A Soldier In Conard County. Rachel Lee

“Yes, I’m tired. Yes, I’m still recovering. But the thing that wore me out most was my own family.”

      She drew a breath. His own family? Oh, Lord, and she’d just suggested a big barbecue with Al’s friends and family. Gil was probably already wishing he hadn’t stopped by. “What happened?” she asked, before she could stop herself.

      “For years now they’ve been demanding I get out of the military. My being wounded only strengthened it. They always feared I was going to come home in a body bag, and this time I came close. My dad’s a Vietnam vet, and he’s been pushing the hardest.”

      “Oh.” She’d heard the same insistence from Betsy and Jack when Al came home. “Jack used to ask Al, ‘How many years, son? You’ve done your duty.’”

      Gil nodded slightly. “Part of me understands. I’ve buried a lot of good men. I’ve seen a lot of terrible things. But this is who I am.”

      It sounded like a line drawn in the sand. Being a soldier was his identity. How did you strip that away? She would find it hard to give up being a music teacher. Sometimes she wondered how jobs could become so overwhelmingly important to a sense of self. Wondering didn’t make it change.

      “I’m not sure you’ll get much of that here,” she said. “But I can’t guarantee you won’t get any. Al’s parents are excited about seeing you because Al mentioned you so often they feel like you’re family. So, no promises.”

      Again a faint smile. “I know how to leave. Obviously. But let’s talk about you. I know you teach music. I know you love it because you told me such great stories when you emailed. But what about the rest? Does Miri Baker have a life apart from school?”

      She narrowed her eyes at him. “Does Sergeant Gil York have a life apart from the Green Berets?” Then she laughed. “Of course I have a life. Friends. Community service projects. Sometimes I help Jack and Betsy at the ranch. There are times when they need some extra hands.”

      “And your parents? Al never mentioned them. At least not that I can recall.”

      She closed her eyes. Even after seven years she didn’t like to think about it. “My dad had an accident with some farm machinery. Mom found him... It was gruesome. Anyway, she died of a sudden heart attack before the EMTs arrived. I’m glad she didn’t have to hang around, but I resent it, too.” That was blunt enough, she thought.

      “So you were left to deal with it alone?”

      “Hardly,” she said a touch drily. “You’re forgetting the rest of the Baker clan. Aunt Betsy and Uncle Jack were there for me, as were a couple of more distant cousins. Then there are the people around here. Unless you deliberately push them away, quite a few will try to be helpful however they can.”

      He didn’t answer immediately. He looked so very different from when he’d come for the funeral. Then he’d been rigid, sturdy, in control. Now he looked weary, new lines creased his strong features and his eyes weren’t quite as flinty. She wondered if he was in much pain, but didn’t ask. They were still virtual strangers, with little enough intimacy of any kind. It was like meeting someone new, their past contact irrelevant. For some reason she hadn’t expected that.

      He rose from the table, moving as if he was stiff and uncomfortable, and the change once again shocked her. He poured himself more coffee, then returned to his seat. He’d managed without the cane, however.

      “I stiffen up when I sit too long,” he remarked. “I didn’t use to do that. Al talked about you a lot.”

      The switch in topics caught her by surprise. She’d begun to hope he was going to say something about himself, but now went back to Al.

      “I miss him,” she said. “Even though he was home only a few weeks a year, I still miss him.”

      “I think he missed you, too. We were sitting behind some rocks one cold night keeping watch, and he told me about how you used to build roads together in the dirt at the ranch. And how you always wanted mountains, so you’d find some rocks, but you were very critical about them. Some were too rounded. Others didn’t look like the mountains you can see from here.”

      She smiled at the memory. “I drove him crazy with my mountains. He had a toy grader and was making roads fast, to run the little cars and trucks on, but I was wandering around trying to make mountains. Then my folks got me a couple of plastic horses and they were too big. I hate to tell you how many times they turned into monsters that messed with the tiny cars.”

      Gil’s face relaxed into a smile. “I can imagine it.”

      Her thoughts drifted backward in time, and she found herself remembering the happiness almost wistfully. “We tried to build a tree fort but we really didn’t have the skills, so we’d climb up into the trees and pretend to be hiding from unspecified bad guys. One time we happened to find a stray steer. Well, that ended our imaginary game. We had to take it home. For which we got a piece of cake, so after that instead of hiding from imaginary bad guys, we became trackers hunting for rustled cattle.”

      His smile widened. “He didn’t tell me you two had hunted rustlers.”

      “Only in our minds. Kids have wonderful imaginations. So what did you do?”

      “I lived in town, so most of our games were pretty tame. Except when we got into trouble, of course. And being kids, we did from time to time. Mrs. Green was pretty angry when we trampled her rhubarb bed.”

      “I can imagine.”

      “Oh, it came back. We weren’t trying to do any damage, though. Just carelessness. I haven’t been home a lot during my career, but it seems like kids don’t run around the neighborhood as much as they used to. Yards have become more private.”

      “And with two parents working, a lot of kids are probably in after-school programs and day care.”

      “True.” He sipped some more coffee.

      “When did you start thinking about joining the army?” she asked. “Or did you imagine a series of different possibilities?”

      “I don’t remember if I thought about anything else seriously. I probably toyed with a lot of ideas, the way kids do. Then September 11 happened. That was it.”

      “Pretty much the same thing happened with Al. That set his course.”

      “Yup.” Gil nodded slowly. “It set a lot of courses. I trained with a whole bunch of people who’d made the same decision for the same reason. The changing of a nation.”

      She turned that around in her mind. “Watershed?” she asked tentatively.

      “In a lot of ways.” But he clearly intended to say no more about it. “And you? Music teacher?”

      “Always. Put any musical instrument in my hand and I wanted to play it. I was lucky, because Mom and Dad encouraged me even though it was expensive. Rented instruments and band fees. Then I got a scholarship to the music program at university.”

      “You must be very talented.”

      “Talented enough to teach. Nothing wrong with that. I never did dream of orchestras or bands.” She smiled. “Small dreams.”

      “Big dreams,” he corrected. “Teaching is a big dream.”

      As she watched, she could see fatigue pulling him down. His eyelids were growing heavy and caffeine wasn’t doing a bit to help. “Why don’t you take a nap,” she suggested. “I’ll wake you for dinner, but you looked wiped.”

      He didn’t argue, merely gave her a wan smile and let her show him the bedroom in back. His limp, she noticed, had grown even more pronounced than when he came into the house. Tired and hurting. She hoped he’d sleep.

      * * *

      Gil didn’t sleep. He pulled off his boots, then stretched out carefully on the colorful quilt that covered the twin bed on one side of the room. As Miri had advised