, calling the boy closer, easing his fear rather than adding to it.
No! Run! Hide!
Lucy stepped up close, sniffed the boy, and planted her butt down between them.
He’ll kill me!
Lucy whined.
The truck is a bribe! A real toy as a gift to make the kid overcome fear!
And in that instant, something landed on his chest like a hard punch.
Stan swung at it and missed.
Stump. No hand.
He pulled his other hand free of the blanket and grabbed hard onto whatever had hit him.
A sharp yip of surprise and pain. For a brief instant he held a handful of struggling fur.
Fur far softer than Lucy’s.
A puppy’s fur.
He let go and could hear it scrambling away across the cabin.
Shit!
Stan struggled up from the bedding. The cabin was still warm. He hit the flashlight and checked his watch.
It was one the same wrist as the hand holding the flashlight.
Twenty-two hundred. The dream had given him less than an hour of sleep this time.
But he could see the cabin without tipping his head like the goddamn dog. No explosion apparently meant no afterimage. That was a first.
He went searching for the puppy and finally found him cowering under one of the bunks Stan hadn’t fixed up yet. He had to lie down on the rough wooden floor, which was not all that warm, to reach in and snag the pup.
He nipped Stan’s hand, but didn’t even break skin. Stan had enough scars from training Lucy and other dogs that puppy teeth didn’t phase him.
Sitting back down on the bed, he calmed the pup. Telling it he was sorry. Gods, he was sorry for so much. The puppy forgave him quickly enough, planting both front paws on Stan’s chest to reach up and lick the bottom of his chin.
If only Stan could forgive himself.
4
Early April had melted into mid-May before there was another knock on the door.
It didn’t send him diving for the woodpile this time. It also explained why the pup had gone up on point, but remained dead silent—just as trained. He took to instruction quickly. Usually the first couple years were about little more than socialization and basic behavior. The pup had taken to commands as if born to them.
He bent down to pat it on the head which was now up to his knee rather than at mid-calf where he’d started.
“Good boy.” He really had to name the dog, but that would make him too real, too important. Besides, with only the two of them in the cabin, it wasn’t as if there was any confusion about who was talking to who.
Stan pulled open the door and Mac Henderson was standing on the other side of the threshold. He was a big man, still powerfully built though he was in his late sixties. His hair, unlike his wife’s dark steel, was almost pure white. It gave him a grandfatherly look, but his handshake was still a force to be reckoned with.
“So,” he looked down, “that’s where Bertram got to.”
“Bertram?” Stan asked the dog and the quick thumping of its tail said that the name had found the dog already.
“Ama brought him by.”
Mac winked. “Ama’s a sneaky one, isn’t she?”
“No, she’s…” Then he started thinking about the person he’d been six weeks ago compared to the one now. No diving behind the woodpile. Half of the time the pup—Bertram—woke him before the nightmare could take him back under. A couple nights he’d actually just slept through. On the nights it did strike, he rarely woke screaming, though the shakes and adrenaline were still there. He’d snap his fingers and the pup would hop up and join him in the narrow cot and sometimes he could even get back to sleep. Maybe Ama was sneaky.
“Told ya,” Mac nodded with satisfaction. “Let’s see what you’ve got done.” They spent about half an hour touring about the small cabin. Stan had done more than merely resetting drawers and renailing ladder rungs up to stacked bunk beds. He’d sanded and refinished all of the trim. The kitchen shone. The fine oak that he’d discovered on the bed rails now had a warm glow to them. The gray patina of old wood that had built up over the years had been banished. There was still more to do, plenty more, but he was pleased and so was Mac.
The friendly thump on his back, despite the reminder of the crisscross of his prosthetic’s harness, was appreciated.
“I can see that I need to maroon more SEALs in remote cabins around about here.”
Stan deci
ded that it had certainly worked for him, when he was sure that nothing else would.
5
It was the end of May when the storm hit.
Stan and Bertram had gone for a final hike up into the hills. Two more days and he’d have to move out. The cabin shone, ready for the paying customers to feel they were roughing it out here.
