“Ha,” she said aloud. The good news was that she had electric power this night. She walked over to her precious espresso machine and turned it on. A few shots over ice with milk and artificial sweetener...oh, yeah.
And since she was wide awake and had the power, maybe she should check her computer and see if she had internet, as well. Monthly reports were due soon, and if she had to be awake, she might as well deal with them. Reports weren’t her favorite part of this job, and sometimes she wondered if some of them had been created by a higher-up who just wanted to be important.
When her coffee was ready and filling her insulated mug, she decided to step outside and enjoy some of the night’s unique quiet. It wasn’t silent, but it was so different from the busier daylight hours. Tilting her head back, she could see stars overhead, bright and distant this nearly moonless night. The silvery glow was just enough to see by, but not enough to wash out the stars.
Sipping her coffee, she allowed herself to enjoy being out in the dark without fear. It might come back at any moment, but as Afghanistan faded further into her past, it happened much less often. She was grateful for the incremental improvement.
Grateful, too, that the head forester at the national forest abutting her state land was also a veteran, someone she could talk to. Gus Maddox guarded a longer past in combat than she did, and there was still a lot he wouldn’t, or couldn’t, talk about. But he’d been in special operations, and much of what they did remained secret for years.
In her case, her service had been more ordinary. Guarding supply convoys sounded tame until you learned they were a desirable target. She and her team had more than once found themselves in intense firefights, or the object of roadside bombs.
She shook herself, refusing to let memory intrude on this night. It was lovely and deserved its due. An owl hooted from deep within the woods, a lonely yet beautiful sound. All kinds of small critters would be scurrying around, trying to evade notice by running from hiding place to hiding place while they searched for food. Nature had a balance and it wasn’t always pretty, but unlike war it served a necessary purpose.
Dawn would be here soon, and she decided to wait in hope she might see a cloud of bats returning to their cave three miles north. They didn’t often fly overhead here, but occasionally she enjoyed the treat.
Currently there was a great deal of worry among biologists about a fungus that was attacking the little brown bat. She hoped they managed to save the species.
A loud report unexpectedly shattered the night. The entire world seemed to freeze. Only the gentle sigh of the night breeze remained as wildlife paused in recognition of a threat.
Blaire froze, too. She knew the sound of a gunshot. She also knew that no one was supposed to be hunting during the night or during this season.
What the hell? She couldn’t even tell exactly where it came from. The sound had echoed off the rocks and slopes of the mountain. As quiet as the night was, it might have come from miles away.
Fifteen minutes later, the phone in her cabin started to ring.
Her heart sank.
* * *
TEN MILES SOUTH in his cabin in the national forest, August Maddox, Gus to everyone, was also enduring a restless night. Darkness had two sides to it, one favorable and one threatening, depending. In spec ops, he’d favored it when he was on a stealthy mission and didn’t want to be detected. At other times, when he and his men were the prey, he hated it. The protection it sometimes afforded his troops could transform into deadliness in an instant.
As a result, he endured an ongoing battle with night. Time was improving it, but on nights like this when sleep eluded him, he sometimes forced himself to step outside, allowing the inkiness to swallow him, standing fast against urges to take cover. He hated this in himself, felt it as an ugly, inexcusable weakness, but hating it didn’t make it go away.
The fingernail moon provided a little light, and he used it to go around the side of the building to visit the three horses in the corral there. His own gelding, Scrappy, immediately stirred from whatever sleep he’d been enjoying and came to the rail to accept a few pats and nuzzle Gus in return.
Sometimes Gus thought the horse was the only living being who understood him. Probably because Scrappy couldn’t talk, he often added in attempted lightness.
But Scrappy did talk in his own way. He could communicate quite a bit with a toss of his head or a flick of his tail, not to mention the pawing of his feet. Tonight the horse seemed peaceful, though, and leaned into his hand as if trying to share the comfort.
He should have brought a carrot, Gus thought. Stroking the horse’s neck, he asked, “Who gave you that silly name, Scrappy?”
Of course the horse couldn’t answer, and Gus had never met anyone who could. The name had come attached to the animal, and no one had ever changed it. Which was okay, because Gus kind of liked it. Unusual. He was quite sure the word hadn’t been attached to another horse anywhere. It also made him wonder about the horse’s coltish days five or six years ago.
Scrappy was a gorgeous, large pinto whose lines suggested Arabian somewhere in the past. He was surefooted in these mountains, though, which was far more important than speed. And he was evidently an animal who attached himself firmly, because Gus had found that when Scrappy was out of the corral, he’d follow Gus around more like a puppy than anything.
Right then, though, as Scrappy nudged his arm repeatedly, he realized the horse wanted to take a walk. It was dark, but not too dark, and there was a good trail leading north toward the state park lands.
And Blaire Afton.
Gus half smiled at himself as he ran his fingers through Scrappy’s mane. Blaire. She’d assumed her ranger position over there about two years ago, and they’d become friends. Well, as much as two wary vets could. Coffee, conversation, even some good laughs. Occasional confidences about so-called reentry problems. After two years, Scrappy probably knew the path by heart.
But it was odd for the horse to want to walk in the middle of the night. Horses did sleep. But maybe Gus’s restlessness had reached him and made him restless, as well. Or maybe he sensed something in the night. Prickles of apprehension, never far away in the dark, ran up Gus’s spine.
“Okay, a short ride,” he told Scrappy. “Just enough to work out a kink or two.”
An internal kink. Or a thousand. Gus had given up wondering just how many kinks he’d brought home with him after nearly twenty years in the Army, most of it in covert missions. The grenade that had messed him up with shrapnel hadn’t left as many scars as memory. Or so he thought.
He was tempted to ride bareback, given that he didn’t intend to go far, but he knew better. As steady as Scrappy was, if he startled or stumbled Gus could wind up on the ground. Better to have the security of a saddle than risk an injury.
Entering the corral, he saw happiness in Scrappy’s sudden prance. The other two horses roused enough to glance over, then went back to snoozing. They never let the night rambles disturb them. The other two horses apparently considered them to be a matter between Scrappy and Gus.
Shortly he led the freshly saddled Scrappy out of the corral. Not that he needed leading. He followed him over to the door of his cabin where a whiteboard for messages was tacked and he scrawled that he’d gone for a ride on the Forked Rivers Trail. A safety precaution in case he wasn’t back by the time his staff started wandering in from their various posts. Hard-and-fast rule: never go into the forest without letting the rangers know where you were headed and when you expected to return. It applied to him as well as their guests.
Then he swung up into the saddle, listening to Scrappy’s happy nicker, enjoying his brief sideways prance of pleasure. And just like the song, the horse knew the way.
Funny thing to drift through his mind at that moment. A memory from childhood that seemed so far away now he wasn’t sure it had really happened.