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  John had told Brian a little about what he’d left behind and what was waiting for him when he got back. Nothing but misery and depression. The only thing he wants to see, the only person who he wants to show that he made it, is Chief Standing Bear.

  “Thanks man, but I’m cool. I’ve got to go see the old man and make sure he’s still kickin’ it, you know?” John tries to laugh and sound offhanded. But it’s obvious to his friend that this trip home is tearing him up inside.

  “Whatever man, just remember, mi casa es su casa,” Brian says giving John a hard slap on his back.

  John catches himself from falling off the hard plastic chair and clips Brian in the back of the head. The two boys are still running on the testosterone overload from boot camp.

  “I’ll remember that, Bro,” John laughs. He can’t stop the giddiness that he’s feeling.

  Boot camp weeded out the boys from the men, the others got sent home. The training might not have changed them dramatically on the outside, but it caused an incredible metamorphosis on the inside. From the minute they’d stepped on the bus to boot camp, the military began to break them down. They were forced to keep their heads down and eyes averted, so that they could not see where they were being taken. The yelling started immediately when they arrived and didn’t stop for almost ten weeks. One of the sergeants stepped onto the bus when they got to boot camp and yelled at them to get off the bus and stand on the yellow prints. Those damn yellow prints, the recruits would never forget them as long as they live. Then they were shuffled into a room to complete their documentation and listen to their instructions, because you would only be told what to do one time. They had to listen closely to hear the instruction given by their specific sergeant over all of the other booming voices. They were then instructed to call home and tell their families, “Recruit So and So has arrived safely.” After that, you were cut off from the rest of the world and would officially begin your transformation into becoming a Marine.

  John received his platoon and squad bay assignment, Brian was his rack (bunk/bed) mate. He was stuck sleeping on the small cot next to Brian for the entirety of boot camp, having to listen to Brian’s wistful tales of his life back in Wilmington, NC. Before long, the stories began to soothe John’s angry soul taking him to someplace else, a place he found himself longing to see with his eyes and not just his mind. A place that could become a home.

  During the following weeks Brian and John became inseparable, sweating their asses off next to each other in the Pit. The drill instructors saw the friendship forming between John and Brian and used it to make life hell for the two. Everyone’s bodies and minds were being broken down and pulverized, readying them to be molded into the best of the best.

  For twelve long arduous and tortuous weeks they were pushed, beaten, insulted and broken until they were just mere fragments of the men they were before. Then and only then would they be ready to become the Marine they’re meant to be. Finally, the day for Crucible arrived, their final test. After John and Brian completed the test, they hiked, it was more of a dead crawl, back to their site. They were each handed their Eagle, Globe, and Anchor proving they had made it, that they did it. All of the pressures, all of the stresses and all of the internal and external agonies they endured during the past weeks came pouring out of them with this Holy Grail. They both sobbed. But John’s pain had etched much deeper within him. The tears washed away the loathing he had for himself, for his mother, and for God.

  Forgiveness was finally beginning to dawn on his broken heart.

  *

  As John’s taxi pulls into the reservation, depression and the demons he carried with him for all those years start clawing at his psyche. He feels all sense of goodness and happiness being sucked from him, like a vampire sucking the last drops of blood from his body. Even the sky looks gray and somber, almost like the sun never shines here and no life blooms. There’s only barrenness swirling around, like a dust cloud wrapping itself around you slowly and quietly until you choke from its grasp.

  It’s this fucking place, he growls silently to himself. This shithole is cursed, everyone here is damned and will always be cursed if they don’t get out. How Chief Standing Bear managed to keep sane all these years is beyond me, John thinks to himself, scowling. But Chief is not a regular human being. Nothing can get to him, he laughs to himself at the thought. Looking out the car window, he flips off all of the invisible negative entities he thinks hover over the reservation, damning everyone inside to a life of a misery. Everyone, he thinks, except the chief. Fuck you!! You can’t have me either!! And that exclamation begins to free him from the immobilizing feelings of dread and doom that are threatening to consume him.

