The Shepherd’s Song Page 4

  “Then what?”

  “There were steps leading up to the roof. And blue sky at the top. I headed up the stairs slowly, watching every step. Tater was close behind me. We moved carefully, ready.”

  Deke stopped. There was something else—something hazy skirting around the edge of his mind. He took a sip of water but spilled some of it.

  “I saw . . . ,” Deke began.

  “Take your time.”

  The dark thought, lurking so near, was too much for him, and he began to tremble uncontrollably.

  “It’s okay, Private.”

  The doctor stood and took Deke’s hands.

  “Calm down.”

  Deke’s hands continued to shake.

  “I’m right here, Private.”

  No answer.

  “Nurse!”

  A needle brought relief, and Deke drifted to sleep.

  * * *

  DR. MITCHELL SAT DOWN on the small camp stool and balanced his notebook on his knee. “Good morning.”

  Deke turned away. “I don’t want to talk about the mission.”

  The day before had brought troubling thoughts, and the night had been filled with nightmares, dark images chasing him, nearer and nearer.

  “No need to.”

  Deke turned back and looked at the doctor.

  “We can talk about something else. You mentioned a piece of paper, a psalm?”

  The memory of the psalm brought Deke peace and courage. He could talk about the psalm. “Yeah, I got a letter from my sister. She was mad ’cause I hadn’t answered her emails.”

  “Why didn’t you?”

  “Nothing new to say. And it was too hard to pretend.”

  “Pretend?”

  “Yeah, pretend that this was some kind of vacation or something. You know, people are dying over here.”

  “Like who?”

  “Like John Henderson, Juan Golendez, Pete Mancini, like all the guys I came over with. Do we have to talk about that?”

  “No.”

  “Good.”

  “What about the paper that your sister sent? You’ve mentioned it twice.”

  “Yeah, she sent me Psalm 23. The Lord is my shepherd. You know it?”

  “Yes.”

  “The lying down in green pastures part made me remember Montana.”

  “Is your mother still in Montana?”

  “Yeah, she’s still in the farmhouse where we grew up.”

  “The house with the clothesline?”

  “I don’t want to talk about the clothesline.”

  “Tell me about the sheet.”

  Darkness moved closer to Deke. “What sheet?”

  “You said you remembered a sheet? A white sheet . . . snapping?”

  Deke fought the thoughts moving closer.

  “That’s all,” he said. “I’m sorry, Doc. That’s all I can do now.”

  The thoughts in Deke’s mind still blew in a whirlwind of a dark vortex, yet glimmers of light seemed to begin to penetrate the darkness. Darkness and light. Green pastures and tan desert. A tug-of-war in contrasts.

  “That’s fine. We’ll talk again.”

  When Dr. Mitchell left, Deke thought about the mission. Bits and pieces floated in his mind like the pieces of a puzzle. Some were falling into place. There was the roof. And yelling. And Tater. Something about Tater. Other pieces of the puzzle were still missing, and some pieces weren’t turned over yet.

  Deke just wanted some peace in his mind. He was confused and exhausted. He kept coming back to the psalm on the paper and the idea of lying down. Here he was flat on his back, yet he couldn’t rest. The image of Tater kissing the cross kept coming to mind. Tater got great comfort from that cross. Tater’s faith gave him peace.

  Deke looked at Dr. Mitchell’s empty stool and imagined Jesus sitting there. The look on the face of Jesus was not one of condemnation, but of great love and compassion. Only Jesus could end this torture.

  Jesus, take me out of the hell that my mind has become. Help me lie down in green pastures.

  Deke gave it to God—the memories, the injury, the lying down, the mess of his mind. Peace descended. Thoughts still jumbled in his head, but he was no longer anxious about them. Jesus was near. Whatever came, Deke would embrace it with God.

  He closed his eyes. Slowly, seeping into his consciousness, the memories came into focus.

  * * *

  “GOOD MORNING, Private Johnson.”

  “Good morning, Doc.”

