The Passage (116 page)

A lamp was glowing in the tent.

“Major Greer?”

“Enter.”

Peter stepped through the flap. The room was blazing with warmth from the woodstove; the major, wearing his camo pants and an olive-drab T-shirt, was sitting at Vorhees’s desk, sorting through papers by lantern light. An open locker, half full of various belongings, rested on the floor at his feet.

“Jaxon. I was wondering when I’d hear from you.” Greer leaned back in his chair and rubbed his eyes wearily. “Come here and look at this.”

A pile of loose papers lay on the desk. On the top was a sheet bearing the image of three figures, a woman and two young girls. The image was so precisely rendered that Peter thought at first he was looking at a photograph, something from the Time Before. But then he realized that it was a drawing, rendered in charcoal. A portrait, done from the waist up; the bottom seemed to fade away, into nothing. The woman was holding the smaller girl, who couldn’t have been older than three, with a soft, baby-cheeked face, in her lap; the other, just a couple of years older than her sister, stood behind the two of them, over the woman’s left shoulder. Greer pulled more pages from the pile: the same three figures, in an identical pose.

“Vorhees did these?”

Greer nodded. “Curt wasn’t a lifer, like most of us. He had a whole life before the Expeditionary, a wife, two little girls. He was a farmer, if you can believe that.”

“What happened to them?”

Greer answered with a shrug. “What always happens, when it happens.”

Peter bent to examine the drawings again. He could feel the painstaking care of their creation, the force of concentration that lay behind each detail. The woman’s wry smile; the younger girl’s eyes, wide and refractive like her mother’s; the lift of the older one’s hair, caught on a sudden breeze. A bit of gray dust still floated on the surface of the paper, like ashes, pushed on this remembered wind.

“I guess he drew all these so he wouldn’t forget them,” Greer said.

Peter felt suddenly self-conscious—whatever these images had meant to the general, Peter knew they were private. “If you don’t mind my asking, Major, why are you showing these to me?”

Greer gathered them carefully together in a cardboard folder and placed them in the trunk at his feet. “Someone once told me that part of you lives on so long as somebody remembers you. Now you remember them, too.” He sealed the locker with a key he took from around his neck and leaned back in his chair. “But that’s not why you came to see me, is it? You’ve made your decision.”

“Yes, sir. I’ll be leaving in the morning.”

“Well.” A thoughtful nod, of something expected. “All five, or just you?”

“Hollis and Sara are going with the evac. Michael, too, though he may not know that yet.”

“So, the two of you, then. You and the mystery girl.”

“Amy.”

Greer nodded again. “Amy.” Peter waited for Greer to try to talk him out of it, but instead he said, “Take my mount. He’s a good horse, he won’t let you down. I’ll leave word at the gate to let you pass. You need weapons?”

“Whatever you can spare.”

“I’ll leave that too, then.”

“I appreciate that, sir. Thank you for everything.”

“Seems the least I can do.” Greer regarded his hands where they were folded in his lap. “You know it’s probably suicide, don’t you? Going up that mountain alone like that. I have to say it.”

“Maybe so. But it’s the best idea I’ve got.”

A moment of silent acknowledgment passed between them. Peter thought how he would miss Greer, his calm, steadfast presence.

“Well, this is goodbye then.” Greer rose and offered his hand to shake. “Look me up if you’re ever in Kerrville. I want to know how it ends.”

“How what ends?”

The major smiled, his big hand still wrapped around Peter’s. “The dream, Peter.”

A light was burning inside the barracks; Peter could hear murmuring behind the canvas walls. There was no proper door, no way to knock. But as he approached, a soldier appeared through the flap, drawing his parka around him. The one they called Wilco; he was one of the oilers.

“Jaxon.” He gave a startled look. “If you’re looking for Lugnut, he’s with some of the other guys, moving the last of the fuel off the tanker. I was just going over there.”

“I’m looking for Lish.” When Wilco met this request with an empty stare, Peter clarified. “Lieutenant Donadio.”

“I’m not sure—”

“Just tell her I’m here.”

