I laid in the fading Iraqi sun as an extraction team came looking for me after Jack, who laid somewhere on the sand, and I failed to check-in. I could barely move, my head hurt like a bitch, and I felt sick to my stomach. Things didn’t quite make sense, and thoughts floated in my mind but wouldn’t string together. I knew Jack was hurt, but he didn’t answer when I called him.

A medic came into my limited field of vision and asked me questions.

“Help my partner,” I said weakly. “Help Jack.”

The medic looked over his shoulder and pursed his lips.

“Other people will do that, Sergeant. Let’s see what I can do for you.”

It had taken a week before I pieced together what happened. That’s when the nightmares started. They started with a blast, and Jack flew into the air. Only it wasn’t Jack, it was me, and when I hit the ground, everything went black.

Time passed in bits and pieces. The day began. It ended. In between were doctors and nurses helping me to bathe and dress. Tests. Breakfast. Lunch. Dinner. But no answers.

“Is Jack, okay?” I’d ask the corpsman helping me shave.

“Right now, you just need to concentrate on getting better.”

“But he’s okay, isn’t he?”

“He’s not one of mine, and I’ve got other patients, Sergeant,” the corpsman said, wiping my shaved face. “Get some rest.”

I waited as days blurred into nights, and the nights brought the nightmares again. I wondered why the guys in my unit didn’t visit. Then I figured out that I wasn’t in a field hospital, but a hospital in of all places, Germany.

“Why,” I asked the doctor.

“You’ve had a significant head injury.”

“When can I get back to my unit?”

“Sergeant, you aren’t going back to your unit.”

“But I’m fine. I just need a little R and R.”

The doctor shook his head.

“You’re going home.”

“But—”

“You need more care than we can give you here.”

“But—”

“You don’t remember what happened yesterday do you?”

“Nothing happened.”

“So, you don’t remember smashing the corpsman in the face and then putting the razor to his neck?” Fuck…I did that??

I flew home and spent a couple months at a veteran’s hospital while the doctors helped me put together my fractured life. But the one thing they couldn’t help me with was the guilt I felt over Jack’s death. I didn’t deserve to be a Marine, didn’t deserve to serve. I was in charge and was supposed to be watching out for the kid. Instead, I chased a damned photograph while Lance Corporal Jack Caldwell stepped on a land mine and blew apart in pieces.

The night I had a dream that recalled that horrible day was the same day the doctors discharged me. There was nothing more to do in the hospital.

“Just keep taking the anxiety medication and keep your stress to a minimum,” the doctor said.

As if that would happen.

I settled into my old bedroom at my dad and stepmother’s house and filed for disability. Eventually, when I received it, I’d get my own apartment. I didn’t think I could handle living under the same roof with the way I was feeling.

But the dreams didn’t stop. In fact, the waking nightmares increased where I saw the sandbox and tasted the grit in my mouth. In the dark places of my mind, I patrolled an enemy that merged into the sand. I’d scan the faces of the locals, into the assets that helped them with their effort.

I’d take to patrolling the perimeter of my parent’s house at night, to the consternation of my stepmother. And then that thing happened in the living room. When I snapped back to the present, the pillows from the sofa were cut up, and their insides spilled out on the floor. Later, I overheard a conversation between her and my father where she expressed her fears.

And I had to admit that everything she said was true. I couldn’t keep my shit together enough to stay in the service. Why would I expect I’d do the same at the house where I had spent my teenage years?

My father stood up for me, told my stepmom that he wouldn’t throw out his son, especially since he served his country bravely. No. But he agreed with her. I needed help, and yes, he’d insist on it.

I sat on the back porch and pulled out the photograph of the blond-haired woman and stared at it.

“What am I going to do?” I said to no one in particular. “I’m no good to anyone.” That’s when I noticed the mountains in the background of the young woman. Why hadn’t I noticed them before? But from my tracker training, I knew that different mountain ranges had their own features. And an insane idea formed in my mind, but nothing as crazy as the life I lived now and descended on me. I now had a purpose and a goal. And to fill that goal I had to get as healthy as possible. So when my father came to speak to me about seeing a local psychologist, I didn’t object at all.

* * *

I told Dr. Thorne about my training, my deployments, the death I was trained to rain on my targets. It was nothing that bothered me previously, but now knowing I frightened my family, it become a sore point.

Then there was Jack. And the awakened memory of his death haunted me. I didn’t want to talk about it, but I finally did.

I did because I had a mission. And that meant getting healthy. But it wasn’t easy, and when I finished speaking, anger rose through me.

“That must have been insanely frightening.”

I sat staring ahead, my jaw set, not looking at the civilian doctor who had no idea what terror was. But this was my father’s condition to staying in the house after my discharge, that I get regular counseling sessions for what the docs blithely called PTSD.

