“My God.”
“That’s the kind of shit that happens every day.” Arthur paused, his thoughts taking him back momentarily. “Over there you learn quickly to bury everything bad that happens deep inside. You bury it all. Because if you don’t, it’ll bury you.” Arthur adjusted his sunglasses again. “Nevertheless, it becomes ingrained in your memory. Post-deployment you go through some follow-up briefings to try to help you adjust back into normal life when you come home. Then there’s counseling and medical evaluations to help you avoid stress in the days afterward. And when we get back discharged, we all try to fit in. Some of us get jobs, go back to our families; some of us go to college, like I did.” Arthur snorted a laugh through his nose. “I sat there in a classroom full of a bunch of snowflakes who didn’t know a fucking thing about life because their biggest problems were choosing which parties to go to or worrying about how to get laid.” He shook his head. “And there I sat … all quiet in the back of the room … a handful of years older than them—and I’d killed people.”
Sharon reached a hand over and held his hand in hers. He let their fingers entwine.
“And that’s why I don’t get it,” he said. “How could John go through shit like that and end up being a killer? I just don’t buy it.”
Sharon didn’t look at Arthur when she said what she had already been thinking. She just let it roll off her tongue as if it were water tumbling over a stone. “I guess because the government made him one?”
Arthur looked at her solemnly. “It made us all one.”
Sharon ran the thought of telling him about the shrink through her mind again. Maybe he would understand. Maybe he would be supportive. Maybe she should just find that hidden strength Janet Peterson had mentioned and tell him.
Sharon took a deep breath. “I wasn’t in a meeting the other day when you called me at the station.” There it was. It was out. “I flew to Santa Fe and spoke with a psychiatrist specializing in PTSD.”
Arthur turned his head. He saw the anxiety in her body language, her hands gripping the steering wheel hard, the muscles of her jaw clenching and releasing in anticipation of his response. It was the same type of tension he’d felt lying next to her in bed. When he held her close and they snuggled like spoons, he could feel her body tightening briefly, quivering and then relaxing. He had been noticing it more those nights when she struggled to go to sleep. Those nights when the memories came calling. Those nights when the ghosts filled her head.
Sharon said, “You’re not mad, are you?”
“Why would I be mad?”
Sharon shook her head. “I don’t know.”
“Honey, if you need help then by all means seek it out.” Suddenly the landscape held no attention for him. All of his focus was on his wife. “How did your first session go?”
Sharon shrugged. “Okay, I guess.” She wiped a tear from her eye. “She wanted me to schedule another session, but I told her I wasn’t interested.”
“If I learned anything from my sessions at Camp Pendleton, it was that I needed to talk about what I went through.” He paused. “I think you should go back.”
Sharon looked at him. “You do?”
He smiled softly. “Of course. I’ll even go with you, if you want me to.” He paused. Sharon smiled. He liked that smile. He drank it up like a thirsty plant soaking up a lazy rain. “I’ve got a confession to make also,” he added. “When I was unconscious at the hospital something weird and wonderful happened.”
“What?”
He told her of his travels with the holy people through the realms of the four worlds of creation and the spectacles he had witnessed. “I truly believe that my travels were the Creator showing me my path back to you. Because you are my life; you are the river that flows through my soul and gives me purpose.”
Suddenly, their world was shattered by the annoying ringtone of Arthur’s cell phone. Reluctantly, he pulled it out and answered. “What’s up, Jake?”
“New Mexico Search and Rescue found the body Tsela and Tahoma Tabaaha saw being dumped into Antelope Canyon. The family is driving up from Nageezi to identify him.” Jake’s tone turned somber. “I told them it wasn’t necessary, but I didn’t tell them why. It’s been enough time for the animals and the heat to have taken their toll on the body. Mendoza will probably have to use dental records.” Arthur heard the big man sigh. “I think I’m getting tired of this job, my friend. Over twenty-five years of drunks, drugs, car accidents, domestic violence, and murders takes a toll on your soul. I need a cleanse. This walking in two worlds is enough to put you in a rubber room.”
