THEY WERE HAVING a final dinner—or, as Dutch less than tactfully called it, the last supper—at Marco's. They had their usual corner booth with a red-and-white-check tablecloth and old-fashioned oil lamps. Everyone was trying not to let things get too gloomy. The hearing was due to finish the following day and any hope that it would go Danny's way had faded. That afternoon Brian McKnight had warned Tom, Dutch and Gina to expect the worst. He said that, on the balance of the evidence, Colonel Scrase would have little choice but to recommend a court-martial.
McKnight had promised he would meet them at the restaurant but his place remained empty. Then, just as they were asking for the check, he showed up. He was a little breathless and they could tell at once that something important had happened. Dutch poured him a glass of Chianti and they all leaned in to listen.
McKnight said his office had received a phone call from a young Marine called Travis Wilson, a private first class in Danny's company who had left the corps six months ago. Danny nodded and said he knew the guy but not well. McKnight went on to say that Wilson had seen the TV news the previous night and heard Harker's claim that he and Delgado hadn't conferred.
"He says it's not true. He saw them together in a bar in Coronado. After everyone got flown home."
"Did he hear what they were saying?" Dutch said.
"Enough. I hope. He's flying in tonight from Omaha. Kevin's picking him up at the airport at ten o'clock. If it all stacks up, we'll put him on the stand tomorrow."
Colonel Scrase had barely settled in his plush red throne the following morning when McKnight sprang up to ask permission to call a final witness. Wendell Richards, all set to deliver the government's closing argument, looked both irritated and wary. PFC Travis Wilson wasn't anyone's idea of perfect casting. He was short and had a rodentlike face that was covered in acne. As he took the oath, he looked about as nervous as a man could get without actually wetting himself. What he had to deliver however was the verbal version of a roadside bomb.
McKnight coaxed him through the openers: his rank and experience and what his knowledge was of the incident and of the accused.
"Travis, on the evening of July twenty-third last year, could you tell us please, where were you?"
"In a bar called Dee's Place in Coronado."
"What were you doing there?"
"Meeting Cindy—that's my girlfriend. Well, she was my girlfriend at the time. We've split up now. Anyhow, we'd arranged to meet at seven thirty, but I got there about twenty minutes early—I'm like that, always early—and I was sitting there, in one of the booths, you know, waiting for Cindy and—"
"Was there anyone else there that you knew?"
"Yes, sir. Sergeant Delgado and Eldon Harker. I realized they were sitting in the next booth."
"You recognized them?"
"Yes, sir."
"They were friends of yours?"
"No, sir. I just knew them both. In Iraq."
"And did you say hello?"
"No, sir. Well, I was just about to, but then I, kind of, heard what they were talking about and decided not to."
"And they didn't notice you?"
"I don't believe so, sir, no. Dee's is a kind of dark place."
"How clearly could you hear what they were saying?"
"Pretty clearly, I'd say."
"And what did you hear?"
"I heard Sergeant Delgado telling Harker what he'd have to say if he wanted to get the murder charge dropped."
Wendell Richards was on his feet immediately to object. And for most of the next half hour he was bobbing up and down like a gopher in a box doing the same. Little by little, however, McKnight patiently extracted from Travis Wilson all he wanted. Wilson said he had heard Delgado, effectively, rehearsing Harker in what he would have to say in order to get off the murder charge and shift all the blame onto Danny. He had even heard the magic words use your goddamn weapon.
By the time McKnight was done, he looked a good foot taller than when he'd begun.
Richards had his chance to cross-examine. He tried to cast doubt on what the young soldier had heard, suggesting that he might have some grudge against one or both of the men on whom he'd eavesdropped. But Tom could sense from Richards's demeanor that the poor guy knew the killer punch had been landed. When he was through, McKnight rose portentously to his feet and asked that Sergeant Delgado and Eldon Harker be recalled to the stand and be read their rights under Article 31.
They had to wait almost a month for the investigating officer's findings to come through. Meanwhile, in the first week of June, Kelly went into labor and gave birth to a healthy eight-pound boy. He was to be baptized Thomas David, for his two grandfathers.
On a warm and cloudless morning Tom drove across the divide to the hospital in Great Falls and held his first grandchild in his arms. From the window of Kelly's room you could see the Front Range still dusted with snow and Tom snuggled the baby to his shoulder and pointed to the various peaks and passes and told him their names: Sawtooth, Ear Mountain, Steamboat. Gina and Dutch and Danny were there too and the sun streamed in on them all and there wasn't a dry eye in the room. Gina asked Tom if he'd come back to their place for something to eat but he made an excuse that he had to be back in Missoula and drove all the way home again. Perhaps one day he might be ready for that kind of integration, but not yet.