  The taxi moves slowly over the holes in the dirt road. John feels no connection to anything here, which is both comforting and unsettling. A feeling of foreboding begins to grip him as the car pulls up outside the chief’s rickety old trailer. John hesitates to get out of the car. He stares at the door in front of him, as the hair stands up on the back of his neck. Something is wrong.

  “You want me to wait?” the driver asks, looking back at John through the rearview mirror.

  “No, I’m good, thanks,” John answers him automatically, giving him a fake smile.

  “Ok, Dude, good luck,” he states.

  What the fuck is that supposed to mean?

  John pulls the latch on the door and it swings open as he grabs the government-issued duffle bag with his name on it. The feel of the heavy green canvas, and the black letters emblazoned on it, ground him and give him strength. He throws the door open all the way and steps out of the car.

  Just go in, man, John tells himself.

  He takes a step forward as he throws his bag over his shoulder and the car pulls away, leaving a trail of dry dust in its wake. If it wasn’t for the old man inside, he would be in that car, putting as much distance between this place and himself as he could. He turns back to the door in front of him, squares his shoulders, and approaches it. He climbs the two wooden steps and tries the knob. It’s locked.

  What the fuck? he thinks. He never locks the door during the day. Just in case, somebody needs him.

  “He’s gone, John,” comes a man’s voice from behind him.

  Shock shoots through John, as his body freezes with his hand still clutching the doorknob. John slowly turns to look at the man who’s standing behind him. It’s Sheriff Black. He’s been a sheriff for as long as John can remember, and he knows everything about everyone, but can’t do a damn thing about it.

  “What are you talking about? Where did he go?” John asks, refusing to believe what he’s trying to tell him.

  “He’s dead, John, he died last week. He went in his sleep, just like he was supposed to, nice and peaceful,” Sheriff Black tells him gently.

  “No, he can’t be,” John says, shaking his head slowly.

  The pain in his throat is excruciating, a lump has formed closing off his windpipe, and his vision is narrowing, as if he’s going to pass out. The ground is beginning to swirl under his feet.

  “Yes, I’m sorry, son. I know this must be really hard for you. But I have the key, I figured you’d come back after boot camp to see him. Here,” the sheriff says pulling out a single key from his faded uniform pocket.

  “I don’t want to go in,” John says flatly as he drops his hand from the door.

  “There are some things of Chief Standing Bear’s that I thought you might want,” the sheriff tells John sympathetically.

  Everyone on the reservation knew that the chief had taken John under his wings when the boy had started to follow him around so many years ago. Chief Standing Bear was the only person that gave John hope in life, made him think he could become the man he wanted to be. If it wasn’t for his relationship with the chief, John would have ended up just like everybody else on the reservation.

  “The only thing I want,” John chokes out through his constricted throat, “is his white feather.”

  Tears w
ell up in John’s eyes as he fights to remain in control of his emotions.

  “Ok,” Sheriff Black answers him softly, “I’ll get it for you.”

  Everyone knew about Chief Standing Bear’s white feather. They all thought it had magic in it, magic to heal.

  John moves down the steps, with his head bent. When he reaches the bottom of the two longest steps of his life, he moves aside to let the man pass. He opens the door and John turns his face away, he can’t bear to look inside.

  Why??!! Why him too? Why do I have to lose everyone? God, why do you hate me so much that you take everyone I love?! The pain sears through John, burning him, until it’s the only thing inside of him. He wants to drop to his knees and scream out with the force of it. But he doesn’t. Some unknown strength, something so powerful he knows it’s not from him, drips slowly through him giving him the strength he needs to remain standing tall.

  A moment later, Sheriff Black comes out with the feather in one hand and a rawhide necklace in the other.

  “Here you go, son,” Sheriff Black hands him the feather. “And I think Chief Standing Bear would have wanted you to have this too,” he says, handing him the necklace.

