It had not worked. If anything, he was even worse. The time away, the miles driven had only provided him with far too much time to think. Sometimes that was not good. He didn’t want to think anymore. He just wanted to be doing something that would carry him into the future instead of transporting him to the past.
His phone buzzed. He looked at the readout on the screen.
USDB. That stood for the United States Disciplinary Barracks. It was located in Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. It was the Army’s prison for its most important—that is, dangerous—criminals.
Puller knew it well. He had visited there often.
His older brother and only sibling, Robert Puller, would be stationed there for the rest of his natural life, and maybe even beyond, if the Pentagon had its way.
“Hello?”
“Please hold,” an efficient-sounding female voice said.
The next moment a familiar voice came on the line.
It was his brother, formerly a major in the Air Force before being convicted at court-martial for treason against his country for reasons that Puller neither was privy to nor would probably ever understand for as long as he lived.
“Hey, Bobby,” said Puller dully. His head was starting to ache.
“Where are you?”
He said irritably, “Just got back. Just put my feet up. What’s going on?”
“How was your road trip? Get things figured out?”
“I’m good.”
“Which means you didn’t and you’re just blowing me off. That’s okay. I can take it.”
Normally, Puller looked forward to talking to his brother. Their calls and visits were infrequent. But not this time. He just wanted to sit in his recliner with his beer and think of exactly nothing.
“What’s going on?” he said again, a little more firmly.
“Okay, I read you loud and clear. ‘Get the hell off the phone, I don’t want to talk.’ I wouldn’t be bothering you except for the call I got.”
Puller sat up in his recliner and put his beer down.
“What call? The Old Man?”
There was only one “Old Man” in the Puller brothers’ lives.
That would be John Puller Sr., a retired three- star and a fighting legend. He was an old bastard from the Patton Kicking Ass and hospital suffering from short but intense bouts of dementia and long and even more intense episodes of depression. The dementia was probably because of age. The depression was because he no longer wore the uniform, no longer commanded a single soldier, and thus felt he had no more reason left to live. Puller Sr. had been put on earth for one reason only: to lead soldiers into combat.
More to the point, he had been put on this earth to lead soldiers to victory in combat. At least that’s what he believed. And most days both his sons would have agreed with that assessment.
“People on behalf of the Old Man from the hospital. They couldn’t reach you, so they tried me. I can’t exactly up and visit the Old Man.” “What did they call about? Is he failing mentally again? Did he fall down and break a hip?”
“No on both counts. I don’t think it has to do with him personally. They weren’t entirely clear what the issue was, probably because Dad wasn’t entirely clear with them. I believe that it involved a letter that he received, but I can’t swear to that. But that’s what it seemed to be about.”
“A letter. Who from?”
“Again, can’t answer that. I thought with you being pretty much right there you could go over and find out what’s going on. They said he was really upset.”
“But they didn’t know what was in the letter? How can that be?”
“You know how that can be,” replied Robert. “I don’t care how old or out of it Dad is. If he doesn’t want you to read a letter he has, you ain’t reading it. He can still kick ass even at his age. There’s not a doctor in the VA system who could take him or would ever want to try.”
“Okay, Bobby, I’ll head over now.”
“John, all bullshit aside, you okay?”
“All bullshit aside, no, Bobby, I’m not okay.” “What are you going to do about it?”
“I’m in the Army.”
“Meaning what exactly?”
“Meaning I’m going to soldier on.”
“You can always talk to somebody. The Army has lots of specialists who do just that. You went through a lot of shit in West Virginia. It would screw anybody up. Like PTSD.”
“I don’t need to talk to anybody.”
“I wouldn’t be too sure about that.”
“Puller men don’t talk about their troubles.” Puller could imagine his brother shaking his head in disappointment.
“Is that family rule number three or four?” Puller said, “For me, right now, it’s rule number one.”
CHAPTER 6
As he walked down the hall at the VA hospital Puller wondered whether he would end up in one himself when he got older. As he looked around at the elderly sick and disabled former soldiers his spirits dropped even more.
Maybe a shot to the head when the time comes would be better.
He knew where his father’s room was and so bypassed the nurse’s desk. He actually heard his old man long before he saw him. John Puller Sr. had always possessed a voice like a bullhorn, and age and his other infirmities had done nothing to lessen its power. Indeed, in some ways, it seemed even more strident than before.
As Puller approached the door to his father’s room it opened and a frazzled-looking nurse stepped out.
“God, am I glad you’re here,” she said, staring up at Puller. He was not in uniform but she apparently had easily recognized him.
“What’s the problem?” asked Puller.
“He’s the problem,” she replied. “He’s been asking for you for the last twenty-four hours. He won’t let it go.”
Puller put his hand on the knob. “He was a three-star. It’s always personal and they never let anything go. It’s in their DNA.”
“Good luck,” said the nurse.
“It’ll have nothing to do with luck,” said Puller as he walked into the room and shut the door behind him.
Inside the room he put his broad back to the door and gazed around. The place was small, maybe ten by ten, like a prison cell. Actually, it was about the same size as the place his brother would be calling home at USDB for the rest of his life.
The room was furnished with a hospital bed, a laminated wood nightstand, a curtain for privacy, and a chair that did not look comfortable and felt just how it looked.
Then there was one window, a tiny closet, and a bathroom with support bars and panic buttons all over the place.
And then, lastly, his old man, John Puller Sr., the former commander of arguably the Army’s most famous division, the ioist Airborne Screaming Eagles.
“XO, where the hell you been?” said Puller Sr., staring at his son like he had him lined up over iron gunsights.
“On assignment, just got back. Hear there’s something up, sir.”
“Damn right there is.”
Puller moved forward and stood at ease by the side of the bed where his father lay, wearing a white T-shirt and loose-fitting blue scrub pants. Once nearly as tall as his son, the old man had been shrunken by age to a little over six-one— still tall, but not the near giant he had once been. A white fringe of cottony hair ran around the rim of his head, with nothing else on top. His eyes were ice blue and went from flashing fire to vacant, sometimes in the span of a few seconds.