Brian McKnight called that same evening to say the report had arrived. In two hundred intricate pages Colonel Robert Scrase sifted through the evidence and concluded that Danny had acted in self-defense. He recommended that all charges be dropped. Phone calls were made and everybody exhaled, though nobody seemed inclined to celebrate. Seven innocent lives had still been lost for the one that had been saved. Danny was going to leave the corps and find something else to do.
He called Tom at the end of June and asked if they could get together and talk over his plans. He was thinking of going to college, he said, and wanted his father's advice. On a whim, Tom suggested they go fishing, something they hadn't done together since Danny was a child. Tom hauled the camping gear from the attic and it all seemed in good enough order. But it was years since he'd fished even on his own and when he checked his lines and casts they'd gone brittle and his supply of flies was pitiful, so he went into town and spent a small fortune at the Grizzly Hackle on Front Street.
Danny arrived in Missoula in the afternoon two days later and they drove for an hour to one of Tom's favorite stretches of the Blackfoot. They left the car at the trailhead and hiked with all their gear through the forest until they could hear the rush of the river below. They found a good place at the edge of the trees to pitch the tent and gathered some wood for the fire they'd make later and by the time they'd done this the light was fading and they could see the clouds of flies swirling above the water so they rigged up the rods and put on their waders and fished for their supper.
Danny caught the first, a fine brown trout, some fifteen inches long, and the boy's smile was almost as big. Tom hooked a bigger one but lost it and then lost two more before landing another, two inches smaller than Danny's. It must have taken pity on him.
They lit the fire and panfried the trout and ate them with some tomatoes and the potato-and-chive salad Tom remembered Danny being so crazy about when he was little. The flesh of the trout was pink and sweet and the two of them kept moaning in ecstasy until they were giggling too much to swallow. Tom brewed some coffee and they sat cradling their tin mugs in their hands and watching the light on the river's bend change from silver to bronze to black while an owl kept calling and calling in the pines across the river.
Danny told him his plans. He wanted to go for a bachelor of science degree in agribusiness at Montana State in Bozeman. But he was late in applying for the coming fall and, in any case, liked the idea of getting some practical experience first. Dutch had a friend who ran an agricultural supply outfit and was prepared to take Danny on to show him the business. Tom said he thought that all sounded great, just great.
They fell silent for a while. Just the hushed roar of the water below and the owl still hooting across the river. Tom put some more wood on the fire and the sparks spiraled upward between them. Danny stared at the fire for a long time. In the flicker and glow his face looked suddenly a lot older. When at last he spoke he didn't look at Tom, just kept his eyes on the fire.
"Dad, there's something I need to tell you."
"I'm listening."
There was a long pause. The boy took a deep breath.
"I was guilty."
"What do you mean?"
"You know all that stuff at the hearing, what they said about me yelling at the women, how I called them hajji bitches and..."
Danny put his head back and stared at the stars for a while, breathing heavily, as if summoning the strength to go on.
"It's okay, son. You can tell me."
"It's not true I thought the guy had a weapon."
He stopped again and swallowed. Tom waited.
"The truth is, I didn't care. I just... hated them. Hated them so much, for what had happened. For what had happened to Ricky and all of us. It was like, when the guy reached down, it was like... a good enough reason. Maybe it was a weapon, I didn't know. I was, like, totally out of my head. I didn't know. I didn't care. All I knew was... I wanted to kill the bastards, mow the whole fucking lot of them down...."
There were tears streaming down his face now.
"And then it was over and I saw them lying there, saw what I'd done. And it was like seeing them for the first time. Women and kids. Babies, for christsake... And it was me who'd done it."
Tom shifted around the fire and put his arm around the boy's shoulders.
"It was me."
"Danny, listen—"
"It was me, Dad. I meant to do it."
There was probably something to be said, but Tom couldn't think what it might be. He pulled him close and Danny hung his head and sobbed and Tom just sat there, stroking the boy's hair and holding him. How long they sat like that, he couldn't tell. A half-moon the color of bone hoisted itself above a shoulder of the mountains beyond the bend of the river and the fire crumpled to an ashen glow.
"I want to tell you something now," Tom said quietly.
"What?"
"I want to tell you about your grandmother and what really happened to her."