A Soldier Heals, LUKE'S SAGA - PART I

Luke took a deep drag from the harsh, hand rolled cigarette. At least it was real tobacco he thought as he absorbed the nicotine his body had learned to crave in the army hospital. He extinguished the butt between his thumb and finger and pocketed it for later.

A husky six feet in tight, frisco jeans, black undershirt and a sweat band holding curling, black hair out of his face he worked effortlessly along with his crew. Days of rough beard and a repeatedly broken nose from money bouts gave him a tough look that didn’t even begin to reflect the danger he posed as a man who had learned to live and sleep one misstep away from death during his tour of duty in the desert.

As the remaining super powers fought on over what was left of the earth’s resources the people suffered and starved without hope. Luke didn’t even care anymore, he’d killed too many men on his government’s orders under the guise of flag and country and he knew the depths of their evil and gluttony - all of them.

When the shift whistle blew he grabbed his pea jacket and headed for the shack at mid dock for his pay envelope.  He took what he was given without counting and turned away.

“Hey, Luke,” one of the men overseeing the pay shack called.

Luke turned to see a tall, thin man in a suit beckoning to him. He walked over showing neither pleasure nor dismay at being singled out and stood before the man easy but balanced on the balls of his feet.

The man chewed a toothpick and offered Luke a commercially made cigarette from a pack in his shirt.  Luke took one and let the man light it as he kept his eyes on everyone nearby, ready for anything.

“Seen you fight,” the man said to Luke.  “You’re damn good.”

“Don’t fight anymore,” Luke said, “But thanks for the smoke.”

“Naw, this isn’t about fighting,” the man said as he started walking toward the end of the dock. He gestured for Luke to follow.

    Falling in beside the man, Luke waited patiently, giving nothing away. The guy was a low to mid-level official, probably greedier than he was smart Luke thought as he walked with the man in the gathering dark.

    “You run your crew good,” the man said.  “You’re fair and they’re loyal,” he added.

     The man stopped and turned, “I have information about location of goods, their movement, and scheduled surveillance. You interested?” he asked.

    “What you have in mind?” Luke asked.

    “Fifty, fifty,” the man said. “Only you and me.  I give you the information and you decide if and when,” the man said.

    “How do I know I can trust you?” Luke asked.

    He handed Luke the pack of cigarettes, “Same way I decide if I can trust you,” the man said. “Look Luke, I’m not the smartest man in the world but I’ve been looking for a partner for a while now.  You’re him.”

    “Why me?” Luke asked looking down at the water in the harbor which was nothing more than a shiny blue-black oil slick, fish and birds long dead.

    “I only want two of us involved and your men.  Keep it small and simple, quit while we’re ahead, and don’t get too greedy.”

    “I’ve got a place to go, a good woman and a kid,” he said.  “She picked you,” he added.

Luke turned and looked at him with interest for the first time. “Who is she?” he asked.

“You don’t need to know,” the man said, “And I don’t need to know who you use. I have something important to lose and I’ll die first,” the man said.

“Let me think on it,” Luke said, “I’ll give you the high sign when I’ve decided.”  Luke put out his cigarette and walked away from the man with the pencil mustache.

He sat on his usual stool in the dingy waterfront tavern that night drinking from a bottle of cheap whiskey and watching the crowd.  This must be the place where the woman knew him, it was the only place he went where there were women.  He’d slept with most of them, it was their job and he’d rather pay then have a regular woman to protect like the man he’d met today.  He was interested in what the man purposed and checked him out along with the women at the bar.  He couldn’t make a connection between the two which pleased him and he hadn’t noticed anyone following him or showing undue interest. He waited and watched like a desert predator, deciding.

He and his crew were setting up pallets of goods for the forklifts to move to the containers arranged on the dock. He’d managed to pilfer tobacco and staples for his own use from this load but nothing for his own inventory of black market goods. He asked a couple of his men if they were interested in night work and continued to wait, sniffing the air and watching for movement in the dark, he was an animal of instinct, calculating and cunning.

In the tavern that night he signaled one of the women to the room with the blanket over the doorway and took her.  When he finished with her he fished some money from his jeans and tossed it on the bed, “Tell your old man that I’m ready,” he told the woman.

A chill seemed to pass through her, shuddering she adjusted her clothing and hurried back into the crowded tavern. How had he known who she was and what would her boyfriend think? 