Wilco shrugged and ducked back through the flap. Peter strained his ears to hear what, if anything, was being said inside. But all the voices had gone suddenly silent. He waited, long enough to wonder if Alicia would simply fail to appear. But then the flap drew aside and she stepped through.

It would not have been quite true, Peter thought, to say that she looked changed; she simply
was
changed. The woman who stood before him was both the same Alicia he had always known and someone entirely new. Her arms were crossed over her chest; on her upper body she was wearing nothing more than a T-shirt, despite the cold. A bit of her hair had grown back over the days, a ghostly scrim that clung to her scalp like a glowing cap under the lights. But it wasn’t any of these things that made the moment strange. It was the way she stood, holding herself apart from him.

“I heard about your promotion,” he said. “Congratulations.”

Alicia said nothing.

“Lish—”

“You shouldn’t be here, Peter. I shouldn’t be talking to you.”

“I just came to tell you that I understand. For a while I didn’t. But I do now.”

“Well.” She paused, hugging herself in the cold. “What changed your mind?”

He didn’t know quite what to say. Everything he’d meant to tell her seemed to have abruptly fled from his mind. Muncey’s death had something to do with it, and his father, and Amy. But the real reason wasn’t anything he possessed the words for.

He said the only thing he could think of. “Hollis’s guitar, actually.”

Alicia gave him a blank look. “Hollis has a guitar?”

“One of the soldiers gave it to him.” Peter stopped; there was no way to explain. “I’m sorry. I’m not making much sense.”

A space seemed to have opened in Peter’s chest, and he realized what it was; it was the pain of missing someone he had not yet left.

“Well, thank you for telling me. But I really have to get back inside.”

“Lish, wait.”

She turned to face him again, her eyebrows raised.

“Why didn’t you ever tell me? About the Colonel.”

“Is that why you came here? To ask me about the Colonel?” She sighed, looking away; it wasn’t anything she wanted to discuss. “Because he didn’t want anyone to know. About who he was.”

“But why wouldn’t he?”

“What would he have said, Peter? He was all alone. He’d lost all his men. As far as he was concerned, he should have died with them.” She paused to breathe. “As for the rest, I think he raised me the only way he knew how. For a long time, I thought it was fun, to tell you the truth. Stories about brave men crossing the Darklands to fight and die. Taking the oath, a bunch of mumbo jumbo that meant nothing to me, just words. Then I was angry. I was eight, Peter. Eight years old, and he took me outside the walls, underneath the power trunk, and left me there. At night, with nothing, not even a blade. You haven’t heard about that part.”

“Flyers, Lish. What happened?”

“Nothing. I’d be dead if it had. I just sat under a tree and cried all night. To this day I don’t know if he was testing my courage or my luck.”

Part of the story seemed missing. “He must have been out there with you. Watching you.”

“Maybe.” She angled her face to the wintry sky. “Sometimes I think he was, sometimes I don’t. You didn’t know him like I did. I hated him after that, for the longest time. Really and truly hated him. But you can only hate somebody for so long.” She breathed again—deeply, resignedly. “I hope that’s true for you, Peter. That someday you can find it in your heart to forgive me.” She sniffed and wiped her eyes. “That’s all. I’ve said too much as it is. I’m just glad I had you as long as I did.”

He looked at her, her stricken face, and he knew.

The Colonel wasn’t the real secret. He was. He was the secret she had kept. That they had kept from each other, even from themselves.

He reached for her. “Alicia, listen—”

“Don’t do this. Don’t.” And yet she did not back away.

“Those three days, when I thought you’d die and I wouldn’t be there.” A fist-sized lump had formed in his throat. “I always thought I’d be there.”

“Peter, goddamnit.” She was trembling; he felt the weight of her struggle. “You can’t do this now. It’s too late, Peter. It’s too late.”

“I know.”

“Don’t say it. Please. You said you understood.”

