Reckoning (20 page)

Silent, Gage nodded, awakened from his stupor, careful not to catch the wrathful attention of Sergeant Mac. But inside, where it mattered, he was only running. He felt nothing, knew nothing, because he knew that's how he would survive. He wouldn't be here. His body would do it for him. He would run until his body quit, his legs went out, or heat took him. But he wouldn't be thinking about it. Until the real pain came when everything would change. It would make him mean, pushing his soul back to his mind, where he would have to embrace the pain and the death or quit, quit
everything. Because pain wrapped around death would do that; it could scare you, break you. The only way to beat it was to love it, to embrace it, to not be afraid of it.

He wondered how much he could love it, how much he could take before it broke him. He had come close before to truly embracing it but he had never pushed his body to the point of death. The fear had always defeated him. He had not wanted to embrace the pain when it was wrapped around
death. But today, he knew, he would face death.

He would know if he could embrace the pain.

Five miles more, Gage no longer aware of the sweat on his brow, no longer blinking at the stinging droplets that pricked his eyes. He stared straight ahead, moving, always moving, one step after another. No, don't think about how far. There's only one step, here, and another. That's all. Never think about how far.

Behind them an ambulance moved slowly along, ready to catch the first to surrender to heat exhaustion, the first who could not bear the pain. Then a cadence broke out and Gage joined it, singing out, keeping step to the words until it was gone. And then another began and he joined that, too, as they neared the halfway point, seeing the hill in the near distance.

Sergeant Mac was running beside him.

"We're almost there, ladies!" he boomed out, hearty. "Keep it up! We've got a long way to go before we get home! Gage! Give me a cadence!"

Gage led the call, keeping the pace regular, rhythmic, his mind coming back with the words. He watched the crest of the hill, felt the weight increase on his legs as they climbed the slope.

Sandman groaned beside him, breaking count, falling back.

Losing a face of sweat Gage looked to the side to gain the big man's attention, to yell out the count. Then Sandman groaned and lurched forward, hands tightening on his rifle, keeping the cadence.

They climbed the hill, to the top.

"Ten minutes, boys!" Sergeant Mac called out, leading. He turned at the crest, hands on his hips, watching as the two columns parted, separating down each side of him, red-baked soldiers col-lapsing in the dust, hastily pulling canteens, pouring water over face, chest, into upturned mouths. The jeep, filled with fresh, cool canteens, was waiting. But instead of going to it for water they fell like dead men over the red hillside, scattered soldiers with open mouths heaving breath in the airless heat.

Sandman fell prone to the dust and rolled to his side, gasping, mud-colored chalk swirling over him in unfelt wind. It was Gage, alone, who moved on floating legs to the jeep, his mind passing something, moving to something else inside himself, something that had begun feeding on the pain, enlarged by it, angered by it.

Yes, today he would know.

He would know all there was to know about pain.

Moving directly and without stopping to the jeep, Gage picked two fresh canteens, traded his empty ones. Then, feeling the anger that gave him the strength to embrace the real pain, the main center of all that he had feared, he turned steadily and walked back to the crest of the hill.

He stood 20 feet from Sergeant Mac, rifle in hand.

Leathery face reddened by the dust and the sweat, Sergeant Mac turned and walked two steps through a sea of sweating, col-lapsed bodies before he noticed Gage standing on the crest, staring at him. He stopped in stride, eyes narrowing like gun sights.

Gage turned his sweat-soaked head, indifferent, to meet the gaze.

Sergeant Mac waited a moment, and then he nodded. He laughed. He clapped his hands, once. And then he went to the jeep, happily trading his canteens. He seemed to move back with a lightness, a joy in his step.

"On your feet, ladies!" he called out, smiling at Gage. "We ain't got all day!"

As before, they went down the hill, running.

They passed what they passed before. But it was different to Gage; everything was less, and less important. The only thing that mattered to him now was how far he could go within himself, how deep he could go within the pain.

Red clay dust in the humid air as they plodded forward. It was only five miles from the hill that the first ones began to surrender to the smothering heat.

A cry went up, the column breaking as a man collapsed.

"Keep it up, girls!" cried Sergeant Mac. "Medics'll get 'im!"

Above his mind, in the heat, Gage heard the cry and knew what had happened. He knew the ambulance would attend to the wounded. But he wasn't there. He heard the cry and he knew. But he wasn't there. He was here, inside, beneath the heat, in his mind.

Sergeant Mac moved up the column, was a pace to the side and slightly behind Gage, where he held steady. Gage knew why Sergeant Mac had moved close, felt the eyes watching him.

Don't show
... any weakness ...

Not thinking, Gage felt the truth, the true reason why he would not be broken, not by anything. Part of it was simple; a desire to be the best, the toughest. Part of it was a determination to stay alive, to ultimately be the strongest survivor in a savage world. But deep inside, because he was truly a soldier, he knew that he would also endure because he simply wanted the respect of the feared Sergeant Mac. For that, Gage knew he would embrace the pain.

The day wore on, breaking stones with its heat, and men began to fall; ten, fifteen, and then twenty sprawling onto their faces in the burning roadway, moaning, crying out and struggling up only to stagger blindly to the side to fall away, lost in delirium, red heat, exhaustion.

Medics took them away
to somewhere else where they could be like the rest.

Gage never remembered the final few miles. He only
remembered his gaze wandering across the horizon, losing focus, his mind zoning so deeply he forgot where he was. He forgot Sandman beside him, forgot it all until there was only the running. He remembered only the running, his mind coming back to it again and again, red dust, step and step, rifle and sweat, pain.

Running, pain, running and pain.