  “What is it?” John asks quietly as he opens his hand for Sheriff Black to place it on his palm.

  “It’s the chief’s bear claw necklace. He had it for as long as I knew him. I know he didn’t buy it. I’ve heard stories that when Chief Standing Bear went through his right of passage, he went into the woods for four days. When he came back out, he was bloodied and cut up real bad, and he had that claw,” the sheriff says pointing to the long talon in John’s hand. “He never talked about it, and nobody ever asked him what happened. Even back then he was different,” Sheriff Black finishes, letting the words trail off with understandings never spoken of.

  “Thanks,” John says, as pain grips tighter around his heart. He closes his hand tightly around the piece of the chief that held his most sacred and intimate secrets.

  “Come on, son,” Sheriff says, putting his arm around John’s shoulders. “Chief Standing Bear was so proud of you, John. It gave him a feeling of peace and satisfaction, knowing you were going to be ok.”

  John chokes on the tears he’s trying so hard not to let fall. Not yet, not until he’s alone.

  “I need to use the phone and get back to the bus station,” John tells him, when he’s sure he can speak without his voice breaking.

  “Sure, let’s go to the station, and get something to drink. You can use the phone there and I’ll take you to the bus station whenever you’re ready.”

  “Thanks.”

  John couldn’t wait to get on a bus to North Carolina, a place that maybe, for once in his life, could come to feel like home. And he’d never come back to this God-forsaken place again.

  *

  “Sun’s gonna be up soon, Bro,” John mumbles to Brian.

  They’re in Zaidon, in the Al Anbar province, Iraq, and the United Nations has recently ordered Saddam Hussein to dismantle all of his weapons of mass destruction. The war with Iraq has officially begun, and four countries have invaded Iraq including the United States. To say the situation is tense would be putting it very mildly. Hussein and his sons have gone into hiding, and there has been little resistance to the incoming occupation of the country by the U.S. and other forces.

  The men are on fire watch, standing guard for twenty-four hours straight, right now in near-freezing temperatures. Soon, the sun will be at its highest and the temperature will shoot up to over a hundred degrees. The desert is an unforgiving place, and the people who inhabit it are just as unforgiving and cruel. The air is black and hot, thick with putrid smoke from the raging oil fires the Iraqis have set. The heat from the fires, combined with the heat from the day is unbearable. This place is definitely hell.

  “Yeah, I know, another fucking day in paradise,” Brian laughs sarcastically.

  It’s been almost two years since John and Brian went through boot camp together, and they’ve come a long way since those yellow prints. They’ve had dirt from all over the world coloring the soles of their boots, but none as horrendous as where they are now.

  The tortured victims they have rescued, and the bodily remains of others, is nothing that any human being, or any living creature, should ever have to witness and endure. The prisoners have had the bones in their feet broken, their genitalia burned or electrocuted or disfigured in some way. This all comes after the they’ve been repeatedly raped, beaten and tortured. Sometimes the entire body would be burned alive after fingers and toes have been cut off, or some other grotesque torture done. The cruelty inflicted on these people, both Iraqis and U.S. soldiers, is not human. Only the devil himself could do such things.

  Things have been eerily quiet for the past twenty-four hours, and the men are starting to get antsy. There are a total of eight men and women from their platoon, on watch, and all of them are waiting for something they are sure is going to come.

  “Something is not right, Dude,” John whispers tensely.

  “I know, Bro,” Brian has come up beside him silently.

  Brian has the gift of silence. His body moves like the wind, everywhere and anywhere, but quietly and unseen. He is like a ghost.

  John has a sixth sense, an uncannily accurate intuition that guides him and directs him with precision and perfection. He can sense something telling him things, guiding him, showing him what to do.

  These gifts have earned the men the respect of their peers and the leadership roles they have now. They are in charge of their men, their lives, along with countless civilians, are in their hands. There isn’t a second that John and Brian ever forget that.

  The platoon is doing another round through the vacant buildings and streets of the village they’re in. All of them have said that something is different tonight.