He did; he understood. All that they were to each other seemed cradled within this simple fact. He felt no surprise or even regret but, rather, a deep and sudden gratitude and, with it, a force of clarity, filling him like a breath of winter air. He wondered what this feeling was and then he knew. He was giving her up.

She let him put his arms around her then, pulling her into the open flaps of his jacket. He held her, as she had held him, all those days ago in Vorhees’s tent. The same goodbye reversed. He felt her stiffen and then relax against him, becoming smaller in his embrace.

“You’re leaving,” she said.

“I need you to promise me something. Keep the others safe. Get them to Roswell.”

A faint but discernible nod against his chest. “What about you?”

How he loved her. And yet the words themselves could never be spoken. Holding her in his arms, he closed his eyes and tried to inscribe the feeling of her into his mind, into memory, so that he could take this with him.

“I think you’ve looked after me long enough, don’t you?” He pulled away to see her face a final time. “That’s all,” he said. “I just wanted to thank you.”

And then he turned and walked away, leaving her standing alone in the icy wind outside the silent barracks.

He did his best to sleep, turning restlessly through the night, and in the last hour before dawn, when he could wait no more, rose and quickly packed his gear. It was the cold he was thinking of; they would need blankets, extra socks, anything that could keep them warm and dry. Sleeping sacks and ponchos and a tarp with a good sturdy rope. The night before, on his way back from the barracks, he had ducked into the supply tent and pilfered an entrenching tool and a hand axe, and a pair of heavy parkas. Hollis was softly snoring on his cot, a bearded face buried in blankets, oblivious. When he awoke, Peter would be gone.

He hoisted the pack to his shoulder and stepped outside, into a cold so sharp it stunned him, sucking the air from his lungs. The garrison was quiet, just a few men moving about; the smells of wood smoke and warm food reached him from the mess, making his stomach rumble. But there was no time for that. In the women’s tent he found Amy sitting on her bunk, her small pack resting on her lap. He’d told her nothing. She was alone; Sara was still with Sancho and the others, in the infirmary.

“Is it time?” she asked him. Her eyes were very bright.

“Yes, it’s time.”

They crossed together to the paddock. Greer’s horse, a large black gelding, his coat heavy for winter, was grazing with the others, noses angled to the wind. Peter retrieved a bridle from the shed and led him to the fence. He wished he could use a saddle, but it wouldn’t work with two. He lashed their packs together, draping them over the animal’s withers. His fingers were already stiff with the cold. He lifted Amy up, then used the fence to climb aboard. They rode around the edge of the paddock to the shadows under the pickets, headed for the gate. Dawn was just breaking, a gray softening, as if the darkness were not lifting but dissolving; a pale, almost invisible snow had begun to fall, flakes that seemed to materialize in the air before their faces.

They were met at the gate by a single sentry: Eustace, the lieutenant who had first alerted Peter to the raiding party’s return.

“Major says to let you pass. He also asked me to give you this.” Eustace dragged a duffel bag from the sentry hut and lay it on the ground before the horse. “Says to take whatever you need.”

Peter swung down and knelt to open it. Rifles, magazines, a couple of pistols, a belt of grenades. Peter looked through all of it, thinking about what to do.

“Thanks anyway,” he said, drawing upright. He drew his blade from his belt and held it out for Eustace to take. “Here. A present for the major.”

Eustace frowned. “I don’t get it. You want to give me your blade?”

Peter pushed it toward him. “Take it,” he said.

Reluctantly, Eustace accepted the blade. For a moment he just looked at it, as if it were some strange artifact he’d found in the forest.

“Give it to Major Greer,” Peter said. “I think he’ll understand.”

He turned to address Amy, sitting high above him. She had tipped her chin upward to the falling snow.

“Ready?”

The girl nodded. A faint smile shone on her face; flakes had caught on her lashes, in her hair, like jeweled dust. Eustace gave Peter a leg up; he swung onto the horse’s back, taking the reins in his hand. The gate drew open before them. He allowed himself one last look toward the barracks, but all was quiet, unchanged. Goodbye, he thought, goodbye. Then he heeled his mount and they rode out, into the breaking day.

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