Time moved forward, as it had to, but I stayed rooted in the same place, wondering about the connection between my revelation and my dreams. Had I really been witnessing my cousin’s death over and over again? It would make more sense than watching myself die. I’d been close to it, sure, but I was still here. It was troubling on a different level to be afraid of watching myself die each night. It seemed to make a little more sense that it was my cousin. We looked so alike, after all.
I just didn’t know what that meant. Had we been particularly close? There were certainly enough framed photos of us – not an overwhelming number, but enough. We’d had a close enough relationship to both go into the same unit in the Army Rangers. Was there something else there? Some other reason I might have been dreaming about his death?
I didn’t know how I was supposed to get those questions answered without bothering my uncle. How badly did I want my own past revealed? Would it require troubling a grieving old man, still sick with the loss of his boy?
“You’re awfully quiet today,” Ace observed, working on a bucket of beers across the booth from me at the bar. I’d come here almost automatically, just a destination for me to exist in instead of other ones. I was still thinking about the ramifications of my dreams, about finding the answers I needed to try to make sense of everything. If sense could apply to anything I was experiencing.
“A lot on my mind,” I said. The anniversary of my father’s death was coming up. I felt like I should leave to pay my respects – visit the cemetery where he was buried, at least – even if I hadn’t made a point of it up until now. Now, though, it just felt right. I had to trust my subconscious on this. Maybe it was leaving breadcrumbs for me to follow.
“Well, I’m here if you want to unload some of it,” Ace told me. “It’s my day off and everything.”
“You think you could hold down the fort for a while if I bounced out of town for a couple days?” I asked as casually as I could muster the words.
Ace had been lifting a bottle of beer to his lips, but now he stopped, and set it back down on the table. “What? Where are you going?”
“Don’t worry about that. Just tell me you’ll keep everything running here while I’m gone.”
Ace huffed out an incredulous laugh. “I mean, don’t you think Brody would be the better one to ask about that? He’s your general manager, after all.”
“I’m asking you.”
“You know you don’t have to ask. I’ll make sure everything goes smoothly.” Ace tucked a stray strand of hair behind his ear. “I just don’t know what the secrecy is all about.”
“It’s not…there’s no secret.” Only that I felt like I was losing my mind – what mind I had left to lose. “I’m just getting out of town for a few days.”
“If you’ve done something illegal and you’re looking to lay low, you should tell me.”
“Hell no. I see what kind of company you’re keeping these days.”
Ace huffed a sigh. “This isn’t about Katie. It’s about you. The more I know, the better I can help you. You need cash? A place to crash out?”
“The less you know, the better. Plausible deniability.”
“You have done something.”
“I haven’t.” I rolled my eyes so hard I thought they were going to fall out of my skull. “It’s the anniversary of my father’s death. I thought I would go pay my respects.”
Ace blanched. “I’m sorry, Jack. I wouldn’t have gone on and on if I’d known. You should’ve said something.”
“I don’t know what I could’ve said.” What I couldn’t say was that I didn’t know why I felt the niggling need to go. My father had died while I’d been convalescing in a military hospital, shattered and only just beginning to understand the ramifications of not having my memories anymore. I’d gotten a bit of a payout because of the nature of the injury I’d suffered while serving in the Army Rangers, but the bulk of my money came from a life insurance policy my father had taken out prior to his death.
It was a lot of money. The guys all thought the money I’d put up to buy the bar was thanks to my pay from the Army, but I didn’t know how to tell them about how rich I’d become because of my father’s death.
Probably because putting it like that sounded so bad.
“Do whatever it is you think you have to do,” Ace said. “Go pay your respects.”
“I don’t have any memories of him,” I said quietly, hating how big of an asshole that made me feel like to admit. “Why am I getting the shit about war and explosions and medal ceremonies and nothing about anything that’s important?”
“The brain’s a mystery. With the kind of injury you suffered, you’re lucky you’re not a vegetable.”
“I don’t feel very lucky sometimes,” I said. “I feel like I’m a ship adrift without an anchor.”