The next night she gave him information.  He waited, she gave him information twice more and then one night several men were found with their throats slit and the warehouse emptied.  It happened several times and soldiers came but no one was arrested.

Soon the girl, Matilda disappeared and Luke didn’t see the man again. He waited and then slipped away one night without telling his men he was leaving.

Luke was well supplied when he began walking north.  He kept watching and walking, for days, for weeks, and then months. He took what he needed from the land to survive but left it untouched before and after his passage. He didn’t want to leave any evidence and so he moved at night and didn’t disturb the locals and cause ripples of talk to alert the soldiers.  

As soon as he hit more rural areas he quit smoking to reduce chances of being observed. He collected seeds from fields along the way and kept them in envelopes in case he could ever plant food.  He followed creeks to their source to find possible dwelling places but it was still too populated to suit him so he kept moving and avoiding contact. With his training and cunning Luke barely created a silent wake as he passed through a place. He was gone before he could be observed.

As Luke moved north and west he was able to lay in the night and spot surveillance satellites in the sky, finding sparser surveillance coverage he began to look for his valley again. This was not the desert but raw, narrow valleys gouged out of the land by glaciers.  He was sure it was lacking in significant resources or the evidence of government surveying and testing would be obvious.

He found a water flow and followed it taking a right fork and kept following until he found the water’s source.  He stayed and watched for several weeks lying in the dark while he smelled, listened and watched.  Even his pores flared taking in data for his brain stem to analyze.  He absorbed and was absorbed by his environment until it became his universe.  He remembered that the canyon narrowed at one point and he figured he could block it with boulders from the rim, slowly filling it in and sealing off his valley.

He didn’t want to remove too many trees so he dug a prairie type sod house above the water level and shored it up with a few good trees. The central area with the fire place was low so the heat would rise to the bunks on ledges near the top. He dug several side tunnels for escape, ventilation, and storage and learned the valley and its inhabitants from the birds of prey circling overhead to the small mammals living underground as he lived. He also learned his fellow predators of the night, tracking them as they tracked him, observing them as they observed him.

He became more and more a creature of his small domain knowing the smells and sounds to absorb and those to cause alert.  He could smell the bear now as she smelled him and they gave each other a wide berth. She would go into hibernation soon and come spring she would have young to protect, he could decide then if she was a danger to him. He hoped he wouldn’t have to kill her because she could lead him to sources of fish, honey and edible vegetation. He could learn from watching her instead of experimenting with edibles on himself.

He killed rarely and only if threatened but his presence did cause some realignment in the small valley. He was a competitor with other mammals for food and space but these creatures were not really enemies, they were just part of his food chain. Luke was programed to survive and so he survived. He gathered and stored for the winter as any animal might. He had smoked meat from small mammals, fish and reptiles drying on racks.  He gathered from the trees and bushes and dug up roots to store for winter. He was as ready for winter as sheer cunning could make him.

He kept watch through much of the first big storm making sure his sod house would withstand the wind and downpour and later the snow as winter overtook and covered his little valley. Life would lay seemingly dead in the dark cold of winter but when spring warmed the land new, green beginnings would grow, cubs would be born, ice melt and life would return to his valley.  

The dreams didn’t start until well after winter set in and he woke one cold, clear night with puzzling images still open in part of his mind.  He told himself that it was just a dream but the images were warm and comforting and gave him solace. The doctors had told him that someday his memory might return but he’d never counted on it. 

The explosion that had killed most of his men and left him lying half dead in the desert had robbed him of all memories prior to the desert. His mind could only remembered killing and surviving and they discharged him back to a blank, empty civilian life. He had looked at the information on his discharge papers but the names and places were just strange, meaningless words so he ignored them.

He caught fresh meat occasionally and managed to live on that and what he had stored.  The roots and tubers were placed in the coals and baked while the meat was cooked and smoked if he didn’t eat it right away. The dreams continued through the winter tantalizing his mind like a familiar scent on the air but these elusive night companions disappeared in the light of day and full consciousness. Luke survived and slept much of the winter away like a hibernating creature.

Soon the sound of dripping water from melting snow and ice greeted him each morning and the ice on the pond began to crack. He ventured out more each day and heard the first song bird of spring greeting the sun and felt a rush of elation as he watched her build a nest for her young.  The new feelings were confusing and in sharp contrast to the desert and killing that his mind knew.

