For a moment, perched behind his binoculars and with Steve next to him, JP makes another effort to feel how he used to. JP wants to believe that Steve, in his own way, is a pro.“That photo in the lodge,” JP says in a whisper. “That your grandfather?”Steve nods.
“All your family hunters?”
“Just Granddad,” Steve replies softly. “He was the great hunter. My daddy did a bit, but not me.”
“What do you mean, not you?”
“I bring folks out here, sure, but I don’t care too much for the actual hunting. I’d call myself a taxidermist if I were to call myself anything.”
Silence. They look for movement among the sagebrush and ash trees. There is nothing but the occasional gust of wind and, in the distance, the large birds circling and scanning the earth below, waiting elegantly on updrafts.
JP’s mind wanders.
Carlos used to wear a piece of green parachute cord around his neck. Hanging from its end was a hollowed bullet snipers called a hog’s tooth. Only guys with kills could wear a bullet like this. When Carlos explained to JP that his reenlistment papers had been denied, he frantically rubbed his hog’s tooth through his fingers, grasping at it like a rosary. At first, JP hadn’t understood why Carlos couldn’t re-up. No one could say he wasn’t a good shot. He had the kills to prove it. JP had wanted to take it up with the company first sergeant. He’d said if that didn’t work, he’d go to the battalion sergeant major. He’d been ready to do all these things. And that’s when Carlos told him about the fake GED, and that he wouldn’t be allowed to stick around with a fake GED. The war was ending. They were looking for reasons to kick guys out, to turn them into civilians again. Carlos said back there, in the civilian world, a hog’s tooth didn’t mean a goddamn thing. JP promised to figure some workaround. There was still a month left on the deployment. But the next time they went out, Carlos didn’t wear his hog’s tooth. And when he and JP settled into their hide, Carlos asked if he could take a turn as spotter. He said he wanted to give it a try, so JP let him. They sat in the hide for two days. Neither spoke. JP was afraid Carlos might find something. He’d have to take a shot then. He wasn’t sure he could do that. But Carlos didn’t find anything.
*
Elliot Ackerman, author of the novel Green on Blue, served five tours of duty in Iraq and Afghanistan and received the Silver Star, the Bronze Star for Valor, and the Purple Heart. A former White House Fellow, his essays and fiction have appeared in The New Yorker, The Atlantic, The New Republic, and Ecotone. He lives in Istanbul, where he writes on the Syrian Civil War.