Chapter Thirteen
“Write sorrow on the bosom of the earth.”
~William Shakespeare
Daniel
The doe and her fawn emerged from the undergrowth on tentative hooves. The mother’s long neck stretched to bite off a few yellowing morsels of low leaves. The fawn frolicked and munched at the grass beneath its feet. Its stature and fading spots identified it as a yearling, and a small one for this late in the season, which didn’t bode well for its survival in the harsh winter to come.
A cluster of sparrows erupted from tangled branches above the deer. Their fluffed tawny-grey and rust winter plumage puffed to enhance their size. They trilled warnings of disgruntlement at some disturbance. Perhaps they’d spied him. They quickly settled back to a chorus of chirps and tweets. The doe skittered at their first fluster then tentatively returned to search for tasty leaves and berries from a cluster of huckleberry bushes. He would search for edible huckleberries for himself once they’d finished their foraging and moved on.
The sun had not risen into the trees yet, and a thin mist floated over dried underbrush. A scene so heartrendingly simplistic, it robbed him of breath and released a torrent of silent tears. When he slid down to the brush, the doe and her yearling darted back to the forest’s shelter.
He’d been home for over two-and-a-half years, and still, Daniel could not wrench the cursed taint of war from his brain and emotions. Released from duty three months after his return, he had tried everything to reacclimatize to society. Dammit, he had tried everything, but it just hadn’t helped. Mundane work dulled his brain until the lure of drugged escape became too strong. His wilderness wanderings provided the only safe refuge in a world he no longer wanted to inhabit.
His brusque, short interactions with family and friends devolved into an urgent need for separation. No matter how much he despised his behavior, he could not find a means to unburden his anger without hurting people around him. Most unforgivable, he’d been brutal and cruel toward the only woman he’d ever loved, Charlotte.
The thought of tainting her with the isolated shadow-self of a man that he’d become, a man, who retained few if any elements of his former self, became one more haunting nightmare. Verbal abuse had twisted their love into something ugly and unrecognizable. He’d broken off their relationship within weeks of returning. Then, being a crass bastard and intending to dissuade her of any possibility of reconciliation, he’d flaunted a string of other women in front of her. Women whose names and faces he couldn’t remember. His couplings with those women were none too gentle, not that they seemed to mind. Driven by her anger at him, Charlotte had taken a string of conquests in retaliation.
Their final explosive encounter where each lashed the other with hurtful accusations and taunts pushed their relationship beyond repair. He could only remember the anguish on her face, the anger in her voice, and the rage that filled him because he knew he’d orchestrated the entire mess. He’d hoped that breaking things off would allow her to find a decent, loving man. She deserved a man far better than the emotionally damaged, volatile man he’d become.
A leather-bound journal dropped from his backpack. He’d started it in those first months after he and Char separated for the final time. In those early months, when he’d stayed in the city raging over her betrayals with other men, even though he’d been the one to turn away and set her free, only hateful accusations and unbridled fury filled the journal’s pages.
Slowly, ever so slowly, it dawned on him that the anger he whipped at Char, at his family, and friends, belonged to him alone. Thus began his journeys into the wilderness. Each trek took him farther from the world and provided a few precious moments of peace. The words in his journal were words he’d never be able to speak aloud. In the rugged wilderness, he sought an elusive redemption. Both in his heart and on those pages, he sought forgiveness. He didn’t anticipate Char would ever read them, and that was probably for the best, but he needed to write them down anyway. He leaned against a Jeffrey pine tree, it’s subtle buttery-vanilla scent enveloping him, and began another entry.
Dear Char,
I saw a young doe and her fawn this morning. It reminded me of the time we stumbled upon a small herd of does and their young when hiking in Yosemite. Do you remember that day? We were returning from a trek to Lembert Dome. We were near the shore of Dog Lake on our last trip into the wilderness before I left for Nam. We ate lunch, drank wine, and made passionate love on a blanket and jackets spread over the debris of incense cedar and Douglas Fir.
That memory remains so clear in my mind. Streams of light filtered through the boughs above our heads and kissed your naked body like the last flame of summer, searing the image into my brain for all eternity. It was only the tenth time we’d made love. Yes, darling, I counted. Ever since then, the smell of cedar and pine bring back the taste of you on my tongue. Perhaps that’s why I roam through forests seeking familiar scents that return me to one blessed moment with you in my arms, your legs wrapped around my hips, your eyes filled with love and desire. I carry you inside me, my Charlotte. I carry a longing that will never abate.