His shoulders were burned deep by the straps, his chest numb. His hands frozen to the rifle like claws, stiff and swollen. But long ago, somewhere in the dusty steps, Gage had found comfort and strength in his wounds, in his battered and blistered feet that soaked his socks in blood. Somehow, it made him happy. Even as he knew he would feel different, somehow, and somehow less, if his wounds were taken from him, if the pain were taken away from him.

Leading, Sergeant Mac angled at the end of the roadway, where tall brown posts decked with rope marked the beginning of the obstacle course. They finished the run, 15 soldiers staggering across the line, fleeing the dust, the road, to the shade of the evergreens and pines.

"Take a break!" Sergeant Mac called out, winded, as the last of the line came across. He turned to them all as they staggered in fatigue. "You've done well, boys! Only the men who make it to this line are considered for Delta! And now that you're all warmed up, we'll see what you are really made of! You got five minutes to rest up! Drop your packs!"

Fourteen soldiers fell to the ground.

Sandman collapsed like a tree, his pack on his back, too tired to shift it off. His face was contorted as he heaved in humid gulps of air, red air that burned the lungs and nostrils with each ragged breath.

Floating in fatigue, Gage stayed on his feet and turned. Eyes vacuous, he shed the pack, dropping it hard to the ground and instantly felt as if he would ascend into the air, so light. But he knew it was false, would fail in moments when stiffening legs began protesting the abuse.

Standing, he stared at Sergeant Mac.

Expecting it now, the old sergeant stood waiting. He smiled wildly as Gage stared at him.

Smiled like a man who loved it.

"You still alive, Gage?"

Gage laughed shortly, breathing hard. He shook his head. "You can't break me."

"Can't break you, huh? And why's that?"

Gage thought for a moment, didn't know how to answer. He just knew that it was something inside him, a lot of things inside him. He knew that the more he hurt, the harder he became, living and dying at once; the perfect world.

"What's that you say?" Sergeant Mac grinned, sweating,
turning an ear forward. "You say you want to run the obstacle course?"

Gage grunted, uncaring. "Till you get tired of callin' it," he rasped.

Sergeant Mac leaned forward in a booming yell. "On your feet, ladies! On your feet! We got daylight! Lots of it! We're gonna run us an obstacle course! Over and over, girls! Over and over! Gage says he can't be broke, but we're gonna find out! We're gonna find out what it takes to break the boy! Let's go! Let's go-go-go!"

Sandman staggered up, aghast. He stared at Gage. "I knew you was gonna do something like that," he gasped, eyes wide. "I knew it..."

Gage gestured to the course, breathless. "They ain't gonna break me. I'll run this thing from now on. Ain't nuthin' gonna break me."

"I knew it," said Sandman, face stiff in shock, shaking his head. "I knew it
..."

On the third run through the course they lost the first man. And with every trip after that, they lost another. Hours passed, with dangerous leaps from log to log, the tower, climbing and
descending the ropes, long black splinters digging into their hands, slicing fingers, pain ignored in the speed of movement. Then Sergeant Mac gave them a break with pushups and sit-ups, hundreds and hundreds of them, and then the obstacle course again, and again, until they were nothing but movement, movement and pain, pain, pain.

In the end there was only Sandman and Gage, side by side as the glowing, golden sun fell to the trees on North Carolina's dark green horizon. Finally even Sandman could go no more, falling to his face as his arms failed, unable to press one more pushup while he laid, breathing heavily, moaning, speaking to someone that was not there as Sergeant Mac, screaming now, gave him a direct order to stand.

Gage was stretched out beside him holding a pushup position, eyes closed in trembling pain, arms shaking, quivering. He heard Sandman's legs churning as Sergeant Mac continued to scream, scrambling blindly before they fell still. The big man was out cold. Unconscious. Escaping the pain.

Sweating, eyes unmerciful, Sergeant Mac turned to Gage.

"On your feet, boy," he whispered.

Unsteady, swaying, Gage stood. He blinked through the mind-numbing exhaustion, the pale clouds, trying to focus. Sergeant Mac
stood in front of him, his hands, flat and hard like boards, at his side, raised to his waist. His eyes smiled, gleaming with joy. And Gage understood. But he didn't know if he could pull it off with strength leaving him fast, empty and pale.

"Come at me, Gage," whispered Sergeant Mac. "Show me what you learned this week in all of that kung fu hand-to-hand. Hurt me. Show me what you can dish out. Show me what you can take."

Wearily, fluid and slow in fatigue, Gage had already moved, not waiting for anything. Even though his arms were dead, his legs gone, he closed the distance with a shuffling movement.

A flat hand like a plank hit him in the chest, his wound, laying him back. Gage screamed at the scarlet pain.

He hit the ground hard, screaming still and then he moaned, crying aloud, and rolled, palms pressing flat against the ground, struggling to rise, to stand. He gained his feet, turning to see Sergeant Mac smiling, holding the ground. Gage shouted and rushed, leaping forward as quickly as he could and thinking more but surprised to shock as Sergeant Mac's boot lashed out to smash into his thigh, a fist coming in that...

A stunning blow and Gage was down again, rolling, holding his head with a hand and finding himself in his fatigue again rising to his feet, only movement, beyond it, even, where there was nothing but him and death, and the pain. Then he reached his feet and was slammed back again, not knowing where the blow came from, where it went.

Who am I fighting?

And somehow, again, he was up on stiffening legs before he felt that he had been struck down, again, gazing at a sky not totally night, above him. And then he was rising yet again, numb
everywhere, fighting to gain his feet, to fight...

Struck down again.

Rising, rising...

To be struck down, beyond exhaustion now, beneath it. Gage tried to stand, to find the earth in the whiteness and somehow he knew he was there, inside death. There were no more secrets hidden from him inside the pain, no mysteries, nothing. He knew it all. And the pain could not defeat him, not as long as there was still blood inside him, not as long as he could still stand, fight, endure.

Get on your feet!

He stood.