  Something jumps in front of them, from out of the shadows.

  “What the fuck?!” shouts the new kid, Peterson.

  BLAT BLAT BLAT BLAT BLAT!!!!

  “What the fuck Dude, don’t just go shooting at shit, you could have killed one of us!!” John shouts at him, yanking his gun from his hands. Their ears are screaming from the gunshots echoing off the walls, in the confined stone brick space.

  “I’m sorry, Sir, I thought it was the enemy,” he shouts, practically in tears.

  “It’s ok, everything’s the enemy until we ascertain otherwise but we confirm before shooting,” John reprimands him, but tries to calm him as well.

  “Yes, Sir,” Peterson answers, breathing heavily.

  “You good now, Peterson?” John asks him.

  “Yes, Sir!” he shouts.

  “Stop fucking shouting, you’re not in boot camp anymore,” he says as he shoves the rifle back against his chest.

  The platoon begins to walk slowly forward again, resuming their watch.

  “The fucking kid is going to shoot one of us in the ass, as jumpy as he is,” Brian half jokes half warns John.

  “I know, and I’m trying to figure out how to get him over it,” John says annoyed.

  John and Brian are not the same boys they were when they enlisted. Their bodies have filled out to become imposing figures of authority. Both of them are over six feet tall. John is built like a bull and Brian is built like a brick wall; both of them are hard, mean, and impenetrable.

  As they exit the war torn building, the sun is just breaking over the skyline of the village. This area is on the outskirts of the city-center, filled with residential buildings with stores and offices scattered throughout. Well, it had been before the bombings and war. Now it’s mostly piles of rubble with some buildings still intact here and there.

  John and Brian are ahead of the platoon, with their men fanned out behind them. The group continues down the empty street, then they turn down a small side street. The only sound in the early morning is the rubbing of their clothes with their movements and the crunching of gravel under their steps.

  A door opens to the side
and a small boy comes out. He’s a beautiful little boy with doe like dark eyes. Those eyes search the group of soldiers and he starts to speak to them in words the soldiers don’t understand.

  “Hey little buddy, what are you doing up so early?” Peterson asks him, stepping over to the boy, and bending down to his height, smiling at him.

  “Peterson, don’t engage...,” John begins to call the newbie back.

  The child lifts the hem of his shirt and pulls out a bomb.

  KAPOOOOOWWW!

  The explosion is small, but because of the enclosed space, it ricochets off the buildings, throwing all of the soldiers onto their backs. All except Peterson.

  When John shakes the rattling from his brains, he moves to check on Peterson.

  All that is left of him are his legs. The rest of his body, and the boy, are splattered along the buildings. Guts, and pieces of clothing, are dripping from the walls and smeared on the street.

  “SECURE THE AREA!!” John shouts.

  Brian is already in motion, moving back in the direction they came from, to see if they were being set up for an ambush.

  “Fuentes, Jones, with me!!” Brian shouts.

  “Williams, Smith, to the other end!!!” John barks. “The rest with me!!” he orders as he kicks in a door to finish what they started.

  He was just a fucking baby!! the thought speeds through his mind, as he slaps at the singed, bloody, flesh splattered on his face.

  The bear in him is wide-awake and ready to fight.

  CHAPTER 11 “I ain’t talking no tall tales, friend, cause high noon your doom, we’re coming for you, we’re the cowboys from hell.” Lyrics, “Cowboys From Hell” by Pantera

  “Eeeeeeek! I’m so excited, I feel like I’m going to explode!” Elsie exclaims to the four walls, furniture, mirrors and windows in her apartment.

  Elsie was offered the job with Under The Dome, and she starts tomorrow. Their last wardrobe supervisor had left in a hurry and the position needed to be filled immediately. Jo, the Office Production Manager, told Elsie that she couldn’t believe how lucky they were to receive her resume’. Elsie’s credentials are superb and her portfolio is even more impressive. Jo can’t wait to see what Elsie might bring to the project.