Burning Bright (Peter Ash #2)(120)

“I’ll wait for you,” she said, “but not forever. Because I need all of you. Not this half-life you’re living now, without work, without a home. I can’t spend my life in a tent. So don’t come back until you’re ready to sleep inside a real house, in a real bed.”

She put a soft hand on his cheek. The spray of freckles across her face, her pixie-cut hair, he thought she’d never been so beautiful.

Then she turned and walked alone, back the way they had come, toward the big farmhouse under the sheltering maples, in the shadow of the black barns.





EPILOGUE



The old green pickup with the mahogany cargo box rumbled down the arrow-straight road. Lewis was behind the wheel. The ache in Peter’s leg had gotten worse.

They both saw him at the same time, an ordinary figure seeming pale and insubstantial in the bright afternoon sun. He’d just left one of the plastic-sheeted greenhouses, walked to the next in line, pushed open the flap and stepped inside.

Lewis hit the brake before Peter could say anything. They both needed to know.

The engine was clearly audible, but they closed their doors with a thump, just to make sure he understood. They weren’t trying to sneak up on him. A few goats nibbled on weeds from the compost piles.

He pushed the flap open with a gun in his hand, but it disappeared so quickly Peter almost doubted it was ever there. He looked at them without speaking.

“Is your name really Shepard?” asked Peter.

Shepard nodded.

“I’m Peter. This is Lewis.”

Shepard just looked at them. His face was impossible to read, but Peter felt something there. Not hostility, but a kind of curiosity. As if Peter was an object of study, and Lewis, too.

“Are you really retired?”

Shepard blinked twice. “I believe so,” he said, as if he hadn’t been entirely sure until that moment. “I’ve lost interest in the work.”

“What else will you do?”

“Recently I’ve developed an interest in gardening.”

Lewis smiled his faint tilted smile. “Vegetables? Or flowers?”

“I’ll start with tomatoes,” said Shepard. “I’ve always liked tomatoes.”

“You know Chip threatened my parents,” said Peter. “Was it you he would have sent?”

“That would have been his intent,” said Shepard.

“I’m curious,” said Peter. “Would you have gone?”

Shepard regarded Peter with the slightest air of disdain. “I’m not an animal.”

“So I don’t have to worry about you.”

“That depends,” said Shepard. “On whether I have to worry about you.”

“No,” said Peter. “We’re good.” He put out his hand, and Shepard took it.

He didn’t look like much, Peter thought. But there was a lot to him. You could feel the invisible intention there, the force of his will. The knowledge that it would allow him to do whatever he found necessary.

Which was basically Peter’s attitude, too.

“If you see me again,” said Peter, “don’t shoot.”

“I told you,” said Shepard. “I’m retired.”

They got back in the truck and Lewis gunned it down the road. “You believe him?”

“What, that he’s retired? Or that he wouldn’t have killed my parents?”

“Both,” said Lewis.

“Yeah,” said Peter. “I do.”

Lewis shifted into third. “Why?”

“Same reason I knew you’d be up on that rocky outcrop,” said Peter. “Your word means something to you.”

Lewis gave Peter one of his elaborate shrugs. “All any of us got, in the end,” he said. “Listen, you gonna need another driver pretty soon. I got to find an airport, get back to Dinah and the boys.”

“Portland okay?” asked Peter. “I’m headed down to Eugene, to see that shrink I told you about.”

Lewis smiled his tilted smile. “Jarhead gotta stop camping out someday.”





AUTHOR’S NOTE


I began to research the first Peter Ash novel, The Drifter, by talking with veterans and reading about their experiences both overseas and returning home.

I’m grateful to be able to continue those conversations, in a variety of ways, with veterans of wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Vietnam. A number of you told me how much The Drifter meant to you, and that I “got it right.” Those conversations are the best reward for any writer, especially this one.

Thanks to all who shared your experiences and helped this civilian get it as right as possible. Comments and suggestions are always welcome.

Burning Bright has a lesser emphasis on Peter’s post-traumatic claustrophobia than The Drifter. This is due in part to the requirements of the book, which takes place largely in outdoor settings, and also because I want to begin to show Peter’s path through this particular challenge. Just as the veterans who experience the symptoms of post-traumatic stress aren’t defined solely by those symptoms, Peter isn’t defined by them, either.

We know a great deal more about post-traumatic stress than we used to, and there is more help available now than ever before. Simple steps like meditation and exercise, along with writing in a journal or talking with others with similar experiences, can make a big difference.