The Unit Read Free Page A

God Almighty and the Angelic Host, it feels good to stand on the road and smoke a butt. I get a headrush and smoke the cigarette down to a stub, then I use my knife to lift the gold coins away from the dead boy’s eyes. I use water from my canteen to rinse them and then I wash my knife. The blood leaves dark fans on the road. I pocket the coins and whiskey and smokes, and then I turn to search the bodies of the victims. I try not to look at what’s left of their faces. I run my hands into their pockets, feeling the last warmth of their flesh. My hands are thick with coagulating blood, but I force myself to check them all. My anger makes me strong, and I don’t want to puke up the whiskey, so I don’t.
    All I find is a shot-to-pieces folding knife and a bloody pack of Beeman’s gum. I can’t waste any more water, so I walk to the drainage ditch and scrub my hands with cold mud. I find a vine maple and wipe my hands on its leaves. I walk uphill to my family. I don’t have any food for them or news of the outside world, but the whiskey is a warm gift inside me, and damned if I’ll feel guilty about it.
    I get back uphill and I hold up the coins and the smokes. I’m breathing hard. Susan’s nose twitches.
    “Anything else?”
    I shake my head. I start to feel guilty despite myself, but I’m committed now, so I put on a poker face.
    “Give it to me,” she says.
    I pull the pint bottle from my pocket. She takes it from my hand and I let it go. Her face is hard. She did a stint in rehab two years back, and she’s still on the higher path, and she still has zero tolerance. She lifts the bottle. She measures the fill level with addiction-calibrated eyes, then passes the bottle to Melanie.
    “We might need this. I’ll know if any is missing, and I’ll know if it’s watered, too.”
    Melanie says okay. She says, Don’t worry, Mom, then she gives me a look of disappointment to add to the other looks of disappointment she’s given me over the years.
    They’re doing the right thing, of course. A group of Marines or soldiers in this situation would pass the bottle around, a lucky find, a small vehicle of escape, but Melanie correctly puts the bottle in the hip pocket of her jeans.

Susan

    We enter a small clearing. It’s very cold. I feel more nude than naked. The sky is a mixing bowl of death, but I think up less unpleasant names for its colors. It’s sepia with swirls of russet, and our faces are golden in its light.
    Jerry walks us south from the ambush. He seems to be towing us against our will. He rarely looks back at us, and I wonder what would happen if we stopped, Jerry chugging away like a locomotive unhooked from its burden and purpose.
    The weight of my pack makes my shoulders burn. I bear it. I’ve borne worse. The underbrush is thin but riddled with poison oak. I point it out to the children. I whisper, “Leaves of three, let it be.” They roll their eyes. It’s long been their most common response to my words, and I’m glad they can still do it.
    We skirt the poison oak as best we can. The trees are gray-green and I remember how I used to love walking beneath California pines at dusk, flying at low altitude, hushed and safe, and the Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want. I try to keep my eyes on the trail, but my neck aches from turning and looking back at Melanie and Scott. Their faces are tight and their eyes have a bulging look. It’s very slight, and maybe no one else would notice it, but I do.
    I make eye contact with Melanie. She looks away, but then she looks back. I think she’s trying to share her horror about our
now
, and thereby dilute it. I’m grateful that she’s reaching out, and I return her gaze with the full strength and power of motherhood, and just for an instant I’m no longer pretending to be strong.
    Scott sees that I’m not watching where I’m going. He says
Mom
in that serious way of his and he points to a branch in my path. I’m about to walk straight into one of