  Deke was sitting on the edge of his cot, leaning forward. His hands rested in a relaxed way on his knees.

  “You look different,” the doctor said.

  “I remember. I remember it all.” It was a relief to say it. The words were bursting to be released.

  “Do you want to tell me?”

  Deke hesitated, but thought of Tater’s faith and Jesus.

  “Yes. I saw . . .”

  He faltered, fear rising.

  “You can do this, Private.” The doctor paused, then said softly, “What did you see?”

  “We were at that apartment where the insurgents were supposed to be. I was the point man going up the stairs to the roof. Then Tater. Then the others. I moved toward the opening, then stepped up onto the roof. I saw . . .”

  “Go on.”

  “I saw a clothesline, stretched across the rooftop, with white sheets hanging, blowing in the breeze. The sun was coming through, and there was a shadow behind the sheet. Hiding, someone hiding. I raised my weapon.”

  “Yes?”

  “I froze, Doc. I remembered home. I remembered Pam, hiding in the sheets on the clothesline, and I couldn’t shoot. I couldn’t. I didn’t know.”

  “No, you couldn’t know.”

  “Someone was back there—in the shadows.”

  “You saw shadows.”

  “Then the sheet snapped. No. The noise, the snapping, it wasn’t the sheet. It was . . .”

  The dark in his mind was moving closer, but this time Deke turned to face it.

  “A weapon. The noise, it was rounds going by my head. An insurgent hiding behind the sheet was firing at us. I was hit and down. The man kept firing. Tater fell to the ground beside me. I saw blood . . .”

  “Go on.”

  Light flooded Deke’s mind.

  “Then the guy jumped off the roof and got away. Everything was silent.”

  “What happened next?”

  “ ‘Tater. Tater!’ I called, but no answer. There was so much blood. There was blue sky. No green. Then there was chaos all around me as others arrived to help.”

  Deke was breathing hard. He caught his breath and made himself calm down. He folded his hands in his lap. They were not shaking.

  “I couldn’t shoot,” he said, throwing his arms up in a gesture of surrender. “I couldn’t shoot.”

  The image of the sheets in Montana and Pam and the other children running through, casting shadows, came to his mind.

  “I didn’t know.”

  Deke paused and took a deep breath.

  “We were wounded, both of us. Tater and me. There, lying on the roof, with my knee blown apart, I pulled out the paper.”

  “The psalm?”

  “Yes, I read it to him, to Tater. ‘The Lord is my shepherd.’ Tater’s lips moved as I read the words. He knew them by heart.”

  “Then?”

  “When we got to the part about the green pastures . . . ‘He makes me lie down in green pastures’ . . .”

  “Go on.”

  “He let go. Tater let go.”

  Tears flowed freely down Deke’s face. Good tears, cleansing tears, tears releasing his friend. As Deke wept, the doctor sat still beside him.

  “He just let go,” Deke said, softly.

  Time stopped, and the two men sat together as the thoughts and words settled around them.

  “Do you think he would forgive me?” Deke asked.

  “Who?”

  “Tater.”

  “For what?”

&
nbsp; “For not shooting.”

  “What do you think?”

  Deke sat motionless, thinking of Tater’s peaceful face as Deke read the psalm.

  “Yes.”

  Deke sighed. The darkness in his mind dissipated. The light from the small window cast a square of light on the cot.

  “Yes,” he repeated. His body relaxed.

  They sat for a moment staring at the square of light.

  “Do you still have the psalm?”

  “No. As the helicopter medevac’d us out of there, the psalm blew out of my hand. The last I saw of it, the paper was blowing across the desert like a white flag.”

  “What an image, a white flag.”

  Deke was breathing easily now.

  “What do think about the psalm?” he asked. “Do you think Jesus sent it to me?”

  “What do you think?”

  “I think He did—to remind me that He is with me.”

  “That makes sense to me.”

  “And to give Tater peace. At the end.”

  “Yes.”

  Deke felt the warmth of the sun coming in from the window, and his thinking was clear.

