He threw the blanket aside and tore outside, into the glare of the spotlights. His doubts turned to certainty, and by the time he was halfway across the parade ground he knew what was waiting for him.
Alicia. Alicia had come back.
She was standing at the gate. His first impression, as he moved toward her, was that she was alone. But as he pushed his way through the gathering men, he saw a second soldier, kneeling on the dirt. It was Muncey. His wrists were bound before him. Under the blaze of the spotlights, Peter could see that his face was glazed with sweat. He was shivering, but not from the cold; one of his hands was wrapped in a rag sodden with blood.
The two were surrounded by soldiers now, everyone keeping their distance. A reverential hush had descended. Greer stepped forward to Alicia.
“The general?”
She shook her head: no.
The private was holding his bloody hand away from his body, breathing rapidly. Greer crouched before him. “Corporal Muncey.” His voice was quiet, soothing.
“Yes, sir.” Muncey licked his lips with a slow tongue. “Sorry, sir.”
“It’s all right, son. You’ve done well.”
“Don’t know how I missed the one that did it. Chewed me like a dog before Donadio got him.” He raised his head toward Alicia. “You wouldn’t know she was a girl from the way she fights. Hope you don’t mind I asked her to truss me up and bring me home.”
“That’s your perfect right, Muncey. That’s your right as a soldier of the Expeditionary.”
Muncey’s body shook then, a series of three hard spasms. His lips curled away, showing the gaps in his teeth. Peter felt the soldiers tense; all around him, hands dropped to their blades, a quick, unconscious movement. But Greer, crouched before the ailing soldier, didn’t flinch.
“Well, I guess that’s it now,” Muncey said when the spasms had passed. Peter could find no fear anywhere in the soldier’s eyes, only a calm acceptance. All the color had seeped from his face, like water down a drain. He lifted his bound hands to wipe the sweat from his brow with the bloody rag. “It’s like they say, the way it comes on. If it’s no trouble, I’d like it on the blade, Major. I want to feel it coming out of me.”
Greer nodded his approval. “Good man, Muncey.”
“Donadio should be the one to do it, if that’s all right. My mama always said you should dance with the one who brung you, and she was kind enough to bring me back. She didn’t have to do that.” His eyes were blinking now, the sweat was pouring down. “I just wanted to say it’s been an honor, sir. The general, too. I wanted to come home to say that. But I think you better step to it, Major.”
Greer rose to his feet and backed away. Everyone snapped to attention. He raised his voice to all of them:
“This man is a soldier of the Expeditionary! It is time for him to take the trip! All hail, Corporal Muncey. Hip hip… ”
“Hooray!”
“Hip hip-”
“Hooray!”
“Hip hip-”
“Hooray!”
Greer drew his blade and passed it to Alicia. Her face was composed, lacking all emotion: a soldier’s face, a face of duty. She gripped the blade in her fist and knelt before Muncey, who had bowed his head now, waiting, his bound hands slack in his lap. Alicia bent her head toward Muncey’s until their foreheads were touching. Peter saw that her lips were moving, murmuring quiet words to him. He felt no horror, only a sense of astonishment. The moment seemed frozen, not part of a flow of events but something fixed and singular-a line that, once crossed, could never be uncrossed. That Muncey would die was only a part of its meaning.
The knife did its work almost before Peter realized what had happened; when Alicia dropped her hand, it was buried to the hilt in Muncey’s chest. His eyes were open, wide and damp, his lips parted. Alicia was holding his face now, tenderly, like a mother with her child. “Go easy now, Muncey,” she said. “Go easy.” A bit of blood had risen to his lips. He breathed once more, holding the air in his chest, as if it were not air but something far more-a sweet taste of freedom, of all cares lifted, everything over and done. Then his life left him and he slumped forward, Alicia receiving him in her arms to ease his body’s passage to the muddy ground of the garrison.
Peter did not see her all through the next day and then the day after. He thought of sending her a message through Greer, but he didn’t know what to say. In his heart he knew the truth: Alicia was gone. She had slipped into a life he had no part of.
They’d lost a total of forty-six men, including General Vorhees. It stood to reason that some were not dead but had been taken up; the talk among the men was of sending out search parties. But Greer said no. The window for their departure was closing, if they were going to make their rendezvous with Third Battalion. Seventy-two hours, he announced, and that would be the end of it.
By the end of the second day, the camp was nearly buttoned up. Food, weapons, gear, most of the larger tents except the mess-all were packed and ready to go. The lights would remain, as would the large fuel tankers, now mostly empty, and a single Humvee. The battalion would be traveling south in two groups: a small scouting party on horseback, led by Alicia, with the rest following in the trucks and on foot. Alicia was now an officer; with so many men lost, including all but two squad leaders, the ranks had thinned, and Greer had given her a battlefield commission. She was now Lieutenant Donadio.
Greer had lifted the order to keep Sara and Amy segregated; a body was a body, he said, no reason at this point to split hairs. A lot of men had been injured in the raid; mostly small things, cuts and scratches and sprains, but one soldier had a broken collarbone, and two more, Sancho and Withers, had been badly burned in the detonation. The battalion’s two medical corpsmen had been killed, so with Amy helping her, Sara had taken over caring for the wounded, preparing them as best she could for the trip south. Peter and Hollis had been assigned to the packing crews, whose job was to sort through the contents of two large supply tents, culling what would travel with them and moving the rest to storage in a series of dugouts spread through the compound. Michael had more or less disappeared into the motor pool; he slept in the barracks, took his meals elbow to elbow with the other oilers. Even his name was gone, replaced by Lugnut.
Over everything, the question of the evacuation hung like a blade. Peter had yet to give Greer his answer, because the truth was, he didn’t know. The others-Sara and Hollis and Michael and even Amy, in her quiet, inward way-were all waiting, giving him the space to decide. That they said nothing on the subject made this fact all the more obvious. Or maybe they were simply avoiding him, for all he knew. Either way, leaving the safety of the garrison now seemed more perilous than ever. Greer had cautioned him that with the mine disturbed, the woods would be crawling; perhaps, he suggested, it would be best to wait until they returned next summer. He’d talk to Division, persuade them to mount a proper expedition. Whatever’s up that mountain, Greer said, it’s been there a long time. Surely it can wait another year.
The evening of the second day after Alicia’s return, Peter came into his tent to find Hollis alone, sitting on his cot. A winter parka was draped over his shoulders; he was holding a guitar in his lap.
“Where’d you find that?”
Hollis was idly plucking notes, his face drawn in concentration. He looked up and gave a smile through his heavy beard, which by now climbed halfway up his cheeks. “One of the oilers had it. Friend of Michael’s.” He blew on his hands and plucked a few more notes, nibbling around the edges of a melody that Peter couldn’t quite discern. “It’s been so long I thought I’d forgotten how to play.”