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on fire. The nearest medic with the squad back in town.
    Nate stands dumbly still for a moment, then crouches and hoists Charles over his shoulder. Charles gives off a sound that is not human. Nate staggers up the slope, past the girl silently watching with Cielle’s eyes— whack whack whack —and Charles is howling and sobbing, “—don’t leave me don’t leave me don’t you—”
    Nate runs. Pain screeches down his spine, ignites his muscles. The heat rising through his combat boots and Charles’s weight on his shoulder are oppressive; the burn spreads through his thighs, his calves, the taut muscles of his groin. He feels as though he is inside a pizza oven. Charles is sputtering and shrieking, the journey a jarring kind of hell —don’t leave me don’t leave me don’t you leave me —and Nate’s shirt is saturated with his friend’s insides. He runs harder as if to stop the blood draining into his eyes. His vision is a painted haze of brown and red, red and brown, smudged together as if by a child’s fingers.
    “Help me!” Nate shouts. “Somebody … ’elp … me.…”
    Charles is quieter now: “… don’t … leave … please. …”
    Nate’s lips are coated with dust, and his voice is gone; he can’t generate saliva. He blanks out on his feet, still running. Then suddenly the squad is all around, the sergeant trying to pull Charles off his back, saying, “Let go. Nate. You can let go now. Let go of him. Let go.”
    Nate topples over, Charles landing beside him, long dead, the blank stare inches from Nate’s face. And Nate is talking, but no one can hear him.
    “He’s okay,” Nate pants into the hot sand. “He’s okay. Just make him breathe again.”

 
    Chapter 7
    When the ramp of the C-17 lowers, bringing into sight the wavering black tarmac of the Los Alamitos Army Airfield, a chorus of cheers goes up from the plane’s cargo hold, and Nate spills out with a sea of camouflage into the temperate Southern California air. He spots Janie and Cielle on the runway, waiting behind the sawhorses. Cielle looks bigger, her face round and smiling. She and Janie are jumping up and down, beautiful. He runs to them, and they smash together in a three-way hug. “Welcome home, Husband,” Janie tells him, beaming, and he says, “I missed you, Wife.” But the jubilation quickly recedes, leaving behind a ponderous silence that lasts the car ride home.
    Nate walks through every room in the house, the house he loves, trying to make it his own again. It does not feel like he belongs here, or anywhere else. A void has opened up between him and the rest of the world. He reminds himself it has been just seventy-two hours since his sprint across the dunes with Charles bleeding out on his back. How Nate feels here in Santa Monica—it’s just temporary.
    When his pacing carries him downstairs, Janie and Cielle are waiting in the family room, bursting with excitement. A large cardboard box sporting an oversize red bow sits on the carpet. Cielle says, “C’mon hurry hurry open it.”
    He lifts the lid and peers inside. A rustle of tan fur, and then a puppy head pokes into view. The pup scrambles up his arms into his face, slurping, and Nate holds him, running a hand down the strip of reversed fur on the spine.
    Cielle says, “He’s a Rhodesian ridgeback. They used to be lion hunters. He’ll grow up huge, to a hundred pounds. He’s yours, but Mom said I could name him. Wanna know his name? It’s Casper. Like the ghost.”
    Janie adds, “They say it helps, I guess. Adjust. A dog. Unconditional love, no conversation.”
    Nate squeezes him, smells him, lost in the warmth, the quiet magnificence. He hugs his wife and his daughter, Casper squirming from lap to lap, and for a single moment, he forgets the burden he still carries on his back.
    *   *   *
    He sleeps fitfully, knowing the task in store for him tomorrow. Back on the eve of his redeployment, a gnawing need drove him to ask his lieutenant