Ace looked hurt for a moment before look down into his lap. “We’re all your anchor here, you know. Horizon. The club and the bar. Your friends. That anchor just keeps growing and growing.”
“You’re my regular ball and chain,” I cracked, trying to cheer him up. That was the problem with being honest. I made the friends I had now feel like they weren’t good enough. I was always in pursuit of the past as if the present didn’t really do it for me.
“Do you need any company on the ride?” Ace asked, then frowned. “Where is it you’re going?”
“Colorado.”
He brightened. “You going to bring us back any souvenirs from that great state?”
“Are you asking me to traffic marijuana back to New Mexico?”
“No?” He winked elaborately.
“You’re practically married to a cop, Ace.”
“Hey, she’s cool.”
“The answer’s no.”
“Sure you don’t need company?”
“I need someone to promise me that the bar will be looked after.”
“You could always promote me to general manager.”
“And then what would Brody do?”
“Play grab-ass with Nadine behind the bar instead of in the office.”
I blinked slowly. “Seriously?”
“They’re still in the honeymoon stage.”
“Maybe you should keep an eye on that.”
“You know the bar basically runs itself. But if it means that much to you, I’ll be extra vigilant.”
“Thank you.”
“Enjoy your trip, then.”
It was ill-advised to take the motorcycle to Colorado, especially in the dead of winter, but I kept the machine well maintained. The only thing even remotely predictable about the weather was that a person should expect snow – and lots of it. As soon as I got in the north of New Mexico, I put on another layer from the few clothes I’d packed and made sure my motorcycle was running perfectly. I’d looked ahead to the forecasts for my hometown, and it seemed to be clear for the next few days. Even if it was snowing, I probably would’ve still made the trip on the bike and simply made it slowly and cautiously. Something was calling me back to the place that was supposed to be my home. I would get there when I got there.
It was a small town, the place I’d grown up in, but bigger than Rio Seco. There were more chain restaurants, which was somehow considered a hallmark of development, and more residential neighborhoods. There was a downtown with a historic courthouse, as well as some old buildings a little newer than the beauties that made up the main strip of Rio Seco. I stopped and got a room at the first hotel I saw – nothing special, just a strip of small rooms. I wasn’t sure how long I was going to be here, but I wouldn’t need it for anything other than sleeping. I dropped my small bag in there and set out again, mindful of the growing chill to the air.
I knew where the cemetery in town was. I’d been here once before, anyway, in the process of moving the contents of my past from one storage unit to another. My father’s grave was well kept, even if it didn’t have some of the elaborate floral arrangements others did. I wished I’d had the forethought to bring something – some kind of bouquet, even if it would wither and freeze in the coming night. Something to show that this man was loved, even if I couldn’t remember why he was loved. What any of his redeeming qualities had been beyond fathering me.
“I wish you weren’t dead,” I muttered at the headstone, flurries beginning to fall. Even if it was purely for selfish reasons, I wanted someone around who could tell me who I was. Someone I could trust, like a parent. Someone who wouldn’t get offended or sad or defensive that I had a ton of questions.
Or, if I was really wishing big, here, I could just go with the wish that I had never become an Army Ranger. I couldn’t even remember what reasoning I’d had to serve my country any more. I wasn’t terribly patriotic, even if I tried to make a good show of it. I knew it was important to a lot of people – my close friends included. Both Brody and Sloan had served in the Armed Forces.
But if I’d never enlisted, I’d still have my memories. There wouldn’t be any angst about my past. I’d know exactly who I was, where I’d come from, and where I was going. I thought anything would be better than the strange limbo I was in right now.
I supposed I was even more disappointed by the fact that I hadn’t had any big revelations since I’d been here. No life-changing realizations. Just a cold, lonely, windswept hill with buried memories that I couldn’t access. I thought I had come to Colorado for a reason, but it just wasn’t revealing itself to me. Maybe all of this was a big waste of time.
I wasn’t sure how long I had been shivering out there in the cemetery, but it was time to leave. There weren’t any answers here. Not like I thought there’d be.
There were only graves.