“They didn’t. They took me right in and sent me to basic. Never been so relieved in my life. It was like a do-over.”
“Whatever happened to your parents, your family… the Burnses?”
I felt that old, familiar lump in my gut. Guilt, fear, shame.
“I don’t know. I haven’t talked to anyone back home since that night.”
“Not even your mother or sister?” he asked.
I shook my head. “My father wouldn’t have allowed it, and I didn’t want to put them in that position.”
We sat in silence a while then, the weight of my tale hanging heavy in the thick, humid air.
Doc turned to me and looked me right in the eyes, his face so full of empathy I almost couldn’t bear it.
“You told me that so I wouldn’t feel so responsible for what happened back there to those soldiers.”
I nodded. He was perceptive.
“Major… did you… did you make that up just to make me feel better?”
The whites of his eyes stood out in the night, and I wished with every bit of my soul I could reach out and touch his face, hold his hand, anything to forge a closer connection and offer him—both of us really—comfort.
“No, Doc. I wish I had, believe me. I’m sure if you went home and searched it up in the library, you’d find an awful story in the Bakersfield Californian about the Burnses that night.”
“Did you ever look it up to see if the Burnses survived their injuries or if anyone saw you there?”
I shuddered. “Hell no. I don’t think I can bear to see the story in print. Until tonight, I sort of… put it away, you know? I can’t… I can’t let myself think about it. It happened in another life to another person. And it doesn’t much matter now anyway. What’s done is done. I can never face my family again from the shame. Once they associated me with Bobby, they’d know we were birds of a feather.”
“You’re nothing like that criminal,” Doc insisted, bristling with indignation. “You’re a good man, Major. Brave, honest, strong. I’ve never seen you hesitate, not one moment, to do the right thing. If anyone ever associated you with a man like that, they’d be dead wrong.”
His words warmed something in me, releasing a tight buckle of anxiety I’d carried for fifteen years. Finally, someone else knew the worst of me and hadn’t judged me for it.
Doc was silent for another beat before speaking hesitantly. “I promise you on my life I will never reveal any of your secrets, Major.”
“Nor I yours, Lieutenant,” I promised. “We came upon that unit, tried to save our fellow soldiers, and failed. That is the beginning, middle, and end of the story.”
“But—”
I cut him off. “Those men had already been severely injured in the grenade attack, Doc. If anything, it was the delay of our crash that killed them. Corporal Atkins was missing a leg. Private Sanchez was missing his—”
Doc grabbed my forearm with an iron grip. “No more. Please. I remember all of it in vivid detail that will never leave me as long as I live.”
I nodded and patted his hand on my arm, squeezing it quickly before forcing myself to leave him be.
After a few more moments of silence, Doc spoke again. “You know all of their names.”
I blew out a breath. “Their families will want to know.”
“Of course. I’m an idiot. I should have—”
“No. This was your first time in combat like that, Doc. You did the best you could without shitting your pants or winding up dead.”
“Who said I didn’t shit my pants?” he asked with that crooked grin.
I snorted a laugh. “If you did, I don’t want to hear about it.”
“I would have been dead if it wasn’t for you. You saved my ass. Time and again. The Huey. The clearing. Now. Keeping me from going crazy. I’ll never forget this, Major.”
“No, I imagine you won’t.”
“That’s not what I meant,” Doc corrected.
“I know.”
After a while we spoke of normal things. The movie they’d played on base the week before. How grateful we were to be at a base with cold beer every once in a while. We talked about where some of the men took their R&R time. Doc told me about growing up on a ranch and the pressure to never leave it.
“I thought if I went into the military, I’d at least get to get out of goddamned Texas,” he joked. “Fat lot of good that did me. Stupid cowboy.”
“You’re out of Texas,” I teased gesturing at the sticky mud under us and the bug-filled jungle surrounding us. “Lucky you.”
He snorted. “What was I thinking? At least I got a college degree out of the deal. Not sure it was worth it.”
“Why didn’t you go to medical school and defer?” I asked.
Doc laughed softly. “I never wanted to be a doctor. I had a clerk position in the infirmary at school for extra money, that’s all. Apparently it was enough to flag me for combat medicine. My plan was to get in, get out, go home, and take over the ranch like I was expected to. Am expected to.”