Arthur said nothing. He had felt the same way during his twelve years with CBP on the Arizona border. Being brought up Navajo, you were taught that all life is sacred and everything and everyone is connected, that by living the Navajo Way even a Navajo who is not part of your family’s clans is to be treated with respect and like they are your family. You learn that everyone across the Navajo Nation is part of your collective family. He said, “Any chance they’ll find evidence of the men who did it, to corroborate the girls’ stories?”
“Remains to be seen,” Jake said. “He was where they said he would be, but it’s hearsay because they weren’t the ones to actually see it happen.” Jake paused. “By the way, you were right—a small tracking device was found under your truck. I have one of my men checking to see where it was sold and to whom.”
Arthur looked at Sharon. “That could have only come from one place, Jake, and you know it.”
Sharon’s face now took on a more serious expression.
“We have to play our cards close on this, Arthur,” Jake cautioned. “We need to connect the dots first. Let’s make sure we can link the two.”
Arthur’s face screwed up. “I know it was Elias Dayton. We’re on our way to Sykes’ place now—”
“We?”
“Sharon insisted on driving. Long story.”
“You lost the argument, huh?” Jake chuckled. “Been there, done that. But I don’t like that she’s with you. Sykes could be a psycho. Anyone who sells their gun always has more than a few screws loose.”
“We’ll be fine,” Arthur insisted.
“Famous last words,” Jake said. “Now, listen up, Sykes’ woman is named Rosheen Notah, thirty-five years old and works as a cashier at the Stop-N-Go Counselor Post. If your boy isn’t there when you get there, then he’s left her high and dry to take the heat that’s going to come down.” Jake breathed heavily. “I’m sure she’s oblivious to what’s about to happen to her. Poor kid. I can’t imagine how she’s going to feel being questioned by the Federal Bureau of Inquisition.”
“Welcome to being indigenous in the white world,” Arthur said. “Sometimes it’s like nothing has changed in a hundred years.” Arthur thought for a moment. “If we can link John to the Patriots, you and the feds would have probable cause to search Dayton’s compound.”
“If you come up with something,” Jake instructed, “I’d better be the first person you call.” Then he added, “I’m going to take a ride out to the Angel Peak Chapter House later this afternoon and listen in on a meeting NMX is holding with the residents.”
“Don’t they usually do those things in the morning?”
“Normally, yes, but the NMX people already had some corporate crap in the works, so they set it up for later in the day.” Jake huffed. “Probably thought the Natives would be too tired to pay attention by then.”
“What do you hope to gain there?”
“Like I said, there’s supposed to be some company bigwig showing up to convince the people that what they are doing is good for them. Maybe your buddy Dayton will be there with a few of his boys to make sure things flow smoothly. Maybe I can get him to make a mistake in front of the man who writes his checks. At the very least, I’ll let him know the law is watching him.”
Arthur thanked the police
captain and hung up.
Sharon was staring at him, one eye still on the road. “By the look I saw on your face, I’m guessing that wasn’t good news?”
Arthur slid the cell into his shirt pocket. “Half and half. They found the body of the man the oil field workers allegedly beat up.”
Sharon pursed her lips and slowly shook her head.
“Jake thinks John Sykes may be on the run.” He wasn’t about to tell her about the tracking device. “Only his woman might be there when we get there.”
Sharon’s head stopped shaking. “What the hell was he at the hospital for then? To finish the job?”
“I don’t think he wanted to kill me,” Arthur said. “If he wanted to, I’m sure he could have. I think he wanted to scare me.” Arthur grinned. “But I don’t scare easy.”