In some curious way his brain tried to reject the new feelings because they weren’t useful and they took his attention away from the moment; a moment when he might die because he missed the scent of the bear or another predator.  These new feelings were a danger to him best kept to the night and his den.

Yet he found himself rising early, before dawn to watch the stars dim and the sun spread its light and color over the valley and warm the earth bringing forth new life. All of these things stirred Luke and made him feel things that somehow went beyond survival to reach into another part of his mind and make him relate to things outside of himself from a different perspective. His universe was growing larger again.

His government made him into a killing machine and then the injury robbed him of his past leaving nothing but four years of killing unknown enemy for unknown reasons in a strange land. He wished that he had paper, for a journal because he wanted to put his questions down on paper.  Why would a man rise early and leave a warm den to see stars disappear and to watch the sun rise over his valley and bring a new day?  It wasn’t reasonable he decided.

It was then that Luke realized he was sitting quietly, thinking, and questioning nonsense, but his body was calm.  The nerves and edge of panic feelings of combat were almost gone.  The quiet dormancy of winter had repaired and restored part of him that he thought gone. A part of him he didn’t even remember having, a part gone until it started coming back in the quiet of night when his mind was unguarded. He thought of wolves howling at the moon and ancient man studying the lights in the sky.  Strange thoughts for a soldier; but, what had he been before he was a soldier?  A boy he thought wryly, he wasn’t twenty five yet, he knew that from the records so he had been a boy when the service took him and trained him.

He caught several fish in his pond that day and skewered them over a fire outside his house slapping insects but enjoying the open and the sounds of evening falling and the crack of his own fire in the gathering dusk. He would take the fish and some tubers up to the ridge tomorrow and camp overnight up there while he dislodged and rolled boulders over the rim of the canyon. He wanted to protect his valley and somehow protect himself from the coercion of others. If anyone needed killing it would be his decision and no one else would order him to kill. 

He left early the next morning and spent two days slowly prying boulders and rolling them to the rim above the narrow neck of the canyon and on the last day he pushed them all over the side so it would resemble a natural spring avalanche from winter erosion. He covered the signs of his work on the cliff and hoped for a small rain storm to cover his work even better then he walked home satisfied that he was safer. 

Over the next few days he fished a lot and hung the meat to smoke and gathered berries and what might be edible fruit from trees. He expanded and improved his tunnel system and widened his sleeping area.  The bear was out but they were separated by some open terrain so he let her be with her young. 

He began building a discrete brush fence to surround a small field for growing vegetables near his sod house and constructed some ditches for irrigation.  He was planting and thinking someday he might build a real home when he thought he heard a human scream and a shot. He froze and hit the dirt slithering toward high ground.  He crawled toward a ridge and looked and listened.  He had grown lax he thought, comfortable.  Was it soldiers?  He didn’t hear machinery. 

He moved further down the valley and saw them.  Two men and a woman were skinning the bear.  He lay and watched.  Where did they come from?  Were they moving through or did they live nearby?  They weren’t carrying much as if they were on a short trip.  He could watch and take them out one by one with his knife but he waited. When they finished with the bear the men left the woman with the skin and walked off toward his rock slide, gesturing and talking.  Maybe the slide was what brought them here.  They could have heard it for miles he thought.

He watched the men move away toward the slide and then watched for other signs of life. When he was satisfied it was just the three he slipped down and crept nearer the woman and remembering the scream he took her from the back with his hand over her mouth and his knife at her throat. She tried to bite him but she was young and skinny and he easily subdued her taking her off through the trees and tied and gagged her leaving her in brush.

He went back and waited in hiding for the men.  They wouldn’t be as easy to take down as the girl but he didn’t worry, he was on automatic pilot as he had been in combat. When they got back they called out for the girl as if she might have wandered off. Soon it looked as if they became worried and they both went looking for her. He took the second man next and tied him in the brush and went after number one.

Luke heard a branch crack and turned realizing the man had the drop on him.  He stood, alert but didn’t raise the barrel of the gun and aim at Luke. The man said something and Luke heard the word friend.  Luke shrugged and watching closely he said his name to the man and used the word, friend, showing the man that his hands were empty.

“My daughter and son?” the man asked again.

Luke understood, “They’re O.K.,” he answered. 

Luke smiled at the man and pointed from the rock slide up to the top of the valley and pointed to himself, claiming the territory.

“For what flag?” the man asked.

“For me, Luke,” he answered pointing at his chest, and said, “Since last fall”.