  “Are you ready to go home now?”

  “Yes, Doc. I think I can rest now.”

  “Well, you’re scheduled for surgery stateside, then rehab, so there’ll be plenty of time for lying down,” Dr. Mitchell said.

  “I think he’s lying down, too,” Deke said.

  “Who?”

  “Tater.”

  Deke eyes filled with tears as he remembered Tater’s lips moving along with the words of the psalm.

  “Tater’s home,” Deke said. “I think Tater’s home.”

  The doctor left, and Deke was alone. He thought about Tater and the good times they’d had together. His friend laughing. Kissing his cross. Guarding the pile of letters from his parents.

  Deke imagined Tater in a place, a green place, with cool breezes and tall grasses blowing in the wind.

  He imagined Tater in heaven looking down at him, smiling.

  THE HABOOB CAME UPON THEM suddenly as they drove on the highway toward their new lives in Turkey. Clouds of dry, stinging sand rolled across the desert, obscuring their vision and halting their progress to an uncertain future as war refugees.

  Nadia did not notice the storm moving toward their small car. She was distracted by her older sister, who would not share her paper. Sevin never shared, but that didn’t stop Nadia from trying.

  “Please, Sevin. Just one piece of paper?”

  Sevin did not even look over. “No!”

  “Please?”

  “No.”

  “I need paper, too,” Nadia’s little brother, Aza, chimed in. “I want to send a letter.”

  “No!”

  They were all tired and hot and out of patience. They had been in the car for hours, and time passed slowly. The backseat was tightly packed. Around them was everything they owned at this moment, which was everything they could fit into the small car. Father was behind the wheel, his attention focused on the road ahead. Beside him, Mother saw the storm first.

  “Haboob,” she said, pointing at the brown billowing clouds on the ground moving toward them. She sat up and leaned forward, her eyes looking intently, brow wrinkling into worry.

  Father looked concerned but did not stop driving.

  Without a word they began rolling up the car windows, then tightening their scarves, zipping bags closed, and covering their mouths to protect from the sand and grit that was approaching.

  Sevin pulled Aza’s scarf over his head and snuggled his head down onto her lap. Nadia watched the storm move closer as they kept driving toward the border. It seemed to chase them across the desert.

  “It’s coming so fast,” she said. “Can we outrun it?”

  Father glanced at the wall of sand, now almost upon them. He shook his head. Mother reached around to tuck the scarf tighter around Aza, then turned back to the front seat and pulled her own scarf over her mouth.

  The first bits of grit began to hit the windows, and Father pulled the car to the side of the road. The motor stopped, and in the silence they heard the whistle of the wind and the tiny grains of sand pelting the windows. Father took a deep breath, then covered his own mouth. He sat still, his head leaning back on the headrest. The car rocked with the gusts of wind. They waited.

  Outside, all disappeared in a sea of dismal brown. The whir of the wind increased to a roar around the small Honda. The dust and grit seeped through unseen cracks, and Nadia closed her eyes against the nothingness. Her mouth was dry and she wanted a drink, but she knew there was too little water and she did not ask.

  Always, the problem was water. At first they could get water only every other day. Mother would fill the buckets and tubs, and they would make the water last until the next day. Then the water stopped altogether. Then they had to carry water from the central well, and the line was long. Sometimes Father had to wait overnight, or longer.

  The war had left them without water, but mainly without safety and peace. So now they were leaving their country.

  The wind grew louder, and tiny pebbles hit the car. In the midst of the sand and pebbles, a paper smacked against the windshield. It remained glued in place by the wind.

  Paper, Nadia thought. A piece of paper for me!

  She stared at it, silently claiming it as her own. Suddenly, between gusts, it fell to the ground, out of sight. Quickly, Nadia pressed her face against the glass, looking left and right, trying to spot the paper. She craned her neck up and down, but it was useless in the sea of brown. Finally she gave up and huddled with the rest of the family as they waited anxiously for the storm to pass.