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
It was 0600 hours, and the foot patrol had already been on the move for an hour, slowly working through the narrow streets of a town that had already been swept and cleared the week prior. Intelligence had picked up chatter concerning a possible terrorist meeting that was supposed to take place there, so for that reason they had been rousted from their already-limited slumber inside their insulated shipping containers at an ungodly hour, told to grab their gear and be cocked and locked in twenty minutes. Hell, they barely had enough time to brush their teeth at the M-149 Water Buffalo trailer before heading over to be briefed about their mission. Shock and Awe had been deemed a success a few weeks earlier, and now they were being told to pack themselves into three Humvees and disappear into the Iraqi night.
Once on location, however, the whole thing just felt wrong. They were doing a door-to-door and told to keep their eyes wide open and their ears clear. But it was too fucking quiet. Nothing was moving, and the “pucker factor” was way too high; he could feel the small hairs on the back of his neck standing on end and his balls pulling up close to his body. He swallowed the dryness in his mouth and told himself to pull it together. To embrace the suck!
Suddenly, a hailstorm of enemy fire descended upon them. “Rooftop!” someone yelled. “Get those motherfuckers!”
He returned fire with the rest of his team. The first shots had come from the rooftops. He had seen the muzzle flashes and heard the slugs ripping into the mud walls. Other shots seemed to originate from buildings just up the centuries-old street. Without warning, a fast-moving white Nissan pickup emerged from a side street, fishtailed in the dirt, and headed straight for them. He yelled, “You’re gonna die, motherfucker!” and four of his men joined him in firing at the charging pickup, while the rest continued spraying the rooftops. The pickup’s windshield spiderwebbed from every round their M4s spat into it. The truck abruptly swerved to its left and crashed into a mud brick wall in front of them. Gunfire continued to buzz past his head, some thudding into the dirt street and some finding their home in the bodies of his comrades who crumpled around him.
Dust from the shattered wall where the pickup had embedded itself now filled the air and mixed with the dust from the street being kicked up by the raining death pounding into it.
“Doorway! Doorway!” someone yelled.
He fired, the unit fired, and the enemy continued to fire. The unit moved forward, keeping close to the wall and using any shelter they could to put a barrier between themselves and the shower of small-arms fire that could easily be carrying any one of their names.
As they approached the pickup, he could see the driver covered in blood and not moving. The engine was still running, the rpms whining high and the radiator steaming like a geyser. Bullets continued to rip into the truck and mud wall around them, sending pieces of each spinning off, stinging their faces and bouncing off their helmets or ricocheting past them like screaming death. He glanced into the pickup and saw the driver’s right hand loosely holding the trigger meant to set off the car bomb that would have surely killed them all. His chest filled with a sigh of relief as he crouched beside the pickup, but that sensation was short lived. He hadn’t noticed the cell phone that had been taped to the bomb, nor did he notice its digital screen light up in the instant it took him to check his men. Within seconds the pickup exploded into a fiery ball with a deafening roar.
The blast threw him thirty feet from the truck to where he lay on the ground, his right arm bleeding, his ears hearing nothing but a loud ringing that pierced his clouded brain, and the right side of his face felt like it wasn’t even there.
Suddenly, he sat up in bed. The sound of the trailer’s air conditioner droning away above him on the roof was the only sound he now heard, aside from that of his own thundering heart. His sweating body shivered as waves of cold air from the unit’s AC vents washed over him. He gulped a large swallow of chilled air into his lungs as his chest seemed to heave with a frightened will all its own. He felt a shaky hand move to his throat testing that his Adam’s apple was even moving. He could hear himself breathing. It had all been another dream, another nightmare in the endless string of nightmares that he had been forced to live through since he had gotten back home.
It took him a long string of minutes to recognize his surroundings and bring them into focus. The cheap curtains that covered the sun-yellowed roller shades on the windows were doing their best to keep the afternoon sun out of his eyes. He rolled over under the wet sheets and tossed them off, swung his legs over the edge of the bed and sat there, letting the soles of his feet appreciate the low pile of the carpeted floor. His body felt clammy and his mind raced. He felt tired and drained—tired of the nightmares that seemed to change nightly, tired of the deafening sounds that constantly haunted his darkened mind, and tired of the demons that beckoned him always.