Funny, Stan had just assumed they’d keep him on, give him a place to fit in. In his mind, he’d been sure of it. The itch between his shoulders? Not so much. Could he make it back in nowhere, North Carolina? No. That home was gone. He’d have to find somewhere fresh. Start over. Start over with Bertram? The dog belonged to the Hendersons and was showing real potential.
Shit! Once again he was a half-man with no future. Would he ever find a road to a whole new life? One where he wasn’t himself? Apparently not. He had to laugh.
“Too damn scared to try,” he told the dog. “Wouldn’t that just piss off Altman?” Oddly, Stan realized he would piss himself off too. Maybe, just maybe, he could do this. Find some place…God knew where.
He chucked a stick for Bertram, who raced off through the tall meadow grasses to kill it and drag it back. At first he’d been as clumsy throwing with his right arm as a teenage girl trying to look helpless. But he’d slowly gotten the knack of it—the dog had been willing to help him get plenty of practice.
About an hour later, far up beyond the cabin, and the fishing stream that ran close behind it, a long set of falls climbed to an upper lake. They weren’t one single drop, but a series of cascading white water separated by brief pools. Bertram loved to plunge into those, despite the glacial-fed chill, and they came up here often.
Today they’d reached the lake for a last look around. A pair of elk, mother and calf, were feeding along the lake shore. He called Bertram to heel. The pup obeyed, though he quivered with excitement as they watched the two goofy looking animals drink and then amble into the freezing lake as if it was a warm bubble bath.
A chill across Stan’s shoulders had him turning from watching their play.
The sky to the west had turned dark, almost black. He blinked at it in momentary confusion. To the east, the Montana skies were still a brilliant blue. The cabin was a cheery spot far below. He’d even gotten a fresh coat of paint on it, sky blue with dark green trim, so it really stood out in the meadow of spring grasses and wildflowers.
Back to the west, the darkness was boiling closer and the temperature was plummeting. He hadn’t even brought a jacket, just thrown on a t-shirt and gone walking.
Time to get his ass moving. They were at least an hour from the cabin and the storm would be on them in minutes.
Another glance filled him with disbelief. This wasn’t some rainstorm, the ground below the leading edge was turning white. Snow at the end of May? It didn’t make any goddamn sense, certainly not in North Carolina or Afghanistan. Sensible or not—it was coming.
He was halfway down the steep path along the falls when it hit. The blizzard slammed into him with hard winds. In moments, it was a whiteout.
Keep moving.
“Only dead men stop moving,” one of Altman’s favorite phrases.
Bertram was doing far better than he was. Atop his thick fur Stan had fashioned a vest in roughly the pattern of a war dog’s armor. It carried water, dog snack, and first aid—a good training tool that was now buffering him from the elements.
The path was soon obliterated and he had to slow his pace. His instinct to chafe his arms proved stupid. Rubbing his left with his right, all he felt was plastic and wire. When he tried the other way, all he got were freezing metal hooks scraping up and down his good arm.
Useless.
Broken half-man.
At the third waterfall, he must have veered off the path. He didn’t even have time to cry out before he was plunged into freezing water. The only thing that kept him from going over the biggest drop of them all, were his hooks.
His right hand was already numb from scrabbling through the snow. But the metal hooks didn’t care about temperature and instinct had him jamming them into a crack in the rock. There was no screaming strain on his arm muscles either. The harness took the load and distributed it to the straps across his shoulders. They were narrow and bit in, but they held.
Forty feet of tumbling waterfall crashed loudly on the rocks below. Even if he couldn’t see the bottom through the snow, he could hear the water pounding on the jagged rock fall. As he clung there, it struck him just how easy it would be to give up—just…let go. Then it wouldn’t matter that he had no place he belonged, he’d be gone.
Then Bertram whined at him.
And for the first time outside his dreams, Stan knew fear. Real fear.
He’d felt anger at everything he’d lost. He’d felt betrayed by his family and by the military. But to die now? To leave Bertram? To not look at the cabin again—a job well done—or heave a branch for the dog to bring back? That would be a tragedy.
He dug in, hauling himself up through the freezing water, mostly with his hooks. He found a purchase for a boot, and felt blessed that he’d finally gotten good at tying laces.