Oh, Char, how I wish we could go back to those early explorations of each other. Back to a time when the scars of war didn’t infest my mind and body. I’m sorry, Char, I’m sorrier than you will ever know.
Someday you will find a man worthy of you. A man who will heal the hurt I have caused. A hurt I can never forgive myself for inflicting upon you. You may not believe it Char, but I know I made the right decision when I forced our separation.
Even now, after almost a year roaming in the wilderness, stopping in small towns only long enough to launder clothes and send a note to my parents, I have little peace.
Horrid nightmares wake me drenched in sweat. I might hear the sound of a distant helicopter, and suddenly the conifer forest that’s my refuge will slip sideways and turn into a sweltering jungle with the burnt stench of napalm.
A wild animal running through the shadows will shift into a sinewy man with a swath of black cloth tied around his head, his clothes barely rags, charging at me with murderous intent, and I’m living it again.
We fired simultaneously. His shot grazed my shoulder, but my shot hit him with enough force to toss him into the air. Everything morphed into a slow pantomime of violence. Screams of the wounded and abraded pings of gunfire on the air disappeared. In my mind, he was no longer a man, but a raging beast come to destroy my buddies and me. All my focused energy narrowed.
When he landed, he reached into his shirt. Thinking he might pull out another weapon, I shot again. Another shot skimmed my left leg, and I fell onto the beast. When I looked down, he clutched a blood-splattered dog-eared photo of a woman with two small children, perhaps only two or three years of age. It was a blurred, grainy image, and suddenly the beast morphed back into a man. He became a man with a family, drawn into this madness of destruction, except in his case, he’d run out of the jungle in a determined rage to keep our troop from finding his village.
When our planes soared overhead and hit our target area, the entire jungle torched into one searing ball of flame and roiling black smoke. We hunkered down and waited. The following day, we limped into the remains of that village. There were only three ancient women near the encampment. They sat at the outer edge of scorched earth, their bodies curved like twisted limbs on a dying tree, clutching newborns to their chests. Under the smoking rubble, all that remained were grotesque charred bones, frozen screams still visible on their skulls. I can’t say whether our strike had burned that village or if the retreating Viet Cong had done the damage. It no longer mattered. That was the last battle I remember before I found myself at a medivac center. My body wounds were not severe enough to release me from that hell, but I had slipped into a temporary catatonic state, unfit for duty. In the weeks that followed, the war ended, and I eventually joined the last troops to leave Vietnam. The mental wounds I received will never leave me.
Terrors come upon me in the stark, bright light of day when I’m seemingly wide-awake. I cannot break free from the horrors that haunt me. I cannot forgive the atrocities I witnessed and even less, those in which I participated.
Peace is an elusive dream. Some mornings, like today, a scene so perfectly serene restores me for a few moments, and I long for you and for home. Then, for reasons I cannot understand or explain that same idyllic scene breaks me to my very soul.
You’ll forever remain in my heart, my Char, even though I know, there’s no possibility of a tomorrow for us, and no forgiveness for me. Again, I send what loving thoughts I can muster into the universe. I hope they wing their way to you carrying only beauty and a love you deserve.
Yours,
Daniel
“My thoughts are ludicrously sappy,” he chided himself. Yet, a touch of sweetness filled him as he tucked the journal back into his pack. Just as quickly, that sweet moment melted like the lift of mist under a searing sun to dissipate like a figment of imagination. The catharsis from his writing lasted only as long as the page sat before him.
Images of Charlotte, his beautiful, vibrant firebrand, flared in his head. Her soft, pale skin so striking when contrasted against long, black hair and pale, whiskey-colored eyes. Never again could she be his. The thought of her with other men made him want to retch out his guts. It filled him with an ache that never left. One more nauseating circumstance wrought by the damage from his time mired in war and destruction. A destruction he now inflicted against loved ones with unsettling efficiency.
His experiences had left him at war with the idea of love, with the world, and most sadly, with himself. It left him with a foe he could not conquer—the desolate enemy within.