Post-traumatic stress disorder. More like walking in hell every day, but wasn’t it the price of defending my country? No. Jack paid a greater price, while I was fucking around retrieving a stupid photograph.

“Doc, I know what the fuck it was. My buddy and sniper partner was strewn in little bits in the sand. His head lay to the side like a goddamned soccer ball. One arm was two feet away from me.”

“Nothing is going to take away those memories, Matthew. But we do need to find a way to manage your symptoms. Your mother—”

“Stepmother,” I cut in coldly.

The doctor nodded. “Stepmother said you scream every night in your sleep.”

“So she says.”

“And she found you the other day in the living room ‘clearing land mines.’ She says all the throw pillows were ripped apart.”

“They were small and round, and ugly as shit anyway.”

“Matthew,” said the psychologist firmly. “Sergeant,” the psychologist said when he failed to gain my attention. I went into Marine mode, and my head snapped automatically toward the psychologist. It was a reflex trained into me by Parris Island drill sergeants, and right now I cursed it.

“PTSD is not a condition that gets better on its own. It is not a wound that the body will heal itself. And most times it gets worse. Are you taking your medication?”

“I’m not stupid,” I said defensively.

“I’m also concerned that your level of defensiveness is rising. Perhaps living at home isn’t the best solution for you.”

“Is that what my stepmother says?”

“No, she didn’t say that.”

“Until my disability comes in, I don’t have any other options.”

“I think I have one for you.” The man handed me a brochure. On it was the picture of a dog wearing a service vest. “It’s a two-month training program where you and a service dog work together to learn your needs and how to intervene.”

“A service dog? Like what blind people use?”

“Sort of.”

“Look, dogs are great, but I don’t need one to lead me around.”

“It’s not like that. Dogs have many remarkable qualities, one of them is sensing the emotional states of their masters. These dogs train in a variety of techniques to defuse a PTSD attack and to protect their master in case of an episode.”

“A dog can do that?” I couldn’t believe what I was hearing.

“A friend of mine runs this facility, and yes, I’ve seen it.”

“Look, Doc, I know you are trying to help, but no dog will help me deal with this shit.” I stood. “I’ve got to go.”

The psychologist pursed his lips. “Okay, Matthew. I can’t force this on you. But think about it.”

“Sure, sure,” I said absently. I gave the therapist a desultory wave as I left.

“See you in three days,” the man said.

I didn’t answer.

Okay. I knew I was being a shit about therapy. I tried, I really did, but nothing relieved the pain in my chest when I remembered Jack laughing one minute and laying in pieces on the road the next. We had been cutting up, playing around when we should have kept our eyes on the road. But I had to show him that picture.

Why the hell did I do that?

It was all so fucking senseless.

As if my truck was on autopilot, it swung into the parking lot of my favorite bar. Though I lived in Boise, Idaho, this bar had a particular Texas flare, complete with a riding bull and regular line dancing on Fridays and Saturdays. It was neither Friday nor Saturday, but that hardly mattered to me. This was the closest I could come to the man that died because I was being stupid.

At the bar, I ordered my usual jack and coke, but the bartender looked at me warily.

“You going to keep it together today, Matthew?”

I frowned. “When don’t I?”

“Last Tuesday, for one.”

“I told you and that guy I was sorry. Sorry.”

“Look, Matthew, if you weren’t a war hero, we’d ban you by now. But if you kick up a ruckus again, we will. We have a responsibility to our other patrons.”

“I get it,” I said. “Are you going to serve liquor or lectures?”

“Suit yourself, man.” He pushed the drink in front of him.

I pulled out the photograph of the blonde woman who stayed with me all through my tours of duty, the one that kept me alive, time and again. If I hadn’t gone after the picture, I’d be just as dead as Jack. That sucked in more ways than I could count, but I didn’t blame the gorgeous woman in the picture. No. That was on me. This woman, the one who had no name, did everything she could.

I studied the background for the umpteenth time. There were waves of purple mountains behind her, undulating in successive waves like a wind-whipped sea. Trained as a tracker, I felt I should recognize the mountains, but I hadn’t found them yet. I pulled out my smartphone and racked up more internet time looking for the mountains. As I ordered one drink, then another, I thought I found something that looked like it. I stared at a picture of the Blue Ridge Mountains from an overlook on the Blue Ridge Parkway that looked very much like the mountains behind my mystery woman. Wait, when did she become “my” mystery woman?

I ordered another drink.

“Sorry,” said the bartender. “You’ve had enough.”

“No, I haven’t,” I growled.

Footsteps alerted me to someone entering my personal zone. The bouncer crowded my exit point from behind and put his hand on my shoulder.

And that’s when shit hit the fan.