The Pain Of Forgetting: Two

Chapter 12, Tale Two: The Pain Of Forgetting -- Part Two pic and text

“We were misinformed,” he continued. It wasn’t a raiding camp, it was composed almost entirely of non-combatants. They went fleeing out of the canyon, and we saw them, and our orders were to shoot until we ran out of ammo, and we. . . ,” he choked, seeing it again, so clearly in his mind, seeing the innocents falling, the eyes of children fixed unseeing at the sky. “. . . we saw what they were. Elderly, women, children. But that didn’t matter to us, not enough. We had our orders, and we’d lost a lot of good men to the Khans. We killed them, almost all of them. Shot them down as they fled, with no desire to fight, only to live. I. . . I fired until my gun was empty, my blood was so hot, and it was only afterwards. . . .” He closed his eyes tightly, the dead children so clear in his mind. “I went in young, and whole. I came out old, old and broken. It was our orders, but that wasn’t why it happened. I had so much hate. I’d lost some good friends, and I wanted to make them suffer. I didn’t think how much I’d suffer myself. I wish. . . I wish I’d have known that back then.” He stopped, jaw clenched and eyes tightly closed, unable to continue. There was silence for a bit, then he felt her hand on his shoulder. He looked over, and her eyes were sad.

“I think we’ve all done things we’d like to take back, if we could. But you know that we can’t. I guess. . . we can only move forward, can’t we? Move forward and try to do better, not make the same mistakes.”

“What did you do, that you’d like to take back?” he asked her, but it was her turn to look away, and she was silent for a moment.

“I don’t remember,” she whispered.

“I’ve wished that I didn’t. When I left the Bear, when I met Carla, I swore I’d forget all of that.” He barked a short, bitter laugh. “I guess I forgot to remember to forget.”

“Forgetting is terrible,” she said. There was a hitch in her voice, and he looked over, surprised to see tears on her cheek. “There’s a door in my mind and it’s locked, and I’ve lost the key, somewhere along the way. All I hear is the laughter of children, and I don’t even remember why that sound fills me with so much terror and pain. I don’t remember, and it is terrible.”

Her shoulders shook softly, and for the first time he really saw her as vulnerable, and uncertain, and for some reason the sight of her that way gave him strength in return. He said nothing, only laid a hand softly on her arm, and they stood that way for a bit, unspeaking, taking comfort in each other’s presence and warmth.

Finally, after a time, her mood passed and she straightened, and it was only a few moments more before she turned back to face him, drying her cheeks with her arm. “I’m going back in, I’m not done with them, yet. Will you come with me, and face them? I wouldn’t feel right without you at my shoulder.” She smiled softly, and brought up her hand, brushing his cheek lightly. Her eyes held, again, nothing but compassion. “Will you stand at my shoulder, Craig Boone?”

He looked back at her, and again he marveled at her strength, made even more poignant to him by the weakness and pain he’d just witnessed. He smiled, with nothing left in it of bitterness. “Till the end,” he said.

Together they turned, and walked into the canyon. Her leading, with him at her shoulder, watching to keep her safe.

It was his place, till the end.