LITMIR.BIZ

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“That’s nice,” she finally said. “I’ll … ah … bring back the spoon.”

      “If you drop by, fine. If you don’t, we have plenty of spoons.”

      “Thanks,” she said, accepting the bag.

      “Good luck,” Preacher said. “I hope it goes the way you want.”

      “Me, too,” she said with a sheepish smile.

      Several hours later, as the day drew into afternoon, she was driving up her fifth or sixth unmarked dirt road, but she was a hundred bucks richer. Well, eighty bucks richer, the Volkswagen belching on a good, healthy half tank. She’d had half a ham and cheese sandwich, a pickle and some of the best potato salad she’d ever eaten, thinking The guy’s a genius with a boiled potato.

      The roads all backed into the trees and most were in godawful condition. Her little bug was bouncing and struggling, but hanging in there like the little champ she was. Marcie wished she could have found a way to get a Jeep or some other all-wheel-drive vehicle. If she could have waited longer to embark on this search, it might’ve been possible to have saved enough for a down payment, but she couldn’t wait that long. She took what little she’d put aside for this exact purpose and planned her route. Despite what she’d told Erin and Drew about being away for a couple of weeks, she’d taken an unpaid leave of absence from her job until the first of the year. She had worked at the insurance company since Bobby went to Iraq—five years ago—and her boss had been understanding.

      Erin had been completely against this wild notion that she had to find Ian from the very start. It took months of arguing to convince her there was some purpose for Marcie in this search. Then Erin had come up with a hundred better ideas that she’d offered to take care of herself—a people search, a private detective, anything but Marcie going after him alone. But there was a driving force in Marcie to see him, know him, talk to him, connect again, like she thought she had before.

      Bobby’s family wasn’t much in favor of the idea either, but it didn’t involve any ill will toward Ian—they barely knew about him. Bobby had written Marcie about Ian all the time, but in his short letters to his family he’d only mentioned him a few times. The Sullivans suggested that, if Ian hadn’t been around while Bobby was in the nursing home, the bond was not as solid as Bobby thought. Then there was Ian’s father—one of the nastiest and most negative old men Marcie had ever met. He told her she was wasting her time; he had no interest in finding his only son. “He left without a word and never got in touch. That’s enough message for me.”

      Through perseverance, Marcie learned that the elder Buchanan had not experienced good health in the past few years. He’d had a mild stroke, was being treated for high blood pressure, prostate cancer, Parkinson’s and, she suspected, a tish of dementia.

      “Don’t you miss him?” she asked. “Wonder what’s become of him?”

      “Not on your life,” he said. “He’s the one burned his bridges and run off.”

      But when he said that, there was wet in the folds under his old eyes and she thought: He can’t give much more than this, but he would love to see his son once more, or at least know he was all right. Wouldn’t he?

      Ian’s former fiancée, Shelly, was still angry about the way she’d been abandoned, even though she’d married someone else three years ago and was pregnant now with her first baby. She had not a kind or sympathetic word for the man who’d run through sniper fire, taken injuries to save a comrade, won both a Bronze Star and Purple Heart. She pretty much hated Ian for the way he’d dumped her and bolted. A thought came to Marcie—if Shelly was happy with her life now, why would Ian’s obvious troubles cause her such prolonged hate? Couldn’t she see how war would shift his thinking, cause his emotional confusion? After having a life-limited husband for so long—a hopeless invalid who couldn’t even smile at her—giving a little patience and understanding to a man who’d been through a lot of trauma seemed a small thing.

      But, Marcie had reminded herself, I don’t know the weight of anyone else’s burdens—only my own. She didn’t judge. She didn’t feel smart or strong enough to judge.

      It was beyond important to Marcie to look at Ian’s face and ask him how he could save her beautiful young husband’s life and then never respond to her letters.

      Maybe Ian couldn’t give her answers that would make everything feel settled for her, and to that end, she thought it made sense for them to talk about it. Talk it through. They called it “closure” in the shrink club.

      As she pulled up to a small, roughly hewn house, she caught sight of a man coming around the corner, his arms laden with firewood. He was clean shaven but stooped, his legs bowed with age, his head bald. He stopped walking when he saw her. She got out of her car, then went toward him. “Afternoon, sir,” she said.

      He put down the logs and the scowl on his face said he was suspicious of her.

      “I wonder if you might be able to help me. I’m looking for someone.” She pulled the photo out again. “This was taken about seven years ago, so he’s obviously aged and I hear he’s got a beard now, but the rumor is, he’s living somewhere out in these hills. I’m trying to find him. Thirty-five years old, big man—I think he’s over six feet.”

      The man took the photo in his bent, arthritic fingers. “You family?” he asked.

      “More or less,” she said. “He and my husband were good friends in the Marines. I should tell him, my husband passed.”

      “Ain’t seen him. Ain’t seen no one looks like that, anyway.”

      “But what if he was kind of gone to seed?” she said. “I mean, older, maybe heavier, bearded, maybe bald, maybe has a pot belly or is way too thin—who knows?”

      “He grow weed?” the man asked, handing her back the picture.

      “I don’t know,” she answered.

      “Only folks I know around here about that age grow pot. And even if he’s family, you might wanna cut him a wide berth. There’s trouble around the growers sometimes.”

      “I heard that, yeah. Still—you know anybody like that I should just have a look at? Just to rule them out? I’ll be real careful.”

      “There’s a guy up on the ridge, kind of hard to find. Could be twenty, could be fifty, but he’s got a beard and he’s good-sized. You’d have to go back where you came, down 36 a mile or so and then up again. It’s a dirt road, but halfway up the hill there’s an iron gate. It ain’t never been locked because you can’t see the gate or the house from the main road. Only reason I know about it, is a guy I used to know lived up there in one room. Nice big room, though. He’s been gone a couple years at least. Guy who lives there now was with him at the end.”

      “How will I know what road?”

      He shrugged. “No markers. It goes right and about a half mile up, you’ll either come to a gate or turn around and try the next road.”

      “You want to come with me maybe? Show me where? And I’ll bring you back?”

      “Nah,” he said, shaking his head. “I got no business with him. He’s odd. Talks to hisself, whistles and sings before the sun’s up. And he thinks he’s a bear.”

      “Huh?”

      “Heard him roar like an animal when I was out near his place. You prob’ly ought to just let him be.”

      “Sure,” she said, tucking her picture away. “Right. Thanks.”

      And off she went, encouraged about another whack job who almost fit the description. It was hardly the first time; she’d been to VA outreach, homeless shelters in Eureka, hospitals, the Gospel Mission. She’d followed bums down alleys and country roads, traipsed around the forest, met up with ranch hands and lumberjacks. But it was never him; no one had heard of Ian Buchanan. All she’d have to do was look into the eyes.

      She’d

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