Page 13 of Save Me

Hunt saw the glee on Preacher’s face. Then someone else was shouting at Rat, “Behind you! Behind you!” when all expression on Preacher’s face disappeared.

It was the bullet hole in Preacher’s forehead that sent Hunt running toward him in a crouch, but he never made it. The second shot fired hit Hunt in the back. The blood from Preacher’s head wound was already soaking into the sand as Hunt dropped. He heard T-Bone shouting, “Gator’s down,” saw Rat running for his weapon, and then somebody turned out the lights.

HE WOKE UP in the ICU of a Level 1 medical unit, with an Army nurse standing over him.

“Welcome back, soldier. Surgery went well. The shot nicked a rib, exited out your side and missed all your vital organs.”

Hunt grunted, then closed his eyes.

“You kept saying the name ‘Lainie,’ over and over. You don’t have any next of kin listed. Would you like us to notify her?”

A tear rolled out from under his eyelid. “Don’t know where she is. She’s lost...like me,” Hunt said, and fell back under the drugs.

He learned later they’d taken out the sniper up on the rim of a surrounding mountain, but Preacher was still dead. There would be no more Bible verses as he drew a bad hand at poker. No more preaching in Hunt’s ear when they flew. Preacher’s war was over, and Hunt’s was on hold. He spent two weeks off duty before he was cleared again to fly.

The next time Hunt went up, it was with another pilot, with the call sign, T-Bone. Their missions were successful, but Hunt missed the Bible verses in his ear.

After that, life became a blur. Their company was moved so many times he lost count. They’d get sent stateside only long enough to get their bearings before they’d be deployed to another place of unrest.

Being a chopper pilot meant he owed ten years of his life to the Army, but he often wondered what would happen if he didn’t make it to ten. Who would pay that debt for him if he died?

THE FIRST FIVE years of Hunt’s service flew past, but the last five felt like forever. On base, it didn’t matter so much not getting mail, because they had their own housing. But when they were deployed, mail mattered, and he never received letters or any packages from home, even though the other guys who did always shared.

T-Bone’s wife sent gummy bears and Werther’s caramels.

Rat’s mother sent the best ginger snaps on the planet, and Roadrunner’s wife often mailed them huge bags of flavored popcorn.

A pilot they called Memphis got chocolate fudge and divinity on every holiday, and they fought over the last pieces and laughed.

Cowboy, who was Memphis’s gunner, got boxes of homemade beef jerky—a highly sought-after commodity they used for money in their poker games.

Hunt was the odd man out with nothing to share.

WHEN WORD BEGAN to spread that “Gator” was being discharged, his buddies were all in shock. Even Hunt’s commanding officer was rendered speechless by the request. He’d assumed Gator would retire out of the Army, but there was no dissuading him, and he accepted the soldier’s rights without questioning his reasons.

“Warrant Officer Gray, I have to say, I am sorry to see you go. You have been a huge asset. I hope you find what you’re looking for,” he said. “I’ll put your papers through.”

“Thank you, sir,” Hunt said, saluted, and then left.

WHEN THE DAY of Hunt’s discharge finally rolled around, he was at his quarters on base, packing to leave. He’d left the boy he’d been somewhere back in Louisiana, and the Army had turned what was left of him into a lean soldier with a rock-hard, war-weary body.

Never had he looked more like the old sepia photograph of his great-grandfather than he did now. Crow-black hair. Skin burned brown by desert sun. The beginnings of tiny crow’s-feet at the corners of ice blue eyes. A sharp edge to his jaw, and not an ounce of body fat left on him.

He was emotionally burned out.

Over.

Done.

He’d been a part of death and destruction in a way no human should ever face. But war did that, and there was no way around it except to wade through it and ask God for the forgiveness he wasn’t able to give himself.

The men he’d flown with and fought with knew he was leaving, and had gathered at his quarters to watch him pack. Their normal chatter was absent. They still couldn’t reconcile the fact of never seeing him again.

He knew them by their call signs better than he did their given names. T-Bone. Rat. Roadrunner. Memphis. Cowboy. Galahad. Duke. Sundown. Chili Dog. Tulsa. Cherokee. They’d flown together. Lived together. Bled together.

“You’re gonna be a hard act to follow,” Rat said.

Gator was a legend among his peers, but in all the years they’d been together, they were beginning to realize they only knew the soldier. They knew nothing about the man.

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