Tears welled up in his eyes from out of nowhere, and suddenly his body began to shake as he cried uncontrollably. Holding his face in his hands, his shoulders rocked with every sob that shook his core. Wiping the salty streams of pain from his stubbled face, he reached under his pillow and wrapped his fingers around the comfortable grip of the Colt Combat Commander 9 mm semiautomatic he kept there. He pulled her out and studied her in his hand, his palm feeling her loaded weight and smelling the oil that lubricated her mechanisms.
I can’t do this anymore, his own voice echoed inside his head. I can’t live like this. Maybe the others were right. This is the only way to make it stop.
He watched his thumb disengage the safety. He felt his palm push in the grip safety as his hand tightened around the checkered black cherrywood grips. His chest filled with a deep breath—his last breath—as he put the carbon blued steel muzzle of the semiautomatic to his forehead, his thumb rested on the curved three-holed trigger. His anxiety level rose exponentially, and he swore he could feel his own heart pounding in his throat.
Just five pounds of trigger pull and it will all be over. You can do this! Don’t fucking bail, you fucking coward! He brought his left hand up to steady the weapon and pressed the muzzle harder into his forehead. He needed to make sure it could complete its final task.
“C’mon, asshole, finish it!” his voice raged out loud. “Fucking finish it!”
He closed his eyes tightly and pulled the trigger.
Nothing.
The weapon hadn’t fired. The hammer had fallen and then nothing, not a goddamned sound except the hammer striking home and that fucking air conditioner. His breathing shuddered and his hands trembled as he opened his eyes. Staring down at his own fingers curled around the pistol, he wondered why his brains weren’t splattered all over the wall behind him, why this gun wasn’t laying on the carpeted floor for someone, anyone, to find when they came to check on him. And why there wasn’t a small, black hole in the center of his forehead and a larger, fist-sized hole out the back.
He let the dead weight of his hands fall to his lap as he continued to stare at the semiautomatic. Raising it up again, he let the fingers of his left hand push back the slide. He watched as the shell ejected and tumbled ef
fortlessly in the air in what seemed like a slow-motion scene from a Sam Peckinpah film and land on the wet fitted sheet of the bed.
He picked it up and studied its brass casing. The hollow point tip was still intact. It was a dud. A fucking dud! Even the manufacturer couldn’t get it right.
He set the bullet on the nightstand and stared at it. It stood there, mocking him, taunting him with the promise of the release he so desperately wanted, but couldn’t have. He tossed the Colt onto the bed and fisted his cell phone, chose the banking app and checked his bank account to make sure Dayton’s deposit had arrived. It had. His job for tonight had been paid in full.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Jake Bilagody’s hands had been fighting him since the moment he had gotten out of bed that morning. The arthritis attacking the fingers of his left hand had swollen them up to the point where he was thankful he no longer wore a wedding band. Initially, that fact had been depressing for him to deal with, but he had slowly come to terms with it over the last few years. If one ever really did come to terms with it. He sat behind the desk in his office and held his hands out in front of him, palms up. He tried to curl his fingers toward his palm and rest his thumbs over them, but he couldn’t.
With each attempt, the big man cringed in pain. The joints of his fingers felt like they were bone grinding on bone. He stared at them now with deepening regret, remembering how he had never listened to any of the elders who had always advised him against popping his knuckles. Now that arrogance had seemingly come back to haunt him in the pregolden years known as middle age. For a moment, he stared at the spot where his wedding ring would have resided. Maybe he should try calling his ex-wife? The thought had run through his mind several times in recent days. Nizhoni, which meant beautiful in Navajo, hadn’t bothered to contact him after the divorce, apparently moving on without giving their marriage a second thought. Twenty-five years together and I guess it meant nothing. Jake inhaled deeply and let his breath escape, taking his thought along with it.
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