“Chopping duty?” I say when we find out. “I thought he hadn’t caused any trouble.”
There are two jobs Dalton uses for punishment. One is sanitation—emptying the portable toilets. When we don’t have anyone serving that as a sentence, we offer triple wages to whoever will do it in the interim, and even then, we only get those desperate for credits. The next step down is chopping duty. It’s not nearly as unsavory as emptying toilets, but it’s backbreaking work. At this time of year, between the mosquitoes and the blackflies, few people do it even for double wages.
“He offered,” Dalton says.
“He needs credits already?”
“No, he didn’t realize you get extra for chopping. He just volunteered. We don’t have a regular job for him yet, so he said he’d like to try everything. Will joked about chopping duty, and Sebastian said sure. He’s been on it for two weeks. I’m sure the extra credits don’t hurt, but we’ve told him he can quit. He said he’s fine with it for a while longer. The only job he won’t do is hunting.”
My brows shoot up.
He shrugs. “Some people get here and can’t wait to tr
y hunting. Some say hell no. That was Sebastian.”
“He’d rather do chopping duty?”
“Apparently.”
“Interesting.”
TWENTY-NINE
We’re on body retrieval. It’s me and Anders for this. Dalton got called off on a problem, and it’s probably best if he sticks around town, considering we’ll both be gone tomorrow. That was Anders’s reasoning. I tried to talk him out of it—after his army experience he doesn’t need to see more death—but he insists.
We take the big ATV, the wide one that will let us transport Valerie and Brady, one at a time. We leave Storm behind. Dead bodies make her anxious. Hell, they don’t make anyone happy, but Storm doesn’t need to come along, so she stays with Dalton.
Eventually, we need to leave the main trail, and the ATV won’t go on the narrow path. That means walking. It will also mean carrying the bodies back on a stretcher.
As we walk, I tell Anders about the bullet mix-up.
“Ouch,” he says. “How’s Eric handling that?”
“Not well.”
“He won’t. But … I hate to say this, but it’s not entirely a bad thing. Eric’s still learning that he’s not the pro anymore, at least not when it comes to investigating. Better that he screws up on small things, easily fixed, and learns his lesson. Does that sound patronizing?”
“No, you’re right. My first partner would let me make mistakes, just to show that the hotshot young college grad hadn’t known as much as she thought she did. At first, I thought he was undermining me. Then I realized he never let me mess up when it made a difference, and he never told our superiors about my mistakes. It taught me that experience trumps education.”
“Yep, and that’s a lesson Eric’s still learning. It’s not his fault. He’s had to step up, which may be partly my fault. He does know what he’s doing, most of the time, so I didn’t question. I’m a good army boy, as he likes to remind me.”
“He doesn’t mean it as an insult.”
“No, but he does mean it as a kick in the ass. A reminder that I’m a little too quick to follow orders, too quick to trust that my superior officers know what they’re doing.” He peers ahead. “How much farther?”
“Just up ahead.”
I start marching toward it, but Anders catches my arm. He doesn’t say anything, just rubs his finger against my forearm. I pause and take a deep breath.
“I could say that you didn’t have a choice shooting Val,” he says. “But that’s bullshit.”
I stiffen.
“You chose this job,” he says, “like I chose to be a soldier. And neither of us got into it because we wanted to kill people. We got into it despite that. Despite knowing it might come to that.”
I glance over at him.
He releases my arm and eases back, hands going into his pockets. “When I signed up for the army, I was supposed to be a medic, and that suited me just fine. Saving lives, not taking them. Then there was a skirmish, in the barracks, and I handled it, and someone decided I made a better cop than a medic. Still, I figured, that’s cool, at least I won’t see actual combat.” He shakes his head. “Didn’t quite turn out that way.”