The man looked surprised, “Last fall?” he asked.

“Yes,” Luke answered.

“From where?” he asked.

“A year’s walk, maybe two,” Luke answered.

He motioned to Luke to sit, “We walked from the east,” the man said.

“I walked from the southeast,” Luke said and pointed to his head, “Amnesia,” he said and shrugged.

“I’m a doctor,” the man said, “Do you remember anything?”

“This winter I had dreams,” Luke said, “Now, I remember baseball after school,” he said.

“Married?” the man asked.

“They took me from school to the desert to kill,” Luke’s lip curled in distain and he spit. “No more killing,” he said.

The man saw through Luke’s appearance to his youth and set his rifle aside and rolled two cigarettes, giving one to Luke.  “Let’s go get my son and daughter,” he said, “We won’t fight either, just for our valley.”

Luke took the cigarette, “For our valleys,” he said.

Luke wondered if he had a father.  Was his father like the man?  The man wasn’t a soldier and the boy had seemed slow to understand but strong.  The girl was skinny and too young but the soldiers might have hurt her. The man had two to care for Luke thought, maybe more. 

Luke turned to the man, “Three?” he asked.

“And my older brother and his wife,” the doctor answered, “Five,” he added and a baby.

“Your brother’s baby?” Luke asked.

“My daughter’s baby,” the doctor said his face white and strained.   

Luke stopped and turned, sneering, “The soldiers,” he stated flatly.

The doctor nodded, tight lipped.

“She bit me,” Luke said, “She’s a fighter,” he added.

The doctor was glad he seemed to respect her spirit and seemed to blame the soldiers.  He would do as a neighbor and maybe a son-in-law someday, he thought, when I’m not here to protect her. 

Luke stopped and pointed into the brush.  The doctor nodded and Luke crawled in and drug the girl out still bound and gagged.  He looked wryly at his hand and took her to her father.

She was haughty and ill-tempered for a girl, Luke thought, but she had suffered from the war too.

She spit toward him and he grinned, “Do you have a girl or a boy, little mama?” he asked.

She raised her chin proudly, “A strong boy,” she spit again.

Her father silenced her with a stern look.

“Too bad,” Luke said, “But I’m really looking for a puppy, not a baby.”

“My brother has puppies,” she said, “He can’t have babies,” she said as if it was a disability.

Luke glanced at her father and headed for the boy with puppies.

His father calmed the boy and made him shake hands with Luke, it apparently held some significant for the boy because it calmed him and when his sister mentioned puppies and pointed at Luke he became excited and started rattling off information about his puppies to Luke.

“We can’t keep them all,” the doctor said to Luke, “They eat too much,” he said.

They had been walking back to the skinned bear and Luke pointed to her carcass and asked, “Her babies?”

Before the doctor could answer the slow young man said, “They’re fine, daddy didn’t shoot them.”

Luke looked at him, “I’m glad, Neddie,” he said gently to the boy, “she was already here when I came to the valley.”

The girl took all of it in ignoring Luke but Luke knew she loved her brother, it was in her eyes. Not that he cared Luke thought to himself. He’d never raped a female, somehow he’d found it repugnant. He even treated the whore’s as a business deal; it was their job like the army was his.  

“Luke she’s your bear,” the doctor said, “We’ll split her fifty-fifty.”

Luke stood, hand on his chin, thinking, “Fair enough,” he said, finally.

He turned to Ned, “If I find a pup that I like in your litter, will you take a quarter carcass for it?” Luke asked. 

Ned stood and began stroking his chin as Luke had done, “It’s a deal,” he said, finally, “I hope you like one of them.”

The doctor stood there realizing he’d been hoisted on his own petard and surveyed the young people. They would do, he thought.

That night, after his visitors set out for home and Luke was secure in his sod house he thought what a remarkable day it had been.  He had a map to their house and an open invitation and a good dog waiting for him. The doctor was going to show him how to use a particular bark for paper and how to harvest it off of the trees. 

He thought about who he was and knew he was Luke the soldier who killed but he was also the Luke from before and the Luke he was becoming. Luke the soldier would have killed all three of them, it was reasonable because they posed a threat.  He didn’t know what the young Luke would do but he knew the Luke he was becoming didn’t like killing.  The new Luke liked sunrise and sitting in front of his sod house after a hard day’s work, listening to evening spread dusk and  starlit skies over his valley.
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