“I think it’s against Army regs.”
Brodie said to Greer, “Cover up your privates, Private. We’re leaving.”
“No.”
“I insist.”
Greer did not respond.
They had to get this guy out of there. “Listen to me, Tom. We have reason to believe that your platoonmates are in danger. We need to get back to base. Whatever this is, it’s not over.”
Tom Greer stood there, his hog hanging out and the desert breeze blowing on his bare skin. He looked out at the black night. In the distance was Camp Hayden, its streetlamps creating an island of light in the endless dark, glowing white like an apparition. The man repeated, “It’s not over.”
“That’s right.”
“And I need to put my clothes on.”
“Also correct.”
Greer turned to him. “I can’t run from this, can I?”
Brodie shook his head. “The fight isn’t over, soldier.”
Greer looked at the edge of the mesa. “I’m not sure I’m good to climb down.”
“I’ll help you.”
He looked at Brodie curiously. “Are you sober?”
“In the valley of the blind, the one-eyed man is king.”
“What?”
“Get dressed and leave your gear. We need to move.”
The man got dressed, and Taylor gathered their weapons and ammo. As the most sober of the bunch, Brodie decided to carry both pistols and Greer’s knife. He outfitted Greer with a headlamp he’d found in the man’s pack.
They took it slow down the path, Brodie in the lead, followed byGreer, then Taylor. The path was only about four feet wide, so they hugged the side of the mountain.
Brodie turned around and saw Greer focused intently on his feet, lit by the circle of light thrown by his headlamp. He took each step carefully and deliberately, as if his life depended on it, because it did. Brodie was close enough that if Greer tripped, Brodie might be able to catch him. Or the young man would send them both on the express route down the mountain.
We’re not preparing for a war. We’re already in one.
Greer’s words. And in war you wager your life, and you sometimes take stupid risks, and you tell yourself along the way that it’s all worth it for something bigger.
Brodie glanced at Taylor, who seemed like she wanted to be going faster. Instead of eyeing her footing she kept looking out in the direction of Camp Hayden.
In a few minutes they made it to the bottom, and Brodie made Greer turn off his headlamp. “We don’t want to broadcast our approach.”
They picked their way across the dark desert, cutting southwest until they could see the lights of Camp Hayden on the southern edge of the low hills.
Along the way, Greer kept having to stop and rest. He wouldn’t say why, but Brodie thought he understood, based on his very recent experience—Greer was tapped into his subconscious and his instincts, and as they inched closer to Camp Hayden every alarm bell in the guy’s brain was blaring.
Get away get away. Anywhere but there.
But to the man’s credit, he kept pushing forward. Because there was another imperative inside of him, the soldier’s instinct to run toward danger, not away from it.
Greer began walking faster as Camp Hayden came more clearly into view, and he got ahead of Brodie and Taylor.