When he eventually rolled up onto the trail, he knew he was screwed. Still half an hour to the cabin even under normal conditions, soaking wet and shivering in the snow. He was going to die of hypothermia right here.
He started to laugh. It was a crazed, hysteric sound, but he couldn’t stop it. He’d survived SEAL training. He’d survived being blown to pieces in a remote Afghan village. And he’d survived his own self-destructive thoughts.
A late snow on a Montana ranch was going to be what killed him. Fucking snow.
Bertram licked at his face as if he wasn’t already wet enough.
“Why can’t your name be Lassie? Then I could say ‘Get help’ and you’d race the miles back to the ranch in time to save me.”
Stan tried going fetal to conserve what little warmth he could, but the plastic arm didn’t help.
Then something tugged at his belt.
Bertram. He’d never gotten over gnawing that first belt into submission.
The dog yanked at him again.
“Go away. Now isn’t the time to play.”
Bertram answered with a hard growl and tugged at the belt hard enough that Stan actually slid a foot down the trail.
“Goddamn it! Cut that out.” Stan waved an arm at him.
When the steel connected with dog, he yipped in surprise, then answered with a hard snarl and clamped down on his forearm with a fighting hold.
If it had been his real arm, he’d have torn muscles and streaming blood from the force of the attack.
“Release!” He shouted through the roar of the storm’s wind. Great. Snow wasn’t enough, he needed a wind chill to make sure he was a goner.
Bertram let go, but didn’t back off.
When he didn’t move, the dog took a step in again.
“No you don’t!” Stan forced himself to move.
“Only dead men stop moving.” Goddamn Altman.
But he was moving which meant he wasn’t dead. For the first time in far too long he really didn’t want to be dead.
He flailed out with his hooks, and this time managed to catch the lift-loop he’d stitched into the back of Bertram’s vest. It was used when a dog had to be lifted and carried, or winched up into a helicopter. He’d made the loop strong, the one surviving portion of the leather tool belt that a new puppy had defeated on his first day.
“Go,” he croaked out the command. “Cabin.”
Bertram turned and dug in. He wasn’t big enough to make much difference, but he was still a force in the right direction as long as Stan didn’t unclamp his hooks from the lift-loop.
At first, he could do little more than crawl as Bertram dug in with all fours. But he finally found one foot and then the other.
He wished he could say he didn’t remember the rest of the trip back to the cabin, but he did, every grueling second of it.
His morning cooking fire had kept the cabin warm. And even that remaining bit of warmth was enough to sustain him through restoking the fire, stripping, and crawling into bed.
Unable to snap his fingers, he stuttered out the dog’s name and Bertram climbed in beside him. He too was shivering.
Stan held him close, hard against his chest, but the dog didn’t complain.
He buried his face in the dog’s fur and knew he could never let go. He and Bertram were a team. They would find a way through, together.
Bertram licked at the salt running down Stan’s cheeks before they both fell asleep.
6
“I had this crazy idea.”
Stan sat on the verandah of the big house, a beer bottle pinched securely between his hooks, and his good hand rubbing Bertram’s ears.
Mac sat on the dog’s other side and they both faced out across the ranch. It was now busy with the first of the June tourists trying to prove they could ride a horse around the corral and being shocked as shit that they actually could.
“Let’s hear it,” Stan was open to any ideas at this point.
“Back in my day, we didn’t have the dogs. Left them behind in Vietnam and didn’t need them again until Iraq and Afghanistan.”
Stan knew about that. The entire program had been lost for thirty years and had to be rebuilt from scratch. Same thing had happened between the World Wars and again until Vietnam. The military swore that wasn’t going to happen again, but he knew the main training center down at Lackland Air Force Base was already feeling the budgetary pinch with the supposed end of Iraq and Afghanistan.
“Now the Special Ops dogs, they’re special, aren’t they?” Mac asked it as half a question. Clearly he already knew the answer.
“Sure. They’re trained by select contractors rather than going through the standard Lackland program. We—” Stan practically choked, had to sip his beer to clear his throat. “They, the Spec Ops, need dogs with more skills than the standard program gives them, no matter how good it is.”
Reaching Out at Henderson's Ranch Page 2