  Smack! The paper hit the car again, this time from the other side, blown back by the swirling wind.

  “Paper,” she said, her voice lost in the roar of the wind.

  The wind slowly inched the paper across the window to the edge. The paper seemed to be holding on by a thread. Then, whoosh, it was gone again.

  So close. She waited for it to come back, but there was no sign of it in the whirling grit.

  The day before they left, Nadia had gone with her father to the bird market. The sound alone was amazing: the cries, caws, shrieks, chirps, and trills of the different birds. Thousands upon thousands of birds—cages and cages, stacked from floor to ceiling. In one cage alone there were more than a hundred wrens, a mass movement of flapping wings and restless shifting. Two turkeys sat alone in a wooden cage, gobbling back and forth. Owls, brightly colored parrots, gray cockatiels, and so many others—stuck in cages.

  Nadia felt stuck, too—almost invisible. As the oldest, Sevin was able to go to school, even to learn English, and Sevin was able to work in the salon after classes. Aza was the youngest and the boy. The world seemed to revolve around him. Nadia was just in the middle, stuck like the birds—caged, restless, waiting.

  She felt trapped—trapped by everything around her. Her life was missing something, and she was restless to find it. Whatever was missing, she knew she would have to learn it on her own. Nadia felt that way now in their small car: waiting, restless for the time when she could get out and look for her paper. Somehow she felt that the paper was hers. Unfortunately, it was probably long gone, but as soon as the storm was over, she planned to check anyway.

  When the storm finally passed, they opened the car doors to brush away the piles of sand. Aza emerged from his scarf, his eyelashes and brows dusted with sand. Father’s mustache was covered with the fine powder.

  Nadia jumped out of the car and shook off her scarf and brushed off her clothes. She slipped her feet out of her plastic shoes and ran around the car. That’s when she saw the paper, caught by the tire. She picked it up and shook it off, then flattened it out on her arm. The words were in a foreign language, maybe English from the soldiers.

  She watched while Father filled the radiator with water. She tried not to think about the water being poured into the car. Her tongue was dry with thirst. S
he studied her paper. She wished she could read it. It was nice paper, white and thick, not like the thin brown paper that Sevin used for school. The words were written in a strong handwriting in bright blue ink. Maybe by a woman, a strong woman.

  “Sevin.” Nadia tugged her sister’s sleeve. “I think my paper is English. Will you read it for me?”

  Her sister was busy shaking out her clothes and adjusting her scarf. She brushed the dust off her face and hair.

  “No!”

  “Please?”

  “No.”

  “Read for her,” Mother said. She leaned over the front of the car, watching Father fill the radiator. Mother dabbed the beads of sweat on the side of her face and began organizing the bags, shaking off the sand and repositioning them in the car. Every spare inch of the car was full.

  Sevin took the paper and looked at it. She shook it out, then held it up as if it were way too much trouble to read the simple words. Finally she lowered it, looked down at the paper, and studied the words.

  “It is about God,” she said. “The Christian God.”

  “Huh?” said Father, looking up from the engine. “What is there to say?”

  “Is it about war?” Aza asked. He danced around Sevin. “Is it about God defeating the enemies?”

  “No.”

  Nadia held her breath and remained silent. If she showed how badly she wanted something, Sevin might refuse her.

  Sevin frowned as she made out the words. “It says he is a . . .”

  “What?”

  “Quiet,” she said. “I’m translating.”

  Without moving or taking a breath, Nadia watched Sevin. For some reason Nadia couldn’t quite grasp, she wanted desperately to know the words written on the paper by the strong woman.

  Sevin cleared her throat.

  “It says he is a shepherd.”

  She thrust the paper back at Nadia and exclaimed, “What kind of warrior would a shepherd make? What kind of a god is that?!”

  “Yes,” Mother said. “Can you imagine such a thing? A god who is a lowly shepherd.”

  They all laughed.

  “No weapons?” Aza asked. He kicked the